This Peace or That One? LLVL

It’s hard to know sometimes where to go to work. There’s so much work to be done.

Peace is a multi-faceted creature. It is gentle, but firm It is silent, but outspoken. It is beautiful, but stark. It deals with power and hunger and justice at all levels. It is hopeful, but it is inexorable in its demands.

We can go to work and pull any little tendril that needs tending and start there. Some people can contemplate the tangle of possibilities in its entirety. I love to listen and watch those people think, but I’m more a nudger toward the tendril kinda person myself.

What is your relationship to Peace? What work do you do for it? How does it change your life?

I love this picture taken by my friend Deb. It captures a moment of indecision, a moment in-between. If you’re going to be present to life, you’ve got to notice and appreciate those moments. In the case of the weather it will go where the weather goes — the temperature will go up or down. You are invited to watch in amazement (and of course make sure you’re doing your part to care for the earth). In other moments of in-betweenness, you are needed, you are invited to step up and take responsibility. So, watch for the beauty, and step up when it’s your turn. Start local, it’s where Peace grows and starts to propagate. It’s where you grow best, as well. So, this one or that one? Why, yes, or course!

Rhythmic, Orderly Peace, LLVL

It feels as life is a bit out of control right now. Too much illness. Too much death. My heart is bruised and other hearts need to be tended.

I’ve been working at the swimming. Because water does it for Evans girls. I’ve written and written about that… Although, sigh, if I’m not consistent enough, and I’m really just getting back, my body’s a little whiny. Move? ha! Oilcan! Oilcan!

But my other go to is order and structure. I’m not an orderly person by nature. And when there are consistent time constraints, order is even more elusive. I’ve sought help. In the past with therapists… tell me, doctor, how do I put and keep structure in my life? Those conversations helped some. It’s actually not that i don’t have a good organizational sense, it’s just not my go to. Far greater help was a person who helps me clean and sort. Oh, sweet Sarajane, what a treasure you are. I revel in the order you bring, I search for more and then… miracle of miracles, you come back. And when other things aren’t working easily, there’s space in my life. So yesterday, when things were spiraling, a quick dose of dump, sort and fold reorganized my closet shelves and made my bedroom welcoming.

That helps.

And then I went to church where a group of people were preparing for today’s memorial potluck. Sweet companionship. Setting up tables. Pulling out my wedding table cloths (almost 6 years old, still giving pleasure). Folding the hymn sheets to go in the programs. Chatting. About Jean. About the church. About nothing in particular. Laughing. And just being company when everyone’s hearts are a tad sore. A place for me to be comforted as well as to comfort. Mourning has a rhythm all its own. You sometimes have to sit down and listen very closely to find it.

And then to end the day, the arrival of sweet friends and the opportunity to sit in community and listen to great music. Darling Drummer was in another town playing for dancing, so the comfort of knowing he was happy and making others happy. And the joy that there are plenty of other people around to keep the music going. And this, my friends, is how you fill up, how you strengthen yourself for the work to be done.

Peace is often in the community. Living la vida local helps you be a part of the community. You know your neighbors. And they know you. Yesterday, there was a simple showing up, stepping up. Today, there’s a service and a potluck. Tomorrow, there’s a place to heal, watched over by friends.

Presto-Changeo Peace!

It really is about changing your mind, about deciding that Winter is not going to bother you. Actually, it’s about going even farther than that and allowing Winter to delight us. I don’t mean people with SAD… I understand that your malady is real. (change those light bulbs, get out and walk.) I mean those of us who sit around in our cotton tee shirts and complain about the cold.

We have to dress for it. Hats, mittens, coats, long underwear. Boots that are not just fashionable but functional. (It was interesting looking at my Swedish sister’s boots. They had thick soles to keep your feet off the cold pavement.) Yes, it’s cold. Yes, it’s sloppy.

