Vulnerable Peace, LLVL

When you live where you live, and when that place is a small town, you have to get to know yourself, because other people will know you well — sometimes better than you want to know yourself.

But it’s never a great idea for someone else to know you better than you know yourself, so it behooves you to keep looking.

I’ve been tired, emotionally up against my physical boundaries. It’s a wonderful privilege to do the work that I do, but sometimes it’s very demanding. You can’t always tell the demands to take a hike. or rather, you can’t always tell all of the demands to take a hike. Sometimes when you’re a minister, people need you. So you show up.

But it’s important to pay attention. Sometimes you can pass things off… And when you can, you probably should. For a lot of reasons, but two big ones. Those you love need to know you trust them to be as big and powerful as they are. And you need to honor what’s too much.

I love sermonizing. (ya think?) This week I had set myself a high bar. I was headed toward a more researchy sermon than I normally do. But post Charlie-memorial and post Jean visits in the hospital, there really wasn’t any brain power left. I finished the sermon. sorta. And went to bed, because bed was what was needed.

The next morning, as the poem says, I watched the river. And something about that flow reminded me. I wasn’t alone in this. I certainly wasn’t alone in mourning Charlie. I wasn’t alone in my fears for Jean, now, thank goodness somewhat allayed. And I am not alone in my ability to chew up a bunch of ideas and get something out of it. And this is a crowd who trusts me to love them.

One of the places that people get ministry wrong, I think, is when we don’t trust them to love us back. And there’s that awful hubris where we think we’re the only people who can… you fill in your own blank. Ministers could be the only people who have that problem, but I’m not taking any bets. So I went to church said, I’m going to give you my premises and my research… see if you can help… lots of thinking happens in the heads of my community… so there was a lot to be said for that. And in the end… it was a great sermon, jointly preached. I was supported and they were grateful to be asked. And the next time? I’ll do my stuff…until I need help again.

Ah, the timeless, sacred river… encouraging me to show up and be present, facilitating the moments of reflection, forgiving (even encouraging) the vulnerability, and offering the Peace of being right where you are, in this place, in this moment of time. Living la vida local has lessons I hadn’t any notion I might want to learn. ah, that darned praying constantly thing.

Happy New Peace

A year filled with ups and downs, marvels and mourning. A full year. A year of my life. I’m not wishing it away — after all, this is the year I discovered I’m a Peacemaker. The last year of my sister’s life, and the year of the sweetest connection. A year with Alaska in it. Visits from the kids and grands. How can I fail to give thanks? And I refuse to wish it away, even the painful bits. They were sacred as well.

A year of trying to be present no matter how painful. At the end of this year I’m tired and I start the year having to hold my hand and heart open once again so that I can say goodbye to an old friend. But once again presence.

So, I’ll thank 2013 for the lessons learned. And welcome 2014 for what’s in store and settle my intention not simply to be present but to be a presence, to act on 2014 so that it might grow in beauty.

Thank you my friends for Love and Peace and the demand that I be the best Ann I can. I hope I’m asking the same of you. I leave you in 2013 and I greet you in 2014 with a prayer for Peace, with prayers that we might be Peace — wild, wonderful burgeoning, laughing Peace.

Stories for Peace

The Dark is the time of Sacred Stories. We are asked to recall and recite the stories that make sense in our lives, the stories that make sense of our lives. Every time we tell them, a layer is added. The meaning deepens in the telling and so do our connections to the stories.

We have choices about the stories we tell. We have choices about how we tell the stories, what is it we want them to teach us. We even have choices about the way our stories evolve, because we can make choices about how we live our lives.

When I started this year, I decided to let a new storyline emerge. I wanted to explore Peace in my life. Writing about Peace every day, no matter how obliquely has turned me into a Peace-Considerer and is moving me toward Peace-maker. Choosing to capitalize Peace and other nouns that lead toward it, while choosing to take power away from unpeaceful nouns by keeping them lowercase has had impact, on me, if not on others. The capital (particularly from someone who is capital challenged) is a small, lingering caress. I pay attention to the Peaceful details of the stories I tell.

And oh they matter, those stories. I’m trying to collect them about a friend of mine, who died a week ago. He was a wacky, wonderful guy with a sly sense of humor and a penchant for collecting things and people and stories. and awful jokes. There are so many Charlie-stories worth telling. Telling them well, next week when we have the memorial will help those stories settle into our collective hearts and become part of our history.

