Peace and Despair

I admit, i find it overwhelming right now. That youngsters, because they’re always youngsters, are so despairing of a future that they agree to become human explosives … not to transform the world, which would still be God-awful, but to kill people they’ve decided are enemies for existing.

On the face of it, it’s religion. At the base of it is poverty, no path forward, not enough, not enough, not enough. Here’s the truth. Not enough is enough to cause people to kill others. It’s at not enough that we must go to work.

I’m trying to balance the need for the Peace Journey when my heart is on empty. Right now all I can do is hold this up… but I will… and I do… We must look at the agony and be willing to bring it to an end. That’s the first step. There are a thousand, a million, a billion second steps as we each step toward peace in a different direction. Each and every one of them is a prayer for Hope and Peace.

Handwashing Peace

With all the cavalier decisions being made by politicians recently, all the violence in public and private, I’ve been feeling we’ve really missed the point. Life is sacred. and we’re treating it as if it were nothing. We’ve forgotten the awe. We’ve forgotten our responsibility to that awe.

Life is brief and beautiful. And when we touch it, we should do so with reverence. Creation is an astonishing gift, however you believe it came about and whatever/whoever you believe was the genesis of that beauty. It too needs our care and respect.

And if our world-weary hands are soiled with greed and anger and disdain, we must wash them… and begin again. I’ve always believed the notion of baptism had it backward. Babies, new things are precious and sweet… it is we who must get busy with the soap and water before taking life into our embrace.

We’d all like to point at the other and relieve ourselves of responsibility by proclaiming it is they who besmirch Life and Creation. But, if we’re honest, we all have responsibilities we’ve been shirking. All have satisfactions we’ve been harboring about our righteousness. But if people are without what they need; if Creation is being despoiled… we cannot point fingers. We must roll up our sleeves, pour living water from the ewer into the basin, wash our hands (and cleanse our hearts) and set to work with a will. Because, whether you believe this quote is by the Hopi Elders or June Jordan, we are the ones we have been waiting for. Others are waiting for us as well. So, lets get busy.

Gun Stats Disturb Sabbath Peace

Since the Battle of Lexington until today in Afghanistan, 1, 171, 177 Americans have died in battle. Since 1968, 1,384, 171 Americans have died from firearms in this country (including suicide). This means 212,994 more Americans lost their lives to gun violence in 45 years than in all our wars. (Henry Porter gathered these statistics from the CDC).

Tough statistics to pack along to your favorite house of worship, mountain lake or desert hill. And yet, we’d do well to live with them. If they disturb enough of us enough, maybe we can consider how to make it different…

It seems the Sabbath ought to start with more calming news than this… This is not the road to Peace.

Gleaning Peace

I’ve said it a million times, I’m a religious not a political animal. When a vote is taken by our lawmakers, whether it’s posturing or not, to deny poor people food, I’m aghast.

75 percent of SNAP households include a child, a disabled or an elderly person. And yet that’s still not the point. People are hungry. They must be fed. We are our brothers’ and our sisters’ and our neighbors’ keepers. We are.

I feel naive and stupid… I don’t understand how this thinking enters our worldview. And it is our worldview. I don’t want to hear people say, it’s “their” fault, because people’s being fed and housed is everyone’s responsibility. That’s not socialism, that’s my moral understanding of a just world. Or maybe it is socialism, because I believe our government should provide, I don’t care. I believe that no one should go hungry in a land of plenty. That’s not an equivocating statement, that’s the most forceful statement I can make.

Somehow, we have to turn the tide… in our area we have teachers buying food and slipping it into their students’ backpacks so they can eat over the weekend. Lovely sentiment, lousy precedent. what will we do? what will we do?

One friend wrote this: “We all need to bombard our Congressmen with demands that they restore a reasonable amount to allow a person to live on SNAP. $1.40 a day is not sustainable. That amount is 1/100 of the DAILY meal allowance each Congressman receives ($137.41). We as good people cannot allow this insanity to continue!!”

