The Victory of Coming to Peace with What You Can Not Change

My friend Sonja listens to live broadcasts of her Baptist minister in Amarillo, TX. The other night I joined her in front of her TV in Granada, Nicaragua. I had only two experiences in my life with the Baptist faith, reading Jimmy Carter and going to the Riverside Baptist Church in Harlem when it was so packed you couldn't get in.

This minister gave exactly the sermon I needed at exactly the moment I needed it. In a way, it was the same old stuff we think we know. "Let Go and Let God." But what was enlightening to me was his concept that after you had done all the actions you could, and after you had prayed, and seeing no change in the circumstance, that it is a great victory for the soul to come to peace with what is.

I have the feeling that for me it will take a lot of practice. I am trying to learn patience and that's not going so well. I have been practicing forgiveness and I am getting better and better at that, but to feel victory and peace in ugly or uncomfortable or hateful circumstances, that has been a tough one. But something in me likes the concept of victory in peace. It makes it much more alive. So I will practice this.

I thought afterward about our current political stand off in the USA. Lincoln's knowledge that "A house divided against itself can not stand." has been popping into my mind lately. OK, so we have these presidential elections and in nearly every election, almost half the country is bitterly disappointed. So for four years they are stuck with whomever won. So, if our Congress men and women love our country, we should seek the victory of being at peace with the election result and in the victory of acceptance do everything possible to work together to make this a better place for all.

Pie in the sky? Or, maybe, the only way to victory, the only way to keeping USA together. Enmity seems to make the antagonist stronger. I have seen that very recently when a woman here in Granada was loosing her shit. For those around her, the temptation was very strong to yell back, argue, be righteously 'right'. It was a slam dunk. But it was also obvious that that is what she wanted. She wanted a big fight. Being denied that just made her look crazy all by herself. The hard won victory of being at peace with ugliness.

I think we all need to experience victory. Gandhi experienced victory bringing down the British Empire in India. He never resorted to the violence used by his opposition. Christ seemed to have made a great victory over those who persecuted him by acceptance and forgiveness.

There is a lot of subtext here, but if I start to tell the story about this woman I will be back in it. I will try harder and harder to accept what I can not change and find a little more peace in my heart.