When I want to decouple from my busy and intense life, I tend to read fluff. Nothing shuts your brain off at the end of the day like a romance, mystery or fantasy novel. Some people like TV; it doesn’t work for me. So, in all of the regency romances (man, I’m REALLY baring my soul here!), there’s conversation about marriages of convenience.

So how is a trip to Alaska like a marriage of convenience you might ask? And what does that have to do with Peace exactly? Well, as I said, it’s not so much a marriage of convenience as it is a village of convenience. 50 people getting to know one another in 10 hour stretches. You find out a surprising amount about people… maybe not so much what they do back in the real world, but how they treat one another, how much they laugh… those things.

Well, Alaska is like Love, it seems, and conquers all. There we all were, hanging out the window oohing and ahhing at every little moose and caribou. We were joined together in wonder… and that made for a very pleasant, Peaceful village. Alaska triumphed and we all lived together Peacefully and happily, with generous offers to trade seats for great photos. It was a short-lived village, but it prospered.

Wonder. Beauty. Nature. It changes us. It helps us make Peace. Why, we wonder, don’t we let that happen more often? Why won’t we do it in the villages where we live and love everyday?