It is the third Sunday in Advent, ushering in the theme of Joy.
Peace Lives Close In
Peace lives close in. So close in fact that it lives within our own breath. And with every inhale we come back home.
Sometimes however, we head out way beyond what is under our own agency. We allow our fears to run rampant as we turn out gaze beyond the horizon. We conjure up the worst possible outcomes instead of imagining the best ones and taking steps to make them happen. We listen to the voices with the biggest microphones and neglect the still small voice within.
It is our breath that will bring us back.
Breathe and return to your own jurisdiction.
Breathe and return to the part of the world that is within your reach.
Breathe and do what you can, and let go of what you can’t.
Breathe and do what calls to you.
Breathe and use your gifts.
Breathe and come back home.
Peace At The End Of The Day
Sometimes peace means getting to the end of the day and knowing you’ve done what you could.
You’ve done the very best you could with what you had to work with that day.
You’ve extended grace to others...and to yourself.
You’ve managed a little more faith and a little less fear.
You’ve done what is yours to do, and left others free to do the same.
Be at peace. You’ve done what you could.
Leave In Peace
One of our daughters and her family are moving into a new home the week before Christmas, and if ever there were something that could be described as the opposite of peaceful, it is moving from one house to another. Chaos reigns supreme as we work to pack up life as we’ve known it, and move it into new digs. It is so daunting that it’s hard to know where to start, much less actually starting. Actually, however, starting is the key to the whole thing. Pick a room and pack it up. Be ruthless about what to keep and what to toss. Label the boxes with what’s inside and where to put them when they arrive at the new location. Keep on keeping on until that room is done, and then move on to the next.
Today we started with the kitchen, and as the day draws to a close, it’s hard to believe what we’ve accomplished. Our hearts are at rest, not because the job is done, but because it is underway, and room-by-room, come moving day, they will be ready.
Peace, which by one definition is a state of mental calm, is cultivated in part by taking that first step to address the source of our worry or anxiety. Be it a project, broken relationship, change of course, financial problem, or challenging conversation, once we begin to take action everything gets a little easier.
Peace, as it turns out, isn’t necessarily something we wait for. It’s just might be something we move toward.
Passing The Peace
Rumor has it that when Jesus was getting ready to leave the planet, he gathered some of his friends together to give them a farewell gift. It wasn’t a token gift, or a fancy gift. It was the most practical and necessary present that he could leave them as he prepared to leave them behind. He had important work to do and so did they, and to do that work, they would need to draw upon his gift every day.
I like to imagine him looking down, pausing for a moment, gathering his strength in the midst of his own inner angst at what lay ahead, and then locking eyes with each of his friends, one at a time, and saying “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
He didn’t tell them that peace was something to be hoped for someday, it was to be had right now. It wasn’t your typical gift that comes with strings attached, it was freely given. The peace he offered was meant to ease their troubled hearts and drop kick the fear right out of them, and when he was gone, they would carry that peace with them wherever they went.
In our church, at the end of each service, before the final blessing, we turn to one another and do what we call “passing the peace”. We lock eyes and say peace be with you, and respond with the words and also with you. It is a way of remembering that long ago gift, and bringing into the present, and as was originally intended, it is meant to ease our troubled hearts and drop kick the fear right out of them.
We all have important work to do in order to leave our little corner of the world better than we found it, and in order to do that work we need to draw upon the gift of peace every day.
Peace be with you.
Pass it on.
Rest In Peace
“And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied:
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”
(Excerpt from the poem The Gate of The Year by Minnie Louise Haskins”
The summer before last we got lost on our way down from the summit of Mt. Adams. Originally our intention was to hike down that same day, stopping to pick up the tents and gear we’d left behind at Lunch Counter, a flat area where hikers camp before summiting. But as the day wore on, it was obvious that we would need to spend another night on the mountain. As darkness began to fall and with no camp and no other hikers in sight, it became obvious that our only option was to bivouac. In other words, spend the night outside at 9000 feet in below freezing temperature without a tent or cover. Family and friends were expecting a call to say we’d made it down, but we couldn’t find a spot with cell service.
We found a small flat area surrounded by a crude rock wall that others before us had built, and did our best to settle in for the night. We put on every layer of clothing we had in our packs and pulled an emergency blanket over us. Think laying on your driveway under a big piece of tin foil. It was going to be a long night.
My biggest concern wasn’t that we wouldn’t make it out, but for the people who loved us who were expecting our call. When they didn’t hear from us, I knew they would be scared something had happened to us, but there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.
Except maybe pray. Which I did.
Night time is for sleeping, but that night, there was no sleep to be had. But even when back home and in our oh-so-comfortable bed, there are nights when sleep is illusive. What is it about 2am in the morning? Or, in my case, 2:20am to be exact. That is when, if I am going to wake up and fret, it will be then, and nothing seems to be off the table. Money, health concerns, worries about family and friends, the economy, those currently in the White House, climate change, dementia, hearing loss, sagging skin, and the thousands of family photos that need to be organized. The next morning I am always amazed at how much better things look, but in the middle of the night, things can look mighty bleak.
That night on the mountain however, as I lay there alternately worrying about those who were worrying about us, and praying for the whole situation, my attention turned to the night sky. There was nothing I could do about our situation until the morning, but I had a front row seat for the Perseid Meteor Shower, the Big Dipper, Orion’s Belt, and the Milky Way. I’d never spent an entire night watching the magic show on display that goes on whether we see it or not, and the splendor of it all took my shivering breath away.
