The International Day of Peace – an annual occurrence – affords us the chance to focus our attention upon a certain aspect of the condition of being human which is, to quote William Faulkner, “the human heart in conflict with itself.”*
That word ‘conflict’ is the timeless catalyst to any search for peace. It may be difficult to believe, but the means by which the human condition moves through this conflict is itself found within the heart.
The heart, for so very much of human history, has been the symbol for Love and shorthand for the essential truth of something, ‘the heart of the matter.’ Very simply, as Robert Palmer sang so well, “Love’s the only goal to bring Peace to any soul.”
Love is a verb and Love is the act that brings Peace into the human condition. For those who make the willful, deliberate choice to harness their mind and heart in the service of living Love and manifesting Peace, even the smallest acts can ripple widely.
Such willful and deliberate choices move one toward intentional participation in the condition of being human. Living and participating from the heart is living and participating from essential truth and Love.
Abiding in Love, participating in the human condition with knowledge of that foundation means, to my mind, Peace and Love enter whenever one makes those choices.
If humanity is the way the Universe learns about Itself I would have It learn Love of Itself.
Barbara Butler McCoy, c. 2022
* http://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1949/faulkner/speech
Sole Sister Juliet 