Live in Peace

Look at any news website or turn on any channel and you’ll surely hear about war. Hamas has attacked Israel. Russia is still invading Ukraine. Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Libya, Mali, Somalia, South Sudan, and Syria are all in the midst of civil wars. Drug cartels in Mexico and Colombia and terrorists in armed insurgencies elsewhere make ripples in the news waves as well. It seems where ever one turns right now, there is strife and violence.

Even here at home, there is a great deal to cause turmoil. Cancer treatments, job layoffs, car repairs, ailing pets…. all things that we focus on that may not go the way we hope they will. There are people we don’t get along with and situations we’d rather not deal with. We spend our days in anxiety, in worry, in fear, in frustration.

Our hopes are crushed and our lives have fallen apart. We are in disrepair, seeking to placate ourselves by looking outwards.

We live without peace.

Peace means a freedom from disturbance. It means rest and tranquility. It means a state or period in which there is an absence of violence. It means acceptance and reconciliation. It means finding a way to live in harmony, in balance. It is serenity.

Serene.

I have two characters in my Portals Series named Serena. One is Serena Proctor, mother of the protagonist Alexandra Proctor in The Seeker’s Protector. I purposely chose her name because it meant “serene” for she lived in a world at war, Maon. She was peaceful, even as violence and evil waged around her and ultimately took her life, leaving her daughter to become a defender. I then chose to name her granddaughter after her. Serena of the Realm of Original Magic also finds a way to bring peace to those around her…. but you’ll just have to wait until her story is published as part of my novel, Heirs to the Realm, is published next month.

“To be humble, to be kind / It is a giving of the peace in your mind / To a stranger, to a friend / To give in such a way that has no end…”

~ The Alternate Routes, “Nothing More”

Peace isn’t something we find outside of ourselves. It is something that must come from within. It is something we must work at, fight with, learn to free ourselves with. It’s learning to live authentically within ourselves so that we can then live authentically with everyone else.

Peace quiets the soul, nurtures the calm, extends olive branches to places where outcasts dwell. It find was to sow harmony, build bridges and even set boundaries. It learns the stories of others, even those deemed unlovable. It exudes joy, showers love, and brings hope for a better future.

“O for a world where everyone respects each other’s ways, where love is lived and all is done with justice and with praise.”

~ Miriam Therese Winter

It’s the quiet evening walk listening to cicadas and crickets after a week spent in illness. It’s learning to face your own demons and stop hiding behind excuses as to why. It’s turning the other cheek when the world suggests you seek revenge. It’s accepting yourself, faults and all, and in turn learning to accept others despite their blemishes.

May we find the magic to look for ways of peace in a world that seems to have forgotten how.

Let there be peace on earth…… and let it begin with ourselves.

Stay magical.

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