Peace of Spring Memories, llvl

Yesterday, I remembered the Spring coats April used to bring. Mom would sew wonderful light wool coats in marvelous colors. Locally, it’s very difficult to buy wool like that, these days. (Not that I’m allowed to buy any more fabric… I love fabric, I just shouldn’t be allowed to despoil it!) One of those many times I turn to ask Deb what she remembers… Mom never made Tom Spring coats! (bet he’s jealous!)

But in thinking about them, I thought about the reality of Spring. We didn’t expect Spring to turn to Summer immediately. I don’t think I’m remembering wrongly. I think weather changes were more gradual then. There was such excitement in the unfolding. We certainly got tired of winter, but embraced the cool blustery days.

Is there, I ask myself, a certain urgency to accepting things as they are, realizing that if we insist on the world being as we want it all the time (as if we can insist on weather!), we’re growing unwilling to make the changes (the cutbacks) to arrest global climate change. We’ll pay a huge price if we don’t. And we won’t be the first ones to pay it. So, I’m going to look for the right clothes for the weather we’re having… and keep thinking about ways to respond to climate change that aren’t simplistic and kneejerk… things that are meaningful… I guess the first step is waking up, paying attention.

But maybe I at least have a Spring colored scarf! That will help me do the work I have to do… ah well. today i’m wearing stripes… because I’m off to Head Start with my Sweet Pea to read a book entitled Stripes of All Types for their PA 1 book of the year.

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.

Peace Dawn in La Vida Local

It is that time of year when you get up just a bit earlier. The light calls. And it’s worth answering its call because it’s gorgeous if you can get yourself out of bed. But there’s more than Beauty waiting, there’s Possibility.

It’s time. Goodness knows I’ve put it off long enough this winter. I’ve been sad, I’ve been sleepy. I’ve been shoveling snow. And all those things are fine… they are what they are.

In addition, the project I’m working on has been too big to get my arms around until now… It’s still too big, but there are little moments of clarity. Little things are getting done (shout hallelujah!) that are making it possible to understand what it might be. The team is lining up and finding their feet… and we’re off tripping and figuring things out. (I’m not trying to tease, the minute I’ve got a website for this baby, you’ll hear from me!)

This is the time of year for figuring it out. It’s time (Ann, are you listening?) to set the alarm and get up and get going. Because the world needs just the brand of Peace you have to offer. Wake up, wake up, wake up, you sleepyhead. Sometimes waking up is the prayer you need to offer the world. Get up, get up, get up, get out of bed! You’ve got your work cut out for you! Cheer up, cheer up, the sun is red! live, laugh, love and be happy! Joy is waiting for you. And Peace is made of Joy.

Broken Fins, Missing Fibulas (Missing the Point)

Nicholas and Nemo were both “born” in 2003. Nemo with his little fin. Nick with fibular hemimelia. This could have been a lovely coincidence. A match made in heaven. Except it wasn’t.

One conversation really turned me off the movie (though its not at all fair to the movie). Someone was telling me about why they did not like the movie. They said it was depressing because “all of Marlin’s kids die except for the gimp”. In that moment I froze. Then I changed the subject, and felt awful for not calling this person out on their ignorance. They had actually watched the movie and that is what they took from it. I know cruelty was not the intention. I know this person was not thinking of Nick specifically. Maybe this was a horrifying attempt at humor. It did make me wonder what they thought of my son.

Back to Nemo… The main plot of Finding Nemo is about Marlin finding Nemo, obviously, but it’s also about learning to let go. Finding and letting go. They do seem to go together.

Dory: There, there. It’s all right. It’ll be OK.

Marlin: No. No, it won’t.

Dory: Sure, it will. You’ll see.

Marlin: No. I promised him I’d never let anything happen to him.

Dory: Huh. That’s a funny thing to promise.

Marlin: What?

Dory: Well, you can’t never let anything happen to him. Then, nothing would ever happen to him. [Marlin stares at her] Not much fun for little Harpo.

If we focus too much on preventing the bad things from happening we will prevent the good things from happening as well. That’s a repeat theme from a few blog posts ago. I also think we need to find out who our children are, in order to be able to let them go. Realizing that Nicholas is capable of handling the questions and interactions that come with having fibular hemimelia, on his own, keeps me from being terrified of what might happen every time he is away from me.

