BlogTracks: Getting To Know Peace

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Getting To Know Peace (In Honor of Jesus, The Prince of Peace: Happy Birthday!)

Image Credit: Huffington Post

“I AM happy to be at peace today.” I wrote these words as a status post on my Facebook profile page (Val Oliver) on Friday, August 5, 2011. These eight words generated the largest response I have ever received (except for notices about the death of family members).

People who rarely reply to anything I post either had a comment or simply “LIKED” it. I know how much I value peace, how much I am willing to give peace a chance in the midst of living life during these times of uncertainty about the future. Evidently, from the amount of responses to my post, people want to get on the peace train  and stop living life in wartime as the days accelerate. People wonder how I can be at peace and have a smile on my face so often.

In my personal experience, peace is the balance of opposites merged together that transform to become something new. It’s like the old saying that opposites attract  and those two hearts can beat as one . It’s recognizing that both have a right to exist because it’s the nature of how this world is created. Everything in life has an opposite or complimentary energy form: up has down, in has out, hot has cold, dead has alive, good has evil, black has white, love has hate, fear has faith, and Democrat Maria Shriver has Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger (Well, they did have their share of marital bliss). The point is that two opposing forces can co-exist in the same space. Have you ever experienced a beautiful sadness?

What is it like when two opposing forces merge to create something new? It’s peaceful. Oddly enough, I experience it the most when other people and situations around me are off balance. Peace can also be accepting who you are and where you are, and who they are and where they are without judging any of it. Peace can be in those mind, body, physical and energy spaces where you accept what you can’t change (others), change what you can (you), and have the wisdom to know the difference. I put a premium on peace in my life, and choose to continue to support myself and others who invest in the same choice.

Music artists: Jane Olivor, John Lennon, Juris, Michael Jackson, Norah Jones, Stephen Bishop, Talking Heads, The Who, U2, Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens)

As the disabled child Tiny Tim says in the book, "A Christmas Carol", written by Charles Dickens: "God bless us, Everyone!"