Make Peace a Part of Your New Year's Resolutions for 2007
Barb Butler

Another new year.  It is another opportunity to be thankful and resolve that everyday I will be a more peaceful person, extra caring and less judgmental.  To have peace in our family we begin by having peace in our hearts. 

So this year when my husband tells me how to drive or turns the thermostat down I will be more committed to resolve it by understanding my response can be  more caring and less defensive.  It has taken me years to recognize my children as the amazing individuals that they are, and not as extensions or reflections of me.  I will be more comfortable standing back and supporting them when I can, not just when I think I am right.  Standing back is not something that is easy for me.  It has taken me years to learn that skill, although I still mess up from time to time.  How can I expect peace in the world, if I cannot negotiate love and forgiveness within my own small world?

We are here to heal each other, to be light for each other.  Peace of mind is clearly an internal matter.  It must begin with our own thoughts and extend outwards. Violence begins in thoughts just as a tiny seed grows.  Thoughts of aggression, jealousy and anger are all the beginning of violence and our body language speaks loudly of our inner being.

Plant seeds of love and forgiveness and we receive love and forgiveness.  It is from serenity of mind that a peaceful perception of the world arises.  Christ, Gandhi, Buddha taught peace, forgiveness, and charity.  So here we are another year, another chance of healing and joining together.  This year I resolve to be more peaceful.

Lao-tzu said it better than I can…

“If there is to be peace in the world,

There must be peace in the nations.

If there is peace in the nations,

There must be peace in the cities.

If there is peace in the cities,

There must be peace between neighbors.

If there is peace between neighbors,

There must be peace in the home.

If there is peace in the home,

There must be peace in your heart.”

HAPPY NEW YEAR

MAY THERE BE PEACE IN YOUR HEART THROUGHOUT THE NEW YEAR.
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Barb Butler lives in Albert Lea and was one of the founding members of Paths to Peace in Freeborn County.