New Year's reflections

Today is New Year's Eve. It's often a time of reflection and review. What did we learn in the past year? What lessons do we carry into the new year? What will we do differently? For what are we thankful? What was the most challenging? From whom did we get help? To what are we looking forward in the new year? If you were to put a word on 2019 (perhaps what you long for in the new year or what you'll work on), what might it be?

My fiancé, two friends and I do this together each New Year's Eve. We reflect on the year past and look ahead to what might be coming or what we hope will be coming in the new year. We each select a word for the new year, writing it on a stone so we'll remember all year long. It's interesting how having that stone in sight increases intention throughout the year.

While I won't be writing blogs in this new year (I need the time I spend writing them to do other writing and sorting projects), I encourage you to sample the archive of my past blogs going back to 2012. I also encourage you to sign up for my monthly ezine if you haven't already. You may sign up to the right of this blog. All you will receive are the initial three free gifts that come in your email inbox and an ezine once a month to your inbox. That's it. Nothing more.

I encourage you to stay hopeful and grounded in this new year. To that end, I leave you with this blessing for now:

The path before me: May I walk it in peace.
The path behind me: May I leave it in peace.
The path within me: O God, may it be peace indeed.

Every stone counts!

Today is Christmas Eve. We have heard much throughout this season about peace on earth. And yet, we hear stories of war and violence across the globe. We hear fights over immigration. We see the huge refugee problem. We are stunned by the amount of gun violence and the mass shootings in our country. We are constantly aware of the awful cycle of poverty, homelessness and hunger all around us and globally.

These issues seem insurmountable. We often think, "But I'm only one insignificant person. What can I possibly do?"

Confucius once said, "The person who moves a mountain begins by carrying small stones." At Christmastime and all through the year, let's remember the power we really do have. Let's start by carrying small stones. Pick even one of the country's or world's problems and do one small thing to begin. One small stone. Then another. Join hands with others. See what a difference we really can make! Change happens one person at a time.

Think of the possibilities!

Can we learn the art of civil conversations?

In recent days I've seen this posted on Facebook: "Being taught to avoid talking about politics and religion has led to a lack of understanding of politics and religion.

"What we should have been taught was how to have a civil conversation about a difficult topic."

And my response to that is this: "Yes. And it's never too late to learn the skill. We can bring that gift to the world."

So as we approach the end of yet another year—an extremely divisive year filled with increasing levels of hatred and violence, it seems—let us do everything we can to either learn that skill or brush up on it, if we already know how to have such conversations. It's so sorely needed right now.

I know many people who have lost friendships or refused to spend holidays with family just because of this inability. They simply couldn't talk about politics, religion or any of the difficult issues that confront us without fighting or name-calling.

So let's do everything we can to bring more light, love and peace into the world. That starts with respect and civil conversation.

Peace and joy to you!

I don't know which of the December holidays you celebrate. I celebrate Christmas today—so I will keep this short and sweet.

Whichever holiday you celebrate, I send you my very best wishes for a meaningful, peaceful and joyful time of year—and wish you a multitude of moments in the new year that take your breath away!

Love & peace at the center

Even in the midst of this season when we think about peace on earth, we see and hear so many signs of hatred and violence—even in the comments on social media and in news programs.

Again, I'm drawn to those who have been peace-makers throughout history. So the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., which I recently saw in a series of quotes upon which to reflect, definitely spoke to my heart:

"Non-violence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him."

Oh, my, that hit me where it hurts ... because I will confess that some of the things I read and hear lately have brought angry and violent thoughts into my mind. I don't want to become that which I intensely dislike. So King's words are a good reminder to me.

You, too? Let's help each other keep love and peace at the center of our lives.

A peaceful path

One of my favorite inspirational authors, Jan L. Richardson, in her book In Wisdom's Path: Discovering the Sacred in Every Season wrote this prayer/poem:

"The path before me: may I walk it in peace.
"The path behind me: may I leave it in peace.
"And the path within me: O God, may it be peace indeed."

