a promise to splash more in 2023

I used to think that

achieving inner peace

would make my heart look

like a calm lake

I thought being in harmony meant:

no ripples

no waves

no lapping shores

~ just still water

it turns out that

serenity isn't the absence

of movement

in fact

~ it's quite

the opposite



because the more

peace I feel

the more my heart

churns and bubbles

like a lake boiling

as a ribbon of lava breaks through

underneath the water

I don't think we were created

out of nothingness to come

here just to let our hearts become

an unmoving body of cold water

covered in standing algae

I think the Great Love placed

a fire in us so that our lives will

be a natural spring of swirling

hot healing water that never

looks the same way twice

the war machine thinks

it is the only thing that can

move and lumber

~ and that's not simply true

peace is the most disturbing

force in the universe

peace is the tide that washes

away the ancient seaweed of

division that builds upon our shores

peace is anything but still

it's a tsunami that can terraform

rock fortresses into open-air chapels

my love,

I'm starting to realize

that the less my heart moves

~ the heavier it gets

~ the more dust it collects

~ the less kindness I feel

but when I let my heart

constantly stir

like a cotton candy machine

~the lighter and

sweeter it becomes

empathy is an act of chaos

it takes the narcissistic scripts we have been given

and rewrites them into a handwritten gospel of understanding

peacefulness is

anything but still

~ it is pure motion

peace is the ripple

that starts in the center of my heart

and rushes out through the faucets

of my eyes, hands and tongue

out into the world

we aren't here

to be stagnant

we are here to make a splash

~ john roedel

(photo by Sabri Tuzcu)