Commitments and Peace, llvl

This summer, I’ve been able to remember what a difference ceremony can make in your life. For many years, while living in CA, I made my living celebrating people’s lives. I did baby blessings, coming of age ceremonies, graduation, weddings, first job, career change, divorces, house blessings, retirement, memorials and you name it. I even blessed the fleet.

Through it all, my clients and I looked at their intentions for the next steps of their lives and gathering their communities around them in support. Since I worked with people who were outside or in-between religious traditions, the community was an important component.

I moved back East because my parents were aging, and I spent 10 years focusing on them and on my sister as they all passed away. It was wonderful work. I’m so thankful I could. It was life-changing. It made a better woman of me.

But I missed the challenge of building services to fit. And then, thank goodness, the law changed. I was one of only a couple ministers in this area who could perform same-sex services, not just with my church’s blessing, but with their cheering and egging me on. Three of the couples were ours and the community turned out and was brought closer together for their joy.

And this year there have been other weddings, inside and outside my community, same sex and heterosexual. There have been challenges. But there has been joy and communities have stepped up to do the work to support and encourage commitment.

And that? adds up to one happy wedding priestess. At each wedding, no matter what, people come to terms with lives that are different from theirs and they sign on. And that, in it’s own little persistent way is Peacemaking. And I get to do it. lucky, lucky, lucky me!

Sabbath Peace Restant, llvl

I did something very hard yesterday, and I’m proud of myself. And important note to self: I survived. Did I do it as well as it could have been done. Mebbe not. But it was a first step. I took action because what happened was beforehand was ugly and petty. I took action because I could stand for my friend, and not standing for her, meant saying what I believed didn’t matter very much.

Because it was about my friend, it was easier to take a step that scared and intimidated me. And I knew that it would scare and intimidate the people I talked to… I knew I had to find a way to connect to the people. I schemed. I practiced. And in the end, just did it. And partially, I did it because I told you I would. So thanks for that. Thanks for being my community.

It’s not that I need anyone else to think I’m a hero, It’s that I have to remember that this is doable. I can stand up. My faith asks me to do that. My courage sometimes falters. and if so, then shame on me. And friendship asks me to do things. I guess I have to say that friendship is a really big part of what I believe to be important. James Weldon Johnson: “I’m lonely, God said, I’m going to make me a world.”

Sundays aren’t all Sabbath for me, for me it’s a working day. But the end of the day will be a down day… I might need to find a body of water to stuff myself into. Summer time. Peaces. Tomatoes. Corn. And a good book. Peace, it’s an up and down thing. But there’s no up if I don’t stand up, step up and speak up. Guessing it probably needs you to do the same things. And really, I survived.

Moonlit Peace, llvl

Well, it was difficult with an evening like last evening not to have the musing turn back toward Paradise.

There we were, the temperature was perfect (and there were no bugs!); the food, amazing; the patio, filled with friends; the moon was up and the band was smokin’ and mellow by turns. Steve was playing again! His wrist is getting stronger. That would have been enough… but he’s not just playing he’s playin’ those drums. oh, such joy.

What a life of privilege I lead.

And I’m grateful for it, because all last night I thought about what I had to do this morning, and was uneasy. But I did it. I went and sat down at a table in the restaurant I often go to and told them that the racist jokes have to stop. The one guy looked at me and said, I wish you’d been here 5 minutes ago the guy just left. But it was really just that everyone laughed. And he told me he’d talk to the guy. (I don’t know if he knew i wrote a letter to the editor about it, and that it was in today’s paper.) The guy I was sitting beside looked at me only once, he obviously was not open at all… And I need to decide. Do I just not go back? Do I go back for a bit in case someone wants to talk to me? Do I go back and take my whole tribe of folk and just begin to own the place? I don’t know. I’ll finish shaking from this morning’s encounter and think about it later. I owe it to everyone I love to keep thinking about it. I owe it to them and myself to keep stepping up. You can’t make Peace by ignoring the ugliness and the folk who can’t have Peace.

And I’m grateful that I have such fine experiences to sustain me. So that I can do what I’m called to do… And I’m glad and lucky beyond belief that I have such a wild, weird, wonderful community. Growin’ up. it ain’t for sissies.

