Building Ordinary

San Francisco turns green for St. Patrick's day while we stand for peace

noreply@blogger.com (graceonline) — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 20:40:00 +0000

All around us, messes like this; look closely
to see the Irish flag flying over City Hall doors
© L Kathryn Grace - All rights reserved

The plaza is crammed with trucks and cars when we arrive for our stand this morning. A green, white and orange Irish flag flutters languidly over City Hall's main doors.

Weary, drugged and sick homeless, who normally would be huddled in soggy sleeping bags after a rainy night, are mostly gone, displaced by red, white, blue--and a few green--canopies under which sleepy-eyed hawkers busily lay out their wares and goodies.

White sweet potato pie, crab garlic fries, and Verizon phones, vie for our attention. I'm heartened to see the greenest, most Irish looking booth on the plaza is owned by Zip Cars--selling a greener lifestyle on the greenest day of the year.

No busloads of tourists offload this morning, no gaggles of gawkers taking pictures of each other in front of San Francisco's storied dome.

We smile, though, when a happy family of five pauses to take pictures of one another posing artfully next to an adjacent tree. Their laughter lightens our hearts, makes us smile. Sharon says out loud, "All it takes is one happy person to change the mood." I think, yes, I want to remember that next time I'm in a difficult situation.

Green-Haired Tuba Player passes
by as we leave the plaza
© L Kathryn Grace
All rights reserved

Sharon and I chatter frequently this morning, our silence continuously broken, like our concentration, by the bustle, odd characters and blaring country music from the loudspeakers on the bright red booth next to us. Continuously we return to our meditation, soon breaking into conversation yet again.

This festive, temporary tent city surrounding us represents tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of products made overseas by sweatshop workers, and a considerable quantity of greasy, GMO-laced food.

Thousands of people will wander through today, many celebrating our mutual Irish heritage. Others here to sample the food and wares, listen to the speeches and live music, and ogle the costumes and characters.

In one of my silent interludes, I pray for peace in the plaza, that all who come here will be blessed and energized by the camaraderie.

In another, I imagine what it would be like to come here by the thousands once a year, not to celebrate our heritage, but to celebrate peace. What booths would we erect? What wares would we hawk? Where would they have been made, and by whom? Would the foods we offered be healthy, locally grown with care for the soil, air and water on which we all depend, and just as delightful to our taste buds as the offerings here today?

How would we celebrate the peace we are making in our lives and our world? What speeches would our dignitaries make? What songs might we sing? Would we dance? Would we laugh? Would we meditate together, a throng of thousands, in silence for a time?

It takes just a little shift to move from a celebration plied with near-slave-made doo-dads and clothing, and food that, studies increasingly show, poisons our bodies, to an event filled with products manufactured by companies who care about the well-being of their employees, and filled with nourishing, whole food grown and harvested sustainably, prepared by people who love the art of cooking and feeding as much as they love profit.

Despite the clamor and bang around us, despite our inability to stay focused on our meditation practice this morning, I feel peace in my heart, gratitude for the individuals working so hard to make today's celebration safe, fun and happy for the people of our town.

May you feel so blessed wherever and with whomever you may be.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Spring in the plaza, in our hearts and a hot flash of rage

noreply@blogger.com (graceonline) — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 03:04:00 +0000

Spring tree leafing out at City Hall
March 10, 2012, Stand for Peace
© L Kathryn Grace, all rights reserved

With the greening of the tree across the street from our standing spot, my heart seems to be greening and waking up as well.

When I first began standing for peace several years ago, I thought I was standing for Peace on Earth.

I was. I am. I do. What becomes ever more clear, each time I stand, is that when I stand for peace, I change me. I am greening with hope and peace as surely as the tree greens with the new life of spring.

Saturday was a special day. Not only did Sharon and I stand for peace at City Hall.That night, we participated in the worldwide Moment of Peace, joining others in our time zone to stop what we were doing and sit in silence for one hour, or as near to one hour as our activities permitted.

The next morning, when a woman I love ignored my boundaries and invaded my space aggressively, I experienced a familiar irritation. At first, I attempted to include her in my activity. When she responded with even more aggression, pushing me aside as though I were invisible, I felt my Irish temper flare hotly.

Instead of reacting in that (self) righteous fire, I suddenly remembered the calm of our morning stand the day before, followed by our hour of peaceful contemplation that evening.

I stopped, took a couple of centering breaths. At first, I thought that would be enough, but my sense of displacement, and the anger I felt in response, increased as my friend continued her invasive behavior. At that point, I quietly left the room and found a spot where I could center and calm myself in private. For a few moments, I clung to the need to lash out in rage, even as I breathed through it and prayed for a calm, loving heart. Then the utter peace of the night before washed over me. Simultaneously, I felt my anger and that gentle peace and calm. Oxymoronic? I know. It happened just like that. I accepted my anger, my hurt feelings, embraced them.

In the past, I would have felt guilty for my potentially volatile reaction. This time, I loved my anger for its protective power. Loved that it showed how important the activity in which I had been engaged was to me. As soon as I acknowledged my feelings in this way, they dissipated.

Much sooner than I might have even a year ago, I opened my heart to trying to understand the other woman's need. She is a member of my circle, a family member I cherish. I do not know if I will ever fully understand her need to be invasive at times, and to ignore boundaries. She is not one with whom I could open a conversation about that. I suspect her behavior comes from a place of insecurity and perhaps from fear.

Had I not had the grounding of those two hours of silence in the name of peace the preceding day, I doubt I would have responded as quietly to this incident as I did. I am grateful for the inner peace that grows within me, for the peace that is, perhaps, beginning to leaf out all over my body. I pray it is so.

For more on the Moment of Peace, visit their Facebook page, where you will find comments, photographs and videos from people who participated all around the world.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

My recurring iPhone factory nightmare

noreply@blogger.com (graceonline) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 01:45:00 +0000

My iPhone 4S, iPad2 & WiFi keyboard
© L Kathryn Grace - All rights reserved

Ever since I read this Business Insider article in January, Your iPhone Was Built, In Part, By 13 Year-Olds Working 16 Hours A Day For 70 Cents An Hour, I have had a recurring nightmare.

It is dark when I rise from my narrow mattress. The lone bulb in our windowless room is still out, but the hallway light, always on, shines through the open doorway.

I am thirteen years old. My cot on the top bunk is so close to the ceiling that I cannot sit upright to grab my uniform from its hanger, a wire on a hook I thumb-screwed into the ceiling.

Carefully, so as not to waken the other girls sleeping on the top tier, I crawl across the foot of their bunks to the one butting against the doorway.

I shimmy silently down the post at the foot of the bunk, careful not to bump my head against the door jam. Our five bunk beds, each three tiers high, fill this little twelve foot by twelve foot room. There is no room for a door to open and close, so there is no door, only the doorway, through which each of us must crawl to get to our mattress, our only personal space in this massive tower, Building 54, we call home.

I run down the hall fast as I can to the restroom and shower quickly, scrubbing my skin hard. I hope that scrubbing will keep me from getting the nerve sickness others get from handling the chemicals we use to shine the tiny glass rectangles we polish all day long, every single day. I scrub my face and hands extra hard, trying to peel off any tiny bits of the chemicals.

I need this job. When my hands start shaking, the bosses will throw me out on the street. I will not have money to send home to my parents and grandparents for food and seed to plant the crops. I will not have a place to live. I will have to sell my body.

I finish my shower and dress in less than five minutes. Already, the showers are full of girls, rushing as I am. We are hungry. We must get to the cafeteria before it runs out of food and they lock the doors.

Last night, I had to work later than usual. The cafeteria was closed when I got off work. My stomach aches with the hunger, but I am used to that. I want food because on the days I eat, I work faster. The bosses don't scream at me for making mistakes or going too slow on the days I get to eat before work.

Today I am lucky. I have to wait in line only thirty minutes before I reach the cafeteria door. I will eat this morning.

At 6:00 am, when the work bell rings, I am ready, at my station. I keep my head down, polishing the little glasses, one after another after another.

One of the bosses told me these glasses are the windows into iPhones. I don't know what an iPhone is. I have never seen one. The boss saw one once. He said it is magical. Bright lights in little squares. Touch one and you can talk to someone far away, as far away as America, where everyone has a magical iPhone. Touch another bright light and you can see a map that tells you where you are now and how to go somewhere else. I don't know how to imagine this map. Touch another light, and all the music that was ever played anywhere in the world pops up. You can choose what to listen to. I do not know how I would choose from all the music ever played anywhere in the world.

While I work, I try to concentrate on this glass that I am polishing right now. I try not to daydream about music and maps and places to eat that have every food you can imagine. That is another thing the boss has seen on the magical iPhone.

The bell rings and we all stop and rush to the rest rooms. If I am quick enough, I will get there in time to go, but today others are ahead of me. I have learned to hold my water. I don't drink much anyway, just so I won't have to go if my shift is too long or the restroom lines too long. Lately, I feel a burning sensation every time I go, so I try to drink less so I have to go less.

I rush back to my station, standing straight as a stick and wait for the bell to ring, so I can start my work again. My hands are sore. My legs are swollen and ache. I will not complain. I do not want to be thrown into the street. I am grateful for this job. Grateful for the meager wages I send home to my family so they will have something to eat.

At 6:00 pm the bell rings. We all rush to the door. I am too slow to get out the door quickly. My feet do not want to carry me along the walkway. I hug the wall and walk slowly. Many of us hug the wall, as far as I can see in front, as far as I can see behind me.

