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.
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.
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.
Looking down from the bridge into the slowly moving Susquehanna this morning, I was caught by the beauty. It was picture perfect — looking ‘way too much like many of those sympathy cards I’ve recently received.
So at first I was stuck with that image. And then I recognized the movement of the water, flowing down to the ever renewing ocean. The gorgeous red and gold leaves slipping down over the stones were just the symbols of Fall’s slipping away…
And suddenly, I was smiling again. Happy to think about the notion renewal and rebirth… far away and unknown, but reassuring in some weird, but deeply visceral way. It was also a lovely reminder of how beautiful Deb’s life was and of what I’d been called to do and the ways I’d responded, ways I was proud of. I loved her. She’d needed me. I’d been there to the best of my abilities. She knew that and accepted my love and returned it full measure.
And now a gentle reminder that leaves slipping by are the way of the season… and incredibly beautiful. And I am a sad and lucky woman. Let us take it all in as it comes to us, all the sweet abundance, because in that we can search for Peace. Finding it, even if only from time to time, we can begin to spread it abroad.
Two of my Swedish Sisters were here this weekend to help say goodbye to Deb. They’d met her in Sweden, they’d stayed with her when they came to my wedding. They came to honor Deb and they stepped up to prop me up. Oh and they did. We counted blessings and gave thanks. Along the ways we made new memories.
They let me cry. They patted me. They fed me tea and chocolate (Finnish chocolate, tell no one!). We talked about all sorts of things and they came along as witnesses to my life as it is now. (Sadly they didn’t get to see my husband because he was sick the entire time they were here… ) They talked to me when I needed to jabber or when they needed something explained or just had something to say. And they were quiet when I needed quiet. And I could let them be quiet when their brains were exploding from all the English. We were present to one another.
They helped me remember why friends make a difference and reminded me to be grateful for all the astonishing and wonderful friends I have here and all over the world.
We all wondered at the thought that friendships such as ours — now over 44 years deep — can endure without a lot of tending, just because they are. We lived together. They shared their family (and now families) with me. They’ve met my family (now families) and loved them.
And in moments like this, you just push over bed in the morning as one of them comes in to chat and steals some covers and reassures your heart.
So even when the work ahead is hard, your heart is full and fueled for the journey. Peace goes better with friendship. Yes, indeed it does.
As the family slowly gathers for Deb’s memorial, and the year rolls around to what I find a very important time of the year: This is the season in quite a few traditions to remember the departed: The Communion of the Dead… and for some communion with the dead.
For me it’s always a chance to look back at what my ancestors taught me and look ahead at what I have to learn. I believe that most of us do what we can… I believe that those who came before did what they could. In some cases they succeeded wildly. In other cases, they missed the mark. In all cases, they had something to teach us.
In the soft light of twilight, we are invited to look closely at ourselves and decide whether or not we’re going to learn their lessons — whether that means taking on or shedding their behaviors.
Such a crazy time. I’m so grateful for the gathering, real and spectral, and yet, and yet, and yet. I will try very hard to walk in Peace, and to be gentle with myself as I work to stay open to the incredible outpouring of love — and grief — which is coming. We always promised ourselves we’d do this while she was still alive to receive the toasts. We didn’t make it, did we, Deb… I look for your face in the mirror… and sometimes i see it, on your own and in my own. Blessed, blessed be.
I am struggling to get ready for the Memorial this weekend. In addition to the service, I’m getting my house ready for my Swedish sisters to visit. And I’m also getting my house into a place of Peace, because when this is over, I am going to need a place of refuge. I’m also struggling because there is no ignoring the earthly reality of her death. When the Memorial comes I have to say goodbye.
I have been getting the most extraordinary help from friends. People have organized me despite myself at home. People are singing in the Memorial. Tonight a girlfriend drove up from Harrisburg and just sat on the couch and then volunteered to go with me to fetch the Swedes.
My house looks fabulous. My bag has clothes piled up beside it for the weekend. Most of my writing for the ritual is done. Some of my writing for the sermon is done.
It’s so hard to let her go. That sweet familiar woman whose rhythms I knew as well as my own.
