When Peace Finds You Sitting on the Stoop.

Author’s Opening Note

New Orleans taught me something early that I did not understand until much later. Peace is not the absence of noise. If that were true, this city would never rest. Peace is learning how to breathe while the band keeps playing and the street keeps moving and the world keeps asking you questions you do not have answers for yet. I grew up watching people laugh with tears still sitting in their eyes. I watched neighbors argue loud enough to wake the dead and then share a plate five minutes later like nothing ever happened. I watched storms come in uninvited and leave scars that nobody could hide, and still somehow folks found a way to season the pot and keep living.

This reflection was not written in one sitting. I had to stop. A lot. I laughed at the wrong moments. I rolled my eyes at myself. I got up and walked away pretending I needed water when really I needed a minute to pull myself together. Writing about peace when your own heart has been pacing back and forth is not clean work. It is honest work. And honesty does not wear makeup.

There is sarcasm here because sometimes faith needs a little side eye before it settles in your bones. There is humor because pain that is never laughed at hardens into bitterness, and I refuse to let that happen to me. There is tenderness because I am still learning how to be gentle with myself when life does not move on my timetable.

I am not writing to fix anyone. I am writing to sit beside you. To remind you that difficulty does not mean The Creator stepped away or lost interest or decided you were not worth the effort anymore. I am writing because I have stood in kitchens at midnight asking questions the ceiling could not answer. I am writing because I know what it feels like to pray and then wait long enough to start wondering if your prayer got lost in traffic.

This is a two part series because peace is not a single realization. It is a practice. It is something you learn, forget, relearn, and sometimes resist. Part One sits with the struggle. It names the ache. It admits the frustration. Part Two will talk about what shifts when peace finally stops feeling like a stranger.

If you are tired, come sit down. If you are confused, you are in good company. If you are holding on by habit more than hope, stay. This reflection is not rushing you. Neither is The Creator.

Now let me tell you about finding peace when life keeps tapping your shoulder asking if you are sure you trust the plan.

Part One.

When Peace Finds You Sitting on the Stoop.A  Reflection on Holding On While Life Refuses to Hurry

Written by

Kāteb Shunnar

Peace does not usually show up when you invite it. That was the first lesson. Peace comes when it feels like everything else has already taken all the good seats. When the room is crowded with doubt, frustration, unanswered prayers, and well meaning advice that does not help at all. Peace walks in late, looks around, and still expects you to make room.

I used to think peace would arrive once things settled down. Once the money straightened itself out. Once the diagnosis came back clean. Once the apology arrived the way it was supposed to. Once life stopped acting like it had a personal problem with me. New Orleans cured me of that fantasy real quick. This city does not settle down. It improvises. And somehow that is where peace learns how to live.

Finding peace in difficulty feels backwards. It feels disrespectful to the pain at first. Like you are betraying your struggle by smiling or resting or laughing at something dumb on television when everything is still unresolved. I wrestled with that. I thought peace meant pretending things did not hurt. It does not. Peace means you stop letting the hurt make all your decisions.

There were seasons when I felt forgotten. Not dramatically. Quietly. That is worse. The kind of forgotten where nothing crashes, nothing explodes, nothing forces attention. Just silence. Just waiting. Just days stacked on top of each other like unwashed dishes. I would pray and then sit there like well alright then. That is it. That is the prayer. Now what.

The Creator never answered me the way I expected. That should have been my clue. I wanted explanations. The Creator offered presence. I wanted timelines. The Creator offered enough strength to get through the day I was standing in. I wanted certainty. The Creator offered assurance without details, which felt rude at first, if I am being honest.

Better is coming is easy to say when your shoes are dry. It hits different when you are standing ankle deep in something you did not choose. But New Orleans knows about water. This city knows about waiting for it to recede. Knows about trusting that dry ground will show up again even when it looks like everything familiar has been rearranged.

I had to learn that peace does not mean liking what is happening. Peace means trusting The Creator enough to believe that what is happening is not the end of the story. It means believing that what is ahead holds more kindness than what is behind, even when your memory keeps replaying the highlight reel of disappointment.

There is a folklore my grandmother used to tell that does not belong to any book or archive. She said it belonged to the street. She talked about a man who lived near the river who complained every day about the current. Said it moved too slow when he was in a hurry and too fast when he was afraid. One day he decided to fight it. He stood there yelling at the water like it owed him an apology. An elder walked by and said you can curse the river all you want, but it is still going where it is going. You can learn how to move with it or you can wear yourself out arguing.

That story sat with me longer than sermons ever did.

I realized I had been arguing with the current of my own life. Calling delay disrespect. Calling difficulty punishment. Calling silence abandonment. When really I was being carried in a direction I could not yet see clearly. Peace showed up when I stopped demanding explanations and started listening for reassurance.

The Creator has not abandoned you. I know it feels like it sometimes. Especially when prayers feel like they bounce off the ceiling and fall back down unanswered. But proximity does not always announce itself loudly. Sometimes it hums. Sometimes it waits. Sometimes it sits quietly until you are ready to notice it.

New Orleans faith is not neat. It is lived in. It prays loud and laughs louder. It questions and still believes. It complains and still shows up. That is the kind of faith that finds peace even when things are unfinished.

There were days I had to talk to myself like a stubborn friend. Alright now. Breathe. You are still here. You have survived worse. The Creator has not brought you this far to get bored and walk away. Relax your shoulders. Unclench your jaw. Peace is not asking you to give up. It is asking you to stop fighting what you cannot control and focus on what you can carry.

