Peace, like happiness, eludes pursuit. Instead, perhaps we can
cultivate her presence, invite her into our lives, establish the kind
of garden in our hearts where peace feels welcome & can bloom anew.
-Erie Chapman

   My friend and colleague, Tracy Wimberly, R.N. and I, worked together in all three hospitals systems where I was privileged to serve as CEO. Her favorite greeting has always been, "Peace." She used to have a china plaque on her office door bearing the same word in green letters.
   Peace. The word has a lovely energy around it for most people. Just the saying of it or the reading of this single word imparts to some a feeling of rest. The great Peter Paul Rubens even sought to paint Peace (click on image to englarge.)
   One of the goals of the Journal is that it be a place of sanctuary for you and other caregivers. A place where you can come for rest. Whether it’s Friday the 13th or Monday the 1st, I hope you find, here, images that bring you some inner peace across your week and weekend….

    Because there is very little we can do to calm the big troubles of
this world, the best kind of peace may be found within, not from
without. We share poetry and images in the Journal in the hope that some combinations of words and pictures will help to awaken the energy of peace within you.   
   I found a poem by Kenneth Rexroth from his book The Lights in the Sky are Stars and hoped it might bring you, in its imagery, some moments of peace:

The Heart of Herakles*

Lying under the stars
In the summer night,
late, while the autumn
Constellations climb the sky,
As the Cluster of Hercules
Falls down the west
I put the telescope by
And watch Deneb
Move towards the zenith.
My body is asleep. Only
My eyes and brain are awake.
The stars stand around me
Like gold eyes. I can no longer
Tell where I begin and leave off.
The faint breeze in the dark pines,
And the invisible grass,
The tipping earth, the swarming stars
Have an eye that sees itself.

   Peace, like happiness, eludes pursuit. Instead, perhaps we can cultivate her presence, invite her into our lives, establish the kind of garden in our hearts where peace will bloom. This means that when we are confronted with Peace’s opposite – violence – we respond with love and kindness.
   I read recently that justice begins with compassion, not with anger. This is the peace which Jesus held when he was confronted by crowds shouting at him, spitting at him and reviling him.
   It is also the peace cultivated by the Amish. In their response to the family of the hate-filled man in Pennsylvania who molested and killed some Amish children, the Amish offered love and forgiveness. And it is seen in that powerful scene in the film To Kill a Mockingbird when an enemy approaches Atticus Finch (played brilliantly by Gregory Peck)and spits in his face. Peck, looking a foot taller than his antagonist, simply reaches in his back pocket, pulls out his handkerchief, wipes his face, and walks away.
   Do we have that kind of strength to live peace when confronted by a rude and angry patient or family member? Perhaps we may cultivate inner peace so powerfully that we will find love’s strength in future confrontations with those who have lost this gift.

-Erie Chapman

*Herakles was a son of Zeus. He was considered, in Greek mythology, as half man and half God and
was both loved and hated by the Immortals in whom the ancient Greeks believed. The Cluster of Herakles is a grouping of stars. It is also referred to as the constellation Hercules, one of the largest in the universe.