all will be well

Peace lies broken, her wings crushed under the weight of tanks. The old hollow words of peace on earth good will towards men will not raise her up, will not put wind under her so that she might fly again with the olive branch and a promise of renewal and hope restored.

Because peace lies broken we write new prayers that are born within the darkness. Prayers that become the song of birds, the flower heads bobbling, the earth worm giggling. It’s silly they say. We turn and we turn and we turn it all into love.

Because peace lies broken we offer the prayers we carry in our heart for the species gone extinct, praise for the rivers run dry, prayers as we plant seeds in the ground, kneeling to the mystery of life until we want to dance, throw off our name, forget the heavy burdens of shame and self-doubt.

Because peace lies broken we set the table with a place for the hungry, the homeless, for the reckless and lost, for the ones who passed by nameless. We set out food and invite them all to feast.

Because against all odds we have chosen kindness over war, care over speed, we have taken the other, the stranger, the dark eyed one deep into our hearts where we grieve together over orchards gone up in flames, homes destroyed, and the children, the children passed from this earth as angels pass – quickly, a light gone out in the winds of war.

Because peace lies broken we have sat with the dying, consoled the living, applied the medicine of deep listening. Because we carry a piece of their story everywhere we go, because now we belong to each other, we scatter their ashes mixed with seeds that grow into trees bearing pomegranates, trees that scatter their holy offerings onto the ground to grow more trees so that the stories of the ancestors are passed down in the very food we eat, through the juices from the ripe fruits we savor.

Because peace lies broken, because the odds seem stacked against us, because the ancestors came in the night and whispered the names of my children’s children’s children and showed me that they were thriving, had made it across the abyss from this dark ending into a new beginning with just a pocketful of seeds and the song of the raven who sang here, plant here, who sang all will be well, all will be well.

Prayer by prayer we sing our love songs into the baby bird mouths of the warriors who, may it be so, will grow weary of blood and the cry of vengeance and want only to lie under the willow and hear the old stories as they pass down through the soft mouths of women.

Because peace lies broken we have pledged ourselves to live fully during this time of brutal endings and to the new beginning which is just visible now on the horizon as more of us awaken with new prayers for peace on our lips, with a new word to revive and revitalize the hope for peace. And always the one word we pray in any language, the only word, the final word is love. Just love.

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Read more stories like this in my book The Ripening: Essays on Love, Loss, Marriage and Aging available on Amazon.