Foggy Peace

Sometimes, you’re just overwhelmed with beauty, filled to the very brim. What a blessing in those times to be given a day to just stop and exhale… and to do it in the company of loved ones… what a gift… Time to simply be present and to make memories that will last a lifetime. Really. Who would believe that fog was so generous? and that the living of life as a prayer is sometimes just stopping and sitting still…

Life is so abundant, and I am so lucky… counting my blessings and giving gratitude for the bounties of Nature and Love.

Peace Play

Taking my own advice about Sacred Play. Going off to Clyde Peelings Reptile Land with the Grands… and then to the river to enjoy swimming, boating, eating by the river. As my sister-in-law Margaret says: If you’re lucky enough to live by the river, you’re lucky enough!

The thing will be to remember how to do this when the kids aren’t here to remind me! But for today? Be Present! Count Blessings! Play! And make some great memories! Make some summer Peace. It doesn’t get sweeter than this!

Community Peace/Peace Community

No matter how you splice it, it’s what we want…

We want to live in communities of Kindness and Respect. We also want to be communities earnestly in pursuit of Peace. When we build around our values we find that there are many whose beliefs are different than ours but whose values are shared…

After years on the margins, I’m relishing living in community; which is to say, I relishing being part of constructing the community in which I live — or maybe more correctly, communities. Lovely small overlapping communities…there’s Music at the heart of some, Peace at the center of others, support from all of them, laughter in each and every one.

I am seen and respected for who I am, as best as my community is able. I struggle to offer them the same respect. And then we work on what’s important, on building new truths and new connections, and stand fast for one another. That’s the best of community!

Count your Blessings! Count your Communities! They’re not easy to build, but the effort is well rewarded.

Peace Adventure

No really, I didn’t plan this when I set out to write about a month full of words we might want to live into. But on the day I write about adventure, I’m off on one! Today I climb on a bus to New York with about 35 other people to attend a gallery opening.

My sister’s bestie from high school, a woman with whom she got up to all sorts of shennanigans while being 11th grad Girl Scouts traveling across Europe, has her first gallery opening in New York City.

It’s so easy to turn your life into a rut and never climb out. And yet, the trip to school is an adventure if we exhale that breath we are holding. We’re alive. We’re with people we love (even if at the moment we’d like our cheeky child to be kind just for once be pleasant to her sister or brother), and life is therefore grand. What do we notice as we travel the same ground day after day.

I think one of the most important periods of my life was the time I went to feed my mom two times a day for two plus years. Not only did I never exactly know what was going to happen when I got there, I began to pay attention to the landscape. Oh, not always, there was plenty of routine, but there began to be places where I could tell that summer was folding his tents or spring was making her way. Suddenly the everydayness of it became exciting.

But it’s important to take adventures outside our daily lives. Because they teach us so much about not only others but also about ourselves and our ruts. Once we peek our head over the rut, life looks very different. Once we’re outside, we begin to notice that there’s a huge difference between peaceful and Peace. We’re working toward Peace. Being peaceful is helpful but not mandatory. Adventures? I don’t know if they’re mandatory, but they’re a lot of fun! (even if slightly scary in the moment!)

And of course for me, today is sort of a practice adventure for a HUGE adventure. On Friday, Deb and I go to Philly and spend the night. Saturday we get on a plane to Vancouver. Sunday we get on a ship to cruise the Alaska Inner Passage… and then days later a train to Denali National Park. Lots of fun ahead. And no internet. and I’m not sure how much cell phone coverage. Lots of being present to the moment and the beauty and my beloved sisty. Maybe some self-reflection. Definitely some memory-making. Lots of blessing counting for my sweet love and rich life. Oh, Hooray! Oh, Joy! Oh! A two-week Sabbath. Oh, Adventure!

Picnic Peace

Moments of silence for fallen warriers, short but boisterous parades and sweet picnics at a friends: These are the joys of a good Memorial day. An important part of remembering is making new memories against moments of loss and grief. I hope yours was splendid. (and let us not forget to count the blessing of the three-day weekend! Let’s hear it for Unions!)

Graduate Peace?

Our graduates are coming out into a tough world. There aren’t lots of jobs available. And there are many things wrong with the world. We’ve certainly given them unrealistic expectations that their lives would be better than ours — a notion the boomers proved to be true in their early work lives perhaps but are perhaps struggling with today.

It’s a great time for leadership. And I’m not sure it’s going to be ours. Because we haven’t led. I realized two things in writing this. 1) well, that was depressing, despite my faith in them and 2) the next poem had better be to their elders, we’d better Peace-up, and start looking for our own solutions.

But graduates? Count those blessings, Review your shortcomings. Do that self-reflection dance. Stay present. Stay connected to your friends with great ideas and the will and ingenuity to implement them.

