Slip Sliding Toward Peace

Perhaps it’s because I sit and look at a beautiful brass gong from my writing chair, But I am beginning to envision the path toward Peace as a large circle converging on one beautiful center. (This gong is a series of concentric circles in dark or shiny brass.) The outside is the not knowing, the bright inside is walking (and by far the largest part of the gong) and the dark and beautiful center is where all our notions for peace converge.

That’s the story I’m telling, at any rate. And there were are, walking, walking, walking. Sometimes stumbling, sometimes skipping, sometimes needing to sit down on the side of the road, and sometimes, truth to tell, sitting down to enjoy the view and maybe some company.

But here in my part of the world, it’s snowing. So any Peace steps are going to have to be careful ones. Unless, of course, you think what the heck and try a slow and careful and joyful slide. As we get old and creaky, it’s a scary thought, but how exhilarating. Life isn’t all plodding. Sometimes it’s good to let the cold air invigorate rather than just irritate! Woosh.

Bumps in the Peace Road

I lead a fairly privileged life, and I am incredibly grateful. I’m also fairly well protected, much of that protection comes from being well-loved. Here in the center of PA, I am an opinionated vocal laughing outloud woman leading a church that’s a happy amalgamation of so many points of view. For me, it’s heaven right here on earth. I’m proud of the work we’re doing and I’m pretty darned happy.

It took a while to find my place here; But I had old contacts to lean on and met and fell in love with one of the Valley’s most well-loved men. So being a Goddess-worshiping religious radical seemed to just get folded into their notion of Ann and I feel welcomed and accepted most of the time. I get to be me, right here in River City. That’s priceless, and believe me I’m aware of how lucky I am.

There are a lot of women ministers in this valley. I am neither the most radical nor the one accomplishing the most. Good women doing good work. I’m in great company. There are also good men doing good work, but this column isn’t about that. Life has changed in these local churches as more women ministers show up ready to serve in rural PA. All in all, there are more women in ministry now than there have ever been. That’s as true here as anywhere else.

So I am surprised when I garner hostility or outrage for who I am and what I believe. I mean, geezum, folks, if rural Central PA folk of many faiths and traditions can happily check with in with me on a question about their elderly parents or join the UUCSV in a fund drive for Staten Island Residents affected by Hurricane Sandy, you don’t get much more accepted than that. When the staunchly conservative republican woman stops by my breakfast table to remind me to remember to vote, life is good.

Then this winter, out I went to Palm Springs — California, that is, to find people horribly overset that a woman was performing a wedding ceremony, wondering about what kind of new-fangled tradition UUism was (um, about 1530ish?) and whether I was pushy enough to call myself Father Ann. (uh, really?) It was sort of funny, no one’s questioned me about my bona-fides for years, especially since i took on weight and grey hair. (And of course, in the meantime, lots of women were still getting ordained and flooding the market with a new kind of capable, caring ministers.) Not so funny, of course, were all the underlying hostility toward a lot of traditional targets, which I was kept busy addressing. And then, back home, the other day I ran into someone who just, to use a Swedish verb, nonchalanted me — just pretended I wasn’t there. (did i mention the weight gain? I’m there.) And this wasn’t at all belief related, because he made sure not to ask anything about who I was even though we were doing something together. He had something he had to do, and I didn’t want to make him nervous, so I let it run.

These days, I’m actually pretty secure in myself. It’s been a long journey to this point. But now? I love my work, I love my life with its web of friends and family, I love this beautiful, needy Valley filled with incredible resources — not the least of which is music. I’ve fallen jelly-side-up and I’m aware of that, I’ll tell you. So I don’t really have a personal response other than… oh, well, that was surprising!

But it does make me sad as I think about the distance that I forget needs to be covered for some of the world so we can move into greater Peace. I forget that I can’t just be looking ahead, and have to be looking behind for work that that needs to be done to pull people into the present. Some of that I won’t be able to do, this is why we all need help on the road, because you can do work I am incapable of doing and vice versa.

It’s easy to be outraged, but it’s not really useful. In this case, I am not wounded, although one of my sister clergy might not have the support I have. But there are so many who are not safe. So, may my experiences serve as a February wake-up call. And if we feel outrage, let it only be used for fuel and not for endless venting. It’s time to roll up our sleeves and dig a little deeper. Our world needs Peace. And we’re just the people to handle the job. There’s work to do in the world and work to do right here at home, wherever home is. And if you’re asked who told you that, tell ’em Father Ann, a witchy woman of Peace. Shalom, Salaam, Peace everyone!

Peace of Synchronicity

Synchronicity is an odd thing. You actually have to be focused on something for it to start working. It’s a two-way tool. You can start thinking that humanity is worthless and there’s nothing but pain and suffering. and you will see not only pain and suffering but begin to think that humans can only work to create pain and suffering. Or you can notice pain and suffering and begin to do something about it. It is always good to notice pain and suffering. But the human task, I believe is to begin to alleviate it. Each step we take gives those who had been formerly hopeless footsteps in which to follow.

