DECEMBER 7: OUR MONTH TO BE THE PEACE WE WISH FOR by Colleen Keating

 Wednesday 7th DECEMBER

Day 7

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing 

and rightdoing there is a field.

I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass

the world is too full to talk about.

Rumi

Early this morning I refound a poem titled Loud by poet laureate  (2009-2019) Carol Ann Duffy. It begins with a quote from the news,  violent enough that today they would add the disclaimer if this has disturbed viewers they can ring Lifeline.  

A woman screams so loud her voice  rips out of throat like a firework. It responds to global conflict and suffering, shouts in its effort to get control,  in the spit on the tip of her tongue . . . it roars,

bawls, howls, shieks  and those in the news cowered in the noise.

I reflect on how daily news drums into our lounge rooms, fills our personal space with impending doom, darkens our minds, bombards our hearts and it is easy to get caught in the hype that peace is impossible .

This can be depressing, deflating and our memory can be smothered. It is easy to forget 

 to look for the light

 be in the light  

be the light 

knowing the darker the world 

the brighter will  be our light

as we move beyond the wrongdoing  and rightdoing

into the field

 where WE ARE PEACE.