Let there be peace on earth...

"He got it right," Nancy said as she read the article in today's Daily Tidings. She was talking about the reporter who interviewed us two days running about why we are standing in the park. A woman at Starbuck's told me we were on the front page. I asked Nancy to read the story and tell me if it was okay. (I can't bear to listen to myself on radio interviews or read articles where I'm quoted.) "It's good," she said. She was smiling. "He really got it."

* * *

Linda Merryman, who stood with us in the park for the first time yesterday, afterwards wrote the following Letter to the Editor of the Daily Tidings. She gave me permission to reprint it here.

I go this morning a little before 8 to join "The Great Silent Grandmother Gathering" in Lithia Park. Like the book by that title, it's mostly women and a few men. It's cool and the sun is starting to warm the dew covered grass. I have come to stand peacefully and in silence. It's not easy. A siren is shrieking as I enter the park. It pulls my mind to the idea of all the places sirens are going off around the world right now, where fires are blazing and people are suffering. I am immediately in my head aware of why I'm here. There are so many fellow human beings being murdered right now by the violent acts of some other human beings who have found a way to go to war. I am standing in silence for those being killed. I am standing in silence for those killing. I am standing for the ones who made the weapons, and the ones who sold the weapons, and the ones who bought the weapons, and the ones who made money off the deal. I am standing in silence for the ones who are shopping or sunbathing or yachting off the money made from the sale of the weapons. I am standing for all the soldiers decked out in matching outfits whose adrenalin is surging as they wait poised to defend their own life and possibly take someone else's. I am standing for their Mothers and Fathers who are trying to live their life today, but part of their thinking is always on their soldier aching for their return to "home". I have only been standing 5 minutes and I have been anything but silent in my mind. I have been with all these places and people around the globe. I have not been standing in silence in peace. I've not done what I came here to do. I begin, "Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me..." just that first line of the song. It becomes my mantra, silently over and over calming my thoughts. Pulling them in from what I always feel on some level.... the fighting that is happening, the suffering. My mind jumps to the barbarism that human beings are experiencing at Guantanamo Bay. I see the images of the torture by "our side/the good guys" those pictures I can never forget. There I am no longer doing what I came here to do...."Let there be peace...." I get myself back on track. Gradually the beauty of the morning is my experience. Other people just standing very quietly. Dear precious not on fire, not filled with armored humvees, blessed thank you thank you Ashland is coming alive. People in trucks are driving around with tools to do their day's work. The birds or chirping and flying in and out of the three big trees and one small one. A runner with a beautifully fit body comes by in his light blue baggy running shorts and no shirt. He stops for a drink of water at a fountain I've never noticed. Then he disappears behind a door that says 13. I notice above it a rainbow colored peace sign. Very shortly he reappears in regular shorts with his cell phone and wallet and still no shirt and walks now up the street. Noticing. I don't let my mind follow him past the corner. Soon a woman in navy long pants, wearing a shirt, comes out of the door, goes around the corner, and begins to sweep. Lucky human beings not at war. Not in fear. Not carrying weapons. It's been 20 minutes. My mantra continues, "Let there be ...." Finally now I get very still. I expand out from Lithia Park and loose the sense of my physical form. I just am.... now..... standing..... peacefully in silence. Gratitude. My eyes closed, the warmth of the sun on my face makes an orange red color that is me. Wow 8:30 already. I must go, but just a few more minutes. This feels so good. I look over at the standing ones. A couple have gone now. Someone else has come. The rest stand still. They are a chorus of silence. Mostly they are wearing blue, beige, and brown as though it were planned. My eye catches off to their left a contrast in color. The sparkling white Sculpture of the headless statesman. He stands proudly immortalized in his stuffed suit and shirt. Honored right here in Lithia Park for moving ahead at all cost, whatever it takes to be secure and safe and right and doing it all without a head. The statesman of our time. My eyes go back quickly to the silent chorus of human beings all with heads. Wow, now I notice they also have hearts. There they are simply standing. Because they can. Because they must. Because something must be done. Our leaders, long feared to be heartless, now have no heads. Quick get the mantra going before you forget why you're here..."Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me..."

Blessed are the peacemakers

I got an email last night from my friend Chris, who with her husband Jack, just returned from four weeks in China where they used the Grandmother book to teach English to Chinese children. (Buffety blustery??? I cannot even imagine it!) This isn't the first time Chris and Jack have done extraordinary things. There were trips to Rawanda...to Somalia...their careers with the U.S. government abroad...their commitment to the church...Chris's healing work. They devote their lives to making peace. To being peace. And this morning they stood with us in Lithia Park. At this point I would start a new paragraph, but something's up with eblogger.com and it is not letting me start new paragraphs. Bear with me.
A lot of new people joined us this morning. Susan, who parked her bicycle and helmet by the ornamental maple tree. Linda, who stood in the park with Jean Shinoda Bolen and some of the Millionth Circle conveners last April. And beautiful, welcome others I didn't know. It was chilly this morning. Most of us weren't dressed for it. Some stood stoically in the shade, while others of us followed sunspots across the lawn. At 9 o'clock we joined hands (in the sun) and sang. Peace is flowing like a river. And it was. Wilma said what we're doing is like taking an aspirin. You don't have to tell an aspirin where the pain is -- it knows just where to go. We don't have to tell the loving energy we send out into the world where to go -- it knows where it's needed most. Blessed, indeed, are the peacemakers.

Peace is flowing like a river...

"Peace is flowing like a river...flowing out from you and me...flowing out into the desert...setting all the people free." My friend Cathy Burgess who lives in Edinburgh, Scotland taught me that song. She and her friend Peter bought a hundred copies of the grandmother story when it was just a little booklet.

