June Peace Sabbath, llvl

It doesn’t get more beautiful than June in Central Pennsylvania. The trees are green the rivers are full and the skies are blue, blue, blue. Yes, the pollen’s high, but… it’s gorgeous nonetheless.

And it’s a day of rest and relaxation. Two church services this morning, I’m preaching the home game and Sara’s leading the away one out in the woods at a park filled with waterfalls and a gorgeous lake. Then many of us are rallying for lunch, a swim or a hike or both. (don’t be ridiculous, ann doesn’t hike!)

I hope you have wonderful plans today. And I hope it’s as lovely where you are. We’re having a perfect moment here in the Valley. And I’m going to revel in it.

When we have these perfect days, may we all enjoy — and come Monday, Sabbath over, get back to work protecting this beautiful world.

No meaning, just Joy on this beautiful Sabbath Day. Peace be with you all.

Mystery, Beauty, Peace, llvl

Our beautiful little village and our photographer who captures it. This is such a splendid picture of what’s happening all over at this moment in moist and lush central Pennsylvania. There are certainly other places as beautiful, but none more so, I think.

For some reason this catapults me back to childhood and playing make believe. Which I did for years. (who knew, all those years when they thought I wouldn’t ever grow up, I was just preparing to be a writer.)

It’s true that today’s Ann looks at this and thinks, oh, there’d be bugs under there (yes, I’ve gotten crochety/practical as I’ve seasoned.), but when I look through the eyes of the little girl I was I see Magic and Possibility everywhere. And where there’s Magic and Possibility, there’s Peace. There’s got to be Mystery, too, who knows what magical beings might choose to live in such beauty…

So, feast your eyes on this picture and enjoy the beauty. Consider who you used to be and consider how you might have played in this Faerie garden and who you might have met… Oh, such joy!

Purple Peace-Seeing, llvl

This is Beauty in the local life, that’s for sure — all this glorious purple… I’m counting purple blessings as fast as I can!

Let’s all be one-eyed, one horned flying Purple Peace-Makers… (so could not resist!)

And I admit, I’ve been considering whether I might not start working to see if i can’t develop some, i don’t know, 89th sense that allows me to see the color of a word. What the heck, I learned to parallel park, I can do anything! Possibilities abound!

I’m also trying to train myself to see the Abundance as well as the deprivation as a call to Peace. There is so much that we must share, rather than there is so much that we must have it all to ourselves. To fill up and overflow… into Peace-Making. From Peace-Seeing into Peace-Making… Are you with me?

Glorious Spring Peace

OK: Downtown Lewisburg is beautiful. It’s just gorgeous. Whoever the master gardeners have been over time have done an amazing job. When all the flowering pears are out lining Market Street, it’s hard not to swoon. And there are lovely lawns and people who carefully tend their flowers. Luckily we live in a part of the world where when you stick bulbs and plants in the ground they do what they’re supposed to and flower and fruit. We’ve (usually) got the water to keep them satisfied, enough sun and good soil.

And Deb Slade knows how to show it to us. Thanks, Deb, this pic is just glorious and, folks, go see the flowers, before they don’t look like this!

Small towns, even ones as prosperous as this one, have things that don’t work and aren’t beautiful. Child hunger on the weekends is less in this town than in some of the neighboring towns, but that there’s any is atrocious. There’s unemployment and under-employment. Yesterday a picture flashed across FB, one of our children has gone missing. No story, just no boy/man/child.

We’re needed to be gardeners in our villages. We need the flowers in our ground to make us delirious with joy come Spring. we need good infrastructures so all our people are happy and healthy, well-fed and educated. There’s a lot of work to be done tending the gardens. But we’re community so we can do what’s needed, each one doing her or his part.

Enjoy the beauty of these proud tulips. May they give us courage for the work to be done.

That Keep-Trying Spring Peace, llvl

When you’re in the depths of winter, you think about Spring and you think you know what it means. (Substitute any seasons here. I think longing clouds your vision.) I know I don’t remember the allergens (achoo!), but I don’t think you remember Spring’s long and sustained beauty. There are too many wonderful flowers blooming, too many trees bursting with color; the scent of all the unfolding dances on the breeze — oh right the breezes and the gales.

There’s a rail trail in our area and a girlfriend and I strolled down it at dusk, talking about life and its challenges. It’s hard to decide whether the setting was simply antithetical to our conversation or a balm! Life is very hard and life is very beautiful. There we were, all in one splash. The trail cuts through people’s back yards, farmers fields and wooded copses. It does that all in rapid succession, lest you think i walked for miles and miles and miles. Violets, bulbs, trees, new plantings, birds and barking dogs soothed conversations of loss and challenging presents and subsequent futures.

