Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, June 14, 2026
Rob Levin, rob@roblevin.net, Portland Friends Meeting

Good morning, Friends. I’m here with you today because of a hula hoop
performance at a holiday burlesque show in early December. Since that night, I
feel as though I’ve been fording a river, leaping from one rock to the next. But
there’s no path laid out, it’s one leap and one rock at a time. Thing is, I don’t
know how wide the river is, I can’t see the other side. Maybe it’s even an ocean.
It’s the morning of Saturday, December 6. I’m walking home from a coffee
shop. I check my phone, and see some messages from a group of local clergy
and faith leaders who get together to coordinate social justice actions. I had
been mostly on the periphery of this group for the past year or so, feeling like
an imposter. I’m “just” a Quaker, not clergy. Not a “leader.” Not even sure on
certain days where my “faith” is. I had joined the group because I was hoping
their faith would rub off on me, inspire me, give me courage. So far, it hadn’t
quite happened.

To that point, I had spent most of last year turning away, covering my ears,
despairing. So many dreadful things were happening, and so rapidly, that I
couldn’t bring myself to take action. Yes, I went to the occasional No Kings
Day, or de-escalation training. But I kept feeling that I wasn’t meeting the
moment, that my halfhearted responses did not rise to the level of the harm
that was occurring. Somebody should be doing something! I thought. Pushing
away the obvious subtext, of course, that I was a somebody, that I could be
doing something. But mostly, I didn’t. I turned away. I occasionally wondered,
what was my red line, the horrible last straw that would get me out of my chair
to finally do something? Did I even have a red line anymore?

This particular morning in December, the clergy group messages were all about
immigrants detained in the Cumberland County Jail in Portland. The group
had organized a weekly vigil over the past month or so, but I hadn’t found the
time to show up. There were about 50 detainees at any given time, many
languishing for months on end. Among them was Vivian, an 18-year-old girl
who had been there for almost a year, snatched away from her Massachusetts
home the previous March, just before she was to graduate high school. She
had written a letter, a response to one that the Multifaith Group had sent to
her. I started to read Vivian’s letter, and then I quickly closed the message and
played a game on my phone instead. I just wanted to relax and enjoy my
Saturday. Once again, I looked away, and covered my ears.

That night, I attended a holiday burlesque show called ‘Twas the Night Before
Fascism. I had received free tickets, and went on a lark with my wife and our
friends. It was all part of the plan, to relax and enjoy the weekend. Don’t think
too hard about anything, don’t feel too much.

Like any good burlesque, it was a mashup of music and dancing. The creators
adopted the premise of an old fashioned radio variety show, airing one last time
on the night before the government shut down the airwaves once and for all.
There was lots of hilarity, mocking of certain individuals in the federal
government, it was a rollicking good time – if a little close to our present day
reality. And then towards the end, the lights dimmed, and a young woman
walked onto the stage, barefoot with a set of hula hoops. Ladies and
gentlemen… we present to you, Nettie Loops! Music started, a female singer,
and Nettie Loops began twirling. As the pace picked up, I realized that I was
watching a talented hula hooper. Very talented. And this song, what was this
song? I’d never heard it before. All kinds of dizzying lyrics about our current
political moment, my brain couldn’t quite process it all. But by the third time
around the chorus was becoming quite clear to me. I will read the words to
you, but they won’t quite do justice to the song:

You gave the man your eyes
So you could sleep at night
But you still hear their cries
You can’t outrun this shame
This land was yours and mine
Until they bled it dry
History won’t be kind
To those who turn the other way
Can you hear them crying?
Will you still be silent?

These words filled the dark room, all while Nettie Loops bedazzled us with her
impressive hooping, spinning a half dozen hulas around her arms, now her
legs, now her neck, now every part of her body. Her was this talented
performer, putting on a beautiful spectacle for her audience. And then turning
the lens back on us with those haunting lyrics. The act ended and I felt a lump
in my throat, a tugging at my heart. I went home after the show and listened to
that song five times on repeat. It’s called Have Your Heard the News Today, by
Earth to Eve.

The next morning, at Meeting for Worship, I Quaked about my experience the
night before. I Quaked hard, friends. Something was moving in me. I didn’t
quite know what it was yet.

And now for the first leap to a rock in the river: The week after the hula hoop
moment, I made it to the jail vigil for the first time. I continued to go through
the rest of December. January came, and with it the ICE enforcement surge.
Next rock in the river: I organized a pray-in at Senator Collins’ office. Nine faith
leaders, myself included, were arrested. We had 30 hours from conception to
the launch of the action, with a one-foot snowstorm in between. Way opened
over and over during that process. Starting with Leslie Manning, who
immediately agreed to be our police liaison and jail support. Side note: They
separated those of us who’d been arrested along binary gender lines and placed
us in two police vans. And as the four of us males were sitting in the dark of
the windowless van on the way to jail, we sang out a rich rendition of Lean on
Me.

Next rock: Around that same time, at Quarterly Meeting, I heard this wild story
about someone who became a sponsor to help free an ICE detainee. She wound
up spontaneously flying to Texas, picking him up at a random bus station, and
driving with him back to Maine over four days. Hi Wendy! Next rock in the
river, here it is: Wendy told us that one of the greatest needs to support
immigrants in detention was more sponsors. People like her who could use
their privilege as (primarily) white citizens of stable income to vouch for those
in detention. With the help of the Multifaith Group, I put together a list of 15
volunteers, and my wife and I each sponsored a detainee.

Next rock: I read a story in the Press Herald, about the inhumane conditions at
an ICE facility in Burlington, Massachusetts, just north of Boston. Lack of
basic hygiene supplies, detainees sleeping on floors for a week or two at a time,
in an office park building never meant to hold people overnight. Somebody
should be doing something about this, I thought once again, quickly followed by
phone calls to Massachusetts faith leaders, who passed me along lovingly from
one person to the next, until I eventually found a group that had conducted
two civil disobedience actions outside the Burlington facility. They were looking
to do a third action, but had run out of steam. I helped to bring together about
50 Mainers and Massachusettsans, many of them Quakers, for the third round
of civil disobedience action outside the ICE facility, on a Tuesday in April.

I found my red line, friends. For better or for worse, it wasn’t dismantling
federal agencies. Maybe it should have been, but it wasn’t pardoning violent
criminals. Or trashing the planet. It wasn’t even messing with me and my
rights. No, my red line, like so many others in Los Angeles, Chicago,
Minneapolis, and then Maine, was when they came for my neighbors.
And yes, I found my courage, I finally met the moment, and I’m proud of what
I’ve done over the past few months, along with so many other Quakers and
people of faith. But here’s the hard part I have to share with you this morning:
Much of the time I still want to turn away. Suffering and injustice continues.
It’s not quite as obvious as it was in January, during the surge. But arrests of
our neighbors continue, in Maine and elsewhere. And I’m still tempted to turn
away, every single day. Some days, I do, and that’s ok. We can’t show up at
every moment, we all deserve moments of rest and checking out.

But I worry that I’ll go back to my life of relative comfort, back to turning away,
back to covering up my ears. And I ask for your help, friends. Because that
rock in the river that I’m standing on? We’re actually standing on it together,
all of us. And it’s rough out here. We’re going to lose our balance from time to
time, and we’re going to need to lean on each other if we’re going to find and
leap to the next rock. I ask you to listen with me, to not turn away, to not cover
your ears. I ask you to hold me to account. I ask you to keep inspiring me with
your actions.

Let me paint one last scene for you: Exactly one week after our civil
disobedience action in April at the Burlington, Mass ICE facility, I was
unexpectedly right back at the same spot. This time to pick up Pastor Rufino
as he was being released by ICE after two weeks in jail. I had met the Pastor in
January, because the Angolan man assigned to me as a sponsor was a
congregant in the pastor’s church. Now Pastor Rufino was being freed on bond,
and I was waiting in the parking lot as ICE released people one-by-one through
the front door. While waiting, I met Katie Holicky, an Episcopal Priest at St.
Paul’s up the road in Brunswick. Katie was waiting for another Maine abductee
to be released, to take her home. As we waited, a woman in a hijab hesitantly
emerged from the building. Katie walked up to greet her. As Katie enfolded the
newly freed woman in her arms, the woman in the hijab let out the deepest sob
I have ever heard from an adult human being. Her body heaved and her head
rested on Katie’s shoulder, as she continued a primal wail. It was a cry of
deepest lamentation, a raw expression of personal suffering, tinged with relief
at being freed, and also echoing sorrow writ large in the world.

With this scene in mind, I close with the closing lyrics from the song I heard at
that burlesque show that night in early December:

Can you hear them crying?
Will you still be silent?
Can we hear them crying? Will we still be silent?….

Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, June 7, 2026

Alicia McBride is Senior Director for Quaker Leadership at the Friends Committee for National Legislation, and a member of Sandy Springs Friends Meeting

Last weekend I was in Richmond, Indiana at the memorial service for Mary Garman. Mary was my “bonus mom” (a phrase I use to avoid the negative associations of “mother-in-law”). She was also a mentor, teacher, and cheerleader in my journey to recognize my work as a form of ministry.

Among the stories told at her memorial, one kept returning to me as I prepared this message about integrity. For a period of time, before the Supreme Court upheld marriage equality, Mary stopped officiating weddings.

This was a matter of personal integrity. Some people had access to the legal and social protections of marriage, while others didn’t. So, for a time, she stopped participating in that system.

—-

Integrity is one of those concepts that comes up a lot among Quakers. Often we refer to it as one of our testimonies.

This morning I want to consider this testimony more deeply –what it means to have integrity as a Friend, and what integrity means for our Quaker meetings, organizations, and institutions.

—-

I want to begin by offering a metaphor, to clarify what I mean by integrity.

This metaphor draws on a model developed by Dr. Darya Funches, which I first encountered in a workshop led by Niyonu Spann.

Imagine a water lily. There’s a flower floating on the surface of the pond, the thing you can see most easily. Depending on how clear the pond is, you might be able to see the stem that holds up the flower. And down at the bottom of the pond, there are roots – growing in the sediment, and supporting both the stem and the flower.

Here comes the metaphor.

The flower is what others can see. It’s what we do, the actions we take, how we show up in the world.

The stem is what we say about who we are: our mission statements and “about us” pages.

Roots: Core assumptions, core beliefs, what we are grounded in.

All three of these parts of the water lily need to be aligned for the flower to bloom. The roots support the stem, which holds up and nourishes the flower.  Out of our secure grounding, our words and actions align to testify to our beliefs.

When all these pieces fit together, we have integrity.

—-

Let’s talk about the roots.

In the original model, the roots are described as values, core beliefs, or our worldview. Those are indeed things that people can root themselves in.

But, as Friends, our roots are deeper and wilder. We are rooted in what we experience when we center down and listen to God.

In the Pendle Hill pamphlet, The Testimony of Integrity in the Religious Society of Friends, Wilmer Cooper draws a clear distinction between values and testimony. He writes, “Values are projected ideals or goals which are rationally determined, whereas Quaker testimonies are derived from religious faith and experience fashioned out of a life of prayer, devotion, and worship, joined with spiritual discernment and commitment.”

More succinctly, in his consideration of Quaker testimonies, Paul Buckley writes, “Values are things we decide on. Testimonies are products of the Inward Light.”

We have integrity when our words and actions are rooted in that experience of the Inward Light and when we are faithful to it. We testify, in all sorts of ways, when we have integrity.

To come back to Mary Garman – what we can see is her action, not to perform marriages. In declining requests, she shared her discomfort with a system that discriminated against same-gender couples. What was going on in the roots – I never had the chance to talk to her about it. Knowing Mary, God (or “Gahd” as she would say in her Chicago accent) was involved somehow.

In the book of Matthew, chapter 7, Jesus uses architectural rather than botanical language, but he’s getting at a similar idea of the importance of action stemming from God’s teachings.  He compares a listener who acts on his words to a wise man who builds his house on a rock. Despite rain and wind, the house stays up because its foundation is strong. Those who hear Jesus’s teaching and do not act, on the other hand, are like a foolish man who builds on sand. When those same storms come, the house falls down – losing its structural integrity. (7:24-27)

—-

Integrity is what happens when we hear God’s word and put it into practice – thought, word, deed. The house holds up. The flower blooms.

—-

Simple, right?

Reminds me of one of my favorite descriptions of Quaker worship –Michael Birkel, in his book Silence and Witness: “[Quaker worship] is like flying a jet; you take off, you go somewhere, you land; you quiet yourself, you encounter God, you refresh and perhaps redirect your life.”

This is what we aspire to as Friends- to be directed by that inward teacher, to live a life consistent with the promptings of that still small voice.

—-

This is not a solo project.

We need all the help we can get from those around us to discern, to seek clearness, and to test what right action, with integrity to the prompting of the Inner Light, means. As Paul Buckley notes, “the voice of the inward light may be infallible, but our ears are not.”

There is also an important role to recognize that infallibility with humility and grace, for ourselves and others. We are human, we are impatient, we make mistakes. We might think we know where we’re going, where God is directing us to go, but sometimes – often – we might get off track.

When my son Howard was small, his solution to every challenge was to run head first at it. Sometimes that was a literal solution (he once knocked Mary, his beloved Granna, over while trying to give her a hug); sometimes he just needed to have an answer immediately and would not let something go until he did. This was often not the best way to solve problems.

Quakers call this tendency “outrunning our guide” – when our words and actions get ahead of God’s direction. Maybe this looks like our water lily flower starting to drift away from its roots. We need to be able to notice that drift, accept that it’s happening, and come back to the center. As St. Benedict wrote in his rule, “Always, we begin again.”

—

When I talked about Mary’s actions around marriage, I had to speculate about the roots. It might be obvious, but we don’t know what’s happening under the ground, literally or spiritually.

In our own lives we may feel the alignment that signifies right action– that sense of spiritual snapping into place. We don’t always have that same insight for other people.