Peace and Reality, llvl

I talk and talk and talk about how beautiful it is where I live. And it is.

But the reality is everything isn’t beautiful and while I’m enjoying the people chatting on Market Street, other people are having to listen to hateful jokes told about people who look like them. Oh, right. Of course it’s lovely for me. I (mostly) “fit in.”

Yesterday made my friend even happier she’s leaving. Can I blame here? No. Do I have work to do? Yes. I will talk to this group. Will it cause them to change? Probably not, at least deep inside, but it may cause them to quiet in public. It’s at least a start. Do we need to be more open and active about rooting out such close-minded hatefulness? yes. Are they horrible people? Ignorant, certainly.

And then someone posts on FB a story, another story, about my hometown where a kid in a KKK hood harassed a young coed. Harassed… it doesn’t really talk about how horribly frightened she must have been does it. Because she at least knows her history. She doesn’t have the luxury of not knowing history, because she’s on the downside of it. Who knows what happened to her people.

At the same time, there are people in my hometown

This is on the people who look like me to confront, so that people can be safe where they are. I’ll probably get a symposium together. I hope you’ll come. I hope you’ll step up. I hope we can make a difference.

Because Peace for only some of us is no kind of Peace at all. I’m really sad today.

Here she is, starting college… and being hassled. Ok, threatened, not hassled. I’m so grateful she went to the cops. And that must have been scary. Especially if she’s new there, because who would know, if the KKK is hassling you that the cops are going to be receptive.

Folks, this one’s on us. What do we do? I wrote to the editor. I will talk to this group. I may talk to the owner. I will probably try and organize a group to teach and talk about this. But each of us need to stop these jokes… in the streets, in our families, in our friends. The racist jokes, the sexist ones, the rape jokes, the… you know them. we have to speak up each and every time. We have to step up.

So, Peace, my dears. It’s on us. And so’s Reality. It’s our community. what do we want it to look like?

Peace Traditions, llvl

It’s the little things. It’s the places you go and the people smiling across the table at you. At Taco Friday, it certainly isn’t the food, although that was fine. But it was sitting in the sun — at six-thirtyish at this point in August, it’s really still pretty high in the sky.

It’s the friends. And the fact that we’re doing it again. Just like we did four years ago… or six years ago or…

This is what makes the oh-so-mundane sacred. If you’re going to have traditions, you have to step up, show up, something up… and care for them and for the connections that make them sweet.

Peace takes tender overtures, but it also requires continuing to show up… and sometimes it’s right in front of your face!

Infrastructure and Peace, llvl

Train Travel – Day 2: Apparently, it’s not just the little corner of the world I’m inhabiting that’s having train problems. I heard from a FB friend that she got to add an extra 3 hours and different modes of travel to get home because there was a fire on the trains and the lines shorted out.

Now it’s true it’s the season of Stormy Weather… but it’s also true that there’s lots of infrastructure that isn’t being addressed… Train travel makes so much sense. It carries large numbers of us from here to there without anybody sitting down in their individual cars and smogging up the place…

But if they don’t work and you can’t rely on them… that’s a sad thing.

We need good infrastructure. And quite frankly trains make life so much easier. When my Swedish sisters were at my wedding, the guy running the space wanted to know if Sweden was a modern country. What do you mean, they wondered. It was his opinion if they still rode trains, it wasn’t modern. (well, we joked yesterday, that perhaps he was right…) we were all confused. Nothing more modern than a country that takes its people from one place without lots of smog.

But the system needs maintenance and repair and certain elements of the government think it costs too much. And don’t get confused, they’re not replacing roads… The air and the water in Sweden is so clear. It needs to be protected. Our air and water need to be improved. Taxes help!

So we had two very slow days getting from here to there after a fabulous weekend with family. And in between, they blew us to a lovely hotel because they messed up. But Lorraine’s son who was coming home last night was left standing for ours in a closed train station after the train stopped running. Eventually, his dad made a three-hour round trip to pick him up… And at last, we’re (all but one) safe and sound under their roof again.