I really love that. This is a time of year when we hear a lot about "peace on earth" and we talk a lot about it. But I have to ask myself: What am I doing about peace on earth? Most days, I don't feel so peaceful inside—particularly if I'm trying to be an engaged U.S. and global citizen!

So I really should post this prayer/poem on my bathroom mirror so I see it regularly. If you like it, you may want to consider doing that as well.

Here's to more peace in our lives—for if several of us can live out this prayer/poem in our lives, we'll be putting that peaceful energy out into the world. That can only be a good thing, right?

Making peace with aging

I can't tell you the number of conversations I've had lately with various people in a variety of places in which the topic of aging has come up. Along with that topic, invariably the issues of illness and decline emerge. And nearly always someone will quip, "Aging isn't for sissies." Indeed, it isn't.

So when I read today in Suzanne Braun Levine's book, Inventing the Rest of Our Lives, that sociologist Pepper Schwartz had said the following, I was reminded that this is the other side of the coin:

"The only reward for aging is a sense of some honest friendship with yourself, where you get to know yourself—you make peace with the things you are and you aren't." She added that you see your life "filtered through a unique lens rather than a cultural one."

Levine then adds, "In other words, intimacy begins at home. Before you can establish your authority, you need to know the sound of your own voice. Before you can take up space, you must be aware of your boundaries—and your reach."

Sometimes we need those reminders that aging isn't all about decline and new illnesses we never wanted. It is also a wonderful stage of life when we are comfortable in our own skin, where we have become friends to ourselves and have made peace with our experiences and how we've faced them. It's a time when we can own what we can and can't do.

So, yes, aging isn't for sissies—and it also isn't a time to long for the "good old days" of youth when we lacked confidence and a knowledge of ourselves. Stand tall in the truth and beauty of who you are now. Name it. Claim it.

No to revenge. Yes to forgiveness.

Forgiveness. Is there anything so important to human relationships? To our emotional health and peace of mind?

We know that hanging on to grudges and wrongs only hurts us. It's like carrying around a ball and chain forever. It consumes so much of our energy.

Author, lecturer and social reformer E.H. Chapin pointed out the strength it takes to forgive when he said, "Never does the human soul appear so strong as when it forgoes revenge, and dares forgive an injury."

Oh, yes. Revenge is so tempting. And it may even feel so good—for a short while. But in the end, it's an empty satisfaction that is as fleeting as the spent dandelion when it meets up with the wind. Remember the saying, "Living well is the best revenge"? Living well doesn't include expending energy nursing hurts and carrying hurts in our heart.

Forgiveness, on the other hand, while difficult at the time, brings a deep peace and lasting satisfaction. It releases you to move on with your life and to spend your precious energy in other, more life-giving ways.

What cries out for your release today? Whom do you need to forgive? What are you waiting for?

Of peace and change

Recently I read some words spoken by Mairead Maguire that speak deeply to me:

"Change will only come about when each of us takes up the daily struggle ourselves to be more forgiving, compassionate, loving, and above all joyful in the knowledge that, by some miracle of grace, we can change as those around us can change, too."

If you know who Maguire is, you'll know how deeply she feels these words—and how she lives them. Three of her sister's children were killed in Northern Ireland in the violence between Catholics and Protestants. So she organized massive demonstrations and other actions calling for a nonviolent end to the conflict. In 1976 she and Betty Williams together won the Nobel Peace Prize. Maguire still speaks out against oppression and violence, working for peace—currently standing in solidarity with people in Syria.

Change is possible. Peace is possible. And it is up to each one of us to do our part to bring it about. And, yes, it is a daily struggle for us to be more forgiving, compassionate, loving and joyful. There is much that can drag us down, wear us out and make us angry. Let's keep coming back to that north star of forgiveness, compassion and love. And let's help each other stay true to those values, too. Then, by "some miracle of grace," we can be change and bring about change!

