This poem was written for the 2023 Poetry of the Sacred contest, organized by Center for Interfaith Relations.

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Peace is not summer rain

Or winter’s quiet frost,

Nor is it the world resting free of struggle

As the leaves sail downward in the autumn breeze.

Peace is not the end of warfare.

It is not the absence of argument.

It is not the stilling of discontent.

Is it not the wondrous things—

The beauty of a bird in flight

Or the sound of her call in the air,

Not the slow, steady flowing of the river

As the evening colors paint the sky.

These are only the reflections, a window into the inner workings

That yearn for God and seek God in the mundane

Turning the simplicity and the complexity of life

Into a web of intentionally created comfort.

Yes, there inside the soul of you and I

We find peace, we find God

Who has the power to place the heron and the sunset,

And the river and the silence

Into a wondrous picture of the mystery we cannot name,

But recognize as holy, pristine and pure.

This is peace:

That we look inside ourselves and let

The holiness spill outward into the world.