I may not get to the cafeteria in time for supper, but I will try. I am small. I take a deep breath. Another, and push myself from the wall. I run between people, apologizing as I rush, too hungry to care much. Just in time! I reach the end of the cafeteria line two yards in front of the big yellow marker that means no more people will be fed tonight. I turn and look behind me. The hallway is packed as far as I can see. None of those people will eat tonight. I am a lucky one.

I get my tray and sit in a corner on the floor to eat. All of the tables are full. I toss the rice into my mouth as fast as I can swallow. In just a moment, the bell will ring. We have three more hours to work tonight.

Back on the line, my feet shoot pains up my legs. My arms feel like wooden dowels. My hands are thick and do not want to move any more. I polish and polish and polish, willing my hands to hold the little glass rectangles carefully, not to slip and drop them. The bosses walk behind us, screaming at us to hurry, hurry, hurry. Faster! Faster! Faster! They say we are lazy.

At 9 pm, the bell rings. No one rushes out the door this time. My feet feel like lead. I shuffle down the endless hallways, find a restroom with a line not so long and wait my turn. It hurts like knives to pee. I must drink less water tomorrow so I will not have to hold it so hard while I work.

At first, I think I will have to crawl under the bottom bunk and sleep on the floor. My hands will not grip the post to pull me up through the narrow doorway and onto the top bunk. Girls behind me are impatient. I try one more time. Success! I drag myself up the post, crawl across the other bunks to my mattress, carefully remove my uniform and hang it on the wire hanger from the ceiling hook.

I ache everywhere. I am cold. I am so tired. Glass rectangles spin past me again and again and again. I must sleep. Must sleep. Must. Sleep. Must.

This is the nightmare that haunts me since I read Henry Blodgett's article on January 15. I own an iPhone. My partner and I own two iPads. My dream computer is a Mac Pro, that pencil thin one that fits in a manila envelope.

I work every day on one of two Dell computers we own, which were also made in China, so I understand.

How do I make peace with this? In small ways for now. I signed and shared this SumOfUs petition to Apple telling them to Make the iPhone5 Ethically. Tomorrow, if I can find the people who are hand carrying it to Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, I will travel there and help deliver it to the annual shareholder meeting.

I'll also continue to educate myself about the factories in China and elsewhere and report on what I've learned. My voice is a small one, but I will be silent about this no longer.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

What the plaza teaches me when I stand for peace today

noreply@blogger.com (graceonline) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 02:38:00 +0000

Elderly couple, two of the regulars we see
each week during our stand
© L Kathryn Grace - All rights reserved

Sharon, the other grandmother with whom I stand for peace in front of San Francisco City Hall each week, is sick today--flu bug. For the first time, I stand by myself. Surprisingly, I do not feel alone.

It is chilly this morning. I wish I'd worn longjohns under my trousers. Seeking comfort, I stand close to one of the pollarded trees at the front of the sycamore grove.

Suddenly, heat flows from the tree, mere inches away, as though she sensed my chill and radiated extra just for me. Somehow she has warmth to spare until the sun peaks over the tall buildings behind us, casting its bright rays across the plaza, dancing off the gold leaf trim on City Hall.

One by one, the Saturday morning regulars file by: The young man with the long, blond hair, always in sweat pants, pacing steadily and slowly round the plaza perimeter, a half smile on his face; the two Chinese women, about my age, who take their exercise in the grove, vigorously stretching, their voices happy, animated, sometimes laughing; and finally, the elderly couple.

At first, as always, she pushes the wheel chair just behind her husband until, fatigued, he stops and steps back so she can help him sit down, ever so gently. She turns the chair and waits patiently while a family of tourists--little ones, teenagers, moms and dads, perhaps an aunt or uncle, grandparents--pose for a picture. The gilding on City Hall's rotunda and doors sparkle behind them.

Each member of the family must have a picture. In twos and threes, they trade places, stepping from the little group to face them, shouting instructions as individuals regroup and pose for the shot.

One of the older men coughs violently, walks all the way to the street, spits into the gutter and returns. Having lived in the city for a number of years, experienced all manner of rude behavior, so much that I expect it rather than thoughtfulness, I feel a heart-tug blessing at this simple gesture: Showing respect for his family, the plaza, for the people who walk and recreate and work here.

While she waits for the family to get their photographs, the old woman removes a glove from her husband's hand and rubs it with both of hers, massaging his arm through his jacket, all the way to the shoulder. He leans sideways in the chair, as though their short walk so fatigued him he cannot sit straight.

All the while, his wife smiles at the family and their children, at their happiness in being here together, their animation.

Happy tourist family posing while other family
members snap their pix
© L Kathryn Grace - All rights reserved

A man with a dog, blind in one eye, comes along. The dog is as big as the Shetland pony we saw here last week, (America's Got Talent was auditioning and yes, people brought their dog and pony shows). The children ask if they can pet the dog, while the entire family gathers round, admiring this enormous animal, asking questions. Soon the cameras come out once more. Everyone must have a picture of the family posing with the tall American and his enormous, fluffy, one-eyed dog.

When they've finished with their pictures, one of the men breaks away from the group and approaches me. In age, he is nearly in the middle: Younger than the senior couple of their company, older than the young couple, possibly grandfather to the children.

"Excuse me," he says in broken English, gently polite, smiling. "Do you know name of these trees?"

His question touches my heart. He has noticed them, these trees in whom I take comfort each week, cares enough to wonder what they are. Behind him, his family eagerly watches us. The trees matter to them as well.

They may be sycamores, I tell him, judging by their mottled bark. Later, I'll confirm my guess online; I've always meant to look it up. He smiles again. So do I.

Giving and receiving small blessings, we make peace

Such small things: The warmth and strength from the tree next to me; the woman rubbing her husband's arms to keep the circulation going while she waits patiently for the family to finish their excited picture taking; the man and his family, joyful in their time together, giving care for the other people who use this plaza, and curious about these trees, standing military-column straight in their truncated deformity; the man with his dog, engaging with this family from another land.

These small things bring peace to my heart as easily as my grandaughters' smiles. Taking my meditation in this public place, I am blessed. My heart beats softly in my chest, my limbs supple, warm in the sun.

I give gratitude for my stand today, for these trees, for their ability to communicate if we are still enough to pay attention, for the laughter and smiles and love of these people, one for the other, and for the privilege of witnessing their love.

May each and every one of them, each and every one of you who find this page, be so blessed, wherever you may be, whatever your day may hold.

I've been absent from this blog for a few weeks. I'll tell you about that in a couple of days. At least, that's the plan. I have posted pix and short bits about each of our stands for peace on another page. You can see it here: Two Grandmothers Stand for Peace.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

One simple meditation step you can use every day

noreply@blogger.com (graceonline) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 05:15:00 +0000

Mom's garden, from the meditation bench
© L Kathryn Grace - All rights reserved

Yesterday, in Bliss in the Dentist's Chair, I promised to share the simple meditation technique I learned years ago that made my trip to the oral surgeon so easy.

For years I studied meditation techniques. All too often, I felt tension at the thought of sitting down to meditate. How in the world could I possibly empty my mind as the books and teachers suggested? My mind is never empty! One day, somewhere along the way, I read about a simple technique of focusing ever so gently on the breath.

I wish I knew where I read it, possibly in one of Pema Chadron's books.

Here's the gist of it: Set a gentle timer to let you know when the time is up. Ten minutes is perfect for a quick, restorative session in a busy day.

Sit comfortably, feet flat on the floor, or tucked tailor fashion.

Set your intention for ease. This is not about doing it right. There is no wrong way. Ease is the important word here.

Now, focus your attention on the breath coming into your left nostril. Cool air in.

Next, focus your attention on the breath coming out your left nostril. Warm air out.

That's it. Thoughts will come. Acknowledge them. Give them a mental bow. Thank them, perhaps. Or just gently acknowledge them. Then, just as gently, return your focus to the breath coming into your left nostril. Cool air in. Warm air out.

Repeat as frequently as needed until the timer signals the end of the session.

Remember, there is no right and no wrong, just gentle focusing and refocusing on the breath at the tip of your nostril. Cool air in. Warm air out.

For a more full version of this meditation, see Ten Minute Meditation. If you've never tried something like this, give it a go and let me know how it feels, will you please?

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Bliss in the dentist's chair

noreply@blogger.com (graceonline) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 02:33:00 +0000

From Mandalas in Nature
© Sharon L Richardson - All rights reserved
Used with permission

The building is old, probably built after the 1906 earthquake. The elevator creaks as it carries us to the thirteenth floor. The bathroom is small and not too clean, the paper towel dispenser empty. I wipe my hands on my pants and head for the waiting room.

How tiny it is! Dimly lit, the black and white decor looks like something from a Mickey Spillane detective novel, but the neat, young woman behind the counter is no gum-chewing Mike Hammer moll. Ordinarily, I might feel claustrophobic, but I'm still in walking meditation, and the serenity of my earlier morning meditation stays with me.

Although I'm early, and before I've settled into one of only two chairs, the surgeon's assistant calls me to an equally tiny operating room, where I will sacrifice two wisdom teeth. This room, too, is sparsely furnished, the reclining dental chair narrow, with no support for my neck. I ask for and receive a pillow.

Artificial flowers in a vase of clear glass marbles stand on the windowsill. I wish they were real and notice, gratefully, that they are not dusty. I ask if the blinds can be opened so I can see the sky. The doctor adjusts them himself.

This is definitely a no-frills office. There is no overhead monitor, no offer of earphones and a favorite radio station, TV show or movie to distract me during the procedure. I am grateful for that, too.