'Stay in the center'

I'm always struck by the fact that the absence of conflict doesn't always mean peace. Peace is so much more. So when I read poet Mark Nepo's words from Seven Thousand Ways to Listen: Staying Close to What is Sacred these words, I resonated:

"...the absence of agitation alone is not necessarily peace and the presence of such difficult feelings does not mean we are necessarily off-center. Rather, the task of being fully alive challenges us to stay in the center while feeling the full range of life on Earth. This is quite a task, which I'm not sure how to do. Nonetheless, listening way inside to these two teachers—the truth of things as they are and the experience of being human—I find myself here.

"... I'm not trying to run from the agitation in the name of peace, but trying to relax my being until I'm spacious enough to be a container for both: the peace and the agitation."

What images does that bring to your mind, to be a container for both? How do you manage to "stay in the center" even amid agitation and challenges? Can you hold things as they are and still feel at peace?

Some days I manage to do this; and other days, it's a real challenge. Actually, most days, it's a challenge. But I do find it so worth the effort when I can feel the balance. That's OK. We are each a work-in-progress, so there's no need to beat up on ourselves when we can't be "spacious enough to be a container for both."

Light up the world with love

I recently read a post on Facebook about a woman who's a writer. She'd done a column on how despondent she's been since the election—a sentiment shared by many people, from what I hear.

At any rate, since writing that column, this woman has been verbally attacked in the newspaper and on Facebook. She's been called fat, ugly and many other things and has been urged by several to commit suicide! What is going on here?

What I see is way, way too many people being driven by fear, anxiety, anger and hatred. And what that tells me is that each one of us who want to live in a different America than a fear- and hate-based one needs to step up and bring light, love and peace into the world. Every one of us has personal power and the ability to make personal choices about our behavior. First it begins with our attitudes and then from those flow our actions and behaviors.

Let's bring all the light we can into this dark world that seems so filled with fear and hatred lately. Let's show love. Let's carry peace in our hearts and reflect it outward in ripples that go and go. This isn't Pollyanna speaking. We really can carry the light out into the world. I firmly believe that. It starts with small acts of love. Smile at someone. Help them carry their groceries. Befriend someone. Pay for the car behind you in a drive-through eatery. Listen as though your life depended on it—because someone else's life may. 

Love really does trump hate!

Seek silence

While we talk a lot about peace at this time of year, we may not necessarily get a lot of it in our lives. It can be a noisy time of year! Advertisements are blaring at us from all directions, touting the newest toys and gadgets for our gift-giving lists. Holiday tunes blare from every street corner and in every store. There is no peace.

And most likely, our schedules are jammed with events and our own to-do lists. Sometimes, doesn't it make you want to run away or hide?

So here's a thought: Seek out some quiet, some silence, in the midst of all the hustle, bustle and noise. As author and public speaker Deepak Chopra says: "Silence is the great teacher, and to learn its lessons you must pay attention to it. There is no substitute for the creative inspiration, knowledge, and stability that come from knowing how to contact your core of inner silence."

Ah, yes, there is no substitute. So let's stop—and pay attention. Try a few moments of silence. You'll reduce your stress and increase your joy.

Love is stronger

Is it my imagination or are more people operating on a shorter fuse these days than is typical for this time of year? Quite often, we see people in December trying harder to be kind and thoughtful, to start with themselves in bringing about peace on earth. Often we're happier because we're focused on doing things to bring joy to others—buying them gifts, giving to our favorite charities, baking for shut-ins, etc. We're living from a place of generosity and gratitude. But this year?

Lately I'm hearing about a lot of public displays of rage and anger—people going off on one another in restaurants, stores, at ballgames and in other public places. It's sad. It's hurtful. It doesn't speak well of us as citizens of what many call the greatest country on earth. Can we make that claim anyway?

