Disappointments in Peace, llvl

It was a bad day for Peace yesterday. Gunmen everywhere. Our slow awakening to the realities and the effects of racism — and not there, but right here… and then last night, right here in my little Paradise, fear’s rigid untruths trump Love’s hospitality.

It feels like No Gays welcome here. And for some, it is. But for others it’s a dawning revelation that hatred has legs and wings and words. And that we need to push that vitriol aside with Love. Loving invitation for those left out in the cold. Loving refusal to allow hatred houseroom. Loving witness to the power of acceptance. Screw tolerance. People are who they are and they are children of Creation. And no God, I say that fearlessly, no God, calls us to hatred and exclusion. And the God they worship actually calls them to let God do the judging. People are mighty quick to parse finely the parts of Scripture they’re beating to death and ignore the other sweeping injunctions… but that’s another rant…

So let us offer encouragement to those who battle. Let us comfort those whose Love was shown to be unwelcome. I refuse to cast this as a war (such a filthy, little grasping word.) Love is. Peace is. The more we can be and do those things, the more ridiculous and impotent their hatred. And that’s what we want.

So despite the disappointment that came after I wrote these words. I stand by the beauty of what i saw of who these people are. Bah humbug on the haters. Let not your hearts be troubled: Love is the reason for the season. Don’t forget that. Peace on Earth! Joy to the World. You are a star of Wonder.

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.

Seeing Our Way to Peace, llvl

Woke up this morning with Ferguson on my heart, and this simple phrase going through my brain, these people are fighting for their lives. They are fighting to be seen as people by a world that finds it inconvenient that they exist.

“Here they stand, they can do no other…” and why should they?

I guess the bigger question is do we stand with them? Are we on their side or in their way? Are we on the side of right or are we impeding Justice?

And let’s not get confused by the looting question. Remember “We are Penn State?” yeah, violence and looting. Over football. Not over a child not only killed but left lying in the street as if he were trash.

Unless we see this for what it is, unless we see our unwillingness to embrace people as beloved not other, until we look at people at see only human, Peace cannot come and we’ll be the reason. Preaching here, gotta spend today redoing my sermon, don’t I?

What is Peace today? Struggling to decide whether gratitude today is just one more namby pamby sentiment… or whether it’s simply irrelevant to this conversation… yet still that was yesterday — but I may not let my thankfulness impede my vision, instead it must drive it. And maybe I must be grateful for a faith and an understanding that makes me uncomfortable and sorrowful… what is my work here? What is yours?

Peeking Peace, llvl

Sliding down my stairwell steps, casting rainbows on the wall. Twice a year, the sun celebrates its vacation at the equator and throws its light around at my house. Whether he hollers, “See you later!” or “I’m on my way!” the beauty makes me grin.

We have to celebrate these brief shining moments, wake up to them and be present to their glory.

There are a lot of things that are hard, but sometimes Peace is as molten as sunshine and as sweet as a dancing rainbow. Drink at the well of Peace!

Ice Cream, Peace, No Peace, llvl

It could take a lot of ice cream with friends to fix what’s going on in our little world. I did have a magical moment out by the pumpkin patch with dear friends yesterday. No problems got solved but we breathed in beautiful air together and ate fresh peaches on top of our ice cream. Not a bad afternoon at all.

And when you look at the relentless ugliness going on in the world. My brother-in-law holds that it’s just that we’re looking at these things, and we have to hold that as a good thing. I’m not convinced.

Mostly I’m overwhelmed. My perky (shouldn’t that be spelled with an i with a heart over it) Pollyanna can do personality is having a whoa, sh•t moment. When you wake up, it’s hard to figure where the best place is to step up. Do gooders like me are feeling like we’re taking a class in some gym on life up down up down up down. switch feet. And while you’re doing that, speak out. Oh, no, step aerobics as prayer. (what is seen cannot be unseen.)

But, nonetheless, there is work to be done. Some fool on FB took Toni Morrison (Toni Morrison????) to task for worrying about racism and interrupting this woman’s feel good moment. She was confident that there was no racism and most people wanted to gently suggest… no, no gentle suggestions. respond. Now. The list is long, so we all have a lot of opportunities to say no to hatred and stupidity.

Eat some ice cream. You’ll need it. Because the journey is long and arduous. But we are exactly the right people to work for Peace, one little piece at a time. Together…

Reworking Sabbath Peace, llvl

Sundays are work days for me, but at the heart of this work day is reflection. Why yes, in fact it is hard to plan a day of reflection that is also fairly active… But it starts with singing, and aside from the sound there’s breathing, breathing, breathing involved. And then there’s a period of joint reflection. sometimes others share what they’re thinking… sometimes not so much… but still, there’s a stop. Maybe even a moment of waking up.

Stops. Such a lovely concept. We don’t use them often enough.

And we need them. Because too often the work we do needs to be rethought. We make great plans and then realize we hadn’t thought at all about this consequence or that unrecognized player. And then we have to revisit everything… often on the fly.

And because of my work, Sundays are reflection day… sometimes solitary, sometimes joint… but the work gets better.

And then there’s always putting my feet up! And that’s Peace enough for anyone. Enjoy the day. Hopefully there will be a moment to reflect and reorganize… Sabbath Peace.

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.

Shadowed Peace

I grew up here. Although I’ve never handled a gun, they’re not foreign. Many of my school chums ate well through the winter because their families hunted. This is as true today as it ever was. And right now, our woods are overrun by deer, because enough are not taken for food. And there’s a long circular saga there.

But that sort of common sense dealing with firearms is far different than what’s happening in our country now. Oh, I know, Ann, not another blog on gun violence. But really, what else can I do? Why are people walking around with cannons? How far into unreasonable fear have we tipped?

I was about to do that stupid and inappropriate thing that says, I’ve lived in cities and I… I’m not the point. The point is that people are walking around in fear, teaching fear and convincing themselves that cannons are the answer. They’re not. Love is.

I fret that the American addiction to gun violence is staining our national soul. Here in the shadows the road to Peace can become imperceptible… can look ridiculous. But there are studies abounding that suggest that in cultures when suicide becomes accepted as a way to solve problems, that more people commit suicide — honor suicides that occur even when the problems are not that large, but are perceived to be that way. Don’t learn problem solving… kill yourself.

And the newest problem solving technique involves killing a lot of people and then suicide. Yes, I believe there have been a raft of these, increasing in numbers. Even if homicides are going down, this solution to personal problems seem to be increasing.

It’s a huge shadow to live in. I’m not sure how we change it… but I’m sure we must. The gate’s open for us to do something… We need to wake up to the problem. All of us.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

Tag Archives: waking up