Paradise, Peace & that Pesky Fly, llvl

It was so fun showing my friends my life here in the Susquehanna Valley. Or at least the happy parts of it! And really most parts are happy parts. The pesky fly in the ointment are the things that are invisible. Hungry Children. Unemployment. All the ‘isms.

But it’s the happy parts of it that give us strength and a reason to stay steady with the work. This is a particularly beautiful part of the body of Mother Earth. Nature… gotta love it!

Added to the glory of where I live, is the great joy of sharing this Valley Beauty with my community/communities…

Sweet times with old friends are balm. All over the world, people are working on the same issues, fighting the same battles, reasoning through the same problems — with perhaps different results, and making differences where they are. And we laugh because we all need to laugh. We compare notes, and then we go back to our lives and see how we can make things different.

But in the meantime. Here’s Paradise. Halfway to Heaven! Y’all come! (and you know I’m not crazy, because Deb Slade is documenting!)

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.

Defiant Peace, llvl

So much of the world is embroiled in out-right conflict. And more is stuck on fear. Sometimes it feels overwhelming. It’s awkward balancing between awareness of this and of giving into the discomfort.

Rose-colored glasses don’t work because they hide the truth. At some point we need to get to work in the muck. And just because the muck is real and sometimes huge, doesn’t mean we can’t work on cleaning up our small corner of the world.

I believe I’m best suited to do that here where I live. Together, we make small changes, and move slowly forward. let’s acknowledge that forward momentum. Celebrate. and start cleaning again! We are the answer and Peace’s small hope…

Peace with Fireworks, llvl

I live in a Valley that takes its fireworks seriously. Driving home Friday night there were fireworks dancing behind every hill.

I find it thrilling. I always have. It’s a family joy. I have a very early memory of being in a courtyard and seeing them reflect off windows. My mother enjoyed them well into her Alzheimers and dimming eyesight.

Once we established that they didn’t actually have roots in bombs, my husband has tried to like them, but frankly I think the fact that they’re set off arhythmically bothers him a lot… he can’t beat the time to a bunch of humans with matches.

But that was as far as I had thought.

Well, I knew I wasn’t a fan of the gunshot in Oakland, aside from the fact that it’s just noisy and not beautiful, there’s that old what goes up must come down problem with bullets. eeeesh.

But now I’m hearing more about those who suffer with this past-time. First it was the pets… and you can’t explain much to them. Then it’s the wildlife, and you can’t explain anything to them. And then it’s slowly making the connection about the fear this causes PTSD sufferers who can get thrown into flashbacks. And sensitive people for whom the noise is assaultive.

All the farther I’ve gotten is that perhaps there should be a rolling celebration in areas like this where there are NOT fireworks so that as towns celebrate, there are safe places to go. Seems like the Veterans and the Veterinarians could sponsor that: the Vets for Fourth of July Quiet… Maybe we need to do what they do with Halloween and trick-or-treating and allow one day in town and prosecute vigorously those folks who set off the boomers randomly in towns.

I don’t know if there’s a safe middle ground… but it seems as if we should try to keep Peace and Celebration for everyone… I don’t know… am I just reluctant to give this up? Ah… well, it’s the Sabbath… i hope your thoughts are less involved than mine. That’ll stop soon. I’ve church and preaching with poetry before that and I’ve friends arriving whom I haven’t seen for a year. Yay.

Morning After Peace, llvl

I’ve been thinking about Jeremiah… I’ve always liked that hoary Hebrew Scripture prophet — at least from a distance. I think he’d not have been a comfortable buddy. There’s more written by him than any other Biblical character. He ran around trying hard to get people to wake up! “Peace! Peace! the people cried. But there is no Peace.”

We talk easily about Peace. But we don’t do Peace. We’ve allowed ourselves to let that settle back… A few old guys on the Post Office Corner on Saturdays, and nothing much else. We want Peace or so we say, but we don’t go out of our way for it…

We don’t understand the work it is. It is as hard as war, harder. It demands compromise. It demands generosity. It demands sacrifice. It demands Love. It demands knowing we are not all that matters.

It looks both exactly the same and very different in different communities. Peace is local. Peace is global.

It’s heartbreaking right now to read the news. To see people of this nation hating… and calling it Peace. Hating people of different religious groups, while claiming oppression. Hating small children seeking the same Rights and Hopes our forebears sought. Carrying guns to shop for underwear rather than taking cookies next door to newcomers. And to see our government be so far from a government of the people, by the people, for the people.