There’s a challenge in that but also a beauty. Each of us shares our encounter with the divine refracted through the lens of our own identity, experience, and unique perspective. Our roots grow in the same soil, but our blossoms are different. It’s like the bush in Hawaii a coworker told me about, which produces many colors of flowers, all from the same plant.

When we come together and share how we experience the divine, seek clearness together on how we are led, our perspective widens. We encounter God in new ways. Our hearing sharpens.

Yet because we can’t see what’s happening underground, there can be a tendency to focus on what we can see – the flower, the fruits of our actions. We can mistake what we do with what it means to be a Friend, and to focus on the purity of our actions at the expense of a focus on the faithfulness of our leadings.

This is not just a modern issue. I know that my Quaker meeting wrote people out of the community for fighting in the Civil War, or for marrying outside of the Quaker faith. (For a fictional take, the novel Flowers from the Storm, by Laura Kinsale, is, among other things, a fascinating story about God and human love at one of these high-judgement times in Quaker history.)

Today, someone might talk about how they’re a “bad Quaker” because they don’t compost, or because they order from Amazon, or because they avoid talking to the annoying person next door, or because they pay taxes even knowing that money supports U.S. war and imperialism.

And maybe that is true – maybe this person has a leading against these things and is not acting faithfully. Maybe they are not seeking to practice integrity and bring their words and actions into alignment with what they hear from God.

Or, maybe, they are trying. They are doing their best with what they have, in the situation they find themself in. They are listening with their fallible ears, and discerning how they are led to live a life that testifies to their particular divine calling. And maybe that call is more than a set of rules that we expect people to follow to be a “good Quaker.”

One more quote from Paul Buckley’s reflection on the testimonies:  “Ultimately there is only one testimony, to faithfully follow the word of Spirit breathed within our hearts. What may be named as separate testimonies are merely different flowerings from the same root.”  We testify to our integrity, ultimately, in the ways our lives testify to the world.

—

So far I’ve been talking about personal integrity and how each of us might demonstrate our experience of the Divine. And I’ve noted that those personal leadings happen in community. Now I want to come back to the idea of integrity – not just in community, but as community.

Another example, from FCNL:

Aftermath of 9/11, foundations were concerned that they would be accused of financing terrorism. They began requiring grant recipients to certify that their board members were not part of a terrorist organization. FCNL’s Executive Committee discerned that FCNL would not comply, even if it meant losing foundation support. Instead, they decided they would send a letter along with their grant requests, explaining why they were not complying as a matter of conscience.

As with Mary’s decision not to perform weddings, here we can notice the layers of action, explanation, and leading. We can also imagine the judgement from someone who, on the one hand, wonders why FCNL is engaging with this compromised system in the first place; or on the other, is jeopardizing money that could do good work.

As with personal integrity, corporate integrity requires cultivating our spiritual roots. We need to consider: Where – in our meetings, organizations, schools – are the spaces where foundational, deep listening and worship happen? How are we building relationships, trust, and common understandings? How do we help people distinguish personal opinions from the pull of the divine in discerning that next right step?

Once we know how we are led, collectively, we also need to have the courage to say it, and to act from that knowledge – in an environment that may be less than ideal.

            —

Matthew 10:16 Jesus sends out his disciples into the world “like sheep among wolves.” “Therefore,” he tells them, “be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.”

This is our work as Friends too. To understand the world, to interact with it, but not to be co-opted by it. It’s part of why I became a Friends – to expand my faith beyond what happened in one hour, in one building, one day of the week.

In some ways, Jesus is describing an impossibility. Snakes are predators. Doves are prey. How are we meant to be both?

That is the challenge of being a Quaker in the world – and, even more so, the challenge of being a Quaker organization trying to function in a complex web of laws, norms, expectations, and conventional wisdom. Our meetings own property, pay taxes, hire employees. Our schools face financial pressures and receive endless advice on how to “compete.” Our organizations, like FCNL, interact with and work within political systems that are often unjust. The world is a messy place to be. 

It can be easy to be swayed by the assumptions and norms around us, to feel we have to just go along. To be shrewd, but not innocent. How do we navigate without becoming unmoored from our roots, having them migrate from rock to sand? How do we keep alignment and witness to God’s message with integrity?

Our organizations and institutions need the touchstones of worship, discernment, and spiritual grounding to be able to recognize when conventional wisdom or cultural norms might diverge from the roots of God’s message to that community.

Sometimes, the organization might go along with the norms. Having influence on the world means we can’t opt out entirely, or die on every hill. But it’s important that those choices too are discerned, that we don’t just fall into a direction. All our choices speak  about who we are and how we are aligned with the promptings of the Spirit. Every time we do this challenging work, of acting from a grounded place, of grappling together to discern the next faithful step we can take with integrity, we build our spiritual capacity to do it again.

In her book Against Purity, Living Ethically in Compromised Times, the anthropologist and philosopher Alexis Shotwell asks us to consider how, “under conditions of oppression and exploitation, [we might] enact practices of freedom that can shape worlds we currently cannot imagine.”

When we faithfully listen to and follow the promptings of Spirit with integrity, we can be part of shaping that world.

My wish for you is that your roots grow deep and your actions shine brightly.

Read at DMM business meeting, May 17, 2026

Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, May 17, 2026

Ellen and I were in Florence, Italy on Easter Sunday, and we saw an unusual celebration.  A wooden tower on a cart was pulled by white oxen into the square in front of the cathedral.  Thousands of people crowded the adjacent streets the allowed a view of the square.  In the middle of their Easter mass, inside the cathedral, the archbishop lit a fuse on a metal dove mounted on a wire.  The metal dove flew down the cathedral nave, out the front door, and lit another fuse on the tower.  The dove then flew on, back into the cathedral to where it started.  What followed were fireworks on the wooden tower, and they erupted in sequence over the next twenty minutes: rockets and explosions and catherine wheels and fountains and more.  It was an unusual feast for the eyes and the ears and the nose.  The Florentines have been doing this every Easter for over 500 years.  Once a year on Easter, the Scoppio del Carro, the exploding cart. 

Is this extravaganza of sight and sound and smell a spiritual event?  Perhaps for some.  A tourist experience?  Probably for many others.  It has stayed on my mind because it led me to wondering what it takes to help people have a spiritual life. 

Many people I know don’t have spiritual lives.  They don’t consider themselves as ‘being religious’ or ‘being spiritual.’  They don’t belong to a church; they don’t go to church.  If they think about those of us who do, I imagine they think of us as decent enough folk but perhaps a little silly or foolish.  Foolish to believe such things, whatever it is that we believe.  I’m not disparaging such folks who don’t have spiritual lives.  I’m simply observing that they don’t see a way into the spiritual realm.

And what is it that we believe, those who us who do have spiritual lives – or lives with a spiritual dimension.  I’m not sure I can say, quite varied things, I’m sure, but I can’t really say even about myself. 

Still, I think we believe this, in common.  We believe there is something deeper, something beyond, something very important.  What we can see, touch, taste, feel, smell:  let’s call that the ‘ordinary‘ world.  Or the ‘sensible’ world.  Is it the ‘real’ world?  A lot of those who don’t have spiritual lives think so, I think.  But those who do have spiritual lives think there is something quite real, maybe more real, beyond what we can see, touch, taste, feel, or smell.  There’s something even more real that is deeper, that is beyond or beneath or above this ordinary world. 

Is this making sense to you? 

So I ask myself, is there a door to that deeper reality?  A portal?  Let’s call it that:  a portal that we may not see until one day we do.  And the more we make use of it, the more confidant we become that the portal is there – and there for everyone. 

Many people live in a world where there is no such door, or where there appears to be no door.  Perhaps we have to provide it – not just for ourselves but also or especially for them.  What might that portal to the spiritual realm look like?

Earlier in our spring trip to Europe — and I hope you’ll forgive me if I talk a little more about how we spent our spring vacation — we spent a day in Reims, in the north of France, to visit the cathedral there. It was once the site of coronation for all French kings.  The current cathedral was largely built in the 13^th century, so it is over 800 years old.  It is one of the pinnacle accomplishments of high gothic architectural style. 

That cathedral has arched and vaulted ceilings; it has towers, and flying buttresses on the sides.  All these features allow considerable height.  The cathedral interior is over 125 feet high floor to ceiling, and the towers and spire are more than twice that height.  The cathedral soars above every other building in the city.  It can be seen for miles from every direction across the surrounding fields.  The exterior view is awe inspiring.  The interior height draws you into a different reality.  It was intended to be a portal to a spiritual realm, completely different from everything else in everyday life.  It does this by providing an experience of heightened sensory experiences of sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. On this basis you can see the Scoppio del Carro as a dynamic add-on on sight, sound and smell in motion that adds to the heightened sensory experience.

There are other features of this cathedral, and all the other high gothic cathedrals built in the late middle ages that give you sensory experiences that transport you.  At one time, the floor was a labyrinth to walk in prayer.  The towers contain bells that weigh over 10 tons.  There are gorgeous stained glass windows.  There are hundreds of carved statues on the façade and on the sides.  Inside there are relics of saints and candles.  At religious services, likely incense will be burned.  The spiritual realm may be beyond our five senses, a different reality, but this portal is constructed to draw you towards a different reality.  In sight and sound and smell, even in feel, the cathedral seeks to carry you to a different reality, a spiritual reality, one that lifts your eyes and your hands and your heart and your mind to God. 

On our travels in March and April, we saw other versions of this same high gothic setting:  in Paris, at Notre Dame (now completely restored after a terrible fire); in churches in smaller cities and towns in France and Germany and Switzerland; and in soaring cathedrals and basilicas in Italy in Milan, and of course in Florence where we saw the Scoppio del Carro, the explosion of the cart in front of the door to the cathedral. 

The cathedral is not the whole of the portal.  All the delight for the senses that comes with high gothic cathedrals provides a setting for a religious ceremony, the Mass.  The Mass is a recreation of Jesus’s Last Supper with his disciples.  That celebration of the Mass – the Eucharist – is intended to be the essential part of the portal to the life spiritual.  Those who consider themselves Roman Catholics have been celebrating the Mass, providing that portal together, for two thousand years – since the decades after the crucifixion. 

As Friends, as Quakers, we don’t use that kind of portal.  Quite explicitly, even defiantly not.  What you see and hear and smell and touch here in this Meetinghouse, in any Quaker Meetinghouse, is something quite different.  There are no vaulted ceilings, no soaring heights, no spires, no stained glass, no sculptures, no pictures, no relics, no incense.  And of course there is no ritual – no communion, no saying the same words week after week.  Our portal depends on minimizing sensory experience of sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. 

We do have a portal, I think, but it’s a quite different one.  Our portal is, in appearance to the five senses, the complete antithesis of the portal of a high gothic cathedral and the Mass.   Simple surroundings, no sensory distractions, a gathering in silence.  Here at Durham Friends, we do allow for some hymn singing and a prepared message.  But on the whole, we don’t provide an experience that is larger or richer or more ornate than everyday life; we provide an experience that is quieter, emptier.  It is meant to be a very different kind of portal to the life spiritual.  Instead of going higher, we provide a portal that goes within. 

The creation of this different portal, this turn away from the high gothic cathedral, started with Martin Luther and the Reformation.  Quickly, all over Europe, people sought something more authentic, more personal – more intense because more simple.  They created alternative spiritual bodies  — today we call them denominations.  No group carried that simplification farther than Quakers. 

Does our portal work better?  For some?  If so, for whom?  That’s what I’ve found myself thinking about.  I know it works better for me.  What about those others who do not see the door?

We should remember that the Reformation was proceeded and, I think, propelled forward by the invention of the printing press.  On our trip, we visited the site of that invention in Mainz in Germany.  In a space of a few years, the Bible became available to own and to read to thousands and then tens of thousands and then millions more people.  Having the Bible to read was itself a different kind of portal. 

The high gothic cathedral provided a setting for telling the gospel story visually, in paintings and sculptures that told the story.  With the printing press, ordinary people began to read the Bible for themselves.  They didn’t need those paintings and sculptures – and maybe those paintings and sculptures undermined the Bible.  For some Reformation protestants, the Bible became the one true portal, the one and only. 

But remember, not for Quakers.  From the beginning, Quakers revered the Bible but viewed the Bible as only a “secondary” rule, one subordinate to the inward, immediate revelation of the Holy Spirit — the “Inner Light”.  As Robert Barclay put it:  we esteem Scripture as a “true and faithful testimony” of the Spirit, but insist that the Spirit—not the Bible—is the “primary ground of all Truth”.  Listening to the Inward Teacher became our portal. 

This is our portal to the life spiritual:  seeking the Holy Spirit (by whatever name) in simplicity and stillness and silence. 

It seems to work for us, few though we may be in number.  But does it work for the many?  Does it work for the many, and does it work for those without a spiritual life? Does it work in an era of graphic novels?  Of logos and brands? In an era of reality TV?  In an age of cell phones? In a time of social media and Artificial Intelligence?  Those are the questions I found myself thinking about. 

How do we provide – how do we find – a portal to the deeper spiritual reality.  I hope you’ll ask, regularly, is this a door to a deeper spiritual reality?  And I hope you find one.

Also posted on Riverview Friend

Message given on Mother’s Day, May 10, 2026, at Durham Friends Meeting. On June 16, 2025, Shelley Randall also brought a Father’s Day message to Durham Friends.

Welcome and Happy Mother’s Day!

And its complicated! Mothers and daughters are complicated, mothers and sons are complicated, mothers and children are complicated period. And then as luck would have it sometimes the children become the mothers as their mothers age or get sick or become unavailable. How complicated is that?

Sometimes the children parent the mothers throughout their childhood, sometimes the mothers never let go of trying to parent their children as if they never mature – and maybe they don’t.

And sometimes men mother their children.

