Terrapin Station

An American Thanksgiving and World Peace

Friday afternoon I had a function that kept me busy most of the afternoon.

It wasn't until I got home that I learned of the terrorist attacks in Paris, and that one of our former exchange students had died at the Bataclan venue.

Saturday I curated social media and did errands with Ken. That night I acolyted at the 5:00 service. Fr. Jesse Smith was our celebrant, which is always a joy. He brought me a lot of peace.

Sunday I shopped and cooked for that afternoon's event, and curated social media some more. Such heartbreak. Such vituperation.

Sunday afternoon was the Global Interact American Thanksgiving for International Students. This event has been held for over 30 years and provides international students from the 2 universities in town with a home-cooked Thanksgiving meal, plus a skit about the first Thanksgiving (which is pretty standard history, what I was taught in first grade) and singing.

Look at these beautiful faces...from the US and dozens of other countries. There's a building block for world peace for you.

Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear

I've just signed up for my second online class, running this fall, at the Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest: 

Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear

From global economic meltdown to health care crisis, from terrorism to nuclear proliferation, the present age is marked by a pervasive sense of threat and insecurity. This cultural landscape tempts Christians to embrace a self-protective ethic of safety at the expense of faithful discipleship. In this course we will look at ways to counter this idolatry of security and to embrace an ethic of risk that manifests itself in hospitality, peacemaking, and generosity.

This course is taught by
Dr. Scott Bader-Saye

I am one of your more "glass-half-full" types of people...but as you know if you have met me, my husband is the opposite.  That's putting it mildly.  In addition to any input he or his TV friends may give me (from which I mostly excuse myself), I have a pervasive feeling lately that we are all going to hell in the proverbial handbasket. 

So when I saw this class announced, I knew it was for me. 

I'll keep you posted. 

Protect us from ourselves

Shower Thy grace upon us in the moment of our greatest need, protect us from ourselves, and allow us to be a beacon of light rather than a dark cloud for the ambience that surrounds us. Only with Thy aid can we create that peace within and harmony with the outer environment, both natural and social, for which our souls yearn.
 
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
from Talking to God: Portrait of a World at Prayer (anthology)

found at Gratefulness.org

Come Breathe with Me...

Wage Peace

Judyth Hill

 

Wage peace with your breath.
Breathe in firemen and rubble,
breathe out whole buildings
and flocks of redwing blackbirds.
Breathe in terrorists and breathe out sleeping children
and freshly mown fields.
Breathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees.
Breathe in the fallen
and breathe out lifelong friendships intact.
Wage peace with your listening:
hearing sirens, pray loud.
Remember your tools:
flower seeds, clothes pins, clean rivers.
Make soup.
Play music, learn the word for thank you in three languages.
Learn to knit, and make a hat.
Think of chaos as dancing raspberries,
imagine grief as the outbreath of beauty
or the gesture of fish.
Swim for the other side.
Wage peace.
Never has the world seemed so fresh and precious.
Have a cup of tea and rejoice.
Act as if armistice has already arrived.
Don't wait another minute.

Source: Written in response to September 11, 2001

from daily post at InwardOutward

Veterans Day

 

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

John McCrae, 1915

Click on the author's name, above, for information about the writing of this poem. 

Here is a photo from the Second Battle of Ypres, at around the time when the poem was written. 

 

The poppies are a grave and lovely image.  We must not forget what they cover...the memories that the land holds of mud, death, destruction, the end of thousands of young lives.  Millions, billions if we count all the wars and political torture and destruction in the world's history.

I commend to you, then, the effort of The Peace Alliance to create a U.S. Department of Peace.  Join us!