about Peace and Peacemaking
As a child, I cherished memories of candle-lit churches smelling of greens, filled with choirs and organ music and the pealing of the bells.
It’s odd, reflecting back, that so many beloved memories are of celebrations of sound that paid homage to the story. As soon as days become shorter and nights grow colder, my heart opens, waiting, waiting, waiting for proclamations and celebrations of Peace on Earth.
Continue reading “Throngs of Angels Singing and Bells Wildly Ringing”Many traditions tell stories about how, in the deep of MidWinter, if we listen closely, we can hear the animals talking.
As a child, when I heard about this, I believed, hoping against hope, they would say something special to me — just me. Ah, the self-centeredness of childhood and the deep trusting faith. I believed, because I wanted to, that there was only one special night when they would call our names, rather than there being only one special night when we would deign to listen.
Continue reading “The Animals at Midwinter”On the first of December, in my little town, we celebrated the December sky and the encroaching Dark. Working with Fact, Story, and Music, we discovered stars, watched a grandfather assume the responsibility of being a revolving earth while a little one embodied the Sun with so much dignity and finesse. We learned how to find the North Star and wondered if it would help us find our way home. We heard the Gong whisper the night sounds of winter as together, we formed a tree and became a connected living entity that slowly transformed into a festival of lights.
The glittering sky was, in that moment, all the holiday we needed and everyone was invited.
Continue reading ““The Dark, Sacred Night”*”Kerfluffles are not the way of Peace.This has been a hard but useful lesson for me. What’s a kerfluffle you ask? According to Google, it is “a commotion or fuss, especially one caused by conflicting views.” Think of it as indirect or inappropriately directed complaints that cause an upset, but do to solve a problem. I am somewhat conflict avoidant, which might surprise people who don’t know me well. I easily speak up on behalf of someone else, but I have been known to complain indirectly, to the wrong people, about something with which they have nothing to do and no power to make a difference. Which, in essence, is whining and gossiping — kerfluffling. Ew.
Complaining and making a fuss are not Peacemaking activities. They are, however, very easily engaged in, human activities. How do you respond when you observe these behaviors in others? My reaction is to get huffy, most likely because they offer me an opportunity to gaze into a mirror at my own unlovely, kerfluffling expression.
Continue reading “Kerfluffles Are Not the Way of Peace”Last week, a friend brought me, and helped me install the most wonderful present I could ever receive. A Peace pole. How well he knows and loves me!
Look at this — and look how happy I was the night my friend gifted me with beautiful, colorful Peace on stick!
It’s planted right outside my door. When I posted this on Facebook, someone suggested what a wonderful reminder it would prove as I left my house to take Peace with me. Indeed. I try to keep Peace on my heart and in the forefront of my mind, but you know, we all encounter that rude driver with whom we feel inclined to share exactly how we feel about their driving — which is rarely Peaceful. So, Hello, Peace Pole. May I always take your message with me as I set out in the world.
Continue reading “Peace Outside My Door”It was not my intention to write this week’s blog as a follow up to last week’s. But then there were those November Days — which were late Summer/early Autumn days — completely out of season in which I braved the chilly waters of the lake at Half Way Dam and water walked. Twice. Such Joy, even as I had to dance around in order to catch the Sun and not become too chilly as the Sun sets earlier in the mountains and casts a shadow on the lake.
Later that evening, a full Moon rose in a clear, still light sky. I walked past a couple sitting outside a restaurant and laughed with them in recognition that they’d gotten the Moonside table. They’d had no idea it was a Full Moon that night. It will probably be the last night they’ll sit outside to eat until the other side of Winter. They’d even put their phones down to observe and appreciate this month’s celestial spectacle!
Continue reading “Success! I Found the Joy!”The reason I capitalize Joy when I’m writing about Peace is because I’m writing about something larger than small joys.
Some reading helped me to discern how real that distinction might be. In particular, I was wondering if people with depression can experience Joy. Although depression means a lessening of possibility to experience Joy/joys, there can still be a place for it.
In particular, I’m referring to a focus on those things that make me feel particularly alive. For me, that is being in what scriptures refer to as Living Water. It’s a challenge for me right now that the temperatures have dropped and I am not walking in the water. I haven’t replaced that yet, neither the exercise nor the experience.
Continue reading “Find Your Joy, No Really, Find it!”Peace is possibility. Endless possibility. This was the conclusion a friend and I drew at the end of a long conversation.
Possibility exists, but it’s not necessarily easy, any more than Peace is easy. But both are so worth the labor!
There are probably two challenges I struggle with most when working on Peace and Peacemaking. The first is keeping Peace grounded. It’s easy for people to talk about Peace as something ephemeral… which very quickly becomes not real; not possible. Peace is Possible. Peacemaking can be an act as small as extending a supportive hand. In fact hand offered to hand — offered to another hand — and on, and on — is probably the most concrete building block in Peace. Seeing people. Acknowledging their need. Extending a hand that may help or comfort is a foundational to Peacemaking. That extended hand helps people realize that not only can they survive, but they also now have the ability to thrive. There’s nothing ephemeral about surviving and thriving.
Continue reading “Believing in Peace, and by Extension, Myself”“Outdoorsy” is not an adjective I’d use to describe myself. And yet… Some of my most cherished memories are of being outside in Nature.
Perhaps we’ve conflated the notion of the outdoors with the activities of outdoors — suggesting that being out of doors impliess doing rather than, at least some of the time, being.
The other day, I had to do a writing exercise that entailed listing 100 favorite memories. It was remarkable how many of them took place outdoors. There were a couple memories of running in the rain and cross-country skiing, now long in my past. But my list also included plenty of times writing on the beach or on the lip of a canyon, recollections of reading under a tree or alongside a creek. And oh! Outdoors winter hot-chocolate!
Continue reading “Locating Myself in Nature Through the Seasons’ Turnings”The number of fatalities in the wake of Hurricane Ian are still climbing as the clean-up continues. What is clear is that most of the deceased are elderly. As a woman who has suddenly found herself in that age cohort, it gives me pause.
As always, I have questions. Why? Were they slow to heed warnings? Were the warnings mostly on technologies that aren’t part of the lives of most seniors? Did they not take warnings seriously? Was there no place to go — or no way to get to safety? Do we become rigid in our age, and think we’re invincible and we know better, even as we become physically frailer, and often, and, this hurts, are we not thinking clearly? And then there’s that other question… Where are the family and community connections that involve people in preparation and decision-making, that help everyone get to safety?
Continue reading “Community Tending is Peacemaking”