Shalom: the eternal verity, the poet's muse, the prophet's grail, the lover's glint, the pilgrim's lighted trail. A word so rich in meaning, it loses a little something of itself in its mere utterance, as though no set of letters, however artfully strung together or reverently spoken, is ever capable of adequately conveying the power of the ideal that lies behind them. . . .
To speak of peace is to speak of completeness, proportion, and balance. In the words of Emily Dickinson, it is "to comprehend the whole." Peace is the Zen paradox whereby we can lack everything and still want for nothing, because wholeness is not a function of meeting our desires but of releasing ourselves from their power. To be at peace is to translate something of the purity of God's nature into human terms.
— Erik Kolbell, What Jesus Meant