Telling Charlie stories will ease our sorrow and shape our shared future and perhaps our individual ones as well. That’s what stories do, the bring the past into the present and offer a path into the future. And if you make your stories stories of Peace, you will build a future of Peace. The more people in your stories, the more people on your Peace road. So observe so you can collect those stories, practice so you can tell them and listen to what you say so you know what to tweak and what to do next. Which ones exhort you to show up? Which make you reflect? Which count the blessings of sweet memories made from your feats of derring-do and your moments of collective lolling about.

Tell the stories that make you happy, make you laugh. Tell the stories that remind you that your heart bruises. Remind yourself of big work completed and little times enjoyed. Tell the stories that help you remember what you stumble over. Remember what you’re proud of. Tell the stories of how Love grows, and Hope and Joy. Tell them simply or embellish the heck out of them. But most of all? Enjoy each and every one of them. Peace, my friends… Happy Story-telling!

Sated Peace

Now, when we’re filled up with Thanksgiving, giving thanks, blessing counting, turkey and oh, yes, stuffing, let us capture this emotion and use it to start our movement forward into Peace.

And if you’re shopping, consider asking yourself, what you need to be a Peacemaker…

In the meantime? Continue giving thanks. It’s good for us. And hey, make another date with the friends and family for whom you’re grateful. Nothing sweeter to give for the holidays than the gift of presence.

Thanksgiving Peace

It’s an odd day today. My heart is both very full and very empty. I miss my sister Deb, I cannot lie. My heart aches for my nieces who lost their father 2 weeks later. And my friend who lost her husband just a month after that.

I mourn the loss of tradition and I celebrate the reforming, re-imagining, the cut-from-new-cloth-entirely of traditions. I cherish knowing that you are somewhere you like with someone you love — or that you’re taking care of yourself by not being there.

And in the face of so much hunger, I celebrate that we’re the ones who will do something to make a difference. Because we will be. Because we can’t look away. Because we care. And that is Thanksgiving Peace enough for all of us. So I’m trying to stay present. I’m counting my blessings. I’m going to eat turkey and stuffing with no guilt about the fact that others hunger or that I’m overweight. I will be with my Beloved… and I can think of nothing sweeter.

All’s not yet right in the world. but it will be. And today, let us be at Peace and give thanks. Blessed, blessed, blessed be, my friends. I am grateful for you.

Winter Peace

It is cold outside, I have to acknowledge that. But I’ve decided not to fret about it this year. It’s not going to be too cold. It’s not going to be too hot. It’s going to be life. I live in the Northeast. We have winter. It rains. It sleets. It snows. It’s cold and windy. It is what it is. Because you know what? Life gets cut short. And then there’s no time to spend together.

And if we spend our time together wishing our way our time together, we’re not having time together. I spent a lot of time last year working on improving my relationship to the dark and searching for the mystery. I think I’ll spend a lot of time this winter looking for (and finding!) the beauty.

I’m going to buy marvelous potions and lotions and slather myself in them.

I’m going to wrap up against the cold and take long walks. I’ve got the gear. Why not try it out?

I’m going to hope for snow and be glad to shovel.

I’m going to light candles in my house and keep the tea and oranges coming. I’ll keep my house clean and cozy.

And I’m going to give up wanting the clock to move in anything other than its stately progression. I’m going to work to be present and self-reflective. Because this is the time I have with you. This is the time I have with me.

So Winter is going to be all about Peace for me. It’s going to be about wonder and the sacred, sacred Dark. It’s going to be more work on living my life as a prayer of thanksgiving. I hope it will be for you as well. Because it certainly is beautiful. And this is our time.

Autumn Peace Swimming

I love swimming. You can’t have read these for long and not have gotten clear about that. And swimming out of doors, whether in a creek, the ocean or a pool. The best. But swimming anywhere? I’ll take it.

The pool where I swim in the winter is in a room on the end of the building, windows all around. No matter what’s going on outside, the water remains a cozy 84˚. The air is even more balmy (unless you get too close to the doors on a winter’s day.). Sometimes I get to the pool in the afternoons and it’s empty except for the guard and I do my work out chatting with Tara and enjoying nature. It’s wonderful. Oh, look, there’s an eagle. Funny that wind last night didn’t take all the leaves off that tree…

But it’s also wonderful in the early mornings, when the pool’s open before class. The ladies come drifting in for their stretching and aerobics classes. It’s such a delight to hear them chatter. Catching up on their days, talking of bargains, of plants and old friends. Giggling. Comfortable in their bodies and in their lives. Grumbling a bit about the inconveniences, but present. Showing up to life and the moment. Counting their blessings and sharing them with the person next to them and the one across the circle.

