Island Paradise Peace, llvl

I don’t think there’s any way around this. I think the Swedes are better at being still and in the moment than we are. It could be just me, but many of us, even on vacation are good at just sitting, delighting in the moment. The countryside is beautiful, but there’s beauty everywhere. I’d match my Central Susquehanna’s beauty against beauty anywhere.

One of the things I’ve recognized since I’ve been here is that I occasionally grab Paradise when I meet it. I sat and the stream with Emily and watched the world go by. I floated on the river on my Brother- and Sister-in-law’s boat when my friends came.

And maybe it was just because I’m here that people have taken more time to sit and admire the harbor or the forests, but I don’t think so. They’re on vacation. They’re out in Nature enjoying it. Not necessarily doing something, just being there. Passing around the slightly flavored water and sipping it slowly.

One afternoon, while visiting a sister and her beau, whose daughter and granddaughter were visiting as well, we all piled in the boat and boated around the island. Margita and the 6 year old pulled mackerel lines behind, once we got out on the ocean side of the island. Sophie, the daughter cut their heads off. Björn grilled the fish and we ate them for dinner 3 hours later. Paradise. The sight and taste of the sea. Sweet companionship. A quick stop for a dessert cheese which provided late-afternoon ice creams to tide us over to dinner.

And then the next morning, getting up and packing and then making the time to go down and slip into the sea, there just to bob around like so much flotsam, or is it jetsam, I always forget.

Paradise is here. It’s meant to be enjoyed. It’s meant to be shared. Peace, sweet Peace is in the still, sweet moments in between… (and it’s also, if you get the chance, to be found on islands off the coast of wherever you are. Or in the forests, or the mountains, or the deserts. Just sit and look at Mother Earth. Nature is there to be appreciated. Families are there to be made. Blessings are to be counted. Connections are waiting to slip into place!

Sabbath Seal Peace, llvl

Well, it doesn’t get much more local than yesterday. It was hard not to be present to every seemingly perfect moment. The day before was the day of seeing the seals. They were hilarious. Look, the neighbors dropped by! And there they were in a big-eyed smiling circle, just hanging out…

Marg, my first Swedish sister, who lived at my house when my brother was an exchange student, took me out for our daily constitutional, hup, hup. We ended that with a plop into the sea. It’s gorgeous on the coast, but there’s not a lot of shade because it gets scoured by winter storms. So the water felt wonderfully refreshing. Silly Swedes were saying, oh, how warm (70˚!)… i was gasping a bit, but really… it was so clean and clear AND it was warm enough to discourage man o war jellyfish from the day before. yikes.

I need to fasten this ability to stop daily life and be present to the moment in my brain. it’s good to do this now and again. look at this. look at that. look at this. oh, taste this. summer, summer, summer. sea, wind, water, sun. and love! 45 whole years of it.

Tomorrow I move on, and I’m both sad and excited. This time is so worth the work and the wait and the resources required. I tried to think yesterday… didn’t work to well. Love will keep growing if you just pay attention. Connections will be woven.

Today is Sunday and there’s a cake party underway. two cakes being baked. I’ve been assigned to assemble the meringue torte… under strict instructions. but what the heck. meringue, raspberries, blueberries, whipped cream. for that, I’ll follow anyone’s direction, do it just the way they want.

Yesterday was a tired day. couldn’t remember how to walk or speak swedish or do anything, so i stuck to doing the dishes and folding up the wash.

We finished the evening sitting on the patio until it finally got dark at about 11:30 (sun went down at about 10:10!). Two of Marg’s friends dropped by and there was a lot of laughter and tales of days gone by. Life is for the Living. the Sabbath is for the noticing. (I’ll be noticing the four cakes!) and for the reflecting as I pack down my suitcase for the next time… Heaven has been spotted many times. The bad news is that there are 4 inch slugs in Paradise. and i stepped on one… urgh. Peace. Gratitude. Beauty. Wonder. Love. ahhhhhhhhhh. Keeping the sacred in the sabbatical.

