Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, February 23, 2024

Right now, as we meet here in Durham & Portland Maine, Quakers are gathered for worship in Gibara Cuba for the closing Sunday worship of Cuba Yearly Meeting.  With them are eleven Friends from New England, including Kristna Evans and Mimi Marstaller from Durham and Maggie Fiori from Portland, four adults and three children from Dover meeting and one from Providence meeting.

Friends began worship this morning earlier than we did, and will continue after we close. I am hoping to share,  as much as I am able, the experience of worship and of Friends in Cuba.

The church in Gibara is full – everyone has walked to worship this morning- from their homes or from the dormitories. It’s 80 degrees, the front door of the church is open, the breeze off the harbor blows through the windows.

The service begins with song – everyone knows the songs and everyone sings together enthusiastically.  Jesu’s band accompanies the hymns.  I saw a photo of the band earlier this week at Puerto Padre. This year there is a saxophone, a bass guitar, a drummer and Jesu.  

The theme for this years gathering is “a family on a mission” The Chorus is “We are the community of God”. Each year CYM composes a song for sessions. The Verse is Acts 2:42  (Pentacost)

“The Fellowship of the Believers

⁴² They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. “

After singing, a pastor will share a message on the theme and the verse: and the community will participate, sometimes interrupting, sometimes agreeing sometimes arguing.  As Friends everywhere know, Cuban Friends know that we experience god directly and intimately and that authority rests in that experience, not in the person of the pastor.  In Cuba, Friends share during a message, as well as out of the silence.

Judy Goldberger wrote in a recent newsletter from FUM that:

“[In Cuba} I was immersed in communities who KNEW and trusted the constant presence of G*d. Who used their minds and hands and hearts to their full capacity, but knew they were not acting alone, knew they didn’t carry the burden of outcomes.

I’m privileged [in the US]. My intellect knows G*d is by my side, but it’s so easy to fall into trusting the work of my hands, and taking on the burden of outcomes.  In Cuba, so much was out of our hands. The power could go out at any time. We might need to pull over and let the bus engine cool off. The pharmacy shelves were bare of western medicines. The doctors couldn’t run basic diagnostic tests.

But God was always with us, revealing Godself through each other, and giving Cuban Friends power. Not mastery, but power. As I return to the United States, where I’m privileged to be able to get what I want instantly, let me remember that. To confuse power with mastery  is the road to despair. Let us reveal Godself to each other, in our workplaces, in our communities, with power.

Above the cross, in the Friends church in Delicias, it reads, “The place of Your presence.” And it is also everywhere I walk.

[As Jorge Luis , clerk of CYM said} “Somos seres humanos, no somos angeles.” (We’re human beings, we’re not angels.)

Back in Boston after eight days with Cuban Quakers, I don’t even know where to begin. G*d was truly as close as our breathing and moved among and through us. I was witness to the deep joy and deep heartbreak that Cuban Friends live with every day. I miss them already and my heart is a little larger now.” —Judy Goldberger, New England Yearly Meeting

I hear in Judy’s reflection a meditation relevant to the verse that has been at the center of worship during sessions:  Acts 2:42, The Fellowship of the Believers

⁴² They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. (the passage continues)  ⁴³ Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. ⁴⁴ All the believers were together and had everything in common. ⁴⁵ They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. ⁴⁶ Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts.

This verse comes after the community has experienced the spirit descending upon them at Pentecost.  They have been drawn together, have spoken in many languages and understood each other, have been mocked by the community and have been formed into this fellowship of believers.  Judy’s description is a description of a community that has been formed into such a fellowship and that is gathering today praying and feasting together.

I’ve sat with the theme “a family on a mission”.  