As always, if we point a finger at others for this less-than-kind behavior, we remember that we have four fingers pointing back at ourselves. All we can do is begin at home. We can remember that love is stronger than hate. We can remember that the only person whose behavior we can change is moi. The song lyrics come to mind, "Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me."

I want to step up my game today. How about you?

Nurture peace

I continue to hear lots of pain, angst and confusion following our U.S. presidential election. So many fears were raised, lots of insults were hurled; and most of us are wondering how we can possibly heal the divide—much less know exactly where we as a people are headed.

So when I read these words in Pema Chodron's book, When Things Fall Apart, I took notice: "Right now—in the very instant of groundlessness—is the seed of taking care of those who need our care and of discovering our goodness."

Groundlessness. That does describe what many seem to be feeling these days. If Chodron is correct that the seed is there right now, it seems to me that our job will be to nurture that seed. Our work will be to do those things that don't sow division but rather that heal. We can listen to others. We can try to understand their fears and feelings. We can speak our truth—and do so in ways that simply owns our truth rather than beats up others with it. We can reach out to others who are especially vulnerable right now. We can commit to causes, not just with money but with time as well.

The following comments appear in Chodron's book just two pages after the above quote, and they are good questions to ask ourselves: "Every day we could think about the aggression in the world, in New York, Los Angeles, Halifax, Taiwan, Beirut, Kuwait, Somalia, Iraq, everywhere. All over the world, everybody always strikes out at the enemy, and the pain escalates forever. Every day we could reflect on this and ask ourselves, 'Am I going to add to the aggression in the world?' Every day, at the moment when things get edgy, we can just ask ourselves, 'Am I going to practice peace, or am I going to war?'"

In a season in which we think about peace on earth, perhaps this is a good time to think about how we might nurture peace.

'Can we all get along?'

It has become quite clear throughout this election season that we live in an extremely divided country—if it hadn't been abundantly clear prior to this. Perhaps it's understandable, given that we are a country of such diversity. However, I don't think it's necessarily a predictable outcome of such diversity. And, honestly, the divide does seem to have grown over these past few months.

I often return to Rodney King's question, "Can we all get along?" (Remember Rodney King, the African American taxi driver who was beaten by Los Angeles Police Department officers following a high-speed car chase in 1991?) No matter the circumstances of King's situation, the question remains a good one for us to raise again all these years later.

Can we all get along? Although we represent different races, cultures, creeds, genders, sexual orientations, viewpoints and more, isn't it possible that we can find common ground somehow through our common humanity? Isn't there more that unites us than that which divides us? Is transformation possible?

Where do we begin to make that happen? The only place we can begin is in our own heart. We start with ourselves—and move out to our families and friendship circles, then to those other groups to which we belong—and on out as far as we can reach with our connections. But it needs to begin with us. No finger-pointing. No blaming everyone else. I'm responsible. You're responsible. And, like the stone skipped into the water, the ripples will begin to spread outward further and further. Like peace-making, it must begin with us. We must be about building connections.

So ... where can I begin today to build common ground with someone? Where will you start? After all, it is up to us if we want to see our communities and society transformed.

Fill up with peace

A question I'm asking myself these days is: How can I keep my peace, my equanimity, amid all the turmoil in this country and around the globe? And for that matter, amid all the concerns and distractions in my own life?

Do you wonder that, too?

Here are some ideas upon which I'm reflecting:

• Stop participating in conversations that include gossip and "ain't it awful" attitudes.
• When my mind is filled with fear and negative thoughts, stop! Stop and take some deep breaths. Focus on one blessing and let that fill my mind. And don't feel that you need to stop with one!
• Quit engaging in "us versus them" thinking. Stop judging.
• Employ compassion more often—including self-compassion.
• Hang out more often with others who want to stay positive.
• Take on a service project that lets you bring love and light into someone's world.

What are you doing these days to counteract all the negativity? I'd love to hear from you.

