Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, July 13, 2025

“If you want to be happy, practice compassion.If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.” — The Dalai Llama

“Our human compassion binds us one to another –not in pity or patronizingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future.” — Nelson Mandela

What is Compassion?  One common understanding, which I embrace, is that it is standing with people in their suffering and working together to alleviate it.

When Madiba “Nelson”  a name give to him by an English school teacher, Mandela, a privileged prince of his people, allied with their suffering under the oppression of apartheid, he lost his status, his liberty and forfeited his ability to speak or act on behalf of those who could not speak or act for themselves.  Sentenced to life imprisonment at a penal colony on a remote island, he was assigned to break rocks all day, every day, for 18 years. After contracting tuberculosis, he was relocated to the mainland where he was under pressure to ally with the ruling government as they came under increasing international pressure to “solve” their dehumanizing policies. His life sentence continued.

“The South African government periodically made conditional offers of freedom to Mandela, most notably in 1976, on the condition that he recognize the newly independent—and highly controversial—status of the Transkei Bantustan and agree to reside there. An offer made in 1985 required that he renounce the use of violence. Mandela refused both offers, the second on the premise that only free men were able to engage in such negotiations and, as a prisoner, he was not a free man.” — Encyclopedia Britannica

He was finally released in 1990, having been banned from public life on and off since 1952.

Yet, during all that time, his writings were smuggled out and published, his speeches taught and quoted, his will was never broken.  And, he learned to forgive his captors and embrace non violence and active resistance.He was able to practice compassion not only for the injured and oppressed, he actively practiced compassion for their oppressors.  He instituted the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as president of the country that had persecuted him, under the leadership of Desmond Tutu. The world celebrates Madiba Mandela Day on July 18.

In the words of the scientist and healer, Louis Pasteur, who gave us the germ theory of disease, which is once again under attack: “One does not ask of one who suffers: What is your country and what is your religion? One merely says: You suffer, that is enough for me.” — Louis Pasteur

And where do we stand , Friends?  In our testimonies of Integrity, Peace, Community, Simplicity, Equality and some would add Service, are we seeking to live those values into the world?

Are our lives the “patterns and examples” as urged  on us by George Fox? How do we “Answer that of God” in everyone we meet?

We do not do it alone, we do it in and with beloved community and in the words of Irish Friend Simon Lamb, (and for those of us who remember Edie Lamb Whitehead, she was a member of this same family, as her life showed) in speaking to an international gathering of Friends in 2002

“So here is God laying the burden of responsibility for changing our sad and broken world on our shoulders. For early Friends saw it as being called to bring the kingdom of heaven here to earth now. But God could not and does not abandon us to handle this task on our own. Nor does God expect us to achieve miracles purely in our own strength. That is why our living experiential relationship with God is so essential. For in this relationship is our strength. Our daily knowledge of God walking by our side, carrying us when we do not feel up to the task, encouraging and convincing us when we need that extra push, forgiving us when we choose to ignore or reject those burdens laid upon us, is what drives us into action and supports us while we carry out the responsibilities we are called to.” — Simon Lamb, Ireland YM, FWCC, 2002.

Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, July 20, 2025

I was initially asked to share a message this morning after a scheduled trip to the West Bank with a group of Quakers led by Max and Jane Carter from NCYM who have led trips to the West Bank for many years and who have volunteered at the Friends school in Ramallah many times.  Our aim for the trip was to listen to and hear stories from people in the West Bank and to do some work at the Friends School and nearby olive groves.    To be Living Letters.  We send letters to share stories, plans, dreams, concerns, success, – to connect and support each other.   By being present and observing life in the West Bank the annual living letters trips create opportunities for those participating to be a presence, to see what life is like for those who have been trapped in a system that does not allow for much freedom and  autonomy.  It allows for those in the land to hear that they are not alone.   

The trip did not happen due to the ‘war’ (a war implies 2 groups fighting on equal terms) in Gaza and the bombs between Syria and Israel that happened a few days before and during the departure times of those in the group.  Flights from the UK and EU to Tel Aviv were cancelled a week before the departure date.  Max and Jane and those going from the US had flights cancelled but were able to find alternative flights and made it half way before being turned back to the US.    

So instead of stories from the trip that did not happen I give you other related stories.  A conversation with a friend, inspirations from Rania Maayeh, the Friends Girls School principal, one of many challenges for Palestinian students in the West Bank, a philosophy from a book, stories from the Gospel of Matthew, 2 words, and Rick’s story.   

A friend – Visited me a few days ago and there was much laughing.  He is very funny.  Laughing with him allowed for him to hear my saying ‘the women said what?’ after he  called an older female a girl.  Laughing and listening allowed us to hear each other.   How can we say our truth in ways that others will listen? 

