Gleaning Peace

I’ve said it a million times, I’m a religious not a political animal. When a vote is taken by our lawmakers, whether it’s posturing or not, to deny poor people food, I’m aghast.

75 percent of SNAP households include a child, a disabled or an elderly person. And yet that’s still not the point. People are hungry. They must be fed. We are our brothers’ and our sisters’ and our neighbors’ keepers. We are.

I feel naive and stupid… I don’t understand how this thinking enters our worldview. And it is our worldview. I don’t want to hear people say, it’s “their” fault, because people’s being fed and housed is everyone’s responsibility. That’s not socialism, that’s my moral understanding of a just world. Or maybe it is socialism, because I believe our government should provide, I don’t care. I believe that no one should go hungry in a land of plenty. That’s not an equivocating statement, that’s the most forceful statement I can make.

Somehow, we have to turn the tide… in our area we have teachers buying food and slipping it into their students’ backpacks so they can eat over the weekend. Lovely sentiment, lousy precedent. what will we do? what will we do?

One friend wrote this: “We all need to bombard our Congressmen with demands that they restore a reasonable amount to allow a person to live on SNAP. $1.40 a day is not sustainable. That amount is 1/100 of the DAILY meal allowance each Congressman receives ($137.41). We as good people cannot allow this insanity to continue!!”

It certainly puts things in perspective, doesn’t it? But some response is needed…There is no Peace when the people are hungry. There is no Peace if we are not doing what is needed, if we are not doing good.

Uncertain Waters, Complex Peace

I lean toward Pollyanna, I know that. Even when I’m prostrate with grief, I know that somewhere someone is singing: “The sun will come out, tomorrow…” and yet, as I know only too well, you can’t rush past the truth of grief… and not everything is beautiful.

Not every body of water is navigable and many are treacherous. To deny that, to defy that is dangerous; in some cases even stupid. That’s true with floods, and it’s true with simple water on stone…

So, as I look for metaphors for peace, i realize they have to include the way beautiful things have the potential to be dangerously overwhelming… All our movements toward peace need to be carefully considered, because Peace is both wildly abundant and quite carefully measured. Our job, as always, dammit, is discernment — and then adjustment.

Flooding, Frightening Peace

I puzzled before I wrote this musing and this post whether or not I could really combine Peace and Flooding. But after looking at the way neighbors responded two years ago, particularly in places like my hometown Bloomsburg, there is Peace to be marveled at. These are the moments in history where people really move beyond their societally limiting boundaries and offer hands and hearts and help.

But poor Boulder. Twelve inches of rain, in an area that almost never sees that much, would have been frightening enough. But the resultant floods and the incredible damage are overwhelming. Communication has been wiped out in many places, but at this point: Eight are known dead, hundreds are missing. Best estimate at the moment is 19,000 homes lost.

In addition, this non-historically flooding area is home to a good deal of fracking. What have the waters boiled up and spread over the land. We won’t know for a while. This adds a level of long-term fear to what’s already overwhelming.

We don’t know if this flood is a result of global climate, but there are plenty of things that say this can’t be completely discounted.

There are places to offer money… check the web. Money’s what’s needed, not goods. From other parts of the country, money makes good neighbors.

I’m trying to focus my energies on places where I can have impact. I’m not a good fracking activist or a good climatologist. I can point others towards those issues. I am good at helping people reach out and at motivating folk to do that. I will do what I can where I can. But this is another choice point where we get to ask ourselves, how much, really do we want Peace? Do we want it enough to reach out? And having reached out, understanding that that extension of the hand and heart is Peacemaking?

Can you personally do something about Boulder, other than sending money? I don’t know, I don’t know your skills. I don’t know how close you are or what kind of hard work you can provide. But can you as a result of Boulder, or whatever stirs/spurs you to action, extend your support in your community where you can do a great deal of good? I think we all can do that. It’s not always easy. It’s sometimes tedious. But it’s the practicing of Peace on a daily basis that makes the practicing of it in difficult times second nature. Stepping up when the steps are little makes climbing the big stairs easier.

So, yes. Peace. even in the floods. And perhaps, in the aftermath, some activism.

Fakin’ Peace

Since yesterday, I’ve been mulling over what it means when your teacher… and your ritual maker misrepresents herself… and realizing how meaningful her rituals were despite her claiming them as something else.

I now am fairly convinced that even the “teachings” were hers and not as represented.

