Reading, Peace, Reading

When I was a tender seminarian I heard William Sloan Coffin (recently retired as minister at Riverside Church in NYC and formerly the Yale chaplain who started Clergy and Laity Concern during the the VietNam War) speak about being involved with what’s going on in the world.

Coffin talked about the importance of being involved. At the end someone stood up and said, great for you, you’re on the speaker circuit… You blow in, blow up and blow outta town (ah you gotta love a hall full of ministers!).

Coffin admired the hit and then asked… how many of you have read a book on something other than ministry? How many of you have read a serious book this year. Less than 25% raised their hands.

And he said, yeah… no excuse for that. That’s part of your ministry.

I admit his seeds fell on fertile ground. I love reading. And I believe it’s important. And I’m lucky that the UUs feel it’s important and that my congregation agrees. And so I take this time very seriously and stuff my brain — with things that pertain to what we’re up to and to what I think I and all of us might need to think of. And with things that are going on and we can’t help but look at. There’s so much to wonder about. So much hard (reading) work to do.

So reading. I find Peace in it. In its turn it stirs me to look for Peace. It’s a cycle I’m lucky to be able to indulge. Just a couple weeks of stuffing ahead, and then look out world! I’m back! Wake up world! Time to step up!

13-Year Peace(s)

How bizarre that the only people in my life today who knew me when I was working in New York are my Swedish and American family. I have friends from my seminary days. And loads of friends from my California days. And then some very old friends but mostly new from my life back in Pennsylvania.

I’ve had a wonderful life, but it has, I think more segments than many people’s… Not everyone changes careers in midstream (taking a long time with a slide through another course of study to get where I belonged) and I’ve always known lots of folks. My friend the epidemiologist uses me as an example of people who know a lot of people with terminal diseases simply because I know so many people — and have been supportive. Great, another thing to put on my resume, I’m a statistical anomaly!

But I’m happy to know and love all these people. Happy to have known and loved these landscapes. Who doesn’t love NY? Who doesn’t love the Bay Area? And as many of us remark, the central Susquehanna Valley is paradise, except for those for whom it is not…

I seem to have dug in here. My husband’s happy playing here. I love my work, my friends, and my life. My family has changed a lot in the last 13 years, a couple gains, a lot of losses. But still this seems like home. And so I stay and try to figure out what great fun can i get up to in the time ahead? 13 more years and I’ll be, gasp, 76… And hopefully still doing what I love to do!

We’ll see… In the meantime… I’ll keep looking through the lens of Peace and see what I need to get up to next.

Peace and Blessings, my friends, and may you love and be loved where you live.

Thinking. Peace. Sabbbath.

Here I am having a reading summer unlike any I’ve had since about 9th grade AND I’m visiting friends I first met after my four year career in reading (what else IS graduate school if not a reading career?).

Not only are these people with whom I once talked (worked) and considered late into the night, they’re people who know what I used to think about… who I was before I was a married UU minister. There’s a wonderful joy in knowing people who hold your history. Friendships!

And today I’m joining friends from my church in PA who just happen to live in the same town as our daughter’s family and doing what I so rarely do on vacation — going to church! They’re here 5 months and then at home 5 months and It’ll be wonderful to see where they are making their spiritual home when they’re not with us. It’s going to be a slow Sabbath with some good visits thrown in.

And the morning started out watching my grandson play with his legos… what a wonderful unexpected joy and fabulous side effect of marriage. Kids and grandkids— quite the jackpot, one I’m only slowly learning how to enjoy… never having expected it…

It’s a great period in my life. That said, I’m really looking forward to home and the weddings and the swimming that are the last stage of my summer. If I don’t look too closely, I feel like a 9 year old! There’s a sweet Peace in all of this!

Sweet Little Home Peace

I’m back spending the night in a little house in Oakland that I lived in for quite a few years. It’s a wonderful house, with wonderful friends, and great memories.

When I woke up this morning, I rolled over and stared at the ceiling and remembered. Ah that ceiling. I remember when I moved in. Jenn was out of town on business for another week and Erik was here helping me move.

We sat on my sofa and looked at the room and thought. Wow, what a beautifully proportioned room. I still think that. It’s a pleasing house, with great lines and wonderful tucked in glass cabinets in the dining room… It has an interesting history… and holds interesting history for me!

I’m so lucky to be able to come back and visit my past and feel at home here. The house is cozy and so are my friendships. Nice. Peace…

Fires! Drought! Peace?

Forest fires happen in this region. It’s part of the cycle. You know that when you see the pine cones opened so the seeds can spread. Some cones open only during fires. Some of the first green you see in burnscapes are itty bitty trees.

So knowing that, and building houses in forests, you know you’re taking your chances. I remember watching people helicopter in supplies to build a house and thought… hmmm if the truck can’t get in to bring the lumber, how does it get in to bring the water?

I get living in the forest with all the dark and green. Being a Pennsylvania girl where there are lots of forests, I understand the allure. And there one of the biggest problems is mold in your house. But this is not Pennsylvania. And even there there are dangers.

But now we’re in escalating cycles of drought in California. And the building doesn’t stop. It hasn’t stopped in the forests and it hasn’t stopped in large subdivisions that further tax the water system.

