Tag Archives: peace

Peaceworking

If you’d have asked me about my greatest fears before running off to peace camp with ThinkPeace Workshop for Girls this summer, after I got past the actual camping part of it, I’d have had to say, I worried about how the girls would get along. I am happy to say that all my fears were ungrounded. (I was ungrounded, I got to sleep inside on a bed! whoopee! Imagine the delight of an Aging Indoor Priestess!)

But I’m here to report that Peace-working causes actual Peace to break out. I’m not saying there weren’t rocky moments and the girls weren’t girls, but they were kind girls. They were involved girls. They were caring girls. Maybe crossing out were, substituting are. They are adorable, strong, funny, smart, wonderful breaths of air and hopes for a new world. They are girls.

These lovely young women watched movies that broke their hearts and challenged their senses of what is fair. They participated in projects that acknowledge that the world is not easy or gentle but are designed to change that. They spent some time writing their ways out of own troubles and then envisioning ways to help World Girls move out of their own. They saw their privilege and looked for ways to leverage that. I’m not sure if they’re clear that’s what they were doing, but that’s what happened. And in their free time, they played, sometimes like the young women they were, sometimes like little girls, running in the back yard, playing in the pool. More friendship bracelets were made than anyone would have thought possible. (As a child of a child of the Depression, I was astounded by the supplies they ran through!) People’s fears were soothed.

And they spent most of the week in a puppy pile on the couch and floor in the Gathering Room. They solved problems together. They traded taking the lead. They included everyone and they worked to their strengths. They stepped up

They didn’t do this on their own. Peace doesn’t break out spontaneously. The week was carefully set up. Boundaries were set. A covenant was drawn, agreed to and pretty much followed. And that week, girls made a difference. In their own lives. In the lives of their companions. In their Leaders’ hearts. And maybe, just maybe, in the way the future grows.

That’s a pretty good outcome from a week of gathered girls. Sing Ho! for the Peace of a Girl.

 

ThinkPeaceWorkshop

The Priestess went to camp this summer. It was extraordinary. I’ve been putting off writing about it as I wanted to get it “just right.” But then I realized, I could write a lot of blogs about camp. ThinkPeaceWorkshop for Girls is the brainchild of Kelly HImsl Arthur and Liz Overheul Curry. Two moms with girls, thinking about Peace. Two moms wanting to raise a new generation of Peace Warriors.

I found TPW on twitter and followed. We followed a traditional cyber-courtship model… follow, like, post, invite, engage! And before you know it Kelly and I and then Liz and I were in FB heaven. And then we emailed. and now? now we’re friends!

They’re doing such wonderful work, offering girls the opportunity to think beyond middle school and senior high activities. These girls are thinking about Peace. They’re thinking about girls and the challenges they face in other countries. They’re thinking about (and doing about) becoming part of the solution rather than one more nonchalant part of the problem.

If you’ve been following my posts, you know that I don’t approach living close to nature with anything other than trepidation… so, I surprised myself when I asked: “Can I come?”

But Kelly said yes, and off I went (and I got my nature in small doses!), and it was extraordinary. Four adults, two young women and 16 girls. Writing, Stretching, Listening, Cooking, Learning, Goofing Off, Getting Serious. Peace begins with a girl. and girls began to envision that they might be that Peace-Beginning Girl, each and every one.

Can’t do it justice in one post. More to follow. Speaking of following… you can find them on FB and become a fan of sweet young girls becoming sweet Peacemakers!

Hats off to Kelly and Liz! Get to know them. And then get busy making Peace as only you can make it.

PeaceSister?

Once, when talking to Kelly Himsl Arthur from Think Peace Worshops for (wonderful, wonderful) Girls (and when are you writing that article, Ann?) she used the word Peace Sister.

Yesterday, in my first sermon back from vacation, I talked about how startling that phrase was and how different it felt from Peace Maker. If you are a Peace Maker you start with the assumption that there is no Peace.

But if you are a Peace Sister, your work is nurturance rather than creation. Your job is to love, protect, play with, encourage, teach, learn from. It’s a title that’s rich with possibilities and rife with hard work. It’s a title and a mantle one can’t assume, unless I’m also willing to assume the responsibilities for My Sister Peace, My Brother Peace.

So… what do I think: Ann Keeler Evans, Peace Sister. what do you think? How’s it look? it feels pretty interesting. Why don’t you try it on? Your name, Peace Brother. Your name, Peace Sister. I must say, it looks good on you. You encourage me to try. And always, always, always, Kelly encourages me to be more and better. How great a friend is that?

Widening and Narrowing Circles

This summer I was off to Peace Camp: ThinkPeace Workshops for Girls. It was astonishing. and I still haven’t distilled everything into a drink I can share. So many wonderful ideas. So many wonderful Girls! And Women! And such wonderful Work. yah. more later! Heaven on a stick for a Peace Sister. (Yes, there’s pondering about Peace Camp for Women!)

But what’s caught at my heart today is the notion of how your circles both enlarge and focus when you begin to look in a different direction. It’s been about a year that Sacred Village has been a public entity rather than a closely shared dream. Goodness knows, thanks to my beloved Web Guy, I’ve owned Sacred Village for years. (Dreams deferred can be just that! And sometimes dreams take a while to take substance. Don’t give up!)

As part of my attempt to put myself out there, I did what you’re supposed to do. I got a twitter account. I started friending people. I started posting. An early lucky follow was Kelly at ThinkPeace. Almost immediately “We Belonged to a Mut-u-allll Admiration Society.” Love, love, love, that woman her partner Liz and their work! I watched in amazement the work The girls and they were doing. I wrote a poem to support their work in Million Bones Project. Eventually, I held my breath and sent my plea… “Can I come to camp?” Yes! Delight ensued.

