Currently there are 3 of us who take turns playing the piano during meeting for worship: Dot Hinshaw, Sue Wood, and Nancy Marstaller.

            Dot started taking lessons when she was 6 years old. She could play by ear and found it harder to learn to read music. When she was taking lessons, her teachers would remind her to play the notes on the page! She practices all the hymns in our books, concentrating on those that might be called for in the current season. She didn’t play for worship services until coming to Durham. We’re lucky to have her with her lively playing style, especially as she can transpose a piece to make it easier to sing, and add chords and flourishes to pieces with only the melody written down.

            Sue also started taking lessons as a young girl. She fell in love with the organ and started playing for churches when she was in her teens. She doesn’t practice particular hymns for meeting, and likes to work on classical pieces at home. We are fortunate to have her accompany the choir too; she plays with such feeling.

            Both Dot and Sue choose pieces to play during the offering based on what’s said or arisen in worship.

            I also started taking piano lessons at an early age. I’m glad sight-reading was one of the skills the teacher stressed. When I first started playing at Durham Meeting, mostly filling in for Mary Curtis or another pianist, the pastor picked the hymns, and I chose a piece with the same theme for the offering. Now, of course, we don’t know what will be called for. It may be a piece we really don’t know, and I’m grateful no one points out all my mistakes! I practice a few pieces with the offering in mind, and may play one of them or another that seems called for by worship. I miss playing organ/piano duets with my mom.

            We’d love to have others play, for the hymns or for the offering. Speak to any of us if you are interested.

April 17, 2018

“As the stillness of Quaker Meeting unfolds,

it opens up a space in which we can listen and wait — both comfortable and uncomfortable, holy and ordinary, still and dynamic. And whilst I don’t pretend Quakerism has all the answers, sitting in collective quietness with other Quakers has been profoundly healing for me because the silence has made way for something else in my life: hope. The radically kind and egalitarian foundations of Quakerism, coupled with this weekly practice of stillness, has sparked a flicker of hopefulness that I can make a difference, in whatever small and mundane ways I am able. That it is ok to rest. That it is ok to fail. That it will all be ok.

“Regardless of whether you are young or old, atheist or faithful, I would encourage you to take some time for silence today. Sit down, let the quiet wash over you, and breathe.”

From Jessica Hubbard-Bailey, Life Is Tough for Young People But Being a Quaker Has Given Me Hope

h/t Martin Kelley, Quaker Ranter Daily

This is one of the stories I’ve been preparing for the New England Yearly Meeting sessions this month, about early Friends answering the call to radical faithfulness.

Ann Audland is one of the lesser known early Quaker prophets. She and her husband John were in their early 20s and among the hundreds of Seekers that responded to George Fox’s preaching around northern England in May and June of 1652. That was the ground-zero moment when the Quaker movement became a recognizable phenomenon. Ann and John Audland became part of the Valiant Sixty, a band of wandering prophets spreading the Quaker message. They clearly understood themselves as a latter-day version of the seventy disciples that Jesus sent out in pairs to preach the gospel (see Luke 10). They understood themselves as starting the Church all over again, from the ground up, as it began in the first place, by the power and leading of the Spirit.

John Audland paired up with his friend John Camm. In 1654, they invaded Bristol with the Quaker message. Bristol was the second largest city in England at that time and a hotbed of seeking groups. The two Johns, Camm and Audland, had spectacular success there.

Ann Audland teamed up with Mabel Camm, wife of John, and they began their own itinerant ministry. They were preaching in the streets of the Oxfordshire town of Banbury in 1655, when Ann was physically assaulted by some ruffians. She later told the local parish priest that this outbreak of violence was a symptom of his spiritual influence. For this and other provocative statements, she was arrested and charged with blasphemy. Someone posted bail for her and she resumed preaching around the area for some months before her trial. Many were convinced and local meetings were started.

But the local establishment was outraged by “that prating woman Audland.” It was reported that those who listened to her quaked and foamed at the mouth. Some said she was a witch and should be burned. But the judge at her trial was a more moderate man. He offered to free her if she would swear to stop causing trouble. But as a Quaker, she could neither swear an oath nor promise to desist from preaching. So she was sentenced to eight months in prison, kept in an underground cell that “did stink sorely; besides frogs and toads did crawl in,” she later wrote.

