The Peace of a January Fool

Are we willing to count the world well lost for Peace? Are we willing to embrace the absurd notion that society can be based in love and tolerance? People say it’s a foolish and simplistic notion that we can live in Peace. OK. It’s not that I’m unwilling to address the complex issues, but I am unwilling to allow the complexity to overwhelm the possibilities of Peace. Because Peace is what we are called to, or so I believe.

Far more is possible than we know. Let’s risk it. Joy is more present than we allow. Let’s live it. Let us be fools for Peace, risking being thought absurd to bring about change on earth, for the earth and all its peoples. As a notion, it’s perhaps a little grandiose… but it’s Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday, and the beginning of a President and Vice President’s next four years. Whether you voted for them or not, I would hope you would join me in wishing them well, and in wishing that they dedicate themselves to their country’s well-being and a Peaceful, prosperous world. May that be so for all the world’s leaders.

My friend Blair Monie used this in his sermon yesterday morning. Here we are: more fools for Peace: “I choose to identify with the underprivileged. I choose to identify with the poor. I choose to give my life for the hungry. I choose to live for and with those who find themselves seeing life as a long and desolate corridor with no exit signs. This is the way I’m going. If it means suffering a little bit, I’m going that way. If it means sacrificing, I’m going that way. If it means dying for them, I’m going that way. Because I heard the voice saying: do something for others.” –Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Peace of Spectacular Failure

Failure is how we learn things. It’s how we grow. If we’re not willing to experiment, we never stretch our minds and our resources. Failure keeps us humble and it keeps us laughing. And goodness knows we need to be laughing. Whatever else I know about Peace, it’s not all earnestness. There’s a great deal of shared laughter.

We need to stretch our abilities. We need to dream big. This means we might fail in a rather spectacular way. Ok. So, laugh, reconsider, try again. Practice failing at things that don’t matter so that you’re used to missing the mark. But don’t practice by pulling the target so close that you can’t help but hit it. Push it back. Imagine differently, more generously.

If you take your work and your life seriously, you’re going to keep experimenting. It may seem counter-intuitive that taking your life seriously also means being willing to laugh uproariously at your failures… and then to learn from them.

So, my dears, Dream. Try. Win a little(or a lot). Fail a little(or a lot). Laugh. Reconsider. Try again. That way lies Peace. (and a lot of laughter, shared and otherwise!)

Peace of a Pacific Sunset

It’s sort of a ridiculous assignment, to try and describe a sunset in ten lines. But ten lines are the rule. I made the rule. It’s an interesting task to try and tell a story in ten lines. Sometimes it works better than others. When I finished this poem, I thought wait! I didn’t mention that sometimes the air will seam to turn roseate before it fades to black and white. And there was certainly no time to mention that sometimes the dolphins dance in the waves or that the pelicans sail majestically by in freight train formation…

So what does a poem mean to a dream? I guess that both are always unfinished… or maybe just incomplete. Maybe it’s the good reminder that we are called to say what we see and that what we see isn’t in conflict. When we add one vision to another, we get a more complete, but never perfect vision. I see things differently than you so the overlap will never be precise.

As we begin to develop our dreams, there will be times when we realize there were pieces we didn’t include. Then we’ll have to decide, do we simply need to be aware of that? Do we need to find someone who is working on an allied dream? Or do we have enough to deal with in the dream we’ve created, imperfectly perfect as it is?

So, I guess I’ll just keep asking myself… What kind of peacemaker am I? How will that change this year? And how will I embrace the places where I miss the mark or simply don’t have the capabilities? And equally important, will I keep being open to the startling beauty of a sunset that is not like “mine” and allow it to stretch and modify my notion of beauty… and Peace.

Stillness and Peace

We live in a frenzied world. Some of that chaos is imposed by our fast-track society. Some of it we buy into or even foster in ourselves. We’re over-tired and under-nourished — at least spiritually.

You’ll have noticed from the title in my poems that I believe Peace is not just important, but imperative. I believe it’s what we were born to do and create. You don’t get to Peace, however, without some reflection about who you are and what you want. You need time to notice what’s wrong, so you can pull a string and start winding that particular tangle into order.

I’m working, and eager to help you work, on my own Peace of Mind, Heart and Soul. But I don’t believe you need that Peace in place before you start working on Peace of World. Perhaps we’re to put ourselves onto the Infinity Path and walk the loop between the two, as they lead out of and into one another.

But mostly? It’s time to stop and proceed slowly. Time will hurry up as the year moves on, but at the moment, reflect, consider, weigh… Get to know yourself and your desires. Consider carefully the dream you wish to build and realize this year. Take this time, my friends… The world isn’t going to leave you alone forever. And the stillness? it’s your time to fill up.

Peace of a January Kitchen Table

Growing up, meals were as much food for the soul as they were for the body. Incidents and encounters were related and exclaimed over. When I was an exchange student, I discovered that my Swedish Mama ran her tables the same way. We sat and we talked. I loved it.

I have learned more about people and their families seated around a kitchen (and ok, even a dining room table) than any place I can think of. Even now, when called to a hospital bed, the sweetest and most potent stories still seem to come over food.

