Snowy Owl Peace, llvl

It’s all supply and demand, but this time I can get it. Apparently, last year was a bumper crop for lemmings somewhere way up there in the Arctic tundra. Which meant that the snowy owls, instead of laying one egg, all laid three. And they all hatched. Lots of snowy owls. This year, there aren’t as many of those little cliff leapers, but now there are two many snowy owls for their original region, so they widened their territories.

Presto Changeo, snowy owls in North Central PA, creating a new end of winter vida local. Mother Nature offering joy to her humans (and terror to the small, and even not so small wildlife.)

And I saw one. My friend said, oh, wow, there’s an immature hawk, maybe we’ll see the owl take the hawk. (ann the girl who likes to pretend that meat comes in styrofoam packages — no, i know better, and i give thanks to those whose lives are sacrificed that i may eat all the time! but still, ewwwwwww. ) I smiled gamely, tried to look interested and thanked the owl for sitting still and taking a moment to preen.

And there it sat. Not all that far from a large field of swans. Swans, hanging out in the cornfield. A hundred or so. It doesn’t get more beautiful than this. Nature, right here in my little local life.

I’m so grateful Liz was willing to haul me around and make me sit and watch. Taking the time to enjoy the beauty! Hooray!

Peace of the Snowy Owl, to you, my friends, and of the migrating Swans. Peace of la vida local.

Edges of Spring Peace, LLVL

I’ve realized recently that I’ve been on edge. Well, duh. We’re on the cusp of so many things. The weather refuses to turn, but Mother Nature responds to sun this time of year. So we keep slowly moving toward next season’s promise…

At the church, we’re slowly figuring out what we’re doing to fight child hunger in the Susquehanna Valley. Every time we move toward a solution, we find a billion steps we have to do first. OK, yes, I’m exaggerating, but it feels like that. I’m the regular ready, fire, aim queen, but a project this large demands a large amount of aiming.

And I’m realizing that I’m being shaped by things… having lost so much of my family, it’s really about reshaping myself. I’ve chosen to locate myself in my life… that’s what writing la vida local is about. We’re doing a hunger project for kids right here… choosing to lead where we live. Time for community… time to make it what we want, to form it in the style of Peace, of Love.

And it’s time to pay attention to the changes and make new places to celebrate what happens…

No Peace in Hunger, llvl

Encountering the local hunger problem has been life-altering for me.

So often when we hear “poverty” we don’t understand the world or its grinding nature. Many of us talk easily about sources of poverty, but we overlook the daily realities of it.

In my region part of that ugly reality is hungry kids.

It took a “perfect storm” for me to see it. After Deb’s death I was so sad. When the house voted not to allow the SNAP subsidy to lapse, I was driven quite literally to my knees in my living room. Not believing people to be worth of food knocked my pins out from under me.

I turned to my thinking team at church. I didn’t have an idea in my head, just pain. Scott, our church treasurer, got the hunger statistics. The rest of us were stunned. The crowd that had driven the Staten Island project batted around ideas. Most of them were far too grandiose. We knew we wanted this year (we thought!)’s project to be local. And now we knew we wanted it to be food. Last year we’d raised funds for the local food pantry. We knew we could do that again, and did. We started talking to other churches, finding out what they were doing, making a list.

And then we heard about the back-pack program. They’re all over the country, Love help us, because there is child hunger everywhere. Turns out, our local school district had just started a program. We talked about it in church, there was a huge outpouring of money. We had our purpose. We just needed to figure out where to step up so that we could do the most good.

This has turned into a huge project with a lot of pieces, few of which are in place yet. But huge projects take time. You’ll hear more from me, about what we’re doing, but in the meantime, you can help if you want to. Go here to read about this and to donate. There’s more information that will show up on the website soon… that’s one of those projects currently underway, but it’s a start.

Sorry, I tried to write about St. Paddy’s day… but this got in the way… Feeding the hungry is concrete Peacemaking. Please join us.

Meetings and Sabbath Peace, llvl

It is perhaps an odd notion that meetings can be on a sabbath occupation and there will still be room for sabbath to get some attention… But small organizations fit their meetings in where they can. And weekends are often what we have.

But small organizations are run on human hearts and human ingenuity. Things need to be done and so you do them. Here’s to all the folks who take the time. Because small organizations are the engines for much of life that matters… they get things done and they plan for the future. This is as true whether you live in a large metropolitan area as it is in small rural regions.

There’s something wonderful about being part of the engine, of contributing your gifts and making something you care deeply about work. It’s probably even more true because none of us, or at least few of us, love committees and boards. But they do the work. And we’re grateful for the investment of time and love. This is doing good to make your community (and your world) better.

So go to your meeting and then take the time off to enjoy the day some other way… Happy Sabbath, you wonderful Peacemakers!

Second-Chance Love & Peace, llvl

There have certainly been friends in my life who have wandered away or from whom I’ve wandered. But most endings weren’t wildly dramatic. Even endings with most boyfriends were fairly civil not long afterwards, but I’ll confess that I don’t know where some of the formerly important people in my life are.

