Friendship Peace

Two of my Swedish Sisters were here this weekend to help say goodbye to Deb. They’d met her in Sweden, they’d stayed with her when they came to my wedding. They came to honor Deb and they stepped up to prop me up. Oh and they did. We counted blessings and gave thanks. Along the ways we made new memories.

They let me cry. They patted me. They fed me tea and chocolate (Finnish chocolate, tell no one!). We talked about all sorts of things and they came along as witnesses to my life as it is now. (Sadly they didn’t get to see my husband because he was sick the entire time they were here… ) They talked to me when I needed to jabber or when they needed something explained or just had something to say. And they were quiet when I needed quiet. And I could let them be quiet when their brains were exploding from all the English. We were present to one another.

They helped me remember why friends make a difference and reminded me to be grateful for all the astonishing and wonderful friends I have here and all over the world.

We all wondered at the thought that friendships such as ours — now over 44 years deep — can endure without a lot of tending, just because they are. We lived together. They shared their family (and now families) with me. They’ve met my family (now families) and loved them.

And in moments like this, you just push over bed in the morning as one of them comes in to chat and steals some covers and reassures your heart.

So even when the work ahead is hard, your heart is full and fueled for the journey. Peace goes better with friendship. Yes, indeed it does.

Peace Saints and Less-Than Saints

As the family slowly gathers for Deb’s memorial, and the year rolls around to what I find a very important time of the year: This is the season in quite a few traditions to remember the departed: The Communion of the Dead… and for some communion with the dead.

For me it’s always a chance to look back at what my ancestors taught me and look ahead at what I have to learn. I believe that most of us do what we can… I believe that those who came before did what they could. In some cases they succeeded wildly. In other cases, they missed the mark. In all cases, they had something to teach us.

In the soft light of twilight, we are invited to look closely at ourselves and decide whether or not we’re going to learn their lessons — whether that means taking on or shedding their behaviors.

Such a crazy time. I’m so grateful for the gathering, real and spectral, and yet, and yet, and yet. I will try very hard to walk in Peace, and to be gentle with myself as I work to stay open to the incredible outpouring of love — and grief — which is coming. We always promised ourselves we’d do this while she was still alive to receive the toasts. We didn’t make it, did we, Deb… I look for your face in the mirror… and sometimes i see it, on your own and in my own. Blessed, blessed be.

Sister Peace with Chocolate

I am struggling to get ready for the Memorial this weekend. In addition to the service, I’m getting my house ready for my Swedish sisters to visit. And I’m also getting my house into a place of Peace, because when this is over, I am going to need a place of refuge. I’m also struggling because there is no ignoring the earthly reality of her death. When the Memorial comes I have to say goodbye.

I have been getting the most extraordinary help from friends. People have organized me despite myself at home. People are singing in the Memorial. Tonight a girlfriend drove up from Harrisburg and just sat on the couch and then volunteered to go with me to fetch the Swedes.

My house looks fabulous. My bag has clothes piled up beside it for the weekend. Most of my writing for the ritual is done. Some of my writing for the sermon is done.

It’s so hard to let her go. That sweet familiar woman whose rhythms I knew as well as my own.

So what an incredible gift that these two women will arrive from Sweden, to wrap me in sister-love and sister-peace. Forty-four years later, love holds the center. I don’t know why I was smart enough to cultivate Love… but I give thanks, count my blessings, and wonder what kind of chocolate they will bring. They’re the first. and then the community will gather. Hard stuff is coming, but right now, I’m going focus on the love in… Oh, and Happy Halloween. I’ll be disguised as a person who’s doing OK… and I guess I am for a woman with a shattered heart.

But here come Cecelia and Margita… and all of you, who help me hold my heart together.

Peace One, Peace Two

I realize that I’ve harped on this before (moi? harp?) but I believe in blessing counting. Do I always do it? Nope. it’s easy to slide out of the habit, just as it’s easy to pop outta bed without taking time to say “Today is a good day to live.” I’ve thought about that Buddhist saying that it’s a good day to die, and that should infer that you live consciously until you die, but you know life ends in death, so let’s, as the saying goes, make hay while the sun shines.

The careful totting up of life’s blessings, large and small, helps us to remain thankful. Being thankful puts us in a much better frame of mind. If we go to bed aware of the abundance, we wake up filled with it. How can that do anything but make our lives better?

