Everyday Peace Challenges

Peace isn’t something you pull out the cash for and buy in one fell swoop. It’s something you put a down-payment on and you pay as you go, every day, every day. Some things will change. Some things you just have to work around. Some things you have to work darned hard at. And so it goes.

This was a tough weekend. I’d put this work off for the whole winter. After going through an immense amount of stuff to fit Deb’s stuff into my life, I reached an end to what I could deal with and still remain sane. It was a lot. There were only about 6 boxes out on the winterized porch. I’ll deal with them in the Spring I said. That was after I’d started to look at the pictures from Deb’s family’s life. I couldn’t see the happy ones. I couldn’t bear the missing members, more and more and more and more of them. Later. It was what I could do. No shame there.

But this chilly rainy weekend, the lure of preparing the porch for the return of the sun, outweighed my reluctance to confront the past. And so I sat and sorted. I learned a lot. I learned nothing at all. I remembered, with great searing clarity the turn of a head, the shape of a mouth, what their hair felt like in my fingers. I remembered some other things that weren’t so pretty. I remembered again that they were dead.

What I didn’t know now, I would never find out.

Not a lot more to say about that, is there?

But I know that that’s not all there is — or not everything isn’t anymore, or something. More of them will be like the death of a family — simply things that are. Others will be things that we will shape…

In the midst of my grieving, there is a sweet little porch. There’s more stuff to move, and more to sort through, but I can see what it wants to be again. Last year, I didn’t sit on the porch at all. I didn’t open it until September. I wasn’t here. And I couldn’t bring myself to care. But Summer comes again. And this year, by and large, those boxes and their contents are in the trash, in the recycling or in the cellar. If you’re the one who has to go through my house when I’m aged, I’ll label them. Don’t open them, just pitch them right out. Nothing to see here, just move along, that was yesterday, and yesterday’s gone…

And some things will be things we encounter, things we are called to act upon. They may be big things, they may be little… but… much of the work we see is ours to do. Not all of it, but a good deal of it. We’re the ones to pick the fast food trash up from the alley. We’re the one who has to stop to see if someone needs our attention. We’re the ones who need to speak up (to the best of our ability) when we see something happening.

We make Peace. With what was and is no more. With what may become and needs our dreams. With what is and demands our attention and our care. It’s why we’re here. Everyday Peace, done every day.

Feeding for Peace, llvl

It’s pretty bottom line. In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, food and shelter come first. It’s astonishing and awful that we live in an abundant world where too many don’t care that so many go unfed.

If we move farther up the pyramid do we become incapable of imagining hunger? Is that why we’re so callous? It’s hard for me to comprehend that people are just mean. But certainly people find it hard to think beyond themselves…

Someone mentioned recently that happy used to mean that you had those basic needs met. Now we hear we can’t be happy until we have x or y or z.

But right here, in River City, people are hungry. $2 a weekend to feed a hungry child. $80 for a school year. $104 for a whole year if there were summer weekend feeding programs. It’s no money at all for a weekend. And a lot of money to feed the children who are hungry.

Other people will worry about how we got here. Or at least I hope so. I hope they’ll push and push and work to change it. It’s why we have a community, because I have another job to do. I’m going to walk around and ask for money. A little money and a lot of money. Because children are hungry. I’m going to ask you to become my ally in this and maybe a sponsor. Because children are hungry. And if you don’t live where I do, I’m going to ask you to look around. Same reason, hungry children.

There are so many reasons why hungry children are a terrible idea. Again, There are others working on that. But right here, right now… hungry children. No Justice no Peace. I hear you, Bob. Hungry children are injustice of the bitterest sort. You can go here, if you want to help locally. Pretty soon you can go there if you want to set up a weekend back pack program anywhere, because we’re going to have lots of good information about how to do that, working with the Food Banks. It’s a lot of work. But it’s important and fulfilling.

There is nothing more local than the people who live where you do. We’re aware that if we don’t tend to all of Nature, the World suffers. The same thing is true with society — we need, perhaps to become Deep Societal Ecologists. If the children aren’t fed, there are all sorts of implications down the line. Break in where you can. Feed local kids, become a local Peacemaker. Living la vida local. Living your Love locally. Peace.

No Peace in Hunger, llvl

Encountering the local hunger problem has been life-altering for me.