Like other Quaker prophets in these situations, Ann took her imprisonment not as a defeat but an opportunity to lay siege to the town with the truth. Other Quaker leaders converged there to nurture newly convinced Friends, to agitate among local sympathizers, and to protest Ann’s imprisonment. Richard Farnworth was also arrested and imprisoned. He preached to crowds through the grate of his prison window and many more Seekers became Friends. As her imprisonment wore on, Ann wrote to Margaret Fell, saying, “This is indeed a place of joy, and my soul doth rejoice in the Lord. I continue a prisoner in Banbury, but I witness freedom in the Lord.” Doug

I’ve enjoyed hosting a family of phoebes, a species of flycatchers, on the parsonage porch. I noticed them one day in May trying to build a nest on an impossibly narrow ledge under a corner of the porch ceiling. So I cut a triangular piece of corrugated cardboard and fastened it there. Within an hour, they were busy building their nest on this makeshift platform. Soon Mrs. Phoebe was sitting on her eggs. Before very long, both she and Mr. Phoebe were busy feeding their hatchlings all day long. Some warm weather in early June made the porch pretty hot, and one afternoon I could see a hatchling with its head resting against the edge of the nest in an open-beaked daze. But the weather cooled and they survived. Like a loaf of bread puffing up in the oven, the mass of baby birds kept rising higher above the top of the nest, constantly jostling. I wondered just how many small flying insects it took to grow these little birds. But I do know I’ve not been bothered by mosquitos anywhere near the house so far this summer. Caroline was here with me for this part of the drama. We watched and wondered when the crowding would get to be too much, or if the babies would just start spilling out of the nest. One day we decided to help them by putting a staging area near the nest, a place to flutter to. Caroline carried a small step-ladder to lean against the wall near the nest. But as she approached, all four baby phoebes bolted from the nest at once. Being flycatchers, I guess they were expert fliers from the start, because there was no fluttering around, just very competent flight. While three of them headed out into the open, one of them flew into the house through the door we had left open. But didn’t take long for me to chase it out to join the others. Knowing that some of our families at Durham Friends are moving into that empty-nest phase of life, I thought I would tell a story of successful transition. But wait – there’s more! A week or so later, I noticed a bird sitting in the nest again. At first I assumed it was one of the young phoebes. Perhaps a phoebe version of today’s millennials coming back to live with their parents, into their 30s. But now I think it’s Mrs. Phoebe. Could she be sitting on another batch of eggs? I thought birds raised only one family per year. Or is she experiencing empty nest denial? She’s still there as I write. Stay tuned. Doug Gwyn

John Woolman said in his journal on one of the days he spent travelling in earnest pursuit of God’s will for him, that “Love was the first motion,” after which “a concern arose to spend some time with the Indians, that I might feel and understand their life and the spirit they live in, if haply I might receive some instruction from them, or they might be in any degree helped forward by my following the leadings of truth among them.”

I appreciate that Woolman’s words give precedence to the instruction he will gain from the people whose land and culture he visits. I like how humbly he hopes that his presence and witness to truth among them might “in any degree” be helpful to them. Living in Palestine has made me keenly aware of the margin for harm that is possible when outsiders arrive thinking they have the balm that will sooth whatever ails people here (before they have any idea what ails them). It seems if more people were like Woolman, and arrived keen to be instructed by the Palestinians’ remarkable resilience, solidarity and forgiveness, the rest of the world would benefit greatly.

I’ve been wondering about my own return home. I wonder what I will say when prompted to speak about Palestine. When I was in the courtyard with 11th graders the other day I asked them what they would want Americans to hear about them. This is a paraphrase of what they said:

“We express ourselves in the many ways. We dance, and sing, and play music, and write, and act. There is so much more to us than violence, violence is not the only way we respond to the Occupation. We live like the rest of the world, but for us there is a piece missing.”

“That piece that’s missing, it doesn’t overtake our whole lives. Sometimes the media shows it like we’re being bombed and shot every day. We live normal lives, but we do feel that piece missing.”

“And we don’t let it depress us. We don’t get depressed and sad living under occupation, we are still happy and living good lives. We don’t let it prevent us from having a good time and being happy.”

“And we don’t want any harm for the other side. I want to be able to go back to my home town, but I don’t want other people to be harmed in the process. I just want to have my right to my land acknowledged.”

These students had, earlier that day, analysed a passage from a novel by Yashar Kemal, providing their own witness to the truth embedded in literature through discussion and questioning. That is the strongest impression I have of these students: their remarkable ability to collaborate to create meaning around a text.

I wonder what John Woolman meant when he wrote that “Love was the first motion.” In literature, and it seems in life, the first motion is usually accusatory, or defensive, or dishonest. The first motion is often rooted in fear, and I can think of nothing more contradictory to love than fear. Woolman says this right before he felt a concern for the Indians. That makes me think the first motion was God’s motion, not anything coming from Woolman. God makes the first motion, and we are asked to follow through. That first motion is love. When the job at RFS became available, and I felt the tug, it must have been the tug of the motion of God’s love.