The doctor asks how I am. I smile and say truthfully, "Fine. It's a beautiful day." We make eye contact, and I see again the peace I noticed in his eyes the other day, when I met him for the first time. This is a calm man, a man who is comfortable in his skin and his work. We exchange a few words, and I ask him to keep me informed throughout the procedure. "Tell me what you're doing as we go along." He says he will. In the beginning, he remembers. Later, when it's all over, he takes a moment to tell me what he forgot, or perhaps chose not to tell me, during the procedure.

Holding peace through a chemically induced panic attack

Yellow blossom with red center
Credit: Mandalas in Nature
© Sharon L Richardson - All rights reserved

A few days ago, during the consultation, we discussed my fear of epinephrine, the synthetic adrenaline in the numbing medication, and how, physiologically, it mimics panic attacks, from which I suffered terribly as a young woman. He explained his reasons for preferring this drug over other numbing agents and prescribed Valium to mitigate its effects.

I have chosen to accept his wisdom regarding the epinephrine, but not the Valium. (See Monday's Zen and the Art of Tooth Extraction.) I had Valium, or a generic version, once before and it knocked me out physically, but not mentally. The panic attacks for which it was prescribed kept coming. In a stupor that caused me to pass out repeatedly, I had no physical, mental or emotional resources left to respond to the persistent sensation that my ever-faster-racing heart was about to explode. I was a terrified mind in a body I could not move.

Monday morning, trusting in my ability to calm myself with meditation, I decide not to take the tranquilizer. So far, all is well. I have been in a state of utter peace all morning, and continue to feel--well, to be truthful--I feel bliss.

I have never been more relaxed in a dentist's chair. When the chemically induced panicky feeling begins, I feel slightly detached. I notice my rapidly beating heart, my shallow breathing, and gently lay my hands over my chest, Reiki style, feeling immediate ease. The doctor asks if I am all right. I smile crookedly, through the mobile side of my face, and nod yes.

While my heart continues to pound, I feel none of the usual fight or flight panic, not even when the lower tooth breaks and he uses a shrieking drill to grind away the rest of the tooth. I come away feeling happy and at ease, my mouth stuffed with a wad of cotton between my now-void gums, my tongue thick as a caboose, the right side of my face swollen nearly twice its size.

Who knew one could feel joy after having wisdom teeth pulled?

Pink blossom
© L Kathryn Grace - All rights reserved

Blue sky is brilliant in the noon-time sun. Union Square is lively with people; chandeliers in an upscale jewelry store sparkle brilliantly. Plants in the new sidewalk mini-park on Powell Street seem vibrantly healthy and green. Cable car drivers ring their bells.

This comfort and feeling of well-being after a visit to the dentist for a routine procedure would be remarkable any day. After having wisdom teeth extracted, it is nothing short of a miracle, all because of the simple of act of spending a few minutes each day focusing on nothing but breath.

For years I struggled to meditate properly. Often as not, the struggle to clear my mind and attain total detachment and emptiness left me more tense than when I began. Then one day I discovered a simple secret that changed meditation for me forever. I'll share a bit of that tomorrow. For now, I am grateful for the power of meditation--this simple, small, regular practice--how it restores, informs, educates, and heals.

I know a number of you who read me regularly also meditate. How does meditation help you through difficult events? I'm interested in all stories, no matter how big or small the event. The more we share, the more we can learn from one another, would you agree?

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Zen and the Art of Tooth Extraction

noreply@blogger.com (graceonline) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 17:55:00 +0000

Val's Purple Spiral
Credit: Sharon L Richardson - All rights reserved
Used with permission

Here I am in my sixties, finally getting two wisdom teeth pulled. I never really got into Zen, but I do meditate regularly. Turns out that routine practice is mighty handy today.

The entire procedure should take less than thirty minutes, but the surgeon wants me to arrive heavily doped with Valium. The pharmacist had a trace of alarm in his voice when he saw the dosage, a faux pas he covered quickly, but not before raising the already considerable anxiety I felt about taking these drugs to a whole new level, miles high.

The surgeon wants a calm, relaxed patient. If I'm passing out in his chair, I'll be outwardly calm, meeting his need, but I know from past experience that my brain and my body will be doing everything on the inside to counteract the effects of the drug. Very likely, I'll have a panic attack I cannot control with meditative focus or breathing. Fight or flight syndrome will rage through my mostly paralyzed body. I've actually considered cancelling the procedure rather than face that chemically induced fear.

I'm not too keen, either, on slamming pain killers afterward into my already heavily drugged body, along with the antibiotics I have to take.

Here's where routine meditation practice comes to the rescue. The past few days, I meditated more than usual. It helped me stay in a soft place, especially the walking meditation. Whenever I thought about the drugs, however, my anxiety spiked. My heart rate and breathing accelerated. I felt clammy.

This morning, during my routine waking meditation, I realized that I would be far more calm in the dental chair if I did not take the Valium. Years of practice lend the tools to be calm and responsive to the surgeon's needs without forcing myself into a crazy, drugged stupor that, paradoxically, has the opposite effect. Plus, I will eliminate one powerful drug from my body, leaving more energy for healing the wounds.

In a few hours, I will be home again, recovering, resting and giving my body what it needs to heal. I'm not keen on giving up a part of my body that has been with me all my life, but I understand this sacrifice will result in better quality of life for the remainder of my years, so I accept it. I accept, too, that antibiotics and pain killers may be a necessary part of my recovery. Letting go of the idea of chemically tranquilizing myself, knowing it tends to have the opposite effect, I have never felt so calm going into a procedure like this.

I give gratitude to all my teachers over the years, human and Spirit.

Hmmm. I wonder how this would work next time I get my hair cut.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Peaceful morning on our way to Stand for Peace

noreply@blogger.com (graceonline) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 16:35:00 +0000

January's fall colors as we head out to stand for peace
© L Kathryn Grace

It's a calm, peaceful morning as we two grandmothers head out to stand for peace.The neighborhood is quiet, with just a few folks grabbing coffee from the local shops, a few slow-moving cars. No honking!

As I prepare for our seventh stand, I ask for peace in my heart, peace in my soul, and a stillness of being that I might hear and understand next steps, not only for today, but for 2012.

More to come.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Standing for peace after Zap! Bam! Pow!

noreply@blogger.com (graceonline) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 18:05:00 +0000

San Francisco City Hall
Our sixth stand for peace
© L Kathryn Grace - All rights reserved

Okay, it wasn't exactly Zap! Bam! Pow! We had words. Saturday, the last day of 2011, in our mini version of The Great Silent Grandmother Gathering, Sharon and I stood for peace in front of City Hall for the sixth week in a row. We'd had a rough morning.

The phone rang early--one of those calls that pushes buttons. "I can't talk about this now," she said. "I need to feel peaceful before our stand."

One of the things that makes our relationship work, always has, is our willingness to talk through whatever comes up.

My 7-year-old rears her rebellious head

It never fails to amaze me how quickly I can revert to a hurt seven year old mentality and want to lash out in anger and frustration. Sometimes I do.

Saturday morning, getting that phone call as we prepared for our stand, I felt the flush and rush of blood to my head. Not wanting to start something big, I chose my words carefully. Not carefully enough.

I wanted to take care of the issue right now. She wanted to wait. I get a strong physiological response when I feel I have to squelch feelings. I know very well what the term "my blood boiled" means. Sometimes I stomp around, muttering obscenities. Sometimes I remember in time, before I've said things I'll regret, to put certain coping mechanisms to use. It's a kind of litany.

Breathe.
Breathe again.
What am I feeling?
Mad? Okay. Yeah, I'm mad. Arrrrrggggghhhh.
What do I want to feel?
Calm. Peace.
Breathe.
What can I do about this?
Breathe.
Breathe.
Let answers come.
Urnnnggghhhh! Don't want to be adult and peaceful. Rrrggggg.
Breathe.
Still mad.
Okay.
Breathe.
How is she feeling? Mm-hmmm. Okay. But what about ... ?

Breathe.
I love her.
Breathe.
How can I support her in this while acknowledging my own feelings? (Yeah, I tend to get cerebral.)

Breathe.

And so it goes. We've known each other for nearly a quarter century.. We know each other's patterns. We trust, each, the other to return and talk through whatever our issue, when the time is right. Saturday morning, we didn't have enough time. We left the house, shoulders a bit high, tension in our steps. Breathing.

Then there's 'righteous' anger

Street Person on a far warmer morning than last Saturday
Image Credit: Puravida
A morgueFile Free Photo

A few minutes later, we walked from the train, past far too many homeless people curled in their sleeping bags and blankets against the bitter cold, some up already, stamping their feet, hugging their sides.

I never walk past these folks without being aware how precarious our own financial situation, how easily we might find ourselves among them, should our economy take another protracted nose dive in 2012.

That morning, having breathed and calmed myself, having reached a state of equilibrium on the train, I felt anger seething under my skin again as I walked past an overturned wheelchair, it's occupant cocooned in a sleeping bag on the hard pavement, a small backpack at his feet.

How easily my anger bubbles, not only at home when triggered at just the wrong moment, but at injustice, the pervasive injustice that is homelessness, that is lack of medical care, that is hunger in the richest country in the world.

Walking past an upright, blanket-shrouded man, his face and hands black with street dirt, his eyes red and a little crazed, I recognized the faces I put on my anger. The Koch Brothers. Dick Cheney. The Bush family. Icons of the uber wealthy and the people who serve their purposes in Washington, D.C., our state capitols, San Francisco City Hall.

As we approached that gilded dome, once glowing, now fading to bird-streaked charcoal in this economy that fills the coffers of the rich while feeding and housing ever fewer, this faded poorly kept monument to capitalism and tenacity, whose dome is the fifth largest in the world, taller than the US Capitol, I felt the anger I carry in my body, anger I face each day.