Rania.  Steadfast, intense desire to care for, support and protect the staff and students of Ramallah Friends School (RFS).  Resilience, the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.  The message Rania is sharing with Yearly Meetings throughout the country and will be sharing more at New England Yearly Meeting.   

“For over 150 years, RFS has stood as a living witness to what education, rooted in justice and love, can achieve.  Founded in faith. Sustained by Resilience. Focused on the Future.” 

Shadi Khoury –  Oct 18 2022, Israeli military forces raided the home of Shadi Khoury, a 16 year old RFS student, in East Jerusalem, beating him, dragging him barefoot and blindfolded, and detaining him without charge or legal representation.  He is not alone.  Many young teens are arrested without a charge and held without legal representation. The school issued a statement condemning the violence and calling for Shadi’s release.  A court hearing was finally held Thursday, 17 July 2025 with decisions to be made in September.  A prayer offered “May the heavens open up for him.”  Words.  Opening up new visions, images for healing and transformation.  

Olives.  The fruit that has sustained the Palestinians for thousands of years.  Samid a way of thinking and being that has sustained many Palestinians for thousands of years.   

Samid.  The Third Way.   By Raja Shehadeh.  A Journal of the West Bank. “Between mute submission and blind hate– I choose the third way. I am Samid.”- 

The term “Samid” (or ṣamīd in Arabic) is part of a key Palestinian cultural and political concept called Sumud (or ṣumūd), meaning “steadfastness” or “steadfast perseverance”. It emerged after the 1967 Six-Day War as a form of resistance against occupation using a third way between violent struggle and passive submission.   

Jesus teachings.  A third way.  My understanding of Jesus’ teaching to turn the other cheek, walk the second mile, and to give your cloak to your oppressor gives the same message.  A third way of reacting to others and the oppressor.  

Word, concepts.  Semitic and Chosen.  Semitic – relating to or denoting a family of languages that includes Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic and certain ancient languages such as Phoenician and Akkadian, constituting the main subgroup of the Afro-Asiatic family.  Relating to the peoples who speak Semitic languages, especially Hebrew and Arabic. 

The Chosen people of Hebrew and Christian scriptures was debated at Earlham School of Religion.  Were they chosen to be in a particular land or chosen to be a light to all the nations.  Biblical scholars have evidence that it could have been either interpretation.  Not a simple answer.   

Rick, a friend of mine, was a participant with Christian Peacemaker teams who, for many years have been a peaceful presence in conflict areas around the world.  They observe and make known injustices incurred.  One day Rick and a few others in his CPT team and some Palestinians were walking and observing in a West Bank village when a group of soldiers approached them with machine guns and a menacing attitude.  They seemed to be on the verge of intimidating Rick’s CPT group and the Palestinians with them.  Tensions rose.  Rick’s phone rang.  He pulled it out of his pocket and listened for a bit.  He then held the phone out to one of the younger soldiers and said,  ‘Its your mom.’.  A palpable shift occurred in the soldiers.   

How can we be steadfast and resilient using our imaginations to help shift the world toward more compassion, light and hope?  

by Doug Bennett, In remembrance and appreciation of Walter Brueggemann (1933-2025)

Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, July 6, 2025

Today I want to talk about Walter Brueggemann, a theologian, and not a Quaker.  He was born in 1933, ordained in the United Church of Christ, and spent his long life teaching and writing, first at one seminary then another.   He died just about a month ago.  That’s a large part of why he’s on my mind. 

Or maybe it’s better to say I want to speak of an idea of his that is important to me, the idea of The ‘prophetic Imagination’.  That is the title of Walter Brueggemann’s most famous book.  The Prophetic Imagination;  it was first published in 1978. 

For me, Brueggemann is important because we are at a particularly difficult time in the United States today.  Brueggemann helps me see how best to understand and to act in the face of such difficult times.  It is all too easy to get swept up into the politics of the moment.  There’s a great deal that seems wrong:  with democracy, with the rule of law, with honesty and integrity, with Russia and Iran, with immigration, with climate change, with medical care, with taxes.  Whichever side you are on in these disputes, there is a huge political agenda in front of us.  It can seem like our pursuing that political agenda is entirely consistent with our religious beliefs.  The two seem to merge.  Brueggemann would have us see things differently. 

What does Brueggemann mean by this : The Prophetic Imagination?  He means a kind of understanding that is an inheritance of ours, through the Bible, from a faith community of many, many generations, and leaders and prophets.  It’s a way of knowing what we are called to do.  Brueggemann thinks this perspective, this prophetic imagination, is an essential richness of the Bible.  Our embracing the prophetic imagination is the door to fully joining with that faith community.  And it’s more than understanding:  going through that door requires us to act. 

