Eating Peace!

Blessings to you this Peace Tuesday. Today you can choose to take a moment, a minute or more to focus on Peace. Since all things are interconnected, the possibility exists that your moments' focus on Peace will affect your life, the lives of others, who will in turn affect others. When I take a moment to meditate, pray, sit quietly, envision or imagine that Peace is possible, I get a warm, squishy, excited feeling in the pit of my stomach. I leave my moment's focus and I smile at whoever I see, even if it's only my dog! My smile usually elicits a return smile, (yes, my dog smiles at me!) which warms me again because I know that the smile will travel throughout the day, moving from face to face. Someone will remember smiling back at a stranger, feel lighter during the day and return to work with a smile for a coworker who desperately needs one. One smile, one unexpected act of kindness yields unimagined benefits down the line. You never know where your smile will end up or the difference it will make!

How is that eating Peace? Well, it began as a random thought, eating Peace. And probably came from the Hunger Project's slogan "Visualize World Peace" which folks with a sense of humor morphed into "Visualize Whirled Peas". I know I've eaten some of those.

However, it occurs to me that you can eat Peace. You can eat Peace in the sense that you can choose to eat things that contribute to Peace on the planet. You can eat peacefully (as in no T.V. and no politics at mealtime!) and contribute to Peace in your life. You can also eat Peace by choosing to purchase food that is grown locally, organically or sustainably. You can choose to purchase foods that are whole or foods that don't involve a lot of packaging. You could choose to avoid eating meat one day a week or one meal a week or avoid meat entirely, as a way to eat Peacefully. You can grow one tomato plant, which you nurture in your garden. You can share the bounty with friends and neighbors and contribute to Peace in that way. You can nurture and love the plant, watering it each day, appreciating the gift of its fruit. Your nurturing and your gratitude contribute to Peace on the planet. I invite those of you who are already doing any of these things to celebrate your contribution to the planet. Acknowledge yourself for the difference you make.

Eating Peace is not such a ridiculous idea. It's another way to think about making a small difference, which, when added to the many small differences everyone else is making, adds up to a ginormous (Jim Carey's word) difference.

Along those lines I have been reading Paul Hawken's book Blessed Unrest. Paul writes about how millions of people on the planet are working daily to create social justice, environmental sustainability and Peace. He writes about how the work seems to be invisible because it is being done by so many individuals and groups, most of whom are not connected to each other, but that it actually constitutes a movement! The book is full of inspiring examples of people working in their communities or traveling to other countries to help and heal. Paul speaks about these millions of people as akin to the earth's immune system, working diligently and intentionally to mend the planet's wounds and prevent further damage. It's still too early to say if this "immune system" will prevail, but I love thinking of you and me as part of a larger system designed to repair and protect the earth. And we don't even have to know each other or know about each other to do our individual work! Cool beans!

So, I assert that anything small thing you do to move toward Peace will have an additive effect. And, what's even better, is that if you think of your additive effect, you are more likely to be inspired to keep doing that something you do. Or keep being that someone who contributes to Peace on the planet. Wahoo!

Paul Hawken speaks around the world and in his book he describes his audiences as full of the sort of people described by the poet, Adrienne Rich who wrote, "My heart is moved by all I cannot save. So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world". And another quote he includes by Barry Lopez,"There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light."

And then there is a commandment I would add to Dr. Kent M. Keith's Paradoxical Commandments. These are the commandments that are often presented as being created by Mother Theresa but are not. My 11th Commandment is: If you work for and support Peace people will call you naive and idealistic. Work for Peace anyway!

And here is a practice for doing this. It is a practice that has you work from your heart, where you know that Peace is possible, instead of from your head, where you've stored all of the arguments you've ever heard for why it is not! So, the practice is to take 5 minutes and imagine that your heart is where your brain normally resides. It is big, powerful, pumping loving life force to all of your body......from your head cavity! Then imagine that your overworked, over-worrying, overstimulated brain has shrunk to the size of an orange and that it resides where your heart normally sits. Sit with this image until it sticks. Then ask your "Heart brain" what it wants to do for Peace today. Listen for the answer. And if you're feeling really frisky, practice walking around as long as you can with your heart in your head. And notice what happens to your normal internal dialogue-diet of of judging and assessing.

So, join me today. Lean into the light. Do one thing to "reconstitute the world"!

Love,

Darlene

P.S. If you want to be removed from my mailing please leave a message in the comments section. I promise I will love you anyway! And if you have a comment or question about the blog please leave that in the comment section as well. Peace Out!