Being peace when I might choose rage

Every single day I struggle for balance between being the peace I want to see in the world and fuming at one atrocity after another, at my failure to meet the need to find some way to mitigate and change the suffering caused by human greed and carelessness. Each day, throughout the day, I stop and breathe.

Breathe.
I have been here before, many times. I acknowledge these feelings. I fold my hands and bow to them. Namaste.
Breathe.

I ask for guidance, if only for the next step.
Breathe.

It works. On Saturday it worked. Peace entered my heart, a warmth starting at the core of my heart, and spreading outward.

Image Credit: Sharon L Richardson
From Re-Imagining Peace
All rights reserved - Used with permission

Breathing, I acknowledged again the anger, the suffering.
Breathing, I accepted what is.
Breathing, I knew there was--is--a better way.
Breathing, I asked for guidance.

Making peace

All the while, as we walked, we talked quietly of our altercation earlier and how our stand informs our responses and is informed by our feelings and actions. Breathing, I gave gratitude for this mini-eruption, this opportunity to practice our intention to bring peace into the world.

We do not stand for peace merely to make a visible, public stand. We stand for peace to change our own hearts.

Standing for peace is not only a ritual, it is a way of becoming peace.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Imagine awakening in a world without greed, only love

noreply@blogger.com (graceonline) — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 19:30:00 +0000

Deer in aspen meadow
Photographer: Terry Perryman, all rights reserved
Used with permission

For the next few days, perhaps longer, I ask you to take a journey with me, a journey that helps us imagine a world, our world, as it might be if only love motivated us, if there were no greed, if there were no broken hearts attempting to compensate for childhood lack and cruelty. It's a bit of a stretch, I know. Very likely, each of us suffers today from cruelties present and past. I do know what it is I ask of you. Still, I ask.

Begin

You know the old adage. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Will you take it with me?

Here's how we begin. Get comfortable in your body, take a few long, slow breaths as you read this, let your mind find calm. Open to the possibility, just the possibility, of a life, a world, so full of love there can be only harmony.

We start easy, imagining what it would be like to waken every morning in such a world. If there were no greed, there would be no need for alarm clocks. We would waken when our bodies were ready. We would have time to stretch luxuriously, like a cat, lengthening our muscles and limbs languidly, gently, feeling the goodness of our bodies, their wholeness, their beauty.

We would have time to place our hands, warm with healing energy, over spots needing a bit of extra attention and love, perhaps a stiff shoulder, a crick in the neck, and always lying a few minutes over the heart chakra. We would smile with pleasure at the extraordinary heat flowing between our heart and our hands, spreading throughout our bodies.

Like Rose in Wake, the first Village of Ordinary post, we might enjoy the company of a feline companion, waking and stretching with us, or perhaps we would reach down and find the hand of our partner and bask in the quiet joy of waking beside our lover each day.

In a world without greed, we need hurry only because we are anxious to greet the dawn, eager to run into the morning air, feel the breeze on our face, dispatch our chores and get on with the work we love, work for which we receive no pay, work that is its own reward, that gives us intense pleasure.

But first, perhaps we'd sit with a cup of tea, wrap our hands around a mug the artisan, our neighbor, made just for us, knowing our habits, our favorite colors, the little things that surprise and delight us. The mug would fit perfectly in our hands, a treasure we enjoy every single morning with gratitude and love.

We might cut ourselves a slice of yesterday's bread, baked fresh in our neighborhood bakery, butter it with sweet creamery butter we ourselves churned, butter that came from a cow whose name and temperament we know well, whose flanks we have laid our cheek against as we milked her.

This is one way we might start our day in a world so filled with love we can barely imagine it.

Share your vision

If we lived in such a world, how would you waken each morning? I encourage you to vision it with me, either here in the comments, or better still, on your own blog, wherever you create. Share your vision with the rest of the world. If you do so, please post a link here, so the rest of us can read your vision, partake of it too.

What we visualize we can make real.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Gifts from the heart

noreply@blogger.com (graceonline) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 20:10:00 +0000

Bringing in the Christmas Tree, watercolor by Grannie Annie
Used with permission

My favorite winter holiday is Solstice, but my family tradition is Christmas. Like many of European descent, I am flushed with the scurry of last minute gifts and details as we count down the last few days.

You probably noticed how tough it is, still, to find just the right gifts that also do no harm to planet or people in their manufacture and shipping. As a society, we're still on the cusp of creating enough demand for Fair Trade, green and organic gift items and shipping policies. I made a lot of compromises.


Crocheted dish cloths © L Kathryn Grace All rights reserved

One fun gift that wasn't a compromise this year was a handmade dish cloth I tucked into my family gift boxes. I so enjoyed the organic cotton Toockiesdish cloths I discovered last summer that I decided to make my own. Crocheting dish cloths turned out to be fun. Sure, I could have bought the finished Toockies at lower cost than the organic cotton yarn all by itself. I could have saved time too.

But as I hooked the yarn over and under, the soft thread pulling through my fingers, I thought about each member of my family, imagined their hands in the soapy water with the little scrubbers. Seeing their hands reminded me of times together, times when our hands have touched. Weddings, births, holidays and birthdays, just getting together for tea and a long chat, the time we waited for the surgeon after my daughter's automobile accident, Dad's illness and death, our later celebration of his life and love.

I don't think I enjoy any gift so much as one a family member made--or chose--that I can use every day. I think of my sister every time I walk into my bedroom and see the little China dish with the roses on the lip. She picked that dish out for me more than half a century ago, when she was three and I was ten. Next to it, the miniature China vase she gave me ten years later. Both are treasures that always bring a smile to my face.

On a shelf in my dining room, a tattered box another sister gave me twenty or so years ago. In it I keep little treasures from the grandchildren, notes from my mother or sweetheart I forget all about and love to discover anew. She's the same sister who every year sends us a colorful handmade ornament, an annual treasure that feels like love because I sense her hands and keen mind as I touch them.

Quan Yin Figurine with vase and bowl
copy; L Kathryn Grace
All rights reserved

Not a meal passes that I don't pick up a tool, bowl or bottle someone dear selected for us. There's the mug with my oldest grandchild's handprint. Her mama and I imprinted a slew of the mugs with the baby's tiny hand when she was only five weeks old. Two weeks later, this one showed up under our tree.

On the buffet ledge above my desk, you will see the small unframed water color in the image first above. Mom did that sketch, a self-portrait with my dad, bringing in the fir tree. This one would decorate the living room. In each of two bedrooms, another, smaller tree. Christmas is my mother's favorite holiday

So many small treasures around the house. These are the gifts I love. And so, as I tucked my slightly crooked, decidely un-cost-effective handmade dish cloths into my gift boxes this year, I took pleasure in the thought that those hands I love so dearly, the hardworking, generous hands of the people I cherish, may touch these crazy cloths many times throughout the year. Perhaps their recipients will feel a little of the love I feel for them, will remember they are cherished.

Or maybe they'll go, "Ugh! What was she thinking?" and toss them in a drawer. You never know.

May your hearts be filled with peace and love as you travel through this week of food, gifts and giving. May the spirits you share, be they liquid or heavenly, warm your body and your soul.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Good News Friday: The Revolution is Love

noreply@blogger.com (graceonline) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 17:53:00 +0000

When the Revolution is Love video popped up on my screen, I almost clicked away without a look. What a treasure I would have missed! What hope, what sheer joy for the change that is happening right now. Folks, our young people are leading the way to a world the rest of us have imagined but too often despaired could exist in our lifetimes. And they're doing it with verve.

In this short film, Sacred Economicsauthor Charles Eisenstein, snags my attention from the get-go. Speaking of the Occupy movement, he says it's not about us (99 percent) versus them (1 percent).

This movement isn't about the 99 percent defeating or toppling the 1 percent. You know the next chapter of that story, which is that the 99 percent create a new 1 percent. That's not what it's about. What we want to create is the more beautiful world our hearts tell us is possible, a sacred world, a world that works for everybody.

That's just for starters. Such wisdom in one young body. I give deepest gratitude for this man and for the people who made this video. Watch. Take heart. Share. The revolution is love, and that's the best news possible.

More than ever, I can see a world like Ordinary approaching. Will it take work? Sure. Will there be plenty of heartache? Of course. Is it possible now? What do you think?

Disclosure: Should you click on the Amazon link in this post and make a purchase, it is possible I might make a few pennies on the sale. Wouldn't that be a thrill.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Ordinary Hero: Abigail Borah, her COP 17 plea heard round the world

noreply@blogger.com (graceonline) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 02:15:00 +0000

Screen shot of Abigail Borah speaking out at COP 17
Democracy Now! video

This week in Durban, South Africa, the United Nations concluded its seventeenth conference on climate change. Abigail Borah, a Middlebury College Student, flew to Copenhagen to attend the talks, along with many other youth concerned about their future.

Disturbed by the failure of the United States and other nations to address the immediacy of the situation, Abigail penned a short statement, stood up, and "with trembling hands," read it to the assembly.

2020 is too late to wait

The conference chair told her "No one is listening to you." Todd Stern, the United States delegate about to address the assembly waited with rather a condescending pose. (I want to believe he was secretly glad for her stand.) Abigail, an ordinary person who could not and would not be afforded an officially sanctioned microphone at these talks, persevered, determined to be heard. Here is her statement.

I am speaking on behalf of the United States of America because my negotiators cannot. The obstructionist Congress has shackled justice and delayed ambition for far too long. I am scared for my future. We need an urgent path to a fair, ambitious, and legally binding treaty. You must take responsibility to act now, or you will threaten the lives of youth and the world's most vulnerable. You must set aside partisan politics and let science dictate decisions. You must pledge ambitious targets to lower emissions, not expectations. 2020 is too late to wait.

