Joy in Advent Sabbath Peace

Today we light the third Advent Candle Joy. Let us welcome Hope! Love! Joy!

It’s the Sabbath. Today it really feels true. Tonight we’re having an Anti-Gun-Violence Vigil. It’s such a solemn thing — such a needed thing. So much to learn. So much work to do. Too much death. And yet, even this will be a thing of beauty. There are religious folk from 6 different traditions and many denominations assembling tonight. There will words of reality, words of hope, words of dedicating ourselves to what is needed.

And yet the word for today is enjoying. And somehow we need to balance both. It is the holiday season, filled with memories and tradition and hopefully Joy.

Today I remember my year in Sweden and I treasure the family and friends I found there. So many lovely traditions that still linger in memory and sometimes grace my table or my tree or my winter windows. Lucia is one of them. She brings the promise of returning light.

Apparently back in the old calendar, the 13th of December was the solstice. Somehow they counted their days differently. Today families sing of Nighttime’s heavy plodding around the yard… and they fight that with Lucia princesses and star boys. And those wonderful, wonderful saffron rolls. Oh, yum. And I think that may have been my introduction to whipped cream in my hot chocolate rather than marshmallows. On the whole, a rather wonderful trade off!

And so my friends, find joy in this celebration of waiting in the Dark. Enjoy the parties and the connections and the traditions. Stop for a moment on the sabbath so you get to recall what this season is really about. And Peace. may it be with you. May you be with Peace.

Alternative Advent – December 13: 5¢ for every meal with meat this week. Vegetarian? How will you give today? Because the point is NOT to escape giving, the point is to feed kids. What richness do you have that others would be so happy for?

Cherishing Advent Peace

Here at a time in my life when so much of my family has died, I have had to make decisions about what and when I cherish. What do I bring forward from that life with them? What do I call out from my time in California? How do I incorporate the people in this life whom I’ve come to love and their celebrations? And how do I leave myself room to “mind the gaps,” to drift away from what is still too painful to touch?

This is some of Advent’s important work I think.

Many of us, for reasons far sadder than death, don’t have the family they want. So how do you celebrate and cherish the family you do have? How do you make holidays that matter with who you are and what you have.

The Dark is a precious gift and so are the holidays that come with it. And there are so many. Can’t do the one you were born with? Can you do it differently, or make a home in another one?

And can we all acknowledge our responsibility to cherish life? This is a time of new beginnings, celebrations of tiny scraps of God among us and light returning. Can we sing sleep in heavenly Peace in December and mean it in January? Can we light candles and remember the past and look forward to the future and providing defiant light to the world?

We’re the people to do that! We’re the people to cherish our own traditions and to invite people over to share the festival foods. We’re the people to become curious about others’ feasts and fests and learn about what makes us different and celebrate the urge to come together to with our families and communities to make new memories.

We’re the people to create Peace. We’re the people to cherish it. May it be so.

Alternative Advent today is 10¢ for every flush toilet. That should be a dollar! These are precious!

Advent Cuddling for Peace?

And why not? Why not snuggle in and enjoy the dark. Light the candles, fluff the throw, put on some seasonal music. Someone special in your life? Share the comforter and the candlelight.

We need this. All of us. We need to rest in the security and beauty of our lives, to fill our lungs and hearts with it. We need to open our eyes to the abundance in our lives.

That’s when we can go to work. We can work on Peace because we know that everyone deserves what we have. We can work on Peace because we have touched base with all we’re blessed with. So enjoy the luxury. Cuddle up. huh. and Cuddle down. Cuddling. It’s a good thing. Savor your own Peace and then share it. Ah, Advent you teach me.

Alternative Advent – December 9: 20¢ for every tub or shower.

Embracing Advent Peace

After hearing the the vile hatred spewn last night, celebrating open arms becomes even more important that even the day before.

We cannot allow fear and hatred to run our lives. We cannot allow it to run our country or our world.

It’s easy, because it’s so deliciously seductive. But it’s wrong.

We must make the invitation to Love easy, the invitation to Peace. We cannot spend our time (waste our time) pointing out what a ridiculous people the haters are. That’s a waste of time and keeps the focus on them.

They may not have that. We must be the ones who claim the attention with our open hands and open hearts.

We can be/become the ones that others desire to emulate – for the kindness we offer.

So we have to get busy.

Peace… we need to scream its possibilities. We need to embrace them — and one another, in all our glorious differences.