Meanwhile Nemo is trying to prove himself to his over protective Dad. Although his fins smallness, seemed small to me, compared to Nicks leg, Nemo still needed to learn that he was able and capable. The difference between Nemo and Nick, is that Nick was always told that he was capable and able. He still needs to live it to really know it. However he will not ever have to prove anything to me. For Nemo, seeing Gills damaged fin helped him believe he could be capable too.

Gill: Nobody touch him! Nobody touch him.

Nemo: Unh! Unh! Unh! Unh! Ah, can you help me?

Gill: No, you get yourself in there, you can go yourself out.

Deb: Ah, Gill!

Gill: I just wanna see him do it, OK?! [Nemo panics a little] Calm down, alternate wiggling your fins and your tail.

Nemo: I can’t! I have a bad fin!

Gill: Never stopped me… [Nemo sees Gill’s scarred fin] just think about what you need to do.

Nemo was brave and capable. Kids with differences will hopefully identify with that (though hopefully they wont take risks like Nemo did to prove it). It’s also a wonderful way for kids without physical differences to be introduced to a character with physical differences.

Accepting differences is my favorite theme of Finding Nemo. I think it’s illustrated best in Marlin and Dory’s relationship. Dory is different. Dory may not be able to remember short term information, but she has other abilities and gifts. She can read. She can understand a little whale. She is remarkable really despite her mental illness. I don’t know if kids get that but they know Marlin would not have found Nemo without her. What she had, mattered more than what she didn’t have.

And lastly what is called the tao of Nemo “Just keep swimming”. Even if we help our kids to gain confidence and feel able, that doesn’t mean things will be easy. I don’t think life is easy for most of us and I don’t think it’s supposed to be (which I know I have written before). But fibular hemimelia does not have to be the thing that makes it hard.

For Nemo it’s really not the fin, but how he thinks about the fin that matters. I think it’s the same for Nick. It’s not the fibula or lack of fibula. It’s what he thinks about the fibula. This reminded me of Thich Nhat Hahn’s quote “No Mud. No Lotus”. Maybe FH does feel like “the mud” sometimes but the outcome of it so beautiful. And without it, we would view life so differently. Maybe we would have more problems. Maybe we would view the little things as problems, that are just little things.

No Fibula No Problem. The tao of Curley.

Jen Curley

Warm Spring Peace

Yesterday, while leaving a friend’s house, I put my hand around the edge of the door and encountered something surprising and marvelous. The brass lock on the door was warm. It was warm from the sun. It was so surprising after the winter that I pulled my hand back hastily and had to search a bit to figure out the explanation.

Although not a snowy winter, it’s been a cold one. It was lovely to go outside and bask for just a bit and to exclaim over flowers making their way out of hibernation. That’s our assignment as well. Time to let the changing seasons coax those Peace dreams out of stasis. Let’s blossom. Because the other thing the sun will do is illuminate the places desperately in need of Love and Healing. Beauty can help. Let’s do what we can to bring Beauty to this world.

Bumps in the Peace Road

I lead a fairly privileged life, and I am incredibly grateful. I’m also fairly well protected, much of that protection comes from being well-loved. Here in the center of PA, I am an opinionated vocal laughing outloud woman leading a church that’s a happy amalgamation of so many points of view. For me, it’s heaven right here on earth. I’m proud of the work we’re doing and I’m pretty darned happy.

It took a while to find my place here; But I had old contacts to lean on and met and fell in love with one of the Valley’s most well-loved men. So being a Goddess-worshiping religious radical seemed to just get folded into their notion of Ann and I feel welcomed and accepted most of the time. I get to be me, right here in River City. That’s priceless, and believe me I’m aware of how lucky I am.

There are a lot of women ministers in this valley. I am neither the most radical nor the one accomplishing the most. Good women doing good work. I’m in great company. There are also good men doing good work, but this column isn’t about that. Life has changed in these local churches as more women ministers show up ready to serve in rural PA. All in all, there are more women in ministry now than there have ever been. That’s as true here as anywhere else.

So I am surprised when I garner hostility or outrage for who I am and what I believe. I mean, geezum, folks, if rural Central PA folk of many faiths and traditions can happily check with in with me on a question about their elderly parents or join the UUCSV in a fund drive for Staten Island Residents affected by Hurricane Sandy, you don’t get much more accepted than that. When the staunchly conservative republican woman stops by my breakfast table to remind me to remember to vote, life is good.

