"The First Peace; My Search for the Better Angels" is a spiritual, intellectual, emotional, and perhaps educational memoir that spans fifty-plus years, eleven states, three countries, military and seminary, birth and death, marriage and divorce, three Christian denominations, and a monastery. This memoir is a journey through faith and knowledge, hope and reality, love and experience. The author attempts to reconcile what he has been taught, what he believes, what he experiences, what he knows, what he wants, and what he perceives. His unacknowledged question: What do we do when we evolve beyond the "faith of our fathers" (and/or mothers)? After a life of seeking to understand through the lens of Christianity (and other religions), the author comes to understand that religious beliefs and dogma may become a barrier to faith and understanding. The author learns that liberty entails responsibility, faith requires self-reliance, and enlightenment is found within. Liberty and freedom entail responsibility, responsibly that no other person or institution can assume for use. We remain responsible for our actions and inactions. No person, government, or religious institution can assume or remove our responsibility for our actions, for our lives. "The First Peace; My Search for the Better Angels" is an attempt to weave a tapestry of stories, ideas and ideals, ethics, experiences, and expressions - with the goal (and hope) to entertain, inform, educate, persuade, stimulate, and even challenge. Perhaps "The First Peace; My Search for the Better Angels" will remind you of your own experiences, thoughts, and feelings that provide some measure of contentment, but also some measure of challenge, even conflict. The silence beyond those reminders is where we find "the first peace" and where we are "at liberty to be real" and where "the better angels of our nature" touch us.