Brueggemann’s starting point is the assertion that the faith community of today has lost its way as it so often has done before.  He thinks we have lost our way by embracing the culture around us.  When he wrote the book in 1978, he described that culture around us as “consumerist.” I think that word is familiar enough among us that I don’t need to try to explain it.  Still, I might use different words to describe the culture around us today:  militaristic, individualistic, pleasure-centered, wasteful, short-sighted – these words also come to mind.  You might substitute even others.  (Brueggeman sometimes spoke of the dominant culture as a ‘royal consciousness’.)  We’re lost by becoming lost in that culture. 

Brueggemann would have us act in response to all that is wrong around us.  The key is to stop embracing that culture around us.  In being Christians, good Christians, or just good people, he would have us stand outside that culture.  He would have us take our bearings not from being part of that culture but from some better, some healthier understanding. 

“The task of prophetic ministry,” he says, “is to nurture, nourish and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us.” (p3)  Our bearings come from an understanding alternative to the dominant culture. 

He argues that stepping outside that dominant culture is more important than any particular cause – more important than working for fair elections or justice for migrants or mitigation of climate change.  So he adds:

“Thus I suggest that prophetic ministry has to do not primarily with addressing specific public crises but with addressing, in season and out of season, the dominant crisis that is enduring and resilient, of having our alternative vocation co-opted and domesticated” (emphasis added).

It is the “alternative vocation” that is important to him.  That is prophetic ministry, and it requires a prophetic imagination.  An alternative vocation asks us to take a stance outside the dominant culture. 

Brueggemann would have us find a life stance from the Bible – but from the Bible seen in a certain way.  Brueggemann is important to me because he helped me see how to read and use the Bible.  For me, it’s not history, it’s not timeless rules for conduct, it’s not prediction of the future.  It’s a reflection on the challenges of human beings trying to understand God and of what being faithful looks like. 

Brueggemann would have us find our bearings from the ways of seeing and acting that were developed by the Old Testament prophets, from Moses forward.  The New York Times obituary of Brueggemann says , quoting Conrad Kanagy, his biographer, that “a passage in the Book of Jeremiah had a particular impact on Dr. Brueggemann because it connected knowledge of God directly to service for the poor.”  God says: ‘To care for the poor and the needy, is this not to know me?’ according to Jeremiah.  Understanding these words “was a crystallizing moment for [Brueggemann], as he recognized that the text did not say, if one has knowledge of God, then they will care for the poor,” Dr. Kanagy wrote. “Or that if one cares for the poor, they will get knowledge of God. Rather, it simply declares that ‘the care of the poor is knowledge of God.’”  [Conrad Kanagy, Walter Brueggemann’s Prophetic Imagination: A Theological Biography (2023)]

In The Prophetic Imagination, Brueggemann pays particular attention to Moses, but also prophets like Jeremiah and Samuel and Micah — and yes, Jesus, too.  Brueggemann knows Jesus is more than a prophet, but he thinks we will see Jesus more clearly if we place him in this tradition – the tradition of the prophetic imagination. 

So what does this way of seeing and acting look like? 

Well what does Moses see and do?  He sees his people, the Jews, in captivity in Egypt.  They know this captivity isn’t right, but Moses sees them becoming resigned to this captivity.  Egypt is becoming their home.  They are settling in, even coming to worship Egyptian Gods and falling away from YHWH.

So, Brueggemann reminds us, Moses becomes a critic of this captive life.  He is anguished more than he is angry and what he sees his people doing.  He is troubled but also compassionate.  And he becomes more than just a critic.  He imagines something better for the Israelites:  escape, migration, even a Promised Land.  He leads his people out of Egypt.  It turns out to be a long, hard journey, but over years he keeps alive a better hope.  He acts to bring about that better future.  Along the way, he helps his people see God more clearly, the real God, not the gods worshipped by the Egyptians.  He helps them understand being faithful. 

Skipping over other prophets, we can see Jesus in just the same way, and Brueggemann thinks we should.  He sees Jesus as a critic of the culture around him.  And this Jesus imagines something better.  That something better takes even the disciples by surprise in the end, however.  Jesus seems to them like a compelling reformer, perhaps even someone who will lead a movement against the Romans.  Instead Jesus imagines and leads us toward something much more audacious:  not just a victory over the rule-bound Pharisees and Sadducees, not just a victory over the Romans, but a victory over death itself.  Along the way, Jesus helps people everywhere see God more clearly.  And see what faithfulness looks like. 

Criticism and an imagined, better future.  Those are the two parts of the prophetic imagination.  They have to go together.  Criticism without that imagined better future isn’t of much use.  An imagined better future not grounded in accurate criticism also isn’t of much use. 

