Tiny Cracks of Peace

Perhaps it’s what’s needed, small inroads into the ediface of hate. Crack after crack until it can’t stand any longer. You notice I capitalize Peace but leave hate to stew in its smallness.

Little acts of love, sweet smiles… they give us the courage for the grand gesture and for the time when we will have to reach out to help one another across the very tricky ground. At that point we will be able to say Yes! to Peace, in a louder and louder chorus until the Great Thaw begins… Let’s end the ice age of hate. You and me and a whole bunch of our friends and neighbors and strangers we are longing to meet. Connections. Laughter. Peace. Each act a prayer.

PeaceFebruary27

Peace of Cooperation

Cooperation. It’s an important word. We think so much about achieving goals, that we rarely stop to think that the best things we may get from a joint project derive from working together. The shared sense of accomplishment is important. As exhilarating as it is to pull something off on your own, there’s nothing quite like looking at one another at the end of a haul and saying… we did this. Having someone to kick around possibilities can leverage both the scope and the outcomes of the project. And being able to reflect jointly on the failures and figure out how to recapture lost effort and lost ground is a good indicator that you not only might be able to figure out where you went afield, you also have an increased possibility of finding ways to turn those failures to your advantage. And what’s better? there are long-term health advantages to belonging to a group.

It’s nice to have people invested in a project you care about. While most of us want enough personal risk-taking and satisfaction in a job, it’s good to know that what you think is important is important to someone else. We’re all looking for meaning… and shared meaning deepens the experience.

And then there’s the encouragement piece of cooperation. Sometimes it’s passive — someone else’s success will buoy yours. Sometimes our load is eased by more active encouragement whether it’s a hearty “Well Done!” or a well-timed, “You can do this,” or even an enthusiastic “Look what we’ve accomplished!”

Cooperating means leveraging everyone’s skills (viva les differences!), celebrating the successes (see earlier “Look what we’ve accomplished!” or the comfort of numbers (“we’re all in this together!”). I haven’t checked the studies, but my guess is that a high cooperation rate is a fairly good indicator of success. It’s certainly a pretty good indicator of a good time being had by all — and an assurance that someone will be around to break open that bottle of bubbly something!

On the Peace road, where there are so many obstacles, cooperation makes the journey more comfortable and more enjoyable, and adds a lot to our probabilities of progress. Let’s hear it for the Muppets who start us out early on a great road! And let’s consider how we might cooperate on our journeys toward Peace.

PeaceFebruary22

Peace on the boil!

Well, it’s nice to be back. Life has been so hectic recently that I haven’t had the time to sit down and write. Good things happening, so I”l tell you more, in another post.

The sugaring image has been tugging at me recently. Lots of effort and lots of ingredients and lots of time required, but oh what sweetness at the end. Peace is a lot like that, while it may be as simple as a smile, there are always logistics to be worked out. But, as with anything worth having, you have to take the time and make the effort to enjoy the fruits of your labor. You work hard, and then you wait. You have to keep the fire banked and burning steadily so you don’t burn the sugar or fail to chase the moisture. If you’re smart, you’ll glory in the process as well. We might as well let go of the notion of simply getting things done, getting past this or that to the sugar at the end. The process makes the sugar sweet, but you can allow the process to be sweet as well. Make some memories to store up for the year ahead. Reflect on your life and the beauty of nature. Have a good time and enjoy your solitude and your company. Live in the time you have.

Not the one tending the fires? You have to invest to enjoy the fruits of other people’s labor. We each add our own piece to the process. Our Passion can help keep the Peace fire steadily burning. Maple sugar is a little delight. Peace is a grand one. Maple sugar isn’t good for everyone. Peace is good for everyone. Enjoy your Maple sugar judiciously. Spread Peace on everything. Peace awaits our hands to do the work and our hearts to take the time.

PeaceFebruary20

Peace of More Possibilities

I saw this great quote yesterday and used it in my musing for today: Manning Marable, a professor of African American Studies, said: “Grace is the ability to redefine the boundaries of possibility.” You know me, if I’d have said that, I’d have had exclamation points abounding. His was a simple emphatic statement.

