Personal Peace Part 3 of 4: Stability in the Storm

True stability rests on issues more enduring than current matters.  Peace can be found in the storm, calmness can be felt during the fight, and security can be achieved in the heat of battle.  Fear, however, defeats peace because it rises out of feelings of isolation and scarcity; it destroys our perspective of security.  Anger also opposes peace as it manifests itself in a series of uncommunicated fears generated internally.  Hostility, wrath, and revenge are responses to this perceived fear.  When adrenaline does the thinking, our emotions will flow with the chemical tide.  Frenzied feelings of paranoia, anxiety, and trauma are easily imagined during such times.  This agitated feeling seems to be more the norm today rather than the exception.  Sometimes we become so extreme and fearful that we are offended or threatened over everything and anything.  We feel so insecure that we lash out in defense before even attempting to understand a situation.  All of this opposes personal feelings of peace.



A Monument of Courage and Resilience in the Midst of Catastrophe

There, alongside a heavily traveled trail in the woods stands a mighty pine, distinctive from all around it. It represents a unique life lived in spite of similar circumstances to its sister pines.  By trunk width, it is one of the largest around, a testament to its ability to survive and endure nature’s challenges.  Shorter than many of its peers, it has compensated by the breadth of its canopy.  Upon closer glance it is discovered that five distinct trunks have formed about 10 feet above the ground, protruding horizontally at first, and then abruptly, all advance vertically.  Enormous masses initially entangled in confusion, these trunks unite to eventually stretch skyward.  Deep within the center of the entanglement stands what is left of the original trunk, that is now withered, gray, cracked, and dead.

Courage to Change

Never in the history of the world has there been a greater time for people to embrace a life of virtue. A life based upon time-proven values can be easily overshadowed by the clamor and turbulence of schedules and deadlines, of economic worries and stress, and of environmental and equality issues.  Virtue-based training must be re-established within our hearts so that we are able to positively influence the rising generation, the children of the Millennial Generation, a generation who will lead us to greater peace. Peace begins one individual, one family, one community, and one nation at a time. We must commit to change;  change that will enable us to see ourselves as we really are, to love ourselves as we really are, to cherish our fellow travelers for who they truly are, and to embrace the peaceful life we deserve.