May I be such a one. Swimming still. Reveling in the full-bodied embrace of water on flesh. Enjoying my friends and the morning gathering. Life is still rich and they’re generous with stories and lessons and laughter. Ah… Keeps me going back because this is the exercise that feels most like joy to me. And that makes the exercise sacred for me. Joy in my body. Joy in my heart. Peace in my mind and soul. It doesn’t get better than this for me.

Candlelit Peace

I don’t know what it is that candles do for me… or rather I know what, but I don’t know why.

OK, throw that all out. I know that sitting in a room with lit candles calms me. I also know that when I light them with intention, that I might be present, that I might be calmed, that I might appreciate the beauty of where I am (where I live!) and the gift of the dark.

Now as I mourn my sister’s passing. I create a small, quiet, beautifully lit oasis so that I might sit in contemplation.

To give myself that Peace, I must make my space beautiful, a place I want to be… The whole process helps, and indulges the luxury of time and of being exactly how I am, feeling what I feel and feeling wonderful in the midst of it.

I love the sweetness of the dark for all it offers me… May you find comfort in the dark as well. May we leave those sweet oases with Peace on our hearts and go back into the world as its envoys.

Stuck in the Middle Peace

“Stuck in the middle again.” And what better place? And who better to be stranded with.

Here we are. Life’s a jumble. Everything is every which way, but if we have clarity then we can decide the journey we want.

I don’t know about you, but I’m probably never going to be a maker of Peace in spectacular ways. I will trudge along, but probably never be the one called on “to pray the devil back to hell” in ways like Leymah Gbowee.

I will be called on, on a daily basis, to make Peace where I am. To honor and esteem it. To hold it close and precious. I am called on to be unfailingly kind. To be observant. To be present and aware. Present to you. Aware of you.

How I am called is different than how you are called. Ever since I started this year’s musings on Peace, I have been increasingly aware of the single-minded, simple-hearted, ensouled movements toward Peace in this area. Some people work on huge (and small) political projects, some work on spiritual pursuits, others on matters of the heart. And there are those, and I know and love them, who make life better for our bodies. All of them work toward Peace and inclusion — because isn’t that the center of Peace? — and all of us are gratefully acknowledging the others’ work.

We don’t own the Peace Road, we walk it in good company. We may not understand another’s journey, but we’re neighbors on the path. Here we are stuck in the middle again. So let us make the progress we can. And let us enjoy the company. Because this? Is a very long road.

Exhale for Peace

And inhale too. But the inhale is automatic; the exhale needs concentration. And without breath, there is no peace.

Some days there’s too much to be done. I keep remembering that biblical injunction: Sufficient unto the days are the troubles thereof. Well, sometimes the troubles are more than sufficient. Particularly as I struggle with grief.

You have to keep an eagle eye on grief. When is it grief? When does it tilt toward depression. How do you honor the grief and stay faithful to yourself? How do you deal with the grief and the what the world needs? Luckily I have a great team of PCP who are tracking me: watching my BP, holding me accountable to exercise… (must get in pool today. must. must.) So easy to postpone. Work, Inertia. Grief. Inertia. Hello, Exercise, Oxygen. Come back, WW. Count those points. All of which needs to be balanced with staring into space.

If there’s anything I’m sure of, grief is a physical activity as well as one of the heart, soul and mind. Careful with those fragile bodies. I’m not at all sure we don’t need to resurrect some of those Victorian grieving traditions, to look at cultures that mourn well and see what we need to take on. “Getting on with life” is not only overrated, it’s ridiculous. Absence is as real a thing as presence. It’s disorienting. All that energy, dispersing into the universe. They’ve just discovered that energy carries memory. Wild science fiction as truth (and metaphor) as a person’s life swirls past you on their way out the door. Is it ridiculous to consider being present to Absence?

On those days when those memories lay you low, you want to lay low. But sometimes life, insistent and constant, has other ideas. Just because your heart is breaking doesn’t mean someone else’s life isn’t falling apart. And sometimes, not always, you have to be there with your hands out to catch someone before they hit the ground. That’s hard. That’s life.

When that happens, you have to try and remember the beauty. You have to lean on your friends. You have to get a good night’s sleep. And, in my opinion, you have to help out. Because folks need you. You may not be graceful. You may botch up the catch. You may need to keep a list of references on hand so you can find other support for folk who look to you for help.

And as you offer a steadying hand. Look for the beauty that inspires and supports you. Life. A fragile boat. And the hands on the oars are uncertain. But on we paddle. And hold the sweetness close.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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