It’s the Solstice! Celebrate the Peace!

We did our celebrations family style. We gathered at my brother and sister-in-law’s cabin, which is on a mountain north of Williamsport. His daughter Sarrah was home from New Orleans for a summer visit with her boys. There we were, my whole family, minus Sarrah’s husband, gathered. It was achingly sweet, and yet, my heart couldn’t help but notice that there were as many missing as there were present. The years give and the years take away.

But there was the mountain beauty, a pond full of fish to feed (a live pond, Tom reminded us), a warm day with a cool breeze (June!), Tom’s stromboli, and a whole bunch of strawberry shortcake (June!). There were great conversations with my brother about the life we sorta shared growing up (I was three years behind him) and lots of reminiscing about life that had already flowed over the dam.

It was a pearl of a day to add to the string of beauties I already hold of June days with my family. I’m a very lucky woman, I know that. Yesterday was a perfect celebration of the summer solstice. Hurrah! Peace and Love be with you all!

Terri was the one eating the roasted corn, starting her summer off with her own yum!

Soft Sabbath Lines of Peace

Today’s picture is so peaceful.

And the line is inviting.

Cross over! There’s more to this world than you are currently seeing.

Here in our little valley at least, today is going to be a wonderful day, filled with sunshine and beauty. For me, it will be filled with family. Sarrah is home!!! and her little boys too! It’s exactly what a Summer Sabbath should be in my book: First my community and worship and then every last living member of my birth family. Many others will be celebrating with their families, I wish you all joy. And for those of you whose families are far away or weren’t what you might have wanted them to be, then glom onto a good family, or spend the day in Peace — because you deserve it!

Explore the Peace. Expand the Peace. Life is so much bigger and sweeter than we know. So is Peace. I’m going to go loll around in the bath for a few moments and savor what’s coming! You enjoy your day! Peace!

The Sweet Gift of Peace

In this picture it’s the Sun’s last gift of the day.

Where do Peace’s gifts show up in your life? Where do you offer Peace?

I heard about someone giving a homeless man a ride… he’s walking to Florida. They picked him up drove him down the road. Bought him a track phone. Bought him a couple water bottles and one he can reload along the way. Gave him a small to them/large to him dollop of Peace.

The Orlando Shakespeare festival is going to make angel wings to block out the Westboro baptist church’s protests at the funerals of people who died at Pulse. This is Peace.

We need to Peace more. Imitate Peace, it will become a way of life. Offer the world your caress of Peace. Light up the skies and the hearts of people in need of Peace.

Sheldon for Peace. How About You?

To be transparent, and why not be, I’ve never met Sheldon.

But I’ve met others of his ilk. Cheerful, enthusiastic, game for anything.

Sadly, most humans, myself included, cannot be described this way. We’re far more complicated. True, many of us are bears of slightly larger brains which can lead to wonderful things, but also to overthinking. And sometimes, overthinking seems to lead to paralysis. It can also lead to a lack of generosity.

Forgiveness isn’t easy for us. Festering, on the other hand, is.

Joyful participation isn’t automatic. Too often we feign boredom, which becomes actual boredom, rather than going along for the ride, or the walk, or the work.

And we’re all too busy to just be.

I really think Sheldon’s got something to teach us about Peace. I wonder if I am willing to learn it. I wonder if you are. I wonder if we’re willing to go along together on the walk toward Peace.

The Soft Scent of Peace

The only flowers I’ve ever planted are roses. I had a Jacob’s Coat and a Lincoln rose when I lived in California. Mr. Lincoln was a glorious dark red rose whose blossoms were deeply fragrant. Ummmmm. My roommate still has the bushes, so when I go to visit, i get a nose full…

Now, all Peace doesn’t smell like roses, I’m sure… some of it has the sharp tang of a pine tree, or the green of freshly mown grass. Peace may have the elusive taste of coriander or cumin or the sweet taste of a shared watermelon. It may freeze your nose like freshly falling snow or delight like a warm summer rain. Life is filled with abundance and beauty and we need to remember to share our delight in those things.

Peace engages the senses. Sharing those sensations is one more thing that binds hearts and lives together. Peace is organic, it is a thing of many parts. That’s a piece of what makes it so challenging. But if we remember that there are things that we share that helps us move forward… then we make way for Peace… on the scent of roses.

Hurrah.

