Blog 4 Peace Day NOV 4, 2017 ~ Finding Peace In Overwhelming Times

Welcome to the 12th year of peace blogging in the Blogosphere. BlogBlast For Peace  (aka Blog 4 Peace) is held annually on November 4.  We'd love for you to join us.

This year's theme is...

Finding Peace in Overwhelming Times

Tell us your stories. Send in your peace globes.  YOUR experience in the midst of whatever trying circumstances you've walked through, can shine a light of hope for others who might be searching for a way out of their own darkness.

It seems that every calamity known to mankind is visited upon our planet all at once right NOW. Do you know that feeling? The struggles I'm seeing in the world appear magnified in scope this year, capable of stealing our joy, our happiness, our peace. One catastrophe doesn't end before a new calamity begins. We are daily putting out fires to simply maintain our existence and sanity.  Global sanity is in short supply this year.  I've noticed the toll our societal woes, natural disasters, mass shootings, and the never-ending political battering is taking on people in their private lives. Depression Poverty. Illness. Grief. Addiction. Joblessness. War. Famine. Hurricanes. Fires. Climate Social media bullying. Divorce. Uncertainty. Discrimination. Despair. Refugees. Suffering. Domestic terrorism. Human trafficking. Shrinking health care or no health care. Nations on the brink of nuclear war. Personal anxiety at an all-time high.  Financial lack. Corruption. Injustice. Rioting. You Name It We've Seen It in 2017. Angry angry people everywhere. Incredible STRESS. 

People.are.overwhelmed.

People are discouraged.

People are worried.

And yet, the power in this movement has always been the power in our words.

Look at the header of this page - "If words are powerful...then this matters." That's been our motto since November 2006.  I believe it even more in the year 2017.

I flew the 1st one in 2006.

This year, let's ENCOURAGE, EMPOWER and UPLIFT each other with well-chosen words, personal stories, and our beautiful peace globes - the symbol we use to declare we are peace bloggers! 

There are 214 countries/territories involved in this movement - on blogs and all manner of social media.  Every continent is represented. 

This year we are going deeper. 
I'm asking that you embrace your own vulnerability and figure out how you personally handle adversity. Because we all need a plan. A cure. A soft place to fall. 
  Ask yourself: How do I stay peaceful in the middle of chaos? What do I do when my world falls apart? Do I run? Do I hunker down and hide? Or do I find a way through to the other side? Maybe you're struggling to even answer those questions. That's OK. If you don't know the answers to those four questions, then it's time you take inventory and figure out a reliable go-to remedy....because you surely have one.  Whether it's healthy or destructive, you have one. 
And in the current climate of calamity on planet Earth, we could all use a dose of good common sense strategies.    I'll bet we can come up with some pretty awesome practical solutions to manage stress during this craziness.  

Use the next 30 days to think about this question -   

 How do I find peace in overwhelming times? 

In a world that's adrift with constant anxiety and unpredictability, that Latin 3-word mantra prayer we've been uttering all these years on our peace globes is needed more than ever: 

Dona nobis pacem

Grant us peace

HELPFUL LINKS!
Free peace globe templates to use
How To Blog 4 Peace 
Blog 4 Peace on Facebook
Globe Sightings Across theWorld

We forward to seeing you on November 4th. Click the links on this page for templates and complete instructions on how to get a peace globe and participate.  Or visit us on the Blog4Peace Facebook Page.  

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An Easter Story for the believer, the non-believer, and everyone in between

Once upon a time I worked for a man who claims he saw an angel

not just any 'ole angel, but one that showed up close and personal

right there in his house

in a dark room

full of light

and spirit

and God's presence

As he retold the tale to me and several others, I've never forgotten the feeling it gave me.

