There is a story about buffalo and storms that I’ve always found fascinating.
When a storm moves across the plains, cattle are said to move away from it.
That makes sense.
There’s wind behind them. Rain. Thunder. Lightning.
So they move in the opposite direction.
The problem is that the storm is moving in the same direction. Eventually it catches them, and because they’ve been moving with it, they can spend more time inside it.
Buffalo are said to do something different.
They turn toward the storm.
They don’t enjoy storms. They aren’t immune to them.
They simply move toward the thing they cannot avoid.
And by doing so, they may get through it sooner.
I’ve been thinking about that lately.
Especially when I hear the phrase:
Protect your peace.
I understand the idea.
There are destructive relationships. Pointless arguments. People and situations that can consume us.
Sometimes walking away really is wisdom.
But I think protect your peace can make an enormous assumption:
It assumes the storm can be avoided.
I’m not sure it can.
Life has an irritating habit of catching up with us.
Avoid conflict and eventually conflict finds you.
Avoid rejection by never making yourself vulnerable and loneliness brings its own pain.
Avoid difficult conversations and sometimes the things left unsaid create problems of their own.
There is no route through life that bypasses discomfort.
There are only different storms.
Maybe that’s what the buffalo understands.
The question isn’t always:
How do I avoid the storm?
Sometimes it’s:
Which direction will I be moving when it reaches me?
There’s another problem with protect your peace.
It can treat peace like a zero-sum game.
If something creates conflict, remove it.
Conflict out.
Peace in.
Except relationships don’t work like that.
Conflict displaced isn’t necessarily conflict resolved.
Sometimes we’ve simply moved it.
One person may leave a difficult relationship and genuinely feel more peaceful.
But now a parent is grieving.
A sibling is caught in the middle.
Grandparents don’t know what they’re supposed to do.
Holidays become complicated.
Friends feel pressure they never asked for.
The original argument has stopped.
But did the conflict disappear?
Or did it just change addresses?
Sometimes silence is just conflict without sound.
I don’t say that to dismiss anyone’s need for distance.
Someone may genuinely need distance from me.
And that distance may genuinely hurt me.
Both can be true.
But perhaps we sometimes measure peace too locally.
Do I feel better now?
Maybe we should widen the lens.
What happened to everyone else?
What happened to the relationship?
What happened to the unresolved problem?
Did we create peace?
Or did we simply move the storm?
And I have to ask myself the same questions.
I’ve avoided conversations because I didn’t want an argument.
I’ve kept quiet because speaking felt uncomfortable.
I’ve hoped problems might become easier if I gave them enough time.
Sometimes they did.
Sometimes they grew teeth.
That’s the frustrating thing about storms.
Ignoring the clouds doesn’t change the weather.
Time doesn’t automatically resolve anything either.
Sometimes time heals.
Sometimes time hardens.
Sometimes distance creates perspective.
Sometimes distance becomes the new normal.
Sometimes space creates clarity.
Sometimes space becomes a canyon.
That’s why I like the buffalo.
The buffalo doesn’t need to know exactly what’s inside the storm.
It doesn’t wait for the storm to become less frightening.
It makes a much simpler calculation.
This is here.
I have to go through it.
So go.
Maybe that’s courage.
Not seeking conflict.
Not rejecting reasonable boundaries.
Not staying in genuinely harmful situations.
Just understanding that discomfort isn’t always evidence we’re moving in the wrong direction.
Sometimes discomfort is the direction.
The difficult conversation.
The apology.
The truth we don’t want to hear.
The question we’re afraid to ask.
Those things may lead directly into the storm.
But perhaps there’s a kind of peace that can only be found on the other side.
Maybe that’s the distinction.
There is peace through avoidance.
And there is peace through resolution.
At first, they can feel remarkably similar.
Both make the noise stop.
Both provide relief.
Both give us room to breathe.
But only one asks us to turn around and face what was chasing us.
And no, every conflict can’t be resolved.
Every relationship can’t be repaired.
Every storm doesn’t end the way we’d like.
But running away doesn’t guarantee sunshine either.
The storm still gets a vote.
Maybe the goal isn’t to protect our peace from every storm.
Maybe it’s to develop a peace strong enough to survive one.
A peace that can tolerate disagreement.
A peace strong enough to hear criticism.
Strong enough to apologize.
Strong enough to stay in the room when staying is difficult.
And strong enough to know when leaving truly is necessary.
That’s a different kind of peace.
It doesn’t need nearly as much protection.
So I keep thinking about the buffalo.
Not because the storm is good.
Not because the storm is fair.
Not because the storm won’t hurt.
But because sometimes the shortest way out of a storm…
is through it.
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