We need both.  That’s seems simple, doable.  But Brueggemann tells us something else.  In the culture that surrounds us, there are always critics and always people, organizations, movements, parties engaging in criticism and pointing to a way forward.  If we simply follow these parties and organizations and movements, we may find ourselves even more deeply enmeshed in the unhealthy dominant culture.  We need to follow the right prophets, the real prophets, the prophets that are attuned to God.  We need to be careful not to follow the world’s, the culture’s self-described prophets.  We need to grow in our understanding of God and become yet more faithful to where God would lead us. 

In troubled times we will often encounter movements that share this or that piece of our criticism.  They may object to this war.  They may want to reform this policy or that practice.   Immigration or racial justice or gun control or climate change or gender identity or hunger may be their causes, just like these issues are part of our cause – our criticism and our imagined future.  Even so, the road of these social and political movements is not likely to be our road.  Those movements, those parties are not our prophets.  We need to follow prophets who honestly, faithfully and courageously listen to God.  We need to follow prophets who find their leadings in what God is saying to them.  Both Moses and Jesus (and the other prophets) seek justice, but they act with compassion and they support those on the margins. 

Brueggemann was not a Quaker, and I don’t mean to present him as a closet Quaker.  But his conception of a prophetic imagination is very much aligned with what I see Quakers doing when we are at our very best.  His conception of a prophetic imagination is very much aligned with what I see Durham Friends Meeting doing when we are at our very best. 

“Critical” and “energizing”  are key terms for prophetic ministry.  They need to go hand in hand. 

Any given day, any given week, members of this Meeting are engaged in criticism and engaged, too, in energizing work towards a better imagined future.  Immigration, racial justice, gun control, climate change, gender identity, hunger: these may be what one or another of us is working on.  In this work, we may find allies for this action or that protest in this or that organization or this or that political party. 

Nevertheless, we are called to see things more deeply, and to work towards a transformation that is yet more fundamental.  At our best, we are not just interested in social and political change.  Just aiming for social and political change risks staying within the framework of the dominant culture.  As Bruggemann says,

“Social radicalism has been like a cut flower without nourishment, without any sanctions deeper than human courage and good intentions” (p8).

Courage and good intentions are not enough.  We are called to go deeper and farther.  Our taproot, our nourishment, lies in faithfulness. 

I’ll just end with this passage from Brueggemann:

We need to ask not whether it is realistic or practical or viable but whether it is imaginable. We need to ask if our consciousness and imagination have been so assaulted and co-opted by the royal consciousness that we have been robbed of the courage or power to think an alternative thought … the imagination must come before the implementation.”

Also posted on River View Friend

Message given by Tess Hartford at Durham Friends Meeting, June 1, 2025

Good Morning, Beloved Friends,

This morning I would like to submit that this message will ultimately only scratch the surface. While praying over, studying, reflecting and listening over the last several weeks, what comes forward is a need that I have — a need to express something that has persisted with me for many, many years.

So, I am taking a leap of faith in order to bare my soul before you, to allow you to see and hear a glimmer of what is a continual movement towards a hopeful new awareness.

I have spoken in your company over the years about my spiritual formation, the path I have walked for as long as I can remember. This journeying, my journey, has taken many and varied turns and forks in the road. I have shared with you my love and gratitude for being born and raised the the Catholic tradition. I have spoken from this place about how it has been for me growing from girlhood to maidenhood to motherhood, and some of the hurdles, challenges and blessings I have experienced.

Before I move on from there, I want to acknowledge the deep gratitude I hold for all of you and the fact that you would even sit here this morning and graciously listen as I share about my spiritual walk. Aho! I bless you.

As I have chosen to embody as woman in this lifetime, I have been keenly aware of and sensitive to many of the way in which femaleness is regarded and treated in this physical world. I am not going to go down the treacherous way of naming the abuse, the neglect, the shaming or the atrocities that women down through the ages have suffered and continue to suffer at the hands of of the systems of domination and contempt that have been in power for far too long. We all know them. As well, we all know that everyone, boys and girls, women and men, all suffer because of these worldly power structures — structures that are not truly grounded in the Divine, even though there may be claims that these atrocities are divinely ordained. 

At the tender age of 70, I am keenly aware of the lies and deceptions on so many fronts that promote a culture of death and degradation of all life on our beautiful Mother Gaia! Every direction in which I turn and look, I see and witness the wreckage and deception that have led us all to the precipice on which we now find ourselves.

As I prefaced my message earlier, I am only scratching the surface. Sharing some thoughts:

In the book Active Hope, by Joanne Macy and Chris Johnstone, there are ideas, exercises and group processes introducing the idea of our innate potential for resilience and positive actions to take towards healing — the healing of our individual wounds, and our collective wounds. As one small community alone, we are an amazing forcefield of goodness and justice and compassion**. So I want to bring this message around to what I first desired to bring. Over the many weeks I have been listening and searching for the words, the meaning, some glimmer of the heart of the Divine, beating among us.