The Retelling: An Easter story for the believer, the non-believer, and everyone in between

I don't know how we got on the subject, except that religion and faith always seemed to be tumbling into our office conversations. One of us was an atheist, one a Buddhist, one a born-again Christian, a strict Baptist, one bitter agnostic, a charismatic who spoke in tongues, a transcendentalist trying to find himself, two scoffing doubters, one former Hell's Angel and one on the fence. We worked together as a team for three years, sharing lunches and elaborate parties, successes and flops.  We were all business every day all day until this day; when the subject turned to the preposterous notion of living breathing angels walking around on earth, and how do you account for sight unseen occurrences or do you at all, and what about the bodacious claim that somebody's "God" bends down occasionally for the likes of humans to intervene in the lives of humans, even to hand out the elusive undocumented miracle.

A few were already laughing at the thought, the Buddhist lady had a wiry sneer on her lips at the onset and I think I saw the tongue talker utter a prayer under her breath. Me? I was poised over an electric calculator, twirling my pencil in my hair, as was my usual custom when it came time to ponder the preposterous. 

I loved to analyze and observe. I loved the debate even more. The room was ripe for the picking apart of beliefs, chapter and verse. And I was about to embark (unknowingly soon) on a journey that would lead me to throw my Bible against the wall in some wild defiance of everything religious. The timing of my presence in that ragtag conclave was prophetic.

I could feel the charismatic getting antsy, the Zen Man just wanted some air, the doubters were circling and motorcycle man desperately needed a cigarette. The only ones stone-faced were the non-believers, who were so sure that such conversation would quietly reveal the true crazies in the office that they didn't even bother to roll an eyeball. Given enough time, one of the believers would trip up and hang themselves on a begat and that would be the end of it. No more ridiculous supernatural discussions for this crew. I wondered which one of us would dare broach the subject with a tale to tell. My money was on the charismatic, who was looking at this point a little like she forgot which begat begot Baalam's ass in the first place.

Until the only one in the bunch whose very nature was reserved and aligned with normalcy, organization, order and precision, the logical, rational, sane one among us, Chamber of Commerce ready, as predictable as a red line pen mark in the debit column of an accountant's spreadsheet, rose to straighten his tie. This towering beautiful man in his late sixties, whose mission in life was to organize the usher's rotation roster each week at the Starched-Shirt-Church-Of-The-Saints, make sure there were suitable flowers on the altar, and tally up the collection plate money, suddenly waxed awkward and unfamiliar right before our collective eyes.

Mr. Predictable sat down in a chair in front of my desk and leaned his head back on the wall. He closed his eyes. So unlike him. He reached for his handkerchief. My pencil stopped twirling. And suddenly those hard-lined angles with all the checks and balances took a squiggly left turn. I saw smudges. All the ink in the room dried up. As he stepped out of the careful box he'd created and deliberately lived in all these years, I think I heard the proverbial pen rip right through verse four of Just As I Am and land somewhere between an impeccably drawn ledger line in the bookkeeping book of boring that was his life. Boring life. Boring religion. Boring book. He was a walking talking Billy Graham revival most days. He even sang like Cliff Barrows. It was only when he began to weep (a sight we'd never seen before) that the atmosphere in the room turned from theological skepticism to...to...well, I can't explain it. You listen.

There's something about seeing a widly successful man who had the world by the tail, sitting in a starched white shirt, black tie, shiny shoes and salesman's cologne, suddenly break down at remembering. There was something going on with his daughter, he said, and she was distraught. Everyone in his house was distraught. She was lost in her own peculiar way and no one could find her. He told it so well. And before we knew it we were all hanging on every word of the story; the wayward child, the worrisome nights, illness, pain, uncertainty, a parent's nightmare. All told in perfect angst and candor to his friends. A man who had always seemed staunch with a tad of sanctimonious.

Until something else showed up.

