Dangers of Snow Globe Peace, llvl

I had a wonderful day yesterday. Everyone else was complaining about the weather and I was happy, happy, happy. Big fat fluffy flakes, all day long. It never got icy, I only shoveled once… but it was enough for exercise. ahhhh. And I had a warm bowl of pasta in the middle of it. Yep. a great day.

But still the roiling in our world tore at me. Steve and I have a daughter in the Bay Area, we both have many friends and storms were raging. Hundreds of thousands of people are without power. There are flash floods. Our kids are ok… but not everyone is. And this huge storm will likely run away to quickly to make a huge dent in the drought although it will change the snowpack.

At the same time, in our world, there is so much ugliness being uncovered. Ugliness that many of us were content to ignore since it wasn’t always poking at us in our daily lives. Poverty. Racism. Misogyny. Violence. Torture. Guns. Sheer mean avarice and stupidity.

There wasn’t enough pretty snow to put a covering on that. We’re just going to have to go to work, shoveling ignorance, indifference and complicity out of our souls as we shovel the snow into banks alongside the sidewalks. People need us to wake up. People need us to do the work. Peace needs us as well.

Here in the season of Joy to the world and Peace on Earth… let us take them seriously… Let us stay faithful to our goals of Peace on Earth.

Slow Morning Peace, llvl

Morning breaks more slowly in the winter… as if it too tugs itself from the warm nest of blankets. But that gives the colors a chance to settle in…

We live in a beautiful world. And as much as I talk about it, I sometimes don’t pay as much attention as I should. This time of year, we’re meant to burrow in, and I do. I find it difficult to tear myself from my cozy cocoon. I’m up late reading and in late sleeping — Finding the rhythm of the season.

But this morning, thanks to an early car appointment, I’m going to be driving into the morning’s light. (and probably driving back into it since it looks like the car may need a days worth of fluffing.)

So, here I am, slower than usual, but happily embracing the moment. In the midst of the turmoil over race and torture and rape… let us envision the possibility of Peace on Earth and Joy to the World. And then let us come together and work for justice. It’s a beautiful morning for it.

Peace with What Is, llvl

They’d promised me the big storm. Again. We’re getting icy rain. Again.

And that’s what it is. Again. It’s always what it is.

Expectations. They offer a fine bit of sword dancing. On the one hand, we have to work and make space for the unthinkable. (not those things we dread, but the things we hope for.) On the other, we can’t invest in them.

I’d wanted to get my work out shoveling piles of fluffy white stuff. Instead, I’m going to have to go to the gym and be very careful driving my round of appointed errands. (If the weather’s ok, I’m having play practice with Rachel for this year’s Holiday Program.) don’t want to miss that!

I could be wildly disappointed that I didn’t get what I wanted, or I could just live into today and keep building possibilities for Peace. Or even just get the work I have to do done. Pay the bills. Write that assignment. Clean out that closet. Do what’s in front of me. Not every day is a day for the big things. But if we clear the little ones out of the way, we make room for great things. And shoveling will come… It is Winter after all… And there’s lots that needs my attention. Why yes, of course Peace is one. Trying to live into the Joy to the World and Peace on Earth.

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.

Weathering Peace, llvl

Some days, you just get lucky. Yesterday was one of those days. Right there in the middle of all the chilly, chilly weather came a warm and lovely day.

The whole world dashed outside and enjoyed the day. Leaves were blown. Christmas lights were hung. (Work, the paying kind, must have been avoided because work around the house was being accomplished.)

People went out walking or tooling around in their cars with the windows down.

Some people wanted to know what it meant “that we had such weather?” Others were sure “we would pay for it.”

I think it was a bonus. A little throw away that if we were smart, we picked right up and enjoyed to the fullest. Tomorrow, the temperature starts its journey south on the thermometer and snow — they say — is expected. (You remember that I live in Snow Hole, PA, right, so don’t look for a lot here!)

But I hope you enjoyed the day. And I hope you’ll enjoy the snow when it arrives. This is what we have. Might as well make Peace with it! (Of course, it does feel easier when the weather is so temperate, doesn’t it?)