But as started to write this, I realized, well, what if I started counting the progress I’d made toward Peace every night. Would that encourage me to lengthen the list? I once wrote a poem in which I suggested counting your blessings with bites of ice cream. there was no more ice cream than there were blessings. So how much ice cream would I get if I could only eat when I enumerated a Peace-ibility! I’m thinking I’d get better at it! (sorta like clicker training for Peaceful humans!)

I always worry when I talk about this, that we will get fatuous. We begin to talk blithely about the “wonderful” challenges put in front of us… there may be blessings we can wring out of challenges, but they’re in our lives because they are, not because they were meant to teach us blessings!

But still —to be able to say at the end of the day, that I took these steps toward Peace. To begin to raise my expectations of myself that I might become a better Peacemaker. There’s an interesting challenge… and the topic of tomorrow’s poem? who knows?

Obliging Peace

As a kid and a non-Catholic, I was always intrigued by the notion of Holy Acts of Obligation. As an adult with an even less Catholic viewpoint than earlier, I’m even more intrigued — and less tied to what they really were and more interested in what I think they ought to be.

For instance, thanksgiving. Not the day with turkey and all its fixings although I’m a pretty big fan of that, particularly fixings! But the action. The making reflexive of the giving of thanks first thing in the morning and the counting of blessings at night.

Each day is a gift. And if I treat it so from the very outset, it’s more likely to become that in fact. And I’m alive. I have great memories AND great prospects. And the present is challenging and engaging.

And so I give thanks. For all I have and all I am and want to become. And when I do, when my feet hit the floor, I am a different person and my day is filled with possibilities.

In my thinking about thanking, I also consider the countless religions that have small prayers to take you through the day… what would those thanksgivings look like, I sometimes wonder for those of us who live in today’s world… I may explore that… but at present, I will give thanks that I have friends coming to help me say good bye to my sister, to hold me upright when it is time, and that I may do this for the sister I loved so dearly. I give thanks that I have a cozy home and friends and family who have helped me reclaim my place in it in the aftermath of loss and grief. I give thanks for a wide-flung community with whom I laugh and kvetch and wonder…

I give thanks because life with all its challenges is mine to explore.

Peace of Tomatoes Past

A ripe tomato may well be my favorite food of all — but there are raspberries… and corn on the cob… and blueberries… and of course strawberries… and don’t fail to mention clementines… and, and, and.

The fact is that the perfect food is what’s ripe and good in that moment and perfect for the moment. You may have a raspberry in February, straight from the freezer, and they’re good, but they’re not, that perfect raspberry. I’ve finally found a tomato to eat in the winter that enhances that grilled cheese sammich, but it’s not THE PERFECT tomato; it’s an okay substitute.

Things are right when they are. And Peace is a whole list of things that are right when they are. (OLIVES, I forgot to mention olives!!!!!) You may favor one piece of it more than another, but you can’t deny the existence of the others and the rightness of them. All that is what makes the season wonderful. That kind of variety is what makes Peace possible. Everything has to go into Peace so that Peace isn’t a sterile ideal, but a warm, messy, wonderful thing. (sorta like watermelon!!!)

When one season ends, we must open our hearts and minds and tastebuds to the next round of deliciousness. Nature is filled with abundance. There is plenty for all. We give thanks by enjoying what is offered. Count your blessings and dig in.

I hope you enjoyed your last summer tomato — or whatever it is you enjoy, leftover from last season, ready for the next…

Hunter Moon Peace

Once again I stood with a friend at a sorting table heaped high with the gleanings from several life-times.

In the morning, we sorted clothes into piles: Yes, no, maybes. The yeses were put back into the closet. Today they’ll be sorted into summer, all season, winter (the table — my bed — wasn’t big enough for all the piles.) The nos were then sorted into tops, bottoms, pjs, winter, and then the really big pile: “nobody will ever want to wear that throw it out!” Laughing at the memories, counting my blessings, giving thanks, remembering, releasing…

An hour later, there was room in my closet! After such support, at the end of today there will be summer clothes disappeared and winter clothes appeared, which is a good thing given that the Hunter Moon has drawn all the heat from the land. Ah, seasons change.

Out to lunch and we did the same things with paper. Six feet of paper became six inches and two bags: shred and recycle and 3 items to throw away.

It was age-old work with a new theme. We were certainly readying the house for the long cold winter. (and speaking of which I think I should turn the heat on, it’s cold in here). We did it side by side making it a community transaction. I’ve done it for her. She’s done it for me. We’ve done it for someone else. It’s not the last time it will happen.

