Dancing for Peace (and Sanity)

Dancing’s a wonderful thing. It gives you joy. It expresses sorrow. It helps you hang on sometimes when the hanging isn’t easy.

And yet, we don’t dance enough. Not in public. Not even in the privacy of our own homes. Not with our friends. Not with strangers, Not with all sorts of folk.

One of the things I love about my husband’s Monday night gig, is that all sorts of people come. Lots of people with whom I have lots in common and lots with whom I have nothing in common. And we dance. And we laugh and we hug and we go home and we can’t say we don’t care about the people who care about life differently than we do.

And now, probably always, but now, there is reason to dance, because life is hard. But dancing can give us some hope.

And that’s grand. And that’s dancing. and that can lead to Peace.

Dancing, yeah.

Building Houses of Peace

Fallingwater is beautiful. Crafted by a major architect in a gorgeous setting, it is a feat of amazement. I’m awed by it… To build where the water, land and sky meet… what vision. Walking around, you notice not just the architecture, but also the Peace of the forest and rock and the waters that tumble over them.

But it is a wonder, not a house for the likes of most of us. And that’s a good thing, because the forest needs to exist without our building roads into it.

But houses of Peace need to be every house. We need to create Peace in our own houses. And we need to make sure that everyone has a house. I’ve lived in a place where there are very few homeless. And I’ve lived in a place where there are too many.

It’s an expensive proposition to house the world. But people’s dignity and sanity change. We need more affordable housing. and we need job training so that people can work at the jobs that are available, so that people can afford to support their own housing.

Yes. That’s a lot of need. But a world of people with employment, with health, with education, leads to more Peace.

There are so many ways for us to give Peace a chance. But to begin where we began, outrageous beauty in the midst of outrageous beauty is one of them.

Ah, Summer, Berries, Peace

This is the time when the sweet foods of summer begin. Here come the berries. Oh, yum. Such delight.

I don’t know if there’s more to say about the richness than “Welcome!” I don’t know what there is to say to one another other than “Let’s Enjoy!”

This is so fleeting, Let’s celebrate. And Peace is in the delight and the sharing of that with one another. Berries for Peace, yes indeed. (and cherries! and lettuce! and radishes! and…)

Welcome to early Summer. Let’s make a trifle of Peace!

Early Sabbath Morning Peace

Up early this morning, not quite early enough to see the coming of the light… since sunlight was a bit subdued.

But the Sun is rising about as early as it will rise all year. Only four more minutes to add to the day from the morning side… (a few more than that for the evenings).

Quiet golden dawns are an invitation to reflection… Sabbath is an invitation to reflection. I keep wondering about, poking at the notion that I might start Sabbath at sundown Friday along with so many of my friends and enjoy it all the way through Sunday sundown. I would want to live deliberately during that time; to be present and conscious…

Maybe that can be a goal for my time away this summer… slow, peaceful days — with some fun in the sun with my favorite folk tossed in.

It’s early, here, but I have a bit of sermon to polish and tuck into my ipad. Wishing you a lovely day, hot and humid as it is…

Watermelon and Peace?

Summer foods and particularly summer fruits have a Peace all their own, I think. Although I tout the maxim that we should eat foods grown within a 50 mile radius of our home as I was taught in Chinese Medicine, I confess I lose sight of that when certain summer foods begin to show up in the grocery store far earlier than our fields are producing them.

Watermelon is one of those things. I could eat summer watermelon for breakfast every day.

So when Dag posts these pics and vids of her pack of wagging pups delicately taking turns eating watermelon, it makes me laugh and laugh. And completely understand.

Indulge in Summer it’s what it’s for. Share that indulgence with whoever your with. Let them delight too. Summer Delight. Summer Peace.

Sons and Daughters of Peace and Justice

Why is this not a thing? Why is there not a group? Or better asked, why are there not groups?

My friend Jen Curley and I did a logo for Peace Bitches… I still like it. I may need the tshirt.