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?)

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!

Confusion on the Way to Peace, llvl

Not only is the path to Peace incremental it’s prone to fogs of confusion. Actually, I’d say the path to anything that matters is fraught with difficulties.

But confusion’s a particularly annoying one. When I was younger, I would too often plunge forward and then spend precious time recovering from my urgency. And there’s something very seductive about the doing and the crisis management.

But wisdom, or laziness, or the increasing canniness of age has taught me to marshal my forces a bit better. Look, it’s foggy. Think I’ll wait until things have cleared up a bit. Might as well have a cuppa or look, there’s champagne.

And then, while sitting, taking the opportunity to visit a bit, just a bit: How are you? “Lovely baby. Where are you going? Oh, you know my Cousin Harry had exactly the same problem…” Sure, you want to exercise a bit of caution, but most sojourners are fine and happy to reassured of their fellow travelers’ humanity.

Make friends — because really, isn’t that the point? It’s disarming in many ways… figuratively as it relaxes everyone, yourself included and literally, as it’s harder to be combative with the folk with whom you were just being neighborly.

Who knows, the people you’re talking to may even know about the road conditions. After all, it is Peace you’re working toward. You want to wind up friendly at the end of the journey, it’s sort of the point. You’ve got to sit and let things unwind anyway, might as well pass the time. Clarity usually arrives and then it’s time to be off again, but now you’ve created new connections with your fellow travelers. Now you’re a confederate of travelers, a community. Again… the point, right?

But in the meanwhile, make nice and enjoy yourself a bit. Start with the noncomittal and build. You’ve little to lose and perhaps much to gain.

Pleasantries make a mighty good walking stick on the Peace Journey.

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.

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.

Peaceful Colleagues, llvl

Essentially, I work, not alone, but on my own. But there are people with whom I share mostly similar job and people who have responsibilities at my place of employment. I meet regularly with a woman’s clergy group. We have overlap and support one another. The systems we work in are quite different but the work is similar. So we talk and support and suggest. It’s grand to have colleagues with similar experience.

And then there are people who do at church. All sorts of things. Buildings, money, book club… lots of things. Our jobs aren’t dependent on each other, but they are interdependent. Without these colleagues, there is no church.

And then Peacemaking. We all work at Peace from the place we are. Sometimes the bit of Peace at which you pick away is very, very different from the Peace you are working… But the heart of the flower is Peace. And there you are. Peace Colleagues.

They’re everywhere, they’re everywhere. And that is just lovely. You are most likely my colleague. Makes me happy. Makes me grateful.

Spring Peace from Another Home, llvl

To have lived somewhere else long enough to know the seasons is to discover the peculiarities and particularities of that place. Spring in California is a slow unfolding, it starts early and proceeds in haphazard fashion, one lovely flower at a time.

Living in places where the weather is warmer often means richly scented trees. To be out walking at night (a city pleasure) and have Jasmine and Mock-Orange dofting… it’s heaven. And it holds my heart. It will never be my only home… but it will always hold a part of me and those memories smell as sweetly as the trees… Peace enters us in so many ways. And we can offer it in as many. Sweet Peace. Sweet home away from home. Sweet local life wherever you find it, wherever you make it.

Work, Play, Peace, llvl

When you’re living “local,” Mother Nature sucks you in! Pay attention, she says, we’re in relationship.

So, no matter how busy you are, no matter how important your work, you have to make time for a cup of tea with your friend the Earth — the Great Mother. You have to care how she feels. You have to notice when she’s looking great… (and yep, you have to be the nurse when she’s ailing!).

And you have to balance the other important things in your life with this relationship. Your health is dependent upon hers. And her cycles ground you and give you so much pleasure.

It’s Earth Day… the 44th. Why not take the next year and explore your relationship with this fascinating, complex, breathing entity? And today? start a new habit of noticing and appreciating. She’s worthy of your effort and respect. Peace to all on Earth. Peace with the Earth. Peace. Earth. Peace. Earth. Peace.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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