And that was long about the time the second set of  tears began to roll down the shiny cheeks of the all business businessman, falling in droplets on the front of his made-for-business shirt...."I went into her room..."
His hands now covered his face. We saw water on his fingers, heard pain in his voice. The smirks were gone at the sight of his courage as his chest constricted and heaved between shallow breaths of tears and the sound of a well grown man unable to speak without gulping for air, the kind of retelling that only happens when you've accidentally opened up a deep well of wound or memory you forgot you had, and instead of drowning again and again you decide in some God moment that it must be time to let down your guard because all you can do God help you is bare it. You let people into your sanctuary of secrets and whether or not they deem it true is no longer your concern. You know the feeling, don't you?

And then I saw...I saw...
He stopped. He couldn't go on. My friend wept and wept in the made-for-business room.
And I felt it. What he saw. Before he said it, I felt it. We all felt it. It was all over him. All over us. In our room too.
As if it had just happened to him all over again. A silence of palpable presence that he'd held in his memory for nearly thirty years. And a gratitude that the God he loved and worshiped would seek to send him comfort and a promise in the midst of one of his darkest days. The presence of the Angel was still fresh in his mind. The events that surrounded his life at that time changed and he was never the same.

His story helped me understand the frame of faith in which he walked. And it solidified a belief I've held most of my life - That you can't argue with an experience. I don't care if you're an intellectual, a fundamentalist, agnostic or atheist, a liberal Christian or a Bible-thumping sainted ball of confusion, if you don't have an experience, a definitive moment in time that you cannot logically explain, to back up what and why you believe in a Higher Power, it means nothing to you but empty words. You can argue from Genesis to John, as we did many times, but none of us could argue with his experience. His long ago unexpected meeting with an angel of light and protection for his beautiful daughter, was still strongly tethered to the present. Quite simply, he knew he was not alone. He knew he would never be alone. And in the retelling of it, I got a front row seat and witnessed firsthand this fundamental truth....that words are only powerful when they're attached to your heart.  It was his experience, that experience, that made all our blubbering banter on the subject of religion 'round the water cooler mean less than a jar of beans. Because when something that powerful manifests itself in your life and changes the situation, it changes you.

Thirty years later it changed us too.

  Richard H. Driehaus Gallery of Stained Glass, on the Navy Pier, Chicago, Illinois, USA
released to the public domain 
 The Annunciation  - Tiffany Glass & Decorating Company, c. 1895.
 Ecclesiastical Angels - Tiffany Glass & Decorating Company, c. 1890.
 Two Angels - Tiffany Studios, c. 1910.
Thomas Cooper Golch The Awakening 

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The Man and The Pumpkin Pie ~ A Thanksgiving Story by Mimi Lenox

It is tradition on this blog to re-post this story every Thanksgiving. A lot changed in the years that followed, but it still stands as one of the clearer defining moments of my life. I am incredibly proud of my son and see in him a kindness I admire. I am also thankful for so many things this year, including the love of family and friends. 
 I hope you and your family have a safe and wonderful holiday. ~ Mimi
 
 When my son was fifteen he did something stupid. Not criminal, not earth-shattering, just knuckle-head-not-thinking stupid. His dad, my ex-husband, gave him the usual “Atta boy, don't do that again” talk, the school got their three days without his smart mouth and I was left with the what-am-I-gonna-do-with-this-child? nightmare invading my dreams.

What am I going to do with this child?

 The conversation went something like this: “You know I love you so I'm not even going to preface this punishment with I love you because you've already gotten a slap on the wrist but OK OK I love you.”

“Yeah, I know Mom.”
He started to walk away.

 “Well, I hope you'll still love me when I tell you what your punishment is going to be.”

Although I vowed never to give the think of all the starving children speech to my child (I broke that rule many times), this time I went for the jugular. Mine was bulging. “What were you THINKING?! Do you think you can just go through life handling things this way? Do you know how privileged you are? (yeah Mom) Do you understand that there are kids in this world who would love to have your life? (yeah Mom) Why are you choosing to mess things up for yourself? Do you know that you can't play sports now? (yeah Mom) Are you listening to me?! If you don't get your act together young man you're going to end up somewhere you don't want to be and I'm not bailing you out. Do you hear me? (yeah Mom) You have no idea how close you came to getting in serious trouble today, do you? Do you? Well, DO you?? (a surly yeah Mom....See, I told you, listen to the smart mouth.) What you do right now in school will determine your future. And now you have a bad mark on your academic record and a three-day suspension before high school. You are out of control!”

