I must have known peace in my mother’s womb although it had no name. And later in her arms as a young child – still, it had no name. Only a feeling that words lack power to describe.  My first real memory of what I can only describe as peace I found gazing at a large painting that hung in the rural Baptist church where I attended with my family every week – on Sunday mornings, Thursday night prayer meetings, and at revivals that all Baptists know well.  The painting was of Jesus and his lambs in a gentle green pastoral setting. The blue of his robe was comforting and warm – a haven of sorts.  The sky could have been early morning or dusk descending – it was of no concern. It was utter stillness.  The sheep were calm, resting, and grazing.  And as my eyes rested there among them I was clothed in complete tranquility – unaware of myself – swallowed whole by the soft colors, the smell of grass and sky, coming rain, lifted by a sacred melody only the angels could know. It wasn’t a painting. It was a place – as holy as heaven itself.  I was young then – in grade school or a bit before. It was as much a part of my childhood as any person or place I can remember.

By the mid sixties flower children were born to scold America for the war in Vietnam and I wondered if peace existed only in flowers and hills where nymphs moved fluidly in subtle breezes. I watched the television screen flicker with the dirty faces of children crying and soldiers worn from fatigue and fear. I met heartbreak of my own and it was bleak and lonely – cold and searching. I did not know peace for a time.  And then one cold morning I happened into a chapel.  I do not know what drew me but it must have been my aching heart.  Inside there were shadows and stone but soft light flickered here and there and the stillness soothed me like a rich salve.  I caved into it and found myself kneeling in awe, tears unbidden and streaming down my cheeks. I made my way to the front and sat soaking in the soft silence, the delicate light.  I am not sure how long I sat there but at length a kindly priest knelt in front of me to offer a tissue. He invited me to stay for however long I needed and to light a candle to find my way if I should wish to do so. When I found myself standing in an alcove before the Blessed Virgin, blue glass votives at her feet, I knew that lighting an altar candle would complete my study in peace.  And so I sought that place every morning for days on end until the stillness came to rest in my own heart and I could move on.

I find peace in the smell of rain and hearing it fall quietly, steadily, insistently.  Even when the wind moves through and about it turbulently and threatens violence I know its blustering is apart from the silver liquid falling through the velvet gray sky. Those drops are pieces of the constant rhythm of nature – evaporation, condensation, transpiration, sublimation, precipitation…..a perpetual cycle of blessing and peace.

Yoga asanas done slowly, breathing, releasing, accepting……is a way to feel peace in a more physical way.  When I first waded into yoga and imagined it beyond my ability – thought it to be a purely physical thing – it never occurred to me that the peace it promised was not found in my straining, rigid muscles but in their letting go…..in the quiet breathing, the simple awareness of my breath and body.  And yet there it is.  Abiding there, always waiting for me to notice.

I have come to understand that peace is always with us – even when we think it has abandoned us. It waits quietly for us to notice. I found it as I stood by my daddy’s bed watching him drift away into death. It was as beautiful as it was heartbreaking – both sad and lovely. I knew his life had been full and rich and the last sounds he was likely hearing floated to him from his kitchen where his family and friends sat laughing and talking, his grandchildren tiptoeing by his bed, depositing soft kisses on his cheek. He could have wanted for nothing more.  I could feel that completeness in my own heart even as it ached and knew full well that I would miss him desperately.   

I have met peace while tumbling into sleep after a day of working in the garden – satisfied by the smell of earth. She is there on gentle wakings, morning light promising the day ahead full of possibility.  Peace floats on the wings of sound blown through reeds of grass and wood and silver – through the strings of harps and cellos.  It lingers in sunny spots where lazy, fat cats slumber.  It warms skin and bones in blankets on cold mornings and swirls in cups of hot tea with milk and in the poetry of Mary Oliver, surely. It abides in the colors of soft pinks, rose quartz, indigo skies, and the blackest of caves.  Waiting always, quietly, patiently.