Why I stood up and spoke out

Despite the ultimate failure of the talks to take action now, it gives me some small ray of hope that the audience applauded Abigail as she was led from the hall.

Immediately after Abigail's impromptu speech, Todd Stern hastened to call a press conference, where he refuted Abigail's assertions regarding the US do-nothing approach. In this Democracy Now! video titled, "I'm Scared For My Future": Student Disrupts Speech By US Climate Envoy Todd Stern in Durban" (7.3 minutes), watch and hear Abigail read her statement, followed by an excerpt from Stern's press conference.

It is important to note that one day following Stern's assertion that the United States was not standing in the way of a legally binding agreement, the State Department issued a statement saying otherwise.

You can read the whole story, in Abigail's eloquent words, here, in Why I stood up and spoke out.

Ordinary Heroes Award
© L Kathryn Grace

Abigail Borah, in speaking out as you did, you risked arrest, potentially putting your reputation and your future in jeopardy, yet you acted. Rather than become immobilized by fear, you used your fear to take a dramatic stand and to power your voice--a voice literally heard round the world.

For your courage, for your commitment to making change, for speaking for millions who feel as you do, for being one of the thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands working to create a better world, a good world, you are an Ordinary Hero and my hero. I bow to you in deepest gratitude.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Imaginal cells, nutrient soup and the Summer of Peace

noreply@blogger.com (graceonline) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 22:14:00 +0000

Caterpillar image by beamish
A morgueFile Free Photo

Imaginal cells. Microbiologist and philosopher Elisabet Sahtouris tells of imaginal cells, biologists' term for the cells in a mutating pupa that feed on the caterpillar's body, now a "nutrient soup," and transform into a totally different organism, a butterfly.

Sahtouris likens our current human state to that of the caterpillar, consuming everything in sight in preparation for its long sleep and transformation.

The caterpillar is focused only on survival until, bloated, it hangs itself from a branch and falls asleep. Its skin hardens into a protective covering, and the imaginal cells that have been accumulating for some time burgeon.

You and I, Sahtouris says, are imaginal cells. As we waken, become more and more aware, we feed off the nutrients of our culture even as we transform it to something new and utterly beautiful.

Enter the Summer of Peace 2012

Butterfly image by mrmac04
A morgueFile Free Photo

One way we imaginal cells are transforming our world is through a vast, worldwide network of peace builders. The Shift Network hopes to expand and amplify this network through its Summer of Peace 2012 initiative.

In a talk last night at the Red Victorian Peace Cafe on Haight Street here in San Francisco, Shift Network Program Director Philip Hellmich spoke on plans for the Summer of Peace.

The Summer of Peace begins on the solstice, June 22, and concludes on the fall equinox, September 21. If you haven't heard of it, here's a synopsis of the vision from the web site.

The Summer of Peace 2012 is a global celebration of and call to action for inner and outer Peace ... and will feature media campaigns, online actions, conferences, music concerts, film festivals and grassroots activities around the world. All the activities will be designed to accelerate humanity’s shift to a culture of Peace.

The Summer of Peace 2012 aims to involve leaders from many sectors ranging from Nobel Peace Prize laureates to business, education, media, religious, military, and non-profit leaders.

Our overarching goal is to activate the largest global commitment to Peace in one season in the history of humankind mobilizing grassroots participation of people worldwide

Summer of Peace 2012 Vision

Did you catch that reference to including military leaders in the mix? We need to stop fear-based ideology, Hellmich says, and replace it with acknowledging and celebrating what works. Even the world's military, like every other human enterprise, is evolving, he says.

People within the military establishment are learning new, non-violent ways of making and preserving peace, and they're training others. Hellmich witnessed such peacekeeping and peace building activities when he worked in Sierra Leone during the civil war and genocide there some years ago. Without the military peacekeepers, he says, there would be no peace there today.

Of course, he doesn't give all credit to the military. They were just one part of the peacemaking process. He cited a complex and sometimes disarmingly simple set of strategies and individuals that resulted, ultimately, in the end of unspeakable violence.

I wish you could have heard his talk. There is so much more I'ld like to share. I'll leave you with just one nugget. You may have seen in the first line of the quotation above that the Summer of Peace calls for action for both inner and outer peace. Hellmich's first call to action was that we implement a daily peace practice, if we don't already have one--meditation, prayer, whatever works to strengthen our inner peace.

I can attest that something as simple as standing for peace in silence five minutes each day changes the heart, changes how I relate to others. Another useful strategy, especially in times of stress, is to take ten to meditate. You can do it any where, any time with no one the wiser to quickly reduce stress and calm frazzled nerves.

With regular inner peace practice, Hellmich contends, and I agree wholeheartedly, heck, I've said it here plenty of times, we facilitate peace building in our lives, rippling out to the world.

One tiny example: How often has a friendly smile and kind remark lifted your spirits at the end of a long day and sent you on your way smiling too? People smile back when they see a happy person walking down the street. When their spirits are lifted, they smile at others.

Smiling at our neighbors as we encounter them on the street is an act of both inner and outer peace. Could we really kill each other once we got in the habit of smiling genuinely each time we met? I wonder.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Grabbing the dragon's tail and hanging on as if our lives depended on it

noreply@blogger.com (graceonline) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 21:09:00 +0000

GA National Fair 2006 by peachyqueen
A morgueFile Free Photo

Sometimes living consciously and being informed feels like trying to ride a dragon's tail.

I don't know about you, but every single day I get dozens of appeals for money, to sign petitions, to call my representatives and senators, to write to this company or that, and always again for more money. Take a look at the first six emails in my inbox this morning.

Greenpeace - "Dear Kathryn, Kill more mother whales? That’s what the Japanese government wants to do." This opening gambit is followed by lurid pictures and graphic details that break my heart.
People for the American Way - Michael Keegan wants me to take a survey on the 2012 presidential election. It's important because "if we are not fully engaged this year, we could actually end up with a far-right Tea Party extremist President [sic] who supports" almost everything that puts fear in my heart and curdles my blood.
Alliance for a Healthier Generation - I don't know who these people are or how I got on their list. They want me to help reduce the rate of childhood obesity--a noble cause. In addition to asking for donations, they want me to buy their branded products and gift them to my friends and family this season.
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) - It's their year-end rapid-response fundraiser and they need money right this minute because "people count on you and the ACLU. And lately they've really needed us. That's because there's been an all-out assault on civil liberties — in Congress, and in statehouses and courtrooms all across the country." How well I know.
Grameen Foundation - "This holiday season, Grameen Foundation is making it easy to honor the special people in your life and help us empower the world's poorest at the same time." They want money too.
Earthjustice - Their president is giving me a chance to help them help the president make history: "President Obama is stuffing America's stocking on Friday with the first-ever limits on deadly toxics [sic] from coal-fired power plants. This can be a truly historic moment for Obama—if he goes far enough." They need money to up the pressure.

Grabbing the dragon's tail

This morning, before sitting down to the inevitable tales of atrocities, miscarriages of justice and desperate, shameless, sometimes heartbreaking appeals for money, I opened again the book that gave me such courage this fall: William Powers' Twelve by Twelve.

On this page, he tells of his first conversation with Jackie, the owner of the tiny cabin in which unexpectedly and very soon he will live for forty days.

Powers is just back from ten years working overseas to mitigate poverty and save the rainforest. His dad is in the hospital, recovering from a life-threatening illness. Deep in culture shock upon his return to the US, he is at odds with his work. Futility and despair lurk between the lines.

Jackie, a medical doctor, could have chosen a lucrative practice and retired anywhere. Instead, she served her community's poorest. After her children went to college, she asked for and received a reduction in salary. She lives on $11,000 a year, below the tax threshold.

Jackie explains her choice to "live like a Bangladeshi," in a tiny cabin without electricity or plumbing and grow her own food. She is "part of a more durable future," her life "tied into the growing slow food, environmental, and antiwar movements." Inexplicably, she tells Powers, "'It all centers around a question ... Where do you grab the dragon's tail?'"

The question puzzles me. Apparently Powers is as puzzled as I. They talk more, then he asks her, "'Where do you grab the dragon's tail?'"

"'Where the suffering grabs you the most.'"

So I do. Each day, I respond to those appeals I can and delete the rest. Not without a sigh, not without regret, but delete them I do.

Each day I try to become a little better informed, a little more aware of what is wrong in the world, and what is right! (That last does not fill up my inbox.)

And each day, [insert rude expletive here], I do what tiny bit I can to build that more durable world. Whether it is buying organic cotton and fair trade products, standing for peace, going 'pooless, kicking my paper towel habit, or taking a walk to strengthen my aging bones, I do what I can.

Hanging on as if our lives depended on it

That dragon's tail whips about ferociously. Day after day, I grab it and hang on for dear life, crawl up the dragon's back and whisper in its ear:

I know you have a human heart. I know you are capable of compassion and love. You, too, would benefit from a better world, a more durable world. Heck, imagine the joy if you used your might and power to build a truly good world, one more like the Village of Ordinary.

Most of you who read me have blogs that I read as well. What gives me strength to hang on is your persistence in grabbing your dragons' tails. Thank you for continuing to write your truth, whatever it may be.

Your voices matter. They give me courage. Sometimes you make me laugh. Sometimes you make me cry. Thank you for writing. Thank you for your persistence. Thank you for hanging on.