So off I went. Wow! And there as the teacher of the week was (drum roll, please) the fabulous and lovely Jeanne Demers author of The Ruby Books.

She works with Girls to help them find their Voices. We all started stories. (Yo, TP Girls anyone finish yours?) She’s a beautiful wonderful soul! (funny too!). At the end of the week, the girls started working at their World Girls, doing their research and building connections to girls a world away.

Now Jeanne has moved to Austin (cause that’s how hip she is!) and she’s gotten a job with the Girls Empowerment Network in Austin (GENaustin). She’s going to be wandering into school after school starting clubGEN. Girls will be speaking out all over Austin. The Girls of Austin couldn’t have a better gift. Girls! Leadership! Peace! Empowering and putting to words the connections between those things. What a wonderful, wonderful thing!

I can’t wait until the next time our paths cross. Because now that they have, you know they will again. Sing Hey! for a wonderful new friend and a woman doing her Work! My dear friends, meet a dear friend: Jeanne Demers (Cool Aunt, Great Woman).

Awe

Creation is so much larger than we are usually willing to contemplate. It can take standing at the edge of Grand Canyon, or some equally immense site to help you understand how vast and how ancient this world is.

A favorite Sandra Boyton card showed a bear standing at the edge of a precipice saying something like: As I stand at the edge of the world, looking into the night sky, I am amazed at how small am I. (I’m sure it’s small and petty of me that what I loved about the card is that you opened it up and it said, “it’s amazing how small you can be.” I would never send the card. But I bought it and it sends me into gales of laughter every time I come across it!)

Sorry, back on track. It’s difficult to live in the vastness. And so we retreat. We can only observe the grandiosity and then have to back off to what we can comprehend. If you read Jill Bolte Taylor’s “My Stroke of Insight” or watch her TED talk, she talks about the wonder of her left brain’s shutting down and the right side, which connects with the universal expanding and expanding and expanding. She loved it, but understood that it was not real world.

Awe is in that universal place. And awe is in awful because we are not able to stay in that universal place. It is at once and the same time wonderful and terrible. Or maybe terrifying.  How can there be that much?

And so we retreat back to the mundane. But if we do not continually visit that place of inspiration, we miss at least half of all that makes life wonderful. And I don’t believe that in the face of that wonder, we can feel anything other than connected (by our insignificance). I can’t imagine that you can stand at the South Rim of the Canyon and think “I should own this. and you should not.” Instead you think “this is holy ground.”

So perhaps when we need to make peace, we should go to these sacred places, on our own or with those people with whom we have disagreements and allow the vastness to bring our petty squabbles into perspective. And then we should deal kindly with one another.

Compassion

“Compassion is an unstable emotion, it needs to be translated into action or it withers.”

It wasn’t until I wrote the tag line for this morning’s musing that I realized how many of us these days are confusing posting to FaceBook with standing for the right. It’s a lovely, but wrongheaded notion…

There is no substitute for doing the kind deed or offering the kind word.

And the world is in need of kindness…

Susan Sontag, you wonderful woman, thank you for your words of wisdom throughout the years. I miss your voice.

 

 

Scents and Memory

It’s been so hot here and when i went out to the garden to get some herbs, I brushed against the tomato plant… mmmmmmmmm. right back to my youth.

I have read that we remember things better when they lodge in more than one place in our brain. Songs stick, because there are words, rhyme, meter and tune which all help. And scent of the ocean and and and…

If, when we meet people, we would remember that each of us has joys and memories buried deep within, and tried to evoke that, we would find many more things in common. Peace like memory is built on many levels.

p.s. Reading the poem again today was frustrating… I work so fast sometimes that I don’t fully develop an idea or an image… the challenge in pushing out a daily poem… which will change as I edit it for the book…

Holy Relaxation!

For some of us… and I’m often in this crowd… it is nearly impossible to give ourselves a quiet moment, hour, day.

And yet our souls flourish in that quiet. We’d never think of denying ourselves food or water, but quiet… that seems out of reach in today’s busy world.

Relaxation is different than procrastination. It’s different than indulging our (oh, so embarrassing) technological addictions. It doesn’t distract us. It fills us up.

Quiet, simple enjoyment — it’s good for what ails you… and what doesn’t!

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Fearing the Real Deal

When we skim along the top of life, never doing the work to engage our souls at some profound level, what do we miss?

I believe that Grace is abundant, as is Forgiveness. But I think they mark you when you encounter them, or allow yourself to encounter them. To become a vessel for that grace also marks and changes you. Having tasted them, I do not believe you turn back to “nice grace,” “nice forgiveness.”

I can’t help but believe that our lives could be richer and that Peace is far closer than we’d like to know… because knowing.. we’d start walking toward us. And radical Peace isn’t easy either. But it is Paradise.

It is enough!

There on that lane — in the aftermath of a day — filled with — ritual — poetry —my beloved — good friends — and good food — I shouted my thanks to the Universe! — It would have been enough.

Sunday was a day of completion for me, but also of high notes. I read poetry with My Beloved Drummer and we rocked the house. I did a farewell service for dear members who are leaving the congregation and everyone did amazing things and the service worked. It had been an enormous push to get ready for these two events, but they were well worth the effort. I napped. I went over to a friend’s house. We ate and watched the birds do the same. And then there was that slow drive home. Catching myself noticing, I reminded myself that every day is filled with such beauty. I just have to pay attention.

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