Peace Is Every Step

December 27, 2023

My cup is full and running over.

There is no way that I can use words to adequately express the contents of my soul and state of my emotions these days. Life was getting plenty awesome already. But then came an unexpected ride and the personal expansion birthed as its fruit. Birthed. Not grown but yet to grow into fuller expressions of itself. 

I cannot define or explain this deep sense of peace that fills my being these days.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about revisiting a little book that Shirli introduced me to when we first set out on our journey together back around the turn of the Millennium. The little book is “Peace Is Every Step” by Thich Nhat Hanh. This I have begun. And this, I feel quite certain, will activate the Ire in accusatory fundamentalists enculturated by their pet notions and preferences that do more to generate separation and division than they do to create peace both interiorly and in the greater social scheme.

What can a Buddhist monk from Vietnam possibly teach me, or anyone else for that matter? Much.

Thomas Merton, known as Father Louis by his brothers at the Monastery of Gethsemane at Trappist, Kentucky, was visited by Thich Nhat Hanh on one occasion. Merton went on to pen an essay about this quiet yet assertive monk titled “Nhat Hanh is My Brother” and passionately urged, not only Catholic believers but people of all philosophical stripes and flavors, to listen to Nhat Hanh’s proposals for peace and lend support toward his advocacy of peace. Nhat Hanh, because of his ideals for peace, was banned from returning to his beloved Vietnam.

Nhat Hanh reminds us early on in this little book of only 135 pages that “Peace is present right here and now, in ourselves and in everything we do and see. The question is whether or not we are in touch with it. We don’t have to travel far away to enjoy the blue sky. We don’t have to leave our city or even our neighborhood to enjoy the eyes of a beautiful child. Even the air we breathe can be a source of joy.”

For me, especially for me, after that long and difficult journey through those dark months of hell precipitated by what can be easily viewed as Shirli’s untimely physical departure from this present life, discovering peace in every step on my journey along the path of mindfulness in everyday life has become, as never before, the status quo of life for me this side of that hell.

It is working. It is working beautifully for me.

I read Nhat Hanh’s words and cannot help but to think of the words of another great writer and teacher chosen to pen words contained in our sacred Christian scriptures. It was the great Apostle Paul who wrote to encourage us, and people of all time. We read his words and often miss the deep implications inherent within them. It was Paul who wrote, “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think on these things.” [Philippians 4:8]

In this moment of musing, I cannot help but to recall something that Merton wrote in “New Seeds of Contemplation”.

“EVERY moment and every event in every man’s life on earth plants something in his soul. For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of men. Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost, because men are not prepared to receive them: for such seeds as these cannot spring up anywhere except in the good soil of freedom, spontaneity, and love.”

I know not how many grains of sand I have left in my hourglass. I do know for certain that there are far less grains now than when I came into this world as a tiny infant now nearly seven decades ago. Also, what I am certain of is that every grain is precious and every grain is counted.

I choose to cherish, receive, and experience every grain and every seed that I possibly can while I yet have sand in my hourglass.