And isn’t that the work of right now? What’s going in that garden to feed our family? What Peace seedlings are we planting and tending to feed a Peace-hungry world? There’s work to be done. And for too many kids there are choices to be made between doing nothing and doing good. We cannot let these shining stars become discouraged; and they’re of an age where they might want to realize that it will be dangerous for them.

So, an important part of their challenge is to stay involved and inspired in their lives despite a very challenging world. There’s very real danger in their becoming disaffected… we owe our children not to let that happen — and they owe it to themselves.

Cusps and Verges are very interesting places filled with wonder and possibility and fraught with danger…

Kid Peace

A chance encounter in an alley: generally when you hear those words, what comes after isn’t good. But here we were on a bright, but chilly May morning. I was parking the car, all the in-front-of-my-house spaces having been scooped by workers. She was coming down the alley behind her house on her way to school.

She waved and deigned to speak! As an adult who bounces in and out of the life of kids, I do try and give them some choice in the matter! Next thing I know, we’re walking to her bus stop as she explains the intricacies of Girls on the Run (yahoo) and what they’ve been doing.

As you can imagine, I’m all about anything that’s empowering the girls, so it was a fun conversation and she had a great understanding of what was happening. And then a quick segue to how she’d be spending her summer vacation, and I waved goodbye. She’s going to otter camp which might also be seal camp, how much did I want someone to send me?????

It’s important to look through eyes that view the world at a different level, now and again. And hooray for friends across the generations! Being present. Counting blessings. Watch words for Peace.

Peace Practice

Sometimes I think that we’re so enamored of “getting it right,” that we forget what leads up to that… the painstaking, boring, careful, oh, so necessary practicing that takes us there. It takes hours of practice (some say 2000) to be really accomplished at something. And not everything in our lives demands that level of accomplishment or that level of practice. But something does.

And it’s not always just our musical chops, although as someone who listens to a lot of live music, let me just say that practice is a great thing! and that actually your adoring public can usually tell if you haven’t bothered to begin your day with those scales or those paradiddles! Life and performance are simply smoother when we practice.

But other things take practice as well. Being kind, for instance. Speaking our heart. Noticing Beauty. Being present. Counting Blessings. Making Peace. These are all muscles we need to exercise again and again. It takes a while, but sooner or later, if we’re diligent, they become reflexive. We become accomplished. We’re making that Peace, smiling at those strangers, wearing our hearts on our sleeves. There we are: Peacemakers. Peacegardeners, Peacestewards… However you define yourself in relation to Peace. What? You say you don’t? Well, better figure out what your Peace role is and start practicing. 2000 of your Peacehours will make a big difference in the world.

Peace Where You Find It

Peace is a practice. Or perhaps, more correctly stated, there are many ways to practice Peace. One of them, and I think it adds to all other practices is to pay attention, to notice.

We fasten easily on noticing what is wrong. But we move more deeply into Peace as we notice what is right, what is strong, what is beautiful. Blessing counting.

When we do this we fill up. When our hearts are full of good things, it’s easier to keep creating more. When our minds realize how many blessings there are, it strengthens us to deal with the horrors and helps us not to dwell there even as we work to transform. Noticing the Beauty helps us to become one of those beautiful things. One of my frequent prayerful admonitions to myself is to “Count my blessings and make myself a blessing to be counted.”

Birthday Peace

One of the really great things about birthdays is that they make you stop and think. Count your blessings. Assess your goals. And mine’s in Spring, so by the time my birthday gets here, Spring has usually established herself fairly clearly.

So I have fluffy pink and white birthdays filled with blossoming trees and scudding clouds. That’s pretty fun all by itself.

But this year I have to say, it may be the best ever. So many things are right. At the moment, my sisty, while not completely healthy, is fairly well, and we’re going to take an amazing trip together to look at whales and eagles. That’s pretty fine. Dinner tonight with the whole PA clan. Steve’s healthy and his (now my!) kids are coming to visit this summer. My Hannah is graduating from College and has a dream internship next year. I’m surrounded by friends and great music. And then, there’s my work. I love my work.

I love the poetry writing. I love the peace making. I love the preaching. I love the pastoral care. (I can’t think of anything else I like at the moment that starts with p) My blessing counter is spinning.

I don’t know if it takes everyone until 61 to be able look at life and say, this is pretty much all i could dream of, but I’m going to keep dreaming. But damn! And I’m going to keep dreaming! There is more Peace somewhere. And let’s just keep trying to find it. And if you love me, have a piece of cake and celebrate. And if you’re anywhere on the scale between loving me and not knowing me from Eve, what the heck, have a piece of cake and celebrate. And then back to your life (or start your life) doing exactly what you want to do!

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

Tag Archives: blessing counting