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.

Peace with What Is, llvl

They’d promised me the big storm. Again. We’re getting icy rain. Again.

And that’s what it is. Again. It’s always what it is.

Expectations. They offer a fine bit of sword dancing. On the one hand, we have to work and make space for the unthinkable. (not those things we dread, but the things we hope for.) On the other, we can’t invest in them.

I’d wanted to get my work out shoveling piles of fluffy white stuff. Instead, I’m going to have to go to the gym and be very careful driving my round of appointed errands. (If the weather’s ok, I’m having play practice with Rachel for this year’s Holiday Program.) don’t want to miss that!

I could be wildly disappointed that I didn’t get what I wanted, or I could just live into today and keep building possibilities for Peace. Or even just get the work I have to do done. Pay the bills. Write that assignment. Clean out that closet. Do what’s in front of me. Not every day is a day for the big things. But if we clear the little ones out of the way, we make room for great things. And shoveling will come… It is Winter after all… And there’s lots that needs my attention. Why yes, of course Peace is one. Trying to live into the Joy to the World and Peace on Earth.

Housekeeping for Peace, llvl

Sometimes you have to clear up the clutter around you so that life runs as smoothly as possible. Even when you’re working on important work, someone has to manage the every day stuff. And it should probably be you.

It’s easier to get back to the “real work” when the work of your life is caught up. I’m off to a conference this week. Just a few days, but things needed to get done. And I’m one of those sloppy people who can’t bear to come home to a sloppy house. And you know, snow… In this weather, if you’re driving other people through the Poconos, best to have those snow tires on. And the car cleaned out. And yes, the holidays are coming…

Peace needs a steady platform. Whatever you do, you need one too. Even better you deserve one, so give yourself the gift of attention. Providing yourself what you need is sacred work as well.

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?

Serving Peace, llvl

It’s not that I don’t know that Peace is desperately needed all over the world. It’s just that I know that I am best suited for working on Peace here where I live, here i my little vida local. I have a friend Kelly who works on Peace with girls all over the world, she works to give them tools to know who they are, what they care about and what they’re capable of. She gives them space to love each other and laugh together. She’s planting seeds of Peace. Some of them are for Peace plants that explode into being and flower immediately. Most of them become tiny shoots that the girls nurture together.

Never underestimate the bonding power of late night s’mores… There’s a future in that.

I’m always clapping for Kelly, I’m a huge cheerleader for her, and on a couple occasions, I’ve been able to do more. Makes me happy.

But that’s not where I’m best. I’m best right here, right now. Standing in the Park with my neighbors, trying to raise money for programs that other people start and staff… June Jordan, poet, wrote what may be the most important words of my life: “We do what we can, more than that what can anyone ask?” This is my sacred service. This is my work.

But that much we can ask. How do we serve Peace?

Because if we’re not working for Peace, Peace isn’t working. If we look at this world, there are an awful lot of places that Peace isn’t working. For a long time, that whole servant metaphor didn’t do it for me. But I simply hadn’t found my cause. So… what’s yours? What’s the Peace in your life that you can’t rest if you’re not making some Progress toward?

Peace, Love and understanding — and for me, food in the bellies of kids in this Valley. Who’s in?

Peace Creation Process, llvl

Yesterday, I was invited to watch a play being born. Lots of research had been done beforehand. The playwright had requirements for good plays. He had some answers to how this man and these incidents might be shaped into a play…

And then he invited in the actors, the costumer, the set builder and said… what about this, what about that. And they had answers and concerns… concerns about the action, concerns for their troop, concerns about the history and who could play what roles. Two of us were outsiders and we could ask different questions.

It was an amazing process. I didn’t feel as if I had a lot to bring to the party, as I’m a lousy historian and certainly pretty ignorant of the process and demands of plays… I was only invited because I’m the UU minister and this is a play about our valley’s important UU, Joseph Priestley…

But it was astounding to watch something beginning to take shape. I’m reminded of a friend’s explaining to me that the accurate biblical translation (i’m also a lousy biblical scholar and no biblical linguist) was “in their image, created they them,” indicating that the divine had many images.

So creation was a collaborative act in that particular understanding of the act. It was certainly mimicked here. Even though at the end, one person was going back with assignments, his task was now informed by critical input. It was fascinating.

And it helps me clarify how we best build Peace. If we each work on the pieces we know best, but we invite in the insight that other pilgrims offer us, Peace will be more stable, more lasting — and more fun…

Utopia and Peace, llvl

I don’t suppose it really matters that I’m not a fan of dystopian literature. The world doesn’t come to an end, and neither does the genre. Plenty of people are.

And as someone asked the other day, are optimists simply insane for believing in possibilities despite some very good evidence to the contrary? Has any utopia, ever, worked? No. But for some reason, my heart continues to yearn for Hope rather than acquiescing to discouragement.

Did hundreds run out to say no to the hatred and fear that the other day’s course offered? No. But twenty-five did and more wrote. Do I wish some of those that wrote would have been there to stand with us. Surely. Talk’s cheap. We know that.

“Great Job! Thanks!” doesn’t move the world. Maybe it’s stupid to think that more movement will gather more believers. But when our children are hungry, I have to believe we’re going to want to feed them. Because we can make a difference. I sometimes say I’m clapping for Tinkerbelle, but really, I don’t believe this requires magical solutions. It simply needs people to open their hearts and their wallets. $10 a month feeds a kid for a year.

Believe in all the vampires you want… I’m going to believe in my neighbors’ wanting the world to be safe and sane. And I’m going to keep working to help this Valley become the Valley with no hungry children. This is the Work I believe in.

Peace Thinking, again, llvl

It’s been interesting to look at my life that is so luxurious in love at the same time the world is blowing up in hatred. I don’t know how to bottle this feeling or calibrate it so that others could understand, I just know (believe?) that openness to intimate relationships lessens our openness to hatred. I know for me it heightens the need to participate in some ameliorating of the problems…

My friend, father Kerry, posted a picture today of a man receiving 450 lashes in Saudi Arabia for the crime of being gay. We shudder in horror, but don’t make sure our PA state government (and your state’s government?) pass simple non-discrimination bills that would provide safety in work and home. We watch in pity on Facebook as an 8th grader posts one of those index card videos talking about cutting himself or committing suicide because he’s being bullied for being gay, but aren’t actively involved in anti-bullying programs at home. Wonder how we pray with our lives… and what our prayers should be.

It’s hard to take these painful thoughts and mix them into my vacation thoughts. I needed this break, I’m not apologizing, even to myself, for having taken it. I can feel a natural ending as I begin to long to write and return to my work… although as was obvious from my progress yesterday, not too much… I love that Facebook keeps me aware of your lives if not actually in them. I cherish this precious time with friends here… and love that this Saturday’s moon will shine on us all.

Blessings and Peace be with us all.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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