It certainly puts things in perspective, doesn’t it? But some response is needed…There is no Peace when the people are hungry. There is no Peace if we are not doing what is needed, if we are not doing good.

Uncertain Waters, Complex Peace

I lean toward Pollyanna, I know that. Even when I’m prostrate with grief, I know that somewhere someone is singing: “The sun will come out, tomorrow…” and yet, as I know only too well, you can’t rush past the truth of grief… and not everything is beautiful.

Not every body of water is navigable and many are treacherous. To deny that, to defy that is dangerous; in some cases even stupid. That’s true with floods, and it’s true with simple water on stone…

So, as I look for metaphors for peace, i realize they have to include the way beautiful things have the potential to be dangerously overwhelming… All our movements toward peace need to be carefully considered, because Peace is both wildly abundant and quite carefully measured. Our job, as always, dammit, is discernment — and then adjustment.

Flooding, Frightening Peace

I puzzled before I wrote this musing and this post whether or not I could really combine Peace and Flooding. But after looking at the way neighbors responded two years ago, particularly in places like my hometown Bloomsburg, there is Peace to be marveled at. These are the moments in history where people really move beyond their societally limiting boundaries and offer hands and hearts and help.

But poor Boulder. Twelve inches of rain, in an area that almost never sees that much, would have been frightening enough. But the resultant floods and the incredible damage are overwhelming. Communication has been wiped out in many places, but at this point: Eight are known dead, hundreds are missing. Best estimate at the moment is 19,000 homes lost.

In addition, this non-historically flooding area is home to a good deal of fracking. What have the waters boiled up and spread over the land. We won’t know for a while. This adds a level of long-term fear to what’s already overwhelming.

We don’t know if this flood is a result of global climate, but there are plenty of things that say this can’t be completely discounted.

There are places to offer money… check the web. Money’s what’s needed, not goods. From other parts of the country, money makes good neighbors.

I’m trying to focus my energies on places where I can have impact. I’m not a good fracking activist or a good climatologist. I can point others towards those issues. I am good at helping people reach out and at motivating folk to do that. I will do what I can where I can. But this is another choice point where we get to ask ourselves, how much, really do we want Peace? Do we want it enough to reach out? And having reached out, understanding that that extension of the hand and heart is Peacemaking?

Can you personally do something about Boulder, other than sending money? I don’t know, I don’t know your skills. I don’t know how close you are or what kind of hard work you can provide. But can you as a result of Boulder, or whatever stirs/spurs you to action, extend your support in your community where you can do a great deal of good? I think we all can do that. It’s not always easy. It’s sometimes tedious. But it’s the practicing of Peace on a daily basis that makes the practicing of it in difficult times second nature. Stepping up when the steps are little makes climbing the big stairs easier.

So, yes. Peace. even in the floods. And perhaps, in the aftermath, some activism.

Fakin’ Peace

Since yesterday, I’ve been mulling over what it means when your teacher… and your ritual maker misrepresents herself… and realizing how meaningful her rituals were despite her claiming them as something else.

I now am fairly convinced that even the “teachings” were hers and not as represented.

There’s something so sad about having good work and not feeling confident enough about yourself that you can claim it as yours. There’s something awful about grabbing someone else’s traditions and pasting yours on top. Things have their own integrity, and we should acknowledge boundaries and take responsibility.

So here are all these great metaphors and small rituals and well-tested ritual actions and they’re besmirched a bit by falsehoods.

And yet, they led me to Peace. So maybe there is growth for the other in that. The problem is that if you’re the fraud, maybe not so much growth and a bigger wall between you and Peace.

And I looked just a bit, there might have been a water monster, who wasn’t so kind, but there were Water Little People who were helpers…

But I love the notion of a monster who thrives on problems. Bring ’em. And so we do. And leave ’em. Peace and water are often joined in a metaphor… and How fun that there might be a Peace Monster. I might have to divine what that might look like… But here’s one thing I’ll tell you… I’m not about to attach him to another tradition.

