Happy Sunday!

I want the peace of God – ACIM Lesson 205
“The peace of God is everything I want. The peace of God is my one goal; the aim of all my living here, the end I seek, my purpose and my function and my life, while I abide where I am not at home.”
I have been thinking about feeling the peace of God in my life each day.  I do feel this peace within me, it ebbs and flows up and down like a wave – prompting my concern when levels are low.  Words to describe this feeling are serenity joined with a sense of oneness or connection with all things.
Last week I wrote on Divine, intimate love with God but I didn’t say how this felt.  For me this tends to happen related to new awareness; it is when my mind is touched by an idea that then my physical heart lifts with joy as my spirit confirms this as Divine truth.  I feel the LOVE of God, the blessed energy of the universe, flow within me (thereby all the weeping).  I try to live in that place as my Divine child (Pollyanna) but everyday responsibilities require me to act like an adult (why Sunday is sacred to me, I let my child out). Perhaps this intimate LOVE is the crest of the flow of the peace of God or perhaps they are different, I just know that I view these ecstatic periods as gifts and put no pressure on myself to maintain this level.  I do remain aware of the peace within me and I am always assessing what my body, mind, and spirit are telling me based on how peaceful I may or may not be.
So this week I have been building my blog website and all the activity has caused me to not feel so peaceful.  I have been trying to keep to my daily practices of prayer, meditation, my ACIM lessons, and inspired blog reading but my attention has just not been there.  My prayers have not been as deep and guided as they have been, and meditation has been nearly impossible.  I am realizing that I am in an active time right now and that is OK.  I realize that being busy on a project doesn’t need me to get over anxious with worry. I can let the worry pass, avoiding my ego’s voice from creating stress by filling my head with worries like “what is wrong with me, why can’t I meditate?”
This all leads me to the main reason why peace has been on my mind; I have been pondering my own reaction to the bombing in Boston last week.  I found myself to be very calm about it and I have been trying to figure out why.  Am I just hiding?  Am I protecting my self by staying unaffected and distant? After 911 I was very upset and had periods of panic about the safety of myself and my family.  Boston is a city I am not that familiar with in comparison to New York where I had family, at the time, living and working.  Perhaps it is just distance or perhaps it is my new awareness.
I do have a new perspective on life and death.  I don’t look on death as an ending so I don’t hold as much fear as I did in 2001; this brings me more peace at this turbulent time.  The other thing that has changed for me since 911 is that I believe and trust in prayer.  I pray for the victims of this event but more so I pray for the youth of our society who are hurting and then hating.  What has disturbed me most about the Boston bombing was the image of the 19 year old bomber, just a boy.  I view the repeat of violent acts by our youth as reflections of a failing in our society.  Something is very wrong.  I have been praying for society to recognize this problem and to move for change.  I know that prayer works so I am putting my energy into prayer to try pump positive energy into the psyche of our society so we can figure this problem out.
Why prayer?  I do believe in prayer as taking action for change, as a gift of energy to aid others.  Also, I do believe in the oneness of all things.  I thought of an analogy for what my prayer offers all those involved in the Boston events.  It is considering each human like a cel in a body.  Last autumn I sliced through my thumb with a utility knife.  I can recognize that cels in my eye, for example, didn’t get inflamed or involved in the trauma to my thumb but those eye cels would free up some energy for those emergency responders, my blood, to aid the wound to be stabilized and then heal.  Prayer is an offering of my energy to aid those hurting and needing help.
So is it OK for me to feel peace in times of tragedy?  I do waiver on feeling guilty that I am not caught up in all the news and conversations about this event.  But, to not be peaceful would mean being angry, fearful, or looking for revenge.  I certainly don’t think that the problems of society will be overcome by negative, reactionary actions.  A culture that supports each member with respect and compassion does not suffer these tragedies. Living peacefully allows me to be the change I want to see in the world.