Trusting the timing does not mean liking the wait. It means believing the wait is not empty. It means believing satisfaction is ahead even if hunger is what you feel right now. It means understanding that difficulty is not evidence of displeasure. Often it is evidence of preparation.

Peace found me in small moments. In morning light through the window. In music playing from a passing car. In laughter that surprised me. In realizing I was still standing even after thinking I would not be.

And that is where Part One rests. In the middle. In the waiting. In the learning. Peace is not finished with you yet.

Part Two: When Peace Stops Visiting and Finally Moves In

Where borrowed calm gets tired of commuting and decides to live in you

There’s a moment quiet, sneaky, almost rude when you realize peace has been lying to you. Not maliciously. Just… casually. Like a friend who keeps saying, “I’m five minutes away,” but never quite pulls up. For a long time, peace only visited me. Stopped by when things were smooth. Came through when the bills were paid, the people were acting right, and the world wasn’t testing my last nerve before noon. Peace was seasonal. Situational. A guest. And I treated it like that.

I’d borrow it. Hold it gently. Try not to break it. And always always expect it to leave.

That’s how most of us do it, whether we admit it or not. We act like peace is some borrowed sugar from the neighbor. Use it sparingly. Don’t get too comfortable. Because deep down, we assume it ain’t really ours. Not permanently. Not with our history. Not with our temperament. Not with everything we’ve survived and everything we still haven’t healed from.

But then comes the shift.

And the shift doesn’t announce itself with trumpets or thunder. This ain’t Mardi Gras. There’s no parade. No beads flying through the air. It’s quieter than that. It shows up like a realization you didn’t ask for, sitting heavy in your chest one random day when you’re washing dishes or driving down Claiborne, talking to yourself like you always do.

You catch yourself not reacting the way you used to.

Something that once would’ve had you spiraling, snapping, rehearsing arguments in your head like a courtroom drama… just doesn’t. You pause. You breathe. You shrug. And that’s when it hits you.

“Oh. This is different.”

Peace didn’t just visit.

Peace unpacked.

See, borrowed peace always feels fragile. Like it can shatter if somebody says the wrong thing or looks at you sideways. Borrowed peace needs conditions. It needs cooperation from everybody else. It needs life to behave. And life especially down here does not behave. Life got a little attitude. A little spice. A little “I’m gonna do what I want.”

So borrowed peace stays nervous.

But when peace finally moves in? When it belongs to you? Oh, it acts different.

It sits on your couch like it pays rent.

It stops apologizing.

It doesn’t jump every time chaos knocks on the door.

That kind of peace comes from realizing you don’t owe your anger constant attention. You don’t owe your bitterness loyalty. And you definitely don’t owe every offense a response. Some things deserve silence. Some people deserve distance. And some battles deserve to be skipped entirely, not because you’re scared—but because you’re tired of wasting good energy on foolishness.

Let’s be honest. A lot of our anger ain’t even fresh. It’s reheated. Leftovers from stuff that happened years ago, still sitting in the microwave of our mind, getting warmed up every time somebody presses the wrong button. We stay mad out of habit. Like it’s tradition. Like it’s part of who we are.

“I’ve always been like this.”

Yeah. And?

At some point, peace looks at you and says, “You done yet?”

Because anger, for all its noise, doesn’t really prove strength. It proves attachment. It proves you’re still letting something old rent space in your present. And bitterness? Bitterness is just anger that missed its exit and decided to settle in. It sours everything. Even the good stuff. Especially the good stuff.

I used to think holding onto anger made me sharp. Alert. Protected. Like staying mad kept me from being played. But all it really did was keep me tense. Kept me rehearsing pain like it was a script I couldn’t put down. And peace? Peace doesn’t live well in a house full of rehearsed grudges.

Here’s the funny part once peace moves in, you realize how loud your life used to be.

Not on the outside.

On the inside.

All that internal arguing. All that explaining yourself to people who were never trying to understand you in the first place. All that emotional noise. Gone quiet. Not because the world got kinder but because you stopped needing the world to cooperate for you to be okay.

That’s grown peace.

That’s New Orleans peace.

It’s the kind that knows storms will come, so it boards the windows without panicking. The kind that dances anyway. The kind that laughs at pain not because it doesn’t hurt, but because it refuses to let hurt be the final word.

You start moving different when peace belongs to you. You don’t chase closure. You don’t beg for apologies. You don’t explain yourself to folks committed to misunderstanding you. You let people be wrong. Let situations be unfinished. Let life unfold without gripping it like it’s about to run off.

And yes sometimes you laugh at yourself. Because you realize how dramatic you used to be about things that didn’t deserve a whole performance.

Not everything needs a speech.

Not everything needs a reaction.

Some things just need to pass.

That’s when peace stops feeling borrowed and starts feeling inherited. Like something the Creator intended for you all along, but you were too busy clutching pain to receive it.

And the wild thing? Once peace moves in, it doesn’t make you passive. It makes you precise. You choose your battles. You choose your words. You choose your people. And you choose yourself not selfishly, but sanely.

Peace finally belongs to you when you stop proving you’re hurt and start protecting what’s healed.

That’s the shift.

And once it happens, you’ll never go back to borrowing calm like it’s a favor.

You’ll know.

This time it’s home.

Author’s Closing Words

If this reflection reached you, please share it by any positive means. Let it travel further than I can. If you are able, please consider donating to support the writer and the blog. Your support keeps this work alive and ensures that messages like this reach hearts that need them. The Creator has given us something worth sharing. Let us share it together.

Written by Kāteb Shunnar