Reading Peace, llvl

The poetry group that I’m part of Poetry Under the Paintings, held at my friend Jody’s gallery Faustina’s, was invited to read last night for another poetry group last evening. It was held in the library that taught me to love libraries, the library where I read my way, alphabetically, through the great literature (and the lousy!).

Actually, I can’t say that’s the best way to absorb books, all of an author, one right after another… Russian novels are confusing enough one by one, five in a row? Ridiculous. But it suited my associative little brain and my devouring urge for more.

Until I started writing, I hadn’t realized how poignant this visit would be for me. I wrote about the river, I wrote about the rock, I wrote about the house I grew up in. It made me think about what I loved about living here, why I left, why I came back. It made me realize I’ve been avoiding Bloomsburg since my sister died. It made me remember how final death is and how that changes your memories.

It made me realize how incredibly lucky I am now and I was then. If we choose, memory is sacred and so is the making of new ones. Writing changes me for the better. It keeps me searching to identify my Peace. Lucky me. Peace is where we find it. Peace is where we make it. I choose then. I choose now. I choose Peace.

Commitments and Peace, llvl

This summer, I’ve been able to remember what a difference ceremony can make in your life. For many years, while living in CA, I made my living celebrating people’s lives. I did baby blessings, coming of age ceremonies, graduation, weddings, first job, career change, divorces, house blessings, retirement, memorials and you name it. I even blessed the fleet.

Through it all, my clients and I looked at their intentions for the next steps of their lives and gathering their communities around them in support. Since I worked with people who were outside or in-between religious traditions, the community was an important component.

I moved back East because my parents were aging, and I spent 10 years focusing on them and on my sister as they all passed away. It was wonderful work. I’m so thankful I could. It was life-changing. It made a better woman of me.

But I missed the challenge of building services to fit. And then, thank goodness, the law changed. I was one of only a couple ministers in this area who could perform same-sex services, not just with my church’s blessing, but with their cheering and egging me on. Three of the couples were ours and the community turned out and was brought closer together for their joy.

And this year there have been other weddings, inside and outside my community, same sex and heterosexual. There have been challenges. But there has been joy and communities have stepped up to do the work to support and encourage commitment.

And that? adds up to one happy wedding priestess. At each wedding, no matter what, people come to terms with lives that are different from theirs and they sign on. And that, in it’s own little persistent way is Peacemaking. And I get to do it. lucky, lucky, lucky me!

Re-membering Peace, llvl

For some reason I’ve always liked the prod that the hyphen gives this word… to-remember, to put the body back together.

Today it’s a year that Debbie died. It’s extraordinary. It’s excruciating. and… it’s life.

And we remember so many as we remember one beloved… so many beloved dead. Which means nothing more than one was incredibly lucky in life, I suppose… to have loved and been loved so well.

I will remember the morning. Katy and I giving her a bath. Watching Katy, learning from her gentle conversation and loving touch.

At the end, Kathy, Nancy, Tom and I gathered around the bed. Elijah, were you there? can’t remember, because memory is faulty. Friends gathered in the living room. Keeping watch, sitting vigil.

The last moments. That last moment of goodbye. Oh it pains and tries to obscure the joys and the laughter… But re-membering means putting all the joy and the laughter back in.

That’s where the Peace is… hmmm. still piece work, eh? piecing together Peace. And the sun rises and the sun sets and the sun rises again.

Regular Peace, llvl

It’s nice, after lots of wonderful visits, to have some slow and “normal” days. Normal, at least, in their lives. Normal in the times I have been with them. Nothing sweeter or more intimate than to live beyond guest-hood and be invited into the life where projects are completed, trips to the hardware store are undertaken, where life is at is…

Looking at Deb Slade’s photo made me realize that they live one block from the river and one block from downtown. I live two blocks from the river and one block from downtown. Beauty and convenience at our fingertips… So their normal is somewhat familiar, although their two young men, one who’s arrived home and one who comes home on Friday are not MY normal. But fun and wonderful men, nonetheless… and somehow while I’ve been back and forth and away all these years, are grown ups! All my friends’ children have grown up. Imagine. And here we are, making new memories, making family!

