Maybe Something We Remember
Believe me when I say I wish I could offer you something like an instant parting of the clouds, a single sentence or practice that would return you immediately to peace. Something simple and universal. A one-size-fits-all path back to center.
But the truth is, being human doesn’t work that way.
There isn’t one doorway that fits everyone. There isn’t one instruction that lands the same for every nervous system, every history, every heart. And I don’t want to add more noise to the pile.
Because lately it feels like everywhere you turn there’s someone telling you how you should be navigating. How you should feel, respond or act.
The “shoulds” are endless.
Open any news feed or social platform and there’s another voice prescribing the correct spiritual posture, the right emotional response, the proper way to be awake or aware or evolved.
Of course, it is exhausting.
So instead of offering something new or clever, I find myself returning to a couple of very old, very quiet phrases that have stayed with me for years.
One of them is this from my practitioner teaching days:
Even in the apparent absence of…
Even in the apparent absence of peace, there is peace.
Even in the apparent absence of order, there is order.
Even in the apparent absence of God, there is God.
If that’s true - if peace or order or presence hasn’t actually disappeared - then the question becomes personal. Not: What must they do? But: What must I do to sense it again?
How do I soften enough to notice what hasn’t left? How do I untangle myself from the noise long enough to reconnect?
Another phrase that has steadied me lately is even simpler:
Everywhere I look, I see what I’m looking for.
If I’m scanning the world for proof that everything is broken, I’ll find it instantly. If I’m looking for outrage, there it is. If I’m looking for fear, it’s everywhere.
But if the only thing I choose to look for is God - or love, or harmony, or intelligence, or care - then that is what begins to appear.
So the only real choice I seem to have is this: What am I looking for? And if I can’t see it? Then maybe I’m being asked to be it.
To be the calm, the listener, the steadiness. To be the hands and feet of the very thing I say I believe in.
Not as a performance or some conceptual strategy, just quietly, in the way I move through the day.
I’m not grabbing for followers or outcomes or trying to win arguments. And I’m not pushing anyone away either. I’m practicing being present in the doing.
No chasing. No clinging. No retaliation.
Just trusting that what is mine to do will reveal itself when it’s time, and that the right people will find their way here, and others won’t, and that’s okay.
It has to be okay. Because maybe peace was never something we manufacture. Maybe it’s something we remember.
David Ault is a minister, and founder of Kaleidoscope Foundation, dedicated to educating children in under-served areas.
How do you relate to the notion that "even in the apparent absence of peace, there is peace" - that what we're searching for hasn't actually disappeared but is asking us to soften enough to sense it again? Can you share a personal story of a time when you discovered that you were seeing exactly what you were looking for, whether that was brokenness and fear or something closer to love and care? What helps you practice being the calm or the listener or the steadiness you wish to see, not as a performance but just quietly in the way you move through your day?
