Peace Offerings, llvl

It often seems that the sacrifices we make these days are of the things that might save us. We’ll sacrifice relationships for rewards. (And we develop relationships with people on FB rather than, say, people.)

Let’s be clear, I’m not pointing any fingers here. There are plenty of cues I miss… Plenty of times I opt out of life.

Sacrifice seems so last mid-century. Everyone sacrificed. It was hard work, we didn’t like it. So we stopped.

Now things continue that we could change. But we don’t.

Was there a perfect era? Was everyone happy, safe, homed, fed? No.

Was there a sense of connection to something communal? Yes. Does that instill in us a sense of obligation to that bigger thing? Yes. Did it take investment? Did it take sacrifice? Yes, that too…

When we don’t take Peace seriously, when we are not responsible to it, the world continues to devolve. Someone asked an expert on Palestine the other evening what would change the war. He said what was required was for the trickle of interaction between the people would need to become a river and then a flood. That everything in the economy of other countries was angled toward that particular war. Only the people can change it.

It would take hard work. It would take sacrifice. But Imagine. We might be part of what brings Peace. The Peace on Earth Season is right around the corner. Let’s consider Peace. Let us make offerings small and large to Peace. That might put wonder back in the holiday season!

Trusting Peace, llvl

A friend of mine was discouraged the other day by what are truly sad signs about people’s willingness to participate in their well-being. It’s not that I don’t get it. It’s not that I don’t go there myself some times. What IS wrong with folk?

But I know, because I know what she does, that she makes an incredible difference. And I know some of her friends. We make a difference too. We’re maybe not changing huge swaths of the world, but we’re changing what’s around us. We’re in the positions that we are, because that’s how we make the most change. Other people band together and make big sweeping changes, we’re little lights in the snow, homing beacons perhaps. Beacons of Love. Beacons of Peace. It’s hard, but good work.

June Jordan, once more: We do what we can…

So, remember, my friend, take heart. Your work matters and makes a difference. I believe mine does as well. Sometimes I can see it as clearly as I see your work, as clearly as I see our friends’ and our colleagues’ work. Gently I remind us all; stoutly I defend us all. The word stoutly surprised me… but it was the right one….

We do what we can, and that matters. Peace isn’t straightforward… it bobs and weaves and gets backslid… but we have to trust ourselves in its arms and trust our passion to bring it to fruition. Peace be with you. Peace be with us all. Peace may we be.

Collaborative Peace, llvl

Oh, man, working together. What a joy! What a gift! What a better product.

There is nothing sweeter than pushing around ideas and figuring out where they go on a (sometimes figurative, sometimes literal, sheet of paper.) Wow, this works with this. Gee, I never thought of that. Boy Howdy, this is fun!

I’m working on a presentation for a workshop. I’ve got notes about this dating back almost 10 years, and finally the right time came around. And now, suddenly, there are the right people to work on it with. Yesterday, I thought and took notes with one woman. Today, I have to write that up so I can think and write again. (and sometimes write and think, because as someone wise once said, how can I know what I think until I write it down?)

I really like what I’m working on and I love working on it with someone else(s). And working together is so much easier these days, because if you can’t be in the same room, you just sit down and skype. Technology does make my life better and sweeter.

I know some people are really solitary thinkers. I am not always that. Not on the big things. I like knowing how you think differently than I do so that the stew gets far more interesting. I started to take that analogy farther, but thought it might not further the argument. (I’ve never used further successfully in a sentence before. laughing.) It’s hard work. It demands both self-reflection and getting out of the way of the process.

So here’s to my collaborators, my co-workers and co-creationists. Here’s to a community of thought and progress, to doing good two by two or three by three, rather than one by one. Thanks, it’s swell. it feels like magic. And oh, btw, The work is so much stronger. I’ll take it. and rejoice. I have longed for this my whole life. It seems the little bit of Peace I can imagine gets larger every time we sit down to talk. Thank you, thank you, thank you. and oh, yes. Wahoo!

Peace and Paradise, disturbed, llvl

Asch. We are who we are. And life is as we know it. Sometimes that’s amazing. Sometimes it’s less so.

Yesterday was filled with both. Lorraine’s sister and her daughter came to visit. Hooray. We packed down a watermelon and a gooseberry/black current pie/raspberry (oooh, my!) and took the ferry boat from the Picasso sculpture (yes i sorta took a picture, some time I’ll figure out how to put my reeeeeeally mediocre pics on Facebook… oh, thank goodness for Deb Slade and her art shots!) over to the island.

Once we got to the rocks on the other side of the island, it was amazing. You could dive off the rocks into the lake and bob and float and laugh and we did! Apparently there are rules: two dips in the lake and then you can drink your coffee or tea. No drinking tea if your eyelashes aren’t damp!

It was just lovely. You can’t believe the amount of stuff we hauled out there to enjoy ourselves: chairs, towels, sunblock, thermoses, forks plates, knives, cutting boards, serving spoons. All for a trek through the woods. But make no mistake. Once again, it was Paradise!

But the niggling little problem about paradise is that I don’t walk well in the woods, particularly woods that are up and down with stones and roots. And roots covered over with springy, springy moss, which is beautiful and flowering. I’m not sure what triggered it, I had it fairly well controlled going out, but coming back to the boat, I realized I was having a panic attack. It was full blown before it broke my concentration, fast heart, fast shallow breathing, threatening tears. Once I realized, I could ask Lorraine to go more slowly, and to be patient. It wasn’t so much help I needed as time. It’s frustrating, because it’s really beautiful in the woods… intellectually I know that. But if you’ve ever had panic attacks, you know it just takes a lot of concentration and slow exhalations to calm them. And understanding friends. I had all that, but whew. Unreasoning fear, from out of nowhere.

Exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale. one foot, two foot. (ah, why didn’t Dr. Seuss write a book about dealing with panic attacks? It’s exactly what you need… silly, mindless repetition.

But we got to the boat on time and the ferry was waiting. Wonderful old wooden boat to take us back to the mainland, laughing all the way. But sheesh, wanna know if like having all my insecurities on display, in front of beloved friends (and who better?), no, not so much. Hard work. Great Payoff…

And yet, it was Paradise. There was Peace. There was nothing more beautiful than, not only the rocks, but the journey out and in. I think I’ll try it again. (Poor them! Lucky me!)

Everyday Peace Challenges

Peace isn’t something you pull out the cash for and buy in one fell swoop. It’s something you put a down-payment on and you pay as you go, every day, every day. Some things will change. Some things you just have to work around. Some things you have to work darned hard at. And so it goes.

This was a tough weekend. I’d put this work off for the whole winter. After going through an immense amount of stuff to fit Deb’s stuff into my life, I reached an end to what I could deal with and still remain sane. It was a lot. There were only about 6 boxes out on the winterized porch. I’ll deal with them in the Spring I said. That was after I’d started to look at the pictures from Deb’s family’s life. I couldn’t see the happy ones. I couldn’t bear the missing members, more and more and more and more of them. Later. It was what I could do. No shame there.

But this chilly rainy weekend, the lure of preparing the porch for the return of the sun, outweighed my reluctance to confront the past. And so I sat and sorted. I learned a lot. I learned nothing at all. I remembered, with great searing clarity the turn of a head, the shape of a mouth, what their hair felt like in my fingers. I remembered some other things that weren’t so pretty. I remembered again that they were dead.

What I didn’t know now, I would never find out.

Not a lot more to say about that, is there?

But I know that that’s not all there is — or not everything isn’t anymore, or something. More of them will be like the death of a family — simply things that are. Others will be things that we will shape…

In the midst of my grieving, there is a sweet little porch. There’s more stuff to move, and more to sort through, but I can see what it wants to be again. Last year, I didn’t sit on the porch at all. I didn’t open it until September. I wasn’t here. And I couldn’t bring myself to care. But Summer comes again. And this year, by and large, those boxes and their contents are in the trash, in the recycling or in the cellar. If you’re the one who has to go through my house when I’m aged, I’ll label them. Don’t open them, just pitch them right out. Nothing to see here, just move along, that was yesterday, and yesterday’s gone…

And some things will be things we encounter, things we are called to act upon. They may be big things, they may be little… but… much of the work we see is ours to do. Not all of it, but a good deal of it. We’re the ones to pick the fast food trash up from the alley. We’re the one who has to stop to see if someone needs our attention. We’re the ones who need to speak up (to the best of our ability) when we see something happening.

We make Peace. With what was and is no more. With what may become and needs our dreams. With what is and demands our attention and our care. It’s why we’re here. Everyday Peace, done every day.

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.

The Discipline of Peace, llvl

I don’t know what I was thinking yesterday… it’s 10,000 hours, not 2,000. That’s five years of the hard work of Peace Making in order to have Peace become reflexive in our hearts…

Will it work? I can’t tell you. Is there any reason why it shouldn’t? I don’t see one. I see a lot of impetus toward Peace. Not the least is the recent paper circulating in the Eastern Ukraine, (is it a governmental decree or a terroristic sect’s threat?) that all the Jews should go to register on threat of forfeiture of their citizenship and their property… along with all the continued oppression happening all over the world…

We must be the difference. And we must start to work…

Peace is in our hands. It must be in our hearts and in our actions. We must practice, every day and every moment. All these years after it was sung, are we willing to give Peace a chance?

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?

Science Peace: llvglobal

Well, of course, la vida local is also la vida global. We are all part of the interconnected web. And so much that’s astonishing in life has a really long lead time. Here‘s a wonderful video about a scientist hearing that what he believed, nurtured and cherished has come to fruition. The 30-year lead time on that knowledge doesn’t change the wonder. And his 30 year lead is predicated upon, built upon the science of others.

The science is ‘way beyond my comprehension… but the notion that one could “hear” echoes of the big bang billions (loads of zeros) of years ago — and actually of the “inflation” that happened one trillionth of a second (greater loads of zeros than the last load) after the bang… now that’s a thing of wonder. An inflation that unites us in wonder… and leaves us with the responsibility to unite in Peace. “Come together, right now.”

(how extraordinary is this! I totally get it that I may have gotten the science wrong, but my inability to wrap my arms around the extent of the possibility isn’t science’s fault — nor does it change the wonderment! Oh, my Daddy would have been so excited. Look kids, science is fun and extraordinary.)

Staying Local for Peace and Life

You know it happens, so you shouldn’t be so surprised. But when the people on the shore behind you in Florida come from 6 miles away from your home in Pennsylvania… and you know someone in common… that’s a sweet coincidence. And ok, sorta weird.

And that’s life.

In addition to the wonderful weather, there’s wonderful family here. When you don’t see each other all the time, you work hard to create the family and then you reap the sweetness. And that’s life.

It’s hard to keep up with everyone you love. It’s hard to stay connected. It takes hard work.. But the effort makes all the difference. Then once in a while there are chance encounters that make you laugh out loud. Stay present to the moment. Count your blessings and just be overwhelmed with the sweetness. Make memories where and when you can. From such things Peace grows. And alongside it the realization that every bit of life is local. It’s all about your showing up!

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

Tag Archives: hard work