“The battleline between good and evil runs through the heart of everyman.” A. Solzhenitsyn. The spiritual quest often seems to take on the qualities of war, with tactical forays, pitched battles, and deadly, difficult emotions. I think the sharpness of the conflict eases a bit with age and I have arrived at a point where peace talks are the next step. Many interests are sitting at my interior conference table including resentment, anger and stubbornness sitting across from ethics, wisdom and the desire for peace. These forces are in constant conflict and many second agendas arise but certain negotiating tactics also emerge. My first default is the interior monologue that weighs and measures…that asks questions of morality, conscience and intent.
Where is the path of peace? How can I disengage from the battle? How much should I concede in the interests of peace? Many of the answers are counter-intuitive and some seem completely impossible. For example the “resist not evil” argument, an argument framed in our religious background as, “turn the other cheek,” seems both crazy and impossible. It’s crazy until you interiorize it to mean that non-resistance is the highest form of self care. By acceptance of this injunction -in my interior being- I can remain safely out of combat…in fact, conflict disappears alltogether. In the external world I can resist evil unburdened by the interior malady of anger and revenge.
As I watch the willful departure from common sense and the mindless grasping that goes on around us I can refuse to participate in the interest of my own inner peace.
A second ally in my highly internal peace talks is prayer. Prayer is a word that needs to be sanitized and reforged. Prayer is often thought of in hyper-religious terms and this is a shame. Prayer should be the inner peace conference that goes on in the hearts of all of us as we decide -by seeking- what response we will have to the destructive forces that seek to keep us warring. I think everyone prays in some way that is comfortable for them. The hope for positive outcomes or the welfare of others is prayer, indeed. It has nothing to do with recitation by rote, ritual or absolution…it is simply the desire to connect with powers greater than ourselves. There is no greater freedom than to be given the choice to participate in evil or move forward to the light.
There will be no metanoia-no fundamental conversion-that will change how we look at the world, it will be a life-long series of peace talks regarding life and our place in it.
Bertrand Russell said it perfectly: “the good life is inspired by love and guided by knowledge.” Knowledge comes slowly through the willingness to engage in spiritual negotiations. Currently, we are bombarded with incentives to join in many battles but I hope we consider that battle of souls that all of us must fight.
Defend your sacred space.
Olio Folio 