Disclosure: Should you click on the Amazon link in this post and make a purchase, it is possible I might make a few pennies on the sale. Wouldn't that be a thrill.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Love on Cole, Mae West, minstrels, and angels for sale on Haight

noreply@blogger.com (graceonline) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 07:33:00 +0000

Love on Cole at Haight
© L Kathryn Grace
All rights reserved

I'm shopping locally as much as possible this year, avoiding the Big Box stores, and it's so much fun. This afternoon, walking down San Francisco's Haight Street, what a treat! Strike that, what treats! As you might imagine, Haight Street, between Ashbury and Golden Gate Park, is always interesting.

Swaggering right at me, in all her Christmas finery, Mae West: Huge red Victorian hat festooned with sweeping white plumes; red and white organza gown wrapped seductively in form-fitting layers with just the right pleated flounce from mid-calf to the tips of her red and white button boots; around her scarlet-clad arms and running off her lace-tipped fingers, a white furry stole and muff; under that hat, super blonde sausage curls, and plenty of makeup.

Sadly, rather than flashing a glittering Mae West smile, she scowled at me as we passed. I'd have taken a pic of her retreating figure--and what a figure she cut--but by the time I fished my cell phone from my pocket she had sauntered half a block away.

Returning from Mendel's Far Out Fabrics, where I found the gorgeous reusable ribbon I needed for tying my packages and, unexpectedly, just the right gift for my budding artist granddaughter, I heard strains of absolutely spellbinding music. A crowd gathered round a doorway, uncharacteristically silent. Inching closer, I saw them: Six ragtag musicians assembled on the steps leading into an apartment building, playing either classical music I've never heard or a new composition that should one day become part of the repertoire.

There were a bass fiddle, a cello, violin, two guitars, and some kind of sweet percussion I couldn't quite see around the corner. The music followed me a ways and then it was gone, lost in the distance. My smile and the peace and joy I felt lasted all the way home.

Further down the street, I passed a store with a sign in the window that gave me pause: "We sell angels." Then, round the corner on Cole, the sidewalk etching in the photograph.

Love. Never mind the question mark. Just love. And it's not even Thursday.

Whatever holiday you celebrate this season, however simply or extravagantly, may it be joyous in the planning, and may it long afterward cheer your hearts.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Standing for peace, we are all one

noreply@blogger.com (graceonline) — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 15:58:00 +0000

Before heading off this morning with another grandmother to stand for peace in front of city hall, I ran across this video, We Are All One. It says everything we need to know about why standing for peace is so important, and it says it in a way that heals my soul, encourages my heart. May it do so for you.

Wherever you may be this morning, whatever you may do, take a few minutes to stand in silence for peace, with peace. Perhaps it will change your life as it is changing mine.

Breaking silence

Update 10:55 a.m.

We broke silence during our stand today, distracted in part by activity around us, then full of thoughts we were eager to share. I enjoyed the discussion, as I always do with Sharon.

I am also aware how much I missed the silence, how precious, now, the few minutes of quiet meditation on either side of our conversation. Not that it was off topic or disrespectful of our purpose, for it was neither, but that an hour of silence in that space, filled with intent to bring peace to our city and our world, grounds me. That grounding informs my entire week, is behind every decision I make, and gently settles me when I tend to flare.

So I'm thinking about silence, how I relish it, living in the city as I do, where the streets around me are seldom without noise. I'm thinking about the few times I have been in a gathering of several hundred people, all silent, not even a speaker to guide us; and the near silence of the woods, far from any town.

What do you know of silence? Have you found it useful at times? Have you experienced silence in a profound way? I would deeply appreciate your thoughts.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Good News Friday: The Economics of Happiness

noreply@blogger.com (graceonline) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 18:52:00 +0000

Having shared so much last week of a country--ours--gone obscenely wrong, I focused this week on making peace. All the while, more and more examples of injustice and horror played out daily across our land and around the world. At times, I lay down and wept. Then I saw Ordinary Hero Helena Norberg-Hodge speaking in this TED Talk video on The Economics of Happiness.

With the experience of one working on the ground for many years with the problems--hunger, violence, waste, poverty, unprecedented disease and illness, environmental degradation--created by corporate greed and globalization, Norberg-Hodge capsulizes much that is wrong with our world and offers proven solutions to fix it.

How she can do this in eighteen minutes should be no surprise in a TED Talk, but Norberg-Hodges' message, despite her uncharacteristic case of nerves, is captivating. May you take as much hope and heart from this video as I.

While we're on the subject of economics and happiness, you may enjoy this less than two minute Agenda Project video, Patriotric Millionaire's Message to Congress.

The good news is, we, meaning the world, already have systems in place that can grow a healthy, sustainable economy with plenty for all. What's more, there are among us many conscientious millionaires who are willing to pay their fair share in taxes and help us right here, in the former land of the free, do the right thing.

We don't need to live in a greed economy. We can build an economics of happiness.

Help me spread the word, will you? Tweet this, post it on your Facebook account, write your senators and representatives. I know. I know. That last can feel like tilting at windmills. If you've ever worked in politics, you know that every letter, email, every phone call is a tick mark in either one column or the other. Tick marks count more than you know.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Shift happens: An invitation to tell your story

noreply@blogger.com (graceonline) — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 17:00:00 +0000

From our first Stand for Peace 11/29/2011
© Sharon L Richardson
Used with permission

It wasn't an earthquake that caused the ground to shift under my feet Tuesday night. It was a heart shift.

The event: The Summer of Peace 2012 Action Meetup.
The location: The historic Red Victorian Peace Cafe in the heart of San Francisco's Haight Ashbury district.
The who: Six of us, women and men, young, old and between, joined momentarily by visitors staying at the hotel, eating at the cafe, who stopped by our table to chat a moment, share a bit of their stories.

For the first time in years, indeed decades, I felt the power of a group of people, each tied to others not present, and they to others, expanding ever outward--people whose hope and belief in the future of human kind and our ability to solve our problems is greater than either our self interest or our fear.

The group organizer, Laurie, went round the table, asking us to share a bit of our work. Not, why are you here, what are you going to do for peace. What is your work.

One young man is building and testing an interactive web site in which cognitive behavior therapists and their patients can expand their work. Think the power of Facebook dedicated to healing therapy. Already beta tested with people with schizophrenia, "the toughest-to-treat disorder," according to the young man, the software is successful beyond their wildest dreams.

Laurie smiled broadly and thanked him. "You are doing peace work," she told him. Of course, it is true. When one of us helps another to ease the turmoil in her heart, we make peace.

Another among us has all but finished writing her first book, the true story of a child who grew up in a violently abusive foster home. Not only did the young woman survive her tormentors and her torment without resorting to drugs and alcohol, she put herself through college, twice, has devoted her life to helping other abused children, and thrives today. Again, Laurie smiled. "I'm so glad you're here," she said. "You are doing important peace work."

A third is embarking soon on a year-long trip round the world. He will visit twelve countries, spend one month in each, making music with the people, and recording it for an album. "Music is so important to making peace," Laurie said, again that broad, gentle smile.

Round the table we went, each of us lighting up at the other's stories, all told simply, without any hint of puffery or embellishment. It was clear some realized for the first time how their work contributes to peace making.

How often, I wonder, do we fail to realize, most of us, that the work we do every day is the work of peace. In our pyramid culture, our culture that reserves honor, respect and privilege for those who somehow reach the pinnacle of success, we so easily forget that all of us on the bottom and in the layers between, are the foundation and strength for those very few at the top.

Monuments in the desert or molecules joining to create new life

Think of this: Pyramids are merely monuments in the desert. They stand alone, objects of curiosity, practically useless. What matters is not who is at the top of a constructed edifice. What matters is far more organic, far more reflective of the vitality of a living organism.

What really matters is all of us--the teachers, social workers, nurses, physicians, activists, healers, artists, reporters, musicians, coaches, shopkeepers, farmers, innovators, moms, dads, nurturers, and yes, even we who write. What matters is how we link together, forming bonds, becoming stronger individually and collectively, creating. We are the molecules of life.

We must begin to see our work as the most natural thing in the world and as vital as the work of any other individual. The more we understand how integrated we are, despite our feelings of separate and other, the more we realize how strong we are, how irrepressible.

It is so easy to think that I am just one person, I am too failed, too ill, too broken, too damaged, too weak, too unfocused, too selfish, too often angry, too [fill in the blank] to be of use, to be an agent of change, an agent of peace.

Step aside, make the shift

Today, I encourage you to shift just a bit. Step aside from that judgement and recall a moment, perhaps many moments, but at least one moment, when you knew your care, your work, your process, your love made a difference in another's life. Any moment. I know for a fact, if you are reading this, there are too many to count. Let them pour in. Recognize the work you do. Recognize the peace you bring, just by being you, just by entering a room, perhaps.

Today, I invite you to take courage in hand and tell the rest of us about such moments. Give us this gift. Forget "false pride" and fear of bragging. Tell us about your work. Share the work you do. Post a link to your blog, your book, your artwork, whatever you do that might bring peace and courage to our lives. Share the way your work nurtures others, the way it heals, how it brings peace to the world.

I invite you to speak up, to acknowledge that you are an agent of peace.

Shift happens. Let it.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

How standing for peace changes me

noreply@blogger.com (graceonline) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:06:00 +0000

Today, I'm spending some time developing the new web site, so I offer this article I wrote awhile back on Wizzley: How Standing for Peace Five Minutes a Day Changes Me. I'd be pleased if you would check it out, leave a comment, tell me what you think. Here's an excerpt.

I tend to be a fairly calm person. That is, I tend to be a fairly calm person until something riles me. I can flash like a whole mob. ... On the days I stand for peace, the moment I begin to respond in anger, or feel resentment seeping into my heart over some slight, almost always I stop a moment. There is another way to approach the situation, any situation. Standing for peace five minutes a day ... Read more

If you don't have time to flip over there and read the article, would you be so kind as to share something in the comments here about your own journey to peace, either in your life today or anywhere in the world?