Defiant Peace, llvl

I think too often we think of Peace as sort of a milquetoast cousin. (Caspar Milquetoast, cartoon character drawn by HT Webster (1885-1952), American Cartoonist. a very timid, unassertive, spineless person, especially one who is easily dominated or intimidated. Do’t you love that word?) But any way Peace. It gets thought of as sort of soppy, and saccharine. Or such an esteemed ideal there’s just not arriving at its boundless possibilities.

But it’s not. It’s strong and persistent. It trickles the idea of itself into even the most recalcitrant soul. Peace.

Yesterday, just a day after this picture was taken, was cold and blustery. This morning, despite the wind’s bravado, there are still leaves proudly dancing. They’ve made their own Peace with this season and they’re leaving in their own time. In the meantime, there’s Beauty and Abundance and Color. And no small amount of Joy.

There’s a lot we could learn from that, don’t you think? Peace… it’s never out of season — and it’s always out of season, and that’s it’s beauty.

Peace Offerings, llvl

It often seems that the sacrifices we make these days are of the things that might save us. We’ll sacrifice relationships for rewards. (And we develop relationships with people on FB rather than, say, people.)

Let’s be clear, I’m not pointing any fingers here. There are plenty of cues I miss… Plenty of times I opt out of life.

Sacrifice seems so last mid-century. Everyone sacrificed. It was hard work, we didn’t like it. So we stopped.

Now things continue that we could change. But we don’t.

Was there a perfect era? Was everyone happy, safe, homed, fed? No.

Was there a sense of connection to something communal? Yes. Does that instill in us a sense of obligation to that bigger thing? Yes. Did it take investment? Did it take sacrifice? Yes, that too…

When we don’t take Peace seriously, when we are not responsible to it, the world continues to devolve. Someone asked an expert on Palestine the other evening what would change the war. He said what was required was for the trickle of interaction between the people would need to become a river and then a flood. That everything in the economy of other countries was angled toward that particular war. Only the people can change it.

It would take hard work. It would take sacrifice. But Imagine. We might be part of what brings Peace. The Peace on Earth Season is right around the corner. Let’s consider Peace. Let us make offerings small and large to Peace. That might put wonder back in the holiday season!

Your Peace Road, llvl

What road leads you home?

I mean, what real road takes you to your spiritual home? When you’re driving down a particular road what’s the exact point at which you feel that deep, lovely exhale that says you’ve arrived safely?

Mine’s heading West on I-80 from the Delaware Water Gap, the grade not long after the rest stop, that heads down across the North Branch of the Susquehanna. From there to the Lightstreet turn-off, I’m heading home. Never mind that my road doesn’t stop there any more. Never mind I have more beautiful road to travel before I come home now, I’m “home” when I hit that hill.

These days I live and love my vida local thirty-five miles from my old home town. These days I float around Bloomsburg like a ghost, haunting old familiar spots without encountering familiar faces. It’s okay. Sometimes I need to eat a sub from Steph’s or to drive by the church or to walk in the park. I’m not really interested in building new relationships to tie me to the town… I have all those old lovely memories and a busy new life. And somehow seeing people I know makes me miss the people who are gone.

Still, I have that good road home in the setting winter sun. Deb Slade, illustrating my heart, one more time.

Where is that place for you? And which road leads you to some Peace for your heart?

Beautiful Peace, llvl

Some Peace you work for. Some you’re just given. There are those days, and yesterday was one of them. Blue, blue sky. Corn shocks hanging around. Color deepening on trees that don’t release until their leaves are brown. Undulating patchwork fields. Sunlight that hadn’t turned to winter’s lemony light.

It was just gorgeous.

And then a brilliant sunset reminded us — winter is coming.

Some days are really just about drinking in the beauty and filling up for the week ahead. Twice. Lots to do, but it’s all the better for the beauty of the weekend. I spent lots of time hanging with my sweetie. That was pretty wonderful too. Oddly, for my crowd, I was asked to say grace yesterday. There was much to be grateful for

The weather will change, but the next season offers its own Peace.

You have to keep your eyes and heart open. Otherwise you won’t recognize Peace when you bump into it. And wouldn’t that be a shame?

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

Tag Archives: seasons