Eat, Drink Peace Pause

Fika. ahhhh. The memories were so sweet, I had to call my friend Lorraine today, who is a champeen fika person. Any place you go, you pack along a few snacks worthy of a pause. Or you go to the bakery. Or, or, or.

This is a woman with whom I’ve sat in countless bakeries, laughing and laughing and crying and crying and fixing life with a cup of tea and a sweet. (And the Swedes are pretty circumspect about size… they haven’t reached supersizing as a national pastime yet.) But mostly it was at home sitting around on the couch with a sandwich. It’s the food. But it’s the pause that really warms the heart.

It was an interesting notion to think that a cup of tea or coffee was a communal event. Apparently offices have their pause at the same time, and people gather. They don’t guzzle liquid and stuff food at their desks, they stop. and talk to one another. Productivity goes up. (the US has all those studies, but we don’t believe them.) But a tiny moment of détente in the middle of the day? Priceless.

Believing you’re important enough to stop and take a moment to relax, to regather yourself, vital to your well being and to your work. Fika: the pause that refreshes. Fika: a pause that gives sweet moments of Peace and maybe inspires movement in the Peace direction!

Peace Companions

I live in the most extraordinary place. But then, so do you. It’s simply a matter of paying attention.

Since beginning this year on Peace, searching the headlines and searching my soul, I’ve seen many different and wonderful things. They were probably there before. I just wasn’t seeing them because I wasn’t looking. My facebook connections have morphed, deepened. Sure there are lots of fun and fluffy posts. Nothing wrong with that. I’m a fun and fluffy Gurl myself… There’s a reason I wanted to name my TV show: Sister Fluff and the Goddess Gospel Hour. I think we’ve overlooked the value of silly laughter and that silly laughter can leave us entrees into the more profound. There’s even lots of stupid, hateful stuff on FB, but I see a lot less of it now that I’m posting consistently about Peace.

Is FB the right place to post about Peace? Yesterday I heard a talking head say there’s something like 7 billion people on FB and one in 7 (again, these are sorta numbers, because I can’t even remember where I heard these, but a WHOLE LOTTA FOLKS are on FB… and if we start spreading our peace posts out. If we start reposting our friends’ wisdom when we encounter it, we can sweeten the pot, deepen the flavor. Some people would say cheapen… that FB is too glib. That’s not my experience.

Here’s my experience: I see more people who are doing great work. I see more people who are posting about things that matter. I see fewer people who are only worried about money or hate. I see people stretching out. I know there are people following me, the professional me, not the personal me (although they’re pretty related) who don’t agree with lots of what i think, yet who encourage me to post my peace dreams. They’ve reached out during my grieving.

I believe we all have dreams of Peace. We just need to encourage one another. Peace gets made in little ways as well as large. We’re in charge of the little ones. Let’s get going. (and let’s make sure we stop for a cuppa, because that always makes the journey more fun.) The community is larger than we think.

Stuck in the Middle Peace

“Stuck in the middle again.” And what better place? And who better to be stranded with.

Here we are. Life’s a jumble. Everything is every which way, but if we have clarity then we can decide the journey we want.

I don’t know about you, but I’m probably never going to be a maker of Peace in spectacular ways. I will trudge along, but probably never be the one called on “to pray the devil back to hell” in ways like Leymah Gbowee.

I will be called on, on a daily basis, to make Peace where I am. To honor and esteem it. To hold it close and precious. I am called on to be unfailingly kind. To be observant. To be present and aware. Present to you. Aware of you.

How I am called is different than how you are called. Ever since I started this year’s musings on Peace, I have been increasingly aware of the single-minded, simple-hearted, ensouled movements toward Peace in this area. Some people work on huge (and small) political projects, some work on spiritual pursuits, others on matters of the heart. And there are those, and I know and love them, who make life better for our bodies. All of them work toward Peace and inclusion — because isn’t that the center of Peace? — and all of us are gratefully acknowledging the others’ work.

We don’t own the Peace Road, we walk it in good company. We may not understand another’s journey, but we’re neighbors on the path. Here we are stuck in the middle again. So let us make the progress we can. And let us enjoy the company. Because this? Is a very long road.

Out of Fear, Peace

It’s the only place Peace can come from. Because it’s the place too many of us dwell, too much of the time. So let’s just admit it and start building Peace here.

We are frightened and it is not without cause. People are doing fearsome stuff. People have always done fearsome stuff. Is it worse now? Are we simply reading about it more? It seems worse. It seems as if folks are more callous (read more frightened). Horrible things are happening. We can do what people do and throw up our hands. Bury ourselves in the distractions today’s world offers.

