In Peace, Breathing Matters

For the past four years of my musings, i’ve danced with one picture a week or a month. It’s been a wonderful adventure. It’s different this year to have a picture come in every day. It’s different in both challenging and wonderful ways.

Even six weeks in, most people have a thought about why they took a photo. When you add that to whatever it inspires in me plus whatever’s working in the world at that moment and it makes writing the poem more challenging.

So Scott sent this beautiful picture and said, I don’t know, Breath of God? Dawn of Creation? And there out of my mind came not only the old hymn but the newer benediction: When I breathe in Love, I breath out Peace. When I breathe in Peace, I breathe out Love…

And new metaphors emerge to challenge and deepen my own understanding. This is why I call these musings, you know… what am I thinking about what I believe and what am I believing about what I observe? What supports me? What challenges me? What moves me?

Breath of Peace. Big B. Big P. For me the capitalized beginning indicates words that are sacred in our mouths. Not just powerful — hate never gets a cap. But Breath. ah… let’s pay attention to its coming in and its going out. Let’s stand in the way of it when the World exhales. Let’s breathe in Peace. and please, breathe on me Breath of Peace. You my beloved. You, the World. You, the Divine. You… Peace. Breathe. Peace breathes. I breathe Peace.

Ending with Peace; Beginning with the Same

Peace. It’s what we need.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m just naive or blind… beating just this drum… am I doing enough to make Peace happen or just dreaming about it.

But then I think, I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know another answer. Black lives matter — we must Peace. Let the Syrian refugees come — we must Peace. Hungry Children — Peace. The safety of our Muslim sisters and brothers — Peace. Women. LGBTQA People. Everyone imperiled. Every marginalized soul. Our sweet Earth. Peace.

So Peace, my friends. Let’s build at it. let’s make our little hometowns and Valleys and Plains sweet places to be. Let’s connect them. Pull a string of need, any string. And let’s Peace.

Thank you for the joy you gave me in 2015. Thanks for looking forward into 2016. I hope you have a happy, healthy, prosperous Year, filled with Peace and Peace making.

Thank you, my dear friend Lorraine Rantala, for your lovely lunar shots. I am sorry to leave them… I loved living with them… loved knowing where the Moon was and what it was up to. we’ll see tonight whether I can let go of that or not!

Love and Blessings, Ann

Quiet, Grateful Peace

Second Day Christmas is a lovely day in my world. On the second day of many holidays, Steve and I make our way to his brother’s house by the river and celebrate with his family in a lovely and low key celebration. After all the excitement of presents and crowds, there is quite love and a twinkling tree and leftovers watching the river go by and the eagles sail.

Today only deepens the gratitude. Christmas is hard for me because I’ve lost so many in the family… and yet here is this part of my family, faithful and present.

And that fills my heart! And strengthens me for the journey.

I wish you a lovely day filled with Love and Peace. Twelve of them, since that’s how long we’re to celebrate! And if we can do it for twelve days, maybe we can keep going!

Welcoming Peace

Peace is a tiny tentative thing, in need of our nurturance and tender care.

For me, this is the heart of the Christmas message, this is what I wish for us all, that we be those who welcome and care for Peace.

Tomorrow Christians all over the world celebrate the birth of Jesus, their Savior, a baby, whose life’s work was Love and Peace.

Whatever we celebrate tomorrow and even if we don’t celebrate, may we all welcome Peace and Love.

Alternative Advent – December 24: 5¢ for every blanket in your house.

To finish out this series, it’s suggested that you donate 15¢ for every gift a member of your family received…

Peacefully Coexisting

How much more than the title do we need to say?

Side-by-side coexistence… a great start to joyful mingling.

But because we will always have differences, co-existence is going to be a forever thing. We get confused about differences. Our intolerance causes a lot of problems. It causes a lot of violence.

I find this shocking and wrong. We must find our way to Love. Love is the answer to co-existence. Love brings us to Peace. We come to Love by way of our commitment to Peace. It’s all connected. Coexistence. Love. Peace. There’s a holiday wishlist. There’s a holiday to-do list!

And on the joyful coexistence list? It’s the Winter Solstice today. It’s really one of my most favorite days. Most people cheer because they think the days start getting longer… actually, they really hang out for a few days and stop getting shorter. But I love the Dark. I love the candlelit Mystery of this time, the songs, the story-telling, the discovery of new facets that only seem safe to examine in this sweet soft time. I also love the cold, crisp starlight of Deep Winter. Oh, hurrah.

Alternative Advent – December 21: 25¢ if you have a gas/electric law mower. Ha! No lawn; no lawn mower! I should probably give money for my wild joy at not being personally responsible for a particular piece of turf!

Joy in Advent Sabbath Peace

Today we light the third Advent Candle Joy. Let us welcome Hope! Love! Joy!

It’s the Sabbath. Today it really feels true. Tonight we’re having an Anti-Gun-Violence Vigil. It’s such a solemn thing — such a needed thing. So much to learn. So much work to do. Too much death. And yet, even this will be a thing of beauty. There are religious folk from 6 different traditions and many denominations assembling tonight. There will words of reality, words of hope, words of dedicating ourselves to what is needed.

And yet the word for today is enjoying. And somehow we need to balance both. It is the holiday season, filled with memories and tradition and hopefully Joy.