Then this winter, out I went to Palm Springs — California, that is, to find people horribly overset that a woman was performing a wedding ceremony, wondering about what kind of new-fangled tradition UUism was (um, about 1530ish?) and whether I was pushy enough to call myself Father Ann. (uh, really?) It was sort of funny, no one’s questioned me about my bona-fides for years, especially since i took on weight and grey hair. (And of course, in the meantime, lots of women were still getting ordained and flooding the market with a new kind of capable, caring ministers.) Not so funny, of course, were all the underlying hostility toward a lot of traditional targets, which I was kept busy addressing. And then, back home, the other day I ran into someone who just, to use a Swedish verb, nonchalanted me — just pretended I wasn’t there. (did i mention the weight gain? I’m there.) And this wasn’t at all belief related, because he made sure not to ask anything about who I was even though we were doing something together. He had something he had to do, and I didn’t want to make him nervous, so I let it run.

These days, I’m actually pretty secure in myself. It’s been a long journey to this point. But now? I love my work, I love my life with its web of friends and family, I love this beautiful, needy Valley filled with incredible resources — not the least of which is music. I’ve fallen jelly-side-up and I’m aware of that, I’ll tell you. So I don’t really have a personal response other than… oh, well, that was surprising!

But it does make me sad as I think about the distance that I forget needs to be covered for some of the world so we can move into greater Peace. I forget that I can’t just be looking ahead, and have to be looking behind for work that that needs to be done to pull people into the present. Some of that I won’t be able to do, this is why we all need help on the road, because you can do work I am incapable of doing and vice versa.

It’s easy to be outraged, but it’s not really useful. In this case, I am not wounded, although one of my sister clergy might not have the support I have. But there are so many who are not safe. So, may my experiences serve as a February wake-up call. And if we feel outrage, let it only be used for fuel and not for endless venting. It’s time to roll up our sleeves and dig a little deeper. Our world needs Peace. And we’re just the people to handle the job. There’s work to do in the world and work to do right here at home, wherever home is. And if you’re asked who told you that, tell ’em Father Ann, a witchy woman of Peace. Shalom, Salaam, Peace everyone!

Peace of Punxutawney Phil

Well, Mr. Phil says Spring is right around the corner. My long-range forecaster doesn’t seem to reflect that… and I’m not sure exactly how I feel about Winter’s ending. Truth to tell, I like the cold, and I’m lucky to have the clothes to take care of that. So whether Phil’s right or the Farmer’s Almanac, with their slightly more snowy forecast is, we’ll see. One way or the other, the equinox is barreling toward us in the third week of March (March 20).

Mr. Phil and his mustachioed friend

But while prognostication is a fun past-time, there’s real work to be done in February. This is the time we haul our dreams out from wherever it is dreams are formulated forward into real life. Let us tether those fragments of Peace in our daily lives. The clear picture we had while dreaming can now be reassembled in our waking hours and we can start working on it.

Actually, I’m hoping that Phil isn’t right, that we’re not jumping directly into spring. We need each season so that we can accomplish the work for that season. It’s not time for birds and flowers. It’s time for the painstaking building of a platform for Peace.

Dreams made real. Let’s go!

The Peace of Waking Up

The month is changing, and with it the way we focus on Peace. Last month was about conceiving the Peace dream. This month is about waking up both to its possibilities and its responsibilities. Our job is allowing life to well up in us and to commit to the dream.

Traditionally this day was about the dedication of candles that would burn throughout the year. It is also about the dedication of a spiritual life that would give you and your community life during the year (and life) to come. How will you, your dream, and your life bring light to the world?

The changing light of this season causes animals to stir in their burrows. They may not be up for good… they may be like the rest of us when we awaken to early in the morning… a quick trip to the loo (or in their case out of their burrow) and a return to the nest for one last snuggle in. I welcome the changing light which will shake me from sleep just a bit earlier every morning. I’ve missed the early morning. (but not enough to climb out of bed in the dark!). One of the beauties of my work is that I do get to notice the day’s turnings and live by them… Now it’s changing, get up, I must be going!

If we waken slowly, however, rather than springing out of bed, we get to drag the remnants of our dream into the morning and thus begin our mornings with Peace. As the sap rises in the trees, it doesn’t one day know itself as a frozen knot and the next as a spouting fashion, it slowly unknots and begins to flow. May it be so with all of us. Good morning!

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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