I think I’ll leave a day or two early so I catch my train home! I was, as I say in the musing, much relieved when people were kind and considerate… and that was helped because the train line’s people were polite and effective… but still we have to believe in ourselves enough to invest. enough to demand investment…

Peace is expensive. And we must bear the cost. Waking Up and Stepping Up required…

And today is Tuesday… so a wonderful new picture will arrive from Deb Slade.

Mixed Up, Tongue-tied Peace, llvl

Oh, there are those days when you have no ideas where you are in the world when you travel like this. And it’s not just where you are, it’s what language (if any) you’re speaking. For me, my fluency in Swedish rises and falls as I’m here. Sometimes I can’t get the 10,000 (ok an extra 3) vowels right. All just slightly off American pronunciations and use the wrong one, not only does the word change meaning, you can look a little cray-cray. “huh?”

Some days I have no language at all, not a word to be found in either Swedish or English and don’t even think about French. And other days the language is all mixed up — an odd mixture of swinglish roots, prefixes and suffixes, nouns and verbs and adjectives… oh the adjectives are almost always in the wrong language.

Luckily, my friends, one American Swede and one Swede, are pretty good this… they’ve both had the same experience. And of course, Swedes, even those not American born, speak English fluently. Many Swedes want to speak English and get some practice in — never mind that they get to watch English and American TV. (And let’s not even mention the 6 year old with a Swedish mother and English dad attending school in Copenhagen and speaking all three languages fluently!) So I bump along. Sometimes I feel like someone’s very cute pet goat: look what I can do: Speak, Ann! (give me more cake, please! Let’s go swimming!)

But it is exactly in that laughing stew that the willingness to understand and be understood exists. It is in that hunger for friendship and acceptance of differences that Peace is born. We’ve all loved one another a long time. I’d like to think others of us could learn to Love in that same stew. Come on in, the Peace Stew’s here for everyone… Waking up to the need. Developing the hunger. Stepping up to the challenge… doing the Work. Peace.

Abundance and Peace, llvl

I’m having a sobering 4th of July. Thinking about what I love about the US and saddened by some of the things I know. So my post is a sideways post. I’m choosing to remember, I’m choosing to face toward the abundance.

I’m not ignoring the challenging, I’m fueling myself and I’m reminding myself. There is so much that is great and wonderful. I can work with that. I can work for that.

I need the reassurance these proud blooms give us… because there are people who are counting on me. and you… as Pete Seeger taught us “when there are problems to be solved, let’s get all the world involved, God’s counting on me. God’s counting on you.”

Peace, baby! Happy Fourth. Celebrate today. Work tomorrow. Stand up! Step up! Be Present! Be Beautiful. (i’m a whole buncha damned bumperstickers).

Peace Has No Age Limits, llvl

A group of us gathered at church yesterday to pack toiletry kits for kids. That’s a whole story in and of itself. If you’re looking for places to help change kids’ lives, read this, and find something you want to do. Policy work is important, but the local work makes a difference and really makes community.

But there we were, this small band of volunteers. One woman had worked in a factory, she set up our line. There were 500 bags to be filled. One woman had brought her five year old. Now Cordelia makes me laugh out loud, on almost any occasion. She has enthusiasm.

One of the other other moms, whose daughter was in school, found a job for Cordelia. As we walked by filling our bags, she would hand us a toothbrush. After a while, she realized she was standing by the toothpaste, and she set out boxes of toothpaste, put a brush on the box and handed us both. More work for her, less for us. It was a great solve and it drove home that our kidlets can make a difference if we’ll just give them the option.

It was a delight for the line engineering improvement, a delight to have an empowered five year old and she laughed and giggled and made us all have a good time. She worked for the same 2 hours we all worked. Blessed are the Peacemakers and those who are willing to see the Peacemaking everyone can do.

Sometimes it’s easy to believe that we’re the only ones who can get a job done. uh… right… that’s wrong. So here’s to the 5 year olds and letting them take their place in the work that needs to be done. They might make improvements in the work flow, and they’ll definitely make you giggle. And you might just get a Peacemaker in training. Why not let them step up. Peacemakers who giggle? That’s priceless.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

Tag Archives: stepping up