“Inner Peace” (10w poem)
even in the midst of chaos
my heart is calm
————
Dear Friend,
I wish I could tell you that your life will always calm and peaceful, but that would be a lie. My own experience that the storms of life always comes, but if I ground myself with a strong spiritual foundation then I am more apt to navigate the chaos of life with more calm and ease.
One of my favorite writers and fellow former L’Arche member, Henri Nouwen wrote:
“A waiting person is a patient person. The word patience means the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself us.”
I find the willingness to stay when things get very difficult challenging, my first instinct is to run. However, looking back, most of my growth has happened because I stayed and lived with change and kept my heart open even in the midst of chaos.
As a chaplain, I have been able to accompany people when their world falls apart. The calm and peace I maintain comes from my own trust in a loving Divine Presence. Quakers believe that there is that of God in everyone, and instead of just telling people about what we believe, we are encouraged to “let our lives speak.” I love silence both in community and alone, and I try to nurture my soul through centering prayer and meditation, because I can’t give away what I don’t have.
Pema Chodron, a Buddhist nun and teacher, suggests that:
“The next time there’s no ground to stand on, don’t consider it an obstacle. Consider it a remarkable stroke of luck. We have no ground to stand on, and at the same time it could soften and inspire us. Finally, after all these years, we could grow up. As Trungpa Rinpoche once said, the best mantra is ‘OM–grow up–svaha.'” ( from “Three Methods of Working with Chaos)
So don’t run, but embrace the obstacles and storms in your life and fully live into them. Sometimes the calm and peace finds you, even when everything is falling apart around you.
In the Light,
Your Friend Admist the Storm
Letters To A Young Spiritual Seeker 
This is a helpful blog and a good definition of patience here: the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself us.” I think something will always manifest. Thank you for your work and for following, “Anything is Possible.”
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Thank you JoAnna. Thank you for reading and also for writing and sharing your thoughts and experiences.
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I love Pema. I tore through the 294 section of the library (Buddhism, mostly). I started at a hospice and the death did not bother me but the questions patients asked, haunted. Beyond normal scripture which can be unforgiving and sometimes cryptic. I noticed the more education led them to keep searching for an answer to now. We have a pause at death, after a serious kind of hatred of life but I think that pause is more of the peace that we were seeking our whole life.
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Are you a hospice nurse? I work as a chaplain as a retirement community,so death is part of the air we breathe there.
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No. I was working with Medicare for medical supplies. I would set up patients for in home hospice usually due to treatable but expensive procedures. They would just hang out and pass in a few months. I got to know them because, sometimes I was only one they saw until they died. Then, I became a truck driver. haha There’s irony there but I can’t place it.
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Wow, is that why your drawing subjects are so diverse? Are you still driving around the country?
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Yes and, yes I still drive. I’ve never noticed that but that’s interesting. I guess I see more than most people do in a regular day.
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Often we manufacture the storm. Learning not to do that gets rid of a lot of the storms I think.
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Thank you for your wise words. Love Nouwen.
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Lovely post. That openness is essential for growth and a key to contentment. 🙂
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Thank you Diana. PS–I love fantasy as well, I lean more towards Ursula Leguin, but I love Tolkien too. I loved Red Wall series as a middle schooler.
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