I am not a mother in the traditional sense, I have not carried a child to term or given birth nor raised children under my roof. And I have the utmost respect for those that do take on this endeavor. Especially in these times of discord and uncertainty.

I can only imagine the worry, the frustration and resentment, the knee jerk call to defend that mothers experience each and every day, alongside the heartfelt pride, love and joy that comes with raising a child.

But I am a mother nevertheless, in the broadest of terms. I have nurtured others in a variety of situations professionally and personally, as a friend, as a substance abuse counselor. As a Guardian Ad Litem for children, a lawyer for parents and children involved in the child protection system. I have witnessed countless women being told they are unfit to raise the children they birthed. And I have seen children that were removed from their mothers return once they are 18 despite the circumstances being unchanged: substance abuse, violence and mental illness. The bond is strong and most often unresolved.  

We are, afterall, flawed human beings. That is all we are and ever will be. Some of us strive towards perfection; some of us don’t give a damn. And some of us toggle back and forth between the two on any given day.

My mother decided to manage her four children from the collective view of her generation with regard to mothering. Making sure we had the right attire, that we went to the right school, played the right sports and knew the right people. She wanted us to succeed in her world. So that is what she gave us and asked of us.

But what I really craved was her attention to who I was and not what she wanted me to be, I craved her acceptance. I wanted her to be a mother that could plumb the depths of emotions, dig deep into the meaning of life. She wanted to skate on the surface and have fun, why couldn’t I, I’m sure she wondered.

My mother was not perfect in my eyes and I was not a perfect daughter to her but we grew to respect one other once we let go of our expectations that we carried – You know – She should be more like me!

And I certainly was a thorn in her side. You see I didn’t buy into her world view. And in fact I disdained it, not only in my teens but into my twenties until I could make my own decisions about what path I needed to walk. Once I was able to do that my disdain slowly fell away but the damage was done. Our relationship had become grounded in mistrust of each other and each other’s world view. 

We were at an impasse. And this impasse was unacceptable to me, I needed my mother.

So I did what I could to spend time with her and my stepfather on their terms without compromising my values. I’d visit them in the winter time on Martha’s Vineyard when there were no parties to attend, no one to impress. And I curbed my curiosity about her inner workings; how she felt about things. For her part, she did not judge my quiet and notably unsocial life, my lack of husband and children.

We took walks together peaking through windows of empty summer homes and entering newly constructed houses commenting on design and interior decorating. She fed me serving lovely meals in front of the fire.

Then my mother started to call me in the mornings when the furnace in their 18^th century salt box failed and the temperature was 50 degrees. I listened and watched giving her the space to come to her own conclusions.

She made some decisions privately, without complaint, without discussion.

And I waited.

She decided she and my stepfather would move to an assisted living facility outside of Boston, near where she grew up.

My stepfather did not do well there – essentially he went to bed and got up only to accompany her to dinner so that she could dress and wave and nod at the other dressed and nodding residents.

He died about a year after they landed there. And my mother took up with another resident who could accompany her to dinner.

I waited and figured out how to visit just her and not go to dinner with the new beau.

The most precious memories I have of my mother and me are of sitting together on her loveseat in front of the t.v. watching British mysteries, shoulder to shoulder, holding hands in her apartment when she was in her nineties.

Decades of effort to bridge a seemingly unbridgeable divide yielded simple expressions of love that I had craved. And I am at peace because of it. As she was, her last words to me the evening she died at the age of 95 were “I love you Shelley”. And off she went – after I had left, privately as she always did everything.

And now Motherhood is ever more complicated as we watch unfold sons and daughters that make choices that did not seem possible a generation ago. It seems like more and more of our children are experiencing a fundamental conflict between their soul and their bodies that causes them despair. Girls are telling their parents that they are in the wrong body, they need to be in a boy’s body and vice versa. How did this come about – we want answers around the origin of this “trend” we want data and statistics, potential influences that has caused this. We want someone or something to blame for this “anomaly”.  We shake our heads in incomprehension and misunderstanding. Yet how could we possibly understand what it would be like to have such a fundamental disconnect? This is all too much for us.

It was difficult for me to feel and then know from an early age that I did not fit in to my mother’s social construct and therefore I did not fit into my family – it was an impossibility – I was not that person. That understanding, that sense of disconnect from my biological family caused me a great deal of distress over decades – trying to fit in, trying not to fit in, trying to keep my mouth shut, not keeping my mouth shut and finally just staying away from my family altogether. And all the terms were cast about – it’s just a phase, she’ll come around -why can’t she just fit in!

So I can only imagine what it must be like to feel like you do not belong in your own body. The shock and horror and despair one must feel. And the panic. Who is going to love me? What will my mother think, say, do?

The mothering attributes raised up entail nurturing and taking care of and loving and we all hold those capabilities no matter our genders. And as such it is our job to nurture, take care of and love our children, all of them.  And keep them out of harm’s way. But what does that look like with a child that says to us, I’m in the wrong body? And putting that child in the appropriate body entails cutting things off that the child was born with, that they came out of the womb with? How do we manage that? With a blind eye? With dismissal? Its just a phase?  Or do we listen with our hearts and move along the unfamiliar path together with our children, listening to their heartfelt expressions of who they are and holding their hands.

I do not have any data or statistics – in fact I have only personal experience with a friend, and friends who are parents of trans kids. And I’ve watched from a distance at the courage and strength of love it takes to commit to a path that is integrous to the child’s soul but maybe far out of the norm of experience. I’ve watched with awe and the utmost respect at the expansiveness of heart this path requires, the nurturing of one’s child’s Spirit and the belief it takes in one’s child’s own heart and soul to walk this path.

And I’ve also seen the outcomes – my friend becoming softer as he settles into his true nature, no longer having to wear armor or move about burdened with a secret. No longer self-destructive or using drugs. I’ve watched the anguish of parents of trans kids turn to relief that they no longer have to worry about suicidality as they watch their children fully enter who they were meant to be, their children now feeling safe enough to express themselves truly, become productive members of the family and society. Knowing and feeling that they are loved and can love others honestly. This is what a mother yearns for her child.

And we are all mothers, we all have the ability to fall into our hearts to find the love and nurturing that was cast upon the one gender, women, throughout the ages. It is incumbent upon us all, now, women, men, mothers, fathers, uncles and aunts, to recognize the energy spent in our minds, the rational arguments, the “it didn’t used to be like this”, the science and economic rationales. We must enter into our hearts to find the love for ourselves and all of our flaws and thusly find the love for all others despite perhaps not understanding but learning to allow and accept. As we do that for others, we do that for ourselves. And we are richer for having found this expansiveness in our hearts and the possibility to reach out and put ourselves in another’s shoes, to learn about our own hearts and its capacities for encompassing others.

This is the path of love.

MAY WE ALL BE MOTHERS

May we all embody those attributes we find in the Sacred Mother

May we nourish and nurture ourselves and our human brothers and sisters in all their forms and bodies

May we care for our children and all children throughout the world

May we find interdependence and connection with all Beings

May we find our inner mothers to shower this world with love and the abundance of joy and satisfaction today and always.

May it be so. Blessed Be. Amen

Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, May 3, 2026

It’s wonderful to be here with Durham Friends again. I wish we could be there in person. Thank you Leslie for the invite and for serving as elder for the whole body. Thank you Ken Jacobsen, my partner, for serving as my elder.

Wunee keesuq-Good Day.  Nutus8ees- I am called Gail Melix also known as Greenwater. I am a member of Sandwich Monthly Meeting on Cape Cod, and a member of the Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe in Patuxet, Ma, the land’s first name, also known as Plymouth. I have two faith communities, Indigenous and Quaker which share many of the same values. I find that they fit together well in beauty and in truth. 

I was flooded with ideas of messages to bring today. After worship with discernment I found myself deeply led to speak of Joy, and to do this by sharing some of my stories that express HOW I experience Joy. I’m finding that the presence of joy, peace, and kindness is needed everywhere I go.  Joy, peace and kindness is the presence that is needed now, paired with love. The despair that many of us are experiencing cries out for this Joy… to balance us into well- being.  Can we go about cheerfully sharing our joy with one another?

I climb trees, I decided I couldn’t surrender this childhood joy. One day, I was in the arms of a white pine: silent, holding completely still. A blue heron lit on a branch, two trees down, about a yard from me. I waited and watched wondering when she would notice me. She did. We locked eyes for a good two minutes, before she hopped up and off the branch with a six-foot wingspan and flew, maneuvered—I don’t know how—through that dense thicket of pine branches, and with such Grace. I wanted to shout: Yes. Yes. Teach me that. Teach me that form of grace! Sometimes our hearts are made to be full to bursting with longing.  I’m often suddenly surprised into joy when I’m in the natural world and I find that my faith accompanies me.

I have my favorite trees and anticipate the sighting of them. When I place my hands on a tree I feel an exchange of energy: a back and forth greeting and a response of shared delight. 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 that we are drawn to a closeness and fondness for certain aunts, uncles, and grandparents?

When I hold completely still and quiet, hidden in a tree, all life around me loses the tension that exists when I am visibly present. The birds and the two- and four-leggeds come back out into the sun and air, once again. I sometimes wonder if we become invisible when we are so still. I’ve had songbirds light on me as if I’m a limb on the tree. I do know that if I sit long enough in stillness day after day, there will come a time when I transform into a feeling of oneness with all life; my separateness disappears. I am a part of the pulse of life, just one being in the web, no more or less important than other life. No hierarchy. I am fortunate to have this traditional knowledge, received from my F/father, my ancestors, and from Nature’s teachings. It is reaffirmed by Creator every day. One day while looking up into the tops of several very tall white pines that the sun was streaming through, I became aware of how very small I am. I am not the center of the world. Giving up ego for the reward of greater potential becomes a gift. I was given to understand that the face of Creator can be seen everywhere in the beauty of creation, and the Joy this brings is given freely to us.

I acknowledge and honor the relationship that I have with water during my walk 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 from one hand and the nape of my neck with the other hand, so as to carry her scent. I am in the river, and the river is in me. We are one. After all, we are 50-75 % water, the average being  60 percent 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 hummed, is pleasing to do and appreciated by the river. If the songs have words, they always express gratitude and may be the same words repeated over and over. Wampanoags have appointed water keepers, always women, whose service it is to sing to the water. If we bear witness to the beauty of Nature And witness to the ways she suffers, we might be led to discern what is ours to do.; perhaps to be the voice for those who have no voice. What we love we protect, but for the desire and commitment to do so.

Creator and Christ are in the Joy I feel when communing with Nature. Because of this deepening relationship I have a greater ability for peace, deep listening, reverence and joy. These are sacred experiences, where joy and healing are being co-created by God and humans. There’s a reawakening to wonder that has created a wider path to my heart, and thus, to love.

I love to tell the story of the buttercups and me. Worshipping outdoors in the grass one day my attention was drawn to a patch of buttercups I was sitting next to. I love that deep yellow shade and their cheerful faces. I decided to hold them in the Light from a place of gratitude…. Suddenly, during worship, I realized that the buttercups were holding me.

I come to the path with this question, where will I find delight and joy today?

And now I’m asking you, where will you find joy today and how ill you share it?

I’m reminded Jesus came to teach us how to find joy. He said, “Never stop walking this road of love…as you walk in my ways my love will remain in you. I am saying this so your hearts will be filled with the same joy I have.” John 15: 9-11. First Nations Version of the New Testament, an Indigenous Translation

This joy that permeates the natural world that we discover in Quaker worship also permeates our shared inner universe of love.

Thank you friends. I love worshipping with you.  Let’s move into this worship now.

Today’s message included excerpts from the article, The Delight of Being Alive, by Gail Melix, Friends Journal, February of 2025: https://www.friendsjournal.org/the-delight-of-being-alive/

A message for the Durham, ME Quaker meeting, April 19, 20

Thank you for inviting me to bring a message.

My name is Lori Milner. I live in Chelsea, I attend UUCC, the Unitarian
Universalist Community Church in Augusta, and I know Leslie Manning
from our mutual affiliation with the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine, or ChIME.
I’m honored to be here with you today.

Earth Day is this week, but for those who love the Earth and are concerned
about her health, every day is Earth Day.

My opening words are those from Wendell Berry, “The Peace of Wild Things”

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

In the midst of the human-created chaos that is the daily news cycle, I
often look out my window or go outside. Even in the midst of our concerns
about climate change, the sun still rises and sets; the moon shows her
lovely face, shining in my windows at night. The stars are brilliant,
especially in crisp cold air. The trees are standing tall, patiently waiting for
the changing of seasons and their leaves to bud and unfurl. Birds are
singing. Grass will grow, and I will have to mow it. Over and over. I live on a
road that ends in Butternut Park, across from Hallowell. My dog, Sarayu,
and I walk down the hill to the park and the Kennebec River. The geese
and ducks are back. An eagle soars overhead, coming in to rest in the top
of the pine tree where the nest is waiting for eggs. The Maine sky is the
blue of Mother Mary’s robe. I’m finding solace and refuge in the natural
world.

Now, I’m not your typical outdoorsy person. I don’t like going barefoot. I’m
afraid of ticks and I had a nice run-in with brown tail moth rash the first
summer after I moved back to Maine. Welcome home. I like the sun, but
when it’s out, you’ll find me in the shade. I’ll go in the water, but I wear
swim shoes. I don’t like getting rained on. I hate sweating! Yet, here I am,
about to begin a practice of wandering in the outdoors, engaging in sacred
interaction with the natural world surrounding me. Not to use the Earth and
nature to make me feel better, but to get to know and love Creation in a
reciprocal way that is new for me. And I’ll be inviting others to do it with
me, as I am starting a wild church in the Augusta area.

In her book Church of the Wild, How Nature Invites Us into the Sacred,
Victoria Loorz shares her story of falling in love with the natural world
outside her door. Restoring relationship and entering into conversation
with the more than human parts of creation, taking her pastoral ministry
from indoor churches into the holy wild, with respect and reciprocity.

