Making Miracles, Making Peace — At the Kitchen Table

Women don’t gather enough. Our lives are insanely busy so when we’re going to wind up in someone’s kitchen with enough to do other than complain I don’t know, but I do think Kitchen Tables can be magic. And the work done around them is Miraculous.

Not only does food get prepped or tasks accomplished, lives get discussed and bettered over tea or coffee and some smidgen of something sweet. If we set ourselves to the task of peace building, who knows what could be accomplished?

Maybe we just start with with gathering and sharing our lives. But sooner or later, someone’s going to say something and all that collective wisdom will come pouring out. It might be a personal problem that gets resolved if not solved, a plan for tackling a problem with the local playground, or an idea about changing your corner of the world.

And in the meantime, tea. with friends. Your own life miraculously better in some small ways. A million of these miracles, and life starts improving everywhere.

Simplistic? You betcha! Fairly simple, also true. Worth trying. Absolutely. Better if you include people who don’t look like you? Yes. Let’s start making Peace an old fashioned way. Piece together those miracles at the kitchen tables. Peace. We can do this and we must. Let’s try something we’re not doing. Because Peace needs us. I’ve always been in awe of what happens at Kitchen Tables. They’re still they’re. Maybe we just need to visit a bit more. It’s worth a try. Peace is always worth the effort.

Are There Miracles? Is There Peace?

We know that Spring happens, but it still feels miraculous to see those flowers burst forth — and to weather the early spring storms. The brilliant green of June, the blink of fireflies in July, I can name you something in every month of the year that we find miraculous either because they take our breath away or restore our hope.

Should we quibble that they’re not technically miracles? Because they really, really, really feel like miracles.

And what about things like friendship and romance. They develop across the most unlikely barriers and differences. Are there sweeter miracles than these?

All the impediments sometimes don’t seem to make a difference and love blossoms and flourishes, just as the narcissi flourish in the Spring.

So, isn’t it possible that something as ridiculous, as astonishing, and as unlikely as Peace could also bloom and flourish? Imagine the first perfect strawberry you eat in a season. Peace might taste like that. Strawberries are possible. Why not Peace?

And if miracles are possible, what would it take to keep them happening. The Earth does a pretty good job with Spring, although heaven knows, humans are doing their best to screw that up. And people keep falling in love and friendship, despite the barriers. So how do we keep Peace happening? How do we encourage it’s burgeoning?

Let’s Peace. Let’s find out. Let’s be the Miracles we need in this world.

The Peace of Not What You Were Waiting For

Spring is so beautiful and so powerful. The force of life returning, reaching through cold soil for the sun is overwhelming and will not be stopped.

However, bits and pieces can be interrupted. This year, it was.

This magnificent magnolia was on her way. She was filled to the brim with dazzle, ready to delight.

But the freeze was insistent. Nothing personal. The freeze wasn’t thinking about the magnolia at all.

The freeze just won the weather battle that day, and the beautiful magnolia turned brown and withered away… The flowering beauty won’t appear until next year, weather willing.

And we’re left with the reality that life doesn’t always give us what we’re waiting for. The freeze has its own icy beauty. And we must make Peace with that.

Sweet Peaceful Food Memories

Food is important in so many ways. Certainly for the sustenance and nourishment of our bodies. As a nation, we don’t eat well. We don’t nourish ourselves and create comfort foods from things that are healthy for us. We’re still creating comfort foods that were good fuel for people who worked on farms and in factories rather than foods for folk who sit and think and push buttons on machines. There’s work to do on that.

But food doesn’t just nourish, it carries Ceremony and Memory as well. There are special foods for different ceremonies and occasion. So when we gather we make this dish or that. When eat a festal food, we remember all the times we gathered. It’s so powerful.

Case in point? A friend just told the story of a woman’s posting about her mother’s cinnamon rolls on FB and the whole family chimed in. We remember. Granny, the comfort and the taste of warm cinnamon and bread dough in our mouths.