One of the realities in Cuba now is that everyone has had people they love leave the island.  They cannot return and they cannot be visited.  Caring for family is complicated. The Cuba Friends are wrestling with how to remain in relationship with those they love who are absent. How to include them in the fellowship of believers.    –    

We in our country are living through a time where those we love are being targeted, because of their identity, their heritage or their job and it is unclear if we can protect them. My daughter works for USAID and she has been called a criminal, a lunatic and corrupt by rich and powerful men. How do we enfold those we love who are in harms way into the power of our fellowship of believers.  In Judy’s reflection she links both the deep joy and the deep heartbreak that Cuban Friends live with as part of their experience of God moving among them. That stretches me – Do I recognize the deep heartbreak that I live with as part of God moving through us?   This theme – “a family on a mission” has felt particularly tender both in the lives of Cuban Friends and in our communities.

After the message the children will lead the gathered community in song. There are a lot of children, singing and dancing enthusiastically.  The whole congregation is singing and dancing with the children.    The Epistle from CYM to Friends everywhere will be read, any new pastors will be installed and any retiring ministers or elders will be honored.  The clerk will offer a prayer at closing and the whole community will gather for a luncheon feast.  Local Friends will walk home, Friends from other meetings will crowd into whatever transport have been found to return home and the New England Friends will go to Holguin Airport and catch the 3:00 flight to Miami.

Revival Sing: ”When the world is sick, ain’t nobody feeling well, and at camp we’re so beautiful and strong.”

Queries:  What have we experienced as a community that has forged us into this fellowship of believers, who gather and pray together and break bread together?

Do we know the feeling of the power of God’s presence among us, how do we recognize this and not mistake mastery of our hands and the authority of the world for the power of God’s presence?

Click this link to play the audio: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mgpAGV5ZATNrBAnjx3ZthbgFdXOL9YKY/view?usp=sharing

Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, January 12, 2025

Christmas is mostly behind us, now.  I had a lovely Christmas, and I hope you did, too.  And because Christmas is a time of giving and receiving gifts, I’ve been thinking about gifts. 

It started with thinking about the three Kings.  This past Monday was the day they finally arrived to present their gifts to the baby Jesus — or at least that’s the day we celebrate their arrival.  A few days later, I imagine, the Magi are still making their way home – and going there by a longer route to avoiding telling King Herod about the location of the Messiah – having been warned in a dream. 

And I’ve been thinking about The Other Wise Man, a fictional character Henry VanDyke dreamed up in 1895.  VanDyke imagined a Fourth Wise Man who sets out to join the three others.  This one – his name is Artaban – carries a sapphire, a ruby and a pearl to give to the Messiah.  Time after time his journey is interrupted by some person in need.  And to help them, he gives away his gems, one after another.  He doesn’t catch up with Jesus until he himself is impoverished, and it is years later.  It turns out he encounters Jesus, finally, only at the Crucifixion.  And he hears a voice say, “Verily I say unto thee, Inasmuch as thou hast done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” [Matthew 25:40]  This Fourth Wise Man realizes his gifts have been received and accepted.  Artaban never gave the gems to Jesus, but they were appreciated all the more.  That story was a favorite of my father.  He read it to my sisters and I each Christmas. 

So I’ve been thinking about gifts.  Yes, about gifts like gold, frankincense and myrrh, and, yes, about gifts like sapphires, rubies and pearls. 

But much more than that, however, I’ve been thinking about what is a gift, and about what it means to us to give and to receive gifts. 

That journey of the Three Kings was two millennia ago.  Here in Maine, in the present… 

“Present:”  that word means “now” but it also means “a gift.  Now isn’t that interesting?  It isn’t a trick or a coincidence.  Both meanings of “present” have the same original Latin root.   Do we use the word both ways because our ‘now’ is a ‘present’?  a gift?  I think so.  That’s what’s really on my mind this morning:  the present, the here and now, as a gift.  But like the Three Kings, I want to take a longer road to that recognition. 

As I was saying, here in Maine, in the present, the days are again getting longer.  There’s more daylight early in the morning and more again later in the afternoon.  In a few months, warmer weather will return.