Some definitions:
Wild: not out of control, but pertains to the natural world itself, not tamed
or domesticated.
Church: an opportunity for intentional connection with the sacred through
nature.

The heart of a wild church gathering is the invitation to wander in the area
with a sense of wonder and curiosity. See if something calls to you, that is,
it catches your attention. Or it may not be one thing, but the entire scenery
around you that draws you into relationship with All That Is. “Sauntering is
an ancient spiritual practice of slowly and reverently wandering through
nature, open to the possibility of an encounter with a particular place, wild
being, and the unknown.” (Field Guide to Church of the Wild, pg 102.)
Sixteenth century mystic St. John of the Cross wrote about his sauntering
(Field Guide, pg 103):

I was sad one day and went for a walk;
I sat in a field.
A rabbit noticed my condition and came near.
It often does not take more than that to help at times – to just be close to
creatures who are so full of knowing,
so full of love that they don’t – chat,
they just gaze with their marvelous understanding.

In the book of Job 12:7-8 in The Message translation it says:
Ask the animals what they think – let them teach you:
let the birds tell you what’s going on.
Put your ear to the earth – learn the basics.
Listen – the fish in the ocean will tell you their stories.
So today I would like to invite you into a saunter, a “wander and wonder”
time. We won’t be going outside, but as you came in, each of you was
offered a pine cone. Is there anyone who didn’t get one?

I suspect you all are masters at sitting in silence, listening for the voice of
Spirit. And I think that will happen later in the service. For now I want to
invite you into a little different experience of listening to Spirit. This is an
invitation to engage with your pine cone, hold it with curiosity, see if it has
something to tell you about itself, or the Creator and/or Creation. We will
take five minutes to listen, and then offer the opportunity for a few minutes
of sharing.

There are pens and paper available if anyone wants to journal. I’ll keep
time for us.

[Pause]

Would anyone like to share what you heard, or what this was like for you?

My final invitation is to come forward if you like, and place your pine cone
somewhere on the mandala. If you want to keep your cone, feel free to
take another from the basket and place it.

I thank you for your time. Blessings to all of you

Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, March 15, 2026

Thank you for inviting me to bring a message.  I think I have brought a message to Durham each year since we moved to Maine six years ago.  I look forward to being with you and am so grateful for the opportunity to expand upon and share the conversations I’ve been having with the Eternal with you.

A lesson I’ve learned from Kirenia Criado Perez, Pastor of Havana Meeting, is that context matters when talking about witness, ministry, the testimonies, being faithful.  I want to start by providing a bit of context for this message.

This message began in conversation with a Friend from Portland, who was talking about the frustration of recognizing that their expectations of worship were not shared by all who came to meeting.  And that sometimes made coming to meeting hard.

In that conversation I shared the following quote from Ben Yousua Davis as a partial answer to the question of why I come to meeting.

“As people of faith, our goal is not to cultivate our imagination in a general sense, but rather [to cultivate] a very specific type of imagination as we align our vision with God’s imagination for the world; and as we learn to hold that sacred frame in conversation (and sometimes in conflict) with the competing imaginations that surround us. The Christian imagination is fundamentally a weird one: with unusual beliefs about sharing all things in common and loving our enemies and the power of prayer and of being God’s body in the world. In covenanted spaces, we learn to practice our imagination together through seasons of discovery and arduous awkwardness until the imagination that we artificially practiced finally becomes our own.”
— Ben Yousua Davis  

I come to meeting to be together, to listen together and to experience Spirit, the Light, God together.  I come prepared to imagine – to align our imagination for the world with God’s vision, prepared to practice this ‘fundamentally weird’ vision together in covenanted space until it becomes our own, and then to carry this imagination back into the world. This last part is important.  I come to strengthen my commitment to this vision of the true nature of the world and live into it.  To live into it in a world where experience confirms the competing imagination that all are not equally valued and worthy, that there is not enough for all, and that violence and power work. I come to meeting to be part of a community that is radically counter-cultural.

Another thread that has been informing my spiritual life recently has been Walter Brueggemann’s book The Prophetic Imagination. Last week at Portland I facilitated a conversation focused on his understanding of prophetic ministry as something rooted in “Prophetic Imagination”.  He talks of a The task of a prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture that surrounds us. [To] energize persons and communities to live in the fervent anticipation of the newness that God has promised and will surely give.”  Quakers are a prophetic faith community – we expect to encounter the divine directly and to make it visible in the world. That is what is what “prophetic” means.  It seems clear that Brueggemann and Davis are both calling us to this ministry based on imagination.

But how do we do this?

How do we practice committing to a vision when our experiences often tell us that this is not the way things truly are? When what we experience here, in this covenanted space, is in conflict with the imaginations that surround us and with our own experience when we are not at meeting.

I have a story to share about practicing a fundamentally weird imagination that I think, perhaps, suggests a piece of an answer to this question:

Over Christmas we spent eight days with our grandchildren, and my 7-year-old grandson’s passion was playing “cars”.  The cars were a set of 4 trucks and 2 helicopters which were a firefighting team.  Every day for 8 days, we would play each morning and each afternoon enacting the story he was creating. First, we put out all the forest fires, then we sang songs around a campfire, we had a firemen’s’ ball, and then a fire dog from Venus arrived.  The dog was cold because Earth was colder than Venus, and the dog sucked all the warmth from the campfire and put it out, and then from everyone’s campfires and furnaces.  We solved the problem, we thought, by digging a hole to the molten core of the earth and throwing the fire dog into the core, trusting it would be warm enough.  But it sucked all the heat out of the core, the core solidified and the earth’s rotation began to slow down.  We extracted the dog and had to start a fire in the core again – but we were a firefighting team, we put fires out, we didn’t start fires. We thought we didn’t know how to start a fire.  However, our equipment truck shared that it had a lighter which it had kept secret from us.  So we could restart the fire in the Earth’s core, and we did.  But trust in the team was shattered as there had been secrets kept. We totally committed to this weird imagination and we practiced it.  We felt the angst of the lost trust and struggled to repair it. Even when not playing the game, we talked about it.  It was a powerful and real as our daily experience. On a phone call two weeks ago, when I asked permission to share this story, my grandson leaped back into the story and the struggle with the dog from Venus.

When I come to meeting I feel encouraged to let go of the mature, practical, realistic adult perspective, and find a way to imagine as freely and as wildly as my 7 year old grandson is able. To let go of what is realistic and embrace what is imaginable.  To imagine and believe in “sharing all things in common, loving our enemies, the power of prayer and of being God’s body in the world.”

Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, March 8, 2026

Fair warning:  it is words that that I have been thinking about, and some of you know how fond I am of words.  I have been thinking about how some words help us with spiritual matters, and some are less helpful.  I’ve been thinking about useful language for the inward landscape, to draw on the title of one of my favorite Quaker books.[1]

Psalm 117 Praise the Lord, all nations!
Extol him, all peoples!
² For great is his steadfast love toward us;
    and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.
Praise the Lord!  (RSV)

That’s Psalm 117.  It is the shortest of the Psalms, and often used as a call to worship.  It seems like a good way to begin what I have to say, today.

Here is what is on my mind today:  what do these times call us to do?  Of course we all have our ordinary lives: work, children, spouses, grocery shopping, laundry.  But that’s not what I’m thinking about.  I’m thinking about the overwhelming national crisis in which we find ourselves: immigration cruelty; illegal tariffs; Iran and Venezuela and Cuba; election fixing; corruption; politicization of the judicial system; tyranny.  I know I’m drifting into political topics, maybe crashing into political topics, but sometimes, we can’t live our ordinary, personal lives without finding ourselves, at every turn, facing political matters.  “The personal is the political.”  Are you old enough to remember that phrase?[2]

For me it is like being lost in a thick cloud.  It’s hard to see; hard to know which direction is forward; hard to know what is mine to do.  Unusually hard.  I find myself looking for guidance from people and from organizations I trust. How do we face this?  What should be our posture in getting through this, or, better, in resisting?  Our posture.

I recently picked up an American Friends Service Committee newsletter.  It used the word “perseverance” to tie together its initiatives on behalf of justice and peace in these trying times.  AFSC is calling itself – and calling us – to persevere. To endure.  It calls us to stay the course, to be strong, not to be dismayed or discouraged by the wrecking ball that the current administration is taking to policies and alliances, to principles and values.  A few days later the same message came from QUNO – the Quaker United Nations Office. 

“Perseverant;” there’s a posture. “Perseverant” is one of those words that came over to English from French after the Norman conquest.  Its first uses in English seem to be from the 14^th century, and it has Latin roots.  To my ear, it’s a bit of an old-fashioned word, one more commonly used a century ago than today.  Maybe that’s the point: it’s a call to stick with the course we were on before this crisis, pursuing equality, justice, democracy, rule of law, and peaceful relations among nations. 

Just a day or so later I picked up a recent report from the Friends Committee on National Legislation.  They used a different word to tie together a host of their initiatives regarding the current crisis: “Resilient.”  Resilience means “the act of rebounding or springing back,” or “the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties.”  It is a word that comes into English from Latin in the 17^th century, but its usage was relatively rare and largely technical until very recently — about 25 years ago.  Then it quickly came to be an organizing concept for ecology and the environment, and its use then rapidly widened to comprehend the ability of persons and communities also to bounce back from adversity. 

“Perseverant,” “Resilient”:  Both words encourage us to be strong.  “Perseverance” reminds us this is likely to be  a prolonged struggle and urges us to stay the course.  “Resilience” reminds us we’re likely to have some setbacks and we’ll need to pick ourselves up and keep going.  Still, I think AFSC and FCNL are telling us pretty much the same thing.  We need to stand tall, to be strong; we must not be discouraged, we need to bounce back.  That is are the guidance we are hearing from them.  It is useful guidance I think we can agree: these are rallying words. 

Bear with me here.  Those two words, “perseverance” and “resilience” took to me to a book I regularly consult when I’m following a spiritual line of thought or a spiritual wondering.  It’s a Concordance.   A Concordance is a guide to finding words in the Bible, what they are and where. If I want to know where the word “river” shows up in the Bible, for example, or the word “grace,” I can look it up in a Concordance and find all the verses that use that word.  I have an old King James Version of the Bible published in the late 19^th century, and in the back, it has a Concordance.  The granddaddy Concordance is Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible.  It was first prepared in the 19^th century and regularly updated since; it’s a bigger, contemporary, scholarly Concordance. 

Of course this is a little tricky.  The Bible as we know it was written in Hebrew, in Aramaic (those are the languages of the Jewish Testament) and in Koine Greek (the language of the Christian Testament).  But we use the Bible in translation, in English.  So every time there’s a new translation, there needs to be a new Concordance.  The new version likely translates some of the words differently than earlier ones. 

Still with me?  Here’s the thing: “perseverance” and “resilience” – those words — do not show up in the Bible, not in any of the translations we are likely to use.[3]  The various Concordances don’t contain those words.  These words, perseverance and resilience, however useful, are not Biblical words.  Is that odd?  Are those the words we should be using to find our posture in resisting, in seeking justice?

Put another way: does the Bible have different guidance for us?  Are the words it would have us use different?  Well, yes, and no, and that’s what’s on my mind today. 

There is a phrase in the Bible – it appears dozens (maybe hundreds) of times — that says something akin to what AFSC and FCNL are saying:  “Fear not.” 

For example, here is Isaiah 41:10: “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” 

Here is Jesus, in Luke 12:32:  “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” 

In these passages (and many others) God isn’t saying ‘lie back, do nothing, I’ll take care of it.’  Rather, God is telling us we may have work to do; we may have to put our backs into it, but God will be with us, always.  That’s why we do not have to be afraid.  “Perseverance” and “Resilience” put the emphasis on what we humans have to do; “Fear not” puts the emphasis on ‘God with us’ as we do what needs doing.  It brings God back in.  I think that’s an important shift of focus, a different posture. 

There is another word that also is used frequently in the Bible that helps us see the same thing. It is the word “steadfast.” Steadfast means “unshakable, resolute; firm and fixed in purpose.”  It’s a very old English word.  It’s another “strength” word, like perseverant and resilient.  Many of the Biblical uses of “steadfast” are in the Old Testament – and many of those occasions are in the Psalms, so they are in Hebrew.  The Hebrew word by the way is “hesed.” 

But here’s the thing.  When “steadfast” shows up in the Bible, it is not to describe what we are like, or what we should be like or what our posture should be. Rather, “steadfast” is used as an assurance of what God is like.  And what God is like is strength wrapped around love.  The word points to God’s unwavering, loyal, covenant love. There is strength in that.  It points to God’s mercy, and kindness; “steadfast” is a combination of love, loyalty, and generosity.  Such steadfast love is not passive; it is love in action.  It is the strongest force there is.

The Bible assures us that God’s love is steadfast.  And it calls us to rise to God’s love with a steadfast faith.  Yes, we must be strong – perseverant and resilient.  Yes, we must “fear not.”  But we need to do this in the embrace of God’s steadfast love – and let that be our guide. 

“Steadfast” is used in the short Psalm I read at the beginning:  Psalm 117: 

² For great is his steadfast love toward us;
    and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.

Having started with the 117^th Psalm, let me close with these words from the 130^th Psalm:

Psalm 130 …⁷ O Israel, hope in the Lord!
    For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
    and with him is plenteous redemption.
⁸ And he will redeem Israel
    from all his iniquities.  (RSV)

“Steadfast” is a word for the inward landscape.  Relying on a steadfast God, let us, too, be steadfast. 

Also posted on River View Friend

[1] Brian Drayton and William P. Taber, Jr., A Language for the Inward Landscape: Spiritual Wisdom from the Quaker Movement (Philadelphia: Tract Association of Friends, 2015). 

