My Peace I give YOU

22 Apr My Peace I give YOU

 ‘Peace’ is hard to encapsulate in words.

Nature itself harbours profound ‘Peace,’ yet life is always vibrant, moving, dancing and changing swiftly to its next stage of being. The closest we might come to embracing a view of Peace is in looking at a picture of a majestic Mountain reflecting itself in a still bound lake or Water. I can see why this image captivates us, the meeting of a great enduring strength that knows solely its own place.

The Hebrew word for peace, is Salom and for me this is a word that captures Peace in its totality.  Perhaps because I feel with it that a feeling is placed within it and it is not just something that has been verbally translated over the centuries as in the word ‘Peace’ which derives more from the French translation and has been intellectualized.  True peace will be felt and not thought or bought.

When I was a child, ‘Peace’ was something that I didn’t give much thought to. I experienced a ‘Peaceful’ enough upbringing where I felt safe overall, a knowing that I was part of my family unit.

As a word Peace was a concept that applied at the other end of the spectrum in comparison to the word ‘War’ maybe?

Each evening without fail the ‘6 O Clock’ news would ring out in our home and the raging and waring world didn’t seem to able to relate to ‘Peace’ in any manner of means.

At mass on Sundays the priest would say ‘Peace be with You’ and before Holy Communion the priest would state as part of the sermon ‘My Peace I give you.’ That implied that ‘Peace’ is one of the holy above ‘holy’s’.

Peace in Northern Ireland for a lot of years was a possibility but not the reality. Then in 1994 something extraordinary happened for the people. The ‘Peace Process’ was bought into being and many of us lined the streets in Belfast City Centre close to the main hall as Bill Clinton spoke some words of encouragement. I was about 20 years old at the time and at that event with my boyfriend [and now husband] the atmosphere was ecstatic, like a peace party.  People wanted this ‘Peace’ they had definitely endured its opposite for way too long.

I was so relieved for I was at the beginning of what would turn out to be a four-year stint of going to Belfast almost daily to attain my qualification as a Beauty and Holistic Therapist just of the Newtownards Road in Belfast [a staunch Protestant area].  One day Shaun was picking me up from the college and we nipped over to a café on the main street, I called his name out loud asking if he wanted some sauce or something on his lunch and if looks were bullet’s we might have been dead!

It helped me realise the ecstatic pull of those waiting and wanting the ‘Peace Process.’  I trained in Belfast for 4 years with relevant peace and not having to worry about getting caught up in bomb scares.  Then in August 1998, whilst living in a flat in the Campsie area of Omagh, the day before I was due to go to London to train to join the Cruise Ships, the Omagh Bomb went off yards from our doorstep. Immediately after the bomb as I pushed the flat window open the couple of inches that it would allow me to, there was in those seconds an ‘eerie Peace’ one where I recognised instantly within it, that many souls had just perished. 

This ‘Peace’ was one where peoples Soul Self in shock had momentarily left the physical plane to search and reach out for their loved ones in the ethers. Gasps of horror and harrowing sounds followed that ‘eerie Peace’.  

All who witnessed it experienced a locked down broken abyss of peace, as it settled into their eternal DNA structure to be dealt with at another time. Managing to survive the harsh reality in front of them was key in the proceeding moments.

World-wide ‘Eerie Peace’ is one that we humans do not see coming. Yet there is something about being held here, being supported that we will somehow survive and carry on.

Years later in my life I would come to experience ‘Peace’ at its most profound level as a type of ‘mystical connection’, a penetrating one that pierces your soul forever more. If you have ever experienced this type of ‘Peace’ you will know that you are supported your whole life through no matter what comes to your door.

For years I lived on the acquiring materialistic radar, motivated solely towards having my own beautiful life and home.  At this stage, It would never have entered my head that within everything I was simply trying to attain a deeper ‘Peace’!

Peace is up there with LOVE…   But it is not quite the same. I think of it as one of the steps on the way to Love, a huge stepping stone that we leap on to from time to time that will propel us forward like standing on one of the great planets in the universe, before we are thrust to the next level.

My dream for this world it that it can receive huge waves of peace. 

My peace I give you.                                  {Kerry 16/4/2020}