You know the basic deal.  This planet earth on which we live rotates on an axis.  One full rotation makes a day.  The axis is canted a little to one side.  The northern half of the planet is currently tilted away from the sun.  That’s why we have shorter and colder days now.  The earth revolves around a medium-size star, the sun.  One full revolution makes a year.  Our planet (and several others) and our sun are part of a much larger collection of stars and planets and other celestial stuff that make up the Milky Way Galaxy.  There are billions of stars in our galaxy, and that galaxy is one of billions (maybe trillions) in the universe.  All the galaxies are moving outward, rapidly, from some ancient center point when and where there was a Big Bang billions of years ago.  Mostly this world where we are is just a lot of rocks and dust in motion, isn’t it?

Still, our planet has life on it, lots of life, including human life.  Probably, there is life on other plants in the universe. But only on a tiny percentage of them.  That human life on our planet is full of all manner of things: politics and science, gossip and exercise, work and goofing off, eating and sleeping.  Courage and wickedness.  All of these and more.  Because of life, it’s a more complicated, more interesting, more puzzling, world. 

What do we make of this world, this galaxy, this universe we live in, with all that it contains, bad and good?  For many people – if they think of it at all – it’s just how things are.  It’s neutral.  It just is.  It’s odorless, tasteless – meaningless.  Sometimes the ways things are delights us; sometimes the way things are troubles us.  Most of the time, the ways things are doesn’t much catch our attention.  It’s just there. 

We may think of all-there-is in this neutral, just-there sort of way, but we don’t have to.  There’s a choice here.  We can also see the way things are (however they are) as a gift.  And gifts are special, don’t you think?  Gifts surprise us.  They delight us.  And they connect us better to one another. Gift-giver to gift-receiver. 

Every morning I wake up; every morning you wake up, and there is the world laid out in front of us.  The world in all its splendor and beauty.  Also, of course, the world with all its problems and troubles.  It isn’t all frankincense and rubies.  When we wake, tomorrow morning, how will we receive that world out there before us?  Will we see it as just-what-is?  Or will we see it, the present, as a gift?

It’s a choice, and a very important one I’m thinking. 

A German mystic once said, “the wondrous thing is not how the world is, it is that the world is.”

Every day, in every way I’m surrounded by people who greet the world each morning in that ‘just-there’, neutral kind of way.  It’s very easy – it’s a temptation, I think – to join them in looking at the world this way, this world with its joys and splendors, its brutality and its troubles, its selfishness and its generosity.  The common way is to see it as a just-there world. 

My New Year’s Resolution this year is to awaken each day to the present, to the gift that is the present.  I don’t want to take it for granted.  This world isn’t anything I’ve earned; it’s nothing I deserve.  This world, this being-here, is a most astonishing gift I can imagine. Even when it’s ugly or painful.  I want to live in that present, in the realization of that gift. 

I learned to write thank-you notes when I was a child.  Probably you did, too.  My parents (especially my Mother) made sure my sisters and I wrote thank you notes for each of the gifts we received at Christmas.  I now see the importance of that.

But this present, this world-before-us, is a gift from who?  Who do I thank?  Well, God, of course.  To see the present as a gift is to open the door to recognizing Creation and a Creator.  To receive this gift is to open the door to seeing the world, the present, the all-there-is, as something special, something sacred.  It’s to open the door to being religious. 

It’s a choice to see it that way.  Today it may be an unusual choice, but it is a crucial one. 

And what do we give in return?  Gift-giving is mutual.  You give to me; I give to you.  If God has given us the gift of the present, the gift of the sacred present, what do we give in return?  I don’t think we can improve much on the final stanza of Christina Rossetti’s Christmas Carol, which we sang recently as “In the Bleak Midwinter.” 

What can I give Him,
  Poor as I am? —
If I were a Shepherd
  I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man
  I would do my part, —
Yet what I can I give Him, —
  I can give my heart.