SORRY, SOMEONE HACKED THE BLOG SPOT AND ADDED A BIT OF NONESENSE WHICH I HAVE DELETED. I WAS NOT ABLE TO RESURRECT THE ORIGINAL MESSAGE. Sharon

And then there were ten...

One by one they came. First Nancy who had been standing alone at a park in Palo Alto. Then Marta whose quiet, steady support has been a mainstay of the Grandmother book project. Elizabeth, our P.R. maven who sent out over a thousand emails to women around the country. Jean and Kay, with big smiles on their adorable faces. Little Wilma, who at 79, can stand longer and stronger than the rest of us put together. Kate, a mediation attorney/professional photographer, who has been taking the photos you see on this blog so is never in the pictures herself! Then Grandma Ginny in a bright Hawaiian shirt. And Ellen who brought a chair in case her ankles didn't hold out, accompanied by her friend Ron -- a brave and stalwart gentleman -- whose pastor told him about women standing in Lithia park to save the world. "My mother would know just what to do," his pastor Pam said when talking about the warring factions. "She'd sit everybody down and say 'I don't care who started it -- it's got to stop.'" And the people said Amen.

Right on cue, Jason P. Mason, a reporter for the local newspaper, showed up to interview us. Actually, he's nothing like Jason P. Mason! His name is Bob and he'll be back tomorrow with a photographer. We're hoping some members of the Ashland Peace Choir (returned last night from a wonderously successful singing tour of Japan) will be joining us.

And so it continues. Two hours -- 7:30 to 9:30 each morning. The big grassy area in Lithia Park. A blessed way to start the day. Join us -- in spirit or in person.

Not speaking. Not looking at squirrels. Not munching on coconut candy...

"Ryan Reilly was clearing off the window table at the cafe when he saw them: the two grandmothers standing smack in the middle of the park's big grassy area. The only difference was, they were holding umbrellas instead of wearing sun hats.

"Well, that would have been the only difference, if it weren't for the other one. This time, standing with the grandmothers were Erma Beans, Madeline Swivet, Leslie Plunkett and his very own mother!"

I was startled awake at 5:50 this morning by the loudest, longest thunder roll I've ever heard. Then the rain. Gobs and buckets and sheets and torrents of rain! WAY too much rain to expect grandmothers to show up in Lithia Park's big grassy area to save the world. And yet they did. Erma, Madeline, Leslie and Mrs. Reilly were there, with big smiles and big umbrellas. The exact number as in the story. The exact weather conditions. The exact umbrellas. And there we stood. Grateful and amazed.

An elementary school principal from Santa Rosa, CA who just returned from Lebanon, Israel and Jordan wired flowers addressed to the grandmothers in Lithia Park. Friends in other towns are standing at 7:30. I had 51 emails from listeners who heard the New Dimensions interview (www.newdimensions.org). More to come.

And so it begins...

August 7, 2006

I walked to the Artisans Market by the creek in downtown Ashland yesterday. My friend Jean Bakewell was there. She and her partner Kay have a booth at the weekend market where they sell handmade jewelry and boxes full of empowering words and sacred message stones and fanciful paintings. Jean was in a twit. The worst twit I've ever seen her in. "We have to DO something!" she said. She was, of course, talking about the sad and sorry state of the world.

"Indeed we do," I answered. And at that very moment, without hardly thinking about it, we agreed that it was time for two grandmothers to start standing in the park to save the world. And we were the two.

"Seven thirty tomorrow morning?" I asked.

"Perfect," she said.

And so it began.

The morning dawned grey and drippy. A day not at all befitting Ashland summer. We arrived at the big grassy area in Lithia Park exactly on time and were soon joined by two others. I'll forever think of them as Erma Beans and Madeline Swivet, even though their names are Elizabeth and Ginny.

We started by holding hands and asking for the blessings of all those Beings of Light who have guided the idea of The Great Silent Grandmother Gathering since I wrote the first few words of the story on a paper napkin two years ago. Together, we held the intention that our small, simple action might somehow help save the world.

What happened next was just like in the book! People drove by slowly, craning their necks to see what four cute, colorful little old ladies were doing standing stock still in the middle of the big grassy area. We smiled. They smiled. Ashland City workers in street cleaning trucks and recycle trucks and electric service trucks and on riding mowers and in police vehicles and on foot stopped and stared and drove around the area and came back to stop and stare some more. We smiled. They looked puzzled and perplexed.

People with dogs walked by and stared. People on bikes rode by and stared. Several middle-aged tourists stood on the corner for many minutes, peeking at us from behind the wall of a building.

It started to sprinkle, but for some reason we didn't get wet. We watched the town wake up. We felt blessed. "When two or more are gathered..." Jean reminded us. When I finally looked at my watch, two hours had passed. We were astounded.

We will be there tomorrow. And the next day. And the next. Starting at 7:30 a.m. Maybe others will join us. Maybe women will start standing in their own towns. You never can tell.

xoxoxoxo

Stefana's Song

Hi and welcome to all of you who have reached this blog because of the New Dimensions radio interview. And hi and welcome to all of you who just stumbled on the site by accident! In the interview (www.newdimensions.org), I talked about an amazing song, Women Saving the World, written and recorded by Stefana Dadas, who heard me read the Grandmother story at Santa Barbara Unity Church. Stefana's song is just absolutely beyond wonderful. It will lift you up and fill your heart with hope. In the background are women from a dozen countries saying "I'm saving the world," in their native languages. And the ending, ohmyohmy, if you're anything like me, it'll make you cry. You can get the CD at a special discount at www.CDBaby.com or at www.StefanaSD.com. And if you want to write Stefana and tell her how much you love the song, her email address is Stefana33@aol.com