Peace: Fantasy and Reality, llvl

The picture Deb took this week has really rocked me. I look at it and see another possibility… another world. It stirs a childhood fantasy to life that there was/is another possibility for life just beyond the cupboard door (or the station wall, or, or, or…)

Now it may be that I live in that fantasy… look at the projects I invest in, Love Flows, Peace… all ridiculous pipe dreams, but are they. They’re pipe dreams we choose to invest in. If we live la vida local and really choose to make a peaceful difference where we live, if we promote Justice, which I talk about all to infrequently, but which is the heart of Peace, then we can start Peace in our little corner of the world and let it spread. And what really, if we decided to make this the Valley with No Hungry Children? What if we just changed our world? We can do that. If each of us takes a neighbor’s hand, life can be different.

And, for me, it’s that fantasy that reminds me. I believe the role of fantasy is not so much to take us away from the real but to remind us what could also be true. I’m particular about what I read… I’m not giving into despair and cynicism. I like my read to be a good one, but I’m not interested in people’s pulling things apart because there are plot malfunctions. I’m longing for the dream. Let us dream dreams. Let us see visions. And then, let’s make this a much sweeter world…

Peace World, llvl

I never think of the sky’s having straight lines. It’s all puffs and spirals. But here’s proof, jagged lines bisecting the sky and the river. Two pieces of a puzzle joined together in living color. The divine bow, the sweet cut. Is it fanciful to believe that Peace fits into our daily life so sweetly? Maybe. Childish to look and see such possibility? Perhaps it’s only child-like.

But when I look at this picture, I see Hope and Encouragement. And I will embrace them wherever I see them.

And I’ll even rejoice to be reminded that I can dream of stepping into the Wardrobe or through the train wall. J. K. Rowling not only taught children to believe, she reminded us to dream.

So dream of Peace and consider stepping into it. Deb Slade, thank you for all you do!

Peace River Puzzle, llvl

When you live in this Valley, the River’s part of every story. And every story, no matter how universal, is local. We have to live where we are, make Peace where we are.

When I think of the Peace River I also think of the song, “Peace (Love, Hope) is flowing like a river, flowing out of you and me, flowing out into the desert, setting all the captives free…”

So, I want always to be near that river. To tenderly hold it when I can contain it, to release it when it is so much bigger than I am. To float on it when I’m able. and to be part of it when it will allow me. Peace River. La Vida Local. A committed Life. Peace.

Filling Up with June Sabbath Peace

It’s a perfect June Day here. Sunny, clear, cool beginnings and endings to the day. ah… Picnic on the horizon… what more could you ask for? Gratitude for all the great dads? Got it…

And then these words by Thomas Merton showed up on my Face Book Feed: “There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.”– “Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander”

Need I say more? Not really. To give it away, you have to take it in. You have to revel in what is… I get to revel in having had a great dad. Sam was a wonderful man, and I got to spend the last of his life making it more interesting and better, reversing the paradigm!

So make some memories, put your feet up, and put something on the grill. Play a game of something in a noisy group of friends and enjoy. Because the journey goes on from today. But there’s today for Peace right where you are. Enjoy the Sabbath. If you’ve got him, enjoy your dad — and celebrate them all.

Um er… exactly my point trying to encourage (first in myself)

Peace on the Move, llvl

Can never figure if it’s too many metaphors, or simply the confusing reality. Peace is not a stationary thing. And we shift in relation to it — we may be fearful, cautious, aware, joyous, confident, hopeful, isolated… and those shifts bring us closer or farther from our goal, closer or farther from our belief in its possibility/reality.

But in those moments where Peace and we are good neighbors, everything is available to us to keep us moving on the Peace Path…

Sometimes, it’s complicated as hell. Sometimes, it’s pretty damned straightforward. But Peace is all about plenty and abundance, I think. It’s about knowing we have enough to share with one another.

Ah, the sweetness of the sinking down and the rising up. The sweetness of breaking bread with our fellow sojourners… Peace.

Progressive Peace, llvl

Sometimes we have to write the same thing, over and over again, until we hear it.

Peace is a series of very small steps — and not all of them are forward facing. Sometimes you have to slither over to one side or another. But hey… doesn’t that make it dancing?

Along with quite a few others, I’ve been feeling burdened. At our local poetry reading last night, one of us read a poem about headlines, and the headlines of long ago were echoed almost precisely in the poem. That’s years of the electric slide.

But you don’t become a Peacemaker because it’s going to be easy. You dedicate your life to Peace knowing that it will not only be challenging, but also tedious. Tedious, it’s the worth. And not only is it tedious, I dither. (slide to the left, slide to the right.)

But as a mentor reminded me, it’s one foot in front of the other. I love this week’s picture with the open gate. It’s gorgeous here. It’s gorgeous there. But the journey waits. Might as well go now while the conditions are good! Because out there, people are such need of our work. War. Violence. Greed. We need to be a sacred oasis. A moveable feast of Peace. (and there’s my image for tomorrow!)

Here’s today’s poem (typo corrected from what i sent out! gah!)

Shadowed Peace

I grew up here. Although I’ve never handled a gun, they’re not foreign. Many of my school chums ate well through the winter because their families hunted. This is as true today as it ever was. And right now, our woods are overrun by deer, because enough are not taken for food. And there’s a long circular saga there.