But I think we need Peace Warriors and PeaceMakers and Peace…

Right, Peace. we need Peace and people ready to make it.

Let us Peace. Let us be known as people of Peace.

Poppies for Peace

Poppies make me sentimental. My mother inherited a red poppy/purple flag garden that blazoned on Memorial Days throughout the year. She loved them, tended them carefully and painted them wildly. I’m sure the garden was planted to be patriotic, and that works, but for me, that season was the end of school and the beginning of unlimited swimming and reading, so it was a season of great joy. The fluttering poppies always seemed a celebration of that time.

Now that I’m working as a minister who has two months off in the summer to spend time reading (and swimming!), they still wave hello to the same glorious excitement!

I don’t know whether I discovered Icelandic poppies or California poppies next, but my love for the red/orange poppies. I just fell down a rabbit hole of reading about the differences between what we think of as common poppies and heroin poppies. Confusing. I’ll let you do your own googling!

But they’re all beautiful reminders of life’s power. They are given out on November 11, in remembrance of the soldiers who died in WWI… They were chosen, the lore says, because they only grow in disturbed fields. Battle will do that. But still beauty grows to reclaim the anguish.

They make Peace with the land and serve as a reminder of the importance of Peace.

So the next time you see a poppy fluttering in the wind, think Peace. And then go and do something about it.

PS. A shout out to my friend Pete who is the usual Wednesday photog… she’s not feeling well… muah, my friend. Feel better soon.

Spelunking for Peace

One of the rarely remembered pieces of my youth was going out with the caving club my first semester in college. (What was I thinking?) Wiggling through enclosed spaces isn’t exactly what you’d expect me to do. Or it isn’t exactly what I’d expect me to do… And then I got in trouble with the dorm president because she didn’t get the call that i’d be coming back late. So I got yelled at for no reason. Put me right off spelunking, if the actual spelunking hadn’t already!

None of which has anything to do with today’s stalactites and stalagmites. Those incredible pieces of beauty grown from dripping water. Drop by drop making a difference.

That’s the way we we can make a difference with Peace. Drop by drop.

It’s what we must do… It’s what the world needs. And Peace is every bit as beautiful as the Luray Caverns! Or will be if we persist!

Memorial Day and a Plea for Peace

Today, as we swim and picnic, and do all those things that mean that summer is beginning, we also remember.

We remember all soldiers who died. But we forget the soldiers who live and our responsibility to them. And so too many of them don’t have what they need for re-entry; many don’t have the healthcare they need. We forget who started Memorial Day and why and so we allow racial injustice to continue. What’s that I say? Right, we don’t know the history. Why is there a memorial day? Because freed black slaves celebrated those who died for the cause of their freedom. This doesn’t really jibe with the revisionist notion that the Civil War was about states’ rights, does it. It keeps bringing things back to enslavement.

And even the spin on patriotism — we don’t question the sacrifices of young people and their families, we wonder why we keep making wars. What’s that you say, some wars are made for us? True. But others, were not.

I’m not a strategist. I’m not a perfect pacifist. But I believe in Peace. I believe we must prepare and study and plan for Peace. We must wage Peace.

And part of waging Peace is remembering those who died.

Today we remember. And in their names, we recommit to Peace. At our picnics today, as we remember those who died, let us talk about Peace.

Taking in Knowledge, Sabbath, Peace

I learned so much at the Slave Museum. It is stuff that will work itself into my brain and into my life. I know , or understand, despite how profound and enormous the knowledge, that it will take a while, perhaps even a long while, to assimilate.

And while I’m assimilating, the world goes on, both changing and unchanging.

Today is the Sabbath. It’s a good day to breathe in change and breathe in Peace.

(And perhaps go swimming in the town pool because it’s open!!!! )

Wishing you all a lovely day… and here in the midst of Memorial Day Weekend, a chance to remember all who died in our many wars. Even as we’re sad and grateful, let us commit our hearts to Peace.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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