Living in Peace on the Universal Spirit Path
click for more discussions fromThe Universal Spirit View thru the eyes of Wilda Spalding
ETERNAL NECTAR OF THE GREAT ONENESS: PEACE
Breathing life-giving Prana, imbibing the balanced sweetness of your hand-sculpted Mudras; running tiny Mother of Pearl Rosary Beads clicking through your fingers; wrapped in the ancient’s Prayer Shawl; burning with love, lying prostrate on craggy, ancient, stonebuilt floors worn almost soft with prayers for peace, praise, and surrender; calling out from the heights of a delicate, lace-like minaret’s tower; immersed in the silence of lighting and Eagle-fanning a sage bundle-offering; bathed deep within the mayyim hayyim (living waters) of a Mikvah, or being lovingly submerged backwards at Calvary Baptist Church; ears drenched in sparkling alpine bells or warmed by a much-used, chant-filled wooden harmonium; swirling with Sufi brothers or standing balanced, in the complete stillness between monastic prayers with ones Ethiopic Sisters; blending into the harmonics of the Divinity School choir; jingling your tambourine with the Praise Team in Apostolic joy; being the breath passing through the shofar or conch; emboldened by the thunderous sounds rising through the freshly pungent wafting of Island flowers swathed around the neck of the Kupuna chanting an oli or the snowy mountain Elder’s words accompanied by the savory perfumes of a crackling campfire.
Peace always is…Peace is a “right-now” Reality.
Whether known as a momentary flash of an experience, perhaps even a life-transforming one; whether given special focus as a Decade, Year, or Day for International Peace as within the calendars of the UN or its agency, UNESCO; whether it is shared through ceremony or liturgy; whether it drives a committed groups of individuals (www.kidsforpeace.org www.artistsforpeace.org), whether peace is saturating documents like the UN Millennium Goals, or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; whether peace is being focused on globally during this year of 2009 named by the United Nations General Assembly as the “International Year of Reconciliation”; whether sharing here In Winston-Salem, NC with Robin Lynne Rainbow Feather, "The Year of Living in Peace", or with Arci’s wondrous findings available at Kindred Spirits; or experienced by one person, quite alone…as a constant Reality, as the reality of the Great Oneness, as a Being or beings, an energy, the Creator, Great Mystery, the Known Unknown, Redeemer, or as the Prince of Peace—the Word, Peace is known in so many ways and by so many names. Some may perceive peace as something quite distant, separate, to be sought. Others may insist that Peace is really intimately close, in fact, one with each life and one within Life itself. Some verses from the Judeo-Christian Tradition, give one such a clear view: Deuteronomy 30: 12-14, “It is not in heaven…Neither is it beyond the sea...But the word is very near to you,…it is in your mouth and in your heart”. Peace, for many, is another name, another ‘word’ for the Great Oneness that is and in which we have being. From this point of view, Peace, too, is always not just “very near to you…it is in your mouth and in your heart”.
Understandings and expressions of the reality of Peace are everywhere to be experienced through a swathe of sacred writings, insightful lyrics, literature, art, oral and other means of transferring Traditions through time: terms like ‘bonds of peace’ as in Ephesians 4: 3 “…Keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace”; ‘peacemakers’: “peacemakers…called the children of God” as remembered being spoken by Jesus during the Beatitudes he shared while on the Mount (Matthew 5:9); or in the Islamic prayer offered at the 2002 inter-religious Assisi Peace Conference: “…incline towards peace…also incline towards Peace…”; to be…”in peace, Secure” The Qur’an 15: 46, ‘find peace’, ‘bring you peace’, ‘an instrument of peace’, ‘a destiny of peace’, ‘kept in perfect peace’, ‘peace of mind’, ‘great peace’, and ‘peace of reassurance’. And also, Peace, even in the midst of the renowned suffering of a man named Job, who is recorded to have said, “Come to know God and be at peace”, Job 22: 21
For now, embracing in peace of the Great Oneness, may these words written by Abdullah Ansari of Herat (1006-1089 AD/CE), an early Sufi mystic, indeed transcend time and joyfully descend gently to rest within the deepest place of peace in your heart :
“O Lord, give me eyes
Which see nothing but your glory.
Give me a mind
That finds delight in your service.
Give me a soul
Drunk in the wine of your wisdom.”