• First, there is new life springing forth amidst the collapse all around us. Look for it! 
• Second, each of us is responsible for birthing a new consciousness, for examining the beliefs that we embody that are contrary to the divine inheritance for which we have been fashioned. Think on it. 
• And thirdly, when we do honor, truly honor the Creator’s life within each of our hearts, we will know peace. The peace that Jesus named when in his human expression of earthly life — he called it the peace that surpasses all understanding.

Friends, I thank you again for your respect and your giving of your attention to the thoughts that I have been wanting to share. 

Finally, I wish to share a blessing that I received just last week — a blessing that came through a young indigenous woman through Instagram, of all places. It came through a video of her in several beautiful natural settings. It begins with her narrating while squatting along a stream bed, her hand dipping into the flowing water with these words: 

My devotion knows no church, but it moves through everything I touch.

I don’t follow a path because I am the path, walked moment by moment through blood and breath and bone.

I’ve never lacked faith. What I lack is tolerance for cages built in God’s name, for the need to call it God at all, because the moment we name it, we make it Other.

And from that split, the first lie is born.

Status … salvation sold like product. I’ve seen it.

When mystery is made into a brand; when individualism wears a robe and calls itself spiritual.

So, I do not bow to those who weaponize devotion.

I do not serve Gods built on shame or dogmas that fear the wildness of my naked body.

I do not believe peace is real if it cannot look injustice in the eye.

How do you speak of oneness while turning from the wounds of the world?

I want no place in such a temple.

I do chant. I breathe. I offer. I bow. But not to be saved, but to be pure.

I do it because I am already holy. I am already whole, already here.

This body is my consort, his breath is my prayer, this life is the feast I share with the beloved.

I came to incarnate, to feel it all, to kiss the ground with every step,

to love what bleeds and breaks and so becomes.

I’m not here to follow a path.

I am here to offer myself entirely to the path of life itself 
again and again.

I return to the spiral, unlearning the roles, burning the names and continuously rebirthing myself.

My devotion knows no church, but it moves through everything I touch.

Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, June 15, 2025

I haven’t paid much attention to Father’s Day in recent years.

For a number of reasons:

One of which is that my father of almost 50 years – my Step-father, James Cannon, passed away almost 12 years ago and after that I focused on my Mother and my relationship with her and her care. It was really important to me that I feel complete when she died because my biological father, Donn Randall, had been taken from me and us so suddenly, without warning when I was eight years old. I vowed I would be with my mother during her decline, however that looked.

And, notably, I blamed my biological father for how he left us so suddenly, abandoning me, I felt.

You see he and I had experienced together a very random and very tragic event involving the death of a toddler. And my father could not bear it, this loss of life that he had caused through no fault of his own.

I need to repeat that through no fault of his own. And I was the witness. I was there with him when it happened, this random tragic act.

He could not endure the suffering caused by the guilt and shame that he carried as a result. So, about a year and a half later, one cold and rainy September night, after a day of drinking, he got into his car, the same car that had killed the child, drove off the road and through a guardrail one rainy September night.  

He stayed in a coma for 18 months, enough time for my resourceful mother to find another provider for her and us 4 kids, my step-father, who stepped up to the plate. My step-father’s hubris to take on the care of 4 rambunctious kids under the age of 15, borne of love for my mother and of his youth, I suppose. They were only 40 years old.

And my father, I imagine, seeing us well taken care of at that time passed on, 2 days after my mother and step-father’s wedding.

But my point is that I was really angry and remained really angry at my father for abandoning me, leaving me holding the bag, so to speak, or the baggage of this random tragic accident that no one else in my family experienced. I felt he had taken the easy way out, you see. And I was left to navigate my growing up on my own.  My mother was caught up in her new life with her new husband. And my crazy older brothers were still reeling from the abrupt departure of our father.

So I dismissed my father. For decades I never sought his comfort or his counsel  from the other realms.

Though he did come to me one night when I was in despair in my mid-twenties. Heart broken and confused by being spurned by a man I loved, my father came to me without words. I suppose to let me know that he was there, watching over me. And I took great comfort in that knowing for the moment, that I was loved… even by a ghost…

Over the decades my step-father was with us, I grew quite fond of him. He was  quiet and unassuming, a curious man with a wonderful sense of humor and sense of integrity. And we shared many tender moments together. I remember in my early thirties, on long winter nights, my mother, my step-father and I would sit by the fire having dinner together. And I basked in the warmth of a family structure I had always longed for, as an only child.

And then circumstances changed, my step-father got sick, he and my mother couldn’t manage their old house so they moved into assisted living. A death knell for Step-father, who loved his space and quiet time and a social boon for my mother who always loved a good party.

And circumstances for me changed as well. After a few major losses in my life, a marriage, and a career, I began to look to strengthen my Spiritual life and connections through various means.

So, I signed up for a trip to visit the realms of Gods and Goddesses of ancient Egypt with a group of spiritually-minded travelers.

