Message at Durham Friends Meeting, November 11, 2018

I want to share some thoughts about listening, being bold, and looking for the Divine in everyone. I’ll open by reading Dwight Wilson’s psalm 13 in Modern Psalms in Search of Peace and Justice.

For most, it would be easiest

to see You perform

solo on the universal stage

while we sit in the audience, eating popcorn.

That is not the design.

We are in this love together;

You as Spirit Prodding,

we as physical beings charged

with improving unfinished work.

We seek to perfect Your creation.

With wars and terrorist attacks

all across the globe,

and hatred running rampant,

apathy is not a choice.

We must act, or close the road

to our descendants’ survival.

Through Your call to love

You bring an arsenal of compassion.

Help us sing in tune,

spiritually rising to conquer evil,

fortifying the world

with our unwavering love.

Being a better listener has been one of my life goals. I have to work really hard at it, because I know that my attention is easily distracted. If a speaker says something that reminds me of something else, my mind can go off on a tangent about that instead of staying focused on what the speaker is actually saying. If you mention birds or ducks for example, I might start thinking about the antics of our ducks or what birds I am seeing at the feeder. I have developed strategies to help me maintain focus, like taking notes or doodling or maintaining eye contact, and use these when I can.

I’ve never been a bold person. I look around and see and hear the problems and needs of the world. I worry and wish others would do something. Every year at yearly meeting sessions I hear about great work that Friends are doing, with immigrants, with prison reform, and with many other issues. It’s always very humbling. I admire people like Wendy taking action on environmental problems. Oh, I do little things that I hope help the world, but don’t step into bold action myself. So lately I’ve been praying and meditating on how I can be bolder to help this world be a better place.

A couple weeks ago I went to one of the Makeshift Coffeehouses that Craig organizes. I’d hoped to have my husband, or a friend go with me but ended up going alone. This was definitely out of my comfort zone, and I didn’t even feel I could take my doodling supplies with me. I’d have to rely on my interest and care for others to stay focused.

The theme of the coffee house was why we vote the way we do. I WAS really interested to hear what people said. I truly don’t understand why many people believe the way they do and vote the way they do. I truly wanted to know as I have been especially discouraged about this country’s heated and angry political rhetoric and how people are swayed by it- myself included. But I have been shy and hesitant to talk with others about politics if I know they are on the “other” side of the political spectrum. It’s hard for me to remember to look for the Divine in someone whose words are strident, self-righteous, or deliberately divisive.

If you know my social and political beliefs, you know that I lean liberal. Sitting at a table with a number of self-identified very conservative people was enough to keep me focused. After a time, I realized that conversations during a two-hour coffee house were only scratching the surface. It would take much longer and more effort on my part for me to truly understand any of the people at the table.

One woman, when asked why she felt she was conservative, described growing up in a way very similar to mine, then went on to state her views about one issue that were quite different than mine. She also felt she had been snubbed by neighbors because of her conservative views. As the coffee house ended, I had the urge to ask her to meet me for coffee someday to learn more. I got her attention and started talking with her, then another woman came along, and they walked away together. I didn’t try to get her attention again so never made the offer but have regretted it.

This was a powerful reminder that we need focus and boldness to listen and respond to the Divine, just as we need focus and boldness to listen and respond to each other. I need to be better not just at listening for but also at carrying out those nudges from the Divine, like asking the woman to join me for coffee.

I’m grateful to this Meeting and the wider yearly meeting of Friends for inspiring me and reminding me to listen, be bold, and continue to look for the Divine in each person.

I’ll close with a poem by a 14^th century Persian poet named Hafiz.

If God invited you to a party and said,

“Everyone in the ballroom tonight will be my special guest,”

how would you then treat them when you arrived?

Indeed, indeed!

And Hafiz knows that there is no one in this world who is not standing upon God’s jeweled dance floor.

(Hafiz’s poem is from Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West, translated by Daniel Ladinsky; Penguin Compass Press, 2002. Dwight Wilson’s psalm used with permission of the author.)

A message given at Durham Friends Meeting on October 21, 2018 by Craig Freshley.

About this message, Craig Freshley says “This message is mostly a story – Acceptance was the answer – from the book, Alcoholics Anonymous.”

