Catch and Release Peace

I didn’t set out to become a Midwife for Death. I can tell you that I ignored the signs a long time. And yet, it was work I did from my 20s. For some reason, I knew to be present, and wasn’t really frightened.

And there really isn’t a MfD 101 course anywhere. And guidance came in only the most sporadic ways. Someone offered a guided meditation, and talked about her early fears that she was jinx to her patients, only to understand later that her nursing supervisors sent her to work with those who were slipping away.

When I did take a course in Clinical Pastoral Education, I realized that oddly most of the clients I “caught” in the ER were dying and I sat with their families if they weren’t allowed to be there and talked with them afterwards. They trained me with their questions and their need to be heard.

And then there was AIDS and beautiful men dying gaunt and alone. Beautiful men learning how to care for one another. Oh, I learned a lot there.

What I learned is that it is as precious a moment to be there at the going out as it is at the coming in. That the labor to leave life is as extreme as the labor to come into it. That the ceremonies of “goodbye” can be as joyous and freeing as the ceremonies of “hello” or “I do.” That the invitation to be present to those passages is a privilege and not a weight. Your acceptance is an entering into prayer. This is hard work, but an unbelievable blessing.

The weight comes when there is so much death, one after another. Particularly now when I’m grieving my own loss. And yet, still the privilege of stepping up when people must be held. And perhaps there is healing in the notion that we all lose those we love. It is the payment on these astonishing lives we lead.

There is so much more I need to know. Perhaps there is a lot more for me to write since it seems so few are encouraged into walking this boundary with their loved ones, despite the fact that every loved one will cross sooner or later. More to learn about helping those who cross. More to learn about helping those who remain. I can read a lot and yet “book larnin'” isn’t necessarily the best teacher…

This is a deeply personal reflection for me, this struggle to catch the souls who are grieving and to release those who are leaving… I’m certain that many of you have parts of your life and your talents that you’re exploring… things about yourself you didn’t suspect… I wish us all Peace as we learn our trades.

The Peace Sabbath of In-Between

In between is where the magic and the mystery happens. I believe that. Things happen on the way to somewhere else. But no one ever tells you how long it takes to get through. If they did, would we believe them? If we believed them, would we go?

I’m a woman of chaos. Lots boiling around in my brain. Lots of people and events and stuff boiling around in my life. Because of that, I keep things pared down. I can eat the same foods. Sit in the same chair. I can even read the same book, over and over and over again. Small delightful snippets to remind me. Small delightful snippets to distract me. Very little noise it distracts me. (She married a drummer????????? ah, right they live separately.)

But closing down Deb’s house, deciding what will be kept and what will go away. Making space at my house. Deciding what will be kept and what will go away. Bringing what will be kept to my place. Trying to clean it up, figure it out, fit it all in. Trying to make life simple.

Trying to do this with half a brain… people with broken hearts don’t have lots of consistent brain power to rely on. (although, rejoice, i read part of a real book! a NEW book, no small delightful snippet. something I had to chew on.)

So, even though Sundays are work days for me, my work is the work of presence. and that’s the work of the sabbath… That’s why i stayed up last night moving things about so that I could spend time today just being present to poetry, to song, to community, to people’s adventures, to friends and family, to the empty spaces. Sabbath. even in the wilderness. Hoping that the wandering helps me find my way home to Peace and a peace-filled, memory-rich home. Other people wait for me to make my way back home, but memories are what I have of my sister… so I must celebrate them.

Flooding, Frightening Peace

I puzzled before I wrote this musing and this post whether or not I could really combine Peace and Flooding. But after looking at the way neighbors responded two years ago, particularly in places like my hometown Bloomsburg, there is Peace to be marveled at. These are the moments in history where people really move beyond their societally limiting boundaries and offer hands and hearts and help.

But poor Boulder. Twelve inches of rain, in an area that almost never sees that much, would have been frightening enough. But the resultant floods and the incredible damage are overwhelming. Communication has been wiped out in many places, but at this point: Eight are known dead, hundreds are missing. Best estimate at the moment is 19,000 homes lost.

In addition, this non-historically flooding area is home to a good deal of fracking. What have the waters boiled up and spread over the land. We won’t know for a while. This adds a level of long-term fear to what’s already overwhelming.

We don’t know if this flood is a result of global climate, but there are plenty of things that say this can’t be completely discounted.

There are places to offer money… check the web. Money’s what’s needed, not goods. From other parts of the country, money makes good neighbors.

