Looking for Inner Peace? Take up Your Sword

You may be familiar with the many spiritual leaders working the marketplace these days by specializing in a message of personal peace and anxiety-free self-satisfaction. You may even take solace from one of them. Some are Christian, others represent forms of eastern practice. Their methods differ but the common goal is finding a path to inner calm. What’s not to like about that?

I hate to be spoilsport since I agree that most of us suffer way too much anxiety, but I don’t think the problem can be solved on an individual basis. Think about it: If these treatments work so well, why do people keep needing more treatment? We need cures not comfort, and that requires cultural change.

I’m not saying there’s no value in the work of someone like Joel Osteen or Deepak Chopra, although I cringe when any spiritual leader crosses the line and sells their path as leading to material prosperity. If you’re looking to build your financial profile, get an MBA or talk people into selling you their gold at depressed prices. If you’re looking to build your spiritual profile, find a good prophet -- preferably one who doesn’t fly first class. If a teacher promises you both, you’re probably looking at a false prophet. Five days at the Chopra Center will cost you $4,000. If you don’t end up with prosperity, at least someone will.

Let me suggest an alternative path to reducing fear and anxiety: take the fight to the enemy. Go on the offensive. Anxiety is a trait of victims. Fight against those who would victimize the powerless. Fear comes from being on the defensive; going on offense breeds elation.

Jesus, we know, is often called the Prince of Peace. Christians, like myself, who oppose war as a form of foreign policy have been known to wield that name against those who would excuse violent tendencies by mixing God and country. But when it comes to standing up for justice, Jesus says being too peaceful, too calm and complacent, is no virtue. Check out these words from Matthew’s Gospel:

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” (Matt. 10:34-39).

Now that’s some powerful stuff. Remember those Spartans in the movie 300? Here were these 300 dudes about to die and knowing it was inevitable, but each of them is feeling really fulfilled. Why? Because they were answering their passion. They were taking it to the evil doers in the name of the one thing they loved more than life. But Sparta was only their country, or really just a city. We are called to be champions for a greater cause, the greatest of all causes: to match our intentions with God’s wish for a world of beauty, justice and compassion. Now there’s a real path to harmony.

Do you want to find true freedom from anxiety? It won’t hurt if you start by finding a little inner peace. Then when you feel nice and calm inside, take up your sword. As Jesus said, if you want to know life to the fullest, be ready to put your life on the line.