Life Is Precious. Sabbath. Peace.

Oh, the weather is beautiful. Noisy in the neighborhood, however. Last night it was cackling with loads of college students; this morning the geese are running practice flights for their trip south.

It’s a wonderful time of year. At the beginning of every season, it seems, there’s a washing clean of the old… There’s a burst before the settling in. We’re having that right now. I always feel more alive during those passages. (I’ve always been a fan of the places in between!)

Today, I really want to hold on to that sense of being alive, to hold it up.

My friend, by no means a close friend, just a man I like, is alive. So easily things might have gone the other way. It’s always the little things that cause the accidents… says the woman who tripped over an acorn yesterday and went flying.

Life is precious. All life. My friend’s life. It’s too short, really to complain. But not too short to celebrate. Not too short to give thanks. Not too short to pack every single minute with joy and awareness of its abundance. We’re busy we think — we think until something makes us remember… right, show up, be present: now is the time.

My friends, about those Syrian refugees. They could use some support. Their lives are precious as well…

My last two decades have been shaped by deaths. This year, two years away from the last huge, significant death, I’m feeling a little steadier on my feet. I understand, all too well, that death happens. But it’s better when it doesn’t.

So look around your circle and celebrate. Life is here. That’s really what observing the Sabbath, keeping it holy, is all about — Life is right here. There is a wild and outrageous Peace in that. Celebrate fiercely. And let’s use that to fuel the work we have to do with others whose lives are not so lucky at the moment. Because we can.

Creek Peace. Gets Me Every Time.

There are just some places in the world that push that pause button for you. For me, and in fact, for anyone in my family, World’s End does that for me. Mother Nature got this one right!

The trees, which, I learned yesterday, were replanted by the CCC after the area was clear-cut in the early 1900s, keep the air so fresh, so clean.

This was a large inland sea at one long, long ago point. People still find fossils.

Me? I find Peace. Every time. I also connect to a deep treasure trove of familial memories, laced with favorite people, favorite small communities who were all part of this place. It is sacred to me for so many reasons.

There is Love here for me. Love for the land. Love for the amazing water which is so fragile. Love for the picnic food that has offered communion of the sweetest sort, time after time. And Peace. there is always Peace. Every. Single. Time.

I hope there is a place in the world where you can stand quietly, simply being present with your sibling or your beloved or alone and know that Peace is. Love is. Life is.

That Reading, Snuggling Peace

For those of us who miss our grandchildren — we need to cultivate local kids to keep our hand in the game.

Someone wants or needs a story to be read to them. Someone wants or needs to read a story to us.

Side benefits? New Stories. Old favorites revisited. Shared innocence and earnesty. Snuggles. Pretty much all good things.

And oh, new and interesting children in your life and in your arms. We’re made to love these kids. We should practice harder.

If there were more adults snuggling with children, particularly children not their own, if we learned the shape of those bodies in our arms, in our laps, there would be more Peace in this world.

This is not a difficult challenge to undertake. And if you don’t have grands yet, you can begin training.

Pools of Memories and Loss. Peace

Memories are such odd things. As I was remembering Harbin I took two memories and made it one. (At least I checked before I wrote about it!)

But my inability to remember everything exactly (dates, schmates!) aside, Harbin was a marvelous place.

The waters are extraordinary. I’m sure someone will make a place again… but so sad.

But here’s the reality of climate change. What are we going to do? Because those fires are going to continue. They’re having problems up the coast. They’re having problems in Alaska (and probably in Canada too, but our news doesn’t talk about that!) It’s a frightening reality.

We can make Peace with the loss of our past and the beautiful surrounds There’s no making Peace with climate change without a decision to participate in making a difference.

Pool Peace

Swimming. it’s such an odd thing for me. When I’m in the pool, it doesn’t feel any different than it ever did. The magic is as magic as ever.

It’s the only sport at which I’ve been halfway competent. (very little falling down, i like that!)

Only sport in which I’ve felt the beauty of my body doing what it’s supposed to do.

I can get in the pool after ‘way too much time off and still swim. I get out of breath, but nothing hurts as a result… just a little achy muscle, waking up from not being used.

So it’s always a surprise to catch sight of myself in a mirror… and see I’m not a skinny teenager. And neither were any of the women swimming with me.

Thank goodness for the other women. I love the swimming but the casual conversation and the laughter encourage my attendance.

Some of those women are hella strong. it’s something to aspire to.

But it did make me laugh to see a couple young women. They’re so beautiful. So strong. And no one was ill-mannered enough to gawk… but i remember thinking i would always have that skinny girl body.

