Blending Peace, llvl

Steve and I both lived in the Bay area for important periods of our life. But since we didn’t know each other then, we have whole periods of our lives to explore. Yesterday we sat at a table with friends from our pasts.

It wasn’t so much a get to know you fest as it was a delighted parallel conversation with a little overlap… but oh it was grand. Marriages late in life come with a lot of unshared territory. Since we’re now living across the country from our pasts, it takes very deliberate work to weave them into our present.

I confess, I’m more interested in this than Steve is, although he’s always happy to come along for the ride. What’s true? We’ve had some very interesting blends. I’m so grateful.

And I’m just reveling in the people I have loved a long time. Visiting is grand. And reveling too in the fact that my present is where it is. Home sweet home AND home away from home. Life is sweet. Peace is elusive but so worth the work! And Friendship, I believe, is the gateway to Peace. And then? there’s family!

Head Start Peace, llvl

Steve and I played and read yesterday at a local Head Start. Pennsylvania chooses a book every year to give to the kinds and local people are invited in to read it to the kids. Yesterday we got to be the guests in the classroom. (Year three for us and counting!)

It’s a fun day for us, once we get past the bothersome figuring out of who’s going to do what… play this, read it this way. But the joy of doing what you love and are good at with the one you love, we’re aware not everyone has that opportunity and we’re so grateful and flat out happy. And when you add in little ones and then Head Start the Happy Stew just gets richer.

When you’re privileged to walk into a Head Start class you can almost see kids stretching and growing through the patient love and skills of the teachers. When we talk about heros, it’s so often the folks who walk into burning buildings. But I’m telling you, it’s also the people (all women in this case) who, day after day, walk into a class full of youngsters and make a monumental change in their lives. Some of them are excited newbies; some of them are seasoned and constant. And always, there’s a class grandma with a lap full of contented child.

We were guests not only of the teachers, but also of people who train and evaluate those teachers. Their dedication to and faith in the Program is astonishing. When was the last time you went to a workplace where no one was jaded? It’s being present to a miracle.

Head Start matters, my friends. There’s talk about gutting it or getting rid of it altogether. Head Start helps to level a wildly inequitable playing field. It helps to make a difference at the beginning of children’s lives, starting them out to become strong and powerful adults. We need to take very good care of such an important process. Head Start is a constant reminder that magic is the result of very hard work.

Our keeping faith with Head Start is an important step in keeping faith with Peace. However you can help, from voting to lobbying, please do. Let’s make giving thanks an active verb, shall we?

Community Peace, llvl

We hear, we say, it takes a village. And it seems this is true. But what’s also true is that, with hard work and clear statement of the problem, there is a village. Community forms around causes. Communities are generous and like doing good.

Yesterday, sitting in the studio at WKOK, talking about the need for weekend backpack programs and my faith community’s decision to raise money for them. I was doing the ask. I asked for people to donate. And they did. I asked for people to provide a matching grant. And someone did. At the end of the day yesterday, $1,695 was in the bank. Since November 2013, with our push just starting, we’ve raised $15,000 (until yesterday, most of that came from within the congregation) If you figure it will take at least $250,000 to feed the elementary schools we’re 6 percent there. We may need to get to 20 percent before we get to writing a grant… and of course, and sadly, this isn’t a one time deal… this is an ongoing need.

What was clear at the end of the one-hour program was that people were willing to step up and support their village. You just have to ask. And when you do people respond. Do we need more people? Why, yes, we do. Do we believe that more people will participate? Why, yes, we do…

Am I overwhelmed, grateful, excited, bouncing off the moon? Why, yes, I am. Stepping up and working together is how we will make Peace in this place and make this a Valley Where No Child is Hungry. And that is a confirmation of what I’ve always believed. People want to help. You just have to show them how. And when you do, they break your heart open in joy. Oh, Hallelujah! If you want to donate, go to Love Flows: The LOVE Project (Let Our Valley Eat) and make a donation… or if you’d like to be a matching angel… write to me (find me at contact us). And in the meantime, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Let’s go! Kids need your help. You are the best!

A Neighborly Sabbath Peace, LLVL

It was going to happen sometime. Someone I knew who lived alone was going to get hurt or sick and we’d have to figure things out.

When a friend of mine in California got sick, her community, from all over the country rallied around. Her husband suddenly died about a month before she did and friends started flying in, a week at a time. People showed up. She was that kind of friend. You did that. She was part of a culture that moved about for business. Luckily for everyone, she was part of a culture that made enough money that people could fly about.

But this accident happened in the village. You step outside to snap a rug and that quickly you’re on the ground with your foot going the wrong way. Our friend somehow managed to get back inside to call 911 but then she called a friend, and they came to take care of the dogs and to remind her how very loved she was.

By the time I found out the next morning, there was a place for her (and her little dogs, too!) to stay when she got out of the hospital. One little dog got sick and it turned out Wilma needed an operation too. That was being handled. Friends, on the job. The interwebs were alight with news. If you ever wondered whether FB has value, wonder no longer. Email would have connected a few of us. FB connected many more.

It’s a nice thought to savor on a frosty Winter Sabbath morn. Yes, the ice is treacherous; but hearts are sweet and warm. If you’re present to life, there are so many ways for that to be true.

