Indulging in Snow Moon Sabbath Peace

All the beauty of winter was on display yesterday. And here’s it’s message: We have to get out in it while it’s here.

It’s a challenge, it seems to take advantage of the beauty of something as fleeting as snow. But part of snow’s Beauty is the temporary nature of it. Those sweet, beautiful flakes. those blanketing drifts.

It’s so easy to dash toward the cold and wet and the icy. But the Beauty is real.

If we don’t indulge the wonder, we lose so much of life. And the complications are real. You’re going to be late when it snows. There’s going to be extra work. You’re likely to have to pit your strength against its implacable presence. It’s slippery. It’s Winter. It’s snow. Yet another sacred manifestation of a sacred season…

But the slippery part leads to sledding and tobogganing and hot cocoa and laughter. Such different fun that any other season of the year.

And it’s unbelievably beautiful. So mind where you walk and get out there and be amazed and amused. Happy Sabbath! Happy Snow Moon! Happy Peace!

They’re all ours to enjoy and indulge. What are we waiting for?

Martin’s Peace Lunacy

Happy Birthday, Dr. King.

We have so much to be grateful for in your leadership.

Such daring. Such truth telling. There are those who say you were just a man; that’s the genius of your work.

Because if you were human, great things can be asked and expected of us — we who are also simply human.

Peace. Courage. Conviction. Devotion. Faith.

You changed the world, and challenge us, with your life and your death, to do the same. You changed the world with your insistence that each life is sacred.

We give thanks… Let us then begin to move toward Peace in whatever way is best for us!

Lunacy’s Wild Peace

I started writing about the Moon for a few reasons. The list grew as I was writing about it…

One. I’ve always loved the Moon. I love that she is calm and reflective. I love that she is beautiful. I love that she changes yet remains the same. I love that she calls to me.

Two. She rules our lives in ways we don’t often acknowledge… she particularly plays with the tides of women’s bodies. (I almost remember).

Three. She rules the Night. As a culture, we aren’t out in the night anymore. Bad things happen we’re told. Women get rapped, be afraid. And we do. More often we’re raped at home, so better we should get outside for a breath of fresh Air once in a while. Because the Dark is Beautiful and so is the moon. And we give up half our lives… a very important part if we don’t honor the Night. The everflowing balance of Dark and Light is what makes the world beautiful.

Four. Wild things happen in the light of the Moon. We’re no longer the allies of the Wild. We’re so mixed up about the Wild that we think we can take selfies with bears. And we can. We just die when we do, because, it’s a bear — those cute little things with the big paws and claws… But it’s only when the domestic and the wild, the prey and the preditor walk side by side, honoring the others’ existence that life is full and balanced.

Five. Magic happens by the light of the moon. We fall in love. We find ourselves and one another beautiful.

More? As I find ’em, I’ll list ’em…

But for now, Let’s gather in the moonlight and dance for Peace. Lunacy. Let it happen to us.

Seasonal, Musical Peace, llvl

There’s been all sorts of music for me this holiday season. From listening to the intricate, beautifully wrought (and sung!) choral music right down to the music making with my voice teacher in her living room. Learning something new, hearing something fabulous.

Last night at the Mitchell Musical Mash-Up, the kids were back from college and grad school. Ahhhhhhhhh. Music, music, music.

People used to sit around and sing. We don’t do that enough. It’s one of my secret joys in church. I love that I can burst into song in the middle of a sermon and everyone will join right in!

One of the sweetest things about these Winter holidays is the music. Take your choice: old beloved music, hoary chestnuts and new and interesting pieces being written; There are wonderful sacred pieces from many traditions and lovely secular favorites. They get played to death on the radio and in the malls and we know ‘way too many of them, even the ones we don’t like!

