The Presence of Silence Is Not the Presence of Peace

Sometimes we mistake silence for peace.

No one is arguing.
No one is shouting.
No doors are slamming.
No armies are advancing.

Everything is quiet.

And yet, beneath the quiet, something may still be unsettled.

There is a silence that comes when we are afraid to speak. A silence that comes when we have decided it is easier to avoid the difficult conversation. A silence that settles over families, communities and even nations when what needs to be acknowledged remains unspoken.

That is not necessarily peace.

And neither is agreement.

Sometimes we mistake agreement for peace, too. We believe that if everyone agrees, conforms, or simply goes along, we have somehow achieved harmony.

But conformity is not peace.

True peace does not require us to surrender the parts of ourselves that are different. It does not require sameness of thought, belief, experience or expression.

So what is real peace? And how do we find it?

Maybe peace is wholeness.

Wholeness within ourselves. Wholeness in our relationships. Wholeness that makes room for difference without requiring division.

True peace asks more of us.

Peace is not simply the absence of conflict. It is the presence of something: understanding, dignity, compassion, justice, belonging. It is the willingness to recognize the humanity in one another, particularly when we do not agree.

And maybe most difficult of all, peace asks us to find a place within ourselves that is spacious enough to hold difference without immediately turning difference into division.

I have been thinking about this as I prepare to read my original poem, The Power of Peace Prevails, at an upcoming International Cities of Peace event.

Poetry is one of the ways I enter that deeper place.

A poem can begin in silence, but it does not necessarily remain there.

Sometimes a poem gives language to what has been waiting quietly inside us. Sometimes it names a wound. Sometimes it opens a window. Sometimes it allows two seemingly opposing truths to sit beside one another long enough for us to discover that neither has to destroy the other.

Maybe that is part of the work of peace, too.

Not erasing our differences, demanding silence, or requiring agreement, but learning how to remain present with one another while something more compassionate emerges.

I believe peace begins there, long before treaties are signed or proclamations are made. It begins in homes and workplaces, around dinner tables and board tables. It begins in the conversations we are willing to have and the dignity we are willing to extend.

And it begins within us.

Because wholeness does not mean that every part of us agrees, either.

We can hold grief and gratitude. Certainty and questioning. Strength and tenderness. We can acknowledge the contradictions within ourselves without declaring war on any part of who we are.

Peace begins when we stop requiring ourselves, and one another, to be divided in order to belong.

There is a silence that hides what has not been healed.

And there is another kind of silence: the deep, listening silence from which understanding can arise.

True peace is born in that kind of silence.

In the space where we become quiet enough to hear ourselves, courageous enough to hear one another, and whole enough to allow difference without demanding division.

I invite you to join me at the upcoming International Cities of Peace event, where I will be sharing poetry alongside others committed to imagining and creating a more peaceful world.

Because peace is more than quiet or agreement; it is wholeness. And it's a practice.

Date: September 19, 2026

Time: 3:00 - 5:00 PM

Location: Rancho Simi Community Park, 1765 Royal Avenue, Simi Valley, CA 93065