So often when we hear “poverty” we don’t understand the world or its grinding nature. Many of us talk easily about sources of poverty, but we overlook the daily realities of it.

In my region part of that ugly reality is hungry kids.

It took a “perfect storm” for me to see it. After Deb’s death I was so sad. When the house voted not to allow the SNAP subsidy to lapse, I was driven quite literally to my knees in my living room. Not believing people to be worth of food knocked my pins out from under me.

I turned to my thinking team at church. I didn’t have an idea in my head, just pain. Scott, our church treasurer, got the hunger statistics. The rest of us were stunned. The crowd that had driven the Staten Island project batted around ideas. Most of them were far too grandiose. We knew we wanted this year (we thought!)’s project to be local. And now we knew we wanted it to be food. Last year we’d raised funds for the local food pantry. We knew we could do that again, and did. We started talking to other churches, finding out what they were doing, making a list.

And then we heard about the back-pack program. They’re all over the country, Love help us, because there is child hunger everywhere. Turns out, our local school district had just started a program. We talked about it in church, there was a huge outpouring of money. We had our purpose. We just needed to figure out where to step up so that we could do the most good.

This has turned into a huge project with a lot of pieces, few of which are in place yet. But huge projects take time. You’ll hear more from me, about what we’re doing, but in the meantime, you can help if you want to. Go here to read about this and to donate. There’s more information that will show up on the website soon… that’s one of those projects currently underway, but it’s a start.

Sorry, I tried to write about St. Paddy’s day… but this got in the way… Feeding the hungry is concrete Peacemaking. Please join us.

Creating a Peaceful Vida Local

It’s important to stop and take stock now and again about where we are and remember the places and experiences that got us here. At some point, we left those places and experiences behind. Sometimes we left with regret, simply because there was somewhere else we felt called to be.

Sometimes we left with urgency, needing to leave a toxic environment.

Sometimes we left because we were finished.

In the last two the leaving often brings with it sadness and confusion. Why are things over? What do I want?

There are plenty of times after leaving that we must huddle and heal. Throwing ourselves out there too quickly can convince you that you want to sit on the couch forever. But after a while we need to get up. And then sometimes we must wander in the wilderness until we find our new home. We’re not necessarily well-equipped to figure out what a new home needs to look like, especially when we’re grieving our old one. so there’s often stumbling involved. We need to find the shift in ourselves from “not this!” to “what I’m looking for…” If we’re hurting, in the beginning we may just be looking for community. And that’s fine. And the fact is we may try on a couple communities in the search, which can be painful for both the searchers and the communities that aren’t “just right.” It’s not an easy journey, just a worthwhile one. And we need to bless that journey of discovery.

But then, it’s best if we find and create a new nesting place, a new vida local. While I believe that you have to work to change communities, you can’t be working to change communities that have no interest in your desires. Ah, it’s a challenge.

In the long run, however, I believe we need communities and communities need new blood and new possibilities. Wherever we go, we need to create our new community. I am firmly convinced that it is our job to bend the arc of the world toward Peace toward Justice and toward Inclusive Community. So l invite us all, at the point where our grieving begins to move us back toward life, to find our new communities and to step up to Peacemaking. The rewards are enormous and help that broken heart to heal.

Peace Has No Place for Hate & Fear

We’ve seen it before: The ugly need to keep life the same and one’s power intact that drives fear and hatred’s need to double down.

But even if it’s simply hatred’s death throes, it’s ugly and it hurts people. And we’ve never acknowledged the wounds done by the last times a dinosaur had to die. Racism is still — or perhaps again — a modus operandi, both conscious and unconscious for many. Women’s lives are still constricted, still being constricted by men’s fears and their own. And now the Other is the GLBT folk.

It’s time to take the dinosaurs off life support. It’s time to acknowledge that the world has changed. Charles Blow detailed today in his op-ed piece in the NY Times the numbers of youth who are walking away from the churches of their youth and posited that they would walk away from the Republican Party . My hope is that when they walk, they don’t just sit down in disgust (or at least not for long) and walk to somewhere else.

Life will not work if we’re merely deconstructing. Reach out and reach up. Let’s be the change that the world is waiting for, to paraphrase Elie Wiesel, a man who stood in the midst of extreme ugliness, who has continued to call for people’s return — journey — to their highest self.

