Mysterious Peace, llvl

In between writing this musing celebrating the glories of Autumn mornings and my rather late start to my blog post, I attended a Town Council Committee meeting in Bloomsburg (a neighboring town) which is considering enacting a non-discrimination clause. They’re looking at this because a bridal shop refused to do business with two lesbians looking for wedding gowns because their marriage would be unbiblical. (don’t get me started about the Bible and marriage.)

Here’s the one thing I’ll say in their defense. They have been hacked and they have received death threats. Their pastor wondered who would stand for them. Um, the police and the FBI. Those things are illegal.

This is not a religious issue, this is a civil rights issue.

What the mists slowly revealed along with all the bounty and the beauty was ignorance and fear. People don’t understand what freedom of religion is. People don’t understand what discrimination is. And perhaps to my mind the worst is that people don’t understand that they need to stand up for what is right.

The bridal shop has a perfect right to go out of business based on their religious beliefs and become martyrs. But people have a right to be served in the public sphere. The lawyer assured me that the specter of gold stars could not be raised because there were laws protecting people. Um, I don’t think he knew what specter means… and when someone said “I’m not protected,” he said, well, no…

I was bitterly disappointed that there were no mainstream Christian clergy represented today, standing on the side of love and justice. I’m sorry the council allowed people to talk about sharia law and didn’t stop them and explain (why yes I stood up then) that in fact enacting Christian laws IS the equivalent of shaira laws.

This is an important issue, my dears, people’s right to housing and employment is at stake. We like to think that “they” could just take their business elsewhere, but the fact is if you’re open for business, you’re open for business… And the GLBTQ folk deserve to be protected — because they are people. And as long as they’re not protected they’re at risk and we’re complicit in that risk. Let’s go.

Shaky Peace, llvl

People often say, “oh, I wouldn’t want to live there” as they watch people deal with flood, earthquakes, tornados, droughts. But the fact is there’s not a place on Mother Earth where both the Earth and Nature don’t have their way with us.

When the land moves in CA and when volcanoes explode in Iceland, it’s frightening. And it’s the Earth, stretching, belching doing what it’s always done.

But when we see escalating storms and extreme weather patterns, when the winds rise and the waters decline from our actions we do little or nothing.

It’s true but frightening, the Earth will go on without us. We, however, will not do much without the Earth. At what point are we moved to make Peace with our lives and the future of our children and their children?

Not Really Trying Peace, llvl

It’s possible that I’m the only person in the world not living up to her potential, not being consistent and concerned. If so, read this to scoff. If not, maybe there’s something here for you.

If you’ve been following me, you know I was privileged to spend five weeks in Sweden with dear, dear friends. Never has working hard at friendships paid off so insanely well. And really, if you’ve got kids, consider Rotary’s year abroad. It’s no less than life-changing.

One of the many things I really noticed (and if I don’t write them down, how will I remember?) is how different their approach to packaging is. How little they use anti-bacterial soaps. How efficient their household appliances are. Their waters are clean, You stop to pick up the few pieces of litter. You ride a bike or a bus or a train. (If it’s any consolation, they also flunk infrastructure renewal.) Their veterinary practices concerning antibiotics are the gold standard for the world…

Life is cleaner there. And before you start telling me it’s easier because Sweden is smaller… stop. It’s the same size as many of our states, and it seems we compete for worst polluters. Nature and Mother Earth are just as badly affected by our litter and pollution here as they are anywhere. How do we hold the Earth as sacred?

I’m someone who understands at least a bit the results of lackadaisical attention to the world and the climate… and yet, I do things out of laziness. There is no culture that encourages and teaches us (because I don’t believe I’m the only culprit, which isn’t an excuse for my bad behavior, it’s just a reality.) to reduce our use of products/medicines/ that pollute, ok, let’s say damage, our environment.

So I’m going to start, painstakingly, doing it differently… I hope we all will. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Sadly Seeking Peace, llvl

It always seems unthinkable when a child dies. All that promise suddenly disappearing from life. The laughter, the scents, the quirky mind, the strengths and the foibles — all gone in an instant.

A million whys, a thousand: well how did it happens can’t change the sad reality — can’t help us escape which is really what we’re wanting.

I’ve been thinking about child death a lot recently: the news reeks with it. I’m too familiar with this — too many dead children in my life. Too many dead children in the world that has become immured to the sight and forgotten the individual horror in these mass killings…

And then a chance encounter in the back yard with my senior high neighbor whose friend had just died with that agonizing burden of a friend, recently seen, now gone. Asking the hows and the whys but really, just wanting his friend back.

As a minister, I need to call those in my community whose hearts are breaking, the parents, the kids — oh the kids. Making dates to enfold and love. Standing steady for those who have collapsed in grief… Thinking gratefully that I have been so filled up from this summer that I can stand firmly in love for them. This is their tragedy not mine…

But inside, as a sister, oh, I missed my sister as I recall receiving my father’s call about my nephew and making the call about my niece. Sweet and Holy One, can I really have had to tell my sister and her husband their only remaining child was dead? And we were the ones who always called each other when bad news broke.

Please, my dears, say nothing other than oh, I’m so sorry, Oh, your poor hearts, O your blessed child. Release the I don’t know how you bear its because they have no choice… They don’t know how they bear it either. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. Call your family together, gather with your neighbors, immerse yourselves in Love, because Life is so damned precious and so damned fleeting. Peace eludes us in these moments. Hope is too far away. Only Love can keep our hearts beating in one common humanity of grief and eventually acceptance and then the far off healing of a grievous scar. Let us tend to one another and let us weep… Each child in each vida local, precious and needed. Each parent’s loving heart…

Peace Is Not the Color of Blood, llvl

Yesterday in this blog, I wrote, in dying color, thinking back to an old ad for some film process… and it pierced my heart.