I ate three meals a day with my family until I started 10th grade. Today, many families tell me they don’t manage a meal a week, let alone a day together. I mourn what they miss. I watch couples and families at dinner, all involved in their technology, and pity them the loss of story. They don’t know the rhythm of the give and take, the hesitancy before the heart opens to reveal a closely held dream. Who else but friends and family will, when the dream of becoming a hockey player is recounted, will respond first with an eye roll and a “well, you’d better learn to skate, then,” followed quickly by constructive questions and suggestions about how you might overcome your lack of balance and coordination.

Friends and families make us better people. We do the same for them. For me, much of that growth happens around a table, when someone who loves us well, sits back to listen or leans forward to question. Add good food, and you’ve got a moment well-worth cherishing for the rest of your life. I have laughed the hardest… and probably sobbed the most openly. I’ve bragged and confessed. I’ve listened and welcomed. I’ve been less than lovely and my very best self. I’ve concocted or ingested the worst food and they’ve been the sweetest feasts. Friends. who else would you trust with your dreams?

Peace of the Frozen Countryside

Flying across the country, the ground is a patchwork of beautiful white fields. In summer, you can tell how this country nurtures itself. Right now, all you can see is the bones of the fields the evidence that at one time, this land was worked.

But for now, it rests. it rests even as we rest. Filling up, rejuvenating, getting ready for the next season by remaining completely within this one. If there’s anything this landscape would tell us, it’s this: Don’t rush it. Be present to the moment. More will come. For now, this is enough.

Peace of a January River

While driving down the river yesterday morning, the river was enshrouded in fog. When you have days like we’ve had recently, where the afternoon mercury climbs and nights are frigid, the river puts off a lot of fog. It was a beautiful ride.

It was only as I writing later, that I realized what a great metaphor for January dreaming this particular river view was. Isolated small islands would appear out of the fog and then fade from view. There was never a complete vista, simply small glimpses. As we’re building our dreams, it’s important to begin to identify the important building blocks. Too many of us start to build before we have all the pieces laid out. This foggy river was a reminder that there may be something important hiding in the mist… We might as well let things emerge as they will for a while, so that we can create a good plan rather than having to try to incorporate crucial elements at a later date…

Peace of a Winter Morning

The Ann-Keeler-Evans start to the day, although often quiet, is usually brisk. I like getting things done. makes me happy. check, check, check! But yesterday, that didn’t work. I was up. I was even out. I got one check done. And then another. And then, there was a space in which no connections were being made.

Maybe it’s just because i was procrastinating, getting ready for my trip tomorrow, but I just wasn’t all that interested in zooming around. And for once, Ms I-tell-everyone-to-pay-attention-to-what-their-bodies-are-telling-them actually decided to pay attention. And so I sat and pondered. I consciously made no decisions. I just looked at things, turning them over in my head and my heart, admired their beauty, noted some rough spots, and put them down.

Choosing one dream for the year and dedicating yourself to bringing it into the world is worth taking some over. It’s worth deliberating about. I always find it interesting when I begin to discern a process and it demands I pay attention. And so, I’ll wonder just a little bit longer at the wonderful possibilities I’m exploring. And see how they might all fit together. For me, that’s a tall order. Sitting down helps. I wish that you might give yourself a half hour’s peace one morning before the sun demands a bit more action of you and me.

The Slow Start of Peace

When the sun peeks in my window, I wake up, and move fairly quickly from 0-60 mph. Those who receive my daily musings can attest to receiving them in the early morning for most of the year. But not right now. An early night doesn’t necessarily correspond to an early morning. The quick move from asleep to awake means that my dreams are left behind as I engage with the day. During this time, Nature has laid hold of my schedule and claimed it. As I sleep later and awaken more slowly, dream fragments stay with me and the day starts more softly. The warming cup of tea adds reflection to its normal heating and jolting work.

My friend Lenore read something and passed it along about an Arctic animal — maybe a squirrel? — that hibernates. (He apparently hibernates for 7-8 months a year. What a life!) Every two to three weeks, he uses a huge percentage of the energy stored up for the winter to rouse into a dream state. Then, dreaming completed, he drops back down into his stasis and waits for the cycle to continue until the thaw happens.

Since squirrels are probably not dreaming about Peace, what is so important about dreaming? What do they, what do we gain from lingering and snuggling? I don’t have a psycho-spiritual- physiological answer for that! I can only suggest that we try lingering and see if it makes a difference in our lives. And then, during the rest of the year, if we can find a way to allow that difference to grow and guide our lives. Fulfilling our dreams moves the world forward… but we can’t fulfill them if we don’t stop and dream them first. “Slow down, you move too fast.” Have a groovy day!

The Peace of Winter Trees

I was delighted when I studied Chinese Five Element Theory and discovered that it includes a Fifth Element, Wood, one of whose functions is flexibility. In our busy urban lives it is an element to which we pay too little attention. Tree hugging — actual rather than philosophicall! — is really quite balancing for our health. It improves our spiritual and mental flexibility. Most of us can use that! (as for whether tree-hugging, philosophical, is virtuous, I invite you to discuss amongst yourselves… but I would, no great surprise to any of you, come down on the side of the trees.)

One of the joys of learning the five element theory was the need to suspend disbelief and learn something completely new. I compare it to learning the alphabet. If you spend your life trying to figure out why the would designate this symbol A as the letter A, you’ll miss the astonishing things that can happen when you break the code of reading. Here’s to learning new things and believing six impossible things before breakfast!

And of course here’s to trees and all the wonderful things they teach us, of which flexibility is only one!

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

The Priestess Is In