The Peace of Love Sabbath, llvl

Saying I love you, right out loud. It’s what the world needs. More love, extravagantly stated, more love, outrageously lived. More love. “There is more Love somewhere!”

Yesterday, after viewing pictures of one of my grooms being fêted at his job in this little central PA town, I said that what I felt was the right song to sing right then was Bob Marley’s “Redemption.” Staying the course makes the difference. It’s so important that the laws change. It’s great that the church turns out for the weddings we’ve just had. But we’re UUs, you’d expect that. We’ve worked on ourselves, signed petitions, and not always without effort or halting, opened our hearts and our doors. But the proof of change is in every day people’s getting it.

And they do. So, let me say to the other whole bunches of lot of States: Be not afraid. for all the brouhaha… the people are leading on this. And haters aside, they’re leading to Love. And the haters are loud and ugly. but they’re not the majority any longer. Marrying for Peace: an idea whose time has come.

Love, Love, Love, Love, crazy Love. or as Mr. Seeger might have sung: God’s countin’ on me; God’s countin’ on you! And sometimes, we just see God through. And if that’s not enough work to take the Sabbath off, i don’t know what is. Life is sacred; our job is to cherish it! Happy summer.

Remembering Peace, llvl

I’ve been realizing what a time of remembrance summer is for me. It seems, looking back that some of the sweetest memories were summer ones. So all summer, I’ve been doing slow and wonderful things that remind me of my family and I’ve been a watering pot. I’ve been weepy lots and lots. I miss my family. I miss Deb, lots.

I was so happy when I received the invitation for Bob’s celebration. Bob and his wife Peggy, who’s now gone about 7 years, were very good friends with my parents. The Houstons were family friends, I loved all their daughters. I love that even though we see each other only once a year or so that we have all this shared history. They know me, who I am and how I think. Our life choices have taken us in many different directions, but since we all know where we started, we can sometimes trace our way forward to where we are today. We love one another… Love simply is…

It was a beautiful day. Bob talked about how he used Sam as a model of who we wanted to be and how he wanted to age. He spoke about mom’s painting lambs in his barn. All these little moments of our lives were there to be touched and explored.

A day under the trees of remembering old memories and making new ones with cake — wow, a sheet cake that was half coconut half banana! and Tandy Kakes. PA picnics.

Small sweet, sacred oases of Peace in the midst of a challenging world. Seize those moments when you can! Life! It’s what we build and we have and what we can remember.

More Creek Peace, llvl

It was one of those perfect moments. (so perfect it needed more than one musing.)

“When I sit here, I want Heaven to look just like this.”

“Heaven is right here.”

Heaven was right there in so many ways. It was one prolonged moment of bliss. The water temperature was exactly right. The sun was slowly being hidden behind the trees. The air temperature was warm enough to keep us comfortable in the cool water but not too hot to bear. Old friends talking about big things and little. A front porch experience in the middle of the creek as the neighbors drifted by… neighbors as they always are. some noisy with exuberant kids, some quiet and precise.

And in the heart of it, a moment of Perfect Peace. Magic in Nature. No place to go. Nothing to do. Who knew that making memories could be so completely effortless? Just Being on a summer afternoon into evening. Telling tales of families that held everything of fondness and at that moment nothing of missing. My whole crew so easily could have been around the bend… Floating Heaven. May you have a piece of Heaven to remind you how sweet life is and how sacred.

Summer, Sabbath, Creeks & Peace, llvl

You take your Sabbath where you can get it. Mine started before sundown yesterday with a stroll down to the creek, followed by a quiet plop or two as we settled into our chairs in the middle of the creek.

And there we sat. With no particular place to go and nothing pressing on our minds. People kayaked by. They inner-tubed by. And there we were on the front porch of Peace.

We all waved and wished one another a good evening… Just being neighborly as folks traveled a sweet highway.

A friend joined us. More desultory conversation ensued.

And then the frogs sang.

Ah, the Sweet Sacred Peace Prayers of Summer. Mother Earth was putting on the ritz in a quiet kinda way. This is what a Sabbath is all about for this (don’t tell anyone this part) Country girl.

Peace River Puzzle, llvl

When you live in this Valley, the River’s part of every story. And every story, no matter how universal, is local. We have to live where we are, make Peace where we are.

When I think of the Peace River I also think of the song, “Peace (Love, Hope) is flowing like a river, flowing out of you and me, flowing out into the desert, setting all the captives free…”

So, I want always to be near that river. To tenderly hold it when I can contain it, to release it when it is so much bigger than I am. To float on it when I’m able. and to be part of it when it will allow me. Peace River. La Vida Local. A committed Life. Peace.

Progressive Peace, llvl

Sometimes we have to write the same thing, over and over again, until we hear it.

Peace is a series of very small steps — and not all of them are forward facing. Sometimes you have to slither over to one side or another. But hey… doesn’t that make it dancing?

Along with quite a few others, I’ve been feeling burdened. At our local poetry reading last night, one of us read a poem about headlines, and the headlines of long ago were echoed almost precisely in the poem. That’s years of the electric slide.

But you don’t become a Peacemaker because it’s going to be easy. You dedicate your life to Peace knowing that it will not only be challenging, but also tedious. Tedious, it’s the worth. And not only is it tedious, I dither. (slide to the left, slide to the right.)

But as a mentor reminded me, it’s one foot in front of the other. I love this week’s picture with the open gate. It’s gorgeous here. It’s gorgeous there. But the journey waits. Might as well go now while the conditions are good! Because out there, people are such need of our work. War. Violence. Greed. We need to be a sacred oasis. A moveable feast of Peace. (and there’s my image for tomorrow!)