“So ground me,” said the smart mouth.

“No. I will not ground you.”

He halted.

“What are you going to do?” he asked.

“Just think of it as Mama's jail.”

 The smart aleck ceased for a moment and then I heard a surly, "Whatever, Mom.”

I was furious with him and at my wit's end. He needed to see how the real world works. I made arrangements. It took some doing but they finally saw it my way.  

"You want your son to do WHAT? But he's not a criminal (not YET I thought) and we're not a juvenile detention center." (Well......) "Will you please allow us to do this?" I asked the nun-like administrator of this facility. “I'm not trying to teach him a lesson here- that is not the point- but he needs to see and understand with his own eyes how lucky he is and how his actions now can affect the rest of his life.”

 

 

So, for the next two months that summer we got up at five am, drove to another town and worked in a homeless shelter's soup kitchen. It was the worst of the worst neighborhoods. I had cleanup detail (you didn't think they'd let me near the food now, did you?) and he served the line.

 “What are we doing here?” he asked.

 I never told him why. He didn't need another lecture.
'Think of all the starving children' just got real.

 After one week of losing his summer sleep to ride an hour in my car at the crack of dawn - with my music blasting all the way - and mingle with very old people volunteers and stir canned creamed corn in a pot for an hour he said, “Why didn't you just send me to REAL jail?! I hate this!”

 Uh huh, I thought. Just stir, buster.

In the middle of the second week he started to actually get up before I did. “Hurry up, Mom. We have to get going.” (Oh great, I thought. He's met a pretty girl at the homeless shelter. That's the only reason he would get up at five am. My plan has backfired. Drats!) 

 And what was this grand revelation I expected him to learn? Heck if I knew. I was just a parent with an unruly fifteen- year -old with no respect for himself or his elders or his life. I didn't even know if it would make a difference.
All I knew was that somehow the corn and pintos and no-extra-dessert-for-you rule would magically translate into a light-bulb moment for him. Osmosis maybe? I just knew this was the right thing to do but I didn't know how or why.

 One early afternoon as I started to clean the lunch tables with a large wet rag and a bucket of soapy water, rearranging the napkins and utensils for the next meal, I looked up to see my sleepy-headed son talking with a man through the narrow serving window.

My boy had just served lunch. There was pie for dessert that day.
Pumpkin pie.

 

 The man had returned to the window for another slice.
He was dirty. Shaky.
No teeth. Scraggly. Scary. Smelly. 

And hungry.

The rules were clear. One serving per person. No seconds. Period.

 No one was looking. And I'm thinking....We're going to get thrown out of the soup kitchen for not following the rules. Oh great! Suspended again. And this time I'm going down with him. Oh the shame. Until.....

The man who wanted more pie.

 Up until this point he rarely made eye contact with anyone in the line, especially not the kids. He plopped the food on the plate and reached for the next empty Styrofoam sadness shuffling through. People with their entire families in tow. Hungry folks down on their luck and needing not even a hot meal. Just a meal. Families living in cars through no fault of their own. Unemployed. On the street. Raggedy clothes crossing elbows with his Tommy Hilfiger jeans and watch.
Pork 'n beans, wax beans, any beans. Didn't matter. Please feed my child. My little girl is hungry.

  I saw it in their eyes. The sadness. And the shame.

I was so moved that summer. Apparently, I needed a reality check too. But that was not the point. Was it?

 The man would not stop asking and my son was forced to look him squarely in the eyes. I could see the wheels turning in baby boy's brown-eyed head..... “Will you shut up? I'm going to get in trouble if you don't go away!”

