Your Peace Road, llvl

What road leads you home?

I mean, what real road takes you to your spiritual home? When you’re driving down a particular road what’s the exact point at which you feel that deep, lovely exhale that says you’ve arrived safely?

Mine’s heading West on I-80 from the Delaware Water Gap, the grade not long after the rest stop, that heads down across the North Branch of the Susquehanna. From there to the Lightstreet turn-off, I’m heading home. Never mind that my road doesn’t stop there any more. Never mind I have more beautiful road to travel before I come home now, I’m “home” when I hit that hill.

These days I live and love my vida local thirty-five miles from my old home town. These days I float around Bloomsburg like a ghost, haunting old familiar spots without encountering familiar faces. It’s okay. Sometimes I need to eat a sub from Steph’s or to drive by the church or to walk in the park. I’m not really interested in building new relationships to tie me to the town… I have all those old lovely memories and a busy new life. And somehow seeing people I know makes me miss the people who are gone.

Still, I have that good road home in the setting winter sun. Deb Slade, illustrating my heart, one more time.

Where is that place for you? And which road leads you to some Peace for your heart?

Wishing for Peace, llvl

Today is the 11th of November. It is Veteran’s Day.

Thank you to the people who have served so valiantly.

Thank you too to those who honor your service by making sure that your homecoming is what it should be. There should be good health care — including mental health care. There should be jobs and retraining for new jobs if you need it. There should be homes.

It is appalling that we would accept your service and then not welcome you home to something secure at home. You put yourself in harm’s way for your country and then your country does not put itself out for you.

May we do better. May we become aware. May we become strident in our demands on your behalf.

I think it is particularly incumbent upon those of us who have embraced different paths to Peace to take up this struggle — although it is incumbent upon all people of good conscience. Let us support the programs that support our Veterans. Let us lobby our congress for better health care and honest admissions of what our brave young men and women (and not so young men and women) encounter.

Let us also consider that everyone should serve their country in some capacity…

And let us work and work and work for Peace. Let us venture to find ways to speak to one another across the boundaries… not as leaders struggle but as neighbors and those most affected. Peace be with us all.

Beautiful Peace, llvl

Some Peace you work for. Some you’re just given. There are those days, and yesterday was one of them. Blue, blue sky. Corn shocks hanging around. Color deepening on trees that don’t release until their leaves are brown. Undulating patchwork fields. Sunlight that hadn’t turned to winter’s lemony light.

It was just gorgeous.

And then a brilliant sunset reminded us — winter is coming.

Some days are really just about drinking in the beauty and filling up for the week ahead. Twice. Lots to do, but it’s all the better for the beauty of the weekend. I spent lots of time hanging with my sweetie. That was pretty wonderful too. Oddly, for my crowd, I was asked to say grace yesterday. There was much to be grateful for

The weather will change, but the next season offers its own Peace.

You have to keep your eyes and heart open. Otherwise you won’t recognize Peace when you bump into it. And wouldn’t that be a shame?

Time-out for Sabbath Peace, llvl

Things don’t always go smoothly as much as you’d like them too. Sometimes there are hiccups along the road to Peace.

So you take a spoonful of sugar and you exhale. Eventually the hiccups stop.

And perhaps you take a break. Get outside and breathe in Autumn. Celebrate creation however you do that. Sit around with friends and laugh. Sit around on your own and read a book. Catch up on your craft. Put yourself on time-out for a little (self) reflection and reconsideration. ahhh.

Take a break from the work. Take a break from your Peace partners. All that work will be there tomorrow. Today, go ahead and cherish the Sabbath. Make it yours. Fill up.

Peace. Give yourself a piece of it. Tomorrow’s another day…

Trusting Peace, llvl

A friend of mine was discouraged the other day by what are truly sad signs about people’s willingness to participate in their well-being. It’s not that I don’t get it. It’s not that I don’t go there myself some times. What IS wrong with folk?

But I know, because I know what she does, that she makes an incredible difference. And I know some of her friends. We make a difference too. We’re maybe not changing huge swaths of the world, but we’re changing what’s around us. We’re in the positions that we are, because that’s how we make the most change. Other people band together and make big sweeping changes, we’re little lights in the snow, homing beacons perhaps. Beacons of Love. Beacons of Peace. It’s hard, but good work.

June Jordan, once more: We do what we can…

So, remember, my friend, take heart. Your work matters and makes a difference. I believe mine does as well. Sometimes I can see it as clearly as I see your work, as clearly as I see our friends’ and our colleagues’ work. Gently I remind us all; stoutly I defend us all. The word stoutly surprised me… but it was the right one….

We do what we can, and that matters. Peace isn’t straightforward… it bobs and weaves and gets backslid… but we have to trust ourselves in its arms and trust our passion to bring it to fruition. Peace be with you. Peace be with us all. Peace may we be.

Just Peace, llvl

I had a conversation with a dear friend yesterday, who’s been writing about just war, detailing the horribly many years we’ve used this to just-ify war…

Then I went off to hear an expert on the Middle East talk about endless war. It was terrifying and so achingly sad.