And yet we balance these hard and sad truths with groups working to feed local children, create local liveable communities for seniors, making music across all sorts of lines. I work hard to find the Hope. I wish I had to look farther for the ugliness…

Peace. Let me be Peace. Let us make Peace. Let us keep shoving back the hatred. Isn’t that a worthy goal for this Fourth of July Weekend?

Abundance and Peace, llvl

I’m having a sobering 4th of July. Thinking about what I love about the US and saddened by some of the things I know. So my post is a sideways post. I’m choosing to remember, I’m choosing to face toward the abundance.

I’m not ignoring the challenging, I’m fueling myself and I’m reminding myself. There is so much that is great and wonderful. I can work with that. I can work for that.

I need the reassurance these proud blooms give us… because there are people who are counting on me. and you… as Pete Seeger taught us “when there are problems to be solved, let’s get all the world involved, God’s counting on me. God’s counting on you.”

Peace, baby! Happy Fourth. Celebrate today. Work tomorrow. Stand up! Step up! Be Present! Be Beautiful. (i’m a whole buncha damned bumperstickers).

Peace, Peace, cha-cha-cha, llvl

Ah, it’s sweet to dance. Sometimes, I take my life for granted and then I remember, wait Steve Mitchell has my back beat! oh, yay! And I’ve got my good friend Sue who loves to dance, and so we do. Week after week. And then sometimes, one or the other of us is away and boom, we’re back in it. Welcome to living my wonderful little vida local!

Having been “the tall girl in class” I always had to lead anyway, so i got some practice there, and Sue’s a great follower — at least in dance. In other things she’s a heckuva leader!

And dancing is pretty completely disconnected from my brain in any conscious way… once in a while I’ll find myself saying, oh, try this… but that’s sorta it. Mostly it’s just rhythmic Joy — choreographed laughter.

How excited was I when my poet friend Tom wrote this? Very!

Good one today …
Everyday too
But this one’s
With cowbells

Cowbells and Peace. cha-cha-cha.

Music & Peace (right here at home), llvl

I hope that where you live is as extraordinary as where I live. I’m betting that it is. If you’re not exploring that, oh, poor you.

Now, I completely believe that there are great and wonderful things about where I live, and my husband, and not simply because I love him and he’s my husband, is one of those things. He’s not simply a good drummer, which is wonderful, but he’s a generous drummer. He wants to make everyone sound good. And he plays with two musicians who can play anything (and do!). They’re in the hum a few bars school of back-up bands. Both the bassist and the guitarist sing, both do jazz, country, funk, rock and now Irish and who knows what else and Steve’s there with the beat. Hot town in the Summertime and the living is soooo easy.

And I must admit, the guy that owns the tavern’s pretty wonderful as well, recognizing that this could happen. Sure he’s making money on it, but that’s fine… because he’s made a place for a community to come together. It’s not every joint in town that is going to have jazz, Irish music, country, 70s peace rock, blues… you name it, all jumbled up into one big happy evening. Steve’s gotten what he wanted, our local musical heroes stepping outside their musical genres, stepping in and playing or singing back up, roaring to attention when the kidlets try something out. If you’d have heard the band singing along with one young man accompanying himself singing “Eight Days a Week” on the ukelele. It was a moment you’re sorry you missed. oh, and when that 15 year old went head to head with Elvis and didn’t do badly at all? that was another one.

I got to chacha with Sue, always a fave, sing back up with Charlie (we found that back up!), shout at friends over the loud music, and generally have a marvelous time.

If you live here and you don’t wander by at least once, you’re wasting your time… if you live somewhere else, figure out where to go where your village’s lines get all mixed up. This type of event builds relationships across all sorts of lines. It teaches us to be kind.

And score. I signed up two more musicians for the Love Flows concert I’ll do in the fall, (we hope!). Watch this spot for new songs. But in the meantime, find out where Peace is mixing it up. If you can’t find it, start it.

There’s science between what happens in our brains, bodies and psyches when we sing together. It’s why hymn sings work. It’s why Eight Days a Week (The Beatles, who ever thought of them as hymnists?) worked for everyone that night. Great community. Great fun. oh, yahoo…

It’s a river of Peace, it’s a river of Sound, it’s a river of Love… C’mon, Wade in the Water!

A Little Lightning Bug Peace, llvl

Perfect June nights… This region is known for them. Driving through the darkness, watching fireflies cavort in the cornfields — it’s just the most Peace-giving thing. Courtship for lightning bugs is a lovely thing to watch. Blink on. Blink off.

It’s hard to describe how happy they make me. How that simple dance reassures me.

May you find the sweet, sacred Peace that your vida local offers. And may you give yourself the time to simply be present to it.

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.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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