But that sort of common sense dealing with firearms is far different than what’s happening in our country now. Oh, I know, Ann, not another blog on gun violence. But really, what else can I do? Why are people walking around with cannons? How far into unreasonable fear have we tipped?

I was about to do that stupid and inappropriate thing that says, I’ve lived in cities and I… I’m not the point. The point is that people are walking around in fear, teaching fear and convincing themselves that cannons are the answer. They’re not. Love is.

I fret that the American addiction to gun violence is staining our national soul. Here in the shadows the road to Peace can become imperceptible… can look ridiculous. But there are studies abounding that suggest that in cultures when suicide becomes accepted as a way to solve problems, that more people commit suicide — honor suicides that occur even when the problems are not that large, but are perceived to be that way. Don’t learn problem solving… kill yourself.

And the newest problem solving technique involves killing a lot of people and then suicide. Yes, I believe there have been a raft of these, increasing in numbers. Even if homicides are going down, this solution to personal problems seem to be increasing.

It’s a huge shadow to live in. I’m not sure how we change it… but I’m sure we must. The gate’s open for us to do something… We need to wake up to the problem. All of us.

The Peace Gate, llvl

Are you going out or are you coming in? I have this silly image of some Divine Being standing tapping a foot looking at us like we look at the dogs and cats who either can’t make up their minds or just want us to stand their offering them options. “I don’t have all day, you know…”

Either choice is a good one, but we have to commit. Into the Paradise of Peace. Onto the Peace Path.

Making our lives great, exciting, wonderful, Peaceful. That’s what we’re asked to do — because that’s what we’re given the gift for. One of my more common exhortations to myself (and others) is: Count my blessings and make myself a blessing to be counted.

So whether your prayer is one of homecoming or one of departure: say it, mean it, do it. Life is waiting for your loving hands. Peace needs you.

Peaceful Delights, llvl

When things show up that are wonderful, it’s a good idea to notice them, revel in them, cherish them.

Life isn’t one halcyon day after the other. There are challenges, hills to climb, setbacks. If you, like me, have been having trouble with the recent news, local, national and international, then you’re often weighted by the world… And then you’re pushing yourself to see how you can make a difference. All of that can make life challenging.

And then there are the personal ups and downs in life. They don’t need detailing — you know them.

So when the good times roll, you have to open your arms and embrace them. Because they will sustain you through the other times. They will remind you what you’re struggling for and what helps you through.

So thanks, thanks, thanks, to the Bonnie Tallmans and the Good Time Charlies of this world who have the vision and the folks who help to make music available to all of us. Thanks to the musicians, who put themselves out there, doing what they do to help us feel what’s real. Thanks to the friends, those sweet and constant companions, who help us remember who we are, where we came from and what we’re about. Hooray for those times when your vida local overlaps with mine!

Peace is the work of many, many communities. Revel in it where you find it!

Roots of, Roads to Peace, llvl

If you’re going to live la vida local, part of the joy is celebrating those places where your life was “local” before.

This weekend I went “home” to my college for our 40th reunion. (ok, one more chorus of darling we are growing old, move on. sing a loud raucous chorus of a college chant). It was, it always is, balm for the soul. Part of it is the remembering, that piecing back together of a place inside that pleasured us. Part of it is the people, people who have been part of my life for a long time. People I love. People I respect immensely. People who share a passion for life and for the education of women — because they know what it’s made of us. They may not be the warp on which i’ve woven my life, but they certainly are tangled in the strands or perhaps they reinforce it. (ok, i’ll stop, i don’t weave, and I’m sure the metaphor can be stretched only so far!)

I’ve been doing a lot of that this year and I’m going to do more. I was in California where I lived for 13 years. I saw dear friends. I’m going back to Sweden. My friend Soo is going to Alaska this year, visiting places trying to heal from the loss of her husband, places I saw while trying to let go of my sister. She carries me with her, she carries me in her heart, with apologies to monsieur cummings… I went to Wilson. (and after that, I went to the blues festival and saw a woman I adore sing the hell outta those blues! more about that tomorrow)

On the way down to Wilson, I was eager to get there, thinking about who would be there, reveling in the act of going somewhere, stopping along the way for a meal, indulging myself. And getting there, re-immersing myself in the pool of loving affection that is my small class of women and one man and all their loving spouses, was simply luxurious. We knew each other when we were young and passionate and insecure. Perhaps you can’t say of all of us that we know one another well now, but for certain, we recognize one another. We can understand how each woman became who she was today. I have to say that I have both liking and admiration for each. What a treasure is that.

So it was wonderful to touch my roots at a time when my life is unsteady. And then, driving away, it was wonderful to drive home to the life in which I am (re)becoming indigenous — all the more celebrated because I was coming from another place where my life had been so grounded. As I came home, I drove up river to the place that is at one and the same time, source (for it was here I started my education if not my life) and life (for it is here that I have re-rooted after a life of wandering.).

Because I have always been a wanderer, I treasure the journey as well and the sights you see along the way. Ah, my wide and beautiful river set in a broad valley surrounded by rolling green hills… you both settle and excite my heart.

Indeed, it’s lucky I am to have strong roots, great company and a life that yearns toward Peace. It’s lucky to have the Peace road be one of beauty because it’s often arduous. What an amazing world we live in… The being in the midst of it and the getting to where we are going are both sacred prayers for Peace.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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