We forget that when we wake up to a new day that more is possible today than we dreamed was possible yesterday. Now we could say that we failed to imagine yesterday’s possibilities and thus sold it short. And that might be true. But what he reminds us is that there’s no reason to be constrained by outmoded notions of what we can do.

To think less, to act on less is to give up. It’s the thinking that keeps the world small and divided. It’s thinking, quite frankly, that keeps making the world smaller. We need to take as mentors, people who dared. Big people, certainly. But look around you. There are people daring everywhere you look. Hitch your star to theirs! Spend time with those who imagine. You’ll become someone who imagines as well. And see that? Possibility expanded, the world just got larger.

PeaceFebruary15

 

Peace of the Pieces

And Pieces of Peace…

I have been thinking a bit about the fact that we’re already looking at the last days of January. Aside from the normal, how the heck did that happen… in terms of looking at the year as a building process, it’s almost time to move on from the dream phase of the year. That means we need to begin to assemble our dreams, lay out the word fragments, the pictures, the blank spots, the allies on a board. Can you yet name your dream for the coming year… are you ready to commit to bringing Peace into your life… and into others’?

I’m not always a vision board kinda girl, but they are helpful for some people. Because part of my goal this year is to see the pattern in what i do (which is not my Peace dream — although it might bring me some!!), I am going to start laying things out.

It doesn’t matter if you have a complete picture… pieces will continue to emerge over the coming year, but it is good to have a name and an (even a fuzzy) outline.

I started to write this this morning and then I got sidetracked by our snow day. And that? is the nature of peace… it is piecemeal… work here, play here… that way lies Peace. So may you assemble the pieces of Peace you are gathering… and my you revel in the pieces of Peace you are granted. (if it’s not raining, go sledding!) Balance the work of Peace with the play of peace!

Peace of a Pacific Sunset

It’s sort of a ridiculous assignment, to try and describe a sunset in ten lines. But ten lines are the rule. I made the rule. It’s an interesting task to try and tell a story in ten lines. Sometimes it works better than others. When I finished this poem, I thought wait! I didn’t mention that sometimes the air will seam to turn roseate before it fades to black and white. And there was certainly no time to mention that sometimes the dolphins dance in the waves or that the pelicans sail majestically by in freight train formation…

So what does a poem mean to a dream? I guess that both are always unfinished… or maybe just incomplete. Maybe it’s the good reminder that we are called to say what we see and that what we see isn’t in conflict. When we add one vision to another, we get a more complete, but never perfect vision. I see things differently than you so the overlap will never be precise.

As we begin to develop our dreams, there will be times when we realize there were pieces we didn’t include. Then we’ll have to decide, do we simply need to be aware of that? Do we need to find someone who is working on an allied dream? Or do we have enough to deal with in the dream we’ve created, imperfectly perfect as it is?

So, I guess I’ll just keep asking myself… What kind of peacemaker am I? How will that change this year? And how will I embrace the places where I miss the mark or simply don’t have the capabilities? And equally important, will I keep being open to the startling beauty of a sunset that is not like “mine” and allow it to stretch and modify my notion of beauty… and Peace.

Peace of a January River

While driving down the river yesterday morning, the river was enshrouded in fog. When you have days like we’ve had recently, where the afternoon mercury climbs and nights are frigid, the river puts off a lot of fog. It was a beautiful ride.

It was only as I writing later, that I realized what a great metaphor for January dreaming this particular river view was. Isolated small islands would appear out of the fog and then fade from view. There was never a complete vista, simply small glimpses. As we’re building our dreams, it’s important to begin to identify the important building blocks. Too many of us start to build before we have all the pieces laid out. This foggy river was a reminder that there may be something important hiding in the mist… We might as well let things emerge as they will for a while, so that we can create a good plan rather than having to try to incorporate crucial elements at a later date…

PeaceSister?

Once, when talking to Kelly Himsl Arthur from Think Peace Worshops for (wonderful, wonderful) Girls (and when are you writing that article, Ann?) she used the word Peace Sister.