Winter has an important job in the cycle of life. It holds all the mystery and the time of looking within. Can we draw a correlation between the soles of our boots’ not being thick enough and the fact that we have no time to examine the state of our souls?

But there’s also something about being satisfied with what we have, with changing what can be changed. We can’t change winter (well, yes global climate change is changing winter, but we can’t wish the cold and damp away.) So let’s explore it. We can change or at least impact the numbers of people who are at the mercy of winter. so let’s consider that. Let’s step up, in our thick-soled boots, to the very sensitive and painful problems.

Peace is pretty concrete these days. Enough to eat. A warm place to sleep. Healthcare when you need it. Peace in the Winter.

The Power of Peace

I hadn’t really thought of it in such straightforward terms before. But there it was in Kennedy’s “Ask Not” speech. “For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of poverty and all forms of human life.”

Pretty stark, eh? We don’t think of ourselves as capable of abolishing poverty. We wring our hands. We decry other people’s actions (and rarely our own inaction.) The notion that we can change this, whether through governmental action or personal grit, has slipped from our grasp.

What would that be like, for us to erase poverty?

At the same time the notion of power to abolish humankind (what a difference 50 years makes in language, right? Women are now included. Just like that 51 percent of the population is added to the make a difference team.) We can stop that too. There’s John Kerry in Switzerland negotiating away from nuclear options. If you were born after, what the mid 60s, you probably don’t think much about that. That threat loomed over our heads through much of my childhood. There’s a group that believes in Zero Nuke possibilities, that negotiates ceaselessly for that to happen.

So, if “they” think we could abolish nuclear threat, couldn’t we do something about abolishing the threat of guns or at least lessening it a lot?

Could we really be that powerful? Could we really be unwilling to make poverty disappear and Peace appear, or were we just ignorant of our options? Perhaps we’d better step up to the challenge.

Exhale for Peace

And inhale too. But the inhale is automatic; the exhale needs concentration. And without breath, there is no peace.

Some days there’s too much to be done. I keep remembering that biblical injunction: Sufficient unto the days are the troubles thereof. Well, sometimes the troubles are more than sufficient. Particularly as I struggle with grief.

You have to keep an eagle eye on grief. When is it grief? When does it tilt toward depression. How do you honor the grief and stay faithful to yourself? How do you deal with the grief and the what the world needs? Luckily I have a great team of PCP who are tracking me: watching my BP, holding me accountable to exercise… (must get in pool today. must. must.) So easy to postpone. Work, Inertia. Grief. Inertia. Hello, Exercise, Oxygen. Come back, WW. Count those points. All of which needs to be balanced with staring into space.

If there’s anything I’m sure of, grief is a physical activity as well as one of the heart, soul and mind. Careful with those fragile bodies. I’m not at all sure we don’t need to resurrect some of those Victorian grieving traditions, to look at cultures that mourn well and see what we need to take on. “Getting on with life” is not only overrated, it’s ridiculous. Absence is as real a thing as presence. It’s disorienting. All that energy, dispersing into the universe. They’ve just discovered that energy carries memory. Wild science fiction as truth (and metaphor) as a person’s life swirls past you on their way out the door. Is it ridiculous to consider being present to Absence?

On those days when those memories lay you low, you want to lay low. But sometimes life, insistent and constant, has other ideas. Just because your heart is breaking doesn’t mean someone else’s life isn’t falling apart. And sometimes, not always, you have to be there with your hands out to catch someone before they hit the ground. That’s hard. That’s life.

When that happens, you have to try and remember the beauty. You have to lean on your friends. You have to get a good night’s sleep. And, in my opinion, you have to help out. Because folks need you. You may not be graceful. You may botch up the catch. You may need to keep a list of references on hand so you can find other support for folk who look to you for help.

And as you offer a steadying hand. Look for the beauty that inspires and supports you. Life. A fragile boat. And the hands on the oars are uncertain. But on we paddle. And hold the sweetness close.