                                                Christina Rossetti, A Christmas Carol, 1872

It’s a choice how we see this world: ‘just-there’ or ‘a gift’.  Is this world just ‘stuff’, just ‘this and that’, just rocks and dust and living things?  Or is this world ‘a gift’ – with possibilities and meanings and obligations? Is this world a secular place, or a sacred place, a holy land through and through? 

This gift of life, this gift of the present is the most important gift we receive, and we receive it  every day.  This gift colors everything.  Let us be reverent and thankful.  Let us give our hearts. 

Also posted on River View Friend

Craig Freshley brought the message at Durham Friends Meeting on January 5, 2025. An audio of the message is HERE.

Read at the close of worship at Durham Friends Meeting, December 22, 2024

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Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, December 8, 2024

Heart of Darkness

“Jesus said, “the seeker should not stop until he finds. When he does find, he will be disturbed. After having been disturbed, he will be astonished. Then he will reign over everything. (Gospel of St. Thomas.)

Today is December 8, just shy of three weeks before we hit the winter solstice and the light begins to return, slowly. So we’re in it. The deep dark days before the light returns. Whatever is the point for us human beings around the darkness? How do we make meaning of it for us? Lately we’ve been hearing about hygge, that practice by the people of the far northern climes to honor and even revel in the darkness. We hear about the bears going into hibernation, to rest and renew. In typical western fashion we put a “happy” spin on these days of darkness. I’m all for that. Because as it turns out, I happen to be one of those people that finds the darkness to be quite useful.

Roshi Joan Halifax, a Buddhist Teacher and Abbot, founder of the Upaya Zen Center in New Mexico wrote a book about and coined the term “The Fruitful Darkness”. This is how I choose to approach this time of year.

In the early 1990s Joan Halifax, as an anthropologist and grieving daughter and ex-partner/wife, traveled to Tibet, Mexico and the Western U.S. to experience indigenous sacred practices. She wanted to understand how indigenous cultures manage personal and world wounds through initiation, storytelling, non-duality and ceremony. Roshi Halifax found that the indigenous tribe, the Utes, understand that, “[t[he secret of life is in the shadows and not in the open sun; to see anything at all, you must look deeply into the shadow of a living thing.” (The Fruitful Darkness, p. 5)

Furthermore, she writes that though this process may be difficult there is an ending and a hopeful one at that, “[t]he process of initiation can be likened to a “sacred catastrophe,” a holy failure that actually extinguishes our alienation, our loneliness, and reveals our true nature, our love. That is why we seek initiation: to heal old wounds by reentering them in order to transform our suffering into compassion.” (TFD p. 15)

Dr. Gerald G. May wrote the ominously entitled book, The Dark Night of the Soul. It is an interpretation and application of the writings of Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, two christian mystics living in Spain in the 16th century. Both mystics spoke andwrote extensively about what they name The darkness or The dark night or in SpanishLa noche oscura- the hidden night.

And what is my experience with the Fruitful Darkness, or the dark night of the soul? It is a varied and ineffable experience that once I pass through, becomes difficult to describe. Often I am pulled into this darkness kicking and screaming, hauling out all my attachments to keep at bay the inevitable. I cling to busyness; food; sleep; my various external identities; where I’ve been, who I’ve been with, what I’ve done. Desperate to feel connected and grounded as I begin the descent into the darkness and down the rabbit hole of the feeling of purposelessness and self doubt. Who am I and where do I belong? I wail. I’m not enough, a failure! I cry out. Prostrate on the floor, sobbing, “again God, really, AGAIN”?

I recognize the futility of the external attachments I hold onto as I swim in the vast ocean of confusion and uncertainty. The personal uncertainty becomes the global uncertainty and with that, the overwhelm. And I ask, “Where is God? I don’t feel God! Where is my connection that I so rely on to soothe and comfort me, to reassure me that I’m on the right path, that we/the world is on the right path. I cast about for the energies of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, ArchAngel Michael, Green Tara, my parents, my trees and rocks and animals in whom I find solace. And there is none.