[2] “Feminist and writer Carol Hanisch’s essay titled ‘The Personal is Political’ appeared in the anthology Notes From the Second Year: Women’s Liberation in 1970, and is often credited with creating the phrase. However, in her introduction to the 2006 republication of the essay, Hanisch wrote that she did not come up with the title. She believed “The Personal Is Political” was selected by the editors of the anthology, Shulamith Firestone and Anne Koedt, who were both feminists involved with the group New York Radical Feminists. Some feminist scholars have noted that by the time the anthology was published in 1970, “the personal is political” had already become a widely used part of the women’s movement and was not a quote attributable to any one person.”  https://www.thoughtco.com/the-personal-is-political-slogan-origin-3528952

[3] Actually, Ephesians 6:18 in the KJV does use “perseverance”:  ¹⁸ Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;…”

For the February 15, 2026 message at Durham Friends Meeting, Craig Freshley presented a new version of the prayer he has written and re-written, uses regularly in his life.

He asked, What is your prayer? You can hear the entire message HERE.

Message for Durham Friends Meeting worship service, February 8, 2026

Susan Davies is a member of Vassalboro Friends Meeting, and currently serves as Clerk of the Permanent Board, New England Yearly Meeting.

In 1850, the Boston Vigilance Committee organized citizens to resist
enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act. Although Massachusetts had abolished
slavery nearly 70 years before, the new Fugitive Slave Act required ALL
citizens, of all states, (free, as well as slave states) to help law enforcement to
recover fugitive slaves to return them into bondage. The Boston Vigilance
Committee had been organized by Theodore Parker, a Universalist minister, to
rally citizens to help fugitive slaves to hide, and to refuse to assist with their
recovery. Due to their efforts, from 1850 to the onset of the Civil War in 1861,
only two slaves were captured in Boston and transported back to the South.
On both occasions, Bostonians combatted the actions with mass protests.
Today, 175 years later, the citizens of Minneapolis are compelled to show up,
from a similar sense of outrage at injustice.

Theodore Parker, the Unitarian minister who led the formation of the Boston
Vigilance Committee, was a staunch abolitionist, and also at odds with the
orthodoxy of Unitarianism. His followers described him and themselves as
part of a movement of “prophetic Christian social activism”. Parker was
involved with almost all of the reform movements of the time: the condition of
women, prison reform, the moral and mental destitution of the rich, and the
physical destitution of the poor. In his theology Parker stressed the immediacy
of God and suggested that people experience God intuitively and personally,
and that they should center their religious beliefs on individual experience
(Wikipedia).

Theodore Parker was quoted this Winter in the Southern Poverty Law Center
newsletter, by Bryan Fair:
“I do not pretend to understand the moral universe. The arc is a
long one. My eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the
curve and complete the figure by experience of sight. I can divine
it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards
justice.”

Later the quote was shortened to the familiar phrase: “The arc of the moral
universe is long, but it bends towards justice”, quoted by both Martin
Luther King Jr and Barack Obama, and many others. But this winter Bryan Fair, amended this hopeful and uplifting sentiment by saying:
“I am convinced that the arc of the moral universe will NOT bend
towards justice on its own. We must bend it towards justice.”

I want to explore today the soul of “The Dissident”- -those we intuitively
understand are the ones exerting the greatest leverage to bend the arc of the
moral universe towards justice.

Definition: A dissident is a person who actively challenges an
established political or religious system, doctrine, belief, policy, or
institution… In the political sense, in the 20th Century, use of the word
dissident coincides with the rise of authoritarian governments in
countries such as Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, the
Soviet Union (and later Russia), North Korea, China.… Wikipedia

For the obvious reasons of the tragedies and oppression we are daily exposed
to in our country, and around the world, I have been preoccupied lately with
the image evoked by George Fox’s words:
The Lord shewed me that the natures of those things which were hurtful
without, were within- in the hearts and minds of wicked men… And I
cried to the Lord, saying, ‘Why should I be thus, seeing I was never
addicted to commit those evils?’ And the Lord answered that it was
needful I should have a sense of all conditions… how else should I
speak to all conditions; and in this I saw the infinite love of God. I saw
also that there was an ocean of darkness and death, but an infinite
ocean of light and love, which flowed over the ocean of darkness.
And in that I also saw the infinite love of God and I had great
openings.

George Fox was a spiritual and political dissident of extraordinary clarity,
focus and resolve. He was imprisoned eight times in English dungeons and
jails, spending six years of his life in the horrific conditions of the time. And
when he was free and he interrupted church services in his urgency to testify
to the Truth, the people “beat him with hands, Bibles and sticks, and finally
stoned him, after which he was thrown into jail”. He seems never to have
evaded, resisted or avoided the inevitable, furious reactions of the controlling
powers. In 1655, at the age of 31, during one of his long imprisonments, he
wrote on the cell wall,
“I was never in prison that it was not the means of bringing multitudes
out of their prisons.”

His steadfastly and fervently repeated mission was to “lead people to the
Truth”. And lead them he did- his relentless and urgent conviction and
courage led thousands to the movement such that in alarm, Parliament
passed a special law against Quakers that resulted in the imprisonment of
some 4,000 of them.

His message was not based on a concern for justice, poverty, social reform,
per se. It was not based on opinion or causes. It stemmed from a more
profound, reality-shaking, lived experience of the human- divine relationship.
As some of us have heard expressed in vocal ministry he “Lived as if the Truth
were true”. After years of suffering and anguished searching he had finally
exhausted all words and concepts, all pleadings among humans for
trustworthy religious counsel. And then he was lifted up into a completely
transformed understanding of Reality – not through theological argument, or
his own mental reasoning, or evolution of his opinions, but rather through his
living, breathing experience of an Answering God. In his words to his family,
and others:
“I told them that there was an anointing within people, to teach them, and
that the Lord would teach his people himself.” “Your growth in the seed (of Truth) is in the silence”. And “This I knew experimentally”

Praying in his journal, he said “The knowledge of thee in the Spirit is Life, but
the knowledge which is fleshly works death.”

He perceived that “The Life” (the Spirit of the Living Christ, the Inward Teacher)
lay under the burden of corruptions (what Paul Tillich called “the accidental
elements” of our humanness).
“This worship in Spirit and in the Truth touches all men and women; they must
come to the Spirit in themselves, and the Truth in the inward parts…they must
come to the Truth in the heart, to what is hidden in the heart, and to a meek
and quiet spirit.”

Fox was not speaking abstractly, nor exhorting people with theological
“concepts” or Biblical phrases (though he practically knew the Bible by heart).
He was urgently testifying about his own lived experience that he had
discovered access to God’s immediacy and relatedness. Christ did not live in
temples and churches– the Spirit of Truth is within, in the heart. His message
was so compelling and astonishing that people were moved and amazed.
The dissident is convicted by a truth that insists on being made manifest.
Dissidents are the agents of a truth that will not allow them to rest. This year’s
draft chapter of Faith & Practice is on Testimony and their simple message is
that TRUTH’s Testimony is the foundation of all witness; Truth is the
proclamation that the Voice of the Inward Teacher is REAL, practical, and everpresent. For Fox, and for those of us who aspire to his lineage, his unshakable
commitment was to proclaiming the saving power that the Truth could be
inwardly known; and when outwardly obeyed it would never fail to yield, in full
measure, all the Fruits of the Spirit:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Galatians 5:22-23.

I will close with the affirmation from another great and peaceful dissident,
Vaclav Havel, playwright, and former President of the Czech Republic (1936-
2011), who in 1989 was a leader of the Velvet, or “Gentle” Revolution against
40 years of oppressive communist rule in Czechoslovakia:
“The salvation of the world lies in the human heart.”

This “Bless of Angels” was read by Tess Hartford at the opening of worship on February 1, 2026 at Durham Friends Meeting

A BLESSING OF ANGELS

May the Angels in their beauty bless you.
May they turn toward you streams of blessing.

May the Angel of Awakening stir your heart
To come alive to the eternal within you,
To all the invitations that quietly surround you.

May the Angel of Healing turn your wounds
Into sources of refreshment.

May the Angel of the Imagination enable you
To stand on the true thresholds,
At ease with your ambivalence
And drawn in new direction
Through the glow of your contradictions.

May the Angel of Compassion open your eyes
To the unseen suffering around you.

May the Angel of Wildness disturb the places
Where your life is domesticated and safe,
Take you to the territories of true otherness

Where all that is awkward in you
Can fall into its own rhythm.

May the Angel of Eros introduce you
To the beauty of your senses
To celebrate your inheritance
As a temple of the holy spirit.

May the Angel of Justice disturb you
To take the side of the poor and the wronged.

May the Angel of Encouragement confirm you
In worth and self-respect,
That you may live with the dignity
That presides in your soul.

May the Angel of Death arrive only
When your life is complete
And you have brought every given gift
To the threshold where its infinity can shine.

May all the Angels be your sheltering
And joyful guardians.

– John O’Donohue –
To Bless the Space Between Us

This poem was read at the opening of worship at Durham Friends Meeting on January 25, 2026.

From Jan L. Richardson, The Map You Make Yourself; A Blessing for Women’s Christmas, 2013.

Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, January 11, 2026

for Martin Luther King, Jr Day, Celebrated January 19, 2026

Morning Y’all!  Today I want to share reflections on the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr whose life we celebrate annually in January, on the third Monday, near his birthday, January 15th.  This year we will celebrate on January 19^th.  The title of his last book, published in 1967, offered me a title for my message:  Where Do We Go From Here:  Chaos or Community?  But before I begin, here are some interesting facts about him:

• He is the only non-president honored by a federal holiday
• The first holiday was celebrated in 1986, but all 50 states had made it a holiday by 2020
• The monument to his life was completed in 2011, erected near the national mall in DC
• Chicagoans also built a Living Memorial to MLK, Jr to honor the work he did with citizens to address housing discrimination in Illinois; the 2016 opening marked the 50^th anniversary of the march through Marquette Park.

It is clear that we live in a chaotic world, yet is it more chaotic than earlier times? Do we have any less of a challenge today as people who profess to follow Christ as the people who were in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s?  I will share some stories from my youth in the 60s, as well as a few quotes from Dr. King’s Nobel Prize Lecture (December 11,1964) demonstrating how turbulent times assail us, regardless of the era, implying our work is ongoing and the struggle for peace cannot be abandoned:

“This evening, I would like to use this lofty and historic platform to discuss what appears to me to be the most pressing problem confronting mankind today. Modern man has brought this whole world to an awe-inspiring threshold of the future. He has reached new and astonishing peaks of scientific success. He has produced machines that think and instruments that peer into the unfathomable ranges of interstellar space. He has built gigantic bridges to span the seas and gargantuan buildings to kiss the skies. His airplanes and spaceships have dwarfed distance, placed time in chains, and carved highways through the stratosphere. This is a dazzling picture of modern man’s scientific and technological progress…

Yet, in spite of these spectacular strides in science and technology, and still unlimited ones to come, something basic is missing. There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.

This is the serious predicament, the deep and haunting problem confronting modern man. If we are to survive today, our moral and spiritual “lag” must be eliminated. Enlarged material powers spell enlarged peril if there is not proportionate growth of the soul.

This problem of spiritual and moral lag, which constitutes modern man’s chief dilemma, expresses itself in three larger problems which grow out of man’s ethical infantilism. Each of these problems, while appearing to be separate and isolated, is inextricably bound to the other. I refer to racial injustice, poverty, and war.”

• A couple of stories from my growing up reflect the challenges faced by African Americans during the Civil Rights Movement.  My family is from the country, y’all, I mean farming country where some towns have just a gas station and a general store! Poverty was the norm, for Blacks and Whites, yet Whites believed they were better because of the color of their skin.  My parents were always addressing issues of civil rights and on top of that, they were very religious and were determined to address unfairness and injustice with anyone!  They were involved with voter rights, integrating schools, and related issues with the NAACP.  MLK’s fight for civil rights ultimately addressed the poverty and unfairness for the many people who still suffer today—immigrants, females, gay people, the disabled who are the most discriminated people in the country, maybe the world.  Here is a story my Dad told us long after it happened because he thought we were too young to understand it all when it occurred.  My father finished dental school with the help of the Army, and practiced dentistry in Vicksburg, MS, where he had a deferment signed each year as he worked off time and payments he owed the service for his education; the Mississippi Medical Director signed his deferment each year. After the Brown vs Board of Education case was declared unconstitutional in 1954, the medical director called for a meeting of all medical personnel—Black & White, to discuss the decision.  My Dad was the only Black doctor to speak us, feeling relieved that we no longer had to go to dilapidated buildings, with outdated books for our education.  The medical director decided that he would no longer honor the deferment, and forced Dad to choose a branch of the service to finish paying for his education.  Ironically it was like throwing “Brer Rabbit” into the briar patch because we experienced more advantages going back into the service since the military gave officers housing, medical care, and other amenities that my parents could not afford in the segregated community where we lived!
• Our whole family helped to desegregate the beaches in Biloxi, MS through planned sit-ins with the local NAACP.  Mississippi beaches were closed off from Blacks except for certain small sections.  We agreed to “wade in” the white sections with several other families, and fortunately things went well.  Some of you know that sit-ins, boycotts and other non-violent means to resistance was not easy though folks were trained to behave in ways consistent with non-violent philosophy: people were hurt, lost employment, set upon by dogs, died for the cause.
• My older sister went to college at Tuskegee Institute and decided to join the marches protesting discrimination, fell ill under the pressures of studying and marching, and had to come home for a while to recover.

King’s Nobel Lecture continues:

“What the main sections of the civil rights movement in the United States are saying is that the demand for dignity, equality, jobs, and citizenship will not be abandoned or diluted or postponed. If that means resistance and conflict we shall not flinch. We shall not be cowed. We are no longer afraid.”  (Mahatma Gandi’s non-violent campaign against the British was quite convincing to King who adopted this strategy for the Civil Rights Movement).