Craig records all the messages he gives and posts them on a website, Craig’s Quaker Messages.  You can listen to this one here.

Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, October 14, 2018

Driving to Meeting this morning through the reds and yellows brought on a different message than I had anticipated. “True Colors” was the phrase that rose and settled in my mind. I shelved the message I had prepared. Looking at the vibrant spectrum of colors of the fall leaves, I found myself wondering whether these are the leaves true colors? Or are the greens the true colors and these reds and yellows something odd and unusual?

We’re awash these days in occasions to wonder about a person’s true colors, especially in civic and political life. As we take in the news of elections and confrontations and scandals, we’re often left wondering what we make of this person or that one. Are they telling the truth? Are they trustworthy? What are their true colors? Do we see someone at their truest when they are relaxed or when they are under stress? Do we see their true colors in prepared remarks or when they are confronted in a Capitol Hill elevator?

In gathering to worship this morning we sang, at someone’s suggestion, “Still, Still With Me,” as one of our opening hymns. As we sang together, I noticed that the beautiful melody is by Felix Mendelssohn. He called it “Song Without Words.” And so I imagine he thought the piece’s true colors were as a melody without words. And then someone came along – that someone turned out to be Harriet Beecher Stowe – and wrote the words we sang this morning. So is this the song’s true colors?

Here in Maine we live in a place with four full seasons. We go through a long winter with the deciduous trees limbs empty of leaves. As the trees begin to leaf out in the spring, Ellen and I often quote to one another the Robert Frost poem that begins, “Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.”  In summer, the leaves turn a deep, lush green. And now in fall we have this glorious riot of colors. Which is the true color?

In my teens I came to have a deeper interest in the fall leaf turn. A good deal of my social life in high school involved working on science projects and competing in science fairs. I had a very good project in 9^th grade, but I was beaten by Susie Burrell who did a project on Why Leaves Change Color. I was stunned; probably pouted a good deal. Susie was a good student and a friend, but not, I thought, the sort of person who should best me in a science fair. It especially rankled because we had the same advisor for ours projects – my Dad. How could my Dad help Susie win? I’m sure I wasn’t at my best when I lost. But the episode left me with a special interest in leaves turning color. Every fall I still think of Susie Burrell.

What’s happening as the leaves turn their colors in the fall? If we think about it, we know that the leaves are about to fall to the ground. Are the true colors only revealed when the leaves are stressed, about to die? Are the colors just a distraction, or are they a last burst of glory?

At first I learned that as the fall comes, the chlorophyll and other chemicals that make the leaves green disappears. As the green color fades, the underlying reds and oranges appear. Just this summer, Ellen and I learned something else: that it isn’t just that the chlorophyll dies off or disappears. It is that the tree withdraws the chlorophyll, to store it in readiness for the winter and to save it for the next spring and summer. If that’s what’s happening, what are the leaves true colors, the colors when the leaves are productive, or the colors when they are facing death? How about human beings?

With trees, it’s a relentless cycle, one strictly controlled by soil, light and temperature. The trees and the leaves have no choices to make. The colors simply turn from gold to green and from green to rust and red.

It is different with human beings isn’t it? We believe we have some control over our colors. We have the ability to choose when and how we show anger or frustration, joy or grief. Which are our best colors and which our truest colors?

Do we show our truest colors when we blurt something out or when we have a chance to prepare? Do we show our truest colors when our health is at its peak or when we are nearing death? Do we show our truest colors when we are challenged to do something brave or when we can calculate what’s best to our advantage? Do we show our truest colors in positions of authority or when we feel powerless?

How about our truest colors in Meeting for Worship? Do we shape our true colors in worship? If not, when is it we choose, and how? Does what we find in worship carry into our work and into our relationships with family and friends?

[also posted on River View Friend]

Taken from a message at Durham Friends Meeting, September 9, 2018, by Doug Bennett

Much of life, I think, is like driving on the Trans-Canadian Highway, or like driving on I-95 or Route 1. You can get somewhere pretty fast. You can deal with the necessities of ordinary life. You can get to work or to a store or to a friend’s house. But the majesty and mystery of life, maybe not so much. That majesty and mystery may be nearby, but the highway won’t take you there. You have to go looking for the big water, and you may not find it. Maybe you have to get into a boat or walk a rocky path. Maybe you have to go to Meeting.