In his book, Dr. May confirms my experience of disconnection when he writes, “[a] much more unsettling experience is the loss of the sense of God’s presence, which can often feel like being abandoned by God. But Dr. May views this place of disconnection as a necessary piece of the transformative process. Much like Roshi Halifax found in her research.

So here I am in the nothing, the emptiness. Silence. I feel alone in the desert of my own humanity, separate from God and from others. And there I stay, roiled in rage; shame; self-loathing; abject fear and loneliness. Images of past betrayals and wounds fill my body and my mind. And there I stay.

Dr. May posits that John of the Cross viewed these dark nights as a gift; That the night involves relinquishing attachments and takes us into territory we avoid and, in the process, transforms us.(TDKS p. 71.)

The goal of the transformation, Dr. May writes, the dawn after the night, consists of 3 precious gifts for the human soul. First, the soul’s deepest desire is satisfied. Freed from their attachments, individuals are able to be completely in love with God and to love their neighbors as themselves. This love involves one’s whole self: actions as well as feelings. Second, the delusion of separation from god and creation is expelled; slowly one consciously realizes and enjoys essential union that has always been present. Third, the freedom of love and realization of union leads to active participation in God. Here one not only recognizes one’s own beauty and precious nature, but also shares God’s love and compassion for others in real practical service in the world.

So back to where I am waiting in the darkness, in the shadows, waiting for the storm of the wounds and betrayals to pass. Waiting for… I’m not even sure what.

Until….until… what?

Until there is a spark of something else. A glimmer of light peaks through the veil of darkness. Perhaps a momentary warmth in my heart. And the warmth grows. I may experience a change in perspective around the story of the betrayal or the wound. I may remember that while I was gnashing my teeth and deep in self pity the little voice inside me sent me nuggets of insight that I know are truth, a glimmer of the truth of who I am, really, authentically. Dr. May again confirms this experience through Teresa of Avila. He says, she especially emphasizes that, “(o)ne sees one’s own true nature with increasing clarity. Each time we approach the dawn when…we begin to glimpse ourselves through God’s eyes, we recognize more of our inherent goodness and beauty. “I can find nothing with which to compare the great beauty of a soul,” Teresa says.” (id. p.100)

My body begins to relax; the sense of absolute uncertainty and self doubt slowly dissipates. My attitude slowly changes, perhaps the lack of certainty evolves into a sense of mystery or even wonder, and, maybe I can lean into those bits of wisdom and with some curiosity.

And as I reflect back on my experience in the darkness and more importantly what happens at the end of the tunnel of darkness, I realize I am left emptier, but not in the way of feeling like I’m all alone on a desert island. The emptiness more corresponds to a lightening of a burden, like I’ve shed something. My body feels more lithe and flexible, not so stiff and rigid. Have I really healed old wounds as Roshi Halifax suggests? Iknow I was pulled into those places, I felt I had no choice. And I looked at those wounds and betrayals and felt I was once again back in them. I cried and yelled and wrote about them.

It seems that the Apostle Thomas writes about the inevitability of these nights. “Jesus said: that which is hidden will be revealed to you. Nothing hidden will fail to be displayed. (Gospel of St. Thomas 2.)

And then I got to a place where I recognized that I am who I am, a flawed human being filled with petty jealousy, selfishness, resentment, just like every other human being on this planet. And I began to soften my feelings towards myself, the judgement slipping away leaving an expansiveness, a warmth in my heart. It feels good.

How does this happen? Some would characterize it as Alchemy, others would say it is God’s Grace and still others, a miracle. I subscribe to all of the above.

So what is this warming in my heart?

This is Love and according to Teresa and John, Love as it is realized in God. and that this alchemical process, this “authentic transformation leads us to desire.” The desire to love. For John and Teresa, “the essence of all human desire is for love.” (p. 73).