Singing matters. Singing helps. Having a season defined by song is a rich tradition… and it allows the meaning to deepen every year. We need traditions. We need songs. So, let’s make some memories. Let’s sing along. Let’s hear what our neighbors are singing… and why not sing a sleighing song tonight and have a rollicking good time? Laughing all the way might bring us a bit closer to Joy to the World and Peace on Earth. What more could we ask?

Solstice Sabbath Peace, llvl

So much newness going on. It’s the new Cold Night Moon. It’s the Midwinter Solstice (6:03 pm). Blessed Dark! It’s still Chanukah! More light! It’s the Fourth Week of Advent: Peace on Earth! (And Hope! and Joy! and Love!) It’s also the Sabbath and I’m so taking a nap after services today!

(I’m going to start talking about the moon to get us ready. As we leave a year of living locally, we’re entering a year of Lunacy: by the end of the year, we’ll be looking for that orb in the sky and appreciating how the Moon works on our lives!

Although many people will be celebrating the return of the light, I will be lingering in the Dark… I celebrate its beauty and its calm. I’m not a naturally quiet person, so when the season turns dark, I’m encouraged to tunnel down into the Beauty and Silence.

Soon we’ll have snow and that will lighten the world considerably… but for now, shhh, the world is sleeping.

Peace to you, my friends. Peace on Earth! Wishing you Joy in this season of Sacred Holidays, whatever you celebrate. (and whatever you do, if you can find it in you, celebrate!)

Peace Where You Are, llvl

You know me, I love the holidays. I like pretty much whatever holidays I run into. It started with that trip to Sweden my senior year in high school. Swedish Christmas, so different and yet so festive. I’d grown up a quietly religious girl, Christmas there was fairly secular but steeped in cultural traditions. I got to spend 5 Christmases with family and friends over there. It forever changed how I celebrate.

And then I lived in NY. This time of year, it’s all about the bright lights. But my dearest friend there was Jewish. And so I was invited in to all those fun experiences. And foods. I really love festal foods. I like the rhythm of going back, year after year and having the right foods at the right time. To sit at table with people you love.

For me it’s not about the particular holiday, it’s about the whole experience with all the amazing sensory experiences — and the Love. It’s always about the Love for me.

And then it was off to CA… and that was the first time I really firmed up my own sense of these sacred days… Oh, yes, the Solstice. And the house on the hill overlooking the bay. And the friends. We got to design it to fit us. Our home… pretty fun.

And then back here to the family and what they needed, wanted. When I came back, I don’t think I understood how much their needs needed to be first. And so went the first 12 years. But in the midst of that, I was growing into a new community who had their own celebrations and they fit very well!

And now, we’ll see… But all these holidays gave me such pleasure, have such distinct flavors, taught me so much. As the song says: there is more love somewhere… hopefully it’s where we decide to be… Peace on Earth! whatever you celebrate, whoever you are! Joy to the World!

Little Bits of Peace, llvl

This is a crazy-making time of year. Everyone’s caroling about Heavenly Peace, and meanwhile, back on Earth, people, particularly parents are going cray-cray.

Oh, It’s the break for Winter Holidays. Let’s throw in the end of the year madness so that no one has any time at all to enjoy things.

So, I’m coping any way I can, but one way is to celebrate each little bit of completion as a gaily wrapped Holiday Package under the tree I haven’t done anything about putting up.

Yesterday, it seems I wasn’t alone in feeling the stress. There was more than one FB post saying “ack.” (or alackaday… how come no one says that anymore? Robin Hood and the Sherwood Forest Gang used to say it all the time.)

So if you’re making a list (and checking it 800 times, sure the jolly red-suited guy only needs to check his twice, well isn’t HE special?), you might want to keep a little tally of everything you’ve done. At some point you might decide, “that’s enough!” no matter what else is on your list.

But I wish you small islands of Sanity, small experiences of the Sacred Dark and Quiet, and yes, you know me, I’ll keep holding up Peace as something to aspire to! Maybe it will inspire us to put down the list and enjoy something we love. And along with Deb Slade in this beautiful photo (look you can see a snowflake!), I’m hoping for snow. We don’t want the reindeer to have to work hard in case they have to land! And besides, getting snowed in would mean a bunch of things got accomplished! pant, pant, pant.