And if we decide to take those steps, it is astounding how often we are met. Once you start the journey, you begin to notice other folks going along in the same (or even same-ish!) direction. Steps toward Hope. Steps toward Love. Steps toward Peace.

And then you start chatting, and you figure out how your goals intersect. And if they don’t you just gratefully accept the surge of energy that comes with knowing that someone else is doing their work. A recent poem, circulating on line by Shiloh Sophia ends like this: “There is only one thing I know that is the remedy for this over-culturation that keeps us captured from our soul’s deepest song. It is this: To declare your sacred work.” And I would add to this wisdom, to declare your work sacred. Because if we treat what we do as sacred, any parts of it that are not will fall away. We will become happier and healthier as we honor our life and its path. And sacred work does sing to other sacred work.

And when we’re singing in harmony, the music moves us along. (Am I working too many metaphors here? It’s happened before, certainly!) I guess it comes to this. We’ll start walking. We’ll keep our eyes and ears and hearts open. We’ll assume that those we meet are good-souled travelers who might want to walk with us a while in the general direction of Peace.

Peace of Punxutawney Phil

Well, Mr. Phil says Spring is right around the corner. My long-range forecaster doesn’t seem to reflect that… and I’m not sure exactly how I feel about Winter’s ending. Truth to tell, I like the cold, and I’m lucky to have the clothes to take care of that. So whether Phil’s right or the Farmer’s Almanac, with their slightly more snowy forecast is, we’ll see. One way or the other, the equinox is barreling toward us in the third week of March (March 20).

Mr. Phil and his mustachioed friend

But while prognostication is a fun past-time, there’s real work to be done in February. This is the time we haul our dreams out from wherever it is dreams are formulated forward into real life. Let us tether those fragments of Peace in our daily lives. The clear picture we had while dreaming can now be reassembled in our waking hours and we can start working on it.

Actually, I’m hoping that Phil isn’t right, that we’re not jumping directly into spring. We need each season so that we can accomplish the work for that season. It’s not time for birds and flowers. It’s time for the painstaking building of a platform for Peace.

Dreams made real. Let’s go!

The Peace of Waking Up

The month is changing, and with it the way we focus on Peace. Last month was about conceiving the Peace dream. This month is about waking up both to its possibilities and its responsibilities. Our job is allowing life to well up in us and to commit to the dream.

Traditionally this day was about the dedication of candles that would burn throughout the year. It is also about the dedication of a spiritual life that would give you and your community life during the year (and life) to come. How will you, your dream, and your life bring light to the world?

The changing light of this season causes animals to stir in their burrows. They may not be up for good… they may be like the rest of us when we awaken to early in the morning… a quick trip to the loo (or in their case out of their burrow) and a return to the nest for one last snuggle in. I welcome the changing light which will shake me from sleep just a bit earlier every morning. I’ve missed the early morning. (but not enough to climb out of bed in the dark!). One of the beauties of my work is that I do get to notice the day’s turnings and live by them… Now it’s changing, get up, I must be going!

If we waken slowly, however, rather than springing out of bed, we get to drag the remnants of our dream into the morning and thus begin our mornings with Peace. As the sap rises in the trees, it doesn’t one day know itself as a frozen knot and the next as a spouting fashion, it slowly unknots and begins to flow. May it be so with all of us. Good morning!

Peace of January Dreaming

Astonishingly, it’s the end of January. If I hadn’t been counting the days off one by one, writing a new musing every day, I wouldn’t have believed it. Zoom, one month gone. It’s blowing away, here in this neck of the woods. After a day of wildly unseasonable warmth, the temps are dropping and the branches are whipping around. I saw a poor misguided earthworm last night who was pretty sorry about the torrential downpour and going to be even more upset about the temperature drop. The Worm Moon isn’t due until the end of month… that’s when the soil’s supposed to warm enough for them to come out again.

I’ve had the quote from Helen Keller open on my computer for quite a while waiting for a chance to use it. It seemed right. We are meant to dream out loud and in color. We are meant to take those dreams and make them real.

It’s not just that the world needs our dreams of Peace, because they do. It’s because we need to dream and to make our dreams come true. It fulfills us. It allows us to live our lives to the very edges. We are invited to become explorers in our own lives. Another great quote, this one from Earl Nightingale, a motivational speaker and spoken word artist, showed up (don’tcha just love the Universe?), “Don’t give up on a dream, just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.” And won’t it just? Why not be the best you? The best you is the one that’s having fun!

Peace on a Star

Winter skies are glorious… it always seems, on those days that it’s clear and that I can convince myself to go out and take a gander, to be distant and huge and filled with many more stars. Being in the desert this winter, where the sky really does go on forever, only reinforced that notion.

So if we’re going to hitch our dreams to a star, it’s a great idea to do it in the middle of winter. They’ll soar far higher and carry farther with those stars.