There are many days I’m looking for the big water. There are many days I’m looking for the experience of the divine, the presence of God, the holy. More often than not I never quite see the big water. I might catch glimpses. I might see bits of water through some trees. I might see boats that maybe could get me there, but they aren’t my boats, and most of the ones I see aren’t being used by anyone. I keep hoping to come round a bend and see the big water open up. I keep hoping the next bend will give me the long view, maybe even the eternal view, and take my breath away. Most days my view of the holy is blocked by dozens and dozens of bits of ordinary life.

For all the talk of God in the Bible, there are only a few instances where God makes a direct appearance. Think Moses and the burning bush. But that only happens a few times. And most of those few instances are times when someone simply heard God’s voice. Think Noah, or Samuel, or Paul. Most of the time people are just trying to find out what God wants them to do without ever catching even a glimpse.

Quakers often talk of being seekers. We talk of seeking God. We talk of stilling ourselves, quieting ourselves, getting off the highway away from the buzz, hoping to hear God’s voice. We know it takes effort, practice, prayer, waiting worship.  What’s more, it doesn’t always work. Sometimes we go through spiritual dry spells. Other times the big water, the holy, takes us by surprise. But we know, don’t we, there’s no direct route there, no simple turn-off scenic vista that promises us a view of God.

You can read the whole message at River View Friend.

Taken from a message given August 27, 2017 by Craig Freshley

I’m a pretty good skier, I love skiing fast. Very confident in my comfort zone, I’m experienced and when I’m on the ski slope I know what’s going to happen next. I know that I can handle it; it is so fun. Sometimes I get skiing a little too fast, a little on the edge of my comfort zone, that is when it turns from fun into a religious experience. Not a religious experience like “Oh God, Help Me!” , but a religious experience like “Oh God, this is awesome!”. I don’t know what’s going to happen next and I know I can handle it, because I have confidence in my ability and I have faith. It’s like this with lots of things, with music, theater, sports, where somebody knows well how to do something. Actors on the stage follow the script, they know it down pat. But it’s when they go off the script just a little, let the emotions get a little bit out of control, with true faith that it is going to be okay anyway – that’s when the magic happens.

Quakers have a history of going off the script a little bit. George Fox, many trail blazers, I might call it going from the comfort zone into the unknown zone. Don’t know what’s going to happen next, but if you have faith you know you can handle it anyway.

I’ve been doing an experiment in Maine… I want to tell you about that experiment. I want to tell you how I have gone into the unknown zone, how I’ve tried to bring people with me into the unknown zone. Before that, let me tell you a bit about my profession. I am a professional meeting facilitator. I have facilitated probably 3000 meetings over the past 15 or 20 years. Non-profit boards of directors, corporate groups, governments hire me. When there is contention, when there are high stakes decisions to be made, that’s typically when I’m contacted.

I first was called to do this by a Quaker woman. I’m a convinced Quaker and it was from a Quaker woman that I learned the principles of Quaker business practices and consensus decision making. I try to bring these practices into the main stream world. I worked in Augusta for many years and I sat through many bad meetings. I had the sense that we can do better. I set out to learn how to do things better. I really believe this, so I have written a book called The Wisdom of Group Decision. I’ve written many one-page tips. I have made over 100 videos. All of these are available on my website if you are interested. I’m not trying to be promotional, but there are resources available to you, you can Google my name and find that stuff.

At the last presidential election, I became deeply troubled at the magnitude of the political divide in our country, in our state, in many of our communities. I had a sense that the political divide was growing but the election results made that clearer to me. Like a lot of people, I wondered what I could do about that. What’s my part? Many people have activated in their own ways. My way was to try and bring people together. I had the idea to do this sitting one night in my Quaker Meetinghouse. Peter Blood and Annie Patterson – the folks who created the book Rise Up Singing – were there that night playing music and leading us in singing. I thought, if we are going to bring people together a good way to do that is to have arts or music or something. I invented the “Make Shift Coffeehouse”, rented space at the library, got the word out, made posters. I tried to bring Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives together with live music, food in a coffeehouse environment for some informal table chit chat and some formal dialogue where we simply try to understand each other.

