Seeking Peace - Notes and Conversations along the Way - Plough

The Peace that Passes UnderstandingSome readers might find it fruitful if I went on here toexamine various understandings of peace, and to discusswhether it is a way or a state of being. Others might wishto know just what I mean when I say people are seekingpeace. Are they looking for closeness with others, or hungeringto be themselves? Are they yearning for trust andlove, for something more to look forward to than retirement?Something else entirely? What is peace, in a nutshell?A thought from one of my grandfather’s books hasbeen helpful to me. He writes about a threefold peace: theinner peace of the soul with God; the fulfillment of nonviolencethrough peaceful relationships with others; andthe establishment of a just and peaceful social order.In the end, though, the best definition does not matter,for it may not help us find peace. To grasp the meaning ofpeace we must experience it as a practical reality, not onlyas something in the head, or even in the heart, but in ourday-to-day lives.Sadhu Sundar Singh, a Christian Indian mystic wholived at the turn of the 20th century, writes:The secret and reality of a blissful life in God cannot beunderstood without receiving, living, and experiencing it. Ifwe try to understand it only with the intellect, we will findour efforts useless.A scientist had a bird in his hand. He saw that it had lifeand, wanting to find out in what part of the bird’s body itslife lay, he began dissecting the bird. The result was that thevery life he was in search of disappeared. Those who try tounderstand the mysteries of the inner life intellectually will23