So what an incredible gift that these two women will arrive from Sweden, to wrap me in sister-love and sister-peace. Forty-four years later, love holds the center. I don’t know why I was smart enough to cultivate Love… but I give thanks, count my blessings, and wonder what kind of chocolate they will bring. They’re the first. and then the community will gather. Hard stuff is coming, but right now, I’m going focus on the love in… Oh, and Happy Halloween. I’ll be disguised as a person who’s doing OK… and I guess I am for a woman with a shattered heart.
But here come Cecelia and Margita… and all of you, who help me hold my heart together.
Let me hold myself accountable. Let me, at the end of every day, remind myself of the progress I have made. Most days we will not be making Peace strides, although some days we will. Some days will be a chacha and we’ll dance in place. Many days we’ll just take mincing steps forward. But those are steps forward! This is progress.
I am sick to death of people’s whining that progress doesn’t need to be made because “he” or “she” is guilty of some real or imagined wrong. And therefore we’re off the hook. I’m tired of reading people’s posts on FB where we sound more like 6 year old’s who are angry because our 2 1/2 year old sib doesn’t have to do the chores we do. so we’re not going to so there. great. stupid. tiresome.
I once wrote a prayer for evening ice cream eating and blessing counting. The thought was you limited your bites of ice cream to the blessings you could count. I may need to do one with what chocolate and peace steps. Want your chocolate (insert any favorite food here) work for Peace. Worried you’ll eat too much chocolate? given the number of steps most of us take toward peace, i wouldn’t worry too much… and once we get good at the dance, we’ll be too busy, except to celebrate a little.
It won’t happen every day. But begin to notice when you’re kind. Begin to notice when you’re reaching out toward people who are not just like you… Begin to notice that it feels good to believe you’re making progress. Notice. and keep creeping toward Peace.
I realize that I’ve harped on this before (moi? harp?) but I believe in blessing counting. Do I always do it? Nope. it’s easy to slide out of the habit, just as it’s easy to pop outta bed without taking time to say “Today is a good day to live.” I’ve thought about that Buddhist saying that it’s a good day to die, and that should infer that you live consciously until you die, but you know life ends in death, so let’s, as the saying goes, make hay while the sun shines.
The careful totting up of life’s blessings, large and small, helps us to remain thankful. Being thankful puts us in a much better frame of mind. If we go to bed aware of the abundance, we wake up filled with it. How can that do anything but make our lives better?
But as started to write this, I realized, well, what if I started counting the progress I’d made toward Peace every night. Would that encourage me to lengthen the list? I once wrote a poem in which I suggested counting your blessings with bites of ice cream. there was no more ice cream than there were blessings. So how much ice cream would I get if I could only eat when I enumerated a Peace-ibility! I’m thinking I’d get better at it! (sorta like clicker training for Peaceful humans!)
I always worry when I talk about this, that we will get fatuous. We begin to talk blithely about the “wonderful” challenges put in front of us… there may be blessings we can wring out of challenges, but they’re in our lives because they are, not because they were meant to teach us blessings!
But still —to be able to say at the end of the day, that I took these steps toward Peace. To begin to raise my expectations of myself that I might become a better Peacemaker. There’s an interesting challenge… and the topic of tomorrow’s poem? who knows?
As a kid and a non-Catholic, I was always intrigued by the notion of Holy Acts of Obligation. As an adult with an even less Catholic viewpoint than earlier, I’m even more intrigued — and less tied to what they really were and more interested in what I think they ought to be.
For instance, thanksgiving. Not the day with turkey and all its fixings although I’m a pretty big fan of that, particularly fixings! But the action. The making reflexive of the giving of thanks first thing in the morning and the counting of blessings at night.
Each day is a gift. And if I treat it so from the very outset, it’s more likely to become that in fact. And I’m alive. I have great memories AND great prospects. And the present is challenging and engaging.
And so I give thanks. For all I have and all I am and want to become. And when I do, when my feet hit the floor, I am a different person and my day is filled with possibilities.
In my thinking about thanking, I also consider the countless religions that have small prayers to take you through the day… what would those thanksgivings look like, I sometimes wonder for those of us who live in today’s world… I may explore that… but at present, I will give thanks that I have friends coming to help me say good bye to my sister, to hold me upright when it is time, and that I may do this for the sister I loved so dearly. I give thanks that I have a cozy home and friends and family who have helped me reclaim my place in it in the aftermath of loss and grief. I give thanks for a wide-flung community with whom I laugh and kvetch and wonder…
I give thanks because life with all its challenges is mine to explore.