Silence. 

 And a hungry stare full of embarrassment and shame that a life-giving gesture lay in the hands of this kid he did not know and would never know - someone young enough to be his grandchild - who held something he wanted.. something he had to beg for. And then I saw my son slip a plump piece of pumpkin delight (with whipped cream) onto the scraped clean empty plate. The man nodded appreciatively, lowered his head, and walked away.

 By this time my wet rag had dropped to the table and the cleaning had stopped. My hair in a net, pretending to fold silverware sets, I watched what happened. He saw me sit down. I waited for someone to say something. I waited for him to get in trouble. I waited for my own hands to stop shaking. 

 No one saw his discretion that day but I'll tell you this - If I could have jumped through the tiny little window and wrapped my arms around that boy I would have done so.

 He was shuffling his hundred dollar Nike-shod feet standing with a spatula and an empty pan, trying not to look at me. When our eyes finally met, the blur of tears between us said what no lecture ever could. We never talked again about the man, the pie, or his punishment.
But I was proud.

We finished our tour of shelter duty as promised and school started again in the fall.
That was twenty-one years ago.

 Did that summer stop him from forever being a knuckle-head? No.
Did he straighten-up-and-fly-right from that moment on? No.
Were there more nightmare dreams for me through the teenage years? Yes.

But I have to believe that it shaped his understanding of the world a bit and through all his troubles and challenges in life that most certainly came later, I did see – and continue to see – a great compassion develop in him for people in need.

 And to this day, every time I'm offered a slice of pumpkin pie.... 

I see a homeless man, a prized piece of dessert and brown-eyed humility.

Mine.

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We're Too Small To Stop The Rain

 I have always loved this voice. 

Gary LeVox, the Ohio born singer for the trio Rascal Flatts, never ever ever fails to move me with his vocals. He is seen here performing for the troops in Bagdhad in 2007. For me, it's not about the genre but the talent, musicianship and lyrics. I enjoy everything from Prince to Mahler  - even the unlikely American country southern titled band of  Rascal Flatts.
Much music is on my brain this week. Performances, rehearsals, time at the piano and a million details to distract me. But nothing can take me out of myself and my troubles like a simple and brilliantly written melody line. And there is no one on earth who can deliver a ballad like this group or this voice.

People are in such need right now. My corner of the world is being inundated with wind and rain and floods. Ice and snow and frigid temperatures. Strange and dangerous weather all over the country and world. People stumbling in rubble and watching their homes sink into murky graves. Elderly people with no hope of ever rebuilding and sleeping in corners of school gymnasiums on the floor. Babies ripped out of the arms of mothers in epic tornadoes. I don't know what is happening in the world right now but it feels like upheaval, transition, revolution all around ...even in the earth.

So they sing.
And it helps me heal a little and remember to count my blessings.
 

I will stand by you

I will help you through

When you’ve done all you can do

And you can't cope
I will dry your eyes
I will fight your fight
                                                   I will hold you tight
And I won't let go
  

Everyone needs someone who won't let go.

Monday Mimisms ~ Martin's Words and Gandhi's Fire

In 1964 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end racial discrimination and segregation through the avenues of civil disobedience and other non-violent means. He was also awarded the Catholic Pacem in Terris Award (Peace on Earth). It is awarded "to honor a person for their achievements in peace and justice, not only in their country but in the world."

 Four years after his work for social justice began in the streets of Montgomery, forcing social issues to the forefront and into the American and international psyche, he began to focus his energies on stopping the Vietnam War and ending poverty. He started a process of shifting, re-sifting, toppling norms and ideologies long held by establishments at odds with anything resembling human dignity and justice. These monumental shifts in the soul of our nation and the world are largely attributed to his courage and his voice.

Oh, but there was more to the man.

I was reminded today that he was inspired by the writings and teachings of another such activist.  