There’s something so sad about having good work and not feeling confident enough about yourself that you can claim it as yours. There’s something awful about grabbing someone else’s traditions and pasting yours on top. Things have their own integrity, and we should acknowledge boundaries and take responsibility.

So here are all these great metaphors and small rituals and well-tested ritual actions and they’re besmirched a bit by falsehoods.

And yet, they led me to Peace. So maybe there is growth for the other in that. The problem is that if you’re the fraud, maybe not so much growth and a bigger wall between you and Peace.

And I looked just a bit, there might have been a water monster, who wasn’t so kind, but there were Water Little People who were helpers…

But I love the notion of a monster who thrives on problems. Bring ’em. And so we do. And leave ’em. Peace and water are often joined in a metaphor… and How fun that there might be a Peace Monster. I might have to divine what that might look like… But here’s one thing I’ll tell you… I’m not about to attach him to another tradition.

If you and I can become Peacemakers by dreaming and doing, why not dream a Peace Monster companion to gobble up the pains of the world? In the meantime, we’ll keep practicing Peace. Is that faking it until we make it? who knows… But we do what we can, as June Jordan reminds us “more than that, what can anyone ask?”

Water Monster Peace

What if some of your most profound experiences were scams? I was just doing a little research about the teacher I mention in this musing. I have kept up over the years, but never seen these notices. Oh! the blessings of the internet…

And now the question emerges… if it was a scam and it worked, does that mean it has no value. Absolutely not… Was it merely suggestive healing? Is that different from spiritual healing? If you spend a week sitting on the ground doing meditation, dreaming and rituals, even if someone made them up, does it matter? Oh, that’s great. Ya gotta laugh you know.

But I love the notion of a benign Water Monster who thrives on my problems and burps back Peace … And today, I’m longing for a 10 day sit/walk/swim/peace and quiet by some beach somewhere with warm water and a benign monster to eat my problems… Oh, there’s work to be done… so I’ll get back to it, laughing all the way…

But not about the fact this woman didn’t have the courage to say she’d thought long and hard and that these were rituals she’d designed to work on these issues. Nothing wrong with designing rituals (says the ritualist), I do it all the time. I just haven’t usurped anyone’s heritage or claimed a tribal name (I don’t think Sister Fluff and the Goddess Gospel Hour comes from any other tradition…)

But again… pack up all your cares and woes, there you go, singing low, hey ho, monster!

Teary Peace

Last night a group of my sister’s friends had a gathering at a local restaurant that Deb had loved. They all sat around and told stories about her, fun stories, stories that showed what a character she was. The fact that the staff donated their time says a lot about who Deb was. Celebration and remembrance… it’s what we require…

And I did what I hadn’t allowed myself to do up to that point, or at least in public — cried me a river… Losing Deb is world shaking. I know we lose our siblings. I know Deb was sick and not going to live a whole lot longer. It’s a good thing that she slipped away easily. I hope it’s one bright morning over yonder.

But I hate that she’s gone. She was a sweet and easy part of my daily life. One of the ironies of people’s dying is that as they become weaker, you care more for them physically and so the bonds are even more tender and close and then they leave. I honored my mantra, and kept my hands and heart open so she could leave, but now, until the cracks men in my heart and it holds love again, I’m left feeling pretty empty-handed and -hearted.

It’d be nice to think that my musings weren’t always reflective of my inner churnings, but that’s what musings are I guess. I’m aware of the importance of writing about Peace as I mourn Deb’s loss.

So, since I’ve been thinking a lot about water in the September Peace musings, it seemed inevitable that I draw the connection to life-changing tears. If the chemical composition is really different for tears of heartbreak, (can anyone help me here???) then it seems to me that they must leach the sadness out of our bodies and dilute the grief somewhat. Is there a chemical compound for grief? Do we really require 35 hours of story telling to begin to heal? What if we stop up the outpouring of our hearts and souls… how do we pollute ourselves? And then, Ann being Ann, I have to ask, how do we find the balance… because some of us certainly continue long beyond what helps us… and some of us never let loose…

But the water of Peace, sweet and refreshing… I have to believe it’s richer for the bitter tears we shed. Certainly our Love deepens…

Wading Peace Sabbath

I’ve probably watched too many Westerns and read too many stories of people escaping to freedom, but I’ve always been fascinated by the role that water can play in people’s escape from their lives.

