Cows and Songs and Peace

Oh, minds are such delightful things. Who knows how they work?

Cows stroll across hills and I “hear music and there’s no one there.” But it comes from “Music Man.”

And that brings back family memories and sweet Joy.

That cows can somehow be connected to evenings on the sofa with Mom watching “Music Man” on the B&W TV, it’s weird and wonderful. And, yet, in my mind, obviously, they are.

And in my pastoral wanderings and my rememberings there is Peace.

Let us keep looking for the Peace. The Peace that grounds us and the Peace we want to share with the world.

Everyone enjoys the sight of cows in procession. Everyone cherishes the memories of special moments spent with families. We are just people. We must make Peace, together.

Peace. Every day. Everyday Peace.

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!

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.

Thanksgiving Peace

It’s a pretty miraculous thing. A whole day dedicated to giving thanks. A sacred holiday. A sacred season.

Which means being aware of just how lucky, how blessed we are.

It feels so luxurious, so delicious.

Which, I guess is part of the reason that I don’t get the whole shopping thing. Here’s a day to be dedicated to just being. MMMMMM. Well, being and being aware.

There’s a long and luxurious list of things and people for which I am grateful. For my love. For my family and friends — for each and every one of you. For music. For fun. For my work. Oh, I’m so grateful for my work. All of it.

Today, in particular, I’m grateful to be the family priestess, grateful I’ve honed this craft so that the wedding I’m about do will reflect the Love this couple feels for one another.

I’m a bit grateful that the mourning is far enough back that I can think about how happy i am that those people were part of my life. Grateful for the love of so many.

And so I give thanks. I hope you have a wonderful time doing the same thing. I hope you’re engaged in making many lovely memories! Happy Thanksgiving. Blessed Peace.

Oh, That Moon. What Peace!

I’m in love with the Moon’s Beauty. It’s not just that she changes with the cycle, she changes with the seasons as well.

I’ve spent a year looking at her, a year being blessed by her beauty. It’s been a year blessed by slowing down and being present to what is.

I keep thinking wherever we are, she smiles on us. Isn’t that a call to smile on everyone?

Isn’t it a call to smile. a call to Peace? May we offer Peace to the Moon so that she may shine that back on the world.

Sweet Little Gift of Peace

He was at the church to attend his grandpa’s funeral. He’s a boy bursting with curiosity. He never stopped moving.

You could tell, his parents worry — what will he get into?

Answer: Everything he can.

And he’s not the first child in that place to be hyper-inquisitive.

But he’s sparing with his words. He’s not always a child to get the nuances.

So when his first words were to recognize what we do here… it just made my heart swell.

Thanks, little guy… we work hard to make that so. Yes, it’s an old office building. Yes, we do church here.

There’s Peace in the making of religious community and Peace in being recognized for what we do at a very deep level. We loved his grandpa and we celebrate his life and mourn his loss.

There was Peace in our being together doing that and in using our talents to honor our friend. There was Peace in this little boy’s blessing.

Remembering, Peace

It was such a beautiful day yesterday. Wildly, out-of-season-ly beautiful. And oh, it looks like it might be the same sort of day today. hurrah.

So, yesterday and today, in terms of their beauty, are days to remember — and to be enjoyed.

Yesterday was also a day to remember a friend whom we buried. I’m mostly called on to do memorials and interment of ashes. I rarely do a casket funeral. But this is what my friend wanted. (and before we get too far off topic, they’re now saying that perhaps it’s better to bury than to cremate due to the immense amount of fuel and the release of particulate matter.)

People always say to me, you must hate doing funerals. In fact, I don’t. I am so honored to do them. Weddings are fun and baby blessings are a joy. But funerals, to work to get the memories right, to help people remember their loved one… oh, that is such a privilege.

I have people I work with at church, musicians, poets, kitchen magicians who deepen the experience. Will you do this, I ask, and they say yes. And then it all gets better. It was even richer because his friend, who doesn’t speak in public, opened his heart and spoke for his friend. We use who we are and what we know and make space for family and friends to be comforted in their loss and maybe even inspired to live more fully by this person they knew so well.

