February 2010
29 posts
4 tags
Hallogen TV
Hallogen TV, a new American cable station has been challenging my favorite Groucho Marx quote, “I find television very educational. Every time someone turns the set on, I go into the other room and read a book.” I have been very impressed with the goal of this ground breaking station, a station which is taking major social justice issues in our world and not only explaining them in a...
January 2010
35 posts
3 tags
A U.S. Department of Peace
For five years I have been a part of the Peace Alliance, http://thepeacealliance.org/ is an organization whose mission is to explore civic activism toward a culture of peace. Establishing a U.S. Department of Peace is their main objective. Financial stability is just one important reason a U.S. Department of Peace is an idea whose time has come.
Violence is easy, peace is not. Peace is...
“Choose the path which makes for the best story…”
– from The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die by John Izzo. His second secret, leave no regrets, stuck with me. The image of myself, as an old man on a porch, looking back at my life thankful for all the opportunities I took advantage of, all the stories I chose to live… that’s a good...
1 tag
The Elusive Pearl of Great Peace
“Peace is not something you just find. It is something you have to dig and search for. It is something you have to be willing to give up everything you hold dear for, your resentments, your fears, your anger, your hate, your rights, you have to be willing to give them up and search only with love until you find it: that elusive pearl of great peace.” p.e.p.s.
Today my peace choice...
1 tag
http://www.soles4souls.org/
My peace choice for today was to join with a local college student to collect shoes for people in Haiti. We are doing a “shoe drive” at my work, gathering new and gently worn shoes for the earthquake victims. So as ice and snow swoops down on us I will use the indoor time to clean out my shoe container of all the shoes that I’ve worn only a few times or not at all. If you are...
5 tags
Eating for Peace
Today I had the opportunity to explain to some friends (as I gave away the meat on my free boxed lunch from a conference) why I am a vegetarian. It may not be for the reasons you would expect. My husband and I read the book, Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappe about 22 years ago. From reading this book we became aware of the amount of water and grain it requires to produce even just...
Be Awake and Aware
I woke up with the words, “Be awake and aware” reverberating through my mind. What a beautiful and important way to start the day, so my peace choice for the day is to try to be absolutely in the moment and to be awake and aware.
The Paper Clips Project
The Paper Clips Project is a documentary about a middle school in Whitwell, Tn that decided to collect six million paperclips to represent all of the Jews killed between 1939 through 1945 during the Holocaust. I didn’t get to watch all of it today but just based on the small amount I was able to watch I really recommend it. It is an amazing testimony of the power of peace, tolerance, and...
5 tags
Being peaceful doesn't mean being a door mat.
“Intentionally or not, you teach other people how to treat you.” This is the wisest thing my friend Taja Sanders has ever said to me. Walter Wink’s tiny volume Jesus and Nonviolence, A Third Way, is one of the most powerful books I have ever read about this idea of teaching other people how to treat you in a gracious way. I never understood how intelligent and funny Jesus was...
1 tag
An Innovative New Weapon for peace!
I’m so excited. Today I came up with an idea for a new weapon for peace. The Laughter Bomb. Peace warriors will carry these little bombs and set them off wherever tension and fighting exist. The bombs will tick…tick…tickle the funny bones of anyone around. Since laughter is contagious it will spread peace and bind people in common humor. It is really hard to be negative when...
Forget the chocolate, I want a pen.
Finding healthy ways to deal with strong emotions in an important part of peace. For me that usually includes writing down my feelings. So today when I heard some upsetting news the first thing I wanted was not a hug, not kind words, not even chocolate…I wanted my journal and a pen. Sure enough as my fears and frustrations started bleeding out on the page I found myself breathing easier, my...
happy notes
Yesterday I went to my mail box at work and like most days found nothing positive or cheerful, just notes about more work I needed to do. It depressed me and I realized most of my co-workers are probably feeling the same way at this time of the year, so on the back of a flyer I wrote a short anonymous happy note to someone and put it in their box. A simple thing, it took me a minute to do it,...
6 tags
James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, and Puffins
At Christmas time I bought a Greenpeace calendar. I wish I could say I bought it because I think Greenpeace is a great organization and it is important to me to support it, but the real truth is I bought it because it had a picture of puffins. Puffins are my son’s new favorite thing. Since I’ve been looking at the calendar for awhile though I decided I should find out more about...
Alterations lead to less unraveling...
Nineteen days into this project and I believe I am seeing real changes in my life. Being deliberate about choosing peace, for myself, and for the world around me has altered my daily experiences. It has made an impact on the way I plan my day and interact with others. Today was a very peaceful day for me. It was busy and I had the typical daily issues to deal with, but I felt very calm and...
2 tags
Don't be fooled, peace can be a dangerous choice.
My peace choice for today was to watch (or rather listen, since I was multi-tasking) to a documentary about the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. There were a few different parts of this documentary that caught my attention the most. One was a snippet about how an insane woman had once stabbed him, and how for the rest of the life when he looked in the mirror he saw a scar on his chest that looked...
Protecting the margins
Today I sat down and made a time budget. I was trying to figure out how I can create more margin in my life. Spaces on the edges of my life where I have time to breathe and rebalance my days. I feel like margin is essential. Not only is it important for me to find time to be calm but it is also important for me to frequently take time to realign my core values. So today my peace choice was to...
Voting for peace-Invisible Children Organization
My peace choice for today was to vote for Invisible children to help them win a grant from Chase. It was free and easy. http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/598099?m=df8abd9e
Posted by Cameron Woodward at 11:18pm on January 14th, 2010
Invisible Children needs your help right now. It’ll only takes 30 seconds, and you can win us $1 MILLION dollars. Invisible Children...