Embracing. Let’s.

Alternative Advent is 3¢ for every light switch in your house. Hey, it’s for the hungry kids. consider including the lamps.

Engaging in, Being Engaged By Advent Peace

Today’s Advent Word – Day 7 is engaging. It’s all the same use, really, but it always seems if I say I find something engaging, I am amused and charmed. Something is whimsical. But when I say I am engaged in a behavior we hope it’s powerful and purposeful and rewarding.

So I am absolutely delighted by Virginia Zimmerman’s new YA book: The Rosemary Spell. I find it wonderfully engaging. Sadly, I’m not engaged in reading it, because my work is pushing. So, I am stopped at page 67… what happens next? But hurry up, says her daughter, and go write a 5-star review! I told her I was finishing it before I wrote the review. I love her canniness!

But I am engaged in what I hope is Peace work. There’s nothing I believe in more fiercely. There is no work, I believe, that is more important. I have the areas I work in. You have yours. But it’s all Peace. Peace with the Earth, Peace on the Earth. (Do I believe there is Peace without working on climate change, no I do not. And I am grateful to those who take the lead on this in this valley.)

Engage in Peace during this season of Advent, and make it a life long love affair. Peace be with us and may we be with Peace.

Alternative Advent for December 7 is 3¢ for every pair of shoes, etc., in your house. Wow. Hair care and shoes close together? That’s a lot.

Sabbath Opening to Advent, to Peace

Today, in the advent wreathe we add the candle Love to the candle Hope. Love Makes things possible. This is the prayer my community will say in services this morning:

The Second Candle is lit for Love. Are you willing to open your heart to its abundance? Can you be generous with the world and its brokenness?

May I be a generous person, quick to open my heart to new friends, new places and new ways of doing things. May I be known as a lover of life, one who embraces the world as it is and works to temper its harshness with gentle acceptance. Blessed be.

It’s easy to resist this however, which is why today’s word is opening. I must open to the possibilities when everything within me is so ready to shut down. Fear makes you do that. Anger. Being just damned tired of the bullshit.

But today, I have a new book to read by Virginia Zimmerman: The Rosemary Spell … rosemary is my very favorite herb. I wrote my thesis to a candle of rosemary, knowing that the Greeks used rosemary wreaths as prizes for their intellectual Olympics.

It is my Sabbath, a time for reflection. It is Advent, a time for preparation for what is to come. It is time to open for Peace.

Waiting for Advent; Waiting for Peace

Advent is a time of Anticipation and Expectation. Peace must be that as well. It must be a wondered waiting to see what will emerge.

Waiting doesn’t come easy. But when you’ve set up and are ready but Godot hasn’t arrived, then you just have to wait. You can find wonderful ways to pass the time, but you can’t hurry the process.

So, do your work, and then engage yourself in life, and keep encouraging — but do not force. Wait on the world, it has so much beauty to show you.

Today’s Alternative Advent suggested donation is 5¢ for every bed.

Every bit of Peace’s coming into being is a challenge — one that is well worth the waiting and watching. Enjoy the Peace Process. Enjoy Advent.

Dreaming of Peace in Advent

Hope is the name of the first Advent Candle. Dreaming is the word I’ve assigned to this third day of Advent.

So many of these verbs, which are normally understood to have a passive voice, also have an active one.

So dreaming isn’t merely floating in some safe, beautiful vision of the future. It is also envisioning something desired and then designing the steps to get there. Dreaming involves, I believe, bringing those hopes to life.

Today, as we face the aftermath of another shooting, this seems particularly apt. I suddenly thought that someone might read this years from now and look back and say, shooting? what was going on in those times. Oh, may it be so… But I write for today.

I write frustrated because, since these shooters were Muslim, we now see them as terrorists. But the guy who killed people last week was Christian, so he was not. And yet,

Are not large numbers of people dead in both events? Did not both intend to overset the safety of civilians? Is that not terrorism?

Mourning doesn’t seem sufficient. And certainly the numbness that spreads through us is not a good sign. “Oh well, more people killed” is not an attitude to be cultivated. We must not allow ourselves to be overtaken by resignation.

So we must begin to purposefully, actively dream of Peace. We must move beyond our resignation and fear. We are the ones to bring Hope to the world. We are the ones to make Peace.

Alternative Advent — Day 3 suggests 3 cents for every pair of jeans your family owns.

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