May it be soon, and even now, that every one and everyone knows and also drinks deeply of the Eternal Nectar of Peace. Wilda xoxoxo
Breathing life-giving Prana, imbibing the balanced sweetness of your hand-sculpted Mudras; running tiny Mother of Pearl Rosary Beads clicking through your fingers; wrapped in the ancient’s Prayer Shawl; burning with love, lying prostrate on craggy, ancient, stonebuilt floors worn almost soft with prayers for peace, praise, and surrender; calling out from the heights of a delicate, lace-like minaret’s tower; immersed in the silence of lighting and Eagle-fanning a sage bundle-offering; bathed deep within the mayyim hayyim (living waters) of a Mikvah, or being lovingly submerged backwards at Calvary Baptist Church; ears drenched in sparkling alpine bells or warmed by a much-used, chant-filled wooden harmonium; swirling with Sufi brothers or standing balanced, in the complete stillness between monastic prayers with ones Ethiopic Sisters; blending into the harmonics of the Divinity School choir; jingling your tambourine with the Praise Team in Apostolic joy; being the breath passing through the shofar or conch; emboldened by the thunderous sounds rising through the freshly pungent wafting of Island flowers swathed around the neck of the Kupuna chanting an oli or the snowy mountain Elder’s words accompanied by the savory perfumes of a crackling campfire.
Peace always is…Peace is a “right-now” Reality.
Whether known as a momentary flash of an experience, perhaps even a life-transforming one; whether given special focus as a Decade, Year, or Day for International Peace as within the calendars of the UN or its agency, UNESCO; whether it is shared through ceremony or liturgy; whether it drives a committed groups of individuals (www.kidsforpeace.org www.artistsforpeace.org), whether peace is saturating documents like the UN Millennium Goals, or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; whether peace is being focused on globally during this year of 2009 named by the United Nations General Assembly as the “International Year of Reconciliation”; whether sharing here In Winston-Salem, NC with Robin Lynne Rainbow Feather, "The Year of Living in Peace", or with Arci’s wondrous findings available at Kindred Spirits; or experienced by one person, quite alone…as a constant Reality, as the reality of the Great Oneness, as a Being or beings, an energy, the Creator, Great Mystery, the Known Unknown, Redeemer, or as the Prince of Peace—the Word, Peace is known in so many ways and by so many names. Some may perceive peace as something quite distant, separate, to be sought. Others may insist that Peace is really intimately close, in fact, one with each life and one within Life itself. Some verses from the Judeo-Christian Tradition, give one such a clear view: Deuteronomy 30: 12-14, “It is not in heaven…Neither is it beyond the sea...But the word is very near to you,…it is in your mouth and in your heart”. Peace, for many, is another name, another ‘word’ for the Great Oneness that is and in which we have being. From this point of view, Peace, too, is always not just “very near to you…it is in your mouth and in your heart”.
Understandings and expressions of the reality of Peace are everywhere to be experienced through a swathe of sacred writings, insightful lyrics, literature, art, oral and other means of transferring Traditions through time: terms like ‘bonds of peace’ as in Ephesians 4: 3 “…Keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace”; ‘peacemakers’: “peacemakers…called the children of God” as remembered being spoken by Jesus during the Beatitudes he shared while on the Mount (Matthew 5:9); or in the Islamic prayer offered at the 2002 inter-religious Assisi Peace Conference: “…incline towards peace…also incline towards Peace…”; to be…”in peace, Secure” The Qur’an 15: 46, ‘find peace’, ‘bring you peace’, ‘an instrument of peace’, ‘a destiny of peace’, ‘kept in perfect peace’, ‘peace of mind’, ‘great peace’, and ‘peace of reassurance’. And also, Peace, even in the midst of the renowned suffering of a man named Job, who is recorded to have said, “Come to know God and be at peace”, Job 22: 21
For now, embracing in peace of the Great Oneness, may these words written by Abdullah Ansari of Herat (1006-1089 AD/CE), an early Sufi mystic, indeed transcend time and joyfully descend gently to rest within the deepest place of peace in your heart :
“O Lord, give me eyes
Which see nothing but your glory.
Give me a mind
That finds delight in your service.
Give me a soul
Drunk in the wine of your wisdom.”
May it be soon, and even now, that every one and everyone knows and also drinks deeply of the Eternal Nectar of Peace. Wilda xoxoxo
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