So, yes, sign those petitions. But do more. Get up. Look in the mirror, root out the ways you participate. Make friends across the boundaries. Live in the discomfort of your unattractive assumptions of privilege and change them for the world’s betterment and your own. It’s time. If we wait, people continue to be hurt. And while we’re screwing around thinking these things are not our problem (oh, they are, they are), there are a million worse things that are happening, and they’re our responsibility as well. Let us be the change. Let’s wake up and then step up. Let us say a loud and resounding NO to hatred. Then let us say yes to life and get on about the business of creating a Peace-filled world.

Holding out for Peace, llvl

I’m not sure whether things are actually worse than they were or whether I’ve just gotten an eyeful. But I’ve been astonished by the hate recently. Our government will not ratify a UN agreement on the rights of the disabled, even though it is built upon our own American Disabilities Act, because they will not pass anything. And they believe they are governing. In state governments, women’s rights are being narrowed, hatred toward our GLBT brothers and sisters is being codified, and someone has just introduced an act in a state legislature that allows parents and schools to “spank” (oh why use beat???) a child until a bruise is raised without any fear of reprisal. And around Christmas some fool governor posited that if only the child welfare/work laws were relaxed we could compete with other countries’ manufacturing prices, because you know, you don’t have to pay children the already unliving wage we’re paying/not paying adults.

I know, I have learned, that for me, the only useful response to what I find wrong in the world is to take action on what I can.

We all make Peace from where we stand. We contribute our gifts to pave the path.

But action is required. It worries me that we begin to believe that being outraged on Face Book changes life. Some of us go a bit farther and click through to petitions, and then we go back to posting charming distractions. And the dissonance continues to build.

I read recently that the distance separating the haves and have nots creates different mental distress. The have nots become depressed, which works to keep them from asking for what they want and need. The haves become narcissistic which encourages them to feel exploited (i know, difficult to quite get there, eh?) and protective, believing that, i don’t know, children should be beaten, women controlled and one fears to consider what they believe should happen to GLBT folk. Hidden under all this is racism.

There’s a delicate dance to be done of noticing the evil and not being beaten down by it. Of looking at the problems and rather than being overwhelmed, choosing the one small piece with which you can use your gifts and getting to work making a difference… Peace needs us… and we need Peace, but we’re only going to get there together… and by working very hard.

Local Peace Possibilities, llvl

I’m beginning to believe that Peace Dreams become more possible as you immerse yourself in your community. Partially, that may be because you begin to attune your dreams to what’s needed in your neighborhood. Partially, it’s because as you deepen friendships, you develop allies and a better instinct for who might be interested in what.

You not only get better instincts about who might clap for Tinkerbelle, but also who might run out and get her a power drink and who might work on the long-term problems that tend to make her fade away.

Comrades not in arms but in Love, in Peace.

Which is a good thing, because the journey to Peace is long, but it’s so much more possible in the company of our friends. And the Possibilities are endless as people add their thoughts and dreams. And so the Dream gets bigger. People step up. The hard work gets shared. and we’re off. Watch out Peace, the village is coming to play. Ah la vida local. What a sweet thing to live!

Re-engaging our Peace, llvl

We don’t know if the people who stole our friends’ car were kids on a dangerous joy ride or souls with more nefarious purpose in mind. It was fairly interesting to talk to some people at my husband’s gig last night, apparently, more than one guy we now know as fine, upstanding citizen, at least once drove on the wild side.

I was such a good girl, and in fact, some appearances to the contrary, still am. Never strayed toward that line. And I’ve never been one to throw myself down a hill on skis or hop off a high dive, or, or, or. I hope I take mental and emotional risks now and again… but I don’t get how it’s fun to jack a car.

And we hope that’s all it was. stupid kids who some how missed the respecting property memo.

And whatever the intent, I’m familiar enough with the sense of violation you might feel…I’ve had a person rummage through my chest of drawers, looking for drug money. Bastid stole my ukelele. I haven’t played since. One wonders what the street value of a ukelele is… oops digression.

When I lived in Oakland, where no one dreamed cars were safe, Gramma May channeled her insomnia to the good. she and her television sat and kept watch. So when a local gang thought Aileen Street would be a good place to set up Car Boost School, one car was broken into, and then she made two calls: one to her sons and then 911. The guys were on the street before the cops. May’s sons and the cops gave our block an out-of-bounds status.

