Essays, Art and Plays by Dan

I keep asking myself—
why is peace the hardest thing to practice
with the people I love the most?

I can speak gently to strangers,
offer patience to a world I barely know,
yet at my own table, my voice sharpens, my heart armors up.
Why?

Peace, I’ve learned, is not silence.
Peace is courage—quiet courage—
the bravery to pause when I want to strike,
to listen when I want to be right.

I want peace to be a grand gesture,
a treaty signed, a wrong confessed, a door flung open.
But peace keeps arriving smaller than that.
It shows up as a breath I choose to take,
a sentence I choose not to finish,
a question asked instead of an accusation hurled.

What if peace begins when I admit
that I, too, am confused and uncertain.
That my anger is often fear in disguise,
that my certainty is sometimes just noise?
What if peace is me saying,
“Help me understand,”
instead of, “Here is why you’re wrong”?

In my family, peace looks like forgiveness practiced daily,
not once, not loudly, but faithfully.
In my community, it looks like showing up—
again and again—
even when it’s uncomfortable,
especially when it’s uncomfortable.

Peace is built by small, defiant acts:
sharing a meal with someone who disagrees with me,
standing between insult and injury,
choosing dignity over victory.

I see now—
peace is not something I demand from others.
It is something I model,
something I carry into every room I enter.

And maybe that is how it spreads—
not like thunder,
but like light—
one steady flame,
passed carefully, from
hand to trembling hand.