The sweetness of life is in many things. These tiny things, the treasure of having these tiny moments, with dear friends. The connection with you all.

(It’s also in big things. I just found out that I have had a workshop accepted for a conference this fall. I’ll be exploring the Five Fold Goddess of Peace with Kelly Himmsl Arthur of Thinkpeace Workshops for Girls. Oh my!)

Time to inhale and exhale, with lots of tiny, unimportant places to go.

Giggling Peace, llvl

One of the fun things about visiting Lorraine is realizing I’m still a teenager in side. When I first came to Sweden, back in 1969, we would sit at this cafe on the square in our little town and laugh. Swedes are many things, but boisterous is not part of the national character in the normal course of the day. (Remember that at the same time I was laughing out loud, I was also learning to curtsey as I walked by my elders — if you can imagine that!)

So Lorraine and I were always having to catch ourselves up from being giddy 17-year-old American girls and trying to fit in — because at seventeen, who wants to do anything other than fit in?

But there we were, laughing through the train (because for some reason our train door didn’t open, so we had to walk through two cars to get to our seats. And laughter doesn’t stop because you walk through a door — even when the door says: Quiet!

And of course being icily told to be quiet just meant that we were going to choke on our giggles. There are times to be serious, and I have a lot of them, but even in the serious times, I’m often laughing! Because even in the worst of situations there’s stuff that’s just funny.

I like that I still can be reprimanded for having too much fun. (And really, the train was 15 minutes away from leaving the station, and it’s a train not a library and we did quiet down!) I also like that I no longer can be made to feel uncomfortable because I’m laughing out loud.

Peace… it’s in the loud, boisterous moments as well as the tender quiet ones!

And as I said as I put my message out today, it’s odd that I can feel like a giggly teenager and still have someone rush to help me with my suitcases, because, oh, right, I’m gray-haired! Although, in my defense, I’m well able to handle my suitcases, even if i insist in taking too much stuff wherever I go!

Peace, my friends, I wish you light giggles and deep belly laughs (although not in the quiet car!) I wish you happy times with dear, dear friends. Keep making new memories and keep holding the old ones sacred. Inviting people into that sweet space is a wonderful way to spread Peace, bit by bit!

Fairy Tale Peace, llvl

Oh, the forests are really mysterious here. Not in a creepy way, just mossy and green and beautiful, with big stones and fallen trees. It’s easy to imagine that the little people dwell amongst the rocks and roots. And there are lots of animals. We were just out at Kjell and Lorraine’s cottage, and in the surrounding forests there are elk, deer, foxes, and a rumored wolf or two. Birds for days. Pheasants and swallows and gulls. Across the way from where we swim is an island that an osprey has claimed and the county has acquiesced. “OK, that bunch of rocks is yours. No one can fish there!”

And the clear lakes are so beautiful. They’re connected to one another by canals so you could take your row boat or kayak or little motorboat all the way from here to Stockholm, but why would you, when it’s so beautiful here?

Lorraine fretted that we wouldn’t find a good place to go into the lake, after we waded through the grass to get to the edge, but there it was a little dip just big enough for three or four to sit with easy entry into the lake. Fifteen feet out and you’re floating and you can see your feet if you hang straight down, but not past that, and really, who wants to know? It was a little rocky to sit, so we scrounged around for little canvas stools to take (Lorraine has EVERYTHING squirreled away in her studio out there). Kjell decided it needed a permanent solution, so he “just knocked together” a beautiful bench to stand… They’ll be swimming there all summer…

But, fairy tales, isn’t that where we started? Sitting on the porch, looking at the woods (because we did a lot of that), I thought about how scary fairy tales are. We talked a little about that. What were they teaching? Was it that everything came out well in the end? Was it that you really should listen when your parents say, don’t do that because they can go so horribly astray?

But then I thought, ever the Pollyanna, despite Barbara Erenriech’s new “Bright-Siding,” that I’m slogging my way through, scaring myself at every turn. (Oh, don’t you hate to see where you’re shallow and oh, go ahead, wrong?)… I thought well, if things are so mucked about in the middle of fairy tales, but eventually get figured out, can’t we be the ones who figure things out?