Yesterday, in my first sermon back from vacation, I talked about how startling that phrase was and how different it felt from Peace Maker. If you are a Peace Maker you start with the assumption that there is no Peace.

But if you are a Peace Sister, your work is nurturance rather than creation. Your job is to love, protect, play with, encourage, teach, learn from. It’s a title that’s rich with possibilities and rife with hard work. It’s a title and a mantle one can’t assume, unless I’m also willing to assume the responsibilities for My Sister Peace, My Brother Peace.

So… what do I think: Ann Keeler Evans, Peace Sister. what do you think? How’s it look? it feels pretty interesting. Why don’t you try it on? Your name, Peace Brother. Your name, Peace Sister. I must say, it looks good on you. You encourage me to try. And always, always, always, Kelly encourages me to be more and better. How great a friend is that?

Synchronized Working

Years ago, before work changed the way it did, people talked about setting up small offices for people working at home. At that point, every one had an office. You needed a copier, a central place for messages to be taken, a fax machine. If you were very lucky (or paid a lot) a place for file storage.

Enterprising work-at-homers gathered to start small offices. There was a meeting room, work cubicles, perhaps a receptionist and all the shared technology. It was in an office building and someone cleaned it up. You paid a certain fee per month and got everything you needed to function. Including the occasional meeting at the water cooler. It was a good and very temporary system.

The technology changed so quickly and as it changed, so did our work. Cell phones, laptops 3-in-one printer/copier/scanners became completely affordable, even as written documents became more and more obsolete. If you think about it, it’s astonishing how much of our work gets done on line these days. Well, it’s astonishing if you’re a person who remembers carbon copies (oh blessedly on the way out as I was becoming a secretary. What a delight the Selectric was! I could type as quickly backward as forward. I always made a lot of mistakes in my hurry to be done.) Early adopters’ lives changed quickly. But at this point, even the most reluctant embracers of technology are moving along far differently than they did.

I still print my sermons. I’m sure if at some point I get a Kindle or an ipad that will stop. Why waste the paper? Why have it building up around the house? Make a pdf and send it to one of your e-readers. Goodness knows I’m a much more efficient filer on line than I ever was in a file drawer. And thanks to the search function I think I’ve found every poem I’ve ever written except that wonderful piece about the Susquehanna at twilight. (sigh.)

I spend time these days, working in the realm of ideas and trying to decipher which ideas are best suited to which media. It’s interesting… and publishing doesn’t seem to have a very clear idea which way it’s going yet…

So, much is taken care of… except that water cooler thing. Cue the rise in number of coffee houses. Now they’re not just the new meeting room, they’re the new water cooler. Every Monday morning, I have a study date with a friend, now two. Mostly, we work on our own work. But we each know what the other is working on. Occasionally, we’ll stop and say… “so, am I on track here?” and read a short piece aloud or push our laptop across the table. No one else at the table does theology. Neither woman is churched. But they both, boy howdy, came equipped with ideas and opinions.

So there we are. We write. We nosh (gotta keep our meeting place in business). We talk about world events and what more appropriate responses should be. We offer advice. We just listen. We Google. We giggle. Occasionally our separate wonderings fuse into a solid workable idea that changes each woman’s work for the better. Even more occasionally we realize we can collaborate on something. Most importantly, we remember we are not alone as we strive to do good work.

The Challenges Don’t Stop

It’s not that anything particular has happened recently. But I’ve been thinking about the fact that challenges of all sorts do not necessarily keep company with the seasons rhythms. You can lose a job or receive a difficult diagnosis in the midst of the season of bounty as easily as any other season. I don’t know that I’ve ever really thought about this before, but perhaps it’s that the seasons and rhythms of our lives trump the year’s turnings…

When this happens, the disconnect between what’s going on outside and what’s going on inside can be great. Whether the challenge is ours or that of a beloved, our job is to remain open and present. Not everyone can do that. It does catch me off guard when people gradually withdraw from a relationship because a partner/friend/colleague has encountered one of life’s great roadblock. Not everyone who’s offered the challenge can stay present in it either.

But, because they’re challenges, they keep offering other opportunities to be the best we can be and to do the best we can. Because in the end, that’s all we can do.