Everyone I know is flushing less frequently and taking fewer and shorter showers, but we all know… the brick in the toilet will not be what saves the land or the people.

California’s a mecca … people are going to come. Somehow, everyone is going to need to do something about global climate change. It’s our challenge. We worry constantly about our relationship to our friends and family, let’s learn to communicate better in our relationship with the Earth, shall we?

Peace will come from our accepting our responsibility.

Mercy, Compassion, Peace

It’s a lovely story — the Bodhisattva paused while entering heaven, heard the cries of the miserable, and returned to Earth so that she could help all beings find their way…

She helps women get pregnant, she has a place for those women who choose not to have a family. She is Artemis, she is Tara, she is Mary, she is the softness toward which we yearn when our hearts need comfort.

This Sangha in San Diego is gorgeous. There are Buddhas all over, but back in the heart of the grounds is a tall and lovely statue of Quan Yin. It’s right around the corner from my friend’s house. He walks there in the morning and the evening. Reports are it was glorious under the full moon, all those alabaster statues gleaming! And the garden was indeed ripe and flowering there!

This part of San Diego is very mixed. Vietnamese, Hmong, Mexican. And it’s residential… I love the fact that Our Lady of Kazan is right down the street… an orthodox church.

But this is a huge Sangha and people come from all over to visit. They own the houses around it and the nuns and priests live there. (The houses are all craftsman cottage neatly adorned with plants and flags. So SoCal!).

And then, apparently, there’s Tet — Vietnamese New Year. Huge throngs of people come in buses… Because Buddha. Because Quan Yin.

May Mercy and Compassion guide us. May they bring us Peace. May we bring Peace.

Peace in a Dry Land

What does Peace look like in a drought? What is it in the midst of climate change?

The issues are far more complicated than i understand.

But when people are carefully saving their warm up water for the shower and you see field after field of fruits to be made into leisure drinking and tourism…

It’s good that we change how we use water in our households and a shower a day is a luxury that’s not necessarily good for our bodies or the land.

But shorter showers don’t offset a vineyard.

Shorter showers don’t mean there’s water to fight fires. There are 22 of them in CA now. They’re just trying to save the houses built in the middle of forests and brush and letting the forests burn. Now, Nature seems to like fires; some trees only spread their seeds through fire… And yet — Lives have been lost fighting the out of control fires.

And more wineries are going in. CA is going to become the medical marijuana center of the world: another high water crop.

And I know it’s easy to come in from the outside and have an opinion… even when it’s reflection upon coming back home…

But what I see is land in need. I’m not seeing how the drought is affecting poor communities, but i have people to see before i come home who are working in them — and some people who have a bigger economic view than i ever have.

I say this not because I’m going to make any difference in the drought in CA but because I want some balance and understanding so I can work effectively for change where I live. Knowledge is power. And balance is not always my strongest suit…

Peace has so many facets. and Mother Earth is both powerful and fragile. Both need our helping hands!

Porches of Peace

I’ve written about screen porches, and I’m just as delighted by deep shady porches where you and your book can linger out of the sunlight — even if you have to keep on the move! (they’re particularly nice in regions where there are no mosquitoes.)

This one is covered in wisteria and the sun just wiggles its way through the leaves to cast beautiful moving patterns on the ground. It’s owned by my friends Julie and Bill and is located out in the wine country. It’s beautiful with deep comfortable chairs and a table to gather around.

It was fun at the same time to be reading a book by a friend… on Holy Identity. Life. It’s rich…

And at the same time it was all lovely breezes for me, I’m in the middle of a sere and worn landscape. Climate change: we must do something. And the whole region is planted in one crop… wine. what will happen when the soil fails. What will happen when we keep failing our Mother the Earth?

Peace. It must be of our making, whether it’s the creation of sweet porches or the hard work to curb human excess… Peace — in our hearts and then our hands.

Traveling Peace

This is the place in the summer where I celebrate how lucky I am — and not only because it’s swimming season!

I’m visiting friends and family all over CA. Friends from Sweden, friends from when I lived here, family from when I got married, friends from living back East. Sweet, satisfying visits (with lots of fresh vegetables and talk npr on the way from one house to the next!)

It’s sort of like heaven. All these people are people I love. Many are people I think with. and some, like EG are just bonuses. what a delight. and what a blessing! Thinking. Reading. Loving. yes! Lucky, lucky me.

But oooh, the traffic. Gotta love rural central PA.

But meanwhile. I’m having fun. How about you?

Love brings a lot of Peace, in so many ways!

I hope it brings you some. Start Loving! Start Peacing! Yahoo!

Lammas Celebrations! Sabbath Peace! Oh, boy!

In-gatherings!

A friend reminded me that the ancient celebrations were more approximate. You didn’t stop to celebrate in the middle of the harvest. You didn’t grind the flour until the wheat was out of the field and threshed.

I love this celebration in the middle of the hot spell. Back home, there’s corn, tomatoes and blueberries. How much sweeter can summer get?

Out here? there are grandchildren, swimming pools and tomatoes. May in fact be sweeter.

And today, another beautiful summer Sabbath, spent with them. Full moons and hot summers. Sacred. Joyous. yeahhhhhhhh.

Hurrah! Peace be with you all.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

The Priestess Is In