PEACE
My husband and I celebrated our anniversary by spending a night at the Sourwood Inn. It’s way up a crazy high mountain. The driveway is precipitous. The visit was worth it. This is what I call sanctuary. No T.Vs. No Wi-Fi. Trails to walk, fireplaces in every room, a library with Mary Oliver and Wendell Berry’s words in residence. I took Mary’s book, The Leaf and The Cloud, a poem, back to our room and copied one of them for you.
From the Book of Time
I.
I rose this morning early as usual, and went to my desk.
But it’s spring,
and the thrush is in the woods,
somewhere in the twirled branches, and he is singing.
And so, now, I am standing by the open door.
And now I am stepping down onto the grass.
I am touching a few leaves.
I am noticing the way the yellow butterflies
move together, in a twinkling cloud, over the field.
And I am thinking: maybe just looking and listening
is the real work.
Maybe the world, without us,
is the real poem.
~
Mary enters her world and tells about it. (She could have written this on the grounds of the Sourwood Inn.) Mary gives the reader instructions on how to enter the day. “Stand by the open door. Step down onto the grass. Touch a few leaves, notice, think, look, listen.”
For most of us, doors do open. Gates stand ajar. Bridges invite. As T. S. Eliot wrote in his Four Quartets, “the end is where we start.” Endings happen. We graduate, divorce, die, marry, give birth, survive the empty nest, or chemo, retire. Thresholds challenge and change us.
Imagine the refugee: beyond hunger, beyond our imagination of the word, cold. Doors are closed. Bridges? Closed. Gates? Locked. When my German and English ancestors came to this country, they moved in and started farming. My husband’s Norwegian ancestors took the name of their town to the New World. They found a place a lot like home, (or at least as cold) Minnesota.
My plans for this column went astray. I had an idea for this column. The world intervened. I should know by now that I am not in charge! In one of our bookcases there is a tiny book titled Peace Prayers. I had never seen it before. It is a collections of meditations, affirmations, invocations, poems, and prayers for peace. I confess that poems caught my eye. I know that Mary Oliver believes all poems are prayers. (She said so in a reading I attended.)
Jim Wallis writes:
Prayer is a necessity. Without it we see only our points of view, our own righteousness, and ignore the perspective of our enemies. Prayer breaks down those distinctions. Prayer makes enemies into friends. Fervent prayer for our enemies is a great obstacle to war and the feelings that lead to it.
Re-read this and substitute the word poetry for prayer.
Wendell has a say in this poem.
The Want of Peace
All goes back to the earth,
and so I do not desire
pride of excess or power,
but the contentments made
by men who have had little:
the fisherman’s silence
receiving the river’s grace,
the gardener’s musing on rows.
I lack the peace of simple things
I am never wholly in place.
I find no peace or grace.
We sell the world to buy fire,
our way lighted by burning men,
and that has bent my mind
and made me think of darkness
and wish for the dumb life of roots.
~
December is a month of celebrations. The Advent season is four weeks long, culminating in Christmas, or the coming of the Light. Hanukka, the eight day Jewish festival of the lights reaffirms one’s spiritual dedication to Earth work in the coming year. Bodhi Day, Rohatsu – the celebration of the Buddha’s enlightenment in the Zen tradition. Ta Chin is the Taoist festival of reflection and renewal. It’s all about light.
December is a busy month. In our world, where will we find light? Here are three light filled poems.
With all of mankind, towards the light.
I shall raise the children
High, high, laughing for joy to the sun.
~ Yan Lian
The sunbeams stream forward, dawn boys,
with shimmering shoes of yellow.
~ Mescalero Apache Song
Waking up this morning, I smile,
Twenty four brand new hours are before me.
I vow to live fully in each moment
and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
Thich Nhat Hanh does not say he will look at any one kind of being with eyes of compassion. He is specific. He says – look at ALL beings with eyes of compassion.
from Oscar Romero
Peace is not the product of terror or fear.
Peace is not the silence of cemeteries.
Peace is not the silent result of violent repression.
Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all
to the good of all.
Peace is dynamism. Peace is generosity.
It is right and it is duty.
~
This poem by William Stafford is as good as any prayer/poem can get.
This is the field where the battle did not happen,
where the unknown soldier did not die.
This is the field where grass joined hands,
where no monument stands,
and the only heroic thing is the sky.
Birds fly here without any sound,
unfolding their wings across the open.
No people killed – or were killed – on this ground
hallowed by neglect and an air so tame
that people celebrate it by forgetting its name.
~
It is twenty-five degrees as I write. Winter is making herself known in Asheville. The next time I go downtown, I am going to take a cup of hot chocolate and give it to a homeless person. I am going to vote when the time comes. I will continue to take food and send money to Calvary Episcopal church’s Food Pantry. I will donate socks and scarves. I will pray for peace. I will write poems for peace.
Every small good thing makes a difference.
Peace to You.