While driving to my daughter’s in Providence, RI one day, I was listening to Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air.  She was interviewing Jonathan Safran Foer about his book, Here I am.She asked him what the title, taken from the Bible (Genesis 22:1), meant to him. In the course of the discussion, the meaning was equated to: “Live your life.” (attributed to Maurice Sendak.), which to Jonathan meant to seize the day.  Live life to the fullest.  Be present to it.  Terry’s interpretation was, “Inhabit your life.”  Inhabit your life;  What did she mean?  I’ve been pondering that….

Recently, I was thumbing through a Yoga Journal magazine and came across an ad titled “Peace is the new power.”  Since the word ‘peace’ is my word for 2017, I naturally stopped to take in those words.  “Peace is the new power.”  I truly believe that peace is power; that the power of peace is transformative and what is needed today more than ever. 

Just before the new year, I was with a friend who asked me, ”What’s your word for the new year?”  She wanted to know what word would be my torch, my guiding light, my intention for the new year.  She had hers, letting go. I didn’t have an answer for her at that moment.  I needed to give it some thought.

It’s been much too long since I’ve written a new blog post, but there just didn’t seem to be anything special that I wanted to say.  At this time, the tide has turned, for I now have something that is important to me, important to share with as many as I can.   It’s about peace, peace within and peace in the world. . . . 

We’re a week into the new year, and I have been pondering how I might best put my intentions forward for the new year.  I’ve never kept resolutions very well so don’t think that I want to go that route.  Last year, I promoted reviewing what happened the previous year and trying to improve what might be worthwhile to conintue and could be improved upon for better results.  That worked well for me in 2015 but not what I want to do at the start of 2016.  So what to do ….

We often use the word welcome or a form of it in our conversations with others.  “Welcome!  Welcome to my home.  You’re welcome.”  We see the welcome center signs at rest stops along interstate highways, offering a place to feel safe and tend to one’s needs.  States in the US have signs at their borders welcomng us.  Often, ‘welcome’ is a greeting, a kind of invitation to come into one’s world.  We say it with enthusiasm, eager for the engagement.  Sometimes, it’s non-verbal:  open arms, a wave of the hand saying come here, even a hug.  A summoning to enter, to come along, to join in.  Feeling ‘welcome’ is heart-warming to the invitee, who unbeknown to you, might just need a bit of unexpected TLC.

“It’s a miracle,” my ninety-one year old mother told me over the phone from her bed in ICU.  “You have a miracle mother.  I have a miracle surgeon, and we have a miracle family!” she exclaimed.  Her voice was filled with joy and amazement.  She had made it through laproscopic surgery to remove a cancerous tumor with an ulcer on it located at the end of her small intestine where it joins the large intestine.  It was truely a miracle.  At 97 pounds and anemic, we weren’t sure what would happen.  But the miracle did happen with the help of loving prayers and light sent from family and friends along with a skilled surgeon and his team members.  Our gratitude abounds.

In school, as in life, learning doesn’t always happen immediately.  Sometimes it takes making mistakes more than once for learning to happen.  I’ve been inspired to write about this after reading an essay by Errol Sowers a friend and spiritual teacher at The Stillpoint Foundation who wrote on this subject just recently.  Errol calls our mistakes “stepping stones to success.”  (Here is a link to his essay  www.stillpoint.org/documentFiles/554.pdf?.)