I hope to continue making a life of following through on that motion of love, big or small, close to home or far. Love’s motions can be tiny, as when a colleague asks me how a class went or a person in the street returns something I’ve dropped. I believe God gives us opportunities to follow his love’s motion every day, and that it is in following those motions that the world progresses toward greater peace. We can as profoundly change the world by turning toward a neighbor as by crossing an ocean.

Mimi Marstaller, Ramallah Friends School

I’ve been reading a biography of Elizabeth Fry (1780 – 1843) that I bought from the USFW used book table in the meetinghouse. The biography is itself a century old and USFW used book table in the meetinghouse. The biography is itself a century old and better ones have probably been written since. But I’ve been inspired by reading it. I’m only about half-way through it at the time of this writing, but here are some interesting points so far. Elizabeth Gurney grew up in a wealthy Quaker banking family in Norwich, England. She was one of eleven children, mostly sisters. But a brother, Joseph John Gurney, would become a key actor in the evangelical renewal of Friends. His travels in America in the 1830s were a watershed event that strongly influenced Friends, including here in New England. Elizabeth and her sisters were “gay Friends” – which in those days meant that they rejected the traditional plain dress, speech and lifestyle of Friends. They enjoyed literature, “mirth,” singing and even dancing(!) Betsy wore purple boots with scarlet laces, even to meeting for worship. The family were members at the Goat’s Lane Meeting in Norwich. She and her sisters disliked going to meeting – or what they called being “goatified.” Elizabeth’s story reads something like a Jane Austen novel that goes off the rails. At age fourteen she asked her father to take her to see the women in the Norwich House of Correction. The conditions she saw there horrified her, causing her to ask, “If this is the world, where is God?” She became a religious skeptic, but still caught between her love of diversion and her grief at social conditions outside her comfortable home. A major turning-point came when she was seventeen and William Savery, a traveling Quaker minister from America, spoke at her meeting. His message (two and a half hours long!) reached her powerfully. He came to the Gurney home for breakfast the next morning and prophesied great things about Elizabeth. She wrote that Savery’s “having been gay and disbelieving only a few years ago makes him better acquainted with the heart of one in the same situation.” Her sisters were annoyed by the changes in Elizabeth in the following months. She became more serious, kind, and charitable to the poor. She preferred reading the Bible to dancing, became more patient, humble and plain. What a drag! During a trip to London, a “weighty” elder Friend, Deborah Darby, also prophesied great things of her. Elizabeth wondered, “Can this be?” At age twenty, she married Joseph Fry, of another Quaker banking family in London. She started a school for girls and did various works of charity. But her greatest work would take place at the Newgate prison in London. Its terrible conditions had claimed the lives of some Friends in the early days of persecution in the
1600s. On average, five deaths occurred there every month from lack of ventilation and overcrowding. The criminal and mentally ill were thrown together. Men, women and even minors were executed for offenses as minor as theft and forgery. About four executions occurred daily. The French evangelical Friend Stephen Grellet visited Newgate in 1813 and went at once to Elizabeth Fry to ask her to help the 300 women prisoners and their children there. The degrading conditions of the prison (and the alcohol available to anyone with money to buy it) led to degraded behavior, outright mayhem at times. Fry spoke to that of God in the women and children by treating them with respect, assuring them of God’s love and her own for them, and offering education for the children along with productive work for the women. The results were immediate and profound. The ventilation didn’t improve but the overall atmosphere among the prisoners did. Fry also campaigned against capital punishment for theft and forgery, arguing that it showed a higher regard for property than for human life. Stay tuned for more on Elizabeth Fry in the next newsletter. Doug

These Queries were read by Sarah during the presentation:

From remarks at Chestnut Hill Meeting, Philadelphia, PA
By Thomas Jeavons
January 6, 2002
 Do we as individuals see giving to our
Meetings (and other Quaker bodies) as: An
obligation of membership? An opportunity
to express our commitment to Quakerism?
An exercise that can be an expression of –
and contribute to our growth in – faith? As
an expression of gratitude to God for all the
blessings we have? Some combination?
Something else entirely?
 Do we as a Meeting community believe
members have an obligation to provide some
financial support to the Meeting, even if
only a token amount for those who have
little to give? Do we believe members
should make the Meeting a “charitable
priority?” Are we willing to talk with one
another about what levels of giving are
appropriate? If not, why not?
 Are we creating some safe spaces, and
providing some support, for our members
and attenders to talk with each other about
and wrestle with questions and concerns
about what should exist connections
between our faith and our money – not just
in relation to their giving, but in all aspects
of their lives? If not, should we, and how
could we?