Dr. May writes, “The spiritual life for Teresa and John has nothing to do with getting closer to God.” It is instead a journey of consciousness. Union with God is realized as a result of Love.” “John says the soul arrives at perfect union with God through love. This deepening of love is the real purpose of the dark night of the soul. The dark night helps us become who we are created to be: lovers of God and one another.” (TDNS pp. 46-47).

And that has been my experience. Each time I move through these dark times the process sheds something, perhaps, that thick protection around my heart that I have been convinced helps me. But John writes that the darkness “becomes our guiding night”, and Dr. May extrapolates, The night is dark for our protection”. “Deep in the darkness, way beneath our senses, God is instilling “another better love”. (Id. pp. 72-73.) And furthermore, John asserts that, “[t]his dark night is an inflow of God into the soul.” (Id. 95). And this inflow is the “loving Wisdom of God.” (id. 96)

And having shed a little more of this armour around my heart, I can move into a place of loving myself more, of loving life and God, Great Spirit, Creator more; of loving the flame within me more, and that desire to love others more.

So with that flame of brightness and light in our soul, the warmth of love burning in our hearts, let us rejoice in the darkness, let it transform us and move us into greater wisdom and greater love.

Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, December 1, 2024                                       

“Awakening to Creator’s Love and Truth: Transformation beyond the experience of historical trauma and cultural differences”

By Gail Melix/Greenwater, Sandwich Monthly Meeting, Sandwich, Massachusetts

Friends I woke up feeling sick this morning, but so wanted to share my message, so I’m here bedside. I love worshipping with you.

Wunee keesuq Neetop, Good day Friends. It’s wonderful to be back worshipping with you, thank you for the invite…. Nutus8ees, I am, Gail Melix also known as Greenwater. I belong to the Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe of Patuxet, Ma., also known by the name Plymouth. I am a member of Sandwich Monthly Meeting located on Cape Cod.

I’d like to start with a thank you to my elders, Leslie Manning and Ken Jacobsen who are holding us and this space in prayer. Ken offered to bring this message for me if I could not make it, and I’m grateful for the offer. Thank you.

 In June of this year I was invited to Durham Friends Meeting and shared a message about what it is for me to be an Indigenous Quaker and to hold two faith communities. I shared with you that I need both, I need both to be whole.

I spoke to you about my deepening relationship with Jesus Christ, my excitement when I discovered the First Nations’ version of the New Testament, my despair over Quaker Indigenous Boarding Schools, and the false Christianity that came with colonization to Turtle Island. It felt like there was more to be said, a second part, to bring today, including the power of hope and gratitude. My words have come from a place of unfolding worship from the past week.

What does land mean to Indigenous people? Land means home.

What if the meaning of home is more than the house you live in and the land that you own?

What if home is the Mashpee River running with herring come spring, the circling of osprey, the color of the morning sky over Punkhorn Point, the lay of the land when winter unfolds, the returning of the peepers every spring, the many colors of green in the pines and grass, the scent of warm damp earth and moss under bare feet, the garden waiting for seeds, the wind on the path between Mashpee and Wakeby Ponds, the fire for tobacco offering and prayer.

What if all these things are home? What if the heart of your home is the community you love? What if this is the meaning of home-land?

 Traditional Indigenous spirituality is land-based. The beauty of God’s creation is the visible truth of God’s existence. The web of life on earth includes all living beings, who are our relatives We are connected and interdependent on one another for health and survival. When you realize you belong to a family of…. Life on earth, this is the beginning of right relationship with Nature.  My father would say, “You take care of the Land and the Land will take care of you.” Land is a living breathing spiritual entity central to traditional beliefs, practices, and ceremonies, including song and dance. Everything is sacred. Nature teaches us and heals us; she provides us with opportunities for joy and delight that we can experience through our five senses… Sometimes I wonder if our sixth sense is our God sense, our birthright knowing of who we belong to….

