The week before Christmas in American culture is usually a hectic time of last minute preparations, gift shopping and get-to-togethers. Now once again, this week carries the backdrop of Covid spread and the national call to to those who have yet to get the bivalent booster, to do so to prevent the Covid tragedies of the 2020 and 2021 holidays. Last week I wrote of giving yourself a gift of healing; the vaccine is one way to do that. As I have written many times, spiritual healing includes the knowledge and skill of the scientific/medical world. It is only the ideas and confused, mixed motives of human beings that separate and divide science and religion. But today, as a further step in healing, I am reflecting on Deep Peace.
Deep Peace is one of the ways of naming the core state of our innermost nature. This means that the essence of our life, of all forms of life, is always a state of Peace. The essence of life, which is God, the All that Is, is Peace. Since nothing exists outside of that, all is Deeply at Peace. Such a statement is bound to stir confusion when society and the world at large is far from peaceful. War in Ukraine and elsewhere rages on even in the face of bitter winter; we have not just the threat of disease and Pandemic, but climate change, with predictions of food and water shortages and more conflict. How can we claim to be at peace?
To hold a vision of the world and ourselves at peace is not about ignoring the experiences of conflict right in front of us or our own private turmoils and agitation. It is about touching the Deep Peace at the core that is not the same thing as our struggles to find peace, or to broker peace, or the relax and calm down. These practices have their value, their time and place. Learning to "be at peace" and achieve an inner calm is healing, just like a truce is healing, creating a space where the world can recollect itself. But Deep Peace just is. It is the very fabric of Creation; it is not to be won or achieved. It is Grace. It is You.
I had a renewed taste of it last night as I drove through the cold, dark, silent neighborhood streets, with Christmas lights delicately sparkling through open curtains and across lawns. It was a magical transformation from the agitated thrills of Halloween that had taken over the neighborhood in October. This was Peace. A wave of Deep Peace flowed through the car and through me and I remembered: Christmas Peace. Deep Peace at the Center. Let it find you.(Susan Nettleton)
for a Blessing of Deep Peace: https://hillsidesource.com/celtic-blessing-of-deep-peace