Friendship Peace

Two of my Swedish Sisters were here this weekend to help say goodbye to Deb. They’d met her in Sweden, they’d stayed with her when they came to my wedding. They came to honor Deb and they stepped up to prop me up. Oh and they did. We counted blessings and gave thanks. Along the ways we made new memories.

They let me cry. They patted me. They fed me tea and chocolate (Finnish chocolate, tell no one!). We talked about all sorts of things and they came along as witnesses to my life as it is now. (Sadly they didn’t get to see my husband because he was sick the entire time they were here… ) They talked to me when I needed to jabber or when they needed something explained or just had something to say. And they were quiet when I needed quiet. And I could let them be quiet when their brains were exploding from all the English. We were present to one another.

They helped me remember why friends make a difference and reminded me to be grateful for all the astonishing and wonderful friends I have here and all over the world.

We all wondered at the thought that friendships such as ours — now over 44 years deep — can endure without a lot of tending, just because they are. We lived together. They shared their family (and now families) with me. They’ve met my family (now families) and loved them.

And in moments like this, you just push over bed in the morning as one of them comes in to chat and steals some covers and reassures your heart.

So even when the work ahead is hard, your heart is full and fueled for the journey. Peace goes better with friendship. Yes, indeed it does.

Present for Peace

Everyone’s life is busy. And when you add our illusion of control to our to do list, we begin to think our tasks are monumentally important. And it’s clear, says one over her head in tasks, that sometimes tasks require an immense amount of attention.

However, in the midst of that busyness, we are often asked by friends or even strangers to show up. Every instinct screams that we don’t have time… sometimes that’s right, but we need to be sure.

Because often the very most important thing we can do is to do less than our stellar best on a task and make time for a relaxed, human encounter. My parents drilled this into me. They were at a friend’s house once. The friend was dying. They’d gone for a visit. “Stay,” he said. “Tasks,” they said. He died that week. “Never do that,” they said to us. “Never.”

We need to prioritize Friendship. We need to prioritize Love. We need to prioritize Life’s Sacred Passages and show up for them. Houses may be messy, grass un-mown, but cups of tea and glasses of beer or wine will be had, shoulders will be cried on. Funerals will be attended, conversations will be frank, people will get the ride they need to the doctors appointment or the medicine from the drug store. Doing good work and good works is the most important work. Stepping up can be hard work, yet, in doing that, simple presence will be offered and life will be transformed.

Extending our hands beyond our normal circles of caring begins to build great possibilities, and starts us down the road toward a Peace that is bigger than we are. All because we rearrange our time and our priorities. It’s sometimes messy and frustrating and inconvenient, but Peace and Caring? as the ad says… Priceless.

Flooding, Frightening Peace

I puzzled before I wrote this musing and this post whether or not I could really combine Peace and Flooding. But after looking at the way neighbors responded two years ago, particularly in places like my hometown Bloomsburg, there is Peace to be marveled at. These are the moments in history where people really move beyond their societally limiting boundaries and offer hands and hearts and help.

But poor Boulder. Twelve inches of rain, in an area that almost never sees that much, would have been frightening enough. But the resultant floods and the incredible damage are overwhelming. Communication has been wiped out in many places, but at this point: Eight are known dead, hundreds are missing. Best estimate at the moment is 19,000 homes lost.

In addition, this non-historically flooding area is home to a good deal of fracking. What have the waters boiled up and spread over the land. We won’t know for a while. This adds a level of long-term fear to what’s already overwhelming.

We don’t know if this flood is a result of global climate, but there are plenty of things that say this can’t be completely discounted.

There are places to offer money… check the web. Money’s what’s needed, not goods. From other parts of the country, money makes good neighbors.

I’m trying to focus my energies on places where I can have impact. I’m not a good fracking activist or a good climatologist. I can point others towards those issues. I am good at helping people reach out and at motivating folk to do that. I will do what I can where I can. But this is another choice point where we get to ask ourselves, how much, really do we want Peace? Do we want it enough to reach out? And having reached out, understanding that that extension of the hand and heart is Peacemaking?

