Peace Wobble

No one makes it down the road to Peace without a few wobbles. It’s a myth that anyone is always upright, energetically striding toward Peace. And I think it’s important to know that at a cellular level. Because we all worry so much… what if this happens, we worry… but what if things were just fine? Would that be all right with us?

As the Weebles teach us, there’s always a period when you find your feet again, even when you’ve been dreadfully overset or unbalanced… However unlikely that feels on the downswing. And reaching center is probably a momentary experience — that will repeat and repeat itself for years. as long as we keep moving forward. And as long as we keep laughing about the times it looks so scary!

And for me, I’m most likely to find that Balance and that Peace in the company of friends. It’s the medicine that keeps me going… hurrah, hooray! and thank you one and all who bore me up through this process.

A Much Needed Peace Sabbath

I’ve spent so much time preparing for yesterday’s service that I couldn’t anticipate how great today would feel. What it would be like to sit back in the bosom of my family (and oh bosoms of both gender where put to good use as we all wept and sniveled and then slowly laughed and rejoiced.

Family bonds were knit together in a new way, with new people, and new possibilities.

Old friends came and paid respects.

It was extravagant and outrageous, over the top and oh, so, Deb.

And today, I am exhausted. and I must admit. relieved. All the verbs I conjugate in today’s poem are real, but, it must be said, at the moment, not really what I’m feeling… that’s more… to rest. to talk. to chat. to listen to a little poetry. to be. In communion with my Swedish Sisters and my American. To eat breakfast with my family the whole mixed up blood, no blood, just pile in mix of relationship.

I thought perhaps I subconsciously scheduled that memorial for the Day of the Dead. I think perhaps it was really for the extra hour of sleep at the end of Daylight savings. It will be dark early, but tonight, I’ll take the time. Thank you all for your support… (and a happy, grateful Sabbath to you all.)

Peace of Goodbye

Today is the Day of the Dead. It is certainly the day of my dead.

It’s the day of the change of conversation. It’s the day of goodbye. It’s the cusp of something different, something unknown, something desperately sad, something infinitely precious, something terribly final.

The fact is that we come to this point in our lives. No looking away from it. No pretending.

Things change. And people die. And their loved one’s lives go on. And we all have to find ways to accept, transform, adjust.

And there is a Peace in goodbye. There is an ending to the limbo of shock and disbelief. And a path into whatever the new normal is. The post life, the folding in of the absence into the present… the ability to remember those memories that are currently walkabout, waiting for a place to settle down.

Oh, my sister, I miss you. I am missing you. I will be missing you. I have missed you. I will have been missing you for the rest of my life. And I am so grateful for the life we shared, both hard and fabulous. … I offer us both the Peace of Goodbye. Fly Free. “And I’ll keep living the life we were living as if I were two.” (Holly Near)

Peace Saints and Less-Than Saints

As the family slowly gathers for Deb’s memorial, and the year rolls around to what I find a very important time of the year: This is the season in quite a few traditions to remember the departed: The Communion of the Dead… and for some communion with the dead.

For me it’s always a chance to look back at what my ancestors taught me and look ahead at what I have to learn. I believe that most of us do what we can… I believe that those who came before did what they could. In some cases they succeeded wildly. In other cases, they missed the mark. In all cases, they had something to teach us.

In the soft light of twilight, we are invited to look closely at ourselves and decide whether or not we’re going to learn their lessons — whether that means taking on or shedding their behaviors.

Such a crazy time. I’m so grateful for the gathering, real and spectral, and yet, and yet, and yet. I will try very hard to walk in Peace, and to be gentle with myself as I work to stay open to the incredible outpouring of love — and grief — which is coming. We always promised ourselves we’d do this while she was still alive to receive the toasts. We didn’t make it, did we, Deb… I look for your face in the mirror… and sometimes i see it, on your own and in my own. Blessed, blessed be.