I’ve had more than 6 of these so far in different parts of Maine and I have several more scheduled. There is a group that is very enthusiastic about this idea, they’ve formed the Friends of Make Shift Coffeehouse, trying to raise money and pushing me to take this further. They think this is really what the world needs.

It’s an opportunity for people to simply understand each other. Not persuade each other, not agree with each other, not find common ground. We are very clear about that. You are allowed to go to a Make Shift Coffeehouse and leave with exactly the same political views that you walked in with. The hope is that at least you shift a little bit of your understanding of where other people are coming from. Because I have learned from years of group dynamics experience that 90% of all conflicts are the result of misunderstanding. When we don’t understand our adversaries and where they are coming from, we make stuff up about them. We demonize them, we turn them into the bad guys, and it’s when we take the time to understand where each other is coming from, whether we agree or not, we have a much better chance of coming to a peaceful resolution.

Doing this, I’m outside my comfort zone. When I have one of these meetings, I’m not sure what’s going to happen, but I know I’m going to be able to handle it, because I have faith, I have confidence in my ability and I have the tools I need on board with me. I’m asking other people to come with me into that unknown zone also. A lot of people are afraid to attend one of these makeshift coffeehouses. I went on a morning talk show and the guys were teasing me, “Oh are you going to need medical supplies on hand?” It’s that kind of thing. I organized one at a local library and the librarian called me that afternoon and asked if I thought we might need a police officer on hand, because she had heard from people and the public concerned about going to this meeting where there were going to be Democrats and Republicans in the same room talking to each other. There is some fear about this. But with faith on board we can walk through that fear, step into the unknown zone. I’m doing it, because I think it is what the world needs. I think it is what God wants me to do. And other people are doing it because they think it is what the world needs. It’s not like we don’t have any tools. Like I don’t have the tools for doing this. I’m not stepping into the unknown zone unequipped. In my Quaker meeting, someone brought this analogy… it’s like being in the dark, carrying a lantern. Imagine an oil lamp, it makes a ring of light beneath my feet and illuminates few steps ahead and after that it is dark and it’s scary to step into the dark. Here’s the thing, when I take a few steps the light moves with me.

I am here to inspire you to step outside your comfort zone a little into the unknown in the direction that you believe God wants you to step.

What is the direction that you will step in to the unknown zone with your lantern?

Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, June 24, 2018

I want you all to see my coffee cup, which says “It’s a tough world, stay Prayed Up”. Most days, coffee and prayer get me through the day. Alright, coffee, prayer and the love of a good dog.

This cup is a gift and came from a very important Christmas tradition in my family – the Yankee Swap. I see this tradition is familiar to a lot of you. Every year, about 30 of us gather in my mother’s living room with a gift, costing no more than 20 bucks, and we wrap them up and pile them up in the middle of the floor.

Then, after drawing numbers we choose one gift for our own. If we don’t like what we have drawn, we can exercise the right to take someone else’s, until the last person has drawn, and then the first person can look them all over and choose any one they want. The Elvis Presley cookbook? Lottery tickets? A pair of Jesus socks? (Not socks that Jesus actually wore.) Wine and a couple of glasses? All yours–except the chocolate body paint. That was drawn by my then 80-year-old widowed mother–and she wouldn’t give it up. (She later said it was delicious over ice cream.)

And what, may you ask has that got to do with my studies at the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine? Well, my dear friends, every day at ChIME, every monthly weekend of intense study and practice, every weekly class, is a spiritual Yankee Swap. But in our version, every one of us gets not only the present that we want, but the present that we need.

I have invited some of my classmates to join us in worship today, and I hope you get to visit with them later. They are all remarkable , ordinary people.
The kind of people who show up without being called, who speak up, who stand up and who sometimes dance. It’s called chaplaining, — who knew chaplain was a verb? And it is becoming my life’s work and the work of a lifetime.

Chaplaincy Institute of Maine is an interfaith program with the intention of turning us out into the world, as called and led, to offer hope, healing and a listening presence for people at some of the darkest and most joyful occasions in their lives; and to be available, on spiritual stand-by, for all the moments in-between.

