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.

Morning After Peace, llvl

I’ve been thinking about Jeremiah… I’ve always liked that hoary Hebrew Scripture prophet — at least from a distance. I think he’d not have been a comfortable buddy. There’s more written by him than any other Biblical character. He ran around trying hard to get people to wake up! “Peace! Peace! the people cried. But there is no Peace.”

We talk easily about Peace. But we don’t do Peace. We’ve allowed ourselves to let that settle back… A few old guys on the Post Office Corner on Saturdays, and nothing much else. We want Peace or so we say, but we don’t go out of our way for it…

We don’t understand the work it is. It is as hard as war, harder. It demands compromise. It demands generosity. It demands sacrifice. It demands Love. It demands knowing we are not all that matters.

It looks both exactly the same and very different in different communities. Peace is local. Peace is global.

It’s heartbreaking right now to read the news. To see people of this nation hating… and calling it Peace. Hating people of different religious groups, while claiming oppression. Hating small children seeking the same Rights and Hopes our forebears sought. Carrying guns to shop for underwear rather than taking cookies next door to newcomers. And to see our government be so far from a government of the people, by the people, for the people.

And yet we balance these hard and sad truths with groups working to feed local children, create local liveable communities for seniors, making music across all sorts of lines. I work hard to find the Hope. I wish I had to look farther for the ugliness…

Peace. Let me be Peace. Let us make Peace. Let us keep shoving back the hatred. Isn’t that a worthy goal for this Fourth of July Weekend?

Abundance and Peace, llvl

I’m having a sobering 4th of July. Thinking about what I love about the US and saddened by some of the things I know. So my post is a sideways post. I’m choosing to remember, I’m choosing to face toward the abundance.

I’m not ignoring the challenging, I’m fueling myself and I’m reminding myself. There is so much that is great and wonderful. I can work with that. I can work for that.

I need the reassurance these proud blooms give us… because there are people who are counting on me. and you… as Pete Seeger taught us “when there are problems to be solved, let’s get all the world involved, God’s counting on me. God’s counting on you.”

Peace, baby! Happy Fourth. Celebrate today. Work tomorrow. Stand up! Step up! Be Present! Be Beautiful. (i’m a whole buncha damned bumperstickers).

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.

Partly Cloudy Peace, llvl

So a couple days ago, if you’re following this blog, while discussing the notion of having your own personal Board of Advisors who support and contribute to your Peace Work, I wrote the words Peace Advisory. It tickled my fancy, this notion that there might be a Peace Forecast that looked at the nature of Peace today and also looked at the possibility of Peace’s breaking out in your area.

What would happen if that were to happen? What would need to happen if that were to happen? How many people would have to be involved? To start a movement that began to focus on Peace as a goal. It’s a complicated thing, this Peace. Bob Marley sang (Bob!) “No justice, no Peace.” It’s easy to think of Peace as the “peace, love and happiness” thing, but more challenging to envision it as a reality that permeates daily life. We’re all for peace, love and happiness. But are we in favor of, willing to work for Peace that demands sacrifice.

When in liturgy, you hear the words “Peace that passes understanding” it’s often describing the Divine. This encourages us to accept this Peace into our lives. But I’m not sure it’s here to tell us that we can’t understand or shouldn’t.

Peace is complex. But hey. That’s why we have these big brains. What better thing to expend our mental, spiritual, emotional and physical energy on…

And for Peace, like Spring, to be bustin’ out all over, we need to to get to work. If we don’t the Peace Advisory is always going to be only partly cloudy. We’re the world’s hope for the Sun’s breaking through. We’re the world’s hope for Peace. We all are. But it doesn’t take a village, it takes a world. We are that world. Let’s go.

Peaceful Colleagues, llvl

Essentially, I work, not alone, but on my own. But there are people with whom I share mostly similar job and people who have responsibilities at my place of employment. I meet regularly with a woman’s clergy group. We have overlap and support one another. The systems we work in are quite different but the work is similar. So we talk and support and suggest. It’s grand to have colleagues with similar experience.

And then there are people who do at church. All sorts of things. Buildings, money, book club… lots of things. Our jobs aren’t dependent on each other, but they are interdependent. Without these colleagues, there is no church.

And then Peacemaking. We all work at Peace from the place we are. Sometimes the bit of Peace at which you pick away is very, very different from the Peace you are working… But the heart of the flower is Peace. And there you are. Peace Colleagues.

They’re everywhere, they’re everywhere. And that is just lovely. You are most likely my colleague. Makes me happy. Makes me grateful.

Co-conspirator Peace, llvl

Hey… Happy May Day. It’s going to be a gorgeous day here in the River Valley. Tisket a tasket it up! Lilies of the Valley are the Flower of the Day.

Take a moment to think about who you share your work with. Your Work. The stuff that makes your heart sing. The stuff that changes at least your world.

These are the people who ‘get’ you. Who understand. Who help you make a difference.

Love them. Get together with them. Change the world. Stop Hunger. Create Peace. You know the little stuff of life. And oh, give thanks daily that you have such partners to play with!

The Peace Between, llvl

In my mind, I separate the peace we find in our souls with the Peace we make in our world. I don’t believe you have to peace (little p) to be working on Peace (big P). I fear that, too often, we’ve substituted the pursuit of our own calm and beautiful center for our struggle for the well-being of the world.

That said, we can’t neglect ourselves either. Life is here to be lived in. Selflessness is overrated, I believe. Selflessness does not often embrace the richness of life, and what a crime that is. So it’s a balancing act…

Some people don’t find flying easy either. The first time I flew in a big plane, I got on in NY and got off in Sweden. I was hooked. New worlds at the end of flying. (The first time I flew in a little plane there was The Sound of Music at the end… who knows where my friends took me.) So who didn’t want to fly. I’ve almost always flown alone. And that’s lovely for me. And flying with Steve is a fairly solitary event, since as soon as he gets on a plane, he drowses… and I’m back in my little world. Just me and a brand new book with a fun place at one end and a fun place at the other. Well, hopefully. Not all my flights have been to fun destinations, but most of them have been to Love…

This country is so vast and so diverse in the landscape. And there we are in our little silver tube sliding along. It somehow feels very like being part of the river moving from a source to a delta… at least for me.

I suppose this is particularly true because when you fly between Love, life is busy on either end and flying is solo and silent and rejuvenating… and somehow so very hopeful. So, even if I have a hard time getting my clock reset. Even if there were a billion people to see and not a lot of downtime there and a billion things to do and not a lot of downtime here and those wonderful things are my Life and my Work… in between, I’m part of that lovely silver river of Silence, sliding under the bridge… and then, time for Peace and Peace Work again. Counting those blessings…

West Coast Sabbath Peace, llvl

Last night we sat at dinner with Steve’s kids and their kids and Steve’s ex and her husband. It was a great dinner in so many ways. First the food. One daughter in particular is a great cook, so yum. One of the sweetest things about marrying Steve, and there are many, is the gift of his family.

But to sit and hear the kids tell stories about growing up was lovely. It was great to hear Steve and Shirley laugh together about life starting out. It’s what family’s meant to be, I think, easy… The two of them are long past their split and their differences and able to remember that they cared for one another. Kids deserve that.

It all made me very happy… particularly watching the littles get doted on by many of their grands. We’re not sure how we missed inviting Gary’s parents, but next time!

I couldn’t help being sad, however, that big assemblies around tables are not really in my family of origin’s future, they’re in my past. We did this a lot — all of us gathered around Deb’s table. So while I was rejoicing in having the crowd there and being part of maneuvering to get everyone together… I was also mourning…

Isn’t that just what life is the richness of today (if you’re being smart and persistent) and the richness of the past. All of that leads to the possibility of a rich future… but in the moment, as I sit here writing with my grandson snuggled in beside me, thinking about last night’s food and laughter and love… I miss Deb (and Betty and Sam) and Deb’s family gathered with Tom’s family in laughter and Peace. Sabbaths to remember. And now? New Families. new Peace. new Work: Got to keep making more sweet Sabbaths! Peace be with us all in our open- and our broken-heartedness..

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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