On Mother’s Day, let us remember how being a mother connects us to our children, and hopefully to other mothers. Julia Ward Howe wrote “let us be too tender of other mothers” to think for one moment it is all right to send our babies to kill the babies of others…
Mothers have a great deal of power, let us use it for good. I wish us all a happy Mother’s day and a blessed Sabbath. And may we see all the young ones as blessed babies of Peace.
I saw a trailer the other day for a film that looks at the effects of the sight of Earth hanging in space on the astronauts and on us from their pictures. (Here’s the 20-minute clip) It was mesmerizing.
I’m going to have to watch it a bunch more times before I completely understand what’s starting to stir in my brain. But what I’m starting with is the oneness of it all, of us all. And that’s a pretty wonderful place to start. It was hard jockeying this into ten lines, but, that’s my daily job, and I’ve chosen these limitations this year. So here we are. Happy beautiful rainy Saturday. I haven’t decided which chores I’m going to lazily attempt!
There are many things that enable Peace-building. We make it perhaps because of our similarities and across our differences. Both attract, both interest. For me it took going to another culture to realize I came from a culture. At 17, what I experienced in my little world seemed to be the norm. It was shocking to find out that the Swedes, outwardly so similar, had a distinct culture. And I was off…
But I also think it’s the laughter at ourselves and life’s predicaments that can unite us. We all have some equivalent Nature stories. One may come from the desert and one from Pennsylvania’s verdant Spring, but everywhere Nature sneaks up on you. Many of us who live here have brushed against a lilac tree on a day after a rain and had a lovely lavender blossom dump a flower-full of rain on us. I remember a time as a child, all unwary, I pulled a flower to my nose for a sniff of Spring and got a faceful. I squealed and laughed and looked around shamefacedly hoping no one else had noticed. If someone did/does, in that laughing is the rueful acknowledgement that they too have been caught by Nature’s natural sneakiness. We’re always making memories… and if we’re smart, we’re finding ways to take Joy from them. Stories like this are great to tell and open to all sorts of sly embellishment.
And so, my friends, I wish you the Peace of rueful self-laughter while caught in Nature’s embrace. Laugh kindly when you notice someone else’s predicament and share your story. That’s one simple form of Peace-building. There are many more.
Sometimes I think that we’re so enamored of “getting it right,” that we forget what leads up to that… the painstaking, boring, careful, oh, so necessary practicing that takes us there. It takes hours of practice (some say 2000) to be really accomplished at something. And not everything in our lives demands that level of accomplishment or that level of practice. But something does.
And it’s not always just our musical chops, although as someone who listens to a lot of live music, let me just say that practice is a great thing! and that actually your adoring public can usually tell if you haven’t bothered to begin your day with those scales or those paradiddles! Life and performance are simply smoother when we practice.
But other things take practice as well. Being kind, for instance. Speaking our heart. Noticing Beauty. Being present. Counting Blessings. Making Peace. These are all muscles we need to exercise again and again. It takes a while, but sooner or later, if we’re diligent, they become reflexive. We become accomplished. We’re making that Peace, smiling at those strangers, wearing our hearts on our sleeves. There we are: Peacemakers. Peacegardeners, Peacestewards… However you define yourself in relation to Peace. What? You say you don’t? Well, better figure out what your Peace role is and start practicing. 2000 of your Peacehours will make a big difference in the world.
Today’s musing was inspired by my friend Deb Slade’s fabulous picture of a Lilac: deep purple blossoms edged in white lace. So beautiful. and I oohed and ahed and realized that a couple days ago, she’d snapped a pic of some other piece of Nature’s Beauty and I’d oohed and ahed. Paying attention is so important. Being in the moment. Noticing! and Appreciating. Lilacs are here for a very short period of time and well worth swooning over. But each and everything has its brief moment of beauty… so pay attention. Wondering, will I be in the continental US when the locusts make their nosiy appearance. ewwwwwwww. i mean Cicada (noisy) Peace. ANYWAY, it’s great to have friends like Deb, who help us see the sights we don’t always stop to indulge.
Peace is a practice. Or perhaps, more correctly stated, there are many ways to practice Peace. One of them, and I think it adds to all other practices is to pay attention, to notice.
We fasten easily on noticing what is wrong. But we move more deeply into Peace as we notice what is right, what is strong, what is beautiful. Blessing counting.
When we do this we fill up. When our hearts are full of good things, it’s easier to keep creating more. When our minds realize how many blessings there are, it strengthens us to deal with the horrors and helps us not to dwell there even as we work to transform. Noticing the Beauty helps us to become one of those beautiful things. One of my frequent prayerful admonitions to myself is to “Count my blessings and make myself a blessing to be counted.”
Watching a niece the other day, I had to admit to myself that I’ve become very sedentary about adventuring. My mind is adventuresome, but i don’t take the rest of me off exploring very often. I have Important Work, you know. I have A Great Deal to Do. Peace Must Be Made, you know.
Sigh. Be it here resolved. That I Ann Keeler Evans, Priestess and Poet, (you have grandiose names for yourself, right? Come on!!!) is declaring herself Ann Keeler Evans, Adventuresome Poet and Priestess. Sweet Drummer and I are going to find an adventure this week and then make a practice of including more Joy in our lives. Chores to be accomplished will have an element of adventure thrown in. Time to find (refind) the Magic of Everyday and the Magic of the Deliberate Adventure. I’m going to practice at this a bit. Start collecting that laughter lying around. Because really? Peace isn’t going to be worth lots if we’re not laughing all the way.