While the neighborhood thrived under her careful and tender regard (she not only went after the ‘bad guys,’ she made sure no one made the mistake of leaving anything lying around to tempt, either.), there was no illusion of safety. There was instead an ethic of caring.

Living in this little town has felt, and mostly is different. Some of it’s proximity to the law enforcement. I’m likely to think that if someone stole that car it was a kid. The fact that the car was a block and a half away from the local jail would mean that savvy burglars would avoid the area. (Just keep moving.) Too many cops.

Still, feeling safe is something to aim for. Now there are always going to be reasons some people steal. Drug habits are expensive… Life for some is just too challenging. But some of the reasons people steal need to be eliminated. Kids need to be fed and clothed and housed… we need to make sure there’s money for that. Don’t talk to me about entitlement, talk to me about what kids need. People need work. We all need community built by trusting friends and Gramma Mays. And, as Mr. Marley taught us a long time ago. No Justice, No Peace.

We can’t allow ourselves to be frightened off by life. We need to acknowledge its difficulties and keep moving toward Peace. To do less is set our goals to low. There’s a lot of hard work to be done, so let’s step up. And in the meantime, let’s be realistic. However, I’m not bringing my shovel in. Peace. and keep my friends in your thoughts as they adjust to a new normal.

Peace with the Past, LLVL

I’ve been batting clean-up at home. It’s been coming in waves. I do some things, get back on my feet and sink into my life. Which is busy and demanding and beloved. But tiring.

So when I get a moment again, I get rested and then I can consider what I want to do next to normalize what feels vastly un-normal. I am now the keeper of so much family goodness. But not all of it has yet found its way into final homes on my walls or in closets or…

But Saturday was one of those days to attack a pile. I had the time, I was in a good place. As did many of Deb’s friends, I brought home a bunch of clothes. Deb was much taller than I (to my eternal chagrin). So wearing her pants demands intervention. There I was intervening. zip, zip, zip. fix. fix. fix. complete assignment. moving through the pile and BAM. oh, right. these were Deb’s favorites. She wore them all the time. My sister. My sweet, sweet, no-longer-here sister.

So I had a decision to make. I could let them drag me down, tuck them on a shelf and never wear them again. I could throw them out. And forget recycling. Somethings the trash is the answer. And if I couldn’t wear them I didn’t want to see them on somebody else who bought them at the church yard sale. Or, I could take strength from wearing her favorite pants — put on the whole armor of Deb, if you’ll excuse the bad remake of a Bible verse. So, I chose. I’d wear them in pride. I’d step up and step out. They’re teal, after all. New memories to be made. New ways to count blessings.

So crisis averted i plowed on. Remember I put out a plea for coats for a friend. The woman who leads the yard sale obliged. As I was tucking them into the car I realized. They were Deb’s. I was going to have to learn this lesson. Let go. And really, deb would have been thrilled to know her stuff was headed to SD to keep people warm. And I reclaimed that very warm sweater I’d given away because really, it never gets that cold here. So there we are. Getting brave. Making Peace. Wearing the pants in the family.

Baby, It’s Peace Out There, LLVL

or it could be. If we decided to make it so.

We not only need to dress for the weather (because it IS cold out there.), we also need to begin working for climate change. There have been other winters with cold weather no doubt about it, but when you put our chilly temps next to Australia’s boiling ones, you have to look pretty hard in the other direction to ignore that the world is changing. The news as always is this: We are the Ones we’ve been waiting for. (dammit.)

And Mother Earth needs us. Nature just responds to the cues it gets. We’re sending the wrong cues. Bottom line the Government, Big Business, the people in power are not going disrupt their plans unless we make it very clear what’s needed. I don’t know what that means; I don’t know what that looks like; but it’s not something we can just forget when it finally gets warm. Or warmer. Peace is our calling — it doesn’t break out on its own.

Has Mama’s thermostat broken? Does that mean cool summer or warm. Either. Both. Who knows. Probably.

Lots of things in this world, weather, hunger, war that need our support. Is life different now, harsher? Are we just better able to see it. Am I just old enough to be horrified? Or have we just gotten better information with a quicker spread… hard to say. But here we are.

And yes, in addition to everything else, you have to wear your warm clothes. It’s too darned cold for a fleece. And there’s work to be done. Time to step up; better wear your no-skid boots.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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