As I look out my window typing this, winter has definitely settled in. Cold sun. Branches icing. Big, fat snowflakes float gently from the sky.

I pause to admire their beauty.  The quiet outside is a reflection of what I am feeling inside – a settling of peace, quiet, and contentment that only a moment of silence could offer. But then, that feeling lasts only a *moment.* The chaos around me whips me back to reality with a start – the phone rings, my dog barks, and my youngest child screams from another room needing my help. Sigh.

“How do I carry that sense of peace and contentment with me throughout the day,” I found myself wondering.

It is a theme I ponder often. How do I live in chaos, uncertainty, surrounded by suffering and *still* remain to be at peace? Peace. Peace is what I want for myself the next year. It would be cliche to say I am hoping for peace on earth. I mean, don’t get me wrong, that would not be a bad thing. But I think if I ever want to hope for a more peaceful world, I need to work on it myself and only hope that others want to join me on this same path.

So come along with me …

To find peace and contentment, I will need to suspend judgement, acknowledge that this moment is all I have – I’ve not been promised another.

I will try to remember that everyone around me is doing the best they can with what they have and I will try to honor the highest in everything they do.

I will look to the sky, the trees, the birds, the insects and to everyone around me and accept that they are already perfect… and also remember that I, too, am already perfect and can stop with the self-judgement to be more [insert blah blah blah here].

And even in a time of being socially networked, I will seek out the silence and quiet. To pause, be still, observe and re-find the joy that is always there in the silence waiting to be experienced.

So come along with me … My hope for you in this new year is that you have peace in your heart, a quiet mind and joy in your song as we embark upon yet another trip around the sun together. Collective peace, quiet and joy would be so awesome, non?

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