A Celtic blessing for you

Every day the news is filled with more sad stories. Refugees from Syria crossing the water in leaky boats. And from Libya. More people killed in Iraq. In Afghanistan. Threatening actions by North Korea.

Shootings in Chicago. A child falling into the Cincinnati Zoo area of a 450-pound silverback gorilla—and people venting anger on the parents after the gorilla had to be put to death. Political candidates hurling comments back and forth as the election season drags on and on.

It's difficult to stay calm and serene, to keep one's grounding in the face of all this news. And we haven't even mentioned whatever personal stresses we face in our daily lives.

So when I came across a Celtic blessing the other day, I latched on to it immediately. I offer it to you here, too. It's suggested that you use an index finger to draw a circle around yourself and then repeat this:

Circle me, O God, keep hope within, despair without.
Circle me, O God, keep peace within, keep turmoil out.
Circle me, O God, keep calm within, keep storms without.
Circle me, O God, keep strength within, keep weakness out.

What's cluttering your mind and heart?

Spring isn't just a time to declutter and clean houses. It's also a good time to think about those things that clutter our minds and hearts—and get rid of what needs to go.

Yesterday I made a decision that has lightened my load today. It was such a simple decision—and only required a couple keystrokes on my computer.

Because what goes into our minds can clutter up our inner life and mess with our emotions, I find it essential to pay attention to what's inspiring, what's toxic, what will help me stay positive and what drags me down into negativity. One of my Facebook "friends" had been posting several negative comments lately, some bordering on quite offensive. But yesterday he really crossed what's a line for me. The comment went around and around inside my head, really bothering me until I put up my own comment on his page saying that I didn't find it funny to joke about brutality, murder and violence directed toward protesters at political rallies.

Still later, as I thought about how such comments and interactions clutter my mind, heart and soul with negativity, I decided to "unfriend" this person on Facebook. My action hurt no one. But it freed up space inside me to focus instead on what's good in the world. Mind you, we can't hide from what's not good (here I'm thinking of the heartbreaking news yesterday of terrorism in Brussels). But we can shut out some of the negatives. Turn off the violent TV shows. Unfriend Facebook users who cross lines that we have a right to keep in place. And there are so many other ways to declutter our insides, too.

Ask yourself: "What can I change or let go so I can focus more on that which inspires and uplifts me?" Make more room for peace in your heart today.

Do what you can do

It's Christmas Eve Day, an extra special day for those of us who celebrate Christmas. I hope it's a wonderful day for you wherever you are and whatever you celebrate.

A couple days ago I read in one of my favorite day books, The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo: "We cannot eliminate hunger, but we can feed each other. We cannot eliminate loneliness, but we can hold each other. We cannot eliminate pain, but we can live a life of compassion."

In these days when we hear the phrase "Peace on earth" more often than usual, this is a good thing to hear. Perhaps in many little ways, we can bring our selves, our families, our communities, our country and our world a little closer to that peace. We can "feed each other." We can "hold each other." And we definitely can "live a life of compassion."

We cannot eliminate hunger, loneliness and pain. We cannot bring world peace. But we can do those smaller things, can't we? That's within our power.

Let's start right now. Today.

Peace on earth?

Am I the only one? I found it strange and disconcerting to have political primary debates just days before our Christmas and holiday celebrations—debates that at times became shouting matches. I know, I know, what's new?

There's plenty of fear out there already. In fact, more than perhaps at most times—given the recent events in San Bernadino and in Paris and other parts of the globe. And there's plenty of anger, given government impasse at several levels, financial insecurities and company downsizings. And, I don't know about you, but I'm trying to focus more on peace on earth and goodwill toward all right now.

So such shouting matches, name-calling and put-downs just didn't work for me. I'm typically not one to stick my head in the sand. But right now I admit I'm trying to tune out as many of those negative voices as possible. Not easy. But I keep trying.

What are you doing to bring a sense of calm and serenity to your life these days?