Tossed Salad Peace

While tossed salad might be a bit confused for a Peace metaphor, it’s probably not far off. A while ago, people suggested that the term melting pot was not as helpful an analogy as it could be and the idea of a salad, where bits of individuality are tossed in merry abandon is really far more what society is like. The more bits, the more interesting! Life is abundant, we need to open up to experience the joy of that, rather than holding on to things so tightly that we squeeze the life out of them…

When we rub up against one another, we take on each other’s flavor a bit… life gets spiced up… balance is established and that’s a good thing, that’s a Peace thing. That’s a beautiful thing.

It’s wrong, I think, to consider Peace as a calm pool… it’s a river, it’s flowing and changing… Peace is like that. Our job is to keep it running smoothly and stop throwing acid into the water.

Oh, dear, now I’m off on a river metaphor and have left the salad to the side. Ah well, rather than fix it, let’s just take our salad to the river and sit in peace and quiet beside it.

Sweet Peace of a wonderful salad to you.

Peaceful Picnic Sabbath

I love to picnic… whether that’s eating on my porch or going to a pavilion in the park where you line up the “covered dishes” on one table and sit around wooden tables… (with your favorite picnic cloth to be sure!) Why yesterday, which was almost a picnic except everyone opted for the airconditioning, I was introduced to a whole new concept in jello “salad.” I never make jello. I love it at picnics!

It’s the food. It’s the outdoors. It’s the kids’ running around playing age old games… swinging on swing sets… and later sitting around campfires, singing old songs (with those few of us who are old enough to remember campfire songs. Last night I was with people who had never HEARD Ashgrove before… sigh.)

So, let’s bring back picnics… it’s a great way to spend time with people. It’s fun to learn what other people put in their potato salad. And let’s remember that we can take along our own dishes… and not make a mess to be recycled. Here’s to eating outdoors on a peaceful Sunday afternoon… Here’s to a peaceful picnic Sabbath…

Iced Tea Peace

Nothing gives me more pleasure than a pitcher of cold tea in the fridge … other than perhaps a thermos jug that still has ice tinkling inside. For some reason, I have been sporadic in my tea making this summer. But right now, I have one of those jugs sitting on the counter in my kitchen, and I’ve been running back and forth for two days, filling my glass. (my haven’t they changed jugs for the better, there’s still ice in there this morning!)

Not having tea all ready is actually a sign of my not taking very good care of myself. I caught myself doing a couple half-baked measures that pointed toward iced tea… wound up with cool rather than cold… but finally… or rather again!

That pitcher of tea also makes me more hospitable… Here, c’mon in, sit down, have a glass. We need to encourage whatever it is that makes us feel so at home at home that we want to invite others in… Opening our hearts, our home, extending our hospitality to others is a huge and important first step on the way to Peace. Having a jar of tea in the fridge makes that huge step much, much smaller…

So, for me, there really is a connection between Iced Tea and Peace that moves beyond my own enjoyment of a peaceful glass of tea on the porch… What is the food or drink that most invites you to open… your heart and your home? We need to capitalize on any cues for Peace we can find…

Melon Peace

I realized as I was sending out this message, that here it was hot and humid, and there is no melon in my fridge! That’s an oversight that needs to be connected with a trip to the farm stand today. Mother Nature really concocts some wonderful things, doesn’t she?

I have a picture I treasure of my friend Lorraine and me eating melon on a beach in Corfu. Back in the days before we knew how dangerous sun worshipping was, we were young and tanned and beautiful and thrilling to the taste of watermelon. It was so hot that day and the sun was so bright. We’d hauled that melon on the ferry with us for our day-trip to another side of the island. Oh, it was heaven.

Actually, when I start reminiscing about melon, I can think of many wonderful meals with melon as a focus point… and all of the memories are of slow, relaxed meals. What joy. And it’s not as if eating an abundance of melon is bad for you. Slurp! And how many foods can you say that about?

I don’t know if melon is really a key to World Peace, but I do know that the cultures that don’t grow melons crave them, and the cultures that do relish them. So perhaps, they could be a reminder of the importance of World Peace. Certainly we need reminders. And we need slow meals with friends from cultures all over the world. If we start weaving peace, there is no way they could bring us to war with one another. So, maybe, yes, melon could be a key to World Peace. Let us make it so.

It’s certainly delicious enough to be!

Putting Up Peace

I don’t know what it’s called where you come from, but around here, thanks to German roots, you put up vegetables (up where, one wonders.)

So yesterday faced with far more zucchini than I (even after waxing eloquently about it) could manage, I through it in the crockpot with a whole bunch of other wonderful things, set it on simmer and came back 24 hours later. yum. A whole pot ful… some summer for now, a bit for later in the year.

I’m currently savoring Nature’s bounty over polenta, with just a bit of cheese! yep! Yum!

I don’t know how we’d manage it… whether taking a photo and putting it on our mirror would do it… but imagine if we could take out a little Peace success and fill up/fuel up when we’re not having much luck moving forward… It’s one reason we really need to catalog successes, no matter how small. It hits the reset button, helps us to remember that small successes work and that we have made progress. and hooray for us.