Sister Peace with Chocolate

I am struggling to get ready for the Memorial this weekend. In addition to the service, I’m getting my house ready for my Swedish sisters to visit. And I’m also getting my house into a place of Peace, because when this is over, I am going to need a place of refuge. I’m also struggling because there is no ignoring the earthly reality of her death. When the Memorial comes I have to say goodbye.

I have been getting the most extraordinary help from friends. People have organized me despite myself at home. People are singing in the Memorial. Tonight a girlfriend drove up from Harrisburg and just sat on the couch and then volunteered to go with me to fetch the Swedes.

My house looks fabulous. My bag has clothes piled up beside it for the weekend. Most of my writing for the ritual is done. Some of my writing for the sermon is done.

It’s so hard to let her go. That sweet familiar woman whose rhythms I knew as well as my own.

So what an incredible gift that these two women will arrive from Sweden, to wrap me in sister-love and sister-peace. Forty-four years later, love holds the center. I don’t know why I was smart enough to cultivate Love… but I give thanks, count my blessings, and wonder what kind of chocolate they will bring. They’re the first. and then the community will gather. Hard stuff is coming, but right now, I’m going focus on the love in… Oh, and Happy Halloween. I’ll be disguised as a person who’s doing OK… and I guess I am for a woman with a shattered heart.

But here come Cecelia and Margita… and all of you, who help me hold my heart together.

Peace Steps

Let me hold myself accountable. Let me, at the end of every day, remind myself of the progress I have made. Most days we will not be making Peace strides, although some days we will. Some days will be a chacha and we’ll dance in place. Many days we’ll just take mincing steps forward. But those are steps forward! This is progress.

I am sick to death of people’s whining that progress doesn’t need to be made because “he” or “she” is guilty of some real or imagined wrong. And therefore we’re off the hook. I’m tired of reading people’s posts on FB where we sound more like 6 year old’s who are angry because our 2 1/2 year old sib doesn’t have to do the chores we do. so we’re not going to so there. great. stupid. tiresome.

I once wrote a prayer for evening ice cream eating and blessing counting. The thought was you limited your bites of ice cream to the blessings you could count. I may need to do one with what chocolate and peace steps. Want your chocolate (insert any favorite food here) work for Peace. Worried you’ll eat too much chocolate? given the number of steps most of us take toward peace, i wouldn’t worry too much… and once we get good at the dance, we’ll be too busy, except to celebrate a little.

It won’t happen every day. But begin to notice when you’re kind. Begin to notice when you’re reaching out toward people who are not just like you… Begin to notice that it feels good to believe you’re making progress. Notice. and keep creeping toward Peace.

Peace One, Peace Two

I realize that I’ve harped on this before (moi? harp?) but I believe in blessing counting. Do I always do it? Nope. it’s easy to slide out of the habit, just as it’s easy to pop outta bed without taking time to say “Today is a good day to live.” I’ve thought about that Buddhist saying that it’s a good day to die, and that should infer that you live consciously until you die, but you know life ends in death, so let’s, as the saying goes, make hay while the sun shines.

The careful totting up of life’s blessings, large and small, helps us to remain thankful. Being thankful puts us in a much better frame of mind. If we go to bed aware of the abundance, we wake up filled with it. How can that do anything but make our lives better?

But as started to write this, I realized, well, what if I started counting the progress I’d made toward Peace every night. Would that encourage me to lengthen the list? I once wrote a poem in which I suggested counting your blessings with bites of ice cream. there was no more ice cream than there were blessings. So how much ice cream would I get if I could only eat when I enumerated a Peace-ibility! I’m thinking I’d get better at it! (sorta like clicker training for Peaceful humans!)

I always worry when I talk about this, that we will get fatuous. We begin to talk blithely about the “wonderful” challenges put in front of us… there may be blessings we can wring out of challenges, but they’re in our lives because they are, not because they were meant to teach us blessings!

But still —to be able to say at the end of the day, that I took these steps toward Peace. To begin to raise my expectations of myself that I might become a better Peacemaker. There’s an interesting challenge… and the topic of tomorrow’s poem? who knows?