And of course, can’t we be ones who figure things out without killing off folk? Because of course in fairy tales there’s only one bad guy/gal and you kill them and you’re all fixed… but when you’re working toward Peace, killing is a bit beside the point…

Lots of thoughts and all a fair distance from where there were first just the wee folk peering out at us. I’ll think again in a bit… it’s time to go out and walk around!

Peace/No Peace, llvl

It seems odd… here am I in wonderland, looking out over the sea who hides her changes. The good news here is that the mackerel are coming back… or so we hope. But Fjällbacka, like my lovely little Lewisburg, is a small village and much that is wrong is very well hidden and all that is beautiful lies on the surface.

And at the same time, the world is exploding in roiling ugliness. People are gathering to turn away children. People are gathering to watch a war as if it were television. People are being shot from the sky. 300 lives ended, including some of the great minds working on AIDS. And those are only today’s headlines, there is so much we’re looking away from.

And so I pray. I pray for those who are warred upon, may their bodies be protected and their souls comforted. I pray for those who make war, may their hearts soften and their brains clear. I work to pray with each breath, to notice the beauty, to appreciate the love in this family and my life, to realize how precious life is and to be grateful.

I may not feel guilty for my time off, that would sully it. Cutting it short wouldn’t change what’s happening… I am not so powerful. So I must treasure this time — and all of you — and prepare myself for my return. I must make more good memories to savor and shore me up.

In the meantime, I am also wildly grateful for those who do their work so that the world may be better…saner… safer… I pray that we may make it more Peaceful, more Just.

Remembering Peace, llvl

I’ve been realizing what a time of remembrance summer is for me. It seems, looking back that some of the sweetest memories were summer ones. So all summer, I’ve been doing slow and wonderful things that remind me of my family and I’ve been a watering pot. I’ve been weepy lots and lots. I miss my family. I miss Deb, lots.

I was so happy when I received the invitation for Bob’s celebration. Bob and his wife Peggy, who’s now gone about 7 years, were very good friends with my parents. The Houstons were family friends, I loved all their daughters. I love that even though we see each other only once a year or so that we have all this shared history. They know me, who I am and how I think. Our life choices have taken us in many different directions, but since we all know where we started, we can sometimes trace our way forward to where we are today. We love one another… Love simply is…

It was a beautiful day. Bob talked about how he used Sam as a model of who we wanted to be and how he wanted to age. He spoke about mom’s painting lambs in his barn. All these little moments of our lives were there to be touched and explored.

A day under the trees of remembering old memories and making new ones with cake — wow, a sheet cake that was half coconut half banana! and Tandy Kakes. PA picnics.

Small sweet, sacred oases of Peace in the midst of a challenging world. Seize those moments when you can! Life! It’s what we build and we have and what we can remember.

More Creek Peace, llvl

It was one of those perfect moments. (so perfect it needed more than one musing.)

“When I sit here, I want Heaven to look just like this.”

“Heaven is right here.”

Heaven was right there in so many ways. It was one prolonged moment of bliss. The water temperature was exactly right. The sun was slowly being hidden behind the trees. The air temperature was warm enough to keep us comfortable in the cool water but not too hot to bear. Old friends talking about big things and little. A front porch experience in the middle of the creek as the neighbors drifted by… neighbors as they always are. some noisy with exuberant kids, some quiet and precise.

And in the heart of it, a moment of Perfect Peace. Magic in Nature. No place to go. Nothing to do. Who knew that making memories could be so completely effortless? Just Being on a summer afternoon into evening. Telling tales of families that held everything of fondness and at that moment nothing of missing. My whole crew so easily could have been around the bend… Floating Heaven. May you have a piece of Heaven to remind you how sweet life is and how sacred.

Halcyon Peace

Once in a while it happens, bountiful, perfect days. When you get them, stop whatever you’re doing and appreciate. Be present to all that’s wonderful. Celebrate even. It doesn’t happen but a few times a season. When they happen it’s time to count your blessings and make some memories.

Life is fleeting and so are summer afternoons at the pool. Heaven on earth… Peace, my friends. This day’s for you!

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

Tag Archives: making memories