Amazing Peace
By Maya Angelou
Thunder rumbles in the
mountain passes
And lightning rattles the eaves
of our houses.
Flood waters await us in our
avenues.
Snow falls upon snow, falls
upon snow to avalanche
Over unprotected villages.
The sky slips low and grey
and threatening.
We question ourselves.
What have we done to so
affront nature?
We worry God. Are you there?
Are you there really?
Does the covenant you made
with us still hold?
Into this climate of fear
and apprehension, Christmas enters,
Streaming lights of joy,
ringing bells of hope
And singing carols of
forgiveness high up in the bright air.
The world is encouraged to
come away from rancor,
Come the way of friendship.
It is the Glad Season.
Thunder ebbs to silence and
lightning sleeps quietly in the corner.
Flood waters recede into
memory.
Snow becomes a yielding
cushion to aid us as we make our way to higher ground.
Hope is born again in the
faces of children
It rides on the shoulders of
our aged as they walk into their sunsets.
Hope spreads around the
earth. Brightening all things,
Even hate which crouches
breeding in dark corridors.
In our joy, we think we hear
a whisper.
At first it is too soft.
Then only half heard.
We listen carefully as it
gathers strength.
We hear a sweetness.
The word is Peace.
It is loud now. It is
louder.
Louder than the explosion of
bombs.
We tremble at the sound. We
are thrilled by its presence.
It is what we have hungered
for.
Not just the absence of war.
But, true Peace.
A harmony of spirit, a
comfort of courtesies.
Security for our beloveds
and their beloveds.
We clap hands and welcome
the Peace of Christmas.
We beckon this good season
to wait a while with us.
We, Baptist and Buddhist,
Methodist and Muslim, say come. Peace.
Come and fill us and our
world with your majesty.
We, the Jew and the Jainist,
the Catholic and the Confucian,
implore you to stay awhile
with us so we may learn by your shimmering light
how to look beyond
complexion and see community.
It is Christmas time, a
halting of hate time.
On this platform of peace,
we can create a language
to translate ourselves to
ourselves and to each other.
At this Holy Instant, we
celebrate the Birth of Jesus Christ
Into the great religions of
the world.
We jubilate the precious
advent of trust.
We shout with glorious
tongues the coming of hope.
All the earth’s tribes
loosen their voices to celebrate the promise of Peace.
We, Angels and Mortals,
Believers and Nonbelievers,
Look heavenward and speak
the word aloud. Peace.
We look at our world and
speak the word aloud. Peace.
We look at each other, then
into ourselves,
And we say without shyness
or apology or hesitation:
Peace, My Brother.
Peace, My Sister.
Peace, My Soul.
This is a poem about seeing
Oneness through pain and fear. Although
I am Jewish, I have always loved Christmas time. It always felt to me like a
time of great love and benevolence and kindness, a warmth that envelops humanity
during a cold December. It’s the time
of the year that we set aside our differences, we look beyond race, religion,
ethnicity, sex, and see the Shree (auspicious
beauty) in everything and everyone. We
all dig a little deeper to our own innate goodness and open-heartedness and
offer it a little more freely and liberally. In class this morning we started
on our backs to start with the feeling of openness and softness that savasana
gives us. Starting the practice in
savasana (which doesn’t mean you skip it in the end, you get to do it twice!)
imbibes the practice with a sense of softness and a feeling of peaceful
tranquility that then guided us through our poses. Then we worked on bringing a backbend into
every pose we did, reminding us that whatever pose we find ourselves holding,
in life or on the mat, we can choose to approach it with an open heart.
As we spoke about last week
(see last week’s blog entry if you missed class!), when the world starts to get
chaotic, Vishnu the Sustainer incarnates to restore order. In the Mahabharata he incarnates as Krishna,
seemingly a man and a king, friend and advisor to the Pandava brothers. The characters in the story overlook his
divinity. They don’t see it. How often
do we do the same thing? We get caught
up in our daily routine and forget to seek out the highest in ourselves and
those around us. Yogi Bhajan said “If
you can’t see God in all then you can’t see God at all.” Holidays are time to see the divine in all,
starting with ourselves.
We are living in busy,
complicated, and often chaotic times (was anyone else a little freaked out that
in the same week in December we had 4 inches of snow and a 70 degree
day??). It’s easy to go into contraction, to close our
hearts and protect them. The holiday
season can be the invitation to do the opposite. To choose to see the Shree. To choose to be nice, kind, benevolent,
generous, not of wallet but of spirit.
To choose to look into the eyes of every person we meet and see divinity
and oneness first. And it is our
responsibility as yogis to be open and receptive to those very same qualities
when they are offered to us. To focus on
the checkout girl who offers a Christmas blessing (whether you celebrate the
holiday or not) rather than the guy in the parking lot who stole your
spot. The sweet thank you hug from a
grateful niece rather than the griping about the meal by an allergy-ridden
cousin. You get the idea.
Lao Tzu said:
“If there is to be peace in
the world,
There must be peace in the
nations.
If there is to be peace in
the nations,
There must be peace in the
cities.
If there is to be peace in
the cities,
There must be peace between
neighbors.
If there is to be peace
between neighbors,
There must be peace in the
home.
If there is to be peace in
the home,
There must be peace in the
heart.”
This season the best gift
you can offer those around you is to cultivate peace in your own heart. 2 savasanas per day should do it…if not, add
a round of meditation or a few restorative backbends. Chant a few rounds of Lokah samastha sukhino
bhavantu, invoking this blessing: May all beings everywhere be happy and free,
and may the thoughts words and actions of my own life contribute in some way to
that happiness and to that freedom for all.
Let your peaceful presence
be the present to all those around you this season and always. Wishing you all abundant blessings, from my
heart to yours, for a beautiful Christmas and a Happy New Year.