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

What would happen if The Great Silent Grandmother Gathering came true?

noreply@blogger.com (graceonline) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 05:38:00 +0000

On Saturday, Sharon and I stood for peace outside City Hall, our third week. Under the blue, blue San Francisco sky, we two stood in silence, each in our thoughts, glancing to smile at one another now and then. One thought flared again and again: What would happen if our numbers grew? If we became four? If four became eight, and eight sixteen? What would happen if Sharon Medhi's story, The Great Silent Grandmother Gathering: A Story for Anyone Who Thinks She Can't Save the World, came true?

What if next week, as we turned, stretching our backs to keep them from getting too stiff, we saw another woman standing, facing City Hall? Then, stretching our backs the other way, we saw a fourth woman, there, deep in the grove?

What if, the week after that, there were others, each standing alone, perhaps a few in pairs or threes, scattered about the Joseph B. Alioto Performing Arts Piazza? Some might stand near the north playground, its bright colors glistening purple and green in the sun. Some might stand on the grass, near the homeless people crawling from their sleeping bags and makeshift shelters into the sunlight.

What would they think about, all those women, and perhaps some men too? What would they contemplate as they stood, in silence, facing City Hall?

We are not alone in our quest. It is rare that I am near Golden Gate and Larkin on a Thursday afternoon, but last time I happened by, the people who stand for peace each Thursday were there. In a 2008 SFGate.com article titled Quiet Stand for Peace Each Week, several of the vigil keepers tell why they stand. The Gate quotes one, The Rev. Richard Schaper then of Grace Cathedral: "Some say, 'This is foolish; you can't change the world.' I understand that, but I do it to keep the world from changing me."

Actually, I hope I continue to be changed, as I have been changed standing for peace five minutes nearly every day; but I understand Reverand Schaper's sentiment. Standing for peace gives me a sense of equilibrium, a sense of balancing the fulcrum beneath me, that I might not succumb to the rage I feel at times, witnessing the devastation, pain and suffering that rampant greed and lust for power wreak in my community and across the world.

Standing for peace with Sharon gives me hope that we might yet build a better world for our grandchildren--and theirs. Deep within, at my very core, I know that when thousands of individuals join us in the piazza, join us in plazas all over the Earth, and stand in silence with visions of peace in their hearts, the vision of The Great Silent Grandmother Gathering will come true.

We stand for peace as part of Grandmothers for Peace San Francisco, which we initiated after an OccupySF peace meditation. You can read about our experience and why we started Grandmothers for Peace Occupy SF on Yes, we did Sit4Change.

12/7/2011: Edited typo in "Yes, we did Sit4Change," immediately above.

Disclosure: Should you click on the Amazon link in this post and make a purchase, it is possible I might make a few pennies on the sale. Wouldn't that be a thrill.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Ordinary Hero: Teen Emma Sullivan who stood up for her right to free speech

noreply@blogger.com (graceonline) — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 00:04:00 +0000

Image credit: Olivia Sullivan

Google "Emma Sullivan" and you'll get pages of articles on her story. She's the eighteen year old high school senior who sent an unflattering tweet about Kansas Governor Sam Brownback a couple of weeks ago.

According to Think Progress, Brownback's staff fired off a complaint to Sullivan's principal, who then ordered Sullivan to apologize to the governor. She refused.

The other day, in an email exchange, I asked Sullivan about her stand. My first question, how long did it take her to make such a potentially far-reaching decision? Here's what she said.

It took a couple of days, I at first was going to write it [the apology] because I didn't want to get in trouble, but with the support of others and my family, I realized that I didn't have to write it and that I shouldn't write things [that] are insincere.

Don't you love it? Imagine a world in which our politicians resisted the urge to make insincere apologies, or worse, lie about their activities and intentions. Where might we be today?

I also asked Sullivan her reasons for choosing not to write the apology and what consequences she feared. Again, in her own words:

I was hoping there would be no consequences because if the school would have punished me then the media would have made it an even bigger deal. I didn't want to write it because I don't feel like I did anything wrong and I strongly believe in my rights to tweet what I want. I also thought it would be a lose lose situation if I wrote the letter, the public would have scrutinized it, people would have told me I caved into the governor's pressure. When you agree to apologize because someone has asked you to, then you have lost the power of your words.

Wisdom from the heart and mouth of one so young, I must repeat it.

When you agree to apologize because someone has asked you to,
then you have lost the power of your words.

It takes courage to stand your ground in the middle of a fray. So often we are told to "calm down," "back down," "let it go," "it's not that important." Emma Sullivan newly adult in age, still a teenager, understands the power of her words.

My last question to Emma was this: What advice would you give to others about censoring ourselves before writing what we see as the truth online? She wrote her response in a larger font and bold type.

If you want to say it then say it. Just stand by what you said, no matter what the wording is or what it is about.

Emma Sullivan, for speaking your truth and sticking to it when challenged, for holding our public officials accountable, for standing up for your Constitutional right to free speech, for caring enough to make a decision that potentially packed a lot of heat and being willing to take it, and for being unafraid to let your wisdom shine, you are my Ordinary Hero. I bow in gratitude and with hope for the future. With youth of your caliber coming up to replace us, we who have all too often felt we were tilting at windmills take heart.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Who are these people paid to protect and serve?

noreply@blogger.com (graceonline) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 01:17:00 +0000

You may have wondered, yesterday, when I used the term "police state" in my headline about the not-so-isolated case of Michael Allison. He's the Illinois man facing up to 75 years in prison for recording law enforcement personnel interactions with him. Illinois law makes it a felony to protect oneself or others during a police action--and to hold police officers accountable for their actions--by videotaping or audio-taping them.

Without such videotapes, the beating of Rodney King may never have come to light, and we would have had to take police word that the shooting of young father Oscar Grant was both justified and merited.

Increasingly, as more and more such videotapes emerge, I am concerned that we are indeed living in a police state, or nearly so.

King and Grant isolated incidents, right?

It might be easy for those of us generally out of the line of violence to think that incidents like the Rodney King beating and the New Year's 2009 shooting in the back of Oscar Grant are isolated--rare exceptions by rogue cops--that just happened to be caught on camera.

Despite damning videotaped evidence that would convict any other member of society, the police officers who beat King were acquitted. Later, two were found guilty in federal court and sentenced to a whopping 30 months. The other two were again acquitted.

Grant's shooting, caught entirely on videotape, shows two police officers, including his shooter Johannes Mehserle, manhandling an unresisting, peaceful, kneeling Grant, shoving him to the floor on his stomach. Grant reportedly pleads with them not to taser or shoot him, telling the officers he has a five year old daughter. The second officer puts a knee to Grant's neck, then backs away as Mehslerle draws his gun and shoots the unarmed father in the back at point blank range. Mehserle was tried, convicted and sentenced to two years for involuntary manslaughter, then released on parole after serving only six months.

These are not, however, isolated incidents years apart. All over the country, incidents like this continue to rise and spark outrage. Only when officers are caught on unconfiscated videotapes that go viral on the web, do their actions make it into mainstream media and yours and my consciousness.

To outlaw such recordings is to give police even more opportunity to lie and cover up abuses of power.

Outlawing the recording of police actions threatens all our safety

Consider this. I remember very well the first news reports of the Oscar Grant shooting. BART spokespersons stood on camera and told us that Mr. Grant had been shot while resisting arrest. They said that the surveillance camera that could have given the most clear images of the shooting was not operative at the time, or the tape had been unaccountably erased. Only when the unconfiscated video (BART police reportedly confiscated bystander cell phones after the shooting) was posted on YouTube a day or two later, did we learn that the official version of the shooting was a flat-out lie.

Is it possible the officer who killed Grant would have gone to trial had that cell phone video not come to light? What do you think?

Under-trained or out of control, full police accountability is critical to public safety

Increasingly, as we see more and more videotapes of police using excessive force and violence against unarmed, peaceful citizens, we realize that many of our police officers are at best under-trained, and sometimes tragically out of control. Whatever the case, it is critical that we seek full accountability from those paid to protect and serve the public.

Before we go any further with this, let me explain that I have great respect for the individual men and women who kiss their families goodbye in the morning, never knowing whether they will return to them intact that night. I admire and give gratitude for the police officers who courageously put their lives on the line every day, especially those who do so with honor and integrity.

I am gladdened when I see battalions of police officers upholding order during protests and demonstrations while maintaining and showing respect for the rights of individuals and groups of people to do so.

I am, on the other hand, appalled at the number of their brethren who seem to think nothing of beating, harassing and unlawfully detaining peaceful individuals going about their business and/or exercising their right to assemble peacefully.

Recent images of brutal police behavior mimic those we see in totalitarian governments overseas

In the last few weeks, people around the world have been horrified by repeated images of police officers in U.S. city after city beating and pepper spraying peaceful Occupy protesters at close range. You may have seen this article a few weeks ago honoring 84 year old Dorli Rainey, who was pepper sprayed at Occupy Seattle. You'll see the full image of her, head and face dripping with pepper spray, in Joshua Holland's AlterNet piece, Caught on Camera: Ten shockingly violent police assaults on occupy protesters (page 3). The other nine images, some of which include videos, are equally compelling.

We must not shrink from making ourselves aware of the problem.

We could say that the police are doing their duty, and that some of the students and protesters provoked them. For the most part, the occupiers have been peaceful to a fault. Some within the camps believe that many of the provocateurs are just that, intending to incite violence, possibly as a means to discredit and disrupt the movement.

I wasn't there, I cannot say, but I can see. While it's true we see many videos of police responding in an orderly, respectful manner to their orders to clear the camps or the streets, too often in these images and videos, it is clear that a number of officers and their superiors abuse their authority and use excessive violence.

