Inner Peace Is Ephemeral

“No one can get inner peace by pouncing on it”.

-Harry Emerson Fosdick

 

Everyone wants inner peace.  No one has it all the time.  Years of spiritual seeking, decades of “growing up”, and a life time of seeking the meaning of life have not given me inner peace.  Most of the inner peace I have ever experienced in my life quickly evaporated like fog on a sunny day.  It is ephemeral.  I am starting to believe that you cannot really seek anything.  You can only find it.  If you are looking for happiness or inner peace, you will never find it.  In some ways that which we seek has always been present.  We just don’t have the eyes to see it.  In order to see we must be awake.  We become awake by being present.  It’s difficult to be present when you are multi-tasking and being pulled in ten directions by the demands of your life and work.  Most of us are controlled by our life instead of being in control of it.  I am getting old and I thought my life would be much simpler by this time.  Although my children are now adults, my life still seems complicated and full of demands.  I have expectations on me as a grandparent that I didn’t expect to have.  I worry a little about my physical decline and my financial security.  My wife and I both realize that one of us will be the last one standing and we wonder what that will be like after a lifetime of marriage.  Still, when I stand in the sunlight and I feel a breeze that cools my face and ruffles the trees, I feel a sense of peace.  I bathe in it for as long as it lasts.  I can’t grab it or hold on to it.  I can only be present to it for as long as it lasts.   Like the fog it will melt away.  The good news is that it will also return when I am not looking for it.  I just hope I am awake when that happens.