Obliging Peace

As a kid and a non-Catholic, I was always intrigued by the notion of Holy Acts of Obligation. As an adult with an even less Catholic viewpoint than earlier, I’m even more intrigued — and less tied to what they really were and more interested in what I think they ought to be.

For instance, thanksgiving. Not the day with turkey and all its fixings although I’m a pretty big fan of that, particularly fixings! But the action. The making reflexive of the giving of thanks first thing in the morning and the counting of blessings at night.

Each day is a gift. And if I treat it so from the very outset, it’s more likely to become that in fact. And I’m alive. I have great memories AND great prospects. And the present is challenging and engaging.

And so I give thanks. For all I have and all I am and want to become. And when I do, when my feet hit the floor, I am a different person and my day is filled with possibilities.

In my thinking about thanking, I also consider the countless religions that have small prayers to take you through the day… what would those thanksgivings look like, I sometimes wonder for those of us who live in today’s world… I may explore that… but at present, I will give thanks that I have friends coming to help me say good bye to my sister, to hold me upright when it is time, and that I may do this for the sister I loved so dearly. I give thanks that I have a cozy home and friends and family who have helped me reclaim my place in it in the aftermath of loss and grief. I give thanks for a wide-flung community with whom I laugh and kvetch and wonder…

I give thanks because life with all its challenges is mine to explore.

Spiral Sabbath Peace

Our lives are so busy. I think we, okay, I, often fail to notice the rhythm of the spiral. And I think we often fail to stop when we finally make it into the center to enjoy the Peace, before turning and moving back out into an every deepening meaning. In and out, in and out, and so we weave our lives.

I’ve been in a frenzy, trying to reclaim my house and write my bits for this weekend.

So much ahead. The terror and sadness of saying a formal good-bye to Deb. The joy of gathered family and the gift of my Swedish sisters’ visit. Counting noses in the swimming pool — and missing the absent. The overwhelm of too much stuff and the joy in seeing this beautiful house re-become my home and refuge. (and maybe even the place where I invite you to tea. How long has that been!)

Fall, in all its beauty, ready for our admiration. A cornucopia of opportunities for interesting ways to spend a lovely Sabbath. A musician, a play, a labyrinth, a Circle. Today I’ll take some time to replenish myself for the trek into the middle of that circle, a circle that is both everything and nothingness.

What will you do to pass this day in Peace? May your day be one of Beauty. Wishing you a blessed Sabbath, my Friends…

Present for Peace

Everyone’s life is busy. And when you add our illusion of control to our to do list, we begin to think our tasks are monumentally important. And it’s clear, says one over her head in tasks, that sometimes tasks require an immense amount of attention.

However, in the midst of that busyness, we are often asked by friends or even strangers to show up. Every instinct screams that we don’t have time… sometimes that’s right, but we need to be sure.

Because often the very most important thing we can do is to do less than our stellar best on a task and make time for a relaxed, human encounter. My parents drilled this into me. They were at a friend’s house once. The friend was dying. They’d gone for a visit. “Stay,” he said. “Tasks,” they said. He died that week. “Never do that,” they said to us. “Never.”

We need to prioritize Friendship. We need to prioritize Love. We need to prioritize Life’s Sacred Passages and show up for them. Houses may be messy, grass un-mown, but cups of tea and glasses of beer or wine will be had, shoulders will be cried on. Funerals will be attended, conversations will be frank, people will get the ride they need to the doctors appointment or the medicine from the drug store. Doing good work and good works is the most important work. Stepping up can be hard work, yet, in doing that, simple presence will be offered and life will be transformed.

Extending our hands beyond our normal circles of caring begins to build great possibilities, and starts us down the road toward a Peace that is bigger than we are. All because we rearrange our time and our priorities. It’s sometimes messy and frustrating and inconvenient, but Peace and Caring? as the ad says… Priceless.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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