Peacemaker Ponderings

How many times have you met someone only to find out that you were connected through mutual friends or distant relatives? Such a ‘small world’ encounter recently occurred with my cousin-in-law Jim and a co-worker, Annie.

Annie sent me a notice about a patient. My attention was caught — Annie had recently taken her husband’s name, Messersmith, which is the same name as my Cousin-in-Law Jim’s, whose family came from this area. I asked, tentatively, “Do you know of Jim?” Annie knew immediately how Jim was connected to their family. Coincidentally, they were about to have a Family reunion celebrating their recent award for 2026 Centennial Farm. We were invited. Jim and his daughter came from Connecticut, My brother, Tom, from Canton. We feasted, laughed, and discovered more connections. We soon understood it wasn’t simply the blood relationships that were fascinating — we were all connected in odd and wonderful ways.

The afternoon passed in questions and stories. The focus remained on our families’ values and our delight in a summer picnic. We basked in the beauty of a Pennsylvania Valley, keeping company with folk who reminded me of my growing up years. No strangers here! This gathering was a sweet gift of the Peace of Home.

In daily life, many of us fret about our world’s fragmentation. We miss so much when we do that, which often causes us to further fragment by staying in our insular communities. We could have turned down the invitation because we didn’t know people. Or stayed aloof. Instead, This Peace of this gathering allowed us to explore our shared connections, and to do so over a feast. Giving ourselves this opportunity to connect and reconnect made the macaroni salad tastier and the desserts a little sweeter.

While my family were not farmers, Bloomsburg is a country town where blue collar and professionals, town and country folk work side by side. Work continues connections started in grade school. Those schools are a mixture of town and farm kids. We met at town gatherings, faith communities, and sporting events. In the 1950s and ‘60s, a lot of people participated on municipal boards, library boards, and religious boards. We hunted the same fields and forests, swam at the same municipal pool, picnicked at the town park. It wasn’t Utopia, but it was less polarized than it is now. So much of my growing up was done with people from all walks of life gathering in Peace.

As for Annie’s and my families’ connections, we’re busily bumping into one another. I received a note from Annie: “Your Brother Says Hi!” She and Dave had bumped into Tom and his Sweetheart at the Sullivan County Fair. They chatted, discovering more connections. In these Valleys, we braid Peace with laughter, service, and food. Our families have committed to building community — and family!

If such haphazard encounters can lead to gathering in Peace, what might deliberate encounters bring? We can all celebrate over shared meals and devote time to serving the common good. Let’s explore gathering in Peace — and allow our willing hands, good hearts, and strong backs to rise above politics.

I recently officiated at a committal of ashes for a dear friend who was deeply community–minded throughout her 98 years of life. We ended her service singing the words she had posted on her refrigerator, “Let there be Peace on earth and let it begin with me.”

What shared interests and community projects can you help to support. Whether it’s with new friends, relatives, established relationships or total strangers, where and with whom will you Gather in Peace?

Salaam, Shalom, Shanti, Peace, and Blessed, Blessed Be.

Many people believe Peace begins within us. In my practice, Peacemaking — both public and private — is also about living what we believe and making it real in the world. Peace grows outward. It ripples in a Pond, spreading ever outward to include the world.

My inner Peace ripples out from my actions in the world, beginning with my neighborhood and my community. Building good neighbors and strong, inclusive neighborhoods are huge steps toward Peacemaking. My town has about 4,000 people, which makes some of this easy. We can greet the people next door and notice who might need a hand. Recently, a friend and I were out to dinner when a woman we knew from public life came in alone. It took only a moment to invite her to join us. She was preparing for a meeting and needed to focus, but the invitation mattered. It was an opportunity to practice Peace, to be deliberately kind, to tend the relationships of our daily lives. This is Peace at its most intimate scale — the Peace we make with our own hands, hearts, words, and actions.

This summer, I was privileged to travel far and wide across the country. The Land taught me so much. After weeks on the plains, I wondered how I would feel returning to the hilly, green forests of home. The moment I crossed the border into Pennsylvania, I felt the familiar deep exhale, followed by the equally deep inhale. It happened again when we finished at a favorite ice cream stand at the end of the trip. At home, after a month and a half absence, my garden had exploded into shades of green — some planted, some volunteers. I could feel the roots enfold me, steady me. Being a good neighbor comes naturally to me in this place. Living in Peace means embracing the Land, the River, and the community of Home — and tending them.

