Stop Looking for Peace

The ideal doesn’t exist. The personal equilibrium and the harmony people dream of come only after years and years of struggle, and them only as flashes of grace and peace. Peace is the fruit of love and service to others. I’d like to tell the people in communities, “Stop looking for peace. Give yourselves where you are. Stop looking at yourselves, look instead at your brothers and sisters in need. Ask how you can better love your brothers and sisters. Then you will find peace.”

Jean Vanier, Community and Growth, p.34