MAKING PEACE WITH OUR NON-PEACE
When I pulled the Peacemaker sister this week, I felt an immediate sense of confusion. My mind went blank. I panicked. After all, what did I know about peace? What right did I have to ask anyone to pursue peace when peace was so elusive within my own mind?
The last few days I’ve been really thinking hard about this. Why did even the appearance of this card make me uncomfortable? Why did I find it so difficult to write the short little synopsis that I posted alongside it? What was/is blocking me from feeling the wisdom and healing that the Peacemaker card offers?
I’m starting to realize that peace in the mind is an integral part of any desire to find and experience peace out in the world. And peace in the mind is something we cannot actually control.
Hear me out.
Let’s imagine the classic experiment: Don’t think about an elephant. Where does your mind go first? I’ll bet it goes straight to a large eared, long trunked mammal. Now imagine telling your brain: Stop thinking about xxxx stressful experience and just let it go. Of course your brain goes straight to that stressful experience and focuses on it!
And I think this really illustrates my struggle with the Peacemaker this week. Peace cannot be demanded. It cannot be forced. We can wish for peace, work toward peace, and pursue peace, but at the end of the day peace can’t actually happen until the person or people seeking peace are ready for it. We can’t just order peace to occur and expect it to magically happen, especially not mental or emotional peace.
This post is unlike my others because I have no set of solutions or answer to give you or myself. I simply have questions. But I hope that in writing these questions down perhaps I, and you, can lose a bit of the urgency or frustration we might feel if we find ourselves pursuing peace and finding it receding beyond our reach this week.
Just because the Peacemaker showed up this week doesn’t mean I am actually ready for peace right now. Perhaps this is my invitation to find out where peace is needed and begin working toward it. Perhaps this is my invitation to start asking what peace is.