In a real sense nonviolence seeks to redeem the spiritual and moral lag that I spoke of earlier as the chief dilemma of modern man. It seeks to secure moral ends through moral means. Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. Indeed, it is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it.

I believe in this method because I think it is the only way to reestablish a broken community. It is the method which seeks to implement the just law by appealing to the conscience of the great decent majority who through blindness, fear, pride, and irrationality have allowed their consciences to sleep.

The nonviolent resisters can summarize their message in the following simple terms: we will take direct action against injustice despite the failure of governmental and other official agencies to act first. We will not obey unjust laws or submit to unjust practices. We will do this peacefully, openly, cheerfully because our aim is to persuade. We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself. We will try to persuade with our words, but if our words fail, we will try to persuade with our acts. We will always be willing to talk and seek fair compromise, but we are ready to suffer when necessary and even risk our lives to become witnesses to truth as we see it.”

I do not believe we are living in the worst of times, though life is troubling in every sphere we can imagine, environmentally, socially, spiritually. Yet, I do believe we have the power to sustain ourselves and overcome much of the evil we are experiencing.  The organizing power of love can help transform our lives and those we love, by taking right, non-violent actions.  (We have plenty of evidence of that today, even in our Meeting) We must remember that our troubled times did not arrive with our current national government, they just seem more devastating because it is our own elected government is orchestrating so much of the chaos!

King expresses the strength of his convictions about love:  We can no longer afford to worship the God of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. Love is the key to the solution of the problems of the world.  In this 1967 book, he offered another quote many use to express the relationship between power of love.

…Power, properly understood, is the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political and economic changes. In this sense power is not only desirable but necessary in order to implement the demands of love and justice.  One of the greatest problems of history is that the concepts of love and power are usually contrasted as polar opposites.  Love is identified with a resignation of power and power with a denial of love.

What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive and that love without power is sentimental and anemic.  Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice.  Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.  (Chaos or Community, p.37)

Aligned with MLK, Jr, ideas, Brian McLaren, faculty of the Center of Action & Contemplation, co-founded by Father Richard Rhor, encourages us to heed the call to action in non-violent, creative ways, through Christ-like action.  McLaren, like King, invites us into a life rooted in contemplation, and in contemplation that always expresses itself in action.  And that our actions lead to outcomes that show that the Power of love outlasts and overcomes the love of Power.

I leave you with the hope found in an excerpt from Amanda Gorham’s poem,The Hill We Climb, from Joe Biden’s 2021 inauguration:

…We will not march back to what was,
But move to what shall be:
A country that is bruised, but whole,
Benevolent, but bold, fierce and free.
We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation,
Because we know our inaction and inertia
Will be the inheritance of the next generation.
Our blunders become their burdens.
But one thing is certain,
If we merge mercy with might
And might with right,
Then Love becomes our legacy,
And change our children’s birthright.
So, let us leave behind a country
better than one we were left. “

Gorham, A. (2021).  The Hill We Climb.  Inaugural poem read on January 20, 2021.

King, M.L.K., Jr. (1967). Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?  Harper & Row.

MLK, Jr.’s Nobel Prize Lecture. Oslo, Norway. December 11, 1964.

www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1964/king/lecture

McLaren, B.  Good News for a Fractured World, January 8, 2026 video. https://www.cac.org

Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, January 18, 2026

Many years ago, living in Delaware, a tornado tore through a neighborhood near where I was living.  The next day I went to look at the wreckage.  I had never seen tornado damage up close.  It was terrible to see: trees torn up by their roots, cars tossed on end, homes destroyed, piles of debris, jumbles of sticks and paper and car parts, and roof tiles and glass.  I saw wreckage that went beyond my imagining. 

One image has particularly stayed with me: a house sawed in half.  One side was obliterated, shredded to pieces the size of matchsticks, nothing recognizable.  The remaining side was completely undisturbed.  You could look at rooms missing a wall or two, but all their contents were still there, still in place, every chair, every picture, every pillow, every delicate vase, every pencil on a desk.  How could there be so much chaos and so much calm side by side? 

That memory has come back to me in recent months as a vivid image of the world in which we – all of us – are living.  Where do you see yourself?  Mostly, myself, I am in the undisturbed side of the house, the untouched side.  My daily life goes on in normal ways.  I see friends and family, I cook, I read, I go to meetings of various organizations, that go about their ordinary affairs.  It’s a very normal life in this part of the house, every delicate vase and every pencil in its place. 

But I can’t help but see that there’s a wall missing, or perhaps two walls.  I can feel a little breeze, a worrying breeze because I’m exposed to the elements.  The bedroom next to the one where I sleep is simply gone, torn to matchsticks.  Looking out where that wall used to be I see utter chaos, cars upended, trees uprooted. 

Out the windows of the calm side of the house I see other people going about their ordinary lives, working, playing, going to school.  And through the missing walls of the chaotic side of the house I see people fired from their jobs for speaking the truth or just for being themselves.  I see torture in jails, and people shot in their own cars.  I see destruction of organizations. I hear lies.  I see lies declared truth.  I see theft and fraud, and not just in secret, but theft and fraud openly practiced and justified.  I see war, and not just war but war justified.

I can turn my head and see the calm side of the house; or I can turn back and see the chaos.  I’m doing that every day.  This is a newish experience, and a disturbing one.  It’s a disorienting one.  Perhaps you’re having this experience, too. 

I know this divided life is unstable.  As Lincoln warned, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”  A house missing a wall here or a wall there cannot stand for very long.  It cannot provide shelter for very many, and not even shelter for the few for very long.  This divided house is no longer safe for anyone.  We can no longer trust its integrity – we can’t trust that it won’t completely collapse – and soon.   This unstable, divided house makes me anxious, often angry, constantly dismayed. 

Day by day I find myself putting my mental energy into trying to hold the house together and upright.  But it’s not enough.  It’s exhausting to live in such a divided world.  How did this storm happen?

We often give major storms a name:  Agnes, Katrina, Sandy.  We talk about the damage from Hurricane Sandy or Hurricane Agnes.  I have no doubt we would all suggest the same name for the current storm that is sawing our lives in half, a normal half and a wreckage half. 

But we also know that major storms arise in the midst of certain broader weather conditions.  For a hurricane to form, there needs to be warm ocean water and moist, humid air. Tornadoes develop from severe thunderstorms in warm, moist, unstable air along and ahead of cold fronts. 

How about this tornado?  I find myself thinking about that in this half-wrecked house. 

I know it isn’t simply the doing of one person.  No one person could do this.  Others have to be involved, too.  I think about these things:  complicity, corruption, cowardice and complacency. 

Some people are actively complicit in creating the storm that causes the wreckage.  They share responsibility for tearing things apart.  They, too, do the doing.

Some people see active benefit in allowing the wreckage.  They don’t need to do much except encourage the wreckage.  Perhaps they provide donations or provide a little assistance in other ways.  They know they will profit from the wrecking.  That’s why their part is corruption.  They reap benefits while others suffer. 

Complicity, corruption, and there’s also cowardice.  Some people contribute by doing nothing.  They just stand aside, avert their gaze.  They see they won’t be hurt too much.  Their non-action lets others suffer.  There’s cowardice in that. 

Others are simply complacent:  they don’t look, they don’t see beyond their own lives.

Complicity, corruption, cowardice, complacency:  those are the weather conditions that breed the storm.  Active engagement, profiteering, doing nothing.  They all involve looking out for oneself, a narrow selfishness.  They all involve looking away from what happens to others.  “I’m alright, Jack.”  I’m just looking out for number one.  If we get an air mass, a culture, that’s too much of that narrow selfishness, we can get a tornado that saws our house in half.  These are our times. 

We can add cynicism to the ingredients of the airmass.  Cynicism is the abandonment of hope.  It, too, helps create this tornado through our republic.

You can talk about that weather mass in other ways.  You can call it an excess of liberty.  Every person can do as he pleases: Seek profits.  Help friends and harm enemies.  Let the consequences fall where they may.  What happens to others is not my business. 

What I’m trying to say has been said by others, in ways worth repeating. 

In a Christmas Carol, Scrooge starts by saying “I mind my own business”, and ends by saying “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”  He turns from the narrow view to the wider one.

That’s not just a cheerful Christmas message; it’s a lesson for our times.  And it is  just a more modern way of saying what Jesus said:  “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

It’s not just Christians.  In The Peloponnesian Wars, Thucydides quotes Pericles as saying “Not until the uninjured are as indignant as the injured, will peace, freedom and justice return to Athens.”

Ellen and I regularly read Sherrilyn Ifill, who holds an Endowed Chair in Civil Rights at Howard University Law School.  She is also a former director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.  She understands that ‘humanity is her business,’ and ours, too.

In a recent column she wryly notes that the storm we are all now experiencing is a kind of storm all too familiar to Black communities.  As we approach Martin Luther King day, we need to remember that lynchings happened, race riots happened, disenfranchisement happened, discrimination happened, “separate but equal” happened not just because of Bull Connor, and Strom Thurmond, and George Wallace but because of complicity, corruption and cowardice on the part of many, many others;  they happened because too many took the narrow view and let the storm tear apart others houses.  Too many were complicit or corrupt, cowardly or complacent.

Sherrilyn Ifill recently wrote, “Anti-democracy measures do not simply arrive and takeover healthy democracies. They are workshopped first – most often on the most vulnerable communities. In this country, with its unique history and the deep narratives of white supremacy that is part of our public discourse, this will almost always be Black communities first.”   She is reminding us that we are all now experiencing what once a minority experienced as we looked away.  This current storm is not one-of-a-kind; it’s just wider in scope.  https://sherrilyn.substack.com/p/whether-it-is-ice-or-local-police.  

1600 years ago, St. Augustine wrote a profound treatise about the situation we face.  Today we call the book The City of God.  He wrote it following the sack of Rome by the Visigoths in 410 A.D.  In The City of God, Augustine shows us not two parts of a house, one wrecked and one undisturbed, but two cities: the City of God and the Earthly City, or the City of Man.  A godly city and a sinful one.  For Augustine, the choice of where to live is before each of us every day.  The Earthly City is a place of human strivings, usually selfish strivings for worldly things: money, fame and honor.  The City of God, on the other hand, is a City built in relationship to God, one that looks toward eternal things, ultimately salvation.  The City of Man, he believed, will be destroyed, but the City of God will last forever.  Where do we choose to live? 

Martin Luther King taught something very similar in challenging us to build the Beloved Community.  The Beloved Community is a society built on justice, equality, love, and peace, where poverty, racism, and hate are eliminated, and all people live in harmony, sharing the earth’s resources.

This conception envisions an inclusive world where conflict is resolved nonviolently through understanding, fostering a universal sisterhood and brotherhood through unconditional love (agape). It’s a world where we care as much about our neighbors as we care about ourselves.

It takes constant effort from all of us.  It takes facing down the tornado that’s tearing through our republic.  It takes us all refusing to practice, or even to put up with, complicity, corruption, cowardice, complacency, or cynicism. 

Tomorrow, we celebrate the life and good works of Martin Luther King, Jr.  Let us be joyful in working together to build the Beloved Community – even though it’s tornado weather. 

Also posted on River View Friend

These three prayers, written by Ed Hinshaw, were read at his memorial service on January 10, 2026;

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Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, January 4, 2026

The end of the myth – the end of a storyline

I sit in my little comfy chair looking out over the field of snow onto the frozen tidal river. I wonder how we’ve all survived. How we’ve managed to keep our humanity in tact during this past year’s constant assault on our sense of justice, equilibrium, and plain old morality.

I know I have done my fair share of crying from frustration and sadness. My gut is constantly inflamed, roiling with swallowed anger. My sleep regularly interrupted with unsettling dreams tinged with cruelty.

I do contribute to lessen the suffering through money and time but I wonder how much my nervous system can take before my health really takes a dive.

This is the story line in which we are currently living, especially as Quakers, members of the Society of Friends, with a history of pacifism and abolition of slavery. Love thy neighbor, no exceptions, our banner proclaims. I believe this in my core being.

2025 has shown us what I believe to be the pinnacle of hubris and cruelty by our current leadership. But in many respects, it’s the same old story. A repetition of humanity’s pattern of suppression, violence and power grabbing.

These were the conditions under which Mary of Nazareth bore her first son, Jesus.  I don’t pretend to know or understand the complexities of the numerous struggles for power there and in those times, but I do know it was brutal. Crucifixions by the reigning Roman Empire happened frequently and publicly as a warning to the Jews to stay in line.  

And out of this struggle the “Jesus Movement” emerged. A movement professing loving one’s neighbor, no exceptions, rose up, led by a young carpenter, Jesus of Nazareth. I can speak of this to you today only because I just finished a book about the “Jesus Movement” written by a dedicated historian. A professor of religious studies who has written many books about the birth and rise of Christianity in the ancient world. And he participated in a number of archaeological digs in Galilee, produced films and documentaries about those years of strife and the movement proclaiming that peace and love were the way of God.

I’m not suggesting that this will happen here and now but I do suggest that this story gives me hope that humanity can rise above the despair and direness of the oppression and move us into a place of peace and relative tranquility.

But what of this story? The story whose beginning we just celebrated on Christmas Day – the story of a young woman, a virgin we’re told, who with her betrothed must find refuge in a manger for her to give birth to the child that will be humanity’s savior, a gift from God, in fact, the son of God.

The book I just finished is called The Lost Mary by James D. Tabor. He spent ten years researching Jesus’s mother, having felt confounded by her near erasure from the sacred texts after she gives birth. Only to show up again 30 years layer at the foot of the cross at elder son’s crucifixion. Who was this woman, Professor Tabor wondered, really, who was Jesus’s mother?

