Being the Peace
In the spring of 2015, I celebrated the 10th anniversary of my tap dance company, Cats Paying Dues. That summer, during what was supposed to be a set of regular check-ins, I sat down with each company member and told them that the company would not be continuing. We would fulfill any future commitments, but I wouldn’t be cultivating new ones. We wouldn’t be rehearsing regularly. It was over.
Since that moment I’ve been on a journey. From the inside it has felt like a singular pursuit. From the outside it has looked like someone bouncing from one immersive commitment to another. Almost every two years things changed dramatically. I went on tour, apprenticed to become a pastor, produced a series of tap dance intensives, co-created and produced a solo show, moved countries, led an arts organization, produced festivals, ran a youth tap ensemble, and traveled for workshops. At the end of the it all I burned out. Yet, even burning out didn’t stop the habituation I had allowed to enter my body. Fast production, dramatic changes, worries about being caught off guard in new situations, had become just normal for me – almost expected.
Then March 2020 came and everything around me stopped. The pandemic, with all of its challenges, pain, and ongoing fallout (to this very day), served as an interruption to all the habits of thought and action I had developed. I couldn’t work as fast or hard or travel as much. I couldn’t count on what had been regular. My entire environment changed. I had the opportunity to change, too.
The Other Side
What is the other side? For me it was a completely different vision of what life could be – a life filled with peace and rest, joy and kindness, gentleness and self-control, and love. I had known about this kind of life for some time. I had experienced glimpses for sure. I had thought I was pursuing it in the work I was doing, but I was hitting wall after wall. I had had tastes but never fully arrived, and of course, I still haven’t. But for the first time in my life, at the beginning of the pandemic, I felt a deep responsibility to take whatever time I’d been given, to address the things within me that might be preventing me from experiencing that kind of life more fully (and there were many things to address).
Then there was a moment. Quite a long one actually. It was almost a year into the pandemic when I experienced a fullness of this kind of life. It was a gift. Significant amounts of silence, solitude, study, and reflection accompanied creative work, listening journeys, a slower pace of life, and new invigorating kinds of responsibilities. Peace was what grounded this experience, for me. It seemed like I was experiencing a kind of alignment. I wasn’t bouncing anymore. I felt settled, just ahead of the curve of the demands of life, and trusted I was in a good place. There was no striving, no weight, no immense pain or fear to confront or avoid. Just peace.
Peace, of course, may be a relative feeling. Those of us who have been acclimated to environments that are high-input, high-output, fast paced, high-performance, or simply dangerous, might have no frame of reference for what a slow paced, low input, take you as you are, healthy, and safe environment could be like. In fact, drop such a person into such a place, and a kind of withdrawal might be experienced. The shift can be jarring if nothing else.
However, peace is a key element of life – stillness of the heart. A way of being that exudes calm, even during the storms. Sometimes peace might look like not caring. Someone might say, “How can you be so calm at a time like this?!?” Sometimes peace looks like the clarity of mind to seek and find a solution to an imminent problem. Someone might say, “How did you know what to do in the midst of all that noise?!?” In a noisy world, not to mention one in continual shift, peace is a high valued experience. To be able to sit and take deep breaths without worries and concerns overtaking one’s mind seems for many (including myself at times) simply an impossibility. And yet, I know it is possible. A mind, body, heart, and soul at peace is possible.
How?
Life happens. In so many ways, with so many people, so many things enter our lives and tempt us towards a reality that puts us at the center of our own universe. We get angry and frustrated when things don’t go our way. Naturally, because we think we have the best ideas, and want what we want, whether we know if what we want is good for us or not. The temptation towards over confidence in our knowledge of the workings of the universe is the ultimate pride, and at least for me, leads always to destruction. There is no way I can account for all the possible challenges I will face every day. There is no way I can make sure I have all the provision I need to survive. There is little possibility for me to take care of myself from a standpoint of knowing what I need and what is best for me. I can try…but I know I have failed every time.
Alternatively, if I were to follow someone who did know all that was happening, and did have the power necessary to provide, and did know what I actually needed and what was best for me, life would take on a different quality. It would be a different reality. Here I should clarify that the “what I need” and “what is best for me” are specifically oriented to the kind of person I am becoming. For example, if winning the lottery would be detrimental to my person, it wouldn’t actually be good for me. That said, the propositions made by Jesus, set him in this very position. He even is recorded as saying, “follow me,” and acting in ways which when considered carefully make him a trustworthy leader.
Following someone who isn’t here in the same way my neighbor is here can be difficult. Many things – habits of thought and action, undisciplined wants and desires, advertisements, and other propositions of the way the world is – compete for my attention. They compete for my following. They compete for me – my person. Thankfully over the course of recent history, even after the time of Jesus, there are records of folks who have documented what life was like for them as they attempted to follow Jesus. They talk about experimenting with practices like solitude and silence, developing games to set their mind on the things above, and bear witness to the outcomes of their attempts.
I am sure that there is no shortage of people who unbeknownst to me are attempting to live this kind of life now. They are the ones who aren’t taken in by unwarranted polarization. They are the ones who, when the storm comes, remain calm, they speak clearly and honestly, and even might be caught resting. I must believe this. If it weren’t so, I believe that our world would be in a much worse place than it is today.
So, I follow, attempting to do what I can to clear the way for my own soul to experience peace. Really, deep down, daily, minute-by-minute experiences of peace. I desire the kind of peace that is so rooted and so immersive for myself, that it can’t help but spill over into the people I bump into every day. I’ve considered and made choices that some would call drastic, or at least the kind of choice that makes you pause and think. But the more I try, and the more I find others who are also trying, I realize that the drastic choices may be the ones necessary to interrupt all the things that tempt me towards a life of war. Warring thoughts and actions. Warring wants and desires. Warring relationships. A soul at war with itself.
I don’t want war. I want peace.
To what end?
Of course, personal peace is a wonderful thing – being the calm one in trying times; being cool in the heated argument; having clarity in the business of life – these are all wonderful things. But I think there is a lot more that is possible. For example, one might inspire another with their own peace. Have you ever seen someone who was at peace? Isn’t it a sight of beauty? But I think there is even more. We can support someone else in their desire for peace. Have you ever been the one to help a friend or stranger calm down, release their anger, tension, or pain? Of course, we can’t force someone to experience peace, but what an honor to walk beside someone, and help them see what they might not be able to see clearly in the heat of the moment. Of course, we ourselves must have walked (or at least be walking) the road towards peace for such things to happen. Yet, I think there is still more. We can be the kind of person whose peace calms a room. We can be the kind person whose peace calms a home. We can be kind of person whose peace calms someone else’s heart. This peace that we may be filled with requires its own habituation – things we can do to give ourselves a better shot at growing into it. It is in the opposite direction of the noise and attention grabbers that may surround us, and yet, so very worthwhile.
Why?
Because a world at peace is better than a world at war, and the world doesn’t get to peace without a people of peace, who make peace wherever they are, just because the peace that is in them is greater than they are. It must overflow. What a life it would be to be that kind of person.