When asked what might end this conflict, he said the only thing he could imagine was a trickle of civilians saying they had had enough. Those civilians would have to meet across the boundaries and turn their trickle into a flooding demand for Peace.

It sounds excruciatingly naive, doesn’t it? Particularly as you begin to understand how other governments and too many corporate entities profit from the people’s pain; how many fan the flames of hatred to increase their bottom line and then, here’s the word again with still no justice about it, just-ify their actions. My gut instinct is to curse the bastards… but that actually doesn’t bring Peace either.

And so I encourage us to become the trickle. To decide that Peace actually matters enough to us that we will turn our faces in that direction. To forgive our neighbors as ourselves to paraphrase the Golden Rule. To love them. And ourselves.

To become come trickle that becomes the flood for Peace. Because anything else isn’t acceptable in the heart of the Divine or in our hearts. Let us do what is just and become Peacemakers. Let us do it in the name of all who have died in the maw of war and in those who live.

Serving Peace, llvl

It’s not that I don’t know that Peace is desperately needed all over the world. It’s just that I know that I am best suited for working on Peace here where I live, here i my little vida local. I have a friend Kelly who works on Peace with girls all over the world, she works to give them tools to know who they are, what they care about and what they’re capable of. She gives them space to love each other and laugh together. She’s planting seeds of Peace. Some of them are for Peace plants that explode into being and flower immediately. Most of them become tiny shoots that the girls nurture together.

Never underestimate the bonding power of late night s’mores… There’s a future in that.

I’m always clapping for Kelly, I’m a huge cheerleader for her, and on a couple occasions, I’ve been able to do more. Makes me happy.

But that’s not where I’m best. I’m best right here, right now. Standing in the Park with my neighbors, trying to raise money for programs that other people start and staff… June Jordan, poet, wrote what may be the most important words of my life: “We do what we can, more than that what can anyone ask?” This is my sacred service. This is my work.

But that much we can ask. How do we serve Peace?

Because if we’re not working for Peace, Peace isn’t working. If we look at this world, there are an awful lot of places that Peace isn’t working. For a long time, that whole servant metaphor didn’t do it for me. But I simply hadn’t found my cause. So… what’s yours? What’s the Peace in your life that you can’t rest if you’re not making some Progress toward?

Peace, Love and understanding — and for me, food in the bellies of kids in this Valley. Who’s in?

Lingering Peace, llvl

The season has changed, there’s no denying. Everything is slowly hunkering down for the winter. Most of us are fairly resigned, some of us are even excited that winter’s icy goodness is knocking.

But some pieces of Nature are not quite ready to give up their Autumnal beauty. Insistently they pinkly take their good ol’ time relinquishing their reign.

They’re a good reminder. There is in every season, a little bit of another. So the embers may glow but the flowers still reign in their little fading kingdom. There’s beauty everywhere… it’s worth taking the time to notice. You live here. Appreciate that. Allow Peace to linger in you as it lingers in all the quiet corners…

Voting Peace, llvl

Vote. There’s really not much more to say.

Oh, well, unless you’re a person of color and/or a woman. Then, really, vote. Cause people died so that we could. Or poor. Because many of the people who do vote are not voting in your/our best interest. But if you vote, that makes a difference.

Are you a patriot? Vote. Proud of your country? Vote. Think things should change? Vote. Care about what happens in your little community, in your vida local? yep, Vote.

Turn out. because while we’re walking around thinking we’re proud to be Americans, the rest of the world just thinks we’re ignorant and apathetic. Because we have freedoms and the only one we seem proud of is to own guns. Voting. It’s a thing. It’s a doing good thing.

Hope it’s yours. Get out there and vote for Peace.

Shadowy Peace, llvl

Few of us spend any time looking in a mirror — and when we do, often we don’t look beyond our hair. We’re discouraged from our childhood fascination and exploration in a mirror. During puberty, we learn to see only flaws in the mirror. Young adulthood only asks that we be trendy and from the first grey hair it’s all down hill.

But, stop!

There’s a lot to be seen in a mirror if we really look. Who we are is right there for us to examine. If we give ourselves a chance, our beauty is right there.

Also, It’s said that in a darkened room the shadows of our ancestors can be seen as well. All their hopes and dreams for us are there. Whatever they made of their lives, and I believe most people do the best they can, our forebears’ wish for us is that we will make the most of our lives, that we will be people of change.

Do we want that? Do we want to be people who do what we’re passionate about? What we’re interested in? Do we want to be beautiful because we’re filled with zest for life, because we’re hopeful?

Maybe starting with the shadows we can see not only our ancestors but also all the Possibilities for Peace that lies in our hearts. Wouldn’t that be a lovely sight?

You’re beautiful! And in the soft shadows we can’t see our imperfections — simply our beauty. Peace be with you. Peace be you. Peace of the shadows. Peace of your heart.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

The Priestess Is In