An older couple who were part of this neighborhood’s bedrock for decades have just sold their house. Who knows who will move in? Because this is my home, I am responsible for welcoming. After nearly 25 years here, I know where things are and which organizations do what. A welcome includes more than “glad you’re here.” It includes an invitation to become part of this community. Invitations matter, but they only bloom when the people receiving them are able to receive them and ready to act on them. Civic Peace strengthens as more people are welcomed to participate. There are so many ways to engage and become treasured members of a community. How are you involved? In what ways have you invited others to join the community?

As we strengthen our community bonds, it becomes easier to recognize other communities as they prosper and struggle. Watching other towns succeed, we can wonder whether their accomplishments have lessons for us. When we see them struggling, connection makes generosity easier. Support can come through official channels, but it also grows from shared experience and understanding. Peace has no shortage of ways to make itself known. We need imagination — and the will to be Peacemakers. How are you a Peacemaker in your community? What other styles of Peacemaking do you see around you? Experiment. Find your Peacemaker strength and generosity. Taylor Lightman, formerly head of Lewisburg Neighborhoods, once asked, “How do we lead the world from our small town?” Curiosity and Generosity are great ways to start.

As citizens of one country, we can ask how we might be good International Neighbors and Peacemakers. Canada has supported our wildfire struggles for decades. Now American firefighters are supporting Canada in their terrible fires, and Canadian firefighters are helping Minnesota. Smoke crosses borders — and so does compassion. It took time before many of us heard about the loss of the Canadian Namaygoosisagagun First Nation’s homeland and historical archives. Even longer before we learned about 13yearold Chase Paavola, son of the Fire Chief, who turned back in his little aluminum boat to ferry people to safety. Let us honor and emulate that young Peacemaker and all those whose first question is “How can I help?” Peacemaking manifests in so many ways.

Peace ripples out through small, gentle actions as well as bold, daring ones. What kind of Peacemaker are you? What kind would you like to be? I observe generosity happening everywhere — often without any conversation about politics or affiliations. We are made to be helpful to one another. Peacemaking isn’t another burden to assume; it is generosity and support you are already offering. You may not have named it as Peacemaking — but isn’t it? Are there other ways you’d like to explore Peacemaking? I’d love to hear about them. In the meantime, thank you. As you count your Blessings, consider the ways you hold yourself responsible to be a Blessing in this world… and what is that if not Peacemaking? Your neighborhood, your community, your state, your nation are all your ponds. How will you help Peace ripple more widely?

As I prepared for my Pilgrimage across the country, all the old patriotic songs rose up within me — the ones that praise America’s beauty and its people. I’ve always loved this country. But somewhere along the miles, something shifted. I realized I am not simply proud of it.

I am part of it.

I cherish this country. Most importantly, I realized I belong to it. To paraphrase the song from ‘Oklahoma’, “I know I belong to the land, and the land I belong to is grand!” It is a safe relationship to which I entrust myself. The Land endures. The Peoples and their Politics come and go. The Land continues in balance, harmony, and order. It adapts, re-balances, and restores itself. Its Peace prevails. We who are receptive are renewed and re-balanced.

This Land’s Beauty captivates me, and I work to be worthy of that belonging — worthy of the Peoples, Lands, Waters, Skies, and Stories that make this Country Sacred. Its Peace demands my participation and an obligation to care for it.

Driving across the vast expanses has transformed me. The National Parks and Monuments gifted us with bison, grizzlies, prairie dogs, burrowing owls, eagles upon eagles, foxes, chippies, and — in the cold northern waters — a Minke whale and three orca. My traveling companion added double digits to her life list of birds she’s spotted. Everywhere we turned, Awe and Wonder rose up like prayer.

One bison met my eyes for a heartbeat. Quickly, I looked away. Wonder is not challenge — and I had no desire to test his patience. But oh, those eyelashes. Even the smallest details of this Land and its inhabitants are extravagant.

The terrain itself informed us. Plains gave way to mountains; mountains softened into basins; forests unfurled. Mt. Rainier appeared and disappeared like a snowy blessing. Then came the Puget Sound, and finally the Pacific — our bed perched above the waves at the town of Moclips, the ocean breathing beneath us, calm and blue.

There wasn’t simply one beautiful place; it was place after place, each one heartachingly beautiful, each one insisting that Beauty is not a luxury — it is a sage teacher.

After our idyll in Moclips, we returned to Tacoma and boarded the “American Spirit.” Day after day, the ship carried us through glaciercarved waters and tiny islands with their small, sturdy villages. At each stop, Peace lingered in the quiet nooks, crannies, full skies; it lapped on the edges of the quiet depths we visited.