From his research into the woman who gave birth to Jesus, we find out that Mary was not from Nazareth but from the capitol of Galilee, Sepphoris, some short kilometers south of the town of Nazareth. And that she was born into a family of means, with a royal lineage, traced from the Kingdom of David, as well as a priestly lineage – from Aaron, Israel’s first priest. With this information in mind, it is unlikely that she gave birth to Jesus in a manger or barn. Moreover, there is evidence to suggest that Jesus was the oldest of 8 children that Mary bore and raised. James being the second child who took over the “Jesus Movement” after Jesus’s crucifixion.

This makes sense to me. And I can imagine it and relate to it. Mary, the head of a bustling household, busy mothering her brood. Ensuring her children’s nurturing and education. That is what a mother looks like to me, and has throughout millenia.

Professor Tabor writes about Mary’s erasure from the human condition by virtue of the story line we’ve been given of not just the immaculate conception but also that she remained a virgin even after the birth of Jesus. He speculates that the powers that be in the early Christian movement had no use for Mary once she had given birth to the Savior and therefore relegated her to a place unattainable by mortal women.

Despite feeling the truth in this new version of the story of Mary and Jesus, I still believe in the holiness of Jesus, not only his message of peace and love, but his healing abilities. And like many Quakers, I’ve had my own lived experience with Jesus. His presence has come to me in times of great hurt and sorrow bringing light and hope.

But what of this erasure of Mary, the mother of eight? What about the version we’ve been fed that has served to continue the subjugation of both women and men. Because we mustn’t forget the damage done to men by the story of the Virgin Mary. They have also suffered by the binary depiction of women. Good or bad; virgin or whore, don’t mess with any in between possibilities.

The myth of Mary, now dashed, validates the misgivings I had around this story. I just plain didn’t buy it.  And that made me uneasy, I was trying to wear the mantle of Christianity but without saying the word “virgin” associated with Jesus’s mother. I couldn’t logically understand what being a virgin had anything to do with anything. Of course, I know that this storyline is directly linked to subjugation of women.

And this is where I take up the theme of 2026 and new beginnings.

We have been lied to by a multitude of people and entities, over centuries. But this past year has felt, to me, particularly insulting and devastating – mostly because of the immoral and cruel actions by our leadership that are in plain view. I know that I can no longer pretend that our system works towards justice and egalitarianism.

So where is the hope for 2026? The hope lies in the truth and the truth of the corruption in our country and the world at large is undeniable. But once we have shed our naivete we can move towards a more responsible vision of a structure that benefits all of us. A vision that allows us to love our neighbor, no exceptions. 2025 has shown us, in no uncertain terms, the devastation caused by the unequal distribution of power and money.

As we dismantle myths, we dismantle entrenched ideas of how to operate which can bring a fresh and new perspective around potentiality.  We strip away the untruths to uncover the truths about ourselves. We have long obscured our capacity to love, our yearning for peace and inclusivity, with individualism and ego focused goals.

So armed with the truth we can move toward revision.

Because I did not buy into the myth of the Virgin Mary I had to find my way forward as a woman outside of this construct. I had to try out new ways of thinking and new ways of acting. This required a deep dive into my core being as a human and all the complexities involved in my humanness.

I had to take a deep dive into what I believed about myself and my capabilities, my innate talents and what I could learn and cultivate. I had to throw out myths and belief systems that no longer served me. I had to ask the questions: How should I treat myself and how should I treat others, how should I treat where I live and the land on which I live? How would I earn a living and what would I spend my money on? Who would I allow into my life? What would I watch and read and eat? 

As an individual human, I am a microcosm of our country. And I believe truly that as the dust settles around the destruction of the governing systems these are the questions we must ask ourselves and others.

How do we want to revise how we look at our place on this earth.  This is a question for all of us as we move forward.

I, of course have no answers. Yet that does not diminish my hope for our future. If the Jesus movement could rise up out of the death and destruction wreaked by the Roman Empire, a ground swell of love and peace could move us all in the direction of self reflection and transformation on an individual level to then be transposed at the national and international level.

But I come back to the ground level, the level of mothers and families and children.

And I would point to Mother Mary, who kept her children safe during the Roman rampage and supported her son Jesus as he led a movement that proclaimed that love and peace were holy messages, that the kingdom of God could be found in each of our hearts and here on earth.

In this message I do not claim to give you answers but I do claim to give you a sense of solidarity in the struggle to revision and rework. The solidarity born of our shared humanity to make this place, this gift from God, a better place.

Leslie Manning’s message at Durham Friends Meeting on December 7, 2025 concluded with this poem by Brother David Steindl-Rast:

May You Grow Still     by Brother David Steindl-Rast


May you grow still enough to hear the small noises Earth makes in preparing for the long sleep of winter, so that you yourself may grow calm and grounded deep within.


May you grow still enough to hear the trickling of water seeping into the ground, so that your soul may be softened and healed, and guided in its flow.


May you grow still enough to hear the splintering of starlight in the winter sky and the roar at Earth’s fiery core.


May you grow still enough to hear the stir of a single snowflake in the air, so that your inner silence may turn into hushed expectation.

At Durham Friends Meeting on October 19, 2025, three women from the Meeting shared reflections on their experiences at the 4th Annual Global Matriarchs Gathering sponsored by the Land Peace Foundation.

from Linda Muller:

This August women gathered at the Land Peace Foundation in Monroe.  This was the fourth Global Matriarchs Gathering and my second. 

The spiritual influences on me are an amalgam of many interactions with indigenous women over the years, including the series of Healing Turtle Island gatherings some of you are familiar with and the recent Walk for Peace and Friendship. 

Much of this activity is now being framed as, “let’s create the world we wish to inhabit and pass down to our grandchildren”. And” let’s show our deep gratitude to our earth, for generously sustaining us from our very origins”.

At the Matriarchs Gathering-we first acknowledged that we humans are all one family and that women have a unique spiritual role across cultures.  We bring forth the next generation of children and we have a special responsibility to attend to that which sustains all aspects of life.

We acknowledged that we are confronted, now, with men needing our attention, in a manner that conveys self and mutual respect.  We noted that some tender hearted men we know are suffering under cultural influences to restrict emotional display to anger and violence, only. We see that their impulse to nurture, provide and protect is often thwarted by our economic system.

We acknowledged the concept of ‘rugged individualism’, which may lead us to to believe we’re to solve our own problems individually. This concept also specifies that if we do not succeed in tending to our own needs (with the limited resources of our nuclear families) the problem is due to our lack of initiative.

Special challenges for those of European ancestry were noted; that centuries of violence, feudalism (with its repression of workers on the land),  conquest and the forming of kingdoms left a trail of forgotten land grabs and trauma many generations deep. Periodic changes in attitude about religion and the role of women and earth based spirituality; the emergence of the institution of Christianity with its Inquisition, more conquest and displacement, witch burnings and torture generated fear and rejection of diversity. 

When our relatives immigrated to Turtle Island (North America) many ties to our ancestry were severed, no cell phones then. Many of us have lost the knowledge of our ancient ancestors, their community based celebrations, ceremonies and earth based spiritual practices. This can leave us feeling like we’re standing in a  open field with no protection but the naked knowledge of science. Balancing this with our spiritual, emotional and physical well-being requires community, ceremony, celebration, belonging, sharing  and caring for each other.

As we move forward now, rigid gender roles and rugged individualism (medicated by the temporary satisfactions of consumerism) are not supporting the mutuality and love we need to create the world we want to inhabit. 

I came away from the Matriarchs gathering with renewed hope that: 

• We can learn how to appreciate and benefit from all manner of human diversity. 
• We can reject dog-eat-dog type competition, cruelty and condemnation. 
• We can develop our emotional maturity and healing from historic trauma.
• We can cultivate patience, listen to each other and learn better cooperation.  We can recognize science AND the need for balance with sound values and communal spiritual practices.

Acting on the world we want to inhabit is our responsibility and we each bring valuable, unique gifts and talents to this.

Thank you.

References and links from Leslie Manning’s message at Durham Friends Meeting, October 12, 2025.

“Hold fast the Hope that anchors the soul, which is sure and steadfast, that you may sail above the world’s seas.” George Fox’s Letter to Friends in America (Epistle 314). [Note: Fox’s Epistle to Friends in America is based in Hebrews 6:19]

New England Yearly Meeting Called Meeting on Gaza   Sat. October 18, 3-6 PM on Zoom: https://neym.org/events-calendar/2025/10/called-meeting-gaza

 Statement from Eight Quaker organizations on Genocide in Gaza: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uOryTVQSzVIhsGfyvJC_Z0yeHy3QQN1F/view

Quakers and the Holocaust: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/quakers

Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, September 21, 2025. That same day, Shelley Randall was welcomed into membership at Durham Friends Meeting.

Today, September 21, 2025 and tomorrow September 22, carry a few designations for the world at large and for me personally.

First of all – today has been deemed International Day of Peace by the United Nations. I don’t know where and how that came about but considering the current circumstances the designation seems almost laughable if not for the fact that the state of our world and its beings are in such desperate straits: on-going genocide, starvation, cruel injustice. It is all so very, very sad – almost too much to bear.

And tomorrow is the autumn equinox – a fleeting time of equal light and dark. We blink an eye and the balance, the equilibrium is gone – replaced by fading light into darkness.  That’s what it feels like to me now in the external world as I am bombarded by ever more bad news for our country, other countries and peoples and ourselves as individuals, buffeted about, lost in the chaos of it all.

What I once knew is now uncertain and much of what I took for granted, in fact, is lost. In law school we studied and discussed “due Process rights and the constitutional right of free speech”. Now I wonder what is being taught since both seem to be a thing of the past.  Race based detainment has been upheld by the Supreme Court, at least temporarily.  ? What has become of the apparent guardrails in our democratic system I wail?!

My body, a source of strength and comfort has begun signaling I have lost track of equilibrium as I experience a constant dull achiness and outright sharp pain.

But I know there is good news here – if I begin with me and my body. And the ancient systems I return to when all seems to be lost.

In the 5 Elements theory in Traditional Chinese Medicine each season corresponds to earth elements, body organs and functions, emotions, foods, colors, sounds and more. The premise is the interconnectedness of all.

The Fall time corresponds to the element of metal, once used to forge tools to cut and slice away. Hatchets, swords, knives. These metal tools can be seen as a metaphor to cut away from my life that which no longer serves my best interests. Relationships, habits, foods, etc. When the cutting away occurs, we naturally feel a sense of loss and sadness, these emotions correspond to the Autumn and metal season. I like to think about the maple trees letting go of their leaves as they prepare for winter time, the most yin, quiet time of the year. The trees cannot sustain their leaves as their energy and nourishment fades.  So they let go and say good-bye, at least temporarily. And we mourn our losses of what once was. The long warm summer days that allowed us to spend hours outside. And we mourn the losses, even those habits that we give up because we must.  I taught Qi Gong at a 28 day residential program for addiction treatment and I used to talk about mourning the loss of our relationship to our addictions. Though in our best interest to let go of this relationship there must be a period of mourning and reflection around how they served us and why we need to say good bye. And what will take its place. And what can we develop to fill that place where drugs and alcohol once resided?

The saying good-bye part, the mourning and reflection is always the most painful. We have to look at how we got to that point squarely in the eye, being brave, feeling the agitation, sadness, the rage and the fear.

And I come face to face with my Self when I go through this process. This time around, my body was screaming at me, and I needed a professional to tell me – this pain is an issue of lack of mobility. And I was mad. At me, at my body. Why can’t I just relax now that I’m older, why can’t my body do what I want it to do without the extra time and effort to stretch and build strength. How did I forget that this practice needs to be part of my life?

And most importantly, Who am I now that I am older? What can I do and not do as a result? What are my limitations? And Who do I want to be going forward.

I am also cognizant that I am a person that feels deeply and the state of our country and the world affects me as it affects all of us deeply. How do we manage the sharp and overwhelming emotions that arise daily as we are bombarded with what seems to be more and more bad news, as we perceive that our country and our world as we know it is falling apart and what is our role now.

I come back to the premise of mourning. I know now that I must cry everyday in order to expel the grief that I experience every day, as I let go of what I thought were givens about how our government was supposed to operate and conduct itself. I can no longer hold onto the premises that I grew up with, that were instilled in me as a child. This is what is so shocking and so disturbing, along with what we know could happen if the guardrails in a democracy are completely destroyed. This potential is terrifying.

In the book Our Life is Love, The Quaker Spiritual Journey written by Marcelle Martin, she writes about Bill Tabor, “ a longtime teacher of Quakerism at Pendle Hill” and the pamphlet he wrote called Four Doors to Meeting for Worship. In it he recommends taking a period of “daily retirement” from the outward activity and business of one’s life. During such a period, Friends can contemplate a passage of the Bible, rest silently “in the eternal arms”, meditate, appreciate beauty, or pray for themselves and others.” (pgs. 147-148, Our Life is Love).

It is carving out time for this that creates the struggle in me. Is this enough for me to do? Shouldn’t I be doing more? The country is exploding in violence and I need to contemplate beauty? I ask myself. And then my body slaps me upside the head with that pain reminding me that I must take care of myself, first and foremost. I must give myself the time to mourn the devastating losses I am witness to. I must be in right relation with God. Only then can I be of service.

And this is a huge letting go for me. I was once a warrior, armored up, not needing anything but conviction and a facility with language to defend the violated and the oppressed.

But I am no longer that person. I have morphed, evolved into something else, something softer and more approachable. A body now with a heart that is open and strong and willing and filled with God’s love. A whole being that cares deeply. About myself as God’s child and about God’s other children and Mother earth and all her beings. And how can I maintain my equilibrium in order to be of service to this world that seems to be exploding around me. How can I utilize my skills and keep myself safe.

In Our Life is Love, Marcelle Martin writes about our Quaker forebears that sacrificed their lives for us to worship as Quakers. I applaud their heroics and am grateful that they led the way for me to stand in front of you today.  And each of their stories demonstrate a knowing that God was with them up until the end and they were calm.