In between, that liminal space where we find grace, sorrow and joy. Today I want to concentrate on the joy. Liminal space is occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold. For example: “While doctors operate, she hangs suspended in liminal space”. In other words, G-d space.

The ChiME website says, “ChIME educates and ordains interfaith leaders who serve with integrity, spiritual presence, and prophetic voice.”

As part of our studies, we learn about the world’s religions, about our own vulnerabilities, our dark and golden shadows; we learn to listen and go deep to the source of all grace, sorrow and joy. We learn the difference between forgiveness and forgiving; to hang on and to let go; to open ourselves and allow ourselves to be opened. And we are only in the first phase of this work and calling, as we go together into the “classwomb” and are churned as we are chimed.

Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, May 18, 2018, by Bruce Neumann, Rising Clerk of New England Yearly Meeting

I’ve been thinking lately about continuing revelation.

            This is one of our basic Quaker tenets, that while there is only one TRUTH, our understanding of it is incomplete. And that we expect to see a little more of that TRUTH from time to time, whether through sudden insight during meeting for worship or personal prayer, or whether dragged kicking and screaming over a period of time in business meeting. The revelation can be a relatively small or personal thing, like William Penn asking whether he needed to abandon his sword, and George saying, “wear it as long as you can.” Presumably Penn woke up one morning and felt or saw the change in himself and put the sword in the closet. I also remember marvelling at a story in “Lighting Candles in The Dark” about a Quaker who was in the English navy and came to the truth that he could no longer fight. The peace testimony seems such a basic part of Quakerism, yet it was not fully understood in the earliest days of the movement.

This reflection on continuing revelation was initiated by an activity at a recent Salem Quarter meeting. In groups of 3, we were asked to reflect on various passages. My group was given a Woolman quote. I actually don’t remember what it was, but I jumped to thinking about Woolman’s concern, not just for slaves, but also for the spiritual health of slave owners. It’s easy from the moral high ground of our current vantage to be dismissive of slave owning Quakers. Yet I know all too well that I have my own blind spots and areas of my life that I choose to not look at too closely. There is a way in which I can relate to the slave owners saying, “Wait, WHAT? You’re telling me that this essential part of my daily life is wrong?” I imagine that this was a slow process for them: coming to understand the issue, coming to terms with the effect that change would have, and living into the new personal reality, like cooking and cleaning, and less profit on their business.

The query that came to me a couple of weeks ago in that Salem Quarter workshop is “How is my spiritual life a prisoner of comfort and profit?” Or “What are the behaviours and practices in my life, which stunt my spiritual growth, keep me from greater oneness with God, and from doing all I can to build the kingdom of heaven on earth?”

There are three areas that come to mind which I feel unsettled about, where I feel in need of continuing revelation to provide some clarity.

1). My wife and I have been saving for years, hoping to have a reasonably secure and comfortable retirement, but I hear the echo of Jesus’ words whispering in my ear “where your treasure is, there is your heart.” While I can argue that we give money away every year, and do a lot of work for good causes, and say that we’re not overly attached to this retirement fund, I also know that the idea of giving it all away makes me feel incredibly anxious, so I think perhaps my heart IS where my treasure is. It seems that my faith is not strong enough to believe that God and social security will be enough.

2) Most of us are committed on some level to working for the health of our planet. And yet I suspect that we are not consistent in our approach. I drive a hybrid, but am flying to San Diego for a wedding in June – in a few hours of plane travel I will use up all the gains I made over the year with my car. And I use – most of the time – reusable shopping bags, but If I need a new phone or tablet, do I use as much thought about the impact on the earth?

3) Finally, with minimal awareness, I benefit every day from institutionalized white supremacy. I had no trouble getting college loans years ago, Pat and I had no trouble getting a mortgage for our house, or any challenge from our prospective neighbours. When I get stopped by a cop I am embarrassed, but I do not fear for my life. I am not followed if I go into a nice department store. If I was guilty of some minor crime like possession of drugs (pretty unlikely for me) I could probably avoid going to prison. While I can say the words “I’m not a racist”, and can say that I had no part in setting up these systems of oppression, is my conscience clear? Would Jesus be content with the little things I do?