Today I remember my year in Sweden and I treasure the family and friends I found there. So many lovely traditions that still linger in memory and sometimes grace my table or my tree or my winter windows. Lucia is one of them. She brings the promise of returning light.

Apparently back in the old calendar, the 13th of December was the solstice. Somehow they counted their days differently. Today families sing of Nighttime’s heavy plodding around the yard… and they fight that with Lucia princesses and star boys. And those wonderful, wonderful saffron rolls. Oh, yum. And I think that may have been my introduction to whipped cream in my hot chocolate rather than marshmallows. On the whole, a rather wonderful trade off!

And so my friends, find joy in this celebration of waiting in the Dark. Enjoy the parties and the connections and the traditions. Stop for a moment on the sabbath so you get to recall what this season is really about. And Peace. may it be with you. May you be with Peace.

Alternative Advent – December 13: 5¢ for every meal with meat this week. Vegetarian? How will you give today? Because the point is NOT to escape giving, the point is to feed kids. What richness do you have that others would be so happy for?

Remembering the Peace of Advent

One of the hard truths about this time of year is that we are forced to confront what we may have missed, or have lost. For some of us, those of us who are very privileged, the holidays have been sweet, families have been united and traditions have traveled between the generations. But even those people have lost beloved family members who are no longer there.

It takes a while to recalibrate. It takes a while to decide to focus not on what i don’t have but on what is there. It’s important for me to honor the heart of the holidays, both religiously and communally. But it’s also time to cut out the pieces of the holiday that no longer fit.

I love to think of the root of the word remembering … to re-member, to piece back together. To take the remnants of the good and to make something beautiful from it.

It takes a while to demand (of yourself) the space to celebrate holidays in your image in a fashion that suits you. But you are worthy of that. If you’re alone, find other people who also are. Or celebrate another holiday and make that yours until you can reclaim your own for yourself.

Remember the holidays… Feel free, not to long for what you once believe you had, but to create that which celebrates the deepest possibilities of life. Savor the Dark. Explore the Mystery. Be amazed by the Wonder. Gather with those who love you as you are — even if that means you’re alone and loving yourself fiercely.

Allow your holidays to be filled with Peace. Share that with others. Remember. Make that cloak of beautiful memories and move forward with joy. Peace be with you. Peace be with us all.

Alternative Advent December 12 – 15¢ if you have dishes in your house. There are actually people in our Susquehanna Valley who do not. So be generous. if you have more than one set, try 15¢ per set.

Cherishing Advent Peace

Here at a time in my life when so much of my family has died, I have had to make decisions about what and when I cherish. What do I bring forward from that life with them? What do I call out from my time in California? How do I incorporate the people in this life whom I’ve come to love and their celebrations? And how do I leave myself room to “mind the gaps,” to drift away from what is still too painful to touch?

This is some of Advent’s important work I think.

Many of us, for reasons far sadder than death, don’t have the family they want. So how do you celebrate and cherish the family you do have? How do you make holidays that matter with who you are and what you have.

The Dark is a precious gift and so are the holidays that come with it. And there are so many. Can’t do the one you were born with? Can you do it differently, or make a home in another one?

And can we all acknowledge our responsibility to cherish life? This is a time of new beginnings, celebrations of tiny scraps of God among us and light returning. Can we sing sleep in heavenly Peace in December and mean it in January? Can we light candles and remember the past and look forward to the future and providing defiant light to the world?

We’re the people to do that! We’re the people to cherish our own traditions and to invite people over to share the festival foods. We’re the people to become curious about others’ feasts and fests and learn about what makes us different and celebrate the urge to come together to with our families and communities to make new memories.

We’re the people to create Peace. We’re the people to cherish it. May it be so.

Alternative Advent today is 10¢ for every flush toilet. That should be a dollar! These are precious!

Embracing Advent Peace

After hearing the the vile hatred spewn last night, celebrating open arms becomes even more important that even the day before.

We cannot allow fear and hatred to run our lives. We cannot allow it to run our country or our world.

It’s easy, because it’s so deliciously seductive. But it’s wrong.

We must make the invitation to Love easy, the invitation to Peace. We cannot spend our time (waste our time) pointing out what a ridiculous people the haters are. That’s a waste of time and keeps the focus on them.

They may not have that. We must be the ones who claim the attention with our open hands and open hearts.

We can be/become the ones that others desire to emulate – for the kindness we offer.

So we have to get busy.

Peace… we need to scream its possibilities. We need to embrace them — and one another, in all our glorious differences.

Embracing. Let’s.

Alternative Advent is 3¢ for every light switch in your house. Hey, it’s for the hungry kids. consider including the lamps.

Thanksgiving Peace Again

So many things for which to give thanks.

So many things to remember. And yesterday, we made new memories.

It’s a great holiday, isn’t it, Really just created for the opportunity to build more memories. There are new members of the family to braid in. Such sacred work.

As a kid, you’re at the mercy of the family… and hopefully for everyone that’s a lot of mercy. But later, it’s a chance for you to construct love as you want to see it.

Yesterday we laid a great framework for family… I feel so blessed.

I hope you feel that way too.

Peace be with you all, my friends. Peace. I hope you enjoyed the holiday and the full moon as much as I did.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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