As we were walking for clarity and health, the earth was offering Beauty. Maybe the conundrum of Spring that I was poking at earlier is that it is so ephemeral and short-lived, in such an exuberant and sustained way. That’s good to remember when life is confusing. Peace comes in many guises, doesn’t it, and it keeps opening new ways to walk. Filled up with beauty and gratitude and searching for Peace in the midst of the chaos. We’ll make it the weather and the rest of us… Our lives depend on it.

Fierce Pansy Peace, llvl

If you look at a pansy you can see why they are called dragons in other cultures. And yet, our interpretation of them as gentle and happy is fairly easy to see as well. Ah, metaphors, they work in so many ways!

As I was writing (once I got past the pansy glow in this shot — Deb Slade caught something amazing, didn’t she?), I realized how much I liked the combined possibility of these two seemingly opposite characteristics, realized that I’d liked it for a long time when I remembered that I’d exhorted wedding couples to “love one another with a fierce and passionate tenderness.” hmmm, wonder why i stopped — does it perhaps get too carnal for comfort?

There they are, every spring, fierce and passionately tender pansies, bringing the world Peace with everything that’s in them. They look so fragile, but like yesterday’s daff, they’re pretty hardy… they persevere through the cold to fill us with delight and color. What a notion, sticking to the one thing you do and doing it well.

So now whenever i see a bunch of pansies, when I think “sweet” or “whimsical,” I’ll also think “fierce” and that will make me giggle with delight. An elite troop of Peace-warriors, right there in our gardens, sort of the terra cotta troops of the plant world. Yay! You go, little warrior pansies! Bring on the Peace.

Posy Peace, llvl

Today is brought to you by the sturdy, cheerful daffodil.

They’re not the first flower to tiptoe in when spring starts, but when they arrive spring is no longer hovering on the edges of our lives. The light has changed. The temps have usually warmed some. And there they are. great masses of them, thumbing their trumpets at the wind and the cool and damp. They’re not fragile.

I love that you plant them and they slowly take over. There are houses whose entire lawns become spring festivals when the daffodils bloom. You can find them in the woods where there used to be houses and the while time has reclaimed the foundation, the daffodils sunnily march on. They are creatures of abundance, those blooms.

My cousin wrote after seeing this morning’s poem to remember her spring coat. Both our mothers sewed, and we were so lucky… and my mother LOVED color. when it was spring around our parts, you could tell that the Evans girls were in the house.

So, get out there and shine. Be strong. Be beautiful. Be Peaceful. Be your best self. It’s spring and it’s time to blossom!

Forsythia Sabbath Peace, llvl

I love the promise of forsythia (can violets be far behind?). All that sunny, beautiful yellow. It simply hollers Spring.

Happy Easter (Western and Eastern Easter are on the same day this year!). Glad Pesach. Happy Spring (we’re actually a month after the Equinox, but the weather’s staying chilly, hence the late April forsythia in Central PA.). Much of the world will be celebrating sacred holidays today all of which have Hope in common. May that Hope spill out on the rest of the world.

The turning of the seasons brings back such memories and such opportunities to make more memories. Remember. Re-member. Piece Back together the times that came before.

So much to look forward to, so much to enjoy right here. I’m going to go sit beside this river and eat breakfast with my sweetie — it will be a fine start to a wonderful day!

What ever you celebrate may you be filled with Hope. And may you have a wonderful Peace-filled Sabbath, reveling in the Beauty and the Possibility. And what the heck. I’m up and on time on East Coast time!

Catch and Release Peace, llvl

What do you think? Too corny? I confess I really like the notion. Move toward Peace, enjoy the moment, let it go out into the world. Take the next step, repeat the process.

What would that mean? Well, some of it would mean filling up the airwaves and the electrons with good news about Peace.

I know a lot of people get nervous about about putting good deeds in the newspaper because they feel it’s self-aggrandizing. But the fact is, some place in our brain we’re monkey see, monkey do. We’re more generous when we see other people being generous.

So it makes sense to Catch and Release Peace. Make it. Love it. Proclaim it. Repeat. Fill up the newspapers with good news. Maybe we should have contests! Peace! (and look at Deb’s beautiful new Pic that inspired this! and look, it’s the 16th day of April in the 16th week of the year! and it’s still a palindrome: 4.16.14. Beautiful Happiness and goofy Happiness!)

Peace of Perfect Days, llvl

However grand we find life most of the time, there are still those astonishing halcyon days, when everything seems perfect. We especially notice them in spring when the weather turns nice for the first time. But every season has them. They are extraordinary days, filled to the brim with Beauty and Love and Gratitude.

Hopefully when these days arrive we can remember to count our blessings rather than demand that all life be that perfect. Into every life a little rain, and all that! These days are beautiful, ephemeral jewels to be exclaimed over, enjoyed, and released… These are sacred days, not mundane…

hmmm. there’s a theme to be explored… life as catch and release…

yep, pretty sure I should stop right there. Peace… Beauty, Love, Gratitude — not much more that’s needed! (except, of course, your appreciation).

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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