These days, we eat treats all the time. Very little is special. We had snacks growing up, but they were saltines with peanut butter on them. Desserts were carefully limited, at least at my house. Leftover habits from times (like the not so far away war) when sugar was in short supply and not so cheap. But now sugar has become a mainstay and there’s nothing special about it. The really bad thing about this is that sugar is not good for us. We need to eat it sparingly. A treat needs to be just that. Something special, something very closely held. A world of instant gratification is not excited about this.

So how do we have festal foods? Foods that we eat only on special occasions? Maybe each month should have a food celebration. Maybe some of them could be healthy. The First Asparagus of Spring, The First Tomato of Summer. The First Peach.The Cookies of the Winter Celebrations. The First Baked Potato of Fall. By withholding and then elevating those foods become longed-for treats.

And then? We will remember them. I’ve heard arguments both ways as to whether sweets are the things we taste best in old age, but it’s true that they satisfy. Mom was so happy when I would come with something special. Something deeply darkly chocolate or richly creamy. mmmmmm.

And she would smile at me and we would cuddle. We did it more often because there was little she could revel in. It brought such pleasure to both of us. I had a long sad time period of people’s dying. And I was very clear that I would eat with them the foods that nourished not just their bodies but their souls. They were leaving their bodies soon, and their bodies were betraying them. But their souls were still lovely things.

End result for me, a lifetime of memories and and extra 25 pounds. So now my job is to lose that 25#…. And occasionally, to have a celebratory panna cotta and remember her.

Making Peace with both Life and Death — appreciating the comfort that food can offer the dying and the bereaved. It’s a wonderful thing. Peace be with you. Eat wonderful food. Eat festival foods sparingly and good for you foods with abandon. We are so lucky. Peace.

Front Row Seats on Life and Peace

The show of Life changes. Every day. When I wrote this poem I didn’t expect the second picture. But Deb thought to go back and take it. So, first the surprise, then the musing.

Today’s my Sabbath, my sit back, review, and enjoy day. Today’s sky is bright and beautiful. I checked these forsythia yesterday afternoon as I was coming home, and the snow had melted and they were all perky again. Life has her own ways. We either get on board, or we miss the show.

Every day it’s a different Sunrise. Every day life is beautiful. Some days are black and white. Some days are filled with color. It’s on us to find the beauty in both. Pictures: worth a thousand words. So maybe i should stop and just say… Peace, my friends. Peace. Let’s make it. (Surprise!!!)

Making Peace with What’s Below the Surface

Things are not always what they seem. Even the most beautiful things often have their roots in the ugly. What is on the outside is sometimes carefully manicured and monitored so that what roils below isn’t visible.

My valley, and probably your valley too, is having awful heroin problems. 15 deaths in the region this year. We rank high in child abuse and spousal abuse. Some of our schools are model schools and some of them have among the lowest graduation rates in the states. Joblessness is high. Once thriving cities in this beautiful valley are rust-belt shadows.

And bad things happen in beautiful houses as well as in tenements.

And yet the sun sets on beauty. And beautiful things happen as well.

What matters is that we don’t let the beauty be all we see. Peace needs to confront the unpleasant. This needs to happen so that the people may live and the land might thrive.

We need to take a hard look at our beautiful world and roll up our sleeves. Peace gets built from the ugliness, from a longing for the beauty, but it must be built on Truth. May we Peace, today and every day. Truth matters. Peace matters. Every day.

Shocked toward Peace

All the isms in the world seem to be exploding in our faces. It’s as if the last straw was added to the backs of oppressed people and they — hallelujah! — are rising up. Some allies and advocates are suddenly either making, or no longer able to avoid making, the connections. again — hallelujah!

The equal and opposite reaction that we heard about in science class is that those who long for a time when their comfort was insured, that they didn’t need to see beyond their own enclaves are taken aback by people’s demand for recognition.

So hateful, hateful, hateful laws are being enacted that are signs of the worst of their hearts.

It’s been stunning. But we can’t allow our dismay to stop us in our tracks. We cannot allow ourselves to be simply dumbfounded. It has to stir us to action. Hate needs to bring us to our feet. We must protest with our bodies, our very clever minds, and our very loving hearts.

We must somehow remember even as we protest, that we do not want to sound like the people giving voice to their hate. We have to be firm in our love and loving in our firmness. We must love the haters. This is a hard call for me.

