This is what I want my seven grandchildren to know: that during my time on Earth, the brightest light I have seen has come from within me, when I have been at peace.
Peace brightens me; it brightens the world I see. And there have been occasions when it has opened the door to Heaven and allowed me to visit for a spell.
Peace has also saved me in the everyday world. The storms of change and struggle can be raging all around me, debris flying, dark clouds rolling in and everything out of control. But when I choose peace, I locate the eye of the storm, where calm weather and clear skies prevail. I move forward in ways I cannot when I am caught in the storm. I see a path I cannot see when I’m afraid or stressed. Peace is power. It’s a fiercely gentle power.
Fear is how I lose this power. If fear is my prison, then peace is my prison-break.
There’s a story in the Bible about St. Peter, shackled and imprisoned with two armed guards at the door. An angel appears to him and a moment later Peter is free, standing unchained on the outside of the prison walls, draped in a beautiful robe. For me, the angel is peace.
When I was young, people wiser than me would point out that God sent us here with complete control over one thing and one thing only. It is the power to choose our own way, which is the power to be at peace inside, regardless of what’s happening outside. These wise souls spoke as if this was good news but I felt I had been robbed. The “world,” which is everything I don’t completely control (the economy, the weather, politics, and precarious of all, other people) seemed too hard to effect with something as gentle as peace.
I was mistaken. Eventually, I discovered that shining at the very core of this gentleness was the power of miracles to shift reality. Viktor Frankl said it is the one and only thing that can make an inner triumph of a circumstance as horrible as Auschwitz. He wrote:
“If someone had seen our faces on the journey from Auschwitz to a Bavarian camp as we beheld the mountains of Salzburg with their summits glowing in the sunset through the little barred windows of the cattle car, he would never have believed that those were the faces of men who had given up all hope of life and liberty.”
Only a gift from God could arrange a moment like that in the middle of such deprivation. This thing called peace enables us to see beauty. It is precisely what makes us beautiful.
All I am asked to do is value this most precious and most powerful thing in the world by choosing it every day, all day long. The reward is a bright light coming up from inside dissolving the darkness I thought was on the outside.
Excellent job, friend. What I have called “stillness”, you have called peace ~ uncovering our souls and letting that light, which is the light of divinity, illuminate our tiny corners of the world.
Beautiful. Thank you for sharing this, and I’ll be in touch soon about a new magazine I’m developing.
Don, your smile says it all…and your article felt like golden honey on my tongue. It slipped down and raised me up, real quick. But I need to whip in a bit of humor here–Recently, my care-giver son (I am 87) put up a wonderful new swing for me, and I asked him to put it close to a cute shed–and it has become my ‘sacred’ space for me–in spite of the fact that the next day, he said–“Mom. I hate to tell you this, but I think we have a snake now living under that ‘cute shed’–I just saw him.” Well, it unnerved me a bit, but he showed me a picture, and though he admitted that he was’huge’–I could see it was a garter snake. But, because it was now my sacred space, I could wish no harm to a well-meaning snake that chased away really poisonous snakes–so, I named him “Go away”! I had no idea I should have put an ‘e’ in there….
Don Goewey, thanks for your brilliant article, The Brightest Light is in You. I just wish this could be taught in schools. What is more important than knowing who we are and the power our creator has bestowed upon us? Late in life, and in my climbing, I learned about being present – in the moment – where everything is more amazing, more beautiful, and “what is” can be seen more clearly. I correlate this with the “Peace” Don so eloquently speaks about and in that state, competitive instincts dissipate and all I am (we are) left with is the urge to contribute; to make a difference, to collaborate!
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