Peace
is not the absence of heat,
but the refusal to set fire.
It is
the trembling art
of standing still
in the middle of serious, serious disagreement
without reaching for the sword.
I have shouted in love before—
I have listened in silence and not loved at all.
But peace asks more:
not just to feel right,
but to live right
when the table is uneven
and the loudest voice echoes
from the highest seat.
Power does not come
in equal portions.
Rarely fifty-fifty.
More often,
ninety percent sits unaware,
denying the weight of the crown,
while ten percent watches closely—
shouldering the labour
of calming fears they never created.
Sometimes
I am the ninety.
Other times,
I am the ten.
I have been both.
I have been asked to quiet down,
when I only just found my voice.
I have asked others to soften,
not realizing the steel beneath their skin.
Peace does not come cheap.
It is slow,
tiring,
a long walking
through tangled roots
of fear and memory and pride.
It takes time—
time to see,
to say hard things without raising fists,
to listen past the thorns of tone
and into the truth beneath.
We practice.
We falter.
We begin again.
Because peace—
true peace—
is not a place we arrive at.
It’s a path we keep walking
with blistered feet,
and the grace to go again
when we get it wrong.
Based on ‘In the Name of Belonging‘ with Pádraig Ó Tuama
https://katebowler.com/podcasts/in-the-name-of-belonging/
The Afterword 
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