I’m trying to focus my energies on places where I can have impact. I’m not a good fracking activist or a good climatologist. I can point others towards those issues. I am good at helping people reach out and at motivating folk to do that. I will do what I can where I can. But this is another choice point where we get to ask ourselves, how much, really do we want Peace? Do we want it enough to reach out? And having reached out, understanding that that extension of the hand and heart is Peacemaking?

Can you personally do something about Boulder, other than sending money? I don’t know, I don’t know your skills. I don’t know how close you are or what kind of hard work you can provide. But can you as a result of Boulder, or whatever stirs/spurs you to action, extend your support in your community where you can do a great deal of good? I think we all can do that. It’s not always easy. It’s sometimes tedious. But it’s the practicing of Peace on a daily basis that makes the practicing of it in difficult times second nature. Stepping up when the steps are little makes climbing the big stairs easier.

So, yes. Peace. even in the floods. And perhaps, in the aftermath, some activism.

Trudging Peace

Every Tuesday I have breakfast with my friend Turrie. I’ve told you stories before about the little drive-in along the river. Today, in an effort to get my life looking a bit like normal and tend to my health, I decided to walk. As always, I was late, stride, stride, striding along.

On the way back I found myself fiercely concentrating… and I’m not sure I can tell you on what. A moment of self reflection perhaps? Or considering that I needed some dish detergent? But back I came, head down, chewing on something or the other, things to do, things I’ve done, broken hearts, you know, the usual.

I got home to a message from Turrie… did you see the eagle? Um, no, I hadn’t. I’d been so busy trudging and stomping through life, that I’d neglected to notice a very large and beautiful bird about 20 yards away.

You gotta look up. Mr. or Ms. Eagle would have lifted my heart, if I’d been willing to see him. Here I was, thank you, Oscar Wilde, living out the poem I’d just written. Life imitating art… (I know, audacious, eh, to consider my little musing art…) but not the uplifting part of it.

So, in my walking about today, I’ll try and get my head up off my feet… and perhaps cut myself a break… we’re not always ready to look up or out, but it’s a healthy reminder that we miss beauty when we’re stuck… Luckily the eagle lives here and I’ll unstick eventually!

It has been my pleasure to serve as your reminder of missed opportunities. Just remember, as our parents might have told us “do what I say, not what i do!”

Peace Challenges

It’s always more work than you think it is. And there are always more obstacles than you think there should be. And too many of the obstacles, hard work and challenges are about what you bring to the journey: your beliefs, your insistences, your close-mindedness…

Just when you think you’ve gotten some clarity, grabbed a deep breath and think things are fine, the way gets rocky.

And yet, somewhere, deep in you know. There is only Peace. It is all you want. And so you persevere.

Sometimes it’s really, really hard work. Today? It’s one of those days for me. I hope your day is being better. But even if it isn’t. On we go. Peace wants us… there’s joy and laughter and sweet memories, just a bit farther on down the road. And there we’ll sit and weep and mend our hearts and restore our souls a bit before we travel on. We’ll do that simply because we’re there with one another.

Talented, Skillful Peace

We all come with skills and talented. If we’re smart, we’ll develop both of them. Both of them require discipline, because all the talent and deftness in the world doesn’t mean anything unless you take responsibility for those gifts.

Some gifts, those we perfect by dogged practice, take more out of us (even if they demand no less of us) than things that come naturally to us. We’ve worked and worked and worked to get good at things, they may or may not thrill us, or they may please us simply for the fact that we accomplished them. We may work our whole lives with nothing but our skills because it’s the work available to us. It’s good to work with your skills but it’s better, if we can to work with our talents.

Those are those gifts that show up in us and wait for us to discover. Sometimes I feel when I use the things I’m best at, whether it’s ritual or presence, that I am in another world entirely… the world where everything fits just the way it’s supposed to. It’s the world where I am truly alive and soaring.

What are those things for you? Can you sort it out? Are you practicing both? One? or the Other? Do you understand that that hard work is prayer? Take yourself seriously. Don’t take your gifts for granted, take them with great gratitude.

And in the meantime. Stand on the picket lines, shovel the snow, cook a pot of soup, winterize someone’s house and stuff the envelopes. Those are the things that build the realm of Peace.

Village Peace

This poem took shape on a FB message talking about how to help a friend deal with a problem. I grew up in a small town. Oddly, I’m back here now, at my sister’s house enmeshed in the love of a small town as I hear from everywhere (The Democratic Committee sent my brother and me their condolences on Deb’s Death, telling us how wonderful she was.) It’s hard to slip through the cracks when people keep stepping up.

People do. and small towns can be vicious and tough. Nothing’s perfect. But they’re vicious when folk, oh, let’s just say we, here, eh?, aren’t conscious about the forming of community, when we’re lazy about it.

But when we work at it, whether we’re connecting hands and creating webs across continents or oceans or we’re making sure our neighbor’s house gets cleaned when someone falls and can’t manage, the web catches us when we can’t stand upright on our own.

This village-making is one of the building blocks of Peace, i believe. It’s tricky, because part of the nature of villages is that they’re closed. And we’re calling for open villages. Connecting our hands across boundaries to offer the support that’s needed. Not turning away from those who are different, challenging, unlike us.

Let us be webweavers, my friends. Conscious webweavers. Because we can weave ourselves together with vitriol. But that? doesn’t really cut it. It cuts out folks, isolates them. That can’t be what we choose… and yet it is a choice, a choice for laziness and disinterest. But we must choose connection.

I always think this. But I’m feeling it so strongly now. Now in the places where connections have been made and in the places where they just don’t exist. I must be careful where i rest my broken heart. Yet support emerges, webs make themselves beautifully visible in the most unlikely places. And from this place of brokenness, new webs will be woven.

The world is so broken. If we weave the little webs, we can attach the big ones to that. The most amazing thing about those spiders is that they weave entire worlds in a very short time and go back and reweave when the human ones break them. So let’s all do like the spiders do: weave, weave, weave! Let’s keep making this world sweeter. We do the work. We realize dreams we never knew we had. Peace. Peace Dreams.

Committing Peace

I’m a woman full of dreams and plans. I’ve gotten better as I’ve aged in bringing plans to fruition. But I realize, that whatever my plans, there is a thread to my life. When I plan with that thread, when I at least recognize it, my plans flow along a lot more fluidly. One of my friends would tell you my calling is to be with those who are dying. It’s true, I’ve walked with people up to death and celebrated their lives afterwards.

But I think the crux of my gift is to be present. That’s what I’m good at. And it’s sort of hard, because I’m also a doer… So those two things struggle in me for supremacy. Both have their value. But for a high energy person, I’m good at being present. And I really work well when I’m present for a specific project and then to leave when I’m no longer needed. Sometimes I feel as if I’m a gadfly because other folk have the gift of constancy, instead of my short intense forays into presence.

My friend Jean has the gift of hospitality. Through her great food, she nourishes not only individual souls but also the sense of community. Many of us have been made welcome at her table. Some people build houses. Others build organizations. Some just keep things humming along.

If we do those things at which we are best with open hearts and minds set on Peace… the world begins to change. And when we do those things we’re passionate about, people want to join us. Life can get deeper. Life can get broader. Life can become simpler and more beautiful and oh, by the way, better. Joyful, even. Peaceful.

So, what is it for you? what do you do best? How do you make Peace. The world needs us desperately. We need to stop the violence. We need to stop the hate. We do. right here. so we can call upon our neighbors and get other people involved. and slowly, slowly, slowly, and then perhaps not so slowly, the world will change.

Helping Peace

Writing about the Three Sisters made me remember other helping plants. You wonder, when thinking about the bold Marigolds, who discovered that they worked well together, or did the plants just make their way to one another in some garden?

It’s pretty much the same for Peace, isn’t it? We want to do Very Important Work with Peace, but much of the work that’s really needed is leveraging Peace, making it better where we’re able. Some people’s gifts are big and splashy (just like the red hot tomato!). The rest of us are best suited to be sturdy soldiers in the garden of Peace.

And that, my friends, is not nuthin’!

“All we are saying, is give Peace a chance.” The chorus may have started with a sit in, but it needs to continue with concrete, consistent (hard) work for Peace.

Practice Peace

My friends, I’ve posted these for your enjoyment while I’m away enjoying nature and time with my sister. I’ll be back live by the 21 of June.

I’m not sure what there is to say about this, beyond 10,000 hours. It takes that many to get good at something. If you have a Peace-skill, Peace-ability to develop, better get crackin’! Peace is hard work, but the world needs us and what we have to offer. Let’s become very good at applying our skills to the making of Peace.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

Tag Archives: hard work