Or we can commit. And as the prayer says “Begin again in love.” Or as we’d say over here at Sacred Village, “Begin again in Peace.”

All we have is Peace and one another. Life will always take lives, and accidents will happen. But in those sacred places in between, we can make Peace. Exhausting, exhilarating Peace. Peace be with you. Peace be you.

Veteran Peace

This holiday was always important to me, because I believed my older sister when she told me the world was not working because it was her birthday. She was an anchor in my world, so why would that not be true?

Once a year, people pull out the red, white and blue and say “Say Thank You!” And why not? Those people in harm’s way?

But it’s not an easy thank you for a woman who wishes the world were working on Peace not on controlling properties. It’s not easy when I think about who gets sent to fight wars, who wouldn’t have health care for their families without their service and who spends their lives avoiding anything like service.

It’s not easy to listen to politicians extol the value of the military and watch them cut services to Veterans. Something like 85 percent of our homeless are former military. There are huge negative impacts to “serving” the country, soldiers are discouraged from seeking help that should be part of service. Living in the line of fire and killing people, even people you believe are evil who may in fact be evil… these things are not good for your soul. The physical extremes they endure mess with their bodies and their minds.

So my Veteran’s Day prayers are mixed. I pray in thanksgiving for those who returned and those who sacrificed. Those who made difficult moral decisions to serve in other ways. I pray that we make a different homecoming for those who served, that we demand better for them of our leaders and ourselves, that we make a space and a place, that we fight for their Peace as they volunteered to fight for ours… I pray that we begin to speak up, act up, think up about ways to promote Peace… not to avoid war… but to move toward the joyous possibilities. I pray we will be kind to one another we who are on such different sides of this confusion. I will pray for the safety of the men and women (no longer boys and girls) in service and that their sweet and beating hearts may never have to take another’s life.

And in the midst of it all on this Armistice Day, this remembrance of the War to End All Wars that Ended Nothing…

I also remember that it is my sister’s birthday. And she is no longer with me. And my heart is still tender with loss.

Let there be Peace on Earth and let it begin with me. Let there be Gratitude as well.

Food, Peace, Sabbath

Yesterday, my church had a casino fundraiser for a project that puts food in backpacks to keep children from going hungry on weekends when they’re out of school. It’s a great project and a great community building event — an all around win. In the county where this is working up to 70% of the kids qualify for free or reduced lunch. What does it mean that our children are hungry? What does it say about us as a culture, as a country?

We had great food for sale to support food for backpacks. For a little casino, we raised a lot of money. We’ve had to breathe deeply and decide to dig deeply this year. People will hunger. There are certainly political responses to that, and they may differ, although I’m not always sure why they should. But the religious response should always be to feed the hungry. The Dalai Lama holds that at the center of every religion is Compassion. Let us therefore care for one another.

It was lovely to leave that event and get invited home to new friends to meet their friends and to be fed the food of the gods… and to leave that event with a check for the first event.

Today I’ll spend at church (still cracks me up!) talking with folk who are finding their church home and later making my home homier and designing better space for eating at home. We all need food at home. Food may be part of what defines home. I’m lousy at that, yet I can work to get better. and as I do, I’ll be in prayer about ways to think about food at everyone’s house. So I invite you to spend some of this precious Sabbath thinking about food at home: yours and everyone’s. Gotta run and make breakfast before church…

Together we can be the difference in the world.

Hurricane, No Peace

There’s something about the notion of small islands in the middle of the Pacific awaiting the onslaught of a huge storm that is horrifying. When you live in Paradise, where weather is generally more than kind, building codes are loose and houses are open.

Many houses are expected to have blown apart in this storm. I’ve somehow been focused on the image of a young mother with a baby and small children, with the urgent need to protect them and no way to do that.

One of my Swedish sisters was in the Tsunami in Thailand all those years ago. She ran back into danger to pull her child to safety. And he was a 15 year old strong boychild… Maybe it’s her stories that have me fastened on the simple horror.

And Paradise, well sort of. Apparently there are 7,000 islands in the Philippines, 2,000 of which are inhabited. Some of them have not yet recovered from a massive earthquake that happened not all that long ago.

And while when you live in the middle of the ocean, there are always storms, storms are getting worse. And we are part of that process and need to opt out, need to make things different. Climate change is creating these monster storms. And we’re part of that.

We’re connected to that mother with children in so many ways. What’s needed is for us to figure out how to be connected to that mother and mothers everywhere whose children are in danger in helpful ways… even if its being connected to mothers in your own valley whose children are unprotected.

Sorry, this is a bit meandering, I know. I seem to be having a hard time getting my passion and my clarity in the same place… But we must live with nature, acknowledging we’re part of it. Not doing so ls killing us. and worse, it’s killing other people when we pretend differently.

