Holding Our Peace

What does it mean for us to hold our peace? Peace out in the world may require diplomats and treaties and ceasefires, but that has little to do with our own internal peace. We have the capacity to hold our peace regardless of our circumstances, or of the outside peace. If someone or something offends us, we have to let go of our peace in order to begin conflict with that person or thing. They can't take away our peace. It is our choice and our decision to hold or to let go of our peace. We can choose to hold onto our peace in the midst of shouting voices or pointing fingers. We can choose to hold our peace when chaos descends upon us. Fear and anger and pain may be powerful motivators for us to let go of our peace, but we can choose to hold onto our peace, our calm, our tranquility, our serenity. It is often not an easy choice. Sometimes our peace may feel too heavy or too slippery to hold, but despite our challenges we have the ability to hold on anyway. We have all discovered many times that letting go of our peace to hold onto hate or bitterness or panic or dread instead is never a good trade. As good as we believe it may feel to strike out in anger or run away in fear, if we can instead hold onto our peace we will feel better every single time. It is still and calm and quiet in the eye of the storm. That is the peace we can hold onto in the swirling chaos of life around us. If we leave that peaceful eye, we will get dragged and hurled and battered by the fierce winds, but not if we stay in the center and hold our peace.