The Winds of Chaos - Dona Nobis Pacem

In a world where it feels like chaos dominates our lives, it can be hard to recognize peace when it arrives. Sometimes, though, we have to grab the little slivers of peace that sneak into our lives and cling to them like they are life preservers.

 When all we see is the chaos and pain life offers, peace slides into the recesses where it hides leaving us to question if there really is such a thing as peace at all.

 We spend so much time highlighting violence and hatred and vitriol that we ignore kindness and love and compassion. Not only are we surrounded by the chaos of violence in the real world, but we surround ourselves with it in our entertainment. We invite chaos into our lives even when there's no reason. We binge watch the violence in fiction and pretend like it's separate from real life. We want justice against the chaos even if we can only find it in the violent acts of fictional good guys exacting revenge on fictional bad guys. But, I wonder if we've become so jaded that we can't be entertained without some sort of violence or reference to violence. 

 I have to believe that kindness, love, and compassion have the power to overcome violence, hatred, and vitriol. Where is that story? Where is the entertainment value in peace? Where is the jolt that keeps us engaged in peaceful pursuits? How can peace feed our need for an adrenaline rush? How do we make peace entertaining? How do we find value in peace when violence is what sells? 

 As a writer, I ask myself these questions daily. As a human being, I long for the answers. 

 Looking back at my past offerings for the Blog for Peace project, it seems like I once thought I had more answers than questions... 

 Today, I feel full of questions...

 I've heard many people say that what we focus on multiplies, so I'm left to wonder what would happen if we focused on seeing the good in one another instead of the worst. What would happen if we focused on love instead of hate? What would happen if we focused on peace instead of chaos?

 What if instead of dividing ourselves based on what someone else tells us makes us enemies, we took the time to actually get to know one another?

 We live in a world where chaos and war and violence and crime are more profitable than peace and love and compassion. How do we change that? How do we find a way to profit from promoting peace instead of violence and chaos?

 When I look around me, I see a world ruled by chaos and so many people who thrive on that chaos whether or not they know it. In spite of that, I work hard to cultivate peace in my own heart, in my own life, in my little section of the world. I do yoga. I meditate. I think peaceful thoughts. I feel peaceful emotions. I focus on peace. I try to be positive in my interactions with those I interact with on a daily basis. I try to feel compassion without destroying my own boundaries. I try to live from a place of love...

 And, yet, I often fail. I find myself pulled into the chaos. I find myself flailing as I try to make a difference in the world. I see the chaos. I feel the chaos. I hear the chaos. Sometimes I even speak the chaos.

 But...

 I can't give up on peace. We can't give up on peace.

 Peace might be a bit like perfection... The perfect thing to strive for even if we can't always recognize it in the moments when it finds its way through the winds of chaos...

T. L. Cooper is an author and poet whose work aims to empower and inspire through an exploration of the human condition. Her poems, short stories, articles, and essays have appeared online, in books, and in magazines. Her published books include a collection of short stories, Soaring Betrayal, her Silhouette Poetry Series, and a novel, All She Ever Wanted. She grew up on a farm in Tollesboro, Kentucky. She currently lives in Albany, Oregon with her husband and three cats.

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