Can you personally do something about Boulder, other than sending money? I don’t know, I don’t know your skills. I don’t know how close you are or what kind of hard work you can provide. But can you as a result of Boulder, or whatever stirs/spurs you to action, extend your support in your community where you can do a great deal of good? I think we all can do that. It’s not always easy. It’s sometimes tedious. But it’s the practicing of Peace on a daily basis that makes the practicing of it in difficult times second nature. Stepping up when the steps are little makes climbing the big stairs easier.

So, yes. Peace. even in the floods. And perhaps, in the aftermath, some activism.

Village Peace

This poem took shape on a FB message talking about how to help a friend deal with a problem. I grew up in a small town. Oddly, I’m back here now, at my sister’s house enmeshed in the love of a small town as I hear from everywhere (The Democratic Committee sent my brother and me their condolences on Deb’s Death, telling us how wonderful she was.) It’s hard to slip through the cracks when people keep stepping up.

People do. and small towns can be vicious and tough. Nothing’s perfect. But they’re vicious when folk, oh, let’s just say we, here, eh?, aren’t conscious about the forming of community, when we’re lazy about it.

But when we work at it, whether we’re connecting hands and creating webs across continents or oceans or we’re making sure our neighbor’s house gets cleaned when someone falls and can’t manage, the web catches us when we can’t stand upright on our own.

This village-making is one of the building blocks of Peace, i believe. It’s tricky, because part of the nature of villages is that they’re closed. And we’re calling for open villages. Connecting our hands across boundaries to offer the support that’s needed. Not turning away from those who are different, challenging, unlike us.

Let us be webweavers, my friends. Conscious webweavers. Because we can weave ourselves together with vitriol. But that? doesn’t really cut it. It cuts out folks, isolates them. That can’t be what we choose… and yet it is a choice, a choice for laziness and disinterest. But we must choose connection.

I always think this. But I’m feeling it so strongly now. Now in the places where connections have been made and in the places where they just don’t exist. I must be careful where i rest my broken heart. Yet support emerges, webs make themselves beautifully visible in the most unlikely places. And from this place of brokenness, new webs will be woven.

The world is so broken. If we weave the little webs, we can attach the big ones to that. The most amazing thing about those spiders is that they weave entire worlds in a very short time and go back and reweave when the human ones break them. So let’s all do like the spiders do: weave, weave, weave! Let’s keep making this world sweeter. We do the work. We realize dreams we never knew we had. Peace. Peace Dreams.

A Civil Peace

Here’s the thing about high ideals. They require a lot of step-by-step on the ground work. So just when you’re thinking about buying the champagne and Peace bunting you realize that you have to be making Peace in your local community… and helping them to become Peace makers.

It’s one of the reasons we need to team up on this journey, because some of us work well at blue sky levels, some of us work better on the ground… and then of course there are those who work in between and some who just like to work behind the scenes, they’re all necessary.

But just as the Sandy Hook tragedy underlined the necessity but also the opportunity of working together, this spate of violent gang rapes while teens stand idly by and then text horrific pics and threats offers us the necessity and the opportunity to talk about public responsibility and public discourse. We’d all better take the opportunity. This isn’t a case of those kids over there. This is all of us. We’ve failed those kids. All the “don’t make them come along, sit at the table, participate in group activities” leniency we’ve offered our children has taught them they don’t need to participate. Technology is both an incredible opportunity for widening our world and a removal from first person experience.

I’m not sure what the answers are, but I do know we’re the folks to work on this. We need to relearn and to teach the arts of civil discourse and engagement. Life is a conversation in which there are exchanges and silences. If it’s about violence and threats and disinterest, that’s our work to repair. We need to look in the mirror and indulge in some moments of self-reflection. We need to be stepping up to the challenges, because our children need us. We need to be working on the Peace Conversation.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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