Computer glitches have me running behind… so it’s time for me to finish today’s bounty (sufficient unto the day is the bounty thereto!)

Eat now, put up some abundance for later!

Eggplant Peace

Oh, I know I’m shallow. I know the only reason to make Peace here, there, and everywhere isn’t just so you get to taste the food of other cultures… But it’s not the worst reason, really, it’s not! Food can be an interesting place to enter… and entering to explore beyond the food boundaries…

Those beautiful, comma-shaped Japanese eggplants were an invitation beyond my world. it seems so simple, change the shape, change the spices (but keep the garlic constant) and everything was different. And now I feel differently about the aubergine… and all the other delightful shapes and colors with which the eggplant graces the world.

“Same, same, but different,” isn’t that what they say in Thailand? That’s what the eggplants are and that’s who people are… and that’s one thing that makes life delightful.

Nature offers metaphors everywhere. It’s up to us to explore them and to live beyond them! That way lies Peace.

Lingering Peace

I forget, until it happens again, how absolutely wonderful it is to dine outside in a quiet courtyard as dusk moves in on a summer evening. It can be the most indulgent, sybaritic experience.

I had that experience the other night, and I wonder, why don’t I do more of it. The food doesn’t cost any more, but it always seems to taste better. We all had our little islands of light and conversation in the dusk, but were pulled together by the music… It was a marvelous experience.

And here it is the beginning of August, and I’ve still not set up my porch. Too busy, too hot, too… and yet, some of the best porch sitting is ahead of us… so I’m off to accomplish at least some little part of that today!

It’s good to have lovely indulgences in our lives that take advantage of the beauty of nature, the gifts of the seasons (and of our senses), and the sweetness of good companionship. And it’s important, now and again, to give ourselves the gift of simply being present.

There on Friday night, in a little courtyard off a busy street in Williamsport, over plates of good food, in the company of friends, to the accompaniment of wonderful music, I did that. I hope you find the time to do the same… You are all the reason you need to indulge yourself in Peace.

Zucchini Peace?

It’s come to this. I’ve just created an analogy between zucchinis and Peacemaking… A bridge too far?

When I said I would write about summer vegetables, I knew I’d have to write about the zucchini… I mean, it’s a constant of the garden box… So I thought, tackle it early in the month and get it done.

People write differently. I’m never exactly sure where I’m going to go with a piece, whether it’s a sermon or a poem. I’m one of those writers who hears from her subjects rather than one who starts with a plan. I write to find out what I think/feel/believe, and then I formulate and format. So there was the lowly zucchini, the butt of so many garden jokes, imparting its wisdom about the importance of versatility and willingness to get along and, oh, by the way, the gift of abundance.

If you live in central PA, people are as likely to be making chocolate cake with this squash as they are ratatouille! Oh, they exclaim it makes the cake so moist. I’m sure it does, but if I wasn’t eating that 15 inch coconut cake at our local diner yesterday, I’m not wasting the calories on zucchini cake! I’ll take mine with sauce, thanks anyway!

I dawns on me as I write this, that versatility and willingness to get along or go along are not always good… it’s up to us… isn’t it always? Nature provides what she does, in this case in great abundance, the question is what do we do with it? So, my dears, wishing you the Peace of the big zucchini!

Sabbath Peace and Potato Salad

Of course, it would have helped if I’d have written this post yesterday, and we all could have prepared by making a big ol’ bowl of potato salad to mellow overnight in the fridge.

There’s something fabulous about having a day when the food is made in the fridge and all you have to do is pull it out. Some cold protein, a couple salads, an icy slice of watermelon. mmmmmmmmmm. and life is grand. Add people and it’s a party. Add a book and it’s relaxation. Either way it’s Sabbath living and that’s pretty grand.

Maybe I’ll clean off the porch before I go over to my sister’s this afternoon, because the weather is really just perfect for porch sitting. What will you do to revel in your life? It’s a fair question, I think…

Peace, my friends. Enjoy the day.

Peach Peace

Every time we come to a new fruit or vegetable, I think, “there simply isn’t anything better than this…” whatever this may be… and so I’m stuck, obsessing about some particular piece of loveliness until Nature and agriculture’s next gift comes along.

Right now, it’s peaches. Oh, so good. Not those cue balls they sell in grocery stores, but the juicy, run-down-your face things you buy at your local farm stand. Sweet. and weirdly fuzzy. Why did that evolve, do you suppose? Certainly not just to entrance those of us who devour them! And of course the camp is divided between the entranced and those who just can’t stand the feel of the fuzz on their lips.

They are, for me, the quintessential August fruit. You can’t eat them elegantly, they’re juicy when ripe. You delight in them and their stickiness. And what more is asked of us than that we delight in creation. Give thanks, say grace and eat a peach. And then consider how your being in the world might offer people delight… even Peace. Be a peach for Peace, how about it?

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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