There is something about being stranded on a mountain, under the heavens that puts everything into perspective, and laying there I remembered the words of Julian of Norwich, “All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.” And somehow, I knew she was right. All was well, and all would be well. Maybe not immediately, but eventually.
Dawn began to appear, and it was time to move our stiff and aching bodies down the mountain. Reaching for my cell phone, I found that where I hadn’t been able to get a signal the night before, a few bars appeared and I was able to make a call to put other’s minds at ease.
All was well.
All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.
Peace Out
As it turns out, maintaining inner peace is no piece of cake. After writing yesterday about Choosing Peace, I woke up with the best of intentions. I read in my morning book, Into The Magic Shop by James Doty, learning about how to breathe your body into a state of peaceful calm. After that, I spent some time in meditation, got ready to go the gym, and had our sacred morning hug with my husband. As far as I could tell, I was choosing peace, peace, and more peace.
Then it all went to hell in a hand basket.
Over what kind of laundry detergent to purchase.
My husband at one end of the counter with his list of the most effective products à la Consumer Reports, me on the other end listing out my environmental concerns. It wasn’t one of my finer moments when I accused him of being “fastidious” to a fault, and, I had to add, at the expense of our planet, not to mention our daughters who care about such things.
Peace was out, frustration was in.
As far as I could see in that moment either one cared about the environment, or one did not. Which is precisely where the problem lay; either-or-thinking. Once my feet were firmly planted in needing to be right, it became about winning or losing, and it’s hard to find peace in the midst of a battle.
To be clear, maintaining an inner sense of peace doesn’t mean going along to get along, or acting conciliatory to avoid conflict. But peace is a shelter that can be found in the midst of almost any storm, and thankfully, by the time I got home from the gym, I’d found my way back there.
When we resumed our conversation I discovered, as it turns out, that one can both care about the environment and clean laundry.
Peace out.
✌️
Choosing Peace
“Inner peace begins the moment you choose not to allow another person or event to control your emotions.: – Pema Chodron
It is the second Sunday in Advent, ushering in the theme of Peace.
Let’s start with the basics. What is peace?
The dictionary defines it as freedom from disturbance; quiet and tranquility; mental calm. Taken at face value, it would seem that peace is available only in the absence of disruption and in the presence of tranquil circumstances. That, however, doesn’t jive with life as I know it. Peace has to be an inside job, because most of the time life is messy and full of disturbances of all kind. Our cell phone rings, messages ding, email floods our inbox, traffic comes to a halt, the kids get sick, a pipe breaks in the house, we miss our flight, relationships go sideways, and fear mongers control our airwaves. Peace cannot depend on our circumstances, because our circumstances are not dependable.
Peace is a choice.
Peace is an option.
Peace is a decision.
Peace is a practice.
Peace is a habit.
Peace is a perspective.
Peace is a possiblity.
If there is peace to be had, it is up to me to find it, not wait for it to find me.
Scheduling Hope
Hope is a condition of the heart in which we live with a sense of confident expectation and anticipation. Yet with all that is on most of our plates, it can be easy to lose touch with any air of expectancy, and live instead gasping for breath due to the pressure of all that is expected of us.
Queue the calendar.
When I am mindful to use it well, my calendar becomes an instrument of hope…
A monthly video call with two dear friends and colleagues, where together we’ve created a safe place in which to engage in courageous and vulnerable thinking.
Sessions with a trainer who is helping me move from rehab of an injury to the renewal of my strength and capacity to do the things that I love.
Coaching sessions with one of my clients who is decidedly all in on our work together, and shows up fully every time we meet.
Time set aside to help our daughter and her family get ready for their move to a new house, smack dab in the middle of the holidays.
FaceTime dates with those I love.
Family coming over the river and through the woods for Christmas.
A massage, a much needed haircut, and a pedicure.
Friends for dinner, and a New Year’s Eve party.
Seattle Seahawks games that could land us in the playoffs.
A candlelight service on Christmas Eve.
As Annie Dillard says, How we spend our days, is, of course, how we spend our lives. By making sure to include in my days that which makes me come alive, I am choosing to live in a state of hopeful anticipation.
A calendar as an instrument of hope?
Who knew?
Hope Is A Team Sport
I’m not sure when it started.
Maybe it was the year that we bought a piece of property, sold our house, and put everything we owned in storage, as we planned and began building our mountain home. While construction continued we split our time between the old airstream parked on our property, and a string of house-sitting gigs we cobbled together. Needless to say, we’d taken on a lot, let go of even more, life felt untethered, and I often needed reassurance that everything would be ok. As I often do when I am in need of hope that all is well, or at least will be, I would turn to my husband Tom, and after hearing my concerns, he would put his hands on my shoulders, lock eyes with me, and say…
“It’s gonna be ok.”
And I would believe him.
I’ve lost count of the number of times he’s said those same words to me.
“It’s gonna be ok.”
And I believe him.
Anymore, I don’t even have to explain what I’m anxious about. I just tell him that I need him to say it to me. And he does.
“It’s gonna be ok.”
And I believe him.
What I love about this little routine we have together, is that his words are always true. It doesn’t mean that things are always going to work out the way I want, or that there haven’t been and won’t continue to be challenges, heartaches, and difficulties. For me, it means that come what may, we will find our way through. That there is a deep and abiding love that supports and surrounds us, not to save us from trouble, but to travel with us in the midst of it. That in the long run, love and goodness always win.
When it boils down to it, hope is a team sport, and everyone can play. We offer hope to one another, taking turns putting our hands on one another’s shoulders, locking eyes and saying…
“It’s gonna be ok.”
