Disturbing the Peace Friends, llvl

I had the most divine trip down one side of the river and back up the other yesterday. I’ve see the river from both sides now from in and out and still somehow… I love this stretch of the river.

And in the center of the trip, along a rushing stream, there was a wonderful lunch with two friends. One’s a long-term friend, my mentor since seminary, who has the astonishing knack of allowing me to mentor or perhaps minister, to her. The other is her niece, a woman with whom I sense potential for friendship, but who at the very least is a charming, charming, insightful lunch companion.

So there was catching up on the life that’s happened since last we saw one another, catching up on the bits of one another’s lives about which we had no idea and oh, more than a little time, dreaming into the future.

It’s such a rush to have those conversations. Talk about our loves and losses, our passions and disappointments, our rages and our curiosity… Intense, irreverent, inane, insane, inspirational and just flat out funny. and, oh, reassuring. Lovely to know there are folks you could get up to great good with and occasionally no good at all!

It’s important to have folks you dream with and folks who call you to account for your dreams. Let us disturb the peace (peace with a small p is just status quo) so that we can make Peace (a new, exciting, just world). Let’s do it locally, and let’s do it on a grand scheme. We’ve got friends. We’ve got the world. And we have laughter. And that’s a lot!

(wow, picking words for word search. all these years of these blogs and FRIENDS has never been a choice for me? where has my brain been?)

Music & Peace (right here at home), llvl

I hope that where you live is as extraordinary as where I live. I’m betting that it is. If you’re not exploring that, oh, poor you.

Now, I completely believe that there are great and wonderful things about where I live, and my husband, and not simply because I love him and he’s my husband, is one of those things. He’s not simply a good drummer, which is wonderful, but he’s a generous drummer. He wants to make everyone sound good. And he plays with two musicians who can play anything (and do!). They’re in the hum a few bars school of back-up bands. Both the bassist and the guitarist sing, both do jazz, country, funk, rock and now Irish and who knows what else and Steve’s there with the beat. Hot town in the Summertime and the living is soooo easy.

And I must admit, the guy that owns the tavern’s pretty wonderful as well, recognizing that this could happen. Sure he’s making money on it, but that’s fine… because he’s made a place for a community to come together. It’s not every joint in town that is going to have jazz, Irish music, country, 70s peace rock, blues… you name it, all jumbled up into one big happy evening. Steve’s gotten what he wanted, our local musical heroes stepping outside their musical genres, stepping in and playing or singing back up, roaring to attention when the kidlets try something out. If you’d have heard the band singing along with one young man accompanying himself singing “Eight Days a Week” on the ukelele. It was a moment you’re sorry you missed. oh, and when that 15 year old went head to head with Elvis and didn’t do badly at all? that was another one.

I got to chacha with Sue, always a fave, sing back up with Charlie (we found that back up!), shout at friends over the loud music, and generally have a marvelous time.

If you live here and you don’t wander by at least once, you’re wasting your time… if you live somewhere else, figure out where to go where your village’s lines get all mixed up. This type of event builds relationships across all sorts of lines. It teaches us to be kind.

And score. I signed up two more musicians for the Love Flows concert I’ll do in the fall, (we hope!). Watch this spot for new songs. But in the meantime, find out where Peace is mixing it up. If you can’t find it, start it.

There’s science between what happens in our brains, bodies and psyches when we sing together. It’s why hymn sings work. It’s why Eight Days a Week (The Beatles, who ever thought of them as hymnists?) worked for everyone that night. Great community. Great fun. oh, yahoo…

It’s a river of Peace, it’s a river of Sound, it’s a river of Love… C’mon, Wade in the Water!

Peace Potential, llvl

Living into Peace and la vida local means opening our eyes and really seeing what’s here. We’re all programmed to see what’s wrong with where we are, we all have criticism down to a fine art, but it can be a challenge to see what’s right about where we are.

And so much is. Wherever we live, there is so much talent and there are so many people trying to do what they can to make the world better. If we look for them, we will see them and encourage them. Their very existence will encourage us.

Married to Steve, I see a lot of music. This Valley is filled with music and wonderful musicians of all ages and all genres and all levels of ability. And you see people trying new things. Recently Steve got a new drum student, a retired professor, who’s always wanted to play the drums. There he is, making himself bigger, staying curious as an elder.

But it doesn’t have to be music, it can be anything. What do you want to do? What will make you curious, interested, alive? Find someone who’s doing that and listen to them. Learn from them.

Make the world better. Start by making your world better and share your joy. Share it first with those who are sharing their joy!

Start by making your world Peaceful and share your Peace. Again share it with those who are already celebrating Peace. We’re the home team for Peace and Joy. Let’s give it our all.

Peace: Fantasy and Reality, llvl

The picture Deb took this week has really rocked me. I look at it and see another possibility… another world. It stirs a childhood fantasy to life that there was/is another possibility for life just beyond the cupboard door (or the station wall, or, or, or…)

Now it may be that I live in that fantasy… look at the projects I invest in, Love Flows, Peace… all ridiculous pipe dreams, but are they. They’re pipe dreams we choose to invest in. If we live la vida local and really choose to make a peaceful difference where we live, if we promote Justice, which I talk about all to infrequently, but which is the heart of Peace, then we can start Peace in our little corner of the world and let it spread. And what really, if we decided to make this the Valley with No Hungry Children? What if we just changed our world? We can do that. If each of us takes a neighbor’s hand, life can be different.