At the Edges of Peace

I love the smell of the marsh flats. And they always symbolized the beginnings of vacation. The first scent of salt was the start of anticipation. And back in those days, you traveled with the windows down because there was very little air conditioning in homes, let alone in cars!

Wonderful things live in the marshes. Maybe it wasn’t from a salt bog that Life crawled onto Land; as I say in the musing, I’m no biologist. But they teem with life.

I spent my time at the beach at the beach playing in waves; but there were always morning trips to dunes and bogs to look at birds…

After yesterday’s vigil in commemoration of the dead and wounded in Orlando, it was wonderful to get Pete’s photo… maybe we can go back to the beginnings and start to think again about Peace. Because we really need to think about Peace.

I found myself wondering as I looked at this picture, if new life began at the edge of a bog, could new life also begin at the edges of Peace? Is that where possibility lies?

Water Falling and Bringing Peace

Normally I find waterfalls terribly happy places. I love their music. They change the air and that changes us.

But when I saw this beautiful photo of these falls and the cairn built in front of it, now when we grapple with homophobia, hate, gun violence, and from what we’re beginning to hear, we must perhaps also think self-loathing… it seemed such a strong symbol for Peace.

In this picture the music I hear in my head of the water falling is elegy… it is also demand that our prayers be those of action. Let us pass laws about guns. Let us interrupt hate speech. And please, please, please, let us stop repeating the hate that spews from the mouths of ignorant people. Let us be constructive…

Let us be people of Peace. Let us remember that Peace is not passive. When I co-opt Peace to be a verb and say, “Let us Peace,” it is an active verb.

We Must Be the (Fusion) Peace

My dears,

Orlando. Peace be upon it. LGBTQA folk, Peace and comfort be with you.

Our world. We must be that Peace. One fragile population, we will be with you.

This was such a happy picture with such a lovely wish, what if we all melded as easily as our cuisines. And here today it becomes something fateful.

We must come together in Peace. We must stand up for those who are oppressed. We must stand for commonsense gun laws.

I cannot linger with you this morning, there’s a vigil to plan. May Peace be with us. May we be the Peace with the world.

Blessed be, Ann

Peaceful Ghosts of Summers Past

I like all the seasons. I’m excited to see each day unfold and wonder what it will offer. I’m sort of an everyday nerd… gee, what’s the world like today?

But I never realize until the joy seeps in that I’m excited about summer in a totally different way. Well, there’s swimming. But I think it’s also when my family came into their own. There was tennis for many of them. There was the pool. There were picnics. There were family and family/friend traditions like strawberry shortcake festivals. There were those plates of sliced tomatoes and corn on the cob… There was sitting on the porch reading or just hanging out watching the fireflies…

Summer. it’s pretty grand.

So this is when my ghosts arrive in a big old van stuffed with towels and suits and coconut scented sunn screen to bless me with memories and make my heart yearn. I was so blessed and every once in a while I’m lonely for them. But I’m so lucky because there are others to go to the pool with. Others to have picnics. There is life. and it’s grand.

It’s Sunday. I have a family picnic, and before that a family meet up with other family, and before that there’s church and that beloved community. This is Summer Sabbath Peace at Ann’s house. I hope there’s Peace at your house too.

Prayers for the families of the people wounded and killed in Orlando. Sadly, there’s no Peace there today.

The Peace of a Slow Summer Day

It’s early days in the Summer season, some people insist that Summer starts on Mid-Summer instead of it’s being, you know, MID-Summer. I love the European start it on the First of May. We’re all jonesing for it anyway, right? From watching FB, you’d swear some folks thought it started in January. Nope, that’s global climate change folks. sorry.

But there’s nothing sweeter than June days in Pennsylvania when they decide to act like June days. Nothing to do but relax — or at least to pace yourself through the day.

I loved this sunset for this reason (The local television station loved it too and gave it a prize! Hurrah Trish!)

I got my porch opened (at last! at last!) yesterday. And so today, i get to write this sitting on the porch that looks way more like the screened in porch of a summer cabin than the downtown town house it is. It’s rustic and cozy and cool… and so quiet.

Hopefully the weather will last for the wedding this afternoon. Cool, calm and lovely is a wonderful day for a wedding!

Wishing you all the blessing of a slow, early summer day with no particular place to go and only lovely things to do, if you must do! Go ahead. Waste it on Peace. I’d write more, but i have to have some strawberry shortcake, right now!

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