Shouts From Down Under

The simple things in life. I fit right in there.

There are those pleasures that don't cost much, at least at face value. But I think they cannot be enjoyed 100% if we aren't at peace in the first place.

http://www.tickld.com/x/20-life-pleasures-

What is peace? Are you at peace? Are you completely comfortable with your life, dreams, situation, self, others, health, etc?

Is it happiness? Is it the absence of things? Is it a place? Is it satisfaction? Is it love?

Is it just a figment of our imagination? Were / Are we manipulated into feelings of peace, when there is none?

Jesus said, in the Bible, "They shall say there is peace, when there is no peace"

How up to date is that statement? I believe it's 100 % up to the minute wisdom, and why wouldn't it be, if you believe as I do, that the intent behind those words came from none other than the Creator himself. He knows exactly what's going on with his creation, and the position of each one of us humans.

He knows this down to every sparrow that dies, and further; down to a forensic level. "Even the very hairs of your head are numbered." (Luke 12:7)

This statement was spoken millennia before people nutted out that this type of detail actually mattered.

True. Peace.

Peace isn't a colour.

Peace is not an aerosol can we can spray around, and everything will be all right.

Peace isn't just the absence of war, is it?

Peace isn't just quietness, nor merely solitude.

Peace isn't having no enemies.

Peace isn't having no stress, or having no work to do.

Peace is something further, deeper, more internal than we may be comfortable admitting.

Do you remember times when you argued with someone? Times when your parents corrected you, or someone else did? That time you stole something for example, and the feeling that came into you, somewhere inside you, in your mind, in the sick feeling of your stomach, into your nerves, into ...

well...into somewhere inside your chest. You could not get peace until you owned up to stealing. You couldn't find peace until you spoke again to that person you argued with and resolved the problem. You couldn't find peace until you realised that the person you'd had a falling out with still loved you.

This way of thinking is far from tanks and machine guns, horses and artillery, battle fronts and munitions, isn't it?

It's thinking, pondering those things that are in our deepest recesses. The soul. When we die, the soul is the part that goes back to God. That is what I believe. I'm not sure what happens in the first and second resurrections described in The Revelation to Saint John.

But let's get back to this subject of true peace.

A lot of people spend their whole lives searching for it, and anesthetising themselves so that they can pretend that they have it. Many have never really known true peace within their souls.

I can say today, without any hesitation or doubt, that I have known, and do know of this deeper peace.
I would never assume it's rightfully mine, or that it could not be taken away once again.
But I know I do have it, and it beats that list of 20 simple pleasures hands down. Perhaps "beats" is not the right term, because it's not a competition.

Without the deeper peace that is spoken of in the Bible, and seems to me, takes a lifetime and more to even begin to understand it, yet as a child can be understood in seconds, without that peace, then all the other simple pleasures will be a pale imitation.

We can drown out the feelings that take away our peace. Yes, we can drown them out with all sorts of activities, habits, delusions and strivings. We can substitute many things for peace. Peace is not the absence of conflict. It's not the absence of stress. To a degree, we need stress, and conflict, and problems, and turmoil. Otherwise life would be boring.

Peace is not giving in, or giving up.

Whatever your situation, there's one thing I can tell you for certain.

The deeper peace that cannot be explained unless you have it, is readily available to everyone, but how obvious would it be to the most simple minded, that there would be conditions that must exist for this peace to be had?

I have it, but cannot boast that I have it because of something I've done, or that I'm "good" or "righteous" or some other illusion.

You can have it if you don't already. If not, then search for it. Make changes to your life, so that it can be yours. Yours for the asking.

Then, all those simple pleasures in life will be a bonus.



Sparky