Peacemakers – Page 2 – Peacemaker Priestess

Let Us Fill ourselves with Possibilities of Peace!

There are so many words that define Peace. One of the things I’ve been pointing to throughout this series, is that Peace is a collage… maybe even a heady, glorious kaleidoscope of things.

We are so used to working within the parameters of the practical and the permitted. In contrast to this, Possibilities are endless. Let’s grant ourselves the permission to explore the many positive possibilities of Peace.

Peace And Community

While we all strive to find our balance and our personal Peace, Peace, writ large, is a communal activity. This happens in (at least) two ways.

First, we live and work in communities. Those communities thrive when their citizens actively work for Peace in their hometowns and workplaces. We are constantly invited to sign up and participate and continuously seek Peaceful solutions to the issues at hand. This is daily living for a Peacemaker and its importance is not to be underestimated.

Peacemaking, however, is more than that. A second way of Peace is extending our hands in invitation and welcome and creating a Peace community, that may be part of where we work and live, but may also be so much bigger than that. The invitation to join in the work of Peace is an acknowledgement to move beyond the superficial to pursuing knowledge and understanding about one another.

I recently heard someone say that it’s time to move beyond the Golden Rule, where we treat everyone as we wish to be treated, which is a laudable thing as far as it goes. The Platinum rule invites us to treat everyone as they wish to be treated. This is Peacemaking. It requires me to get to know you, and you to get to know me, so that we can begin to offer each other true welcome and a sense of belonging in the work of Peace. It’s a bit earthshaking, isn’t it? This rule doesn’t offer tolerance, it opens its arms and embraces and accepts. Wow. This is my goal for proclaiming myself a Peacemaker.

Peace Is Its Own Balancing Act

How often do you get so wrapped up in that one thing you are doing that there is no time for anything else?

It happens to me, and to be honest, it could be something really important to me, like writing about Peace, or considering it, or reading about it.

Sometimes our focus on one thing or one person leaves us out of balance. I have to work at balance. I have to work at that hour by hour, day by day, and week by week. If I do, then it’s likely that month to month, season to season and year to year that I will find steady footing in my life Journey that I’m coming to know as Peace.

Playing for Peace

Before we look at why we don’t play, let’s look at why we should…

In children, play is essential for developing social, emotional, cognitive, and physical skills. These days, we find an emphasis on structured play as opposed to simple send the kid out the door play, believing that’s how we keep their brains growing. But rather than a waste of time or just a fun distraction, play is a time when your child is often learning the most. Sometimes, however, play is simply Joy. The sweetest ending of a day of play comes supper with a family, a bath, a couple books and a good night’s sleep. Any of you who had that opportunity, knew that time as Peace.

Slow Down, We Move too Fast Now

The story goes that in agricultural times and even in times before industrialization. We lived slower lives. Yes, we might have worked from dusk to dawn during growing seasons, but there were whole periods of time when we could rest, and spend time with friends and family. Without as many distractions, stories were a way to pass time and pass along culture and history. Slow times leave spaces in between. That space is Peace.

And chores were often communal. Women put up food together and made candles, clothes, and baskets. Men gathered in crops and raised barns. Children herded the grazing animals to their seasonal grazing lands. Repairs were often shared. Again, stories were shared. Traveling laborers, such as spinsters (yes, that’s where that word came from) visited one farm after another, plying their trade for cash and bringing along tales from other places. The Peace of others became our Peace as the yarn and the stories were spun and we were woven into the stories.

Being Present to Realities, Possibilities, and Peace

Here we are in this moment. This one moment. This one place. This one experience. This may be the last place we ever considered being. The last we’ve wanted to be. It may be the realization of our dreams. Whatever it is, it’s where we are. Our options are to be here, fully present, or to distract ourselves with whatever we invent as the reason we couldn’t possibly pay attention to just this moment.

I feel as if I live in a world of constant distraction. Even my writing, which needs a fair amount of presence and is my deepest passion, is easily pushed to the side by incoming stimulus. Heavens, I write on a machine that is constantly providing opportunities to stop thinking and to stop being with my subject matter.

Making the Connections that Make Hearts Sing

I cannot be at Peace when I am unconnected. We live on a planet, indeed, in a Universe that is connected. Gravity. Symbiosis. Love. Yearning. Friendship. Seasons. Ideas. Values. All of these forces and feelings exist in connection with one another.

To be alive is to be connected. When we break those connections — or try to disconnect from these powerful forces — we lose our strength and wisdom.

On Being Certain Our Spiritual Rubber Hits Our Peacepath

Among the many things that matter as we are becoming full expressions of our spiritual selves is whether or not we take the time to allow what we’re developing on the inside to manifest on the outside.

Examining our inner life can be intriguing. Socrates supposedly taught: “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Values Make Us Who We Are

Asked us what our deepest values are, we’re probably quick to reply. Everything we mention will be meaningful and valuable to us and to the world.

But here’s the question. When you look at your life, at the way you go through your daily endeavors, how much are those values represented in your experience? Could your best friend or a colleague readily identify your values based on their observations of your actions? What about someone who doesn’t know you well, like wait staff or service people? Based on your interactions with them, what values might they say you live out?

What verb do you use with Faith?

People ask, do you have faith? Presumably they mean in something. Doesn’t that question seem lacking in ambition? It’s the “Yes, I believe in something and that something doesn’t require anything at all from me to take care of me,” answer to living life. It’s lazy.

Faith requires a far more active verb than simply holding. The verb that best suits Faith is keeping. We keep faith with the things we believe by doing work that models that in the world. If we believe Peace to be the utmost possibility, how can we, why would we keep from delighting in it, being grateful for it, pointing it out to folks when it shows up, and practicing it so that others might consider participation?