Lying Fallow for Peace

We spend too much time being busy. I was about to say we spend too much time working. But we’re just as involved in structured play and self-improvement. Busyness.

We’re sleep deprived, tired, and as a result, a little bit grumpy all the time.

I don’t believe you have to be at Peace to bring about Peace, but I do believe you have to at least know what it looks like. You need moments to help you understand and to give you something to strive toward.

What would it be like to have a few moments, just a few to start with, to yourself when you had no expectations of yourself, where you could just experience doing nothing.

I think a little personal Peace would be good for all of us; it would make us ready to do teh work for much bigger and more complex kinds of Peace.

Rowing Away to Peace. Will You Join Me?

This is the most alluring picture. Can’t you feel the boat’s invitation to get in, set off? It’s such a still picture and yet, the invitation seems almost urgent, doesn’t it? Come, explore

The picture’s deceptively beautifully calm. I see and I sense the “as above so below,” but is that really true?

And will we know if we don’t get in the boat?

This picture reminds me of a guided visualization I do… You take a boat that is rowed to the island of Peace. When I saw this picture, i thought, ah, there, That’s the boat I’ve been waiting for. It’s dangerous. It’s daring. And it’s so incredibly calming.

Will we find Peace if we don’t get in the boat? Will we become Peacemakers if we don’t take the risk to explore Life’s Beauty?

I don’t really think so. Peace. Get in the Boat.

Oh, for Peace’s Sake, Celebrate!

I always think it’s appropriate to celebrate Milestones. I also think it’s appropriate to celebrate sunsets. Celebrations don’t need to be full on parties for three hundred. They can be a soft, sweet pause. A simple let’s stand together and look at that sunrise/cloud/bird is important.

Milestones matter. Now I say that at the same time I wince about the celebrity mentality that says I must be at the center of a very large everything. That’s not what i mean by celebrations. I think more about a caress rather than a gala.

Something as simple as a shared piece of cake is a lovely celebration. I certainly don’t need a whole piece of cake to say life is grand. I’ve had plenty in my life… but a forkful of deliciousness? mmmm. hurrah.

So here’s to you and all you celebrate! We’ll all long for a forkful of Terri’s chocolate lavender tart. I hoist my cup of tea to you. If we help one another celebrate the little things that astonish and delight… we make space for Peace. Let’s celebrate Peace each time we see it. Let’s throw Peace a party and let people understand how delicious it is. Because the world needs celebration and the world needs Peace. Desperately.

Quiet Dawn of a Working Sabbath Morning

Huh, as I write this I think, my friends celebrate the Sabbath from Friday night into Saturday. Technically, we celebrate from Saturday night into Sunday, although for each group if we grab a couple hours and put them aside we’re lucky.

But what if we thought of the weekends as holy? The whole thing. Treated them and ourselves with a bit of reverence? Offered ourselves a bit of respite, maybe even some learning. A bit of play? Some yard work… clean out a drawer… Something reflective…

Something as reflective as this river is reflective. Something as blue and gold and rose. Something as full of clarity as this fresh spring air.

Sabbath… For clergy it’s a working respite… which seems odd, but there you are nonetheless. I have to plan my morning carefully so that what i’m doing comes from a place of reflection.

Today, really is a working day for my community as we have our annual meeting and look at budgets and make plans for the year ahead of us.

Dawn’s gift is clarity and observation in some traditions… I’ll take that this morning, yes indeed I will… and hope for a day of sweet Peace… for us and for everyone. Love. Peace. Blessings.

Never Too Late for Beauty or Peace

Sunsets often transform cloudy skies into wild beauty. There you’ve been, moping along all day, complaining about the clouds or the rain or the mist, and the Sun, on the way out door, headed home for the night, takes advantage of the moment and turns the sky into Beauty.

It can steal your breath and stop you in your tracks. And oh, I hope so. Paying attention is so very important. When we’re offered Beauty, we should take advantage of it.

It’s good to remember this when we’re gloomy about the prospects of Peace. We can be the transforming Beauty. We need to be.

Silliness for Peace

Sometimes, I confess, my brain makes weird (wonderful) loops. I think this was one of them. You may or may not…

But the horse just looked so “newsy” as my mom would have called her. (I guess you couldn’t mention noses in her house while they were growing up. She always said cows were newsy.)

And the dog was so disinterested in what was going on. snugly tucked against the warm barn wall, catching a snooze in the sun.d

Next thing you know, there I was anthropomorphizing! And amusing myself. There are worse things!

And if you’re going to work for Peace, you’re going to have to find your sweetness and light where you can, because often Peace is very heavy going. Not always, but often enough!

So here’s to laughter and to silliness, and to fabulous new red shoes. And oh, yeah, here’s to Peace

The Right Tools for Peace

Since we all make Peace differently, it’s important we find the tools that help us do the work. Sometimes they’re little things that fit in our hands, other times they rearrange the world.

Who we are and how we make Peace is really the question, isn’t it?

What is the discipline we use to develop our Peace-making muscles? What are the tools we need to help us? Who is our team?

How do we make Peace?

And more prosaically… how do we find pleasure in the small, strange things?

Puffballs of Peace

Dandelions. Once the most hated lawn weed, not elevated to hero status. The bees love them. So do birds. And who knows who else. But the bees. The bees we’ve almost driven to extinction — partially by our lawn care products — love dandelions and are encouraged by their existence. hurrah.

No more sending kids out with senseless weapons (did anyone ever come back from an encounter with a lawn full of dandelions without blisters and at least one stick wound?).

The dandelions were fierce in their determination to stay. Maybe we should have listened to them rather than developing chemicals to extinguish them.

What if we let ourselves stand for Peace like those determined bursts of brilliant color? What if we were useful in every way, doing one kind of work at one point and another kind at another. What if we were persistently cheerful and called others to our assistance working hard to make the world beautiful? What if we could shake our heads and disseminate Peace seeds in every direction, rest a bit and come back and do it again?

Let us be dandelions for Peace, cheerful, persistent, prolific, profligate, even! They offer such great lessons! We can learn them! Let them proliferate and teach more of us… and oh, take care of the bees.

Spring Showers & Peace

There’s crazy Beauty out there. Spring! Spring! Spring! It’s sometimes hard to remember that it’s the showers that are part of what brings the Beauty. And it’s hard to imagine that May flowers could have anything on this!

Everywhere you look something wonderful is happening!

What if we looked for small pockets of Peace the way we look for small pockets of violets? What if we looked at dandelions and saw their beauty, their tastiness, and their importance to bees. We could discover a lot, I’m sure, that we didn’t realize was Peace.

Let’s do that! Let’s look for Peace! Let’s be it! Let’s bloom and flourish and spread like wildflowers, shall we? Here we come after the showers, May flowers to the rescue!

Making Time for Peace

You think life looks one way and it does, for a while. And then it changes. And so do you.

Waking on my 64th, somewhat bemused that this is where I am in life, I’m aware of two things:

How very lucky I’ve been in love and family and life experience.
How precious the time we have is.

So we need to make it count. We must be thankful and celebrate, that’s for certain. We must also be accountable. It falls to us to make it wonderful for others. We’re the ones to make Peace. We’re the only ones who can.

So thank you. Thank you so much!

There have been times in my life when I’ve felt that the losses in my life have left huge crevices that will never be filled — but the sweet friendship and kindness of so many are brilliant stones and shining pearls that have filled up those crevices with Beauty. The ache for those gone before is replaced by astonishment for those here. What’s not to celebrate?

Love! Peace! Blessings! oh, Hurrah!

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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