Maybe that because I’ve moved around a fair amount, so it was easy to move on. No need to hold a grudge because they weren’t really visible in my life any more. A couple of those losses were very painful and I’m happy not

But the interesting thing to me about the man who’s life I celebrated yesterday was his ability to keep his universe intact. Maybe because he lived in this area most of his life, it was more difficult to lose people altogether. But even when he was separated from friends, he knew how to find them again. And he often did. From all accounts, he was pretty volatile. He’d stop talking to folks. But then, he’d miss them, review what went wrong and make it right. He must have been a wonderful friend, because his funeral was packed with guys who had been his friends for years — even if somewhat off and on.

He’s a guy who took the “apologize and make amends” step in AA incredibly seriously. When he found out his cancer had come roaring back, he took a good look at who he wanted in his life as he was living his last years and found them. They made up and they made life happen. As up and down as his temper was, his heart was steady. When it was a matter of life and death, he put aside indulging his temper and simply loved…

I was fascinated and impressed by how hard he worked at friendship. I was touched by how many cherished this hard work. I was inspired to do better. He left an amazing legacy of Loving and Peace-making. May we all do the same…

Blue Peace, llvl

We have to take the signs where we get them when the temp is hovering in the teens. The weather will turn. It’s March.

Everyone is stir-crazy. We’ve been inside too long. Spoke to my friend who owns a cafe the other day. Business is ‘way off. For a while she worried, is it me? One of her suppliers came by and said everyone’s business is off. It’s too cold to go out. We’re all spending a lot more than we’d planned on heat. And we’re huddled against the cold.

The river freezes and thaws. And so do we.

But yesterday the sky was so blue. It wasn’t a winter blue; it was the blue of spring. Deep, beautiful blue. A promise in the midst of very cold weather. We’ll take that, and we’ll remember… Spring is coming. And with spring, a different sort of Peace-making, a sweet growing Peace… Ah, beauty!

C’mon sun! (and hey, it’s Pi Day, Pie Day… how bad can it be?)

Home, Peace, LLVL

In the last year, I’ve had to pinch myself several times… I can’t quite believe my good fortune. I am living in a place that every part of me considers home. I love the landscape, I love the seasons. I love the communities. I love the opportunities. I love the Music and Art that get made here. I love that I get to be part of all of it.

In addition I am doing the work of my heart. All the pieces of it. I have good colleagues and fellow travelers on this Peace Road. Wonderful People keep walking into my life and We keep making connections.

I have to credit my husband with some of this drive toward joy and fulfillment. Until I met Steve a little more than years ago, I don’t know that I’d ever gotten to know anyone well who was as involved as he is in his Work and his Art. I’ve always been driven, but I don’t know that I’ve always reveled in the achievement of dreams… But here, it’s possible… Or, here I’ve figured out how to make it possible.

It feels like magic sometimes that I can love my life so much. But then I remember that magic (and life and love) are very hard work. and so is Peace. But… let’s do them anyway!

Spring Peace Cusp, LLVL

I wrote today’s musing knowing that I was starting on the Spring side of the Cusp and would soon be reverting to the Winter Side. Now that we’re back, it’s hard to remember yesterday.

But that’s what life’s like on the cusp… and it’s what it’s like when you’re being present to you local reality. La vida is what it is. Tomorrow doesn’t really matter, although it can be prepared for. Yesterday is a blessing to be counted and a lesson to be learned from. Today is where life is happening. Live into the possibilities! Make Peace with Now.

Yesterday life was open and expansive. Today it’s inward and focused. And we have to be where we are. That’s life. That’s Peace. Right here right now, in la vida local. And aren’t we lucky. (even if a touch cold! Where did I put those wrist warmers?)

Peace Right Here! LLVL

Why was it so shocking? I’ve known about GunPowder Joe for a long time. I’ve been learning more about him since I moved back… I’ve used him as illustration many a time. But there was something in the way they told the story that made me think. Wait there was this major thinker. A wild and wonderful Heretic and he lived right here in this River Valley.

We had one Heretic. We can have more. We can be more. If you’ve studied heresy at all… having gone to seminary, you can’t avoid it, but there were a lot of times you sat and thought, pretty sure that’s what I think… (ok, there were some pretty goofy ones, too.) Most of what I found to be great heresies were those that included thinking, giving back, co-creating. Such heresies are dangerous to top-down religions. They put responsibility in the hands of the hoi-polloi…

But to be a heretic. To be a Heretic for Love, for Peace. It is in us and we are needed.

Peace and la Vida Local

To be intentional. To be deliberate. To live here. To root here. To bloom here. To flourish here.

That’s the assignment and the art of living locally. To deliberately plant my roots and care how my living makes the locale better at the same time it makes my life better.

This becomes the Peace I can make. This becomes the Peace I can live in — because I know it. Or maybe those sentences should be reversed. I can begin to understand what Peace this Valley needs when I pay close attention to it.

And when I go away from it, as much as I love to travel, I long to know what’s happening back here at home. And extrovert that I am… home often means community. Not always but often.

A friend posited when I was younger, that I could always travel because I had such a good and healthy center in my family. Now, many of the people who formed that center are gone. Now I that I’m building my own healthy center, it’s harder to leave and sweeter to return. Sweet Wonder. Sweet Peace. Sweet Home.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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