by Heidi Green
Scripture
“You must understand this my beloved; let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger…” James 1:19
Spiritual Focus
Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me. Music and Lyrics by Jill Jackson-Miller and Sy Miller
Breath Prayer
Inhale Peace in me
Exhale Peace to you
A car alarm is going off in a nearby parking lot, the neighbor is using a leaf blower to clean her driveway, a door slams, and somewhere a dog is barking incessantly. Inside your stress level rises. As an adult, I now appreciate my mother’s lament as she sent us kids off to our rooms, “I need a little peace and quiet.”
In the readings for this week, the psalms, epistles, and gospels all offer wisdom words – for living peaceably in the world, such as the scripture passage from James. The readings are thematic: counseling us to live in peace with our neighbor and ourselves. They remind me of a popular meme, author unknown:
Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.”
Calm in your heart. Beautiful words, and it sounds great, but it also may seem like an elusive ideal. Luckily, many spiritual technologies, including yoga, prayer (such as welcoming prayer) and meditation, offer approaches to move us forward on the peace train. One common practice among these traditions is the cultivation of a state of calm and receptivity, known as equanimity. The word equanimity is derived from the word equal and means to be composed, accepting of both the good and the bad. Equanimity is inherently a posture of openness, from which we can most readily see the many options before us, unclouded by agitation and constricted thinking, making it easier to see and choose the peaceful path.
Popular meditation teacher, Jeff Warren, points out that both openness and acceptance are key to strengthening our equanimity muscles and offers this tip: begin by grounding yourself, go low and go slow. Go low and slow in your yoga practice, slow your breath, feeling the expansion and contraction of the muscles deep in your belly as you inhale and exhale into the pose. Accept what is present in your body, modifying your shape as needed. Go low and slow in your prayers: what do you need from God right now, this moment? Settle down with this prayer. Be open to the message. Go low and slow in your meditations, lower your gaze, softly focus on the ground before you and simply be in the moment—exactly as it is—without trying to control the experience.
Then, from a position of calm openness, choose the path of ordinary peace. These words adapted from Henri-Frederic Amiel offer a good way to take it off your mat,
“Life is short. And we don’t have much time to gladden the hearts of those who walk this way with us. So, be swift to love and make haste to be kind. And go in peace to love and serve the Lord.”