For the first time in many years, I’ve actually made a vision board. I work best in words rather than images, so mine’s pretty verbal. And since no one’s here to tell me that I’m doing it wrong because “working with words isn’t creative” as one workshop leader tried to convince me. And I’m working hard to narrow the focus and the scope of my vision down. Often my dreams get too big and I wind up missing the mark because there were too many components for one person to shepherd in a year. And as most for most of us, my dream needs to fit into the rest of my life.

Dreamers we may be, but we still want some balance in our lives. It’s not a stable Peace that consumes its dreamers. We need laughter and love, feasts and deep thinking — All those will make Peace richer.

I just looked at the weather, and around here at least, there are a lot of cloudy days before we get a good glimpse of the sky. But how about this: encourage everyone you know to walk outside on a cold and starry night and pick out a star on which to hang a dream of Peace. And then imagine an entire sky, filled with dreams of Peace. Makes it a bit easier to move forward with your dream, doesn’t it?

Peace of the Pieces

And Pieces of Peace…

I have been thinking a bit about the fact that we’re already looking at the last days of January. Aside from the normal, how the heck did that happen… in terms of looking at the year as a building process, it’s almost time to move on from the dream phase of the year. That means we need to begin to assemble our dreams, lay out the word fragments, the pictures, the blank spots, the allies on a board. Can you yet name your dream for the coming year… are you ready to commit to bringing Peace into your life… and into others’?

I’m not always a vision board kinda girl, but they are helpful for some people. Because part of my goal this year is to see the pattern in what i do (which is not my Peace dream — although it might bring me some!!), I am going to start laying things out.

It doesn’t matter if you have a complete picture… pieces will continue to emerge over the coming year, but it is good to have a name and an (even a fuzzy) outline.

I started to write this this morning and then I got sidetracked by our snow day. And that? is the nature of peace… it is piecemeal… work here, play here… that way lies Peace. So may you assemble the pieces of Peace you are gathering… and my you revel in the pieces of Peace you are granted. (if it’s not raining, go sledding!) Balance the work of Peace with the play of peace!

Peace and Magic Making

I’ve been living, as the poem below says, in Mercedes Lackey’s Valedmar, filled with Mages and Companions. It’s been lovely. I was tired and depleted, and it’s been a grand vacation. When you can’t lie on a beach, go to the library!

I don’t read sci-fi in general, rather I read a very small segment of the genre, women’s fantasy, often sword and sorcery fantasy. (and THAT’s about the most I’ve ever admitted in public!) I read it for three reasons, first because it completely interrupts the real world. It helps me stop thinking. When you live in this brain, stopping thinking is an occasional blessed relief — maybe even a rite of holy obligation! Second, I like the that the heros and heroines are always striving for a better world. In my world, I find inertia and stagnation often drags me down, tempts me to ignore my calling to do the same, seduces me to work around my values and beliefs. Heroines on paper? Nevah! Third? I’m beginning to think that authors’ use of magic is really about their longing for to create Peace, which is, I believe, the biggest magic we have available to us in this world.

In this series, I was really struck by the the author’s description of the aftermath of the working of great magic, the disruption it causes in the world. She was envisioning storms arising from a working of great evil, in increasingly larger ripples. But isn’t that how things are? One little action, and sooner or later, ripples begin to spread. With evil-doing, the ripples are two-fold: greater acts of violence and increased indifference them. But isn’t it the same with acts of Peace. One person acts and another is encouraged. One person acts, exposing the ugly root and another sees and acts for the good. We have choices about the ripples we want to put into the world. Indifference or action? Violence or Peace? Willful Blindness or Vision and open hearts?

It’s January, almost February. Here we are, gathering the shards together to begin building our own Dream for Peace, however great or small. Those dreams as we implement them will cause ripples. When people see us act for good, they are empowered to do the same.

Peace of Mentors and Friends

My mother was a particularly good role model when it came to mentors. She was a pretty good mentor as well, but she taught me the importance of mentors. She also taught me that mentors came in many different packages and were not necessarily older than you.

She was a painter. She put that on hold when she was raising children, and the second I went off to college, so did she. For 25 years, she took art courses, studio and art in the dark. She sculpted, she drew, she painted. She scandalized her hometown “girls” by taking life drawing courses. She learned from profs. She learned from students. She took advice and gave it back.

That’s a big key with mentorship, I think. Our best mentors not only help us to see our path and keep walking on it, they ask us, even demand, that we inform their journey. “Grow up! Stand strong! Be a player in this game of life!” they exhort us. They urge us not only to lead by example but also by kindness and by teaching.

I have been so lucky. I have sat at the feet of and carried the bags of great mentors. We’ve laughed ourselves silly together. And I feel the continued pressure to “get up offa that thang” and do my work. Part of my work is mine and mine alone. And part of my work is showing the way. I am very grateful… and I hope mindful.

If you don’t have these people in your life, you start looking around. Because you? are worth it. And because your dream of Peace is just a small fragment of the Peace mosaic… but without it, Peace is not complete. Mentors need to mentor, it’s their gift. And if you’re working your gifts, you’re the best sort of student to come along in their life, because they can point to your work with pride and say “I encouraged that wonderful person and his/her wonderful work!”

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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