un-peace

I am missing the peacebird.  It seems like it has been too long since it perched on my head.  This has nothing to do with happiness and/or contentment.  They are enhanced by peace, but they don't hinge upon it.  No...what I'm talking about is that quiet, smooth, steady, tranquil solidness that no pampering, pill, or self-indulgence can create.  Is this what Paul meant when he talked about the "peace that passes all understanding"?  If so, how do I get it back?

Here's what I've been doing lately to cultivate peace...nothing.  I've gone to bed too late after watching waaay too much TV, snacked until I feel sick, left off riding my bike and have not spent near enough time just looking out the window to my backyard.  The birdfeeder is unfilled.  So is my heart.  Garbage in, garbage out.

I can't afford this.  I cannot spend another dime of my life on un-peace.  I am cultivating the perfect habitat in my head for discord and disharmony, the nasty opposites of the peacebird. 

So here's the thing:

First and foremost, I will read Philippians chapter 4.  That's where the "peace that passes understanding" came floating up through the memory of my consciousness.  I will go to bed.  I will let my body heal from too much snacking.  I will look out the window.  And I will do all the birds a favor and fill the feeder.

None of these things are mind-blowingly profound.  It's just that after awhile, not practicing them becomes profane.  The antithesis of what Anne Morrow Lindbergh talks about in her classic, Gifts From the Sea:

"I want...to live "in grace" as much of the time as possible.  I am not using this term in a strictly theological sense.  By grace I mean an inner harmony, essentially spiritual, which can be translated into outward harmony....I would like to achieve a state of inner spiritual grace from which I could function and give as I was meant to in the eye of God."