Working Truck Peace

When you live in a city, as I did for 30 years, you tend to forget about working trucks.

Oh, you run into them now and again at farmer’s markets, but they’re hidden behind the stands. When you live in cities, particularly California cities, people drive small cars, taking pride in their eco-consciousness. And good for them.

But then I moved back home — to the country no less. It happened to be at a time where gas guzzlers as they call them were popular, so it was a bit of a surprise to go from a place that had plug in stations for electric cars at the very front of their rapid transit stations to a town where the college kids drove Hummers.

That took a bit of closing my jaw. So expensive. So wasteful.

But on my daily commute (in my little gas conscious car), there were farm trucks galore. Working trucks, taking care of working farmer’s work. No one cared whether these were dusty, because of course they were. In fact, it’s probably a badge of courage, or at least usefulness for these trucks to be dusty. They’re workin’ trucks. They’re strong and big because the tasks their built for are heavy and cumbersome.

When you live in a city, you forget about farms. Well except those 2 acre beauties that produce your heirloom tomatoes. Working family farms with a variety of crops for human and animal consumption, crops for canning and freezing by large plants, animals for food and dairy.

Farming is hard work. And their tools have to be tough as well. Work Trucks. They’re a thing. A good thing. And when you ride or drive in them, they of the great bench front seat, it’s easy enough to feel their attitude, even take it on a bit.

Working Trucks. Farms. We owe them a debt of gratitude for all they produce. A Peace all its own. A cock of the hat and a casual wave to all in the name of Peace.

Peace Migrations

You never know where you’re going to go when you start writing.

I love the Snow Geese so I am always happy to see them in the fields. Such explosive beauty! They are majestic whether settled to sleep on land, paddling on the river or rising to fly in formation.

Normally, it would be enough for me in a musing to remember that. They bring such joy.

But the other Sunday Katie Hays read one of her poems, i think it was called “Conversion.” She talked about a migrating bird, hiding in the thicket. And I thought of all the exiles. All those people with no place to lay their heads or their babies. No containers for their lives.

It makes my heart break.

These geese are travelers who make their home on the road, in the sky on the rivers? how do you determine that?

But the exiles are running from what they once loved that is no longer safe. Their welcome is very uncertain. The geese know these fields, this river, these air currents. The immigrants do not.

Let us offer them all safe journey and safe places to rest at night. Let us offer them safe homes. “For we were once strangers in the land of Egypt.”

So, my friends the lovely Peace of the Snow Geese to you. And traveling Peace to those who are far from home. And welcome to those who would no longer be strangers. And I pray with you who would like this to be a migration that takes you safely home.

Working Water Peace

When I think about water, it’s usually about having a tall, cool drink of it — or getting into it to float or swim (hot for the first, cool for the second!)

I rarely think about it’s importance to our commerce and manufacturing. Much of our country was built on water energy. Across the world, in lands where it’s abundant much still is.

I love looking at water, but living beside it, i don’t often remember how precious it is and how cavalierly we treat it. It is not an endless resource. It cannot clean itself as quickly as we despoil it.

We cannot live without this wonder. It gives us life. You’d think we’d be willing to do the same — but we are a greedy bunch it seems.

First best action? Give up bottled water. Get involved in your municipal water works to insure that your town is both cosseting its water supply and giving its constituency good water to drink.

Learn something about it. Share a glass with a friend — not just because you’re thirsty, but because it is precious.

Water. Wars have been fought over it. Shouldn’t Peace be made with it?

Asparagus Peace

We should all eat more vegetables. And this is a good reminder.

Because Asparagus. Spring.

Peace on Earth. Peace with the Earth. Eat green things. Celebrate Life. Celebrate Spring!

Peace.

A Beautiful and Peaceful Beginning

Good Morning. Happy Easter!

Unlike today’s beautiful picture, Our day in the Valley is going to be one of mist and mystery. Which sort of suits this holiday of profound mystery and rampant —and I admit it fun — commercialism of talking bunnies bringing eggs and new clothes. (The new clothes imperative belongs to a Pagan holiday Beltane, when you throw off winter and burn your clothes. It makes more sense when Easter’s a month later. Did you get new clothes growing up? We often got Spring Clothes, but my mom was very clear we did not get a new outfit for Easter. She hated the connecting of the profound and the profane. I appreciate that understanding a lot better now! And in fact, practical child that I am, a pretty little spring dress when it’s very cold wasn’t really that much fun to a child who had no meat on her bones. The egg hiding was originally incentive to our bird friends to fruitful and multiply.)