If you and I can become Peacemakers by dreaming and doing, why not dream a Peace Monster companion to gobble up the pains of the world? In the meantime, we’ll keep practicing Peace. Is that faking it until we make it? who knows… But we do what we can, as June Jordan reminds us “more than that, what can anyone ask?”

Water Monster Peace

What if some of your most profound experiences were scams? I was just doing a little research about the teacher I mention in this musing. I have kept up over the years, but never seen these notices. Oh! the blessings of the internet…

And now the question emerges… if it was a scam and it worked, does that mean it has no value. Absolutely not… Was it merely suggestive healing? Is that different from spiritual healing? If you spend a week sitting on the ground doing meditation, dreaming and rituals, even if someone made them up, does it matter? Oh, that’s great. Ya gotta laugh you know.

But I love the notion of a benign Water Monster who thrives on my problems and burps back Peace … And today, I’m longing for a 10 day sit/walk/swim/peace and quiet by some beach somewhere with warm water and a benign monster to eat my problems… Oh, there’s work to be done… so I’ll get back to it, laughing all the way…

But not about the fact this woman didn’t have the courage to say she’d thought long and hard and that these were rituals she’d designed to work on these issues. Nothing wrong with designing rituals (says the ritualist), I do it all the time. I just haven’t usurped anyone’s heritage or claimed a tribal name (I don’t think Sister Fluff and the Goddess Gospel Hour comes from any other tradition…)

But again… pack up all your cares and woes, there you go, singing low, hey ho, monster!

Teary Peace

Last night a group of my sister’s friends had a gathering at a local restaurant that Deb had loved. They all sat around and told stories about her, fun stories, stories that showed what a character she was. The fact that the staff donated their time says a lot about who Deb was. Celebration and remembrance… it’s what we require…

And I did what I hadn’t allowed myself to do up to that point, or at least in public — cried me a river… Losing Deb is world shaking. I know we lose our siblings. I know Deb was sick and not going to live a whole lot longer. It’s a good thing that she slipped away easily. I hope it’s one bright morning over yonder.

But I hate that she’s gone. She was a sweet and easy part of my daily life. One of the ironies of people’s dying is that as they become weaker, you care more for them physically and so the bonds are even more tender and close and then they leave. I honored my mantra, and kept my hands and heart open so she could leave, but now, until the cracks men in my heart and it holds love again, I’m left feeling pretty empty-handed and -hearted.

It’d be nice to think that my musings weren’t always reflective of my inner churnings, but that’s what musings are I guess. I’m aware of the importance of writing about Peace as I mourn Deb’s loss.

So, since I’ve been thinking a lot about water in the September Peace musings, it seemed inevitable that I draw the connection to life-changing tears. If the chemical composition is really different for tears of heartbreak, (can anyone help me here???) then it seems to me that they must leach the sadness out of our bodies and dilute the grief somewhat. Is there a chemical compound for grief? Do we really require 35 hours of story telling to begin to heal? What if we stop up the outpouring of our hearts and souls… how do we pollute ourselves? And then, Ann being Ann, I have to ask, how do we find the balance… because some of us certainly continue long beyond what helps us… and some of us never let loose…

But the water of Peace, sweet and refreshing… I have to believe it’s richer for the bitter tears we shed. Certainly our Love deepens…

Wading Peace Sabbath

I’ve probably watched too many Westerns and read too many stories of people escaping to freedom, but I’ve always been fascinated by the role that water can play in people’s escape from their lives.

I’m sure it wasn’t easy and that these journeys were fraught with desperation and fear, but that water could play a role in saving people is very interesting to me. The notion that water is forgiving of our humanity… I’m drawn to that.

Many of the notions in Christian baptism do not draw me… particularly infant baptism. The notion that we are born in sin, and needful of forgiveness, don’t get me started. And that isn’t quite where I’m going with this either.

This musing concerns itself with the notion that water can hide us… and transform us. Today I notice the tie to the waters of the womb where we transform for the first time and emerge new and newly aware…

It takes determination to wade in the water with an eye to coming out transformed. Whether we’re being pursued or are simply in the need of transformation… It’s a misty Sabbath morning — maybe there’s space to think about this today…

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