JOY OF PEACE, Sundararaju Madri.

Joy of peace Joy is not found in the idiotic giggle of the buffoon, nor in the pleasure of the sensualist bogged down by the whims of the flesh. Joy is rooted in God and the things that pertain  to God. The joy that springs from peace would be appreciated more if the meaning of peace itself were better understood. It is a disservice to the concept of peace to think of it as merely a lack of disturbance. Peace is far from being a negative quality. On the contrary a positive quality becomes evident from the classic definition of peace give by Augustine. He says that peace is the tranquility of order. Perhaps the greatest visible manifestation of order is the precise movement of the billions of stars and planets though space. We believe that God created, has arranged the motion of the heavenly bodies. We talk about peaceful weather. Or a peaceful. Sea not because there is no weather, nor sea, but because the elements constituting them are in order. It is true that joy is found in that absence of disturbance which is the negative aspect of peace. The explosive joy that followed the singing of the armistice ending world war I. it was so  great that it was memorized  through the establishment of a national holiday. But even in a case like this the joy is based, not merely on the cessation of warfare, but the return of fighting men to the positive order of peaceful civil life. The cause of religion is hardly severed by those who give the impression that religious peace is something dull and joyless. Energetic spirits are naturally repelled by a peace whose main characteristic appears to be boredom. Those who love life and action cannot be blamed if They are adversely affected by the unfortunate and silly idea of heaven as a place where the saints stand around forever singing psalms. The God who created life and energy in its manifold forms would hardly inhabit a heaven marked by such dullness. He who fashioned man's body for action would not ask him to settle down in his glorified state to an eternity of in action.