Nostalgic Peace, llvl

Yesterday I went to hear our local Chorale’s Christmas Concert. They’re amazing and there was a wonderful soprano soloist. Bill Payne, the conductor, is such a great gift to this area and these singers are proof that every valley and plain have incredible music if only someone will provide the venue. People here have rallied to do that.

So, there in living color and voice, was my past. I don’t know how many times I’ll choose to visit it again, without really strong impetus — and I’m not sure what that would be. As fond as I am of some of the carols and a couple of the stories, I realize there are so many messages of sinfulness and separation from self that I can’t abide to listen to it. I no longer believe, whatever my path, that there is only one way.

So, I found it, both thrilling musically, a bit sorrowful, and a fair amount indifferent. Next year, I want to sing paeans to the dark, the sacred and the mysterious. I want to hear music lift and soar to the heavens and and sink to touch the unfathomable Deep. This year a man’s written a piece the choir is trying. It’s very challenging… but we’re struggling through it… singing about the moment when the world stops on the solstice.

I need to do more about making space for myself and my friends and for our community… I will always celebrate the birth of that particular small babe… but I cling to the wonder and think/hope/pray we might look to bringing about our own Peace on Earth and Joy to the World, not just for that babe… but for all babies, because they all matter…

Reflecting Sabbath Peace, llvl

What do we see when we look in a mirror. if we only look deliberately, we see the face we believe we show the world all the time. But is that the face? I think there’s value to having a lot of mirrors in our homes, because it’s the face we catch a glimpse of on the fly that’s the one we offer the world. There are times that’s not reassuring!

Recently, after Deb’s death, I noticed how much grief I really carried. “oh, I’m fine,” I’d think and then I’d see my face… And why did I have to be fine? Why couldn’t I be grieving… and how could I continue to grieve in such a way that didn’t cause people to want to fix that the moment they saw my face? Because, there’s no fixing grief, there’s just living through it. I had to be ok with grieving, and I had to give myself the space to do it, space from others… it required a face I was in control of…

If I want to offer the world kindness and Peace. If I want to be generous and open, I have to become those things to look them. Mirrors are pretty good gauges of where I am, of who I am.

Often, who I am is tired. When my mirror tells me that, I should pay attention. I finally began to listen to my mirror as I realize how out of shape I am. I have a long journey ahead. I need to be stronger, fitter. And so I’m swimming and going to the gym regularly. There are other secrets the mirror whispers about that I’m beginning to take seriously. Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who am I… You don’t need a mirror spirit to answer that question, but you do need to look…

And because I’m tired… because we’re living in the season of tired, which makes it difficult to notice that it’s a sacred season, I’m going to embrace the notion of Sabbath, of a deliberate pause in the rush of madness… If I want to wish everyone Joy to the World and Peace on Earth, I must strive to be those things, I must look those things, not merely mouth them. Looks like there might be some mirror sessions ahead… I may not get it right, but I might get a start! a peep into the wonder of creation might be a good place to begin… May I truly be a reflection of the Peace I long to see…

Sometimes Sabbath Peace is enough, llvl

Whether it’s a little boy laughing and flirting in a cafe or a grandmother with a lapful of love in sleepers reading her two boys a story, there are just times that the innocence fills your heart. And you know, the force for Peace is powerful.

But those two little boys in my friend’s lap face a far more uncertain world than the little in the cafe because they’re black and he is not.

That has to stop. We have to change that. We do. Because loving, giggly, happy boys deserve a chance… And the world deserves to know what gifts of wonder those little boys can become.

Sweet Sabbath Peace be with us. Wish me luck I’m preaching a difficult sermon on this today… For those celebrating the sacred season of Advent, I wish you Hope.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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