The Harmony Way, a teaching for humanity, has been passed down through generations of Indigenous people as part of the original instructions for how to live in peace. Peace within ourselves and with all of creation, all forms of life. Peace and harmony are partnered and create balance. Without peace there is no justice, and there is no justice without peace. The systems of oppression, injustice, corporate greed, and annihilation of the earth, committed by the sins of cultural genocide, slavery, and white supremacy must stop… When I get overwhelmed with despair from feeling the suffering of the world, I give these concerns and my prayers to God. The Lord sometimes weeps with me. Hope and gratitude balance me. I discern what is mine to do and pray that I stay teachable.

I want to share some ways that I experience and awaken to God’s Love:

When I place my hands on a tree I feel an exchange of energy, a back and forth greeting and response. There is a sense that we are comforting one another. Even as a child I had trouble keeping my hands off my favorite trees and why should I?  Is it a surprise that we should have favorite trees, the same way we are drawn to a closeness and fondness for certain aunts, uncles, and grandparents? 

I acknowledge and honor the relationship that I have with water during my walks by squatting on the bank of the Santuit River and submerging both hands in the water long enough to leave my scent in the river. I anoint my forehead with river water so to carry her scent. I am in the river and the river is in me. After all we are about 70 % water, of course we are related. Kinfolk. Some days I am given to singing or humming to the river.  A Soft singsong that has words or not, maybe humming, is pleasing to do, and appreciated by the object of my affection. If the songs have words, they always express gratitude and may even be the words thank you repeated over and over.  Wampanoags have appointed water keepers, always women, whose service it is to sing to the water.

My relationship with Nature is one of the things that sustains me. There’s a reawakening of my inner child, that wonder and delight of experiencing the natural world. I did not surrender the curiosity and joy of childhood. The delight of being alive in this way is still a part of me. There’s a sense that something is being made right in my world that has created a wider path to my heart.

I see the face of God everywhere on my woodland walks. Over time I’ve come to the path with a greater ability for deep listening, reverence, and joy. Nature has taught me these things. Peace is easier to come by. If we bear witness to both the beauty and the suffering of all our relations we might be led to action, to be a voice for those who have no voice. The survival of life on earth as we know it depends on the relationship that humans have with Mother Earth. We protect what we love. So I come to the path with this question: What will I fall in love with today?

Retired Episcopal bishop and Choctaw citizen Steven Charleston draws on his Native American experience to navigate collective crisis: 

My ancestors did not survive the Trail of Tears-because they were set apart from the rest of humanity. Their exodus was not a sign of their exclusivity, but rather their inclusivity. In their suffering, they embodied the finite and vulnerable condition of all humanity. They experienced what the whole tribe of the human beings has experienced at one time or another throughout history: the struggle of life, the pain of oppression, and the fear of the unknown. Their long walk was the walk of every person who has known what it means to be alone and afraid. But they walked with courage and dignity because they had the hope of the Spirit within them.… 

Hope makes room for love in the world. We can all share it, we can all believe in it, even if we are radically different in every other way. We no longer need to fear our differences because we have common ground. We can hope together—therefore, hope liberates us. It frees us from our fear of the other. It opens our eyes to see love all around us. It unites us and breaks our isolation. When we decide to embrace hope—when we choose to make that our goal and our message—we release a flow of energy that cannot be overcome. Hope is a light that darkness can never contain.

So much of our life involves relationship; the relationship we have with ourselves.. with God, with other human beings, and with Nature. Everything created is Sacred, including humans, and this is one Way that God shows his Love for us. 

When I think of my two faith communities, Indigenous and Quaker, I see the deep similarities and shared core values that far outweigh our differences.  Quaker testimonies and Indigenous values share common ground. From the soil of this common ground, I see a bountiful harvest for us, ripe with the promise of deep friendships, with the accompaniment of our Holy Ones, and the blessings of Creator.  

There is joy in doing the work and despair that cries out for it.

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(NRSV) Mark 12:30-31, The Two Great Commandments, Jesus said, ^{30 ”} you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ ³¹ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”