On the return trip East, we nourished our Spirits with Sacredness — Ancient Lands, Indigenous Cultures and Communities reclaiming language, ceremony, and story. Everywhere we went, we were welcomed. Every site caused our hearts to open wider. There should be a hymn that sings, “Surely Peace is in this Place”— and we should sing it everywhere. Sing it to ourselves, steadying our hearts. Sing it out loud, letting it echo. Sing it together, heads thrown back, hands clasped, filling the skies with the music of Peace. This is hymnody the world yearns for.

My Soul is certain. Peace is a web woven across this Land. Everywhere we looked:

Peace was there. And so were we.
Peace is here. And so are we.
Peace is wherever we turn, wherever we are willing to notice, and Peace is constantly calling us home.

This Pilgrimage changed me, reinforcing my calling as Peacemaker. There are many more stories waiting to burst forth to share with you: stories of what we saw when we went over the mountain like the bear, stories of how the rugged, vast Peace of this Country invites us to belong more deeply.

This is my affirmation: I, Ann Keeler Evans – American, Peacemaker – am privileged to belong to this Sacred Land. May every person who lives here, visits here, or makes their home here feel that same belonging… the Wonder-filled, Awesome, Inspiring, heart-aching Beauty of this Land that we call home, this Land that reminds us where and to whom we belong.

This was not the first time I traveled across this Country. The Love and Astonishment that wells up in me is familiar. My heart warms and softens as I open to this Beloved Land one more time. I allow myself to be reclaimed. Sweet Peace, I am renewed. I am grateful. Both the Grandeur and the Intimacy of this Land invites me to renew my solemn vow. I am a Peacemaker.

Salaam, Shalom, Shanti, Peace, and Blessed Be.

With Love, <br>Ann

I wrote this on September 11. I lay in bed that morning, remembering that other fateful morning all those years ago. A friend woke me with the terrible news. I was staying at another friend’s house in Palo Alto, so far away from that place that had become home over the years I lived there. Remembering that everything in me urged me to return to my city, victim of this sacrilege. My heart was there, but I let good sense persuade me that there were too many people there as it was — and, of course, planes weren’t flying. Instead, I gathered with local folk to mourn. There, we sought comfort from one another for the uncountable enormity of lives lost and Innocence shattered. One with the whole world, we joined hands and hearts in community. There were no political divides. For years after that, when things happened, we came together. Citizens of one country raised flags of other countries when tragedies struck. That event and the ones that followed brought us closer to World Peace than we had been in decades. We did not sorrow alone. We were supported and comforted. We believed it might last.

Continue reading “Peacemaking in the Face of Hate”

One of the ways I practice Peace is by being a hospital chaplain. Often my work is supporting the patients involved in traumatic events and their families. It’s work that I was surprised to find as rewarding as I do and at which I am quite competent. If you’re going to have a job after retirement, I hope yours will please you as much as mine does me.

We recently had some events with men in their mid-thirties who put themselves into quite dangerous situations. They overestimated their ability to accomplish whatever daredevil feat they had tried and failed to accomplish. Most likely they were thrill seeking, trying to feel alive and maybe, competent. I chose daredevil deliberately, because I’m not sure these are the kind of activities you go into expecting to or caring if you survive. Too many of these men are living on – teetering on – an edge, undertaking activities that could maim or kill them.

Continue reading “Creating Safe, Peaceful Community that Includes our Soldiers”

On my way into a restaurant the other day, I interrupted a middle-aged man who was leaning in to talk to the young hostess. The situation made me so uncomfortable that I walked around him and stood where she could see me. She immediately slipped into business mode, and asked me questions about seating. As the man started to walk out, he said, “well, if I don’t see you, I hope you have a great rest of your life.”

After lunch, I asked the hostess if he had been hitting on her. “Oh, ick, I’m 17.” “Exactly,” I said. She looked a little troubled and then confided she no longer felt safe going into some stores and visiting certain areas of the Valley. She and I then had a conversation and did a little role-playing in the empty entrance about occupying her space when there were bullies around.

Continue reading “We all Need Safe, Peaceful Community”

In the month of February, I was privileged to spend two weeks in Antarctica. During the lead-up to the trip we were coached on the things that would make our trip the most enjoyable and personally profitable. At the top of the list was Safety. Safety would guide all our movements. If at any moment a boat ride or a landing became unsafe, the outing would be aborted, and we would return to the boat immediately. When the boat rocked and rolled while crossing the Drake Passage, I really gained a visceral understanding of the meaning of safety. Passengers remembered to stay in contact with a wall, to latch doors after ourselves, not to leave precious objects unsecured. It’s a challenge to feel Peace when a ship is rocking and rolling, yet trusting the advice and skills of the crew make it a possibility.

Continue reading “Creating Safe, Peaceful Community”