Ask yourself. When in your life have you experienced the greatest sense of peace? How can you get closer to having that same inner peace all the time?
Even when everything else is in turmoil, true peace involves a calm heart. When you take a moment to review the dictionary for the definition of peace, you will find, "a state of quiet or tranquility, freedom from disturbance or agitation."
Today, we live in a world set in a constant state of movement, noise, distraction and agitation. Many of us race about in a flurry of activity filling each moment of our day with something to do. Quite a few of us experience worry, anxiety, stress and sometimes turmoil or chaos. So many different things all around us seem to steal away our peace.
After years of working in Human Resources in luxury hotels, resorts and cruise ships, my team and I taught our staff that the definition of luxury is "the absence of worry." It's that simple.
In our lives each day, we can live in the lap of luxury if we stay aligned and focused to our peace. Everyone needs peace, it frees us from worry and allows us to concentrate of what's most important.
Peace With Ourselves
To nurture and foster this, we first must start with simplifying and slowing down. Peace with ourselves requires letting go. By simplifying and slowing down, we open the door more and more to inner peace. This is one of the many draws to Eureka Springs, AR. People flock to Eureka all year round to slow down. Connect with nature. Simplify life for a few days and for those that are drawn to move here, simplify life completely.
To gain peace with ourselves, we must take time to assess things and remove the extra stuff that distracts us, consumes us and wears us out all the time.
Only after we have discovered this alignment with our inner peace will we be able to yearn and foster peace with others.
Peace With Others
To have and give peace, we must intentionally look for daily opportunities to develop a servant's heart. Mother Teresa frequently said, "The fruit of service is peace."
Service might involve talking on the phone when you'd rather not, inviting someone out to lunch that you don't know very well, watching a neighbor's pet when you have better things to do, or lending something to someone that may get damaged, or possibly never returned.
There is something more celestial going on in providing humble and sacrificial service to others.
Peace With Our Inner Being
Throughout our life, we often find ourselves turning inward and asking our Inner Being, our true self, for peace. This is because we all instinctively know this is how we find peace. Through surrender, we discover the reality of our Inner Being, and all of the wonder and the goodness that this brings. Another very popular draw to Eureka Springs, AR is our statue of Christ of the Ozarks. Visiting this site in and of itself is a peaceful act and may draw you closer to your Inner Being and ultimately to inner peace.
The Christ of the Ozarks statue is a monumental sculpture of Jesus located in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, atop Magnetic Mountain. It was erected in 1966 as a "Sacred Project" by Gerald L. K. Smith and stands 65.5 feet (20 meters) high.
During the Great Depression, Smith served as an organizer for Huey P. Long's Share Our Wealth movement and led it briefly following Long's assassination in 1935. After many years of highly controversial, religiously charged activism, Gerald L. K. Smith retired to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, where he bought and renovated an old mansion. On other parts of the estate property, he planned a religious theme park, which he called "Sacred Projects". He commissioned the centerpiece, a gigantic statue of Jesus, completed in 1966. It is called Christ of the Ozarks.
He also completed a 4,100-seat amphitheater. This is the site of seasonal annual outdoor performances of "The Great Passion Play", styled after that of Oberammergau, Germany. It is performed five nights a week from the first week of May through the end of October.
Another peaceful visit when in beautiful Eureka Springs, AR is Thorncrown Chapel. Nestled in a woodland setting, Thorncrown Chapel rises forty-eight feet into the Ozark sky. This magnificent wooden structure contains 425 windows and over 6,000 square feet of glass. It sits atop 100+ tons of native stone and colored flagstone. The chapel's simple design and majestic beauty combine to make it what critics have called "one of the finest religious spaces of modern times."
Admission is free, but donations are accepted.
Peace Be With You!
The mind controlled by Spirit is life and peace.
Romans 8:6 (Holy Bible, New International Version)
Live and Love Intentionally is a series of chapters in a blog series where we explore all the ways in which we can live and love intentionally. It's through the contrast that life brings our way that we learn what we do not want and what we do want. Each day is significant and it matters how we approach it. Let's work together to make each day extraordinary, and less than ordinary. Our next chapter is Chapter Seven| The Power of Words