Day of Harmony

Day of Harmony Today my fellows is the Temples day of Harmony and International peace day. We are encouraged today to honor peace and our connection with the Force. So what does this mean? Well, frankly we can say that its all personal as are most days of note. So this sermon is one Jedi's perspective of the holiday and what I feel we can do to honor the concept. When we speak of honoring peace many people instantly think of avoiding conflict with others. Which is a good way to mark the day. However what about avoiding conflict with yourself? I believe today the best way to honor peace is to be at peace with yourself. Let go of the anger you have because you ate the cookie you should not have or didn't get as high a grade as you wanted. Forgive yourself for your failings while making an honest effort to change them. Too often the person we fight with the most is our self. We consistently tell ourselves we are too this or not enough that. We compare ourselves to others and demand that we meet their levels of fitness, discipline, academic or workplace achievement but what does that gain us? We are at that point warring with our self to be someone else. If only for today call a cease fire and just try to be the best you that you can be rather than fighting to be someone you admire. So today take the time to love yourself for who you are and give yourself a day of rest and peace. Go take a bubble bath. Go light a candle and meditate. Go read a book that soothes the mind. Whatever you must do to feel at peace do it. Whenever you get upset today acknowledge the emotion and let it pass. Tell yourself that today is a day of peace and I will not conflict with myself today. All inner warring can stop and restart tomorrow if it seems so important. But I think that we might find that after a day of peace the worries and conflicts of yesterday do not seem as worrisome as they once did. Today is also a day to honor our connection to the Force. However, I have seen it defined one thing that seems most common is the interconnected nature of life. So no matter your views on the Force honoring the connection between all living things seems like a good way to honor your connection with the living Force. If that is the case well how do we do that? How can we honor our connection to other living things? The first is to treat them with kindness and if we for some reason find that impossible then let us try for understanding and forgiveness. Because we ourselves are not perfect and thus should at least be willing to forgive as we would like others to forgive our own failings. Secondly seeking to serve the Force today is a good way to honor it. How might we serve? Well, there are as many ways to do that as there are Jedi in the world. But I have a few ideas that I feel are fun or easy ways to do this. Service towards the Force is service to other living things. So let us take a look at how we might do that A good way to serve today is to donate to a charity be that donation time, money, or goods. It can be as simple as spending a few dollars to bring needed goods to your local shelters or food pantries. Or you could go so far as to spend time working there if they take volunteers. You could also honor your connection to the Force by taking up the care of other living things, for example, start a garden or plant a tree. Or even just give your loved ones be they pet or human a special treat on you. Whatever we do remember that we seek to give service and bring peace today. However you define those things is just fine it's really the spirit or intent of the actions that matter. I hope that I have inspired you as writing this has inspired me. May the Force be with you always.