The restraint of many does not excuse or condone the violence of others. They must be held accountable.

The problem is more widespread throughout the system than we may want to believe

Such incidents of overreaching abuse of power are not isolated to demonstrations and demonstrators. On Saturday, after our stand for peace at city hall, I caught up on a few podcasts from the evocative, provactive and frequently entertaining This American Life radio show. I don't know why these two podcasts were in my queue at the same time, since one is over a year old, but there they were.

The first, This American Life: Old Boys Network (June 3, 2011, Episode #437), tells the story of a small town Texas sheriff, a prosecutor who is also the private attorney for the sheriff and for the hospital in question, and the nurses who stood up to them. When the nurses would not keep quiet about a doctor whose actions endangered the health and possibly the lives of his patients, the sheriff arrested one of the nurses, a "Yankee" who had lived in the town only twenty years. She stood trial for harassing the doctor. Her tale is chilling.

Small town. Country sheriff. Couldn't happen in your town, right? Listen to the harrowing story of New York City police officer Adrian Schoolcraft in Act II of the September 10, 2010, This American Life: Right to Remain Silent, (Episode #414). Like so many of our police officers around the country, Officer Schoolcraft is one of the good guys. He laid it all on the line, trying to do the right thing in a police department that, to hear the secret recordings he made, is filled with corruption from the near-top to the bottom. Imprisoned in a mental hospital without recourse in an apparent attempt to silence him, his family denied knowledge of his whereabouts, he endured and continues to tell his story.

But wait, there's more: Cue the military

As if municipal police corruption, abuse of power and vicious assault on peaceful citizens exercising their right to assemble were not enough, the U.S. Senate voted yesterday to mandate military arrest and confinement of U.S. citizens right here on our own soil, as well as anywhere in the world at any time, for as long as they want to keep us locked up, without a trial.

Let me put it that another way.

Yesterday, the U.S. Senate voted to let the US military--Army, Navy, Marines--patrol our streets.
They can pick us off one by one at any time.
Arrest us.
Lock us up.
Throw away the key.
No due process.
No trial required.
Send us to Guantanamo Bay.
Send us anywhere they please.
Don't have to tell us why.
Don't have to let us get an attorney.
Do anything they want with us.

Here's what two senators, both supporters of the bill, had to say about it last week.

In support of this harmful bill, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) explained that the bill will “basically say in law for the first time that the homeland is part of the battlefield” and people can be imprisoned without charge or trial “American citizen or not.” Another supporter, Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) also declared that the bill is needed because “America is part of the battlefield.”

Senators Demand the Military Lock Up of American Citizens
in a “Battlefield” They Define as Being Right Outside Your Window
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

The White House reportedly threatens a veto, should it pass the House, not because it threatens to detain American citizens without due process, but because the commander in chief sees it as somehow limiting presidential powers. The kicker is, it just may well pass the house, because it's one of those nasty little portions of a much larger bill, the National Defense Authorization Act. Now that's a good read, let me tell you.

Perhaps you agreed with me yesterday, but if you still think "police state" is too strong a term, tell me this: Just how much more freedom are you willing to give up in order to feel safe from terrorists? Me, I'm beginning to wonder just who are the real terrorists. How can we build a peaceful world in the face of institutionalized violence?

That's not just a rhetorical question. I'd very much appreciate your thoughts.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

In what police state did I wake up this morning?

noreply@blogger.com (graceonline) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 16:11:00 +0000

Seventy-five years for videotaping police officers? That's what Michael Allison of Robinson, Illinois, faces. And that's not all. This weekend, in less than 24 hours, I watched and heard three reports of nearly unbelievable police actions, arrests and unlawful imprisonment. I'll share more about them tomorrow. Today, it's this video of Allison's lawful arrest and prosecution that chills me to the bone and causes me to wonder how close we have come to living in a police state.

In this news report from WTWO-TV in Terra Haute, Indiana, Michael Allison tells of his arrest on the felony charge of videotaping police officers without their consent, a non-violent "crime" for which he faces up to 75 years in prison, as much or more as he would face were he charged with rape or murder.

Watch the story.

You can also view the video on the WTWO-TV web site, but I have to warn you: the site is a little confusing. It doesn't show the call letters and has an ABC ad on the page, or did at time of this posting. To confirm this really is the WTWO web site, I scrolled to the bottom of the page and looked at their FCC filing reports.

Prosecutors appeal to IL Supreme Court after lower court throws case out

After a lower court judge ruled the law under which Mr. Allison was charged unconstitutional, reports WTWO, the Illinois prosecutors filed an appeal with the Illinois Supreme Court. The appeal is pending.

As many as twelve states prohibit recording police officers

Illinois is not an isolated state in making the filming of police officers a felony. While police officers, municipalities, counties, states and the federal government can and do film us everywhere we go, we, the people, are prohibited from recording police officers in as many as twelve states, according to the WTWO reporter.

While I could not verify that claim, I did find a number of articles that discuss such laws and incidences of arrest in several states. HotAir's Ed Morrisey reported on a few of those cases in Do police have a legitimate expectation of privacy in public performance of duty? (June 3, 2011). He concludes

Police do not have an expectation of privacy in their public encounters with the citizenry. In fact, they should have instead an expectation of public accountability for the performance of that work.

I agree. If we are to return to a free society, a world more like that in the Village of Ordinary, where mutual respect and peace prevail, we must hold our public officials, and especially our increasingly militarized police, accountable for their actions. It is imperative that we support those who are working to assure our civil liberties are maintained, and where already compromised, restored.

It's been a long time since I gave to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), those valiant and stalwart attorneys and advocates who champion our right to free speech and assembly, among many other Constitutional rights, year in and year out. I hadn't planned on doing so when I began writing this piece, but I am not taking them for granted any longer. Before hitting the "publish" button, I gave them some of the money I had planned to use on holiday gifts this year. My family and friends can do with smaller tokens of remembrance. Their freedom and liberty--and mine--matter more.

Who do you feel best champions our civil liberties and the freedoms we once took for granted? What plans, if any, do you have to support them at this time of year, when so many agencies and non-profits are asking for our assistance? What other steps do you feel we might take as individuals, and collectively, to assure our police, also known as officers of the peace, are held accountable for their actions?

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Standing for peace, we are as stones

noreply@blogger.com (graceonline) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 17:34:00 +0000

We stood for peace again this Saturday. I have to tell you, even though we are only two, I feel empowered.

When we stand before an edifice dedicated to assuring that the economic interests of a city are served, we stand at the seat of power. Here the influential, and those who do their bidding, make decisions that bring peace--or violence--to our lives.

In this world-class city, those decisions affect the lives not only of San Franciscans, but of people throughout the state and around the world. Whether we're banning plastic bags in supermarkets or shipping our collected "recyclables" overseas where the poorest of the poor sort our mountains of trash to salvage what can be melted down and remade, the impact of our city is felt near and far. Decisions made in this building ripple across the planet, like a skipping stone on water.

Let's face it. Making peace is about economics. All war, all injustice comes down to economics and greed. "You have what I want. If you won't give it to me, won't sell it to me for the price I'm willing to pay, I will take it from you."

Yet, because individuals stood up over the years in this town, walked and marched and stood in the halls of this building, many decisions made here reflect a concern for the well-being of our people. Not only the wealthy are served; but also those of us who serve the wealthy; and the thousands of immigrants who grow, harvest, prepare and serve our food, clean our homes and offices, cut our hair, and who work tirelessly to achieve a better life for themselves, their families and friends.

Individuals made and continue to make calls, set up committees, and take action to lessen our collective impact on the environment as well. One example, immediately in front of me as I stand: nearly half a block of recharging stations for electric cars, several of which bear the city seal on their doors. That sign in the background of the image to the right says "Green Vehicle Showcase," and in a small way, it is.

Of course, we are also a city known to house some of the most shameless--and shameful--human trafficking and sex trafficking rings in the country, for just one example of the other side, and a homeless population larger than the town my children called home for eighteen years, for another. All is not charm and beauty here.

These thoughts flow as I stand, at first flushed with the rush to get here, the too hot tea in my thermos burning my tongue and throat, watching tourists dance toward the shining glass and brass doors below the rotunda, fifth largest in the world, with a dome higher than that of the US Capitol building. They take pictures of one another posing first on this side of the street, then again on the steps of the building, under the great frieze of naked and partially clothed mythical figures.

We do not speak, my standing partner and I. We shift our bodies, arching our complaining backs and relaxing them, rocking on our feet to keep the blood flowing and the stiffness at bay.

Soon, my body settles into the rhythm, my mind quiets, the calm of standing in peace fills me, seems to grow and surround us. A white haired woman arrives, across the street, stands against a concrete pillar for nearly the entire hour. We wonder if she is the woman who told us she would stand with us today.

The longer the hour stretches, the more comfortable I am. The longer I stand, the more I feel what it would mean, what might happen if hundreds stood with us, thousands around the world. Though I gently return my focus to my breathing whenever my mind wanders, inevitably it fills with this image again and again and again: Grandmothers all over the world, standing in front of their city halls, their churches, mosques and synagogues, whatever symbols of power in their towns and villages, standing in silence, hearts open to the possibility of peace.

Changed, as we are changed standing here, they--we--just may begin to influence those within our sphere, who in turn may influence others, rippling, rippling, rippling. We are as stones.

We stand for peace as part of Grandmothers for Peace Occupy SF, which we initiated after an OccupySF peace meditation. You can read about our experience and why we started Grandmothers for Peace Occupy SF on Yes, we did Sit4Change.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.