And these are just three things that I can see into, if through a glass darkly. Are there other things that I have no clue about? 30 years ago many of us were only beginning to understand the impact of our behaviours on the planet. Even 10 years ago, while I understood that people of color had a hard time, I was not clued into my tacit participation in a system of oppression.

So, again, my query is:

What are the behaviours and practices in my life, which stunt my spiritual growth, keep me from greater oneness with God, and from doing all I can to build the kingdom of heaven on earth?

April 30, 2018

Former Pastor Doug Gwyn writes, “I’ve been reconnecting with First Friends Meeting in Richmond, where I was pastor for seven years. They have just finished installing solar panels on their roof.  They celebrated the completion of the project last Sunday (April 22).  I was asked to write a song for the occasion.  It went over well.  I thought since Durham Friends has recently been through the same process, people there might enjoy the song.”

Photons Don’t Fail Us Now!

it would be foolish to vote on the nature of a photon

as Quakers we simply approve

you can argue to the grave it’s a particle or wave

we just want to let it hit our roof

‘cause you can’t catch a paradox and lock it up in a box

you can only let it pass right through ya

it feels more like a current, as it were and as it weren’t

and it makes you sing Hallelujah!

photons, calling all photons

photons, don’t fail us now!

try as we might, we cannot see the light

we only see what the light illuminates

like Jesus and Moses, it sees us and shows us

where we are and how to navigate

like the light of the sun, there’s a light in every one

if we’ll only tune in to that channel

and if you need any proof, just stand on our roof

and learn from our solar panels

photons, calling all photons

photons, don’t fail us now!

like the Old and New Testaments, this major investment

is somehow divinely inspired

to live more sustainable is surely attainable

‘cause that’s what the Lord requires

all those thousands of dollars might make some folks holler

it might even bring them to tears

but as the sun shines, it rains nickels and dimes

and will pay off in twenty-two years

photons, calling all photons

photons, don’t fail us now!

Doug Gwyn, April 2018

In a message on an Easter that was also April Fool’s Day, Doug Bennett retold a crime story in which the suspect escaped — and leaves us all with important questions.  Should we follow this ‘bad guy?’  If we do, will we escape, too?  You can read the message on Doug’s blog, River View Friend.  

Teacher, what is the greatest commandment? Love the Lord your God with all you heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.

And the second is like it: ‘Love our neighbor as yourself.’ Matthew 22:36-39

Have you ever asked yourself, why, our Country, ‘founded on Christian Principles’, has had difficulty honoring that commandment? Why is our Country still struggling with issues of Race, Gender, Inequity and Injustice?

The purpose of human life is to serve and to show compassion and the will to help others. Albert Schweitzer

Schweitzer was a person who made a conscious effort to align his actions with his beliefs. He made a life-long commitment to honor the two greatest commandments. I don’t think he was a Quaker, but he shared Quaker values.

Justice will only be achieved when those who do not suffer injustice feel the same outrage as those who do. Socrates – Socrates was definitely not a Quaker. However, he could have been.

This morning will be about interventions, by individuals who Overcame Obstacles.

Thank you for inviting me to return to Durham Meeting. I have been uplifted by our previous conversations and hope they have added value to your life-journey. We’ve all been inundated with bad news, so today, I thought it would be refreshing to share some good news. For those in this room, for the first time, previous conversations have included asking questions:

Why are things related to race, the way they are today?

What did Quakers do, from the beginning, about issues of inequity and injustice, related to matters of race that was very different from the ‘mainstream’?

Two significant events embracing ‘Outrage’, ‘Love thy neighbor’, and ‘Showing the will to help others’, initiated by white people; that got my attention.

1965 – August. I was just hired to teach, my first job. Looking for an apartment, I came upon a church, drove into parking lot, hoping someone could give me information about a Realtor. I met the minister.

I did not know, that minister, along with other church members, college students and professors, from Oberlin College, were ‘outraged’, made a commitment to ‘help others’, and took a significant risk. They went to Blue Mountain, Mississippi, in December 1964, to rebuild one of the 30 Black Churