Learning More for Deeper Peace

In the Christian Bible, John 8:32, it is said, “you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”

John was talking about Jesus, but it was a quote that kept circling in my brain yesterday, as we walked around Whitney Plantation as it explained and illustrated what slavery looked like for enslaved people, for the owners of enslaved people and for the sugar cane industry.

I may never eat sugar again.

It may be the appropriate response.

There are probably a lot of other appropriate responses, but I don’t know what they are yet.

I can say to you that this was a life-changing experience and that you’ll hear more.

I can say that what we learn in places such as this can lead us to a deeper Peace if we’re willing to make Peace in face of the realities. I hope we’re all willing to learn…

Making Peace with the Past

Today, I’m visiting my niece in New Orleans. She’s coming to pick me up and we’re driving off to visit in the Slave Museum. It’s going to be one of those days where you come face to face with exactly how horribly we can treat another human being and how extraordinarily people can respond.

It’s one of those visits i feel compelled to make. When I thought about making this trip, it was one of the first things i thought about. The video introducing it is so powerful, when i saw it months ago, I thought, I must see that.

I think from time to time we need not to look away from what is true. This is one of those things/one of those places.

And so I go, and try to make sense of humanity’s willingness to make the most egregious compromises about other people’s very existence… to acknowledge our complicity in eviI go to remember the courageous people who endured. Peace be with us all.

Different Peace for Different Folks at the Truckstop

Some people go to truck stops on their way to somewhere; they’re wayside stations for travelers, portals for the open road. So useful now that priories aren’t on every street corner and don’t have to take you in.

For truckers, for instance, who stop at the same places, time after time, it’s part of their neighborhood. These are people they know and greet, maybe even a couple times a week. This is why they exist. This is where long-haul drivers find and create some sort of normalcy in their jobs.

For people out on a vacation, these really are refueling stations. Gas, free bathrooms, and standard, if uncreative, reasonably priced food.

For me, the memories about truck stops are after late, misspent evenings in my youth. Whether I’d been out with friends, or working late at the bar, the truck stop always had a warm welcome and the kind of breakfasts I eat only late at night. All this familiar food in slightly exotic locales. It may be local, but you don’t really belong.

So much possibility at one Gas n Go, eh?

Peace comes in many forms — at the truckstop and other places. Find it! Create it! Let’s Peace!

Fields of Potential and Peace

I know it’s what happens. You plant seeds in dirt and over time, they transform into plants. From nothingness into something astonishing.

And somehow it’s the first little nothings into somethings that I find the most amazing.

Life! That’s how it happens. Some marvelous alchemy and viola!

Peace happens that way too. If we’re willing to tend it and water it and weed it.

Let’s do that, shall we? Let’s plant Peace and watch it grow!

Waterfall Beauty, Waterfall Peace

I suppose there are people who don’t like waterfalls. I can’t quite imagine it, but i suppose there must be… I’ve stopped to gaze at waterfalls everywhere I’ve been… When possible, I’ve swum in them. yayayayayay.

Aside from the beauty, apparently the falling water does the same thing that oceans do: produce negative ions that raise our serotonin levels which make us feel better. Here’s a collection of articles that talks about it. Interestingly, lightning is the largest producer of negatively charged ions… which may explain our excitement about them.

And then of course, large waterfalls can produce hydroelectric power and change the world or ok, maybe just the community for the better. Clean Energy! We like it!

Native Peoples have often found waterfalls sacred, they celebrate the source of life that is found in their beauty. Maybe it’s the ions, maybe it’s the mesmerizing nature of the falling water, maybe it’s the power — whatever it is, for me, it adds up to Peace giving time spent watching water fall.

Scott’s picture is wonderful. The falls are beautiful and the sunlight and shadow are also beautiful. Wake up, my dears, here’s some beauty for the day! Peace of the Waterfall be with you.

Spring Salad Peace

I love salads. A lot. I love them when they are huge infusions of green. Kale salad? bring it on. Tastes like you ate a lawn? Exactly! Hurrah!

And now it’s flowers in the salad time! More goodness… although if you’ve got leftover salad, pick the flowers out, eat them tonight, they don’t overnight well!

After Winter’s Heavier meals, spring salads come with packed with wonder as well as the vitamin C and whatever else they’re filled with.

Each of the Summer months have tastes all their own, but Spring has salad.

And that’s enough food Peace to gladden a heart!

Sabbath and Refueling for the Peace Journey

If we did nothing else for our Sabbath but refuel — whatever that means to us — that would be a good thing.

My hope today is to restore some hope. It’s been a tough time for Pollyannas recently. Life is a challenge, and some of it is downright ugly. What is with people we wonder and can we reach them?

Well, not every day. Sometimes you just need to deal with whatever’s in front of you and breathe in some much needed Peace?

Can’t see it? Stop and look around. Beauty everywhere. Landscape. Friendship. Quiet. Gatherings. Find what you need. Breathe it in. Experience it.

Prepare for Peace. For you and for the world around you.

The Peace We Have to Offer

In a world awash in violence and carelessness, what do we do? How are we Peacemakers?

I don’t know what to do about Daish or Boko Haram. I don’t know what to do about Oil spills. I am aghast at the ugliness of our political process. I watch what happens in the world in sad horror.

Yesterday was one of those days where I felt helpless. I couldn’t focus on the stuff I do do and can do, I could only see the spots where loving hands and peaceful hearts are not, as yet, having an impact. I don’t have money to give and I don’t know how effective petitions are, although i sign them, religiously — in every sense of that word!

Someone asked the other day, when talking about unemployment, the need for retraining (which means the need for a community college that is accessible and affordable), and the need for new organizations, when do we teach people to fish. It’s hard not to hear that as a reproach. But I have to remember, that our small community can’t change these things. that’s not our mission. We can agitate for it, and maybe some of our members can engage in that, but our community can do what we do best: gather money for backpacks and hygiene products, support local charities and help our migrant workers.

Aside from that, I can stay informed. I can mourn the horror. And I can work hard at kindness. Every day. Because it matters. Every day Peace. Every day.

Present for Peace

If Peace is going to happen, we’re going to have to show up. We’ll have to show up eagerly, hopefully, purposefully. We’ll have to be there with our whole heart.

The time for holding back is gone. It’s time for generosity.

Every day we need to be showing up and doing our best for Peace. She goes nowhere without us.

This goofy happy dog made me realize, yep. Dogs. They show up for the pack. Here I am, I love you! We could learn a lot from dogs about showing up.

And because we’re humans, we can be deliberate about enlarging the pack we run with.

Peace wants us. Let’s show up.

Campfires, Treats, and Nature

I like this picture, it captures something wonderful and something less than wonderful. (Spoiler alert, Ann reveals herself as a traditionalist)

Mountain pies and s’mores are great things. Especially when they come enveloped in history. Remember the time and place we…

That’s not so true anymore. Everything needs to be instant. Nothing can be special, reserved for those moments when all the right ingredients are there. When you’re in the place that they happen.

S’mores from the truck are a tasty treat. But they have no history. If you have the history, then they’ll spark a memory. If you don’t have history, it’s just one more bit of sugar.

And frankly, they’re a sticky mess. Too much drippy marshmallow. ‘Way too sweet. You don’t really EVER need a s’more, in fact, there’s good reason not to eat them, but they’re great when you’re hangin’ by the fire.

But here we are lined up for something as ephemeral as memory…

Let’s maybe find a different way to make Peace.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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