One of my delights these last several months is preparing a short, weekly, reflection for the Peace Vespers on Wednesday evening. It affords me the opportunity to read short selections
from those I consider masters on the topic of peace, who remain rather, and necessarily, incomplete and ambiguous in their answers. In a way, it requires me to take some time and
consider what I find peace to be, and then invite others to ponder peace as well. In my preparation I think to myself, “from this perspective and in this situation I think having peace is
________. Would others agree?”

In all the political turmoil, it is helpful to make a point to spend some time considering what peace means to an individual and to a society. Reading the points of view of those who have
come from even more difficult circumstances than mine, more dangerous times, eras of greater oppression and persecution, even more intentional cruelty, helps me to keep things in
perspective and proportion when I consider what having peace means. When seeing these famous proponents of peace in their times, I ask myself how they were able to find peace in
those difficult points in history?

When I read their suggestions on how to find peace, I come to realize that whatever it takes to find peace, it does not depend on arranging society and the world to my sense of justice and
order. For them to know peace, it did not require the compliance of kings and emperors, or ministries or police departments, or even getting their fellow citizens to come around to their
points of view. Rather, they found peace by delving more deeply into themselves.

From what I am learning from these sages, it seems that peace, and the desire for peace for others and for society, only comes from an inner peace. And it is from this inner peace that a
person is able to find resilience in difficult times and pursue justice, and dare I say,righteousness, or dharma, or virtue. If I react to something after first having come to terms with
the situation, I have a better chance of improving the situation.

If I depend on politics going my way to have peace, I will have no peace. If I depend on others following my will, or God’s will, or the laws and institutions that provide equity and justice, I will
have no peace. If I am to have peace, it must come from someplace deeper, from someplace within me, someplace more significant than the passing states of kindness or cruelty that I might
find myself in at a given moment or place in time.

Instead of looking outside of myself for peace, I must look inside myself. People from the Buddha to Echkart Tolle all tell us that is the only place we can truly, and fully, find peace in a
given situation. And then from that peace, we are able to offer peace to those we encounter, and from that have a chance of promoting peace. This approach may be rejected, and even
ridiculed at times. What I am finding though, is that it is the only approach that can guarantee peace like nothing else is able to, at least for me. I am learning through practice and application
that if I am dependent upon myself for peace, it is always accessible, no matter what is happening around me. My ability to access that peace varies, but with these reflections I am
more confident that it is there to be found and tapped. It is now a matter of honing the tools, the practice, the meditation, the prayer, or simply taking the time, to find the peace that is always
there and accessible.