The Slant of Peace
“Tell all the Truth but tell it slant” -Emily Dickinson.
Today is the fourth Sunday of Advent, a season of waiting and the beginning of the church calendar year.
It’s the Sunday of peace.
The dictionary defines slant as “slope or lean in a particular direction; diverge or cause to diverge from the vertical or horizontal.” or “present or view (information) from a particular angle.” (google define)
"War and peace begin in the hearts of individuals,"
-Pema Chödrön.
We have to be brave enough to soften what is rigid, to find the soft spot and stay with it. We have to have that kind of courage and take that kind of responsibility. That's true spiritual warriorship. That's the true practice of peace.
-Pema Chödrön
I haven't stopped thinking about Pema Chodron's definition of peace, "softening what is rigid." since I ran across it earlier this week. It feels slant. It's not peace as freedom from disturbance, calm waters, tranquility, or a time without war. It's about small, intentional steps towards noticing my own heart-where my heart is hard, and where it's soft and unguarded. Peace is challenging and requires my own daily engagement, but it's within reach.
If you yourself are at peace, then there is at least some peace in the world.
Thomas Merton
The slant of peace is it starts in human hearts. It begins in your heart. It starts with me. Peace starts when I soften my heart. With every bit of softening I allow in my heart, the result is a degree of softening in the world. Thomas Merton and Pema Chödrön seem to be saying the same thing. We can make peace hard by pushing it outside of ourselves, or we can soften our hearts and become peacemakers by noticing the state of our hearts and relationships.
Soften is a verb. It's not just a description; softening requires energy and action. The dictionary says that soften "is to make less hard"-it's gradual. Less is the keyword. Softening my heart is not an all-or-nothing venture. The synonyms of soften are helpful, too: ease, soothe, take the edge off, lessen, decrease, tone down. These are shades of becoming less rigid.
To soften what is rigid in my heart, I first must know where my soul (mind, spirit) has become rigid. Pema Chödrön, in her book Practicing Peace in Times of War, suggests that peace starts with a pause.
Peace starts with a pause.
Peace starts with us.
Peace is practical.
Peace is softening what is rigid.
Can I stay with the soft spot as Pema Chödrön advises? It's vulnerable. It's risky to keep soft. It's much easier to armor up, harden and believe that walls protect. Walls defend, of course, but they also divide and keep out. Peace asks us to let our softness, care, concern, and fears be seen.
A Blessing for Softening what is Rigid:
When you notice your heart becoming rigid and hardening, may you pause just a beat more and let your heart be gentled and softened. Remember when attending with care to hearts; peace-makers we become. The difficult work of internal softening changes hearts, both ours and unleashes a flow of peace into the world.
Experiment with softening what is rigid in your own heart.
I wrote this piece earlier this year on being steady, not rigid.
Michael, Davin, and I have recorded 29 haiku conversations (and we had a year of conversations that we didn't record!)This is always my favorite conversation of the whole month. I loved our chat this month; so much synchronicity.
I often write in this space about noticing if a word seems to "sparkle" and staying with the invitation that sparkle might hold. You'll see what happened when I stayed with the work dangle. But the theme of transformation that unfolded in this conversation is something I'm still savoring.
View our haiku cards (and see our entire haiku archive at Profound Living)
Practicing Peace In Times of War by Pema Chödrön
This is a little book by Pema Chödrön. I came across it this week as I was considering this essay. I appreciated her work and thoughts about peace. I highly recommend it.
A World of Curiosities (Chief Insteptor Armand Gamache #18) by Louise Penny
I wait eagerly for a new Inspector Gamache book each fall. I've been listening to them on audiobook for the last few years. The narrator reads them so well. This year I went old school and read it. Most of the books in this series are clear, there is a murder, and the investigation follows. This one blazed a new path. The history of essential relationships was revealed in flashbacks to previous cases. And there was a mysterious room discovered with a seemingly old piece of art, but things weren't quite that simple. This was a dark and twisty book. It wasn't clear where it was headed, but it felt ominous. I know everyone isn't a fan of Louise Penny, but if you are, run, don't walk to get your hands on this. It was one of my very favorites of the entire series. (And don't read the reviews on Amazon, there are a few spoilers that aren't marked as such….speaking from experience)
Also, the new Prime Video series Three Pines is good, for another look at Three Pines and Inspector Gamache.
Enjoy some other thoughts and insights on peace.
Read each slowly and see if there is one that resonates with you. Maybe jot the line down on a piece of paper and read it daily over the next week.
See what invitation to new seeing about peace you might uncover as you walk with a word or phrase this week?
Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.
Saint Francis de Sales
“When I say it's you I like, I'm talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see or hear or touch. That deep part of you that allows you to stand for those things without which humankind cannot survive. Love that conquers hate, peace that rises triumphant over war, and justice that proves more powerful than greed.”
― Fred Rogers
Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me. To see reality-not as we expect it to be but as it is-is to see that unless we live for each other and in and through each other, we do not really live very satisfactorily; that there can really be life only where there really is, in just this sense, love.
Frederick Buechner
“This is the real work of the peacemaker, to find the soft spot and the tenderness in that very uneasy place and stay with it. If we can stay with the soft spot and stay with the tender heart, then we are cultivating the seeds of peace.”
Pema Chödrön