And, for me, it’s that fantasy that reminds me. I believe the role of fantasy is not so much to take us away from the real but to remind us what could also be true. I’m particular about what I read… I’m not giving into despair and cynicism. I like my read to be a good one, but I’m not interested in people’s pulling things apart because there are plot malfunctions. I’m longing for the dream. Let us dream dreams. Let us see visions. And then, let’s make this a much sweeter world…

Peaceful Delights, llvl

When things show up that are wonderful, it’s a good idea to notice them, revel in them, cherish them.

Life isn’t one halcyon day after the other. There are challenges, hills to climb, setbacks. If you, like me, have been having trouble with the recent news, local, national and international, then you’re often weighted by the world… And then you’re pushing yourself to see how you can make a difference. All of that can make life challenging.

And then there are the personal ups and downs in life. They don’t need detailing — you know them.

So when the good times roll, you have to open your arms and embrace them. Because they will sustain you through the other times. They will remind you what you’re struggling for and what helps you through.

So thanks, thanks, thanks, to the Bonnie Tallmans and the Good Time Charlies of this world who have the vision and the folks who help to make music available to all of us. Thanks to the musicians, who put themselves out there, doing what they do to help us feel what’s real. Thanks to the friends, those sweet and constant companions, who help us remember who we are, where we came from and what we’re about. Hooray for those times when your vida local overlaps with mine!

Peace is the work of many, many communities. Revel in it where you find it!

Connected Peace, llvl

When we think about Peace, we think about a global event. But that makes it too hard to approach. Peace, global Peace, is made up of a net work of local Peace. Peace spreads across the world bit by bit. We encourage world Peace by promoting local Peace.

I believe one of the important keys to local Peace is connection. We need to know who’s thinking and working on what issues. We need to be encouraging one another to live into and share our expertise. And then when that expertise is needed we need to step forward with our own or call on the person who knows about that topic… so we’re always using the best of us to move toward the sweetest Possibilities.

Let’s encourage the connections and grow the Peace. Let’s encourage each other. No one’s going to change the world all on her/his own. We need to keep reaching out to each other and moving the conversation forward.

Landscaping for Peace, llvl

Don’t you just hate it when you grab a metaphor and find out, oopsie, it doesn’t work. I thought I had it all lined up with the beautification, planting appropriately, zero-scaping metaphor… and then realized, not so fast.

Zero-scaping is great. Plant according to your regions environment. Use no more water than arrives.

But when you’re making space for everyone, neat little rows of one kind of flower aren’t what do it. You grow a village according to who lives there. That’s the messy wonderful piece of Peace. Peace has to make room for different cultures and traditions — even in little villages, because today’s villages are global ones. And the hodgepodge is every bit as beautiful as stands of tall tulips, particularly when community is involved. And you know me, fun food from different parts of the world is a big piece of my Peace Incentive!

And that’s another weird, wacky beautiful piece about Peace… there’s room for both homogeneity and diversity.

So, consider your landscaping… and make Peace available to everyone. And go smile at the tulips, they’re sure to go in the rain later today.

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.

Capitalize Peace, llvl

Part of me wants to ask, why don’t we capitalize Peace — as in invest in Peace?

But then I have to realize if I don’t do it myself, really do it, and encourage others to do the same, then it’s unlikely the governments of the world (town, valley, state) are going to be moved to do the same. We’re used to investing in war. We have an infrastructure for war, but not for Peace.

Sad, eh? Which would we rather have? Peace or war? It’s hard to tell. I’m not sure we’re committed to Peace. I certainly struggle every day. Not with Peace big P… but in living in my personal life as I would like the world to be living on the planet? eeeesh. hard. Do I understand my husband’s tribes and those of my friends’ as different from me and worthy of great respect and delicacy of dealing? If I don’t, what am investing in the long run? (ew, don’t you hate it when your writing takes you right into the personal? no this is about the world’s not investing in Peace, not about my being insensitive!) Making the connections between the macro and the micro is hard work, but necessary.

But I’ll keep looking. if it means I have to root around in my life a bit… ok. Will you do the same? Because Peace will not flourish without some investment. We need to put our hearts into it and we need to put our money there as well.

Peace. It’s worth the world. The world is worthy of Peace.

Love, Chaos, Peace, llvl

Yesterday we celebrated Passover with a Seder at our church. It was wild, chaotic and all these visitors were streaming in the doors. I was the sole worship person that day, no assistant, so i had it all on my plate. No time to talk to strangers, other than hello, hello, come in… and occasionally holler oh! we need a new table. More Seder plates! Is there enough horseradish?

And the kids were doing Haggadah Role Play which has satisfactory amounts of dying even for grade school boys. The Angel of Death wanted to know if she could have her job every year. um… sure? There’s a spiritual path for you…

That’s what celebrations should be like, though… crowded and crazy filled with good food and laughter and lots of love. That’s Peace building If ever I encountered it. Traditions kept and embellished.

“Walk right in, sit right down, baby let your hair hang down.” Cause we’re all family here! Peace, my friends!

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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