Peace, The Balm To Soothe Troubled Lives And Times

In his masterpiece, “Man’s Search for Meaning,” Viktor Frankl writes, “Every age has its own collective neurosis and every age needs its own psychotherapy to cope with it.” There is a collective neurosis in our world today, it is the cry for peace emanating from individuals, groups, communities and nations, impacting the mass consciousness.

The cries and marches for peace, power and freedom that marked recent decades, present a backdrop for today’s human conditions of stress, anxiety, insecurity and turmoil. There are as many civil wars and wars between nations. From the individual perspective, the cry for peace is heralded as respite from the turbulence of today’s hectic lifestyle. In the past four to five decades we have lived in such a way as to create challenging situations in our lives and create even more havoc as we try to solve the resulting problems.

There is a popular bumper sticker that states, “Peace begins within,” and a hymn that is sung in thousands of churches world-wide on Sundays, “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.” Yes, peace begins within the heart and mind...