And In November of 2023, days before my 65^th,  we found ourselves in the Great Pyramid of Giza at night. We climbed up the ramp through the narrow, dimly lit passageway to the King’s chamber which contains a granite sarcophagus, the tomb of the Pharaoh Khufu. It was there that my father made his loving presence known to me along with my mother. The two of them together in Spirit. It was then that I knew that I needed to forgive my father. It was there that I saw I needed to begin to shed the armor I had encased myself with – an attempt to protect myself from further wounding.

Suddenly, I acknowledged in the core of my being, the incredible burden of shame and guilt my father must have carried after the incident. All eyes of the small, tightknit community in the mid 1960’s on him. Afterall, he had killed a little boy, a son, a brother and grandson, while his three sons at home were healthy and vibrant. I opened my heart and found the compassion that I had locked away from him for 55 years.

A great weight lifted from my body in that pyramid in November of 2023, and I felt a freedom and lightness, opening up to a love that had always been there but that I had never allowed.

I returned home and tried to cultivate that love for him through the few memories I had of our shared times together, short lived as they were. One in particular stands out.  My father would wake me up early on a Saturday morning and the two of us would ride our bikes the mile and a half to the beach together. Just the two of us. Away from the rough and tumble of my three older brothers and the critical eye of my mother. Basking in the stillness of the early morning sun glinting off the ocean, the long beach stretching out in front of us. It was thrilling to be there with my father, just the two of us.

After my experience in Egypt I felt open to my father and my mother holding me in Spirit, supporting and encouraging me. And I felt like I had permission to delve deeply into the nooks and crannies of my early life, replete with grief, confusion, despair and anger. So I began writing it all down, the good, the bad and the ugly. I relied on God, my relationship with Mary Magdalene and my Spiritual community to contain me during this deep dive.

And then, this winter, the winter of 2025, right in the middle of my love affair with Mary Magdalene, my feeling of being settled in my faith with God, Jesus showed up to me. He showed up in a powerful, full-bodied way, the way I find myself doubled over, on the floor, my body convulsing with sobs. Looking back at my journal, I find that he appeared on the Spring Equinox. Fitting. A new relationship, an awakening to love.

I had not been terribly interested in Jesus up until then, he, having been co-opted by many nefarious movements, systems and individuals. I could leave well enough alone, I thought, content with Mary Magdalene, the Archangels who I called upon often and the sweet symbolism of the various animals and birds I encountered daily. And God. I’d known God for a very long time.

So when Jesus came knocking I wasn’t prepared. But I was curious enough to ask, “Why are you here?”

The answer gave me pause. “I am here to show you gentle and kind masculine energy”, came the simple yet profound reply.

Yeah…I guessed I could use that. I guessed, in fact, I needed that.

During my travels in Mexico, I used to go into the churches and cathedrals in the towns I stopped in. These places of worship were the focal points; the plaza and the markets always in close proximity to the holy structures. I loved the art, the frescoes, the guilded and ornately carved wood framing the ceiling paintings and the statues of the Saints and animals. All these works of art exuded devotion to Jesus and God and Mexico’s beloved Virgen de Guadalupe. Even the simplest churches and chapels radiated loving care.

I used to go into the churches and sit in a pew to prayer and give thanks for the opportunity I had to experience this devotion to God, to Jesus and to the Saints. Most often I would begin to cry, overcome. And I never knew why. I still don’t know really. But I suspect, now, that Jesus was in my heart and I just wasn’t ready to acknowledge him. I just wasn’t ready.

And when I came back to Mid-coast Maine, I went to a Catholic church, hoping that I could replicate those sweet and tender moments, without success. The churches always felt barren and staid.

So when Jesus showed up in my life on the Spring Equinox in 2025, I knew how portentous it was. And I wanted to make sure I marked it so that I would not dismiss this experience and pretend Jesus was not with me. So that I would be held accountable and begin to consciously cultivate a relationship with him.

For my chaplaincy program, I had to present a Sacred Art project to my class. I, of course, chose Mary Magdalene but I also included a symbol of Jesus and depicted a cross on my shoulder. A bold statement that was difficult for me, given the current cultural backdrop – horrible and cruel actions taken by government and religious officials and individuals in the name of “Christianity”.

So here is Jesus, now ensconced in my heart, that is where I feel him, left side of my chest, tender and soft. Not like Mary Magdalene who, I see in front of me, beckoning me forward towards adventure and the next project. Or God who is more Universal, more ineffable and overarching to me and always “there”.

I’m not quite sure what to do with Jesus and I don’t pretend to know him well at this point but I am working on building a relationship with him, to learn about masculine gentleness and kindness as he suggested. But again, given our cultural context, I’m often insecure and filled with doubt. And I’m not sure I can always trust the stories in the New Testament.

