Tag Archives: love

Love Letters and Peace

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Ah, youth… At least I think we can blame defacing trees on youth… it seems so romantic then and trees so permanent… and love so overwhelming. Although love, it seems is always overwhelming.

But this pic made me laugh and made me remember the joy and the passion (and if truth be told, the heartbreak and deep sorrow only possible in the years of teens and twenties. These days I just don’t have the energy for the drama!)

But love. It’s important to know who we love. It’s important that we love the sweet self-involvement of passion to deepen into love the sustains not only us but also our communities. Love is the ground that Peace grows in…

Temporary Peace of a Boat to Nowhere

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As temperatures climb, it looks so inviting to be out in the middle of a very chilly body of water. The Sun is so hot. The water so cold.

This photo has escape written all over it.

It gets this hot, escape looks attractive.

But the world needs us. The Earth needs us. Our country needs us. So sailing away doesn’t quite respond to that need, unless, as I said as a temporary escape, a chance to clear our heads and hearts — As Eller-Isaacs says “to forgive ourselves and each other and to begin again in love.” And Peace. Always in Peace.

Let us breathe deeply of respite, and turn again to creating Peace.

 

Rocks of Peace

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I am a rather reluctant outdoorswoman. Now more than ever there’s that allergy thing. And I don’t know whether it’s inertia or friends, or what, but it’s hard to get me outside, unless there are friends dragging me along. And then I remember I like things.

And it’s not every time I am in Nature that I remember how much I like heart shaped rocks. I have a beautiful California jade heart i wear, picked up on a beach, and wrapped in silver wire. They fit well in our hands and it’s plenty grounding to play with stones.

The Riverkeeper tells me that those rock cairns can interrupt Nature and we’re better not making them. So maybe if we find heart rocks we can just set them out a bit more prominently.

Some people are painting rocks and leaving them around towns. Maybe we could just leave plain, unpainted, pretty heart rocks. Reminders to the world, I love you. I come in Peace.

They remind me every time i hold them: I love.  I come in Peace. I have Peace in my hands for you in the shape of a heart shaped rock.

Faces of Peace, Wherever You Look

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There are so many places on cliffs and in streams where a profile or a whole or partial face appears. Geologists can explain how they were worn or why the rock broke in that way.

But even the not so fanciful among us are caught by those faces. It’s easy to anthropomorphize… As a species, we’re built for that.

But I always wonder… being me… about the spirit of that rock. Although of course, I wonder about the spirit of that stream or cliff… but the face always catches at my heart.

Speak to me of Love, o Oracle of the Rock. Speak to me of Peace.

Happy Valentine’s Peace!

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Remember to Love people boldly… your partner, your friends, your neighbors, the strangers, the world.

The world is a much better place when we do. Breathing in Love, as the song goes, we breathe out Peace. That’s our job. Everyday. Breathing in Love, breathing out Peace. Let’s make every day Valentine’s Day! Let’s give Cupid a bigger job! Romance is easy (well, sometimes! Peace is a challenge!)

Love and Peace in your Young-Old Years

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It’s a risk to marry at a point in your life where you are so much yourself. It’s hard to make a place  in your life for a lover. I remember my friend Carolyn saying as she was falling in love with Jim, he’s fabulous, but is there any reason he has to have stuff? Why yes, that’s one reason Steve and I live in the same town and not the same house! Drums! Books!

The thing about Steve that tempted me into marriage at this age was not simply that he was someone I loved… although I do. It is that his passion for music is so huge, so much a piece of him, that I knew there would be room for my own passion for social justice and community. And there is.

It’s bumpy, of course it is. Two people used to having themselves and their work at the center of their lives are not the easiest bedfellows. But two people, each reflecting the other’s work… it’s a great thing.

Marriage anytime, but especially as you become more clearly you,  takes a lot of ego. It takes a lot of strength… It definitely takes Love to lead to Peace. Peace is a moving target! But the journey goes on from here…

Love and Peace

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My father died, officially of old age, 7 weeks after this photo of Betty was taken. He announced his intention to die when Mommie and he were separated. “You’re ending my marriage, I took a vow to care for her.” They never heard him on that.

I asked him then not to go, to give me six months, since I had just lost a dear friend and my brother-in-law. He gave me seven.

He loved Betty, they had a love affair that spanned their 65 years of marriage. And even after. Whether it was Betty’s dementia or whether Sam actually showed up, he “visited” her ever day at lunch time for two and a half years. She giggled and flirted like the 22-year-old she was when she met him.

Love is a many splendored thing. We can’t know how many ways. We cannot count them.

Love is a Peace all its own. Let us Love. Let us Peace.

Lovers Singing Peace

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When people who love each other, live with each other, and have for a long time, sing together, magical things happen.

These two have known and loved each other a long time. And their singing shows it. (well so does the rest of their life).

But what if we all allowed ourselves to be open to the love in a song? What if we all made space for the Peace? We need to do this. Sing Peace!

Gratitude and Peace

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The old year ends and the new year begins.

And so we give thanks. For the reminders of all we have gained with the passing of those gifts. For the surprises that entered our lives, that often, even if totally expected, change our lives and hearts in totally unexpected ways.

And so, even if our hearts are sore, we give thanks. and with all the Love we have gained, and all the Love that now sings only in memories, we look toward the new year, infinitely stronger for the Love we have known. We keep our hands open so that love may leave and come again…

Full hearts, even when tender, make Peace with determination. And oh, our world needs Peace.