If you move off the couch today, you might want to call a friend and weave the web tighter. You might want to thank a couple friends for being so important to you. You might just sit, gratefully appreciating how sweet life can be, how grace-filled, even in the moments that just seem scarey. But when you make a life where you are, live la vida local, people can respond.

Peace is in the cracks of life… what is it Cohen says, they let the light in — and the Peace, they let in Peace.

Being Present to Hope and Peace LLVL

Snow brings me joy. Even hunkered down against the cold. I’m happy for the brightness and the mysterious piles of white. Days like this when it’s cold and the sun shines, the entire world sparkles… It’s too cold for even the cars to make the snow gunky.

While I know it’s dangerously cold, and you have to be well-clad against its dangers, when you’re on the inside, it’s a soft and comforting blanket, keeping me safely indoors. (easy to wax eloquent when you don’t have kids clamoring to be out!)

Sitting last night by candle light, writing Charlie’s memorial, flanked by Marlin’s picture of Deb and Mary’s portrait of Charlie, there was a lovely feeling of gratitude as I remembered the love. That certainly brought in Hope in the midst of the melancholy. Love really lasts. And we can call on it when we need it. We’ve got to make room but it’s willing to rush in.

Gratitude for the Past. Love in the Present. Hope in the Future. That’s what Peace is built on when you’re living la vida local. Right here. Right now.

Happy New Peace

A year filled with ups and downs, marvels and mourning. A full year. A year of my life. I’m not wishing it away — after all, this is the year I discovered I’m a Peacemaker. The last year of my sister’s life, and the year of the sweetest connection. A year with Alaska in it. Visits from the kids and grands. How can I fail to give thanks? And I refuse to wish it away, even the painful bits. They were sacred as well.

A year of trying to be present no matter how painful. At the end of this year I’m tired and I start the year having to hold my hand and heart open once again so that I can say goodbye to an old friend. But once again presence.

So, I’ll thank 2013 for the lessons learned. And welcome 2014 for what’s in store and settle my intention not simply to be present but to be a presence, to act on 2014 so that it might grow in beauty.

Thank you my friends for Love and Peace and the demand that I be the best Ann I can. I hope I’m asking the same of you. I leave you in 2013 and I greet you in 2014 with a prayer for Peace, with prayers that we might be Peace — wild, wonderful burgeoning, laughing Peace.

Sated Peace

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.

Thanksgiving Peace

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.

Acting Thanksgiving, Acting Peace

I’m an applied theologian. I care less about what you believe than what you do with what you believe. I think often in active verbs, noticing, becoming aware, deciding, giving… sometimes rejecting. Always celebrating, always seeking.

Don’t get me wrong, applied theology isn’t all there is, not by a long shot. But it’s what I’m good at. You’d better be reading, You’d better be reflecting.

But when it comes to thanksgiving, you’ll do well to consider how to make your thankfulness dance. If you’re totting up your treasures, do it because you want to put that love to work in the world.

It’s time. There is so much need in this world and you are the answer. And you need to put your skills and your love to work in the world.

Thanksgiving is a wonderful holiday filled with so much that’s good. Eat the wonderful food. Enjoy being with your family. Reflect on the wealth of your life. Give thanks. And then move into your generosity. It is the best part of who you are.

The more generous we can be, each and every one of us and all of us together, the closer we are to tearing down the walls between us, the closer we are to Peace.

Veteran Peace

This holiday was always important to me, because I believed my older sister when she told me the world was not working because it was her birthday. She was an anchor in my world, so why would that not be true?

Once a year, people pull out the red, white and blue and say “Say Thank You!” And why not? Those people in harm’s way?

But it’s not an easy thank you for a woman who wishes the world were working on Peace not on controlling properties. It’s not easy when I think about who gets sent to fight wars, who wouldn’t have health care for their families without their service and who spends their lives avoiding anything like service.

It’s not easy to listen to politicians extol the value of the military and watch them cut services to Veterans. Something like 85 percent of our homeless are former military. There are huge negative impacts to “serving” the country, soldiers are discouraged from seeking help that should be part of service. Living in the line of fire and killing people, even people you believe are evil who may in fact be evil… these things are not good for your soul. The physical extremes they endure mess with their bodies and their minds.

So my Veteran’s Day prayers are mixed. I pray in thanksgiving for those who returned and those who sacrificed. Those who made difficult moral decisions to serve in other ways. I pray that we make a different homecoming for those who served, that we demand better for them of our leaders and ourselves, that we make a space and a place, that we fight for their Peace as they volunteered to fight for ours… I pray that we begin to speak up, act up, think up about ways to promote Peace… not to avoid war… but to move toward the joyous possibilities. I pray we will be kind to one another we who are on such different sides of this confusion. I will pray for the safety of the men and women (no longer boys and girls) in service and that their sweet and beating hearts may never have to take another’s life.

And in the midst of it all on this Armistice Day, this remembrance of the War to End All Wars that Ended Nothing…

I also remember that it is my sister’s birthday. And she is no longer with me. And my heart is still tender with loss.

Let there be Peace on Earth and let it begin with me. Let there be Gratitude as well.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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