So I am starting with the premise that Jesus is the embodiment of Love. That regardless of what others say and what is written in the New Testament, I feel in my heart that Jesus is love. So from there, I try to make conscious decisions to include him in my prayers for myself and for others. His name does not roll off my tongue as easily but I am trying.

And I think now that I would not have come to be introduced to Jesus had I not allowed my father back into my life. Had I not engaged in the process of putting myself in his shoes and having compassion for this 38 year old father of four whose mundane actions had snuffed out the life of a two year old.  That was my initiation to Jesus’s path, compassion and forgiveness.

And When I think about Jesus’ love I am reminded of my father’s and my Step-father’s kindness and gentleness towards me.

This is a new path for me, to be open to love from Jesus, to ask for love from Jesus and to see Jesus’ love shining down on others. And it is a practice that I will continue because each time I open my heart to Jesus’ love, I feel it pulse and expand and I feel like crying, just like when I was sitting in those pews in the cathedrals in Mexico with the devoted widows, praying for peace and forgiveness.

So today, in honor of “Father’s Day”, I honor those values of my father, my step-father and of Jesus; Love, compassion, gentleness, humor and integrity.

And now, more than ever, we need to uphold that masculine energy that Jesus so embodied.

Happy Father’s Day everyone. May it be filled with Love, compassion and forgiveness.

Middle Church (the Middle Collegiate Church) is a United Church of Christ church located at 112 Second Avenue between 6th and 7th Streets in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. This is how they describe their vision:

Our Vision

Middle Church is a multicultural, multiethnic, intergenerational movement of Spirit and justice, powered by fierce, revolutionary Love, with room for all. Following in the Way of Jesus’ radical love, and inspired by the prophets, Middle Church is called by God to do a bold new thing on the earth. We aim to heal souls and the world by dismantling racist, classist, sexist, ethnocentrist, ableist, cisheterosexist and other systems of oppression.

Because our God is still speaking in many languages, we work in interreligious partnerships to uproot injustice, eradicate poverty, care for the brokenhearted, nurture our planet, and build the Reign of God on earth. This activism is fueled by our faith; our faith is expressed in art; our art is an active prayer connecting us with the Holy Spirit. Middle Church affirms the transformative power of moral imagination, reclaiming and reframing Christianity inside our walls, on the street, and in virtual spaces around the globe.

Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, May 18, 2025

Is this an ordinary day or a special day?  Look at all the amazing flowering things all around us today.  But it happens every spring.  Ordinary or special?

One day follows another and another, and soon you have quite a number of days

Today, we are on day 90,899 since the citizens of this country declared us a new country, founded in the rule of law and “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,” as Lincoln put it; or “that all men and women are created equal” as those gathered at the Women’s Rights also  in Seneca Falls in 1848 better voiced it.  That was our hope, a special hope.  Is it not a special day, each day, when we remember and celebrate that hope?  But here we are today, and, if we’re thinking politically, today is probably not a day for celebration or high hopes. 

Today, we are on day 119 of the second presidency of Donald Trump.  Imagining himself like Zeus with lightning bolts, he has sent forth decree after decree that try to overturn so many familiar ways of doing things.  We have corruption in abundance:  meme coins and Qatari 747s and stock market manipulation via tariffs relentlessly in the news.  We have daily threats to the rule of law.  We have attacks on the poor and the vulnerable.  We have trashing of the Constitution’s clear meaning.  (Of course, those are simply my opinions.)

Politically, it’s an unusual day, perhaps a special day.  Some, I suppose, are jubilant, though I know very few.  Most of those around me are in despair; others in doubt.  Many are angry about this wrecking but unsure what to do.

That’s politically.  If we’re thinking geologically, I don’t think this is a special day.  Today the earth is about 4.54 billion years old.  That’s about 1.64 trillion days.  Born in an explosion, in fire, rotating in cold, cold space, it is amazing that the center of the earth is still molten lava – liquid rock – that can burst out unexpectedly and change the face of the earth. 

Are we, too, not like that:  crusty of the outside, but molten inside: formed into a shape and yet capable of being made new again?  Today, like nearly all days, we’ll probably have 55 earthquakes somewhere on the planet.  Special, I suppose for those who live near them and feel them, but pretty ordinary for most of us.  That’s just the way it is every day on this third rock from the Sun. 

What if we think religiously?  Not politically, not geologically, but religiously.

Today we are in year 2025, day 138 since the birth of birth of Christ.  This is how we count days:  B.C. and A.D., Anno Domini, or C.E. – the Common Era.  We’ve kept our dates this way since the 4^th century A.D.  (Before that, if you’re curious, we counted days since the beginning of the reign of the Emperor Diocletian, the Roman emperor who instigated the last major persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire, the Era of the Martyrs.) 