The shock of hatred must, I believe with everything in me, move us to our passion for Peace. Let us Peace. In the face of hatred, let us Peace.

Space for Peace

Carving out space in our lives and in our homes in which we can be reflective and creative is so important to our well-being and health.

Plenty of businesses and creative endeavors start at the kitchen table, but it’s better if there’s a corner of the room or the garage where our work can stand idle. The need to set up and clean up in addition to working is sometimes too great a challenge — It may not leave enough time for the creation…

And when work stands so that we can consider it, feel what it’s trying to become, the work gets better. Neither Contemplation nor Creation are particularly neat activities.

Even when the work is standing there, beckoning and some times accusing, it can be hard enough to get to. But it’s far easier to starve our creativity and deny ourselves our time to reflect if that work isn’t there.

Whatever it is, it’s good to have space. It’s good to have the discipline. It’s good to have the self confidence to help your children understand that no, this is yours, just as you help them create a space that is there’s.

Make rules about working. And stick to it. I don’t know where my mythical child came from, but if you have a child, help them make space for their creativity and commit to working on it. People who tinker are people who create. When you have space dedicated to your creativity, you take yourself more seriously. And when you do that, you get better at your art — or your silence — or whatever it is you need your space to do.

Making space for creativity and reflection is making space for you to be the best you. It’s making space for your own Peace and for your contribution to Peace in your wider world. That matters a lot! You have something to give Peace. The world needs your gift and it needs Peace.

Capricious April Peace

If you’re going to love April, and why wouldn’t you, you’re going to have to put up with her wild mood fluctuations. I think of her as a young month. She’s always trying things out.

The seasons are still bickering — and April’s watching the way her skirts float in the breeze.

Everyone seems to be heartily tired of Winter, poor old dear, but she and Spring are still playing. She’ll sleep soon. I know Spring beguiled us in the month of March with warm weather. Everyone went out and and got their seeds started.

April doesn’t seem to care.

For me, April is a wonderful example of the need to be here now. She is what she is. And she is filled with Beauty. It is, it’s true, a Beauty all her own. But, oh! the Flowers! Let us rejoice in her wild mood swings and make Peace with her particular Beauty.

Might as well. She’s not going anywhere. I, however, am off on the hunt for the fields of grape hyacinth.

Voting for Peace, Voting Peace

In this country, scarcely more than a third of us vote. There are all sorts of reasons for it — some are merely excuses — but we don’t use what we have available to us. And of course some people go out of their way to ensure that people don’t get the chance to vote.

Voting must be easy. Voting must be encouraged.

And wouldn’t it be wonderful if we all had Peace as our goal? That when we entered the voting booth (and even before, as we prepared to enter the voting booth), we pondered on Peace… considering who cared about it, who would work for it. Not just peace and quiet. Peace. Equality. Justice.

What would this world look like if we were to care about Peace. I can tell you it’s going to have to come from the bottom up. Peace isn’t sexy, it’s not a big fund raiser. Yet what a difference it would make in our lives. Some of those differences, we can’t even imagine. We’ve never lived with Peace, Equality, and Justice. To many have lived with inequality and injustice and as Marley told us: “no Justice, no Peace!”

It all swirls around, doesn’t it. What we have before us to do. Some days it feels my hopes for Peace are so ridiculous, so unreachable. Other days, I can see the edges that have to be mended and think oh, here’s a fix for this one little piece.

But what matters, i think, is that I keep my eye on it, that I encourage my heart and maybe yours. And voting really matters. It matters that we vote. It matters that we vote for Peace.

It’s not simply about the Presidency, it’s voting for all the little offices that make our country work. The town councils and school boards, the director of parks and rec, the municipal services board — these all make a difference.

Voting for them makes a difference, it starts building Peace at a fundamental level (when we do it right). Running for those positions also makes a difference. Both the voting and the running require good preparation. What does Peace look like? How can I help in bringing that about?

So, my friends, vote and vote well. Vote for Peace. Get the Peace of having voted for Peace. It matters, don’t waste it. Every vote matters. Every day, Peace for Everyday Peace.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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