However you celebrate today, I hope it’s in the presence of those you love.

And oh, Deb Slade, what a picture. Such Beauty. This branch of the Susquehanna is a slow moving one. So many days, and this picture represents this, it looks like a lake rather than a river.

Peace to you. Peace and Beauty, and Joy. The Peace and Beauty of rose-gold mornings and rivers. The Peace and Joy of Easter. The Peace and Beauty and Joy of another day to be a live and make a difference.

Peace of the Day

We deal with the things we can, one after another. Each day has its challenges. We deal with them and try to leave a little bit of time over for dreaming and planning.

Some days are extraordinary. Some days are just what they are!

And we are here to meet the day. To live fully into what is before us.

And when the Sun finally slips below the horizon, our job is to be able to let it go with no regrets.

It’s good to make Peace with the day we have. It’s good to make Peace with letting it go.

It’s good to go to bed and get up tomorrow, ready to Peace again! Everyday Peace.

Peace and What We Wish the Butterfly Effect Were

Last week my friend Rachel helped me preach. Every year at the winter holidays, I write a small play for Rachel who is my Glorious Holiday elf. She always helps me find a new symbol to those we already use to celebrate the winter Holidays.

Last week, at the beginning of Spring, it seemed that we needed a bit of encouragement to make a difference. Now, I know, because I keep looking it up (because I always forget) that chaos theory doesn’t say that the fluttering of a butterfly wing WILL have some intended consequence, just that everything can have some UNintended consequence.

We thought that perhaps we could flutter our wings, do kind things and see what happens. Apparently Annie thought so too.

Here’s to kindness in this season of Beauty. Here’s to making the decision and then making a difference

Here’s to Rachel and Annie. and here’s to Peace. Now get out there and flutter those wings.

The Peace of No Squalls

We really do seem to have sailed through March with no flurries. So our flowers are bravely pushing their way out of the ground. We’re having the flowers we often have at Easter, despite the fact that Easter is incredibly early. (Western Easter, that is)

On the one hand, it’s crazy. It’s too warm for this time of year. Whether it’s climate change or El Nino, something is not right. On the other, it’s hard not to appreciate it. It’s the end of March and it’s supposed to be a balmy, sunny 72˚.

March is such an amazing month filled with ups and downs, filled with anticipation. It’s amusing to watch people fuss and fume when it does what it does. You hear people say, here, in Central PA, “but it’s Spring, it should be warm.” Uh, no. Well unless you have Climate Change or El Nino.

But here we are, with a beautiful day, and many people on holiday. Be here now. Enjoy the Peace of today.

Preparing and Waiting for Peace

An empty mailbox beside an empty field. Ready. Waiting. Or is it

A stuffed mailbox beside a seeded field?

You can’t tell by looking. You have to explore. You have to ask. You have to prepare. You have to reach out.

Fields and mailboxes: both demand participation.

Except when delightful surprises surface. A volunteer flying seed can propagate in an empty field. A letter that you don’t expect can arrive. In both cases, the news can be either a pleasant or an unpleasant surprise.

But that’s the nature of life isn’t it.

However, you can make sure that people have pleasant surprises by mailing a lovely letter… or planting the seed for a beautiful flower or an interesting vegetable at the corner of a field.

Whether you’re the one who gives the gift or the one who receives it, both offer possibilities for Peace. Deepen those possibilities why don’t you? Let’s Peace!

Yellow Daffodil Peace

It is that time of year. I had to go drive along the North Branch of the Susquehanna yesterday. As much as I love Lewisburg, that’s my part of the river. I know how it reacts.

This time of year, as the road runs between the hill and the river, you drive past the beginnings of the forsythia. The forsythia stretches for a mile or two. Half the year it’s simply bramble; the other half, it’s green. Except for these astonishing two weeks when it’s gloriously yellow.

And these daffodils. Ha! it says to this snow. Ha! I will bloom bravely and defy what is leaving, however reluctantly. Winter is leaving. Spring is coming. They know their minuet intimately. It sometimes confuses us, but that’s not their problem. The seasons know the steps to the dance.

There’s a message in that for us I think… Peace. Make Peace. Declare Peace. Dance Peace. If our time is short, make our mark in Peace.

In the name of what we believe in, in the shadow of Ankara, Brussels, Paris, and on and on and on, let us pray and work for Peace. Let us Peace.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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