A zig-zag circular kind of day.
I started noticing the circles yesterday. Today I began to feel like they were chasing me. Everywhere I looked there seemed to be circles. On purses, cups, blouses, market signs. Circles here, circles there, circles, circles everywhere. There are many things I believe strongly, and two of those things happen to be that the universe is constantly shouting at us, and the universe has a sense of...
Library peace
When I was in the sixth grade my family’s home was robbed. It had been the first year I had been old enough to not have a babysitter and then with a crash of the back door my latchkey afternoons came to an end. Since I absolutely did not want to go back to having to go to a babysitter my parents had to come up with a new solution. Next door to my mom’s work was the public library. ...
Sending peace to Haiti
As the cars passed by I thought about people I do not know and do not have a clue about. As I sat at stoplights and drove passed billboards I wondered what it would be like to have my entire world crumble around me. How would I stay in peace if my whole world was in pieces? I’ve been in similar places emotionally before, but not physically, not like that. I can’t even begin to...
Just because it sounds good doesn't mean it is...
Yesterday I came up with a plan to overcome my recent bad habit of snapping at people for no reason. It seemed like a good plan, but I woke up in the middle of the night and realized it went totally against my own philosophy. The plan was to wear a rubber band on my wrist and snap it if I felt I was about to lose my temper. It is a common behavior modification technique. I felt like it would...
Flying off my broom handle.
It is nowhere near Halloween but I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ve been a little witchy lately. Flying off the handle has become a bad habit and today I made the decision to find a way to stop. It is funny because it is not like the things I get upset by are major, they are minor, miniscule, ridiculous things, usually involving someone interrupting me when I’m trying to do...
Heifer International
Some very young friends of mine are trying to raise money to donate to Heifer International. Today my peace choice was to approach the mom of some of these young friends and ask her if I could “hire” her children to work on an ongoing project for me. The project involves sending encouraging notes to others. I am really excited because this peace choice helps me out, gives the kids...
Listening
Active listening is a beautiful way to spread peace. Unfortunately, listening is not as easy as it sounds. I have had to train myself to be a better listener, because truthfully it is difficult for me. I keep trying though because I believe one of the best gifts you can give to someone else is to let them know their thoughts, beliefs and life stories matter to you.
The reason being a good...
Snow Doughnuts
Snow Doughnuts…Today my daughter treated me to Chinese food for lunch. This was awesome on so many levels. First, it is wonderful just to have a sixteen year old daughter that wants to spend time with you. Second, it is wonderful to have a sixteen year old daughter that wants to spend time with you, has a job, and is willing to pick up the tab! Third, I woke up this morning craving...
Snow memories
Today it snowed and it made me think of one of my favorite memories of my dad. Growing up in Texas we rarely saw snow, in fact I really only have one strong memory of snow. I was pretty little and my dad made a make-shift sled and pulled me around the yard. I remember him smiling so big, having so much fun watching me have fun.
For people that live in places without a lot of snow, a snow day...
Conflict can be an opportunity for growth.
Have you ever considered that conflict is an opportunity for growth? Rather than running from conflict I have really tried to consider over the past few years that conflict can be a blessing. It points to an area that needs growth or change. A lot of times the conflict can be external, like a disagreement between two people, sometimes it can be internal like dealing with jealousy.
Today I...
The importance of sleep.
I admit it, after a long first day back to work and going to work out, I crashed at 6:30 p.m. and I did not wake up until 5:30 this morning. I was obviously a little bit exhausted. I remember sitting on the couch thinking…wow, I am really tired, but this is way too early to go to bed and I have so much to do. Then I remembered several moments during the day when I was cranky. Yes CRANKY!...
Intuition and Peace
Intuition exists for a reason. I believe one of those reasons is for peace. I am one of those people who relies heavily on intuition to make my way through the world. It seems the more I am willing to trust it, the stronger it grows. Today my choice for peace had to do with sending positive energy and prayers to a friend who I knew was having a difficult time with a personal issue. I felt...
“If you are yourself at peace, then there is at least some peace in the world. Then share your peace with everyone, and everyone will be at peace.” -Thomas Merton
Please don't should on yourself.
“Don’t should on yourself.” I could hear my friend Melanie’s favorite phrase in my head as I thought about something that would have been kind and thoughtful to have done. Something I didn’t do. Something I felt guilty about not doing. I heard her voice interrupting my embarrassed thoughts and realized the truth of it. Sometimes it is a choice for peace to...
Being a peacemonger
Today I had the opportunity to spend time with one of my oldest and dearest friends. A friend who has been a mentor, confidant, poorly paid therapist, and a huge encourager in my life. A friend that I have almost nothing in common with except a mutual desire to help each other through this thing we call life.
When I confided to my dear friend about my peace blog experiment, his immediate...
Peace is not the absence of conflict..
“Peace is not the absence of conflict, it is to be in the middle of conflict and choose to believe that the universe is still working for your good, that everything will be o.k. and to choose peaceful actions based on that knowledge.” ~p.e.p.s.
A Peace Full Experiment
This year I decided to do an experiment with peace. My hypothesis is that if each day I make at least one conscious decision to choose peace in my life AND blog about it that I will find my life more peace full. I want to move beyond imagining peace and make a deliberate effort to choose peace.
Jan. 1, 2010
Already I can see that finding a moment of my day where I consciously chose peace helps...