When Dr. King visited India in 1959, he came away with a profound respect and understanding of the non-violent teachings of Mahatma Gandhi.  He later reflected, "Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity. In a real sense, Mahatma Gandhi embodied in his life certain universal principles that are inherent in the moral structure of the universe, and these principles are as inescapable as the law of gravitation."  
He knew how to connect spiritual laws with scientific laws, science with morality, spoken words with unspoken fire, and generations of spiritual evolution into threads of commonalities within all cultures and religions while steadfastly holding to his own. Intrinsic ideas and truths became actions and deeds.

It is always the intrinsic that matters the most.

What I admire and appreciate about Martin Luther King,  more than the amazing dream speech,  more than his courage, more than his learned theological spirit, and even more than his political and social causes of injustice and equality..... was his ability to intellectually intertwine all of those attributes and aspirations into powerful common sense purpose. The sum of all those parts made his greatness. Sometimes we focus on a few shining moments of publicity and grandeur so long that we forget what made him great in the first place. He knew who he was. That was his true genius.
He surrounded himself with learned men, intimate and scholarly mentors, often controversial, books and a love of words,  prayers, and a burning desire to pour out what was inside of him in letters and essays to the rest of us, even from a Birmingham Jail .  Because he honored the wisdom of others, to his credit, we not only find a profoundly cerebral giant among men, we find humility.   We mostly remember a speech, a bullet, a march, a statue, a remarkable iconic individual - and all those things are to be upheld and revered about the man - but what lay underneath is more important to me, because without that brilliant, questioning, analytical ability to connect the dots and eloquently espouse them into one cohesive truth the whole world could understand, there wouldn't have been a march, a speech, or a movement.
The rest of his legacy would have been impossible to achieve and he would have become not a shining human light upon a hill of ugly darkness  or a seeker of truth in Gandhi's shadow, but just another speech maker, noise maker, rabble-rouser and activist marching down roads at the whim of every wind with no direction and no clear path. No leader can lead walking blindly around corners of pivotal change and unrest, and take others with him, unless he already knows what lies ahead. 
So today I celebrate Martin the man. The thinker. The preacher. The spirit. The leader. And a man who understood who he was, where he'd been and where he was going. This is one of my favorite quotes by Dr. King. 
"All I'm saying is simply this, that all life is interrelated, that somehow we're caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality."
—Dr. Martin Luther King Jr

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What Do You Do With A Drive-By Moon?

 

out of your reach

 winking through the pines

and close enough to touch

Have you ever chased a moon?

and landed in a sunset?

;Photography Mimi Lenox
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The Highway Is My Way

 I got home very late last night from a wonderful day long into the night visit with my friend of eons and eons, Barbara. (see Barbie here)

There was food. There was music.
Squealing laughter. Some hugging.  Lots of hugging. Posing for the camera such vain girls we are. And sillies.
Praying. Remembering.
And thankfulness.

Jealousy. **raises hand** Because she is retiring from the exhausting insanity of teaching and launching headlong into her own personal about-time selfishly personal lifelong dreams. Finally. Of course, Barbara's dreams are never selfish really. She's always plotting and planning to help someone else.  And she is positively giddy about having the time to be of service wherever she is needed in her own time frame......'cause that's just who she is.

Then there were Checkers. Very big checkers. Sunshine and salads. Southern iced tea.
Cellphones off at lunch until one of aforementioned children texted or rang. Did I mention aforementioned multiple children and/or grandchildren and traveling spouse? We only stopped lunching to take care of boo-boos. Some things never change.

Manicures. Pedicures. Hot stone massages.And laughter every time once of us uttered, "Do you remember when..."
The reply was always a unanimous, "YES!" with a squeal and then a somber
"We are older than dirt."
"Correction. Our children are now older than dirt."



See those lights behind the two shadowy-for-the-blog women?; We really don't need electricity you know. A lifetime of brutally and joyously living life while having the others' back creates light and life of its own.
And it's always there. No matter how many miles we roam. 


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