It’s silly, but wonderful to be so glad that my wedding table cloths and those little salt and pepper shakers are useful in lifting a family’s heart in the gathering afterwards.

Funerals, just like every other experience in life, should engage as many senses as possible. This one did. The service helped us remember. The day was so beautiful, so that standing at the graveside for this man whose struggles had ended, everything seemed joyous and right. Poetry and song wove ties around us.

And then back to the church for another opportunity for building memories.

Thank you my friends. For that day, in that group, Peace was in that place.

And then there’s the totally absurd fact that having done two funerals in one week in what must be county cemeteries, I’m on a winking and grinning basis with the gravediggers. It’s a weird world.

There’s birth and death and a whole lot of life in between. But at the end to be laid to rest with gentle words and reinforcing bonds, this is good.

Goblins, Ghosties, Memories, Peace

For some it’s about the mad or the weird, for me it’s about remembering.

I have a pretty full altar, The past 20 years have been hard on my heart. A lot of beloved friends have gone on before.

In several traditions this is the time of year that the veil between this world and the next is seen to be the thinnest. Souls are thought to be able to slip back and forth, to visit those they loved with a touch.

For me, it’s an opportunity to commemorate those lives. And to just be present.

I’m a zoomy kinda woman, so it’s hard to give myself that space. It’s hard to give my loved ones that attention. So, today, I will just take this one Sacred Day.

The rest of you will be out being wee goblins and ghosties and looking for sweet loot. I hope you have a great time.

Peace , we need to remember, looks different for different folks! Hope you’re living into yours… Happy Halloween! Happy Peace.

Busy Weekend (Sabbath) Peace!

What a rich weekend. Friday night at King Street Coffee House and great friends playing. Doing ceremony — a sad tribute to a lovely woman. An evening all about friends and listening to a dear friend who just gets better and better.

Today is jam-packed. Church (preceded by choir!). A friend in a play (and the reviews have been great.) And then more friends in another short road trip to hear EG Kight sing again.

A couple years ago EG Kight came very close to dying. And did not. But they didn’t know if she would ever sing again, let alone write, let alone tour. She’s back, her voice is better than ever, and although the touring is hard work, she packed a three hour show. Never less than her best.

And she is so encouraging. She’s played with one local musician before, and she brought him up. But she’d heard about a young man called him out of the audience and handed him her guitar. And then coaxed the best out of him and let him coax the best out of her. It was lovely. Such generosity.

So you know me. I’m a bide-at-home kinda girl. But once in a while, you have to make the effort to enjoy the bounty. And doesn’t that seem ridiculous.

I know this area is rich. But every area is. Feast and give thanks.

You can’t help but be at Peace when you’re sitting in a crowd listening to someone belting out the blues. (Most of the time I could even let the young talking kids in the front off my indignant that’s-no-way-to-listen-to-a-concert fuddiduddiness!) Music. Theater. Ceremony. Community. Faith. It’s a weekend worth celebrating and a Sabbath worth indulging, and making sacred. Oh, and there were moments of sublime beauty. It’s Peace if we give it a chance.

Heirloom Peace

So often you say the word heirloom and you think big meaningful things (unless of course it’s summer and you think tomatoes or peppers!).

But the things i treasure the most are the little things. The tiny spatula, the two tined fork. Who cares if i never cook bacon, i’m ready should some fit come over me.

Tools and utensils, kitchen and householdm that were tools and utensils at my grandparents’ houses, at my parents’ house, at my sisters’ house, at my niece’s house, at a couple friends’ houses, that are now mine.

I put pepper on my eggs and I remember them. Sometimes it’s one by one, as with the pepper shaker. But sometimes that shakes loose a whole host of memories. And there they are sprinkled like the pepper on the surfaces of my life.

I have had a lot of loss, but I also have a lot of love to remember. And that’s a lucky, lovely thing. And I have silly things like grinders and bacon forks to spark the memories. Love. Peace. And oh, it’s a beautiful autumn morning…

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

Tag Archives: making memories