Yesterday, my sweet drummer and the two guys he plays with, serenaded the people returning from a successful trash picking in and along the river. He said there was a tractor trailer’s load of junk piled up by returning folk. People were so pleased and excited to have removed so much debris. And we’re so grateful.
We all need to get out on our waterways more. And where they aren’t what they should be, we should get involved and take some responsibility about that. Our land and our water are precious gifts. Now as the weather becomes outdoor weather, and we’re all going walkabout again, remember to shove that trash bag in your pocket. (I’m talking to you, Ann!)
Get outside, enjoy the community, enjoy the weather, enjoy this beautiful Earth and its life-giving, life-saving water.
Hmmm. I realized only as I was sending out my enraptured piece about the tiny, beautiful, blue grape hyacinth this year, and its stealthy overtaking of a local field, that I was waxing poetically about one more invasive species. I feel fairly strongly about invasive species and how thoughtless and harmful we are to introduce them.
Now, we can certainly excuse a farm wife from 200 years ago, because people didn’t know then what we know now. And I don’t know that this little blue creeper has done any harm. But many beautiful transplants have taken over whole continents and crowded out the local plants. And let’s not even talk about rabbits. (I never realized quite how furious this invasive species thing made me until I found myself in a rather heated conversation with a vegan who was sad about a rabbit slaughter in New Zealand. In all the years that rabbits have been NZ and Australia, nothing has evolved as a predator. So they go on doing what bunnies love to do — eating and reproducing — and devastating the countryside.)
So here I was writing a paean to another. sigh. It’s so hard to put all the pieces together. And a field of blue is hard not to admire, even to gasp in awe at. On the West Coast, blue and purple are frequent wildflower colors… here they are rare. hmmm. That might have been a tip off… But still, here is this field that looks like an impressionistic painting. This is a field my parents drove up on River Hill to look at every year. They took their parents. Dad took his sister. Deb and I do the same and drag along those we love, spreading the tradition. I have taken Steve when the hyacinths are in bloom. The hyacinths constitute an Evans Hajj, a family rite of holy obligation and joy. Admire. Wonder. Give thanks. Remember the Farm Wife.
And I wondered… could we make this work for us in some way. Is it possible that Peace is an invasive species? No one really expects Peace to break out. Can we be subversive and teach children to love? Can we plant Peace in out of the way nooks and corners and watch it slowly take over? The people who say it isn’t possible are far more numerous than those who work actively against Peace. So what if we were to convince them, bit by bit, Peace by Peace.
And then we could begin to make a quiet pilgrimage, year after year, to encourage its spread and to laud its growth. We could take more Peace with us. We could take our Peaceful friends. Eventually we could take our friends who have not been believers and let the gasp in admiration and conviction. Soon they would bring their friends. And then we who believe in Peace would so many more than those who work for their own gains… and we could quietly, stubbornly invade even their hardened hearts. Just a dream you say? Well, Disney told us: A dream is a wish your heart makes… This is a wide-awake dream, not a fast asleep one, but a wish of my heart nonetheless…
Some of us had never been invited, because our traditions weren’t understood as part of the fabric that held our community together. It was never malice that excluded, but the reality was there was just no space, not even a consideration of space. Some of us, who were invited, never felt comfortable going, because our sisters were not invited. For most of us, the project of taking on such established institutions was daunting and it’s always better to be known as standing for something rather than against. Many of us shifted from foot to foot as the National Day of Prayer approached.
This year, a group of us had been gathering. A group of women, united not by the same faith, but by the disciplines of faith and the calls to leadership, had been meeting for coffee and conversation. We recognize each other’s work and challenges. We’re coming to know a bit more about how different faith traditions impact those two things. We’re laughing a lot, and our deepening friendships and collegiality, and oh, yes, support, improve and deepen our ministries. And laugh. Where two or three (women) are gathered, there will laughter be also… even if there are tears.
So, here came National Day of Prayer and the chance to add something to our community rather than distract. We decided to undertake a Prayer Vigil. We handed out assignments, I asked my friend Jen Curley to design a logo and we made pins so we could look official Then we invited our communities, gathered and prayed. First Annual. My friend says if 6 people come it’s a success. We had 3 or 4 times that many, and at least that many again of Women’s Interfaith Clergy Group. Prayers, poetry, and prose were read. Songs were sung. Silence was maintained. Gongs were sounded. Cookies were shared. Peace was sought; and indeed made. Next year it will happen again, may the weather always be as lovely. We’ll invite more people.
We also invite you to pray for peace, for 5 minutes every day during the month of May, sometime between the hours of 6 and 7 pm, knowing that people of different faiths and traditions are doing the same. May you pray with some question about what you will bring to the Peace process. And then may you put your prayer to work in the world. Peace. It’s in our hands, hearts, minds, souls… Let’s get it out into the world where it belongs.
Hooray for this group of average wonderwomen going about their callings. Hooray for whatever group supports you in your work. Hooray for more Peace in the world.