I learned early, however, about women’s laughter. I knew about my own experience at my women’s college. And then 5 years after I graduated, there was a problem at school and all the alums showed up. The women we’d dismissed as bluehairs? HA! solved the problem, with guts, ingenuity and money. And oh, my goodness, could they laugh!

I knew then that I was safe in my future, although I was equally sure I’d always be skinny.

Well, there was a curve ball!

But laughing and swimming, they both stuck with me and I stuck with them. And they always make me feel like a girl. And isn’t that great.

Huh! Watermelon Monday Peace!

It was a great church potluck — it always is. Yup! there’s cooks in that community.

But once I got back in my car I realized oh, i hadn’t been a contributor. Because there sat the bowl of watermelon that I’d carefully prepared the night before. the big bowl. One that would hold the entire watermelon. You know, that one.

I don’t cook much, but I occasionally pull it together enough to help fill the table. And who doesn’t like watermelon? And how much longer will they be around? It’s a long time without watermelon.

Sigh.

Although let’s be clear. I’ve eaten my way through a watermelon before! It’s not an onerous chore!

Far from it.

And I guess I’d better go start to be the woman who gets a job done.

There are worse assignments in the world than making Peace with a bowlful of watermelon and the end of summer.

New Moon, New Year, Sabbath, Peace

Lots happening today. For me, it’s the Sabbath, so a day to hit Pause… It’s always a challenge in my life since the Sabbath is also my most important work day. But I struggle to make space, to allow for time for simple appreciation and being.

Already, already, it’s the middle of September and the Harvest Moon is beginning her reign. The Solstice is only 10 days away. Life keeps changing.

Along with this new moon comes the Jewish New Year. L’Shana Tovah! May the year be sweet and filled with blessings!

May all of us consider taking this time to reconsider what we bring to life and what we fail to… may we, if I may be so bold as to use this word, consider where we sin, where we miss the mark. May we ask forgiveness, for ourselves and others, and begin again… in love.

Peace is out there. I believe that. The question remains whether we’re willing to go looking for it — to do the work that it requires of us. It needs us as desperately as we need it.

Honoring Life’s Sacredness, Honoring Peace

This should probably carry a spoiler alert if you’re coming to UUCSV tomorrow. But I’ve been thinking a lot about what it is to consider my life as sacred.

To think about what I put in my body and my mind and what I let come out of my mouth and my heart.

To consider that this life is sacred and that I am responsible for honoring that.

This is one of the lessons that keeps surfacing the in the triangle of my life’s Magic Eight Ball. It’s Sacred. Act that way.

Only as I do, can I begin to treat my neighbor as she or he deserves to be treated — as Sacred.

The implications and responsibilities this engenders are enormous. The world needs us to take action. The People do; the Earth does. We need to wonder at our beauty and guard our sacredness… we need to do the same for others.

Peace needs this. Our gratitude is the response the gift of Life requires — my life, your life, all life.

Peace and Pain in Shared Remembrance

Fourteen years. I was in bed at my friend Carolyn’s house and a friend called wondering if I’d heard.

We’d both lived in New York, though neither of us had known each other then.

I’d watched those towers out the front windows of my office every day for years. They were skyline, they were part of the what seemed like the miraculous world I inhabited. I’d visited. I’d eaten there. I’d gone to a wedding there at the restaurant, in a corner of two windows in the midst of a thunder storm, happening below us.

And although I don’t believe I knew anyone who died, I knew their friends.

I went back a month later and it smelled like death. Of course it did, bodies were still being found. Sometimes there were no bodies, simply wedding rings, watches and memories.

As most of us stood there, stunned, people bounced out of their limo to run up laughing and take their pictures, already drunk at 10:00 am. There was a guy selling hot dogs and souvenir people making money on memories and horror. And the rest of us stood and prayed… My guess is many of us didn’t have words to those prayers or even know to whom we prayed… We were together.

And so many people were missing. Lost. Gone.

Our lives were forever changed.

And now there are others whose lives have been destroyed by the same fanaticism that brought the towers down.

There was a picture of a train station in Hungary where shoes are lined up waiting for people who have walked and walked. Another shows people waiting for the refugees as they arrive in Germany. My mind can’t stop making comparisons to pictures from WWII when people were forced to leave their possessions on the ground and get on the trains.

All these people coming. Will we welcome them?

Can there ever be Peace if we do not?

Even if there can be Peace in the world, can there be Peace in our hearts if we do nothing? There’s a new Moon in two days. Tomorrow is the last of the Fruit Moon. What will we harvest in the Harvest Moon?

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

The Priestess Is In