Maybe it was clearing out the emotional and physical underbrush yesterday that allowed me to stop worrying about what I might trip and actually look up to see the moon. It certainly eased some of the anxiety that is my constant companion these days. Lovely to move from my little world to the grandeur of Nature. I had a wonderful night out with friends that included food and theater, and that was lovely. And there we were, riding back home along the river after a productive, enjoyable day, looking at the Moon and enjoying the evening.

Trying to Solidify Peace

As I was writing yesterday, this is what occurred to me… maybe the handling of stuff, precious, inherited stuff is an occupation in which we engage in order to begin to knit together the frayed edges of our souls. This is what it feels like, for me at least… as if our souls are open at the edges where our beloved departed?

and yet, box by box, pack things down and then open them out again, choose what stays and then choose where the rest will go and the held back will be displayed, perhaps this is how we come to terms with the leaving… only as we settle in. only as handle each of the pieces our beloveds have handled.

I’m touching a lot of my past in this move… my sister was the keeper of much of the family heirlooms. And I also unpacked a box that had been tucked away for 7 years that I’d brought home from my father’s place when he died. So much history. Pretty soon, the table my brother made in 9th grade shop will have some of the same mementos that it held when it graced my parent’s living room, oh a decade ago…

and in the touching, there is remembering. and in the remembering there is a re-membering a pulling back together of life, different but still containing them… replacing, oh-so-slowly, the great gaping emptiness.

And although this is a lot of noble philosophy, I’m still overwhelmed by the amount of stuff that must be done. balance. Let’s keep looking for balance. In the meantime, I’ll keep working at staying present, making the memories stick, and giving thanks that I was as lucky as I was. And I’ll keep unpacking, shall I?

Peace of the Moment

Living in the moment. ack. According to most traditions, being present is what is asked of us. We are to delight in the moment. Pay attention heretics… it’s not all about the next life. Why would we have this life if we weren’t to enjoy it?

There are those glorious moments when it’s easy. Look. Life is grand!

But most of life is? Not that.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about ‘way over yonder recently. Not so much the ‘way over yonder of death, but the ‘way over yonder of “if I can only finish this, life will exist on the other side.”

Hello! Lying to myself. Life is in the mess. In the packed dishes, mine and my sister’s mingling, in the paper on the floor, in the box spring that doesn’t go up the stairs.

It’s not about snapping and whining that life is too hard. It’s about opening and going through. Because, in fact, I have a box spring that doesn’t go up the stairs in my cozy little home. I have stuff. I had the most remarkable sister. I had a great family whose mementos surround me. I have great family who love and laugh and bicker. I have friends who pack my stuff, who move my stuff, who hold my hand, listen to me moan, weep with me. Life is right here.

If I fail to be grateful, I miss the point. I miss the Peace. … dammit. Once again, here we are, lookin’ for love in all the wrong places. It’s not about sitting on the mountain top, it’s about living in the muck. In the summer, I need to remember I love the feel of mud squishing between my toes. In the winter? I’ve got great boots. forward ho!

Present and accounted for. Until, of course, it gets hard. And then I can learn this lesson again.

Happy, Grateful Peace

or is that Peaceful Happy Gratitude? It’s all so confusing… but the video said…. which video? this one… that by identifying actual points of gratitude and then letting people know about your gratitude, particularly the people to whom and for whom you are grateful makes you a happier person. It makes people who are the least happier far more happy than it makes people who are already pretty happy. Maybe they’re already pretty grateful… and maybe they tell people how much they love them and why.

But telling people how much you love them and why is probably a pretty darned wonderful thing to do always and forever. Because even if it didn’t make you happy, it would make them happy… and that would be reason enough to do so, don’t you think?

So right now, I’m grateful for two things. I’m really grateful to those of you who take the time to read my writing and to comment on it. It makes me work harder and think a bit deeper. It humbles me when you write to say it pushed you to think differently about something. Thank you so much.

And I’m also grateful to and for my sister. More and more I realize how much she took care of me and how much she let me take care of her and that makes me so incredibly grateful… even now, when I’m being very sad and grieving… it softens and opens my heart…

For what are you grateful? To whom are you grateful? Why? Tell them. And then? get back to me and tell me how it made you feel… Giving thanks! Feeling Joy. Celebrating Peace.

Sacred Village

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