“If there is to be peace in the world, there must be peace in the nations. If there is to be peace in the nations, there must be peace in the cities. If there is to be peace in the cities, there must be peace between neighbors. If there is to be peace between neighbors, there must be peace in the home. If there is to be peace in the home, there must be peace in the heart.”

Some attribute to the above quote to Lao Tzu

I have recently gone on a retreat on nonviolence and peacemaking (see here) , A Weekend Insight On Doing Small Things For A Magnificent Cause and that prompted me to join a small Campaign Nonviolence Affinity Group through Pace e bene. “Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service’s mission is to foster justice, peace and the well-being of all through education, resources, and action for nonviolent change.”

The Affinity Group just posted a blog that encourages us to deeply consider the “connection between this season of peace and the gifts we choose.” Questioning ourselves about buying toys, books, video games and movies that glorify war and violence is paramount when deciding that we wish to truly be peacemakers.

I was not aware of board games that challenge players to work cooperatively in order to solve international conflicts, which is a very different approach from games like Risk. On Medium we are not permitted to advertise third party sellers. I encourage anyone who reads this to do some soul-searching as to what you wish to promote through the gifts that you give and to do some online or other research as to what is available ‘out there’ that will provide alternative gift ideas.

People often think of peace people as doing civil- disobedience, marches and public protests. That being said, peacemaking is sometimes a subtle approach, especially when buying gifts. “Look for toys, books and games that model ways of interacting peacefully with others. They may also emphasize gender equality, anti-racism, understanding of other cultures appreciation of and respect for nature etc.” You can give books or movies about heroes of nonviolence such as Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis or Gandhi. There are many magazines that teach and support environmental care and justice.

If you took the time to read this, then you probably will take the time to investigate gifts that promote peaceful interaction with others, nature and the world. May you enjoy a peaceful holiday season!

(Note: All quotes, except Lao Tzu’s, are from a blog post by the Culture Jamming Team at Pace e bene.)

I recently participated in a weekend retreat highlighting four giants of the non-violence/peace making movement from the 20th century: Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton. There are many books and a few movies about these people as they are models to which people look when working for peace and justice. It was led, and led well, by Fr. John Dear, who has been very active in this movement for decades.

When one is learning about and honoring the great proponents, teachers, activists, or gurus of any movement, it becomes easy to feel very small in comparison, and subsequentially to judge oneself harshly as to the worth of one’s own tiny contributions. During the weekend, I found myself ignoring Gandhi’s First Principle of Non-violence: Total Non-Violence to Self, or do not beat yourself up. That’s what I was beginning to do.

In order to non-cooperate with the violence within, as I judged myself for not doing great acts to support the cause, I sat down to write what I was and was not doing in my little corner of our world to gain some perspective.

I didn’t start, run, or volunteer in a Catholic Worker House. Only once was I involved in a public protest. I wanted to be a priest to have a platform from which to do ministry, but have the wrong body parts. As a retired Director of Faith Formation in the Catholic Church and a wife, mom and grandmother, I often felt that I was not good enough in all of those roles.

Mother Teresa was in Pittsburgh, PA once and I went to hear what she had to say. The only gem I remember her saying is that we cannot be like her and run a worldwide ministry, but we can be aware of and help those in our own backyard — a lonely person, a young mom, a sick neighbor.

I am a hospice volunteer for a Lutheran Senior Care/Visiting Nurses Association. Most of my people have dementia or Alzheimer’s disease at some level. I sit with a patient during lunch, cut their food and sometimes feed a patient. Before or after lunch we will go to the sing-a-long or worship service, sit outside in the courtyard or I can take them for a ride in their wheelchair inside the building or outside around the grounds. Some remember the old prayers and I can say an Our Father with them before I leave. It is truly easy to love these people and to remember to pray often for them.

Sometimes the Spirit will put a neighbor or acquaintance in my path of awareness who doesn’t need hospice but is in rehab or at home and needs visiting or encouragement and to know there is someone who cares.

Another action I am nudged to do, is send cards to the elderly, sick or shut-ins and to those recovering from surgery, chemo or other issues. Most are family and friends or a neighbor. During my mother’s funeral home visitation a woman told me how my mother sent cards and letters to her mom in the nursing home and how much she and her mom appreciated that.

Sometimes I become aware of a person who is poor but not poor enough for government help. If money will be accepted I give some, or food or rides. Listening to their troubles can be what is needed. I’d like to have a foundation that would provide excellent used cars to persons and families. When you are poor an old used, not well working car is usually what you can afford. Often it needs repair after repair and that takes way too much of their money. It would be a game-changer for these families and single people to merely have a reliable car.

There are often grieving people who need someone to listen or send a card after the dying process and funeral is over. Once a person is buried everyone else goes back to ordinary life and the bereaved are still under a dark cloud. I have “homework” suggestions for those grieving and have been able to help people by giving them the suggestions and listening to their stories of processing their grief.

Charity, and I would think under that heading is justice and peace making, begins at home. Many people find themselves being caregivers for a family member in various ways. I had a mom and dad that lived into their nineties and I had much to do to help support them.

Fr. Richard Rohr said that not all people are called to public activism; but I think Fr. John Dear has a point when he challenged us to have one foot in the global non-violence and peace making movement in some way. Dealing with issues of poverty, racism, sexism, the environment, gender issues, war, militarism, homelessness and many more. I can’t be everywhere, or do everything, so I give to organizations. This includes the Water Keeper Alliance, Amnesty International, Sponsor a child through World Vision, March for Our Lives, a co-op and education assistance in Juarez Mexico, Treesisters, who are planting millions of trees and supplying other environmental support around the globe, and adding extra money to our gas and electric payments for the energy assistance fund. Now we will be adding support of Fr. John Dear’s Beatitudes Center For The Nonviolent Jesus (https://beatitudescenter.org)

My conclusion is that we each start small and perhaps stay small, because light and love need to be shone in every corner and crevice.

In many ways life is a process of growing, learning and acquisition. We promote this as good. But I propose that relinquishment or letting go is equally important.

After my “white-light experience”, highlighted in my first story here on Medium — Once I Experienced The Divine, I gained and lost in different areas. The process of relinquishment, sometimes referred to as loss, has continued throughout my life and is still ongoing.

Loss and relinquishment do not have the same connotations for me. Loss can and does often cause some type of grief and pain. Relinquishment is, to me, something one lets go of more gently with sorrow or with acceptance or even joy. Some of the letting go I have recently been naming as shedding. Shedding as one’s fur. The fur was needed at one point, but is no longer necessary.

Early on I let go of an unhealthy acceptance of the teachings of the Catholic Church. That wasn’t too difficult. Discerning which had merit was challenging, especially since in my 30’s I decided to complete my Bachelor’s Degree in Catholic theology, and then went on to complete an MA in Biblical Studies from a Catholic seminary! The education was excellent, but there was very little room for real and deep questioning.

I graduated summa both times and took a position in a Catholic Church as the Director of Religious Education. I did not have many options at that point since we had 4 children to send to college. The pay was not great, the attitude of parishioners was worse. To my surprise most people in the pews did not want to know more deeply what their religion taught, but merely wanted a feel good sermon.

That was hard, but when I realized that many of the clergy and religious, as well as lay professionals were satisfied with theology-light (think of light beer) I felt a deep sense of loss. With whom could I share my questions or insights? I felt very alone. And worse, I could only teach what the church said was permissible or risk loosing my job and the supplemental income we were counting on for our teens college tuition.

Children are wonderful little beings! But their growth and maturation demands that they move away from their parents physically, psychologically and emotionally. That was hard, but a couple lines of Kahil Gibran’s poem on parents and children helped. It said that children are arrows sent forth by their parents who are the bows, and that God loves both equally.

The movement of children into teenagers and on into adulthood was both a loss and a relinquishment. The loss will happen whether we let them go willingly or not. The acceptance of them moving on was the relinquishment. They did not belong to me; and they needed to be on about their own lives. Not that as parents we dusted off our hands and gave no challenges or support to them along the way: helping them move, painting a house, taking the grandkids, monetary gifts etc. But eventually we all have to dance our dance out fully on our own.

While both mothering and the DRE jobs were occurring on the outside, on the inside I was asking my questions and digging deeper inside myself. I must mention it was also with the help of gifted psychologists and spiritual companions who supported and encouraged me along the way. Their contributions deserve more than a mere mention, but that is not the aim of this writing.

By elementary school I had had many questions about God and how He worked. Now as I performed my outer roles I was wrestling inside with God. Who and what is this being that runs the show?

When I began my first DRE position, I also prayed and meditated through the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. During that experience I met a different God. One who could be trusted no matter what was happening. I was letting go of the God out there, separate from myself; although He would remain in the background, not gone but somewhat set aside. (For quite awhile I used the language with which I was familiar — the theological language of the Catholic Church. God as Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he as the pronoun. And then using less gender-specific denotations such as Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer.)

As I questioned and pondered I met an energy, that I referred to as Spirit, inside myself. This inner presence walked along with me. The perception was not from the outside but an awareness that we process and understand life better from within our intuitive heart.

Then further into the Exercises there came a feeling or intuition that even this new image of God would have to go. My reaction was inner and it felt like what I imagined a primal scream would be. DO.NOT. TAKE. GOD. FROM. ME! There would be LOSS.

Centering Prayer as taught by Fr. Thomas Keating was my preferred manner of prayer, and still is. It is recommended that one use a word to lightly focus on to help one settle into the quiet of the contemplative way. Centering Prayer is one form of meditation or contemplation that seems to have cousins in the Buddhist, Islam/Sufi, Jewish, Hindu and Christian traditions. I had used the word “God” as my focus word for many years. There were times it felt uncomfortable. The word God has too much baggage. Wars fought in that name, conquest under and forced conversion to that name; there is a long list. I tried other words but none felt right.

I began to look into Buddhism which has no God and, at first, there seemed to be a lack there. The teachings of the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path along with the sutras are wholesome. I was challenged by their non-theism. Then I came upon Ken Wilber’s book Integral Spirituality and was thrilled. He has a fundamentalist Christian background but moved on into a broader investigation of meditation and the teachings of other Traditions. Through his writing I was introduced to the Non-dual concept of all-inclusiveness beyond all opposites.

In my small understanding of non-duality there is no separation or opposition between matter and mind, body and soul, life and death. It is not either-or but rather both-and. The language is of the Divine or the Ultimate or the Universe or Absolute Reality. Some non-dual teachers use God as a concession to help those who are more comfortable with that term. It helped me make the transition from the word God to try other denotations for whatever is greater than I.

I was impressed by a priest who was dying and still saying Mass. He held onto the altar for his sermon which was: “There’s only one thing you need to know. There is a God, and you’re not Him!” How insightful! A much needed reminder that we must relinquish control of our life and that of others.

What if matter and mind/spirit are dimensions of a greater consciousness or aliveness? What if we are all directly participating in this dance of being? What if energy always IS and I AM sharing in that energy that the sun is and blackholes are and water is and plants are and quarks are and on and on? What if my DNA is really the exact same DNA of The Ultimate Reality?

It’s not that there is the sun and the moon reflects that light. It is that there is the sun and I am a flame of that very same fire! Or as the metaphor that many now use: we are waves on the surface of the ocean. And as such we are never separated or other than the water which is the whole and deep ocean.

I have relinquished many of my previous concepts of God. It feels right and good. The way I name my understanding of that which is greater than I is by different qualities rather than using anthropomorphic designations. Aliveness, Consciousness, Deep Awareness, or Being-ness are a few. Mostly I appreciate the word Tao from the title of the Tao Te Ching. For me Tao has no baggage and isn’t sharply defined. I assume that the line of the writing in the Tao Te Ching is correct: “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao; The name that can be named is not the eternal name.”

That leaves us a beautiful Mystery. To me this Mystery feels like soft black velvet. It is not threatening to me that it cannot be known. It is quiet and there is always more to it. The Catholic Tradition has a book called the Cloud of Unknowing by Anonymous, which seems to be teaching the same idea. If we want to participate with more awareness in Life and Aliveness then we need to freely let go of — relinquish — our closely guarded concepts and assumptions that have been handed down to us from our ancestors and our institutions.

I also have accepted that I am that which I was seeking and do not need to seek any longer. I am not far along this path and I see that my actions and reactions do not always or often reflect the depth of compassion and love I have experienced from this realization. The movement toward wholesome aliveness and deep compassion will hopefully continue for me.

Once, I experienced the Divine. I saw the Shekinah or the glory of the Divine Presence. I was 26, and had a two year old and an infant. Both were napping at the same time. God had a special place in my life; but I had questions and wondered who/what God really was. While the children napped, I laid flat on the living room rug, shut my eyes, folded my hands across my chest and said in my mind GOD, God, God; the words became quieter and then faded away.

I felt myself sink deep down into the earth, becoming one with this enormous planet and feeling its mighty rotation. Then it seemed that I was in another place spun out and away from the earth. I’m not sure it was a place, but I was elsewhere. LIGHT! Light like no one can experience here on earth was brilliantly shining. The brightness was almost severe, like lightning, but I didn’t need to look away. I sensed a Presence. It did not do nor say anything. Unseen and unheard, there was the overwhelming sense of profound LOVE. Human love often has conditions. It will judge, resent, manipulate etc., but this love was so much more. It was truly accepting of me, just as I was. I was there in a small way being present to this awesome Other Presence. Being with this Awesome Presence I experienced a bit of good old-fashioned fear and trembling.

When thought came back I wanted to remove myself from the all too powerful Presence, but I was not able to move. I tried to open my eyes, no movement. Thinking I may have died, but not wanting that to be the case, with a strong force of will I jerked my arms wide and opened my eyes. And there I was lying on the living room floor in my familiar surroundings and in control of my body.

I was astounded that I would have such an amazing experience! I felt that I had truly met God! There was a great joy within me for many days afterward. I felt so wonderfully blessed. I felt privileged to know what Joy truly means. Infinitely better than being on cloud 9 when one has their first falling in love experience. And although it may seem unbelievable, it was more joyous than the birth of our children!

I wanted to understand what the experience meant, so I went to see the local priest. Since he was teaching a class that I was attending on the contemplative prayer of the mystics St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross, I assumed he would understand and become a guide. What he said was that “when Cinderella meets the King she sees that she is covered in ashes.” I had said I became afraid, meaning when one meets a truly great person. That was not the overall heart of the experience. I decided that he didn’t understand and left. After that I didn’t mention my experience to anyone else.

For many years I prayed to have that experience again. I wanted to be back and bask in that wonderful, loving accepting Light and to have that Love always palpably present to me.

Years later, in an article in Praying Magazine it referenced “white light” experiences. The message was very positive and said it can be a vocational call. That article affirmed for me the wholesomeness of my encounter.

What I gained from this experience is a belief in a Being of Love, who some name God. I was raised Roman Catholic and fear, not awe, was how I understood God. He was the ultimate judge; and getting into His heaven was tricky and difficult. If you happened to be martyred then heaven would be guaranteed. The Light/Love Presence dissolved that teaching instantly for me. Within the deepest part of my heart, I began to trust that Love is central to all Life and all of Creation.

The Love present to me was freeing and healing. Fears that I carried all my life slowly faded. I became less afraid of death. I knew that I could never deny that awesome Presence. That sense of love pervading everything is always there with me. Sometimes it is very definite and present, sometimes it is not explicitly experienced but still known in a way I cannot explain. There have been times of intense darkness and the sense of being in exile or abandoned. When the black thunderclouds roll in, I am aware that behind them the sun is still shining. Even though this occurred decades ago I still am connected to that loving Presence.