I’ve been lucky enough to hear a wonderful tale a couple of times in church about what peace is. My apologies if I miss a few details…but this is what I took from it. My pastor told the tale (you may have heard it before) of someone creating an image of a peaceful moment and a man trying to create a picture of a calm and serene place. Yet the picture he created (maybe painted…can’t recall details) that showed peace was a storm. The peaceful part was a bird just being a bird in the storm, calm and ready to go with the flow. Here is a depiction of the image titled “Peace in the Midst of the Storm” by Jack E. Dawson:
As I continue my journey with simplicity, I find new moments of serenity within my day. I imagine these moments are similar to that bird sitting calmly in the storm. As we love to say, these are some crazy days. They really are no more crazy than what generations before me dealt with, perhaps just a different crazy. We keep our own peace marching forward in our family, trying not to overwhelm ourselves. It’s been a big time of transition, taking things off of our plates. We’ve done an okay job of it, I think, yet we still have kept the things that matter to us the most.
My sons, with all the boyhood activities, bring me peace each day. Today the moment of serenity came in the form of two very sincere hugs and some quiet moments of conversation when I got home from class. We only had a few moments since it was a night class, but it didn’t matter. The moments were full of grace, simplicity, serenity, love. I’ve had a warm fuzzy feeling all evening basking in the afterglow of those hugs.
Yes, once they were tucked into bed at 10:00pm, I ran errands to a store, came home and exercised while somewhat de-wrinkling the new curtains (what, the curtains?), and then took care of some laundry. But here I sit, freshly showered after getting stinky exercising, with warm hugs still wrapped around me.
Calm in the storm. Peace in the storm. Simplicity and serenity swirling around my home.
ohbloodyhell8 
Leave a Reply