Here’s today’s poem (typo corrected from what i sent out! gah!)

Roots of, Roads to Peace, llvl

If you’re going to live la vida local, part of the joy is celebrating those places where your life was “local” before.

This weekend I went “home” to my college for our 40th reunion. (ok, one more chorus of darling we are growing old, move on. sing a loud raucous chorus of a college chant). It was, it always is, balm for the soul. Part of it is the remembering, that piecing back together of a place inside that pleasured us. Part of it is the people, people who have been part of my life for a long time. People I love. People I respect immensely. People who share a passion for life and for the education of women — because they know what it’s made of us. They may not be the warp on which i’ve woven my life, but they certainly are tangled in the strands or perhaps they reinforce it. (ok, i’ll stop, i don’t weave, and I’m sure the metaphor can be stretched only so far!)

I’ve been doing a lot of that this year and I’m going to do more. I was in California where I lived for 13 years. I saw dear friends. I’m going back to Sweden. My friend Soo is going to Alaska this year, visiting places trying to heal from the loss of her husband, places I saw while trying to let go of my sister. She carries me with her, she carries me in her heart, with apologies to monsieur cummings… I went to Wilson. (and after that, I went to the blues festival and saw a woman I adore sing the hell outta those blues! more about that tomorrow)

On the way down to Wilson, I was eager to get there, thinking about who would be there, reveling in the act of going somewhere, stopping along the way for a meal, indulging myself. And getting there, re-immersing myself in the pool of loving affection that is my small class of women and one man and all their loving spouses, was simply luxurious. We knew each other when we were young and passionate and insecure. Perhaps you can’t say of all of us that we know one another well now, but for certain, we recognize one another. We can understand how each woman became who she was today. I have to say that I have both liking and admiration for each. What a treasure is that.

So it was wonderful to touch my roots at a time when my life is unsteady. And then, driving away, it was wonderful to drive home to the life in which I am (re)becoming indigenous — all the more celebrated because I was coming from another place where my life had been so grounded. As I came home, I drove up river to the place that is at one and the same time, source (for it was here I started my education if not my life) and life (for it is here that I have re-rooted after a life of wandering.).

Because I have always been a wanderer, I treasure the journey as well and the sights you see along the way. Ah, my wide and beautiful river set in a broad valley surrounded by rolling green hills… you both settle and excite my heart.

Indeed, it’s lucky I am to have strong roots, great company and a life that yearns toward Peace. It’s lucky to have the Peace road be one of beauty because it’s often arduous. What an amazing world we live in… The being in the midst of it and the getting to where we are going are both sacred prayers for Peace.

Sacred Grammar Peace, llvl

I’m one of those people who writes her way to what she thinks. Hard for my friends who think things out on the inside. I love blogs and sermons for that reason. Write ’em and redact! (less fun when I’m talking, i know! oopsie!). But I often find things in my writing that I didn’t know was in there. Last week it was Peace advisories. This week it was Sacred Capitalization. (wait for tomorrow to see what comes next! bet yourself something fun if you win!)

I don’t know how significant this is to anyone else, but for me it’s a way of preferencing the words. Use more of the sacred words which have that tiny caress and fewer of the non-sacred. Talk about what I want to grow toward and spend less time thinking about what I want to grow away from.

so Peace. Love. Happiness. What are your Sacred words. What feels holy in your mouth?

Forsythia Sabbath Peace, llvl

I love the promise of forsythia (can violets be far behind?). All that sunny, beautiful yellow. It simply hollers Spring.

Happy Easter (Western and Eastern Easter are on the same day this year!). Glad Pesach. Happy Spring (we’re actually a month after the Equinox, but the weather’s staying chilly, hence the late April forsythia in Central PA.). Much of the world will be celebrating sacred holidays today all of which have Hope in common. May that Hope spill out on the rest of the world.

The turning of the seasons brings back such memories and such opportunities to make more memories. Remember. Re-member. Piece Back together the times that came before.

So much to look forward to, so much to enjoy right here. I’m going to go sit beside this river and eat breakfast with my sweetie — it will be a fine start to a wonderful day!

What ever you celebrate may you be filled with Hope. And may you have a wonderful Peace-filled Sabbath, reveling in the Beauty and the Possibility. And what the heck. I’m up and on time on East Coast time!

Sacred Water Peace Blues, llvl

It was International Water Day (and I missed it! well, I was writing about something else.) If you’ve been following me long you know I love Water. My completely non-scientific take on my love for the wet stuff is that I’m an earth sign and it’s only in water that I decompress a bit… And of course, I am as they say in relation to matzoh balls, a floater… What’s not to like.

Many of my most precious memories are about water and times I spent in and on it. Chinese medicine would tell you that memories and inheritance are held in the kidneys… that water reference makes sense to me!

So to stop and contemplate what it would mean not to have free access to water for drinking, for bathing and for swimming is a terrible thing to imagine. We are so privileged here. We have so much. So why can’t we notice and appreciate? Why can’t we protect.

I’ve got grandchildren. Ones a great swimmer. The other one is a great mucker about in ponds… What if they don’t get to hop off the boat into the river to see what they can see? What if they can’t float down the river on something inflated and just thrill. And what… if like so much of the world…. we didn’t have safe drinking water. 6000 children die every day from unsafe water. We should fret about that. We should do something. We should stop certain someones from doing other things that endanger the water. As much as I like swimming, I like fresh water better… and I want it for all the children. I know you do too… How are we working for Peace?

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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