By Leslie Manning
Pete Sirois, a Pax Christi member from Madison, and I lobbied our elected representatives after attending Ecumenical Advocacy Days in Washington, D.C. We were part of a group of 750 clergy and faith leaders from many denominations witnessing for a faithful budget, immigration reform and reductions in military spending.
I also presented a workshop on “Effective lobbying of state and local government” and participated in several discussions of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture’s video “Torture in our Backyard.” Maine’s efforts to reduce the use of solitary confinement are a feature of that film.

“The Meeting for Worship is, however, not all silence. The silence is preparation. One listens before one speaks. There is a quickening power in the living silence… Where the temperature and atmosphere of the group are right, the one who prays or speaks is not just a solitary individual saying words. One becomes in some real sense a voice for the cooperating group. There is more in the words than we consciously know or explicitly think out.” Rufus Jones

There has been some wonderful vocal ministry rising out of the waiting silence in the past six weeks or so. And though, from time to time, there are those amongst us who are especially gifted and offer messages full of Spirit… we are ALL ministers… and each of us, no matter how shy we may feel… are, from time to time, called to rise and say a few words.

During Worship on the last Sunday of February, your pastor sensed that there was a message trying to rise, and yet there must have been some hesitation for there was no vocal ministry… and that hesitation did seem to change the quality of the silence in which we were waiting.

I remember well the fear that I felt the first time I rose to offer ministry in Meeting for Worship… because we do have such a strong sense of God’s presence there with us, it is an awesome thing to rise and say a few words. And, it so easy to forget that even the ordinary events of life, when held up into the Light are sacred; and that the most meaning full ministry is neither fancy nor polished, it is heart felt.

In the Atlanta Meeting there was a large Burundi refugee population, and from time to time someone would rise and offer vocal ministry in Burundi; words which most Friends could not understand yet often someone would comment later that those Burundi words had indeed “spoken to their condition.” This reminds me of the quote from John Woolman’s Journal about his ministry while traveling amongst the Delaware Indians:

“On the evening of the 18th I was at their meeting, where pure gospel love was felt, to the tendering of some of our hearts. The interpreters endeavored to acquaint the people with what I said, in short sentences, but found some difficulty, as none of them were quite perfect in English and Delaware tongues, so they helped one another, and we labored along, Divine love attending. Afterwards, feeling my mind covered with the spirit of prayer, I told the interpreters that I found it in my heart to pray to God, and believed, if I prayed aright, he would hear me; and I expressed my willingness for them to omit interpreting; so our meeting ended with a degree of Divine love. Before the people went out, I observed Papunehang (the man who had been zealous in laboring for a reformation in that town, being then very tender) speaking to one of the interpreters, and I was afterwards told that he said in substance as follows: “I love to feel where words come from.”

So, let us when we feel called to offer a few words of vocal ministry take courage and rise… let us, also, make it our practice to listen to the vocal ministry in our meeting in the same deep way that Papunehang listened to John Woolman… and then, let us, trust in the Divine love that attends us in our waiting Worship.

From our Pastor, Daphne Clement
True forgiveness opens the heart making us tender and available to God. Without practicing forgiveness, we loose the capacity to give and to receive. If we really want to love, we must learn how to forgive.

Everyone has plenty to forgive: even if our parents were the best of parents there is alwayssomething to forgive, our mates and children, our friends, our boss or supervisor… we must forgive life, the world and God… and last but not least… the greatest challenge of all… let us forgive ourselves.

What keeps us from forgiving? Forgiving life & God for the disappointments, the losses and hardships… sometimes the soul just gets weary, turning bitter and cold. This can be a dangerous time for without a tender heart we are so prone to judge… the act of judging others or ourselves binds the judged person… self or other… fast, to a chair… tying and gagging them there, limiting potential growth and change. When we judge another or ourselves we take our humanness away… judgment is the opposite of freedom; judgment limits who we are or will be.

Have you ever noticed that the heart tends to close and harden in judgment when we perceive a weakness in someone that subtly reflects fears of our own weaknesses? Regarding this sort of projection someone wise once said: “It’s all done with mirrors, you know.” Perhaps this accounts for Jesus’ comment: “Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor.” There they couldn’t forgive his humanness… and hence could not see his divinity. Because we cannot forgive we become blind to the truth that we are created in God’s image.

We distance ourselves from God every time the harsh inner critic intones: “I am not good
enough.” In Matthew, 18:18, Jesus instructs his disciples: “Verily I say unto you, what things so ever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and what things soever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (King James) The New Standard Easy-to-Read Version: “I tell you the truth. When you speak judgment here on earth, that judgment will be God’s judgment. When you promise forgiveness here on earth, that forgiveness will be God’s forgiveness.”

We forgive because forgiveness makes us resilient and makes us available to God’s presence.