I’m sure it wasn’t easy and that these journeys were fraught with desperation and fear, but that water could play a role in saving people is very interesting to me. The notion that water is forgiving of our humanity… I’m drawn to that.

Many of the notions in Christian baptism do not draw me… particularly infant baptism. The notion that we are born in sin, and needful of forgiveness, don’t get me started. And that isn’t quite where I’m going with this either.

This musing concerns itself with the notion that water can hide us… and transform us. Today I notice the tie to the waters of the womb where we transform for the first time and emerge new and newly aware…

It takes determination to wade in the water with an eye to coming out transformed. Whether we’re being pursued or are simply in the need of transformation… It’s a misty Sabbath morning — maybe there’s space to think about this today…

The Peace of a Stream

Oh, the ironies. Here I am, thinking about streams to cross as the streams of ending and possibility, because they’re often both, right, and completely unaware at that point of the realities of streams of liquid chaos pouring in on Boulder. What fear and devastation in the lives of those who live there. Our prayers are with them.

But I was thinking of streams, if we can wrench ourselves away from that colossal event about the streams that form boundaries in our lives. They form actual boundaries for people, the people on one side of a river have often had rivalries with those on the other, They form emotional boundaries as crossing flowing water often changes our perspective. How many historical sayings do you know about the impacts of crossing a river or a body of water?

But not crossing a stream means accepting the boundaries life places on you. It means giving up your curiosity. As much as you explore the stream on your side, there are always great possibilities on the other side. We’re meant to look beyond our shores. Peace cannot mean keeping out the other and keeping from the other. Peace, like Love, like so many other grand traits is bigger than boundaries.

And sometimes crossing a stream is not a choice. What is behind you is finished and there is only forward in life. What made me mull about this was the fact that yesterday my sister’s house sold. (in less than a week. zoom). Any lingering thoughts that life could remain in stasis for a bit are gone. No more singing that Girl Scout song that’s been on my lips for the past two weeks: “Mmmmmmmm I’d like to linger here, mmmmmmm a little longer here.”

But I like water, in fact, it’s to water I go to heal, will go to heal. And it’s water we cross for a new life, a bigger life, when we’re done playing in the shallows. However comfortable life is where we are, the grandeur of what lies beyond trumps that, even if the road is rocky. And the possibilities of Peace lure us forward with a song far more compelling than one that gently encourages us to linger…

Love. Peace.

Sometimes life is hard. As you know, I’ve been harping a bit on this this month. Trying to stay faithful to Love and Peace when your heart is broken is a challenge. And you stay faithful by not forcing yourself to work on a bruised brain.

And broken hearts and bruised brains don’t mean that nothing else will happen. There’s no insurance for this, no moratorium on the numbers of blows that can fall. Yesterday, my favorite oldest cousin called to tell me that her former husband, the father of my “nieces” had killed himself. It’s a sad, ugly and brutal story.

If you’d have asked me if I would have been able to step up and do what was needed, I’d have told you nope. But when the call comes, you pick up the phone. And then you pick it up again and offer the girls your heart. The UUs sing that old spiritual, “There Is More Love, Somewhere.” And somewhere it is. Because it’s there when you need it. And it holds you up and it carries you along. If ever Deb were with me she was with me [i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart) — thank you ee cummings] in the placing of that call. She loved those girls. She loved their girls. And so, in my grief, perhaps the love I got is the All Love and the love of Deb. Both girls said, “oh, we didn’t want to bother you.” But Love keeps swelling up and spilling out.

So there is more love, and even in the wasteland of grief, there are oases… and springs in the wilderness. Love. It leads us to Peace — because there’s more of that, too.

Peace Obscured

It’s somehow shameful in this culture to admit that something is beyond you. “Stick to it!” we say. “Find that can-do spirit.”

But sometimes it all feels overwhelming. And do you know what? Stop! It’s perfectly okay not to be able to manage everything. Not every piece of work is yours to do. It’s important to remember:

We’re not always the right person.
It’s not always the right time for anything to happen. The way may not be clear.
We’re not always in a position to do what needs to be done; we may just be sick and tired and unable to keep moving.
Someone else may have the vision that’s needed at this particular moment.

The need for Peace is never going to go away. But you have to be aware and rested to participate in the struggle. And if you’re tired? You should rest. And if you’re confused. Sit down let the clouds pass… and maybe someone will wander by with the answer. Or you can figure out where you might go to get the answer. No sense flailing about!

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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