Counting days since the birth of Christ is a constant reminder that we think something very important – something special – happened in this world when Jesus was born.  We came into a new relationship with God, one founded in loving our neighbors and in the belief that our sins could be forgiven. 

Today we are about 91,250 days into a continuous presence of Quaker worship here in Durham, Maine – about a year of days longer than the continuous presence of our republic among the countries of this fractious but wonderous world.  Is this day at Durham Friends an ordinary day, or a special day?  That’s my question this morning. 

Today, we are 28 days since Pope Francis passed away.  Already we have a new Pope, Leo XIV, the 267^th Pope.  We’re still learning about him.  Popes are not Quaker officers, but they sometimes teach us. 

Andrew Sullivan said of this past Pope: “Faith for Francis was not rigidity, it was not always certain, and it was not words. It was a way of life, of giving, of loving, of emptying oneself to listen to God without trying to force a conclusion — of discernment, as the Jesuits like to say.”  (Or he might have said, ‘as the Quakers like to say.’)  Here is Pope Francis’s account of how he came to accept his election to the Papacy. 

Before I accepted I asked if I could spend a few minutes in the room next to the one with the balcony overlooking the square. My head was completely empty and I was seized by a great anxiety. To make it go away and relax I closed my eyes and made every thought disappear … I closed my eyes and I no longer had any anxiety or emotion. At a certain point I was filled with a great light. It lasted a moment, but to me it seemed very long. Then the light faded, I got up suddenly and walked into the room where the cardinals were waiting and the table on which was the act of acceptance. I signed it.

That’s a story with which many Quakers can resonate – a story of a special expressive moment.  Emotions.  Settling into silence, emptying out.  An experience of the Light.  And then a clear leading to action.  We mourn his death; we celebrate his life. 

Today, we are at the fourth Sunday of Easter, on our way to Pentecost on June 8.  In liturgical time, Jesus has been crucified and buried.  The disciples are anxious and in disarray.  (The same can be said of us.)  Jesus’s body has disappeared from the tomb; many are unsure what to make of this.  On Pentecost, the Holy Spirit will descend upon these disciples assuring them – us — of the resurrection.  They will go forth in confidence to preach the gospel.  Today, we are in a time of mourning, of doubt and despair.  But we can have faith the Light will come, and with it, clarity.  Each year we go through this same cycle:  Lent, Good Friday, Easter, Pentecost.  It is an essential understanding of the human condition. 

Lent, Good Friday, Easter, Pentecost: in the liturgical calendar of most Christian churches, we are in a special time of the year.  We will not be back in “ordinary time” until June 9, the day after Pentecost. 

Quakers have long resisted this way of thinking about days, ordinary time and special time.  For Quakers, all days are special days; or (it comes to the same thing) all days are ordinary days.  So much have Quakers believed this that Quaker schools used to hold classes on Christmas and Easter. 

Today:  is this an ordinary day, or a special day?  It may seem to all of us that this is an unusual time, one with new threats and new dangers.  Surely, we have those threats and dangers,  but do these make this a special day? 

What are we called to do this day? 

• What are we called to do this day on a billions-of-years-old earth that still has a molten core, capable of remaking itself every day? 

• What are we called to do this day when we are thousands of years past the birth of Jesus, past his crucifixion and past his resurrection? 
• What are we called to do this day, hundreds of years into the beginning of Quaker worship here in this place, and roughly the same length of time into the birth of this nation? 

• What are we called to do when we are noticing two contemporary professed Christians, one of whom washed the feet of the poor and outcast every day, the other of whom dishes out lies and destruction and cruelty each and every day? 

What are we called to do this day?  I believe that in the most profound ways, all days, our situation is the same. 

There will be troubles, but we are encouraged to “fear not.” 

Some wonderful things but also some terrible things may happen, but we can have faith that God loves each and every one of us.  

People will do those terrible things, but we are nevertheless instructed: “to love our neighbors as ourselves,” remembering that our neighbors include everyone, even those that do not think or behave quite as we do. 

We are not promised a good time or an easy time.  We are promised, instead, love, grace and the forgiveness of sins.  And all days  — not just special days – we are instructed “to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God”  (Micah 6:8). 

“Preach the Gospel always. If necessary, with words,” That saying is attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi, after whom Pope Francis took his name. 

 I read this earlier:  “Faith for Francis was … a way of life, of giving, of loving, of emptying oneself to listen to God without trying to force a conclusion — of discernment.” 

With Pope Francis, filled as we are with emotions, let us close our eyes, invite the silence, allow the Light to shine over us and to point the way on this ordinary yet singular, special day.  As Psalm 118 puts it, “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” 

Also posted on River View Friend

Craig Freshley’s merssage, “More onn the Rainbow Rule,” given at Durham Friends Meeting on May 4, 2025, can be found HERE.