I’m not sure where the path to Peace is in this… but I hope we’re willing to take a look… Blessings on people caught in the storm. And let us consider how to be those blessings…

Exhale for Peace

And inhale too. But the inhale is automatic; the exhale needs concentration. And without breath, there is no peace.

Some days there’s too much to be done. I keep remembering that biblical injunction: Sufficient unto the days are the troubles thereof. Well, sometimes the troubles are more than sufficient. Particularly as I struggle with grief.

You have to keep an eagle eye on grief. When is it grief? When does it tilt toward depression. How do you honor the grief and stay faithful to yourself? How do you deal with the grief and the what the world needs? Luckily I have a great team of PCP who are tracking me: watching my BP, holding me accountable to exercise… (must get in pool today. must. must.) So easy to postpone. Work, Inertia. Grief. Inertia. Hello, Exercise, Oxygen. Come back, WW. Count those points. All of which needs to be balanced with staring into space.

If there’s anything I’m sure of, grief is a physical activity as well as one of the heart, soul and mind. Careful with those fragile bodies. I’m not at all sure we don’t need to resurrect some of those Victorian grieving traditions, to look at cultures that mourn well and see what we need to take on. “Getting on with life” is not only overrated, it’s ridiculous. Absence is as real a thing as presence. It’s disorienting. All that energy, dispersing into the universe. They’ve just discovered that energy carries memory. Wild science fiction as truth (and metaphor) as a person’s life swirls past you on their way out the door. Is it ridiculous to consider being present to Absence?

On those days when those memories lay you low, you want to lay low. But sometimes life, insistent and constant, has other ideas. Just because your heart is breaking doesn’t mean someone else’s life isn’t falling apart. And sometimes, not always, you have to be there with your hands out to catch someone before they hit the ground. That’s hard. That’s life.

When that happens, you have to try and remember the beauty. You have to lean on your friends. You have to get a good night’s sleep. And, in my opinion, you have to help out. Because folks need you. You may not be graceful. You may botch up the catch. You may need to keep a list of references on hand so you can find other support for folk who look to you for help.

And as you offer a steadying hand. Look for the beauty that inspires and supports you. Life. A fragile boat. And the hands on the oars are uncertain. But on we paddle. And hold the sweetness close.

Autumn River Peace

Looking down from the bridge into the slowly moving Susquehanna this morning, I was caught by the beauty. It was picture perfect — looking ‘way too much like many of those sympathy cards I’ve recently received.

So at first I was stuck with that image. And then I recognized the movement of the water, flowing down to the ever renewing ocean. The gorgeous red and gold leaves slipping down over the stones were just the symbols of Fall’s slipping away…

And suddenly, I was smiling again. Happy to think about the notion renewal and rebirth… far away and unknown, but reassuring in some weird, but deeply visceral way. It was also a lovely reminder of how beautiful Deb’s life was and of what I’d been called to do and the ways I’d responded, ways I was proud of. I loved her. She’d needed me. I’d been there to the best of my abilities. She knew that and accepted my love and returned it full measure.

And now a gentle reminder that leaves slipping by are the way of the season… and incredibly beautiful. And I am a sad and lucky woman. Let us take it all in as it comes to us, all the sweet abundance, because in that we can search for Peace. Finding it, even if only from time to time, we can begin to spread it abroad.

Friendship Peace

Two of my Swedish Sisters were here this weekend to help say goodbye to Deb. They’d met her in Sweden, they’d stayed with her when they came to my wedding. They came to honor Deb and they stepped up to prop me up. Oh and they did. We counted blessings and gave thanks. Along the ways we made new memories.

They let me cry. They patted me. They fed me tea and chocolate (Finnish chocolate, tell no one!). We talked about all sorts of things and they came along as witnesses to my life as it is now. (Sadly they didn’t get to see my husband because he was sick the entire time they were here… ) They talked to me when I needed to jabber or when they needed something explained or just had something to say. And they were quiet when I needed quiet. And I could let them be quiet when their brains were exploding from all the English. We were present to one another.

They helped me remember why friends make a difference and reminded me to be grateful for all the astonishing and wonderful friends I have here and all over the world.

We all wondered at the thought that friendships such as ours — now over 44 years deep — can endure without a lot of tending, just because they are. We lived together. They shared their family (and now families) with me. They’ve met my family (now families) and loved them.

And in moments like this, you just push over bed in the morning as one of them comes in to chat and steals some covers and reassures your heart.

So even when the work ahead is hard, your heart is full and fueled for the journey. Peace goes better with friendship. Yes, indeed it does.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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