Shadowy Peace, llvl

Few of us spend any time looking in a mirror — and when we do, often we don’t look beyond our hair. We’re discouraged from our childhood fascination and exploration in a mirror. During puberty, we learn to see only flaws in the mirror. Young adulthood only asks that we be trendy and from the first grey hair it’s all down hill.

But, stop!

There’s a lot to be seen in a mirror if we really look. Who we are is right there for us to examine. If we give ourselves a chance, our beauty is right there.

Also, It’s said that in a darkened room the shadows of our ancestors can be seen as well. All their hopes and dreams for us are there. Whatever they made of their lives, and I believe most people do the best they can, our forebears’ wish for us is that we will make the most of our lives, that we will be people of change.

Do we want that? Do we want to be people who do what we’re passionate about? What we’re interested in? Do we want to be beautiful because we’re filled with zest for life, because we’re hopeful?

Maybe starting with the shadows we can see not only our ancestors but also all the Possibilities for Peace that lies in our hearts. Wouldn’t that be a lovely sight?

You’re beautiful! And in the soft shadows we can’t see our imperfections — simply our beauty. Peace be with you. Peace be you. Peace of the shadows. Peace of your heart.

Your Piece of Peace, llvl

You do the work everywhere you can make a contribution, but, there are a lot of advantages to being involved in Peacemaking in your little vida local.

One big one is that you can get very clear what is needed if you’re partnered with the right people. Where do you get the intel you need? When you can get it from the source, that’s great. Our congo is supporting the school district back pack programs — but we’re really supporting the school district as they try and support their kids.

A short flurry of emails with the program director yesterday and we have our marching orders. The school nurse needs clothes and shoes for the kids. So, we can start working on this. We can buy them 6 bins and fill them up with pants, shirts and shoes for boys and girls in the requisite sizes. Because the children have no shoes. Somehow that’s the most painful statement I’ve ever had to make. The children have no shoes. And no clothes.

Pam thinks I’m enthusiastic. Well, yes. But I’m also realistic. These babies need this. And we can do it. So why wouldn’t we? Why wouldn’t I ask you? No reason whatsoever. What is your piece of Peace? If you’re not absolutely clear, the best way is to try something little and see if it makes your heart race. If so, do a little more. If not, try something else… You’ll get there. and in the meantime, you’ll do little bits of good wherever you are. And your community will be better for it. So will you. Peace, an addiction to cultivate. Step up into Possibility.

Peace in the Park, llvl

Peace makes its start locally. The work that you and I do here where we live is a building block for bigger Peace.

It’s not that hard to respond to what’s needed. You make a few calls, put out a bit of Love on Social Media, and next thing you know, you’ve got a couple dozen folks standing around in the park drinking cider on a chilly night i October. People were standing around getting to know one another, while across the street, people were getting the 4-1-1 on how the world was going to come to an end.

I’m always going to be more interested in how Love is going to come to fruition. What possibilities do Love, Peace, Community offer us? Maybe it will be a dinner for our communities, maybe not. Maybe we’ll keep building on the Love Flows Project… but one way or another… Love happens most easily from easy invitation.

And then there we are, being Peaceful and laughing all the way. Let’s here it for Love and Peace in the Park.

Focusing on Peace, llvl

There are so many distractions, and they’re noisy and brightly colored and many of them awful. And so we run from pillar to post, poking at this, poking at that… and it pulls us away — maybe it’s only me, but i doubt it — it pulls us away from what we can do.

We have to witness, yes. People need to know we hear and see them and their plight. And we have to keep making a difference where we can. We have to speak up, gently, firmly, insistently. And we have to keep making a difference where we can.

If Peace really is piecework, then I have to keep working my little bit of it, building up piles to be put into the pattern so that you can do your little piece of it and so that together it starts to be a blanket that covers us in Possibility, Hope and Comfort. And every once in a while we should feast and dance and rejoice because that does a heart and body good. (and a mind and a soul!)

Seeing the madness. Hearing the hatred. Insisting on Peace.

Peace Dreaming, llvl

Dreaming… It’s so important… Imagining something bigger is the first step to Peace. To envision sitting someplace with people unlike you in appearance but so like you in heart and soul; people who live somewhere so different from where you live… ah… that is a great and luxurious pleasure.

Dreaming is more than day dreaming, dreaming is serious business. It’s fun to simply float along, but it’s good to have a dream that looks to become reality. That sort of dreaming stretches our hearts and our heads…

It’s been fun to go to sleep on this bed with the map on the wall above me. and of course central to the map is Sweden. My whole life changed in Sweden… For a lot of reasons, I relearned friendship. I learned to speak another language and thus listen differently. I lived in another culture. I lived in another family. I was transformed, my heart fundamentally altered. It was such a wonderful experience. I came from such a safe wonderful but supremely little world. And then my life was broadened… even though I moved to another little world…

I love sitting betwixt and between… being here and remembering that life can be restarted… and looking at home where life is also burgeoning. (Deb Slade always knows how to capture our attention, doesn’t she?) Love. Peace. Growth. Possibility. The world really is much bigger than we think. Let us give thanks for the Wonder of it all!

Peace: Fantasy and Reality, llvl

The picture Deb took this week has really rocked me. I look at it and see another possibility… another world. It stirs a childhood fantasy to life that there was/is another possibility for life just beyond the cupboard door (or the station wall, or, or, or…)

Now it may be that I live in that fantasy… look at the projects I invest in, Love Flows, Peace… all ridiculous pipe dreams, but are they. They’re pipe dreams we choose to invest in. If we live la vida local and really choose to make a peaceful difference where we live, if we promote Justice, which I talk about all to infrequently, but which is the heart of Peace, then we can start Peace in our little corner of the world and let it spread. And what really, if we decided to make this the Valley with No Hungry Children? What if we just changed our world? We can do that. If each of us takes a neighbor’s hand, life can be different.

And, for me, it’s that fantasy that reminds me. I believe the role of fantasy is not so much to take us away from the real but to remind us what could also be true. I’m particular about what I read… I’m not giving into despair and cynicism. I like my read to be a good one, but I’m not interested in people’s pulling things apart because there are plot malfunctions. I’m longing for the dream. Let us dream dreams. Let us see visions. And then, let’s make this a much sweeter world…

Mystery, Beauty, Peace, llvl

Our beautiful little village and our photographer who captures it. This is such a splendid picture of what’s happening all over at this moment in moist and lush central Pennsylvania. There are certainly other places as beautiful, but none more so, I think.

For some reason this catapults me back to childhood and playing make believe. Which I did for years. (who knew, all those years when they thought I wouldn’t ever grow up, I was just preparing to be a writer.)

It’s true that today’s Ann looks at this and thinks, oh, there’d be bugs under there (yes, I’ve gotten crochety/practical as I’ve seasoned.), but when I look through the eyes of the little girl I was I see Magic and Possibility everywhere. And where there’s Magic and Possibility, there’s Peace. There’s got to be Mystery, too, who knows what magical beings might choose to live in such beauty…

So, feast your eyes on this picture and enjoy the beauty. Consider who you used to be and consider how you might have played in this Faerie garden and who you might have met… Oh, such joy!

Popes for Peace, llvl

Well, it’s not my local vida, but it’s the vida local at the heart of three important religious traditions. There where there should be Peace, there is only conflict.

I can’t tell you that Francis’ gesture toward Palestine and Israel will go anywhere, neither can he. But his open-hearted invitation and their acceptance gives Hope. This is the work Popes are supposed to do, since no one else is making any progress. On the sixth of June, when they pray together, may we all pray for Peace between Palestine and Israel. And as our prayers hang in the air, like incense, let us wage Peace.

If Peace doesn’t start with one of us, it doesn’t start. All our high-minded posts on social media about revering the soldiers don’t matter today, they matter tomorrow and the days after that. If we revere them we do everything we can to keep them safe. We do that by addressing the Need and the Possibilities for Peace that don’t demand their ultimate sacrifice.

Realigning Peace, llvl

Every once in a while, you get a day that is all about wide open space. Exhale.

Sometimes, you want to take those days off and just relax. And I say, do that!

But other days you realize there’s all this empty space for thinking, considering and pondering. Days when you can re-imagine your Life or maybe your Work. Days when there’s an itch to poke at.

That is not a day to fritter away. That’s a day to seize. That’s a day to take yourself seriously. Try this, try that. Let Peace, with all its bold Possibilities push at the constrictions you’ve placed on your life, even your soul…

Why are you still here? Go be present to yourself! Dream very large dreams!

Surprising Peace, llvl

Sometimes you surprise Peace. Sometimes Peace surprises you.

Tuesday’s ruling was a surprise. Even though I’d been seeing rumors, I hadn’t really been able to allow myself to hope. Could it really happen? Could such a thing be true?

For years, I’d thought what I’d heard, this will only happen when the Federal Government acts against all state bans. The work, in this state, was against the thousands of small villages and townships and cities and their codes that specifically allowed discrimination in housing and workplace. Enough small changes were made that SB & HB 300 are finally in the legislature and look like they have a fair chance of passing. Even our antediluvian governor seemed predisposed to sign this.

But then, boom. And there was dancing in the streets. It’s only now, a day or two later that the wonder sneaks in. If you have witnessed the pain of elder lesbians and gays, years of solid relationship under their belts weeping at young couples’ blithely assuming the right of hallowing their relationships, laws be damned, it doesn’t seem real or possible that, just like that, life is different.

The surprise isn’t lessened when you’ve tried to make your life a Prayer and a Witness for the change. It’s only compounded, I think. So many people for so long have lived in fear or at the very least been forced to accept their position as less than.

Here in a state where the assumption was that Life and Possibility could not stretch that far. and yet they have. Grace. Peace. and overwhelming Joy. Thanks be, to the All that Is!

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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