I allowed myself to go on retreat. We all need that. Whatever we do. As a person of faith and action, I’ve needed some time to fill up, to be at rest, to be in prayer. It was amazing. But, when we’re done, we come home, back to the world.

Coming back to this world right now has been shocking. Someone said there are 47 different wars going on right now. I don’t know if that counts Fergeson, MO. The level of violence is gruesome and grisley and overwhelming.

I’m not sure what the best response for me is at the moment. But I’m thinking. I’m reading. I’m praying (hard). I’m talking with my counselors… I’m searching, in what I hope is not just a Pollyanna way for Hope… looking for ways that I might contribute to Peace in whatever fashion I may. One fashion will be feeding children, that’s for sure.

But I’m also mourning. And at the same time, my courage and conscience are firming. All children are our children. I believe there is another way or rather other ways. I know so many who are finding small ways forward. I hope we all are. Forward into Peace.

Fracturings of Peace, llvl

So. I made a zombie reference and used an adjective as a noun in order to make a really bad pun. Quelle horreur. Can I use my lack of sleep, jet lag and incomprehensible overlooking my need for caffeine? nah, probably not. As my buddy, Lenore, says, it is what it is.

There is so much that is terrible in the world. It may not be any more than is often terrible in this world and simply that we now live in a facebook reality where everything is not only heard but seen, in dying color.

I’m unable to shake clear to sort the laundry and people are being slaughtered — in my country and in others. Oppressed, in my country and in others. Derided…

And there are pieces of Peace to be tenderly put back together. Some days, we can’t do more than know that… and realize that the tomorrows are for getting back to work.

Hazy Peace, llvl

Wow… woke up in my bed, in my home, in my hometown. Well, my body did. My brain is still in transit… Jet lag… the wonderful gift that gives reality a chance to settle in.

I am so grateful for the journey that leads away from and eventually back to home. Grateful for the perspective on the life you have and a life you had part in…

This morning my foggy brain can’t quite focus, but can’t get over the joy of seeing/touching my life here… even while my heart aches for the missing of those friendships. I’ve stood at that airport too many time gasping at the shock of saying goodbye.

But nothing like 7 hours of limbo in an airport to focus your longing for home!

I’ll make sense tomorrow… Today, I am just grateful for the richness of my life and a little bit sad for the missing of people I love… This intercontinental travel thing… it’s clear we haven’t perfected the beaming ourselves to wherever we want to go… our hearts take longer to re-assimilate than our bodies do… never mind our minds!

Living la vida local, the privilege and the longing. Loving the Peace of there and using that Love and that Peace to fuel the Peace of here… as the time lag allows!

Heartbreaking Peace, llvl

For 45 years, I’ve traveled to Sweden. And for 44 years, I’ve had to open my hands and let go at the airport. Often it was because I was leaving. Sometimes it was because people had come to visit and they were leaving me. I know when I left 44 years ago, I had never cried so hard in all my life. For months.

Maybe I knew even then that that particular dream, however lovely, wasn’t mine.

But mostly it’s because Love is such a sticky thing, it binds you. And deep and true friendship doesn’t happen every day…

A young woman asked me the other day, “don’t you miss Sweden when you leave? Don’t you miss Lorraine?” Oh, I do, I replied, but I love my home, my friends, my work, my family. My life is unbelievably sweet…

And yet… one of the sweetest parts of my heart lives across the ocean from me. I see these beloved friends far more often than most people see old friends, because it’s a priority for me… I need those doses of both love and difference.

But oh, the airport. A place of joy, because journey’s are exciting. And a place of deep sadness as you open your heart and hands and let go the Peace and Love that live here…

I have a whole flight to anticipate the Peace and Love at home and gradually allow this Peace to enrich the memories I already carry in my heart. Farväll…vi ses…

Homebody Peace, llvl

I always say I love to travel. And I do… after a fashion. I’m more adventurous with someone I love… but otherwise, I’ve realized that I travel to places I feel at home.

There are some places I’d love to see, but I keep thinking… oh, I could use that time and money to see people I love.

I think I like traveling to places where I know where the teacups are kept and I don’t have to say “Mother, may I?” to put the kettle on…

Sometimes it’s hard to settle all these lovely pictures of home into their puzzle but for me it’s worth the struggle. These places add to who I am, they inform me and my world view and they let me loll about in Love, sweet Love…

I’ve needed Sweden and my sense of home here in Kristinehamn after Deb’s death. In particular, Lorraine is home to me… she’s known me so long, so consistently. I hadn’t cried with her since my mom died, since Deb died. In her presence it was safe to look at how big the loss has been because in her presence my heart is filled.

Home, where who I am makes a difference… because Home is the easiest place to make a difference.

Thanks, my Swedish Friends, for the cups of tea and chats about things that matter and things that amuse. Hello, my Central PA friends, I’m coming home. Home to where we care about what happens to kids with no weekend foods. Home where we can imagine being the Valley with No Hungry Children. Home to where the blues and Jazz run Susquehanna cool and refreshing. Home where my love lives. Home where my friendships are also deep and true… Home where I know where lots of you keep your teacups…

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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