So as I let go of the warrior I once was and fill that space with quietude to connect with God’s beauty. I can fill my heart with God’s loving strength and know that I am led and will always be led to where I am most needed. And I know also, that because I am filled with God’s strength and courage if I am called to do more than what I am doing now, I will show up. But in the meantime I must respect what God has put in front of me to do and continue my daily practices of respite.

This knowing and trusting that God will show me the way when I remember, alleviates the fear and the anxiety when my ego screams at me that I am not doing enough. This knowing and trusting comes from the “daily retirement” that Bill Tabor speaks of that provides me with strength to move forward just as I am.

So I let go of the hard wiring for action that has so defined me. And I mourn this loss and mourn the losses and suffering currently being experienced by so many humans, animals and ecosystems on the planet and I wait for the way to be opened.

And I’m painfully aware that a “daily retirement” is a luxury provided to me. I am not starving to death, or in the midst of a civil war or getting bombed out of my home and country. And again, what do I make of this? What is my responsibility in this midst. How can I contribute to Peace nationally and internationally on this International Peace day.

I try to return to my body and my heart. Am I at peace with myself? If not, how can I get there? Usually I need to recognize a resentment about someone or something, or a fear about something or someone – neither of the someones or situations I can control, so it has to be an internal shift towards understanding and compassion towards the someone or situation.

This is internal shift towards Mercy, a seemingly “old fashioned” word or biblical term has been lodged in my brain of late. The dictionary definition of “mercy” is Compassion or forgiveness shown towards someone whom it is in one’s power to punish or harm.

Mercy. The Spanish name Mercedes references Mercy. Girls in the U.S. were also once named Mercy. This a reminder that Mercy was not only found in our daily vernacular of old but also it was a name attributed to girls and women.

So when I hang on to a desire to punish myself or others, perhaps I can conjure the word “Mercy”. Mercy with a capitol “M”. Because as I know and have experienced, hanging on to the anger and the desire to harm can create its own discomfort in my body, my mind and in my heart.

The lack of mercy propelled me in my job as a warrior. The urge to punish those that I believed had oppressed another or were being unfair or who did actual harm. As a Child Protection Lawyer, I could understand and have mercy for the parents who harmed their children knowing that they had been harmed by their parents and the harm followed generations. What I held onto was the anger and desire to punish those in power who were oppressing vulnerable populations. This desire to punish was borne from my own sense of powerlessness operating within a skewed and unjust system.

It was my the lack of mercy by the government that is what I could not get past. And I suffered for it. I was a body charged and crackling, emanating anger and resentment and people were afraid of my energy and punished me. Ultimately, I was ejected from the very system that I was convinced I could help and contribute to. It was this urge to punish and hurt in the face of injustice that I had to let go of, it was eating me up, diminishing me and isolating me.

I realized I had not done the internal work necessary to find that place of balance to work towards justice without succumbing to the urge to punish and do harm. I had to find another way which required removing myself from the situation – of course, the system gave me a little nudge – and diving into the inner recesses of my being to uncover what – I did not know.

And as I’ve delved deeply internally, with God’s help, I’ve come face to face with two things: the infinite power that is Love and my own finite limitations. So it is here that I rest in a state of readiness to heed God’s call. It is here that I retire daily to connect with whatever God’s message and direction is for me. This trusting is a daily practice and this daily practice brings me to a sense of peace and rightness with the world that I can share with others. And that is enough. Right now, that is what God is calling me to do. There is peace in the sense of enoughness.

And now that I have let go of the should and mourned the loss of my old ways of being and make sure to take my daily retirement, I can go out into the world and carry peace with me to others, knowing it is enough and praying my favorite peace prayer.

Peace, peace, peace.

May I have peace in my heart,

Peace in my speech and

Peace in my mind.

May all beings know peace, as I wish to know peace.

                                                      Author unknown

This meditation was Joyce Gibson’s opening reflection at Durham Friends Meeting on August 31, 2025

Thoughts on The Spiritual Journey

On the drive from Massachusetts this morning, my thoughts turned to my work with my first spiritual advisor Dr. Margaret Benefiel, now head of Shalem Institute, who taught me how to stop and discern how God was leading me; in the middle of our hourly sessions, which were focused on my efforts to stay on the path of my spiritual journey, she would ask that we take a few minutes to be silent for guidance.  Figuring out what God would want from me in the everydayness of my life was new to me then. Being present with Him at any time of day was also what I was not doing, or practicing!    I now make an effort to be present to God, yet it is ever the struggle.

Today I would like to introduce two of my special people, Father Thomas Keating, known as the Father of Contemplative Prayer, someone I actually experienced in one of his presentations in Boston, and Father Richard Rhor, a Jesuit who founded the Center for Action and Contemplation, (CAC) based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and whose work I follow in daily meditations and through his books. meditations@cac.org

This excerpt is from a lecture Father Keating was invited to give as part of the 1997 lecture at Harvard Divinity School– the Harold M. Wit Lecture on Living a Spiritual Life in the Contemporary Age, and was published by St. Benedict’s Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado in 1999. The book is The Human Condition: Contemplation and Transformation. Father Keating was the former Abbot of the Trappist Monastery in Spencer, MA, and one of the foremost teachers of contemplative prayer in the Christian world.  He begins his lecture with a question, “Where are you?”

The spiritual journey, writes Thomas Keating, is not a career or a success story.  It is a series of humiliations of the false self that becomes more and more profound.  These make room inside us for the Holy Spirit to come in and heal.  What prevents us from being available to God is gradually evacuated.  We keep getting closer and closer to our center.  Every now and then God lifts a corner of the veil and enters into our awareness through various channels, as if to say, ‘Here I am.  Where are you?  Come and join me.‘(back cover, 1999)

Today’s meditation from Richard Rohr, Choosing to Become Present, connects quite well with Father Keating’s message in his lecture.  

He writes:

Anyone familiar with my writing knows that I believe that immediate, unmediated contact with the moment is the clearest path to divine union.  Naked, undefended, and nondual presence has the best chance of encountering Real Presence.  I approach the theme of contemplation in a hundred ways, because I know most of us have one hundred levels of resistance, denial, or avoidance….

In my novitiate I was exposed to an early method of silent Franciscan contemplation called pinsar sin pensar or no penar nada as described by the Spanish friar Francisco de Osuna.  I didn’t totally understand what I was supposed to be doing in that silence of “thinking without thinking” and probably fell asleep on more than one occasion.  Yet it had the effect of moving me away from the verbal, social, and petitionary prayers I had been taught almost exclusively up to that time.

Prayer is indeed the way to make contact with God/Ultimate Reality, but it is not an attempt to change God’s mind about us or about events.  It’s primarily about changing our mind so that things like infinity, mystery, and forgiveness can resound within us. (Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditations, Week Thirty-Six:  Practicing the Presence, Sunday, August 31, 2025)

As we move into waiting worship, consider, “Where are you?”

Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, August 15, 2025, by Lisa Steele-Maley 

Each summer, I noodle over the idea ~ and the experience ~ of Interdependence. 

I know this is spurred on by a desire to create counterbalance to the annual celebration of independence every July and I suspect it is sustained by watching the plants and insects of the garden interact with each other and the waxing and waning of sun, rain, and wind. 

I, perhaps like many of you, was raised in a family and culture that values independence. As I have grown older, I have seen how the idea of independence creates a separation that contributes to environmental and human exploitation, consumerism, competition, overwork, and dominion over creation rather than responsibility to it. 

The ideal of independence also keeps us from asking for help, leaning on friends, and fostering community, no doubt helping to create the epidemic of loneliness. 

To be fair, Independence does have its place – it allowed this country to originally become independent from the greed and control of a ruler king. It allows children to grow up and into their own lives. Because we are independent, we make up our own minds on matters of moral and ethical consequence. We love. We dream. We create. We can, in fact, choose to live our way toward a more whole, just, and loving world. 

But independence also creates a scar. You have heard of the idea of original sin? I think of separation as our original wound… and many of the wounds we experience in our lives and inflict on others stem from that original hurt. 

Interdependence is our true nature. Our brief lives on this Earth are truly interwoven, intermingled, and interconnected with all other beings throughout time and space…. 

We can not actually be independent of each other. We are wholly interdependent on each other, on the Earth that sustains us, and on a holy living truth that is greater than ourselves. Whether they name this unifying divinity God, Buddha Mind, Universal spirit, Brahman, Pachamama, or Holy Mystery, most traditions point to a sacred that is both immanent (within us) and transcendent (all around us). 

It is this holy weaving ~ around, within, above, below, and between that assures and reminds me that we inter-are. 

Inter-are comes from the word inter-being, coined by the buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh. He says “ I was looking for an English word to describe our deep interconnection with everything else. I liked the word “togetherness,” but I finally came up with the word “interbeing.” The verb “to be” can be misleading, because we cannot be by ourselves, alone. “To be” is always to “inter-be.” If we combine the prefix “inter” with the verb “to be,” we have a new verb, “inter-be.” To inter-be and the action of interbeing reflects reality more accurately. We inter-are with one another and with all life.” This concept of interbeing really gives our American minds, bred on independence, something to chew on.

It is in letting this concept integrate into my body and heart that I can really live into it, creating a counterpoint for my mind that can get stuck in habitual loops that reinforce the myth of separation. 

In our bodies, we have no choice but to know that we inter-are. After all, we require air every minute, water and food each day. The living, breathing world quite literally sustains us. 

We breathe in because our bodies require oxygen. We breathe out carbon dioxide. Trees take in the carbon dioxide that we exhale and release oxygen. We are co-breathing with trees all of the time. This is perhaps the simplest and most profound example of interdependence that I both know and also pay little attention to most of the time. 

But paying attention to the many ways that I am in fact connected to All That Is has been particularly helpful this summer amidst the fullness and frantic pace of the news cycle that keeps my lizard brain on high alert. 

Paying attention with my whole body, letting my senses inform and bless me re-members me to my true belonging to this living world. I don’t need to do anything to be worthy of it. It is simply already true. 

I’ve had the opportunity to swim a bit this summer. Every time I get in the water, I lay back and float for a while, feeling the water hold and suspend me while the sun warms my face. It’s been really nourishing to remind myself that I am always this supported. 

During a humid morning a few weeks ago, I was startled by the intoxicating dream-like fragrance of the blooming milkweed. I smelled it before I saw it. As I drank in the smell, I noted that the flowers are offering themselves to the pollinators of the insect world and I am an adjacent beneficiary. Later that day, when I noticed the monarch butterflies fluttering from stalk to stalk, my body recalled the morning’s fragrance. I could actually feel the butterfly’s attraction to the flowers as an expansion in my own heart. 

I said a minute ago that I don’t have to do anything to be fully integrated in the web of connection. That is true, and it is also true that I can actively work to tend and weave the web of connectivity with my actions and sacred imagination. 

When I introduce one friend to another, I am weaving a web of connection by bringing together two people whose lives may be enriched by knowing each other. When I usher a fly out of my house instead of swatting at it, I am supporting and enhancing the life of another being. When Leslie broke her ankle and put out a call for help, she was building new strands of connection. When I responded to her invitation, I reinforced the integrity of the web. We are co-weaving with one another. 

We are, in fact, always giving and always receiving. As I attune to interbeing in this season, I recognize reciprocity everywhere. As Robin wall Kimmerer says, “All Flourishing is Mutual” 

A few nights ago, the night was humid when I laid down for sleep. The window beside the bed was open but the air felt still and the night sky was silent. It was calm. Peaceful. Yet, as I lay there, a thought intruded, “this is the kind of night that bombs are dropped on.” 

I brought my hand to my suddenly racing heart. (Studies have shown that this simple touch activates the vagus nerve which plays a role in regulating the nervous system.) My thoughts went to far away lands – to Gaza, Ukraine, Yemen, and Iran – and it felt abundantly clear that the safety that I was enjoying in that moment was not guaranteed. It does not have to be this way and it can change in a heartbeat. 

Laying in bed with my hand over my heart, I let my sacred imagination weave a connection to another mother in another land, a mother laying in bed with fear in her heart, and hunger in her belly as the night sky rang with the sounds of destruction. 

I prayed with her for peace, for the safety of her children, for space to grieve the immense losses that she has already suffered. I prayed that she might wake to a quiet sky and a table graced with fruit and bread to nourish her family. I prayed that the planet will recover from the devastating pollution and destruction of war. I prayed that humanity will someday heal from this violent separation that is created by distinguishing “us” and “them”. As I drifted from prayer toward sleep, I felt a touch of peace born of connection and faith. 

In just a few minutes, laying in bed, I moved from isolation and desolation to profound connection and peace. It is all so much bigger than I can know. 

I’d like to close with the words of Joanna Macy, a brilliant thinker and activist who developed the Work that Reconnects. She died on July 19 of this year at the age of 96. 

Trusting the Spiral 
Active Hope is not wishful thinking. 
Active hope is not waiting to be rescued 
By the Lone Ranger or by some savior. 
Active Hope is waking up to the beauty of life 
On whose behalf we can act. 
We belong to this world. 
The web of life is calling us forth at this time. 
We’ve come a long way and are here to play our part. 
With Active Hope, we realize that there are adventures in store, 
Strengths to discover, and comrades to link arms with. 
Active hope is a readiness to discover the strengths 
In ourselves and in others; 
A readiness to discover the reasons for hope 
And the occasions for love. 
A readiness to discover the size and strength of our hearts, 
Our quickness of mind, our steadiness of purpose, 
Our own authority, our love for life, 
The liveliness of our curiosity, 
The unsuspected deep well of patience and diligence, 
The keenness of our senses, and our capacity to lead. 
None of these can be discovered in an armchair or without risk. 

– excerpted from Active Hope by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone