When Small Mem’ries Return: Grateful Haiku

Small moments from our
past may return. Mem’ries give
peace, comfort and joy.

What I’m Willing To Do: Haiku Response

Backstory: A poetess, Mimi Allin, posted this question on Facebook (a question which, I think, all creative people face):

what are you willing to do

for peace

what are you willing to do

for love

what are you willing to do

for money

what are you willing to do

for art

In response, I wrote this haiku:

For peace, love, and art

I will do how I’m inspired.

For money? I’ll trust.

Isaiah’s Christmas Peace Prayer: Haiku

As we pray for peace,

I think to myself: “We could

use new pruning hooks.”

I Need A New Pruning Hook: Peace Prayer Haiku

As we pray for peace,

I think to myself: “I could

use a pruning hook.”

——-
The Muse for this was a prose piece written by Kate Phillips on Facebook:

“There is no Christmas in Bethlehem this year.

The tours and pilgrimages have all been cancelled. The streets are bare, the shops empty.

The Palestinian residents are in mourning. Celebrations have been replaced with a somber peace vigil and prayer service to mourn for the tens of thousands of people—mostly Gazans, mostly women and children—lost in the Israeli-Hamas conflict.

The traditional nativity scene at the Evangelical Lutheran church depicts baby Jesus on a pile of rubble, rather than resting in a manger. Instead of gifts, the wise men carry burial shrouds.

Ask anyone in Bethlehem this year what their Christmas wish is, the answer will be the same: they pray for peace.

Whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, a follower of some other tradition (or no religion at all), may we join their prayers.

May we affirm together that we are all worthy of dignity and love…

That divinity makes it way to earth, hidden in human form…

That the Kingdom of God yearns to flourish within each of us…

And that the best gift we can ask for is the gift of peace for all.

May we practice peace within ourselves…

Within our families and communities…

And pray that, one day, we will beat swords into plowshares.”

— Kate Phillips, Christmas Day, 2023

Bring Peace In Nature To Others: Haiku

As we share how we /

find peace in nature, we help*/

others feel peace, too.

*bring/

peace to others, too.

[Context: We were walking through the woods and fields, doing Nature Observation at Spirit Tree Farms with some folks from out-of-town. As I riffed this haiku, I made these notes:

As we set about finding peace in Nature, it’s always a good time (both to do it, and to be had).

What’s amazing is that, as you share it, others feel it, and thank you for the experience.]