Reverent Peace

I’m realizing how much I believe that our attitudes are choices — and important ones. To be reverent about the world in which we live is a responsibility, I believe, for the gift we have been given.

I recognize however… and I haven’t found a way to acknowledge this in the poetry, that not everyone can do that. Not everyone’s neurons are firing cheerfully away. Many people work to get out of bed and continue their lives. Every day, a struggle. A woman wrote to remind me of this the other day… Struggling to understand the writer’s responsibility to widen my view. Am I the poet for this woman? should I be?

I’ll keep thinking about it. And I’ll work to keep trudging reverently toward Peace, if that’s not an oxymoron… Peace. Hard work. Awe. It’s all part of the puzzle.

Labor-Intensive Peace

Peace is not easily obtained. All month, I’ve been using the image of the garden as a metaphor for Peacemaking. And it’s a good one, because gardening is very labor intensive, you must prepare the soil, choose what you will plant, figure out how those things work together and that’s when the work starts.

As with gardens, Peace is labor-intensive and much of that labor is just plain hard work. The hope is, that if the wind and weather cooperate, it will not only feed you for the summer but also enliven and strengthen your diet throughout the year. Again, with Peace the hopes and the goals are enormous and long-term and are affected by many variables.

However. with gardening as with Peacemaking, there are those magical moments when you pull up, say, the first spring onion, or you accomplish a small milestone and life it made infinitely better. Savor those moments, because there will be more work to do right afterwards! But at the moment? how sweet!

Resting Sabbath

At some point, we’ll gather and wonder what comes next. But not not yet. Today’s for the telling of stories, the reveling in new connections and the exalting in work well done. The UUCSV and its friends got on a bus, came to Staten Island with some elbow grease and more food than anyone could imagine and made Peace. We were taken on a tour of the affected areas. The need we encountered was staggering. The ongoing problems daunting. We didn’t change the world, but: There’s a little less mold and a lot more shelves. A kitchen remodeling moved along. Data entered. Calls made. Parties set up and carried out! Friends made, Heroes encountered. Labyrinths walked, Maypoles danced, Songs played and sung. And then they got back on the bus exhausted and happy.

Today, we’ll rest and reminisce. Thanks to everyone who participated. Thanks to everyone who gave. (it’s still not to late, go to Love Flows if you’re able to share some resources with people so hard hit by a storm.) Three of us will provide the service for our host church as one more chance for people to sit back and put their feet up. What happened, happened because you participated.

Thank you. I’m sure I’ll be finding new things to give thanks for about this trip for a long time.

But you know what? I’m a tired girl… and other people were doing great things in the world while we were working on this little one. So sit back, put your feet up and relax. Enjoy the Sabbath. Yesterday was all about the hard work. Now, we could all use a little Peace and quiet.

Cleaning Up for Peace

Resignation is so seductive. I’m not talking about the “take this job and shove it” kinda resignation, i’m talking about the slow, seeping ebb of our willingness to act on our convictions, the inertia that keeps us bound in our everyday patterns, while things slowly get worse. What’s the use?… what’s the point? we wonder…

Oh, come now! The use is we live on this world that deserves so much better than we give it. The point is we’re not being kind to those who come after.

Kindness. We often sneer at it for being saccharine. OK, I often sneer at it. And yet, kindness is a welcome respite in a tough world. When your store clerk really looks at you, you appreciate it, your day eases. His or her day eases when you take the time to appreciate, not just their work, but them.

And our precious Mother Earth — It’s time to go to work. Not just picking up trash and doing your recycling, although that’s always helpful. But find out what’s going on in your neighborhood that threatens the Earth’s well-being and start working against it. Start cleaning up your little patch of the river or forest or city. Start! or Continue! those are important words.

Our well-being and that of the generations after us depend upon our work. Who are we to leave it to the next generation? We participated in the slow slide, time to turn the tide! Yes, it’s hard work. But that just makes it all the more rewarding.

Graduate Peace?

Our graduates are coming out into a tough world. There aren’t lots of jobs available. And there are many things wrong with the world. We’ve certainly given them unrealistic expectations that their lives would be better than ours — a notion the boomers proved to be true in their early work lives perhaps but are perhaps struggling with today.

It’s a great time for leadership. And I’m not sure it’s going to be ours. Because we haven’t led. I realized two things in writing this. 1) well, that was depressing, despite my faith in them and 2) the next poem had better be to their elders, we’d better Peace-up, and start looking for our own solutions.

But graduates? Count those blessings, Review your shortcomings. Do that self-reflection dance. Stay present. Stay connected to your friends with great ideas and the will and ingenuity to implement them.

And isn’t that the work of right now? What’s going in that garden to feed our family? What Peace seedlings are we planting and tending to feed a Peace-hungry world? There’s work to be done. And for too many kids there are choices to be made between doing nothing and doing good. We cannot let these shining stars become discouraged; and they’re of an age where they might want to realize that it will be dangerous for them.

So, an important part of their challenge is to stay involved and inspired in their lives despite a very challenging world. There’s very real danger in their becoming disaffected… we owe our children not to let that happen — and they owe it to themselves.

Cusps and Verges are very interesting places filled with wonder and possibility and fraught with danger…

Everywhere, Peace

The events in Boston have kept many of us riveted to our TVs or computers. It was difficult to look away, difficult even to remember that only halfway across the country another tragedy had occurred and even more people had died and houses had been lost along with lives. Was this a tragedy caused by indifference rather than intention? It may be hard to tell, since it seems there has been no oversight on this company for many years. But as in Boston, there is no way to protect yourself from such a thing if you’re going about the business of living a life…

Which leaves us all with so much work to do. I do seem to keep ringing this bell don’t I. But as our worlds get larger and larger, thanks, in large part to technology, we have to pay attention on so many different levels and in so many different arenas. Eyes and hearts open. Hands out. Brains engaged. Hard work to make this world safer, sweeter, saner.

Harping on Peace — nice double entendre, eh? I work to keep the tune palatable to the ear and keep my fingers in practice so that I can continue to play. Because if we keep doing our work, the chorus is only going to swell! But my dears, offer up your prayers for Peace and then do the hard work of praying, the getting to the business of bringing Peace to our beloved Mother Earth.

Peace Where It’s Needed

I’ve been writing in sadness and frustration about kids, in particular, viewing things through their screens, and distancing themselves from the reality of what’s happening. What I’m watching now seems to be the antithesis of that: People hear about a tragedy and they say: Oh, that’s just like my… or Oh, what if that were to happen to me?… or well it’s not as bad as…

I know that the whole world isn’t thinking what’s being expressed on FB… but gee golly, too many of us are… it’s so human to want to know things and control the insane with information or distance, but the insanity of such acts as Boston… acts of war and terror, whoever the perpetrator is… can be worked against before and after, and in the moment, there is nothing to do from afar but witness, pray, and grieve.

Each individual trauma is trauma to the traumatized. It doesn’t comfort them to be told that other people are suffering. It perhaps comfort those of us making those comparisons to other things because it distances us from that person’s immediate, individual pain.

I do blame tech for this: we have difficulty telling what is possible and what is probable any more. Simply because something could happen doesn’t mean it’s likely to. I heard a cop say the other day, we have to separate the improbable possibilities from the probable. We have just this life to live. No sense wasting it on living in fear of what is unlikely to happen. Even the things that are likely to happen we can only prepare for and then go about celebrating life. And is our being afraid, I wonder, just another way to not feel? And quite frankly, most of us, not all, but most of us, have not been in those situations. We have TV to instruct us, and it’s pretty stupid. So, let’s be prepared, but relaxed…

While it’s true that what happened in Boston happens every day in war torn countries, that doesn’t mitigate the pain and shock. We’re so insulated here, it’s unimaginable to consider living with such threats on a daily basis. Too many people in the world are not insulated and live through this horror. We must hold them close to our hearts and get to work on their behalf. This is insanity. At the same time, the horror of Boston is not to be swept under the rug. Because these individuals, doing nothing more innocuous than run a race and go to cheer runners on, lived it. And we must bear witness to the horror.

It’s all very complicated and painful, isn’t it? And yet, it’s to that very pain that we’re asked to be present, and then get back to the very hard, and very necessary, work of Peace. You and I — we’re all that Peace has in her pocket. And as a journalist said yesterday, probably the most defiant thing we could do is train for a marathon. or go to a ball game. wow… I think I’ll just let that thought fester for a while. Could I do that? I don’t know.

Peace of the Everywhere Extraordinary

I was at the funeral of an extraordinary woman yesterday. She was a doctor, an incredible trailblazer, out leading the way for women and having a wonderful time along the way. Until she got dementia, and even there, her partner and her partner’s sister, gave her care that we wish all people could receive.

I knew her only with her dementia. But at her funeral there were pictures of her life as a strong and vital woman. In her casket, she looked like the woman in her pictures and no longer like the woman living far back in her mind and body. So for me, for once the presence of a body at a funeral was very reassuring. She lived to a ripe old age. Before her disease claimed her, she delivered babies and babies and babies and cared for women who needed her help. (while flying planes, and hiking trails!)

I was brought up short in my, don’t I live in the most extraordinary place thoughts by the realization that everywhere and always, there are extraordinary people in our midst. Wherever we live, someone’s doing great work. And we can know them and be inspired by them; maybe even mentored by them into our own extraordinary selves. People like Dorothy Grace Wilson remind us that there’s no reason not to be the best you can be. And if you’ve done that that will linger in people’s hearts and souls… Apparently when Dr. Wilson was far into her illness, if you plopped a baby in her lap, she’d count its fingers and toes, check the shape of its head and the length of its limbs. “That’ll do,” she’d say. “That’ll do.”

Find a mirror and take a little stock yourself of the strength of your heart and power of your smile and the curiosity of your mind. Look yourself in the eye and proclaim, “That’ll do!” Then get on your way doing what you’re best at. Lead the world. No reason why you shouldn’t be the extraordinary person down the street. Peace grows from the hard work of being present and doing your work.

Peace of the Present

It’s so easy to want to move forward more quickly than life is ready to. Our wants and our passions and our willingness to work hard say that change ought to come quickly, now, in fact. But change comes as it does.

Leaning too far forward only makes us tumble headlong into puddles. The present isn’t always comfortable, there are often things that need to be worked out, sticky things that take time. But the future has its own problems — and we take our own problems along to it. Sure it looks glittery and easy, but that’s only because we haven’t brought ourselves and our stuff into it.

And what’s hilarious, well in that awful sort of way, is that most of us hate change because it’s hard. So why would we be leaping into it? Ah, because we don’t think we’ll have our same problems in the future. But that only happens if we work out the problems now and leave them in the past. And if we don’t get that done, and just leapfrog over things, then we’re going to spend way too many hours recovering from our premature forays into the future. (ok, get to the good news, Ann!)

The good news is the present is the crucible for the change we want. We’re the people stirring the pot… and we’re also in it, becoming the changed, alchemized metal that will build a new world. But we have to be present to be changed… and we want to leave as many of our “issues” behind as we go into the present. It’s in the crucible that we’re purified. Life doing its work. It’s hard work, this present. It’s amazing that future we’re envisioning… But it’s the path between them that is our Peace work. Happy Trails!

The Ides of Peace

Many high-schoolers learned in English class to “beware the Ides of March!” which turns out to have been Julius Caesar’s, shall we say, date with destiny. I took full advantage of the internet to review what Ides really meant, and it was simply the midpoint in a month in which the weeks were not celebrated. There you go, facts with your coffee and tea.

Well, for me this was not a day to bury someone but to praise him, to keep messin’ wit’ Shakespeare. No irony for me, just straightforward gratitude. I think we often forget — or am I the only one — that we’re not on this Peace road alone. We’re not always savvy workers, sometimes we drive ourselves to exhaustion. When we feel weary from the hard work, we need to look around. We may even need to do that a bit creatively. People may not be engaged in exactly the same work we are, but they’ll be engaged in their work — which leans toward Peace. They may be having successes on the journey, which will remind us to be grateful and and empower us to keep going. I believe one of the best fuels is counting our blessings and successes. When we see how far we’ve come, it’s easier to understand why we’re tired and why this particular setback isn’t all that huge.

So, listen for the cheerful whistle! It will give you strength for the journey. (and you probably won’t hear it, if you’re not listening.) New advice after all those years (Julius Caesar died in 44 BCE — it might be time to change the day’s rep!), let’s embrace the Ides of March and those whose work inspires us. Maybe we’ll celebrate the Ides of Peace every month!

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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