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!

Wild Chaos, Sweet Order, Sacred Peace

All very important words. Too many people think that the first two terms are in opposition with each other. But when they’re in cahoots with each other, they really work. (maybe they should be called Sweet Chaos and Wild Order!) But I say in my musing that I believe that Peace teeter-totters between the two. My guess is that the sweet spot is always moving!

Peace isn’t orderly. or should I say, Peace isn’t only orderly, it needs creativity to explode all the preconceptions of what Peace might be. But Peace isn’t only chaos. It helps to establish a foundation for Peace. You want your foundations to be well-crafted if they’re going to last. The Practical and the Possible need to keep talking to one another.

They need, in fact, to find one another beautiful.

Too often, they get shoved and maneuvered into taking sides and made to fight with one another. Only one can be “good.” Dualism. Pah! Sacred Peace requires the best of each of us. And it demands a pretty healthy sense of humor. If you’re more gifted in Chaos or Order, look for Peace Accomplices. You can’t make Peace on your own. It takes two to Tango… It takes two to Peace… and so many more! But find the balance and enjoy the ride! It’s good work. It’s good play. It’s Peacemaking!

Silent Joy in Advent Peace

Wordless Wonder can override the noisiest chaos. Oh, you have to be open to it, no doubt about that. And usually you have to stop and make a little bubble around yourself for wonder to grow.

I believe one of the most needed pieces of the Christmas story — and the whole world regardless of tradition can learn from this — is that the world can stop and wonder at Mystery. And that we do well to do that.

Silencing the criticism and the indifference and the, let’s be clear, bullshit, makes a place for wonder.

Wonder’s an important building block for growth and for Peace. So, shhhhhhhhh. see what you might be missing. Go look and see what’s hiding in the Peace and Quiet in this season of the Sacred Dark. This may be the work you’re born for!

Fakin’ Peace

Since yesterday, I’ve been mulling over what it means when your teacher… and your ritual maker misrepresents herself… and realizing how meaningful her rituals were despite her claiming them as something else.

I now am fairly convinced that even the “teachings” were hers and not as represented.

There’s something so sad about having good work and not feeling confident enough about yourself that you can claim it as yours. There’s something awful about grabbing someone else’s traditions and pasting yours on top. Things have their own integrity, and we should acknowledge boundaries and take responsibility.

So here are all these great metaphors and small rituals and well-tested ritual actions and they’re besmirched a bit by falsehoods.

And yet, they led me to Peace. So maybe there is growth for the other in that. The problem is that if you’re the fraud, maybe not so much growth and a bigger wall between you and Peace.

And I looked just a bit, there might have been a water monster, who wasn’t so kind, but there were Water Little People who were helpers…

But I love the notion of a monster who thrives on problems. Bring ’em. And so we do. And leave ’em. Peace and water are often joined in a metaphor… and How fun that there might be a Peace Monster. I might have to divine what that might look like… But here’s one thing I’ll tell you… I’m not about to attach him to another tradition.

If you and I can become Peacemakers by dreaming and doing, why not dream a Peace Monster companion to gobble up the pains of the world? In the meantime, we’ll keep practicing Peace. Is that faking it until we make it? who knows… But we do what we can, as June Jordan reminds us “more than that, what can anyone ask?”

Peace Obscured

It’s somehow shameful in this culture to admit that something is beyond you. “Stick to it!” we say. “Find that can-do spirit.”

But sometimes it all feels overwhelming. And do you know what? Stop! It’s perfectly okay not to be able to manage everything. Not every piece of work is yours to do. It’s important to remember:

We’re not always the right person.
It’s not always the right time for anything to happen. The way may not be clear.
We’re not always in a position to do what needs to be done; we may just be sick and tired and unable to keep moving.
Someone else may have the vision that’s needed at this particular moment.

The need for Peace is never going to go away. But you have to be aware and rested to participate in the struggle. And if you’re tired? You should rest. And if you’re confused. Sit down let the clouds pass… and maybe someone will wander by with the answer. Or you can figure out where you might go to get the answer. No sense flailing about!

Simple Peace

On a day where what is remembered is senseless violence and senseless loss of life, let us remember that we can so easily be people of Peace. The only response to hate is more Love. Love was what we saw that day as well. And Courage. People were so brave in helping one another, on that day and in the many horrible days that followed. Brave even unto death.

Nothing will bring those beloved lives back. Nothing will make that “better.” People may quibble with my statement that those lives are unredeemable, there was no reason for God to redeem them, God simply gathered them home to the Divine heart. But the notion that we redeem them by our actions implies a power I don’t think we have. We can only mourn and honor those lives and we must. As we must with all who die senselessly in the crossfire of people’s hatred.

And in honoring them, all we can do is work to make it different. Many have chosen to pull in and brace in fear. But it is better that we reach out in celebration of all the possibilities.

May there be Peace on Earth. May it begin with each of us.

A Deliberate, Discerning Sabbath Peace

Life’s a confusing thing to balance, isn’t it? And yet it’s walking that teeter-totter that we’re supposed to do (and how long has it been since i’ve printed that word?)

But here we are, with a day ahead of us in which to practice discernment… in which to practice refusing a mindless response to life, to release knee-jerk business.

I know not all the world observes the Sabbath on Sundays — Sadly, many of us don’t observe them at all. “I’m not religious” people say. But church-going, snyagogue-going, mosque-going or temple-going or not, the sabbath is about the pause and the in-breath and the out breath and then the repetition… in that sweet stillness is a place of regeneration and a place of sound decision making.

So, altogether now, exhale. now inhale. repeat. What — exhale first???? Yeppers. get rid of the stale air before you put all that fresh, clean, sanity giving air on top.

And then make some choices about your day… Wishing you a slow Peaceful Sabbath of being present and of doing the work that’s allotted.

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.

Back to Work Peace

I think of Fall as the season of thanksgiving. If you follow the Northern European Pagan calendar, Fall started August 1. I have a mixed relationship to that notion. I’m all about giving thanks and deep gratitude any time you want. The sun really does change, and that’s what guides those designation, and yet, and yet, and yet… it’s my favorite time of summer, dog days or no. Swimming pools, skinny dipping under August moons, corn on the cob and tomatoes until you cry for respite. (haven’t reached that point yet. hallelujah!) Easy enough to give thanks, but ask any farmer, these are deep summer activities. They don’t give way until the frost comes. So Fall is sort of a moving target.

But whether we like it or not, we’re back to work. When the Sun isn’t quite as hot as it’s been, when there is some pleasant shade, it’s time they tell us, to get back to work. Even in my grief, when I have long moments when nothing other than staring into space can grab my attention, there’s a place at the back clamoring for attention. I have a service and a sermon I’ve been waiting all summer to write. So what if my brain feels like one of those extra large pocket book that’s filled to the brim with miscellany? I know the stuff is in there. I’ll sort it out.

The world won’t wither for lack of my attention, but it is time. There are many things wrong. There is war. There is bullying. There is pollution and global warming. There are people doing without, whether that’s food, shelter, health care… or even simple kindness.

At the beginning of the year, we started dreaming dreams of peace. We cleared out the undergrowth in our lives, prepared the fields, sowed and tended those dreams. It’s now time to begin to reap the harvest and put it to work. Do you have a project to create? Take the sweet breath of these cool mornings and get to work. Are you simply going to be a kinder person? Get going. Are you picking up trash and enlisting others. bend and stoop. Let’s figure out how many bonus points on Weight Watchers you get for picking up trash…

There’s much to stand in the way of dreaming. I thought I had a pretty solid handle on where I would be building way stations of Peace. But grief is a miasma that clouds our minds. And yet I know I’m dreaming still. The moments of clarity I have can be used for more than washing blankets.

And this is my world. Your world. Our World. We have work to do… We have people to connect with. We have Peace to make. There is no one else. And while we simply gnash our teeth, little pieces of our world die… people, animals, ecosystems, great forests. So, upsadaisy! here we go. Peace, my sisters and brothers. It’s what we’re about.

Labor Peace

I’ve been using labor so differently these last few days. Thinking about the labor that leads to death, which is surely as hard as any labor that leads to birth. I’ve also been thanking my lucky stars that I get one more swim in the town pool before summer’s officially ended in the school calendar. Labor Day has always been one of the saddest days of the year for me when I live on the East Coast simply because the pool closes. I’d been able to forget that while living in Oakland… Outdoor pools are open all year. Put a cap on and swim in the heated pool all year long. but whooo, in 20˚ it’s a long dash from winter clothes in an unheated locker room to a heated pool… and even longer back. but the joy was always there!

But, of course, Labor Day is not about my pool habits and the end of a season. And it’s not about the labor of birth or death, although they are good labor indeed. It’s not about the laborious reclamation of life after loss, although this may be the hardest labor I ever do.

Labor Day is about good work, safe work, good and fair wages that secure a life, adequate leisure time in which to explore that which makes us fully human. Somewhere in the midst of the picnics and the swimming, somewhere even in my grieving I must remember this. And even as part of my grieving. My sister lived as well as she did because Wayne was a member of the teacher’s union. They had a pension. They had health care. Sometimes in this country we act as if those were radical and ridiculous ideas. No, not so much.

So Labor Day, for those who labor and are weary, for those who labor and would eat, for those who labor and would be paid, for those who would Labor. It’s time, it seems for us to get to work for Labor. In my thealogy, the right to good work is a sacred one, and it is not just a cobblestone, but a whole stretch of the road on the path to Peace.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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