Be at Peace?

Be At Peace.

Famous last words or words that last?

I once had a friend tell me about the death of a mutual acquaintance. She shared the story of how the woman went on a trip to Europe. Quite unexpectedly, while on the trip, she died. My friend then added this post script, the piece of the story that I would never forget. The woman had talked with her mother on the phone from the airport. They chatted and talked about plans post trip. And then the daughter said, “Be at peace.” The last words the daughter ever spoke to her mother.

These thirty years later, the words still echo in my soul.

Be at Peace. The end of a call. The end of a life. The end of the world.

But really. How many times in your life have you actually said the words Be at Peace out loud.

First of all, it is an odd combo of words. The use of the word ‘be’ followed by the word ‘at’ seems to connote a physical location. As if peace were a physical location to hang out.

Then, there is a formality, a quiet ceremony in the phrase. The phrase is just not something that most people say, unless they are talking about a person who is dead, as in ‘well at least now he is at peace.’ They are not words said off handed, mechanically, without intention. Even though it is a well-known phrase it is not well worn from use.

Yet those words, once planted in me, took lasting root in my imagination.

I wondered what power those words held for the daughter as she voiced them. I thought of the weight of the words on the mother’s heart, and of how they may have also served as a cane to help her to keep walking, or a pillow to sleep on.

And then there are the times I have, quietly and deliberately, employed those words, wrenching them from their tombstone. Feeling the effort required to reach underneath them and lift them up. And yet, as I said them to my boss right after he fired me, ‘Be at peace,’ I gained the strength to also let go.

You see, I have found the location of peace.

It is down a long, interesting tunnel. The door is as familiar as it is formidable.

It is within me.

When I am At Peace, no one can shake me. Events and outcomes can tear at me like tree limbs and roof shingles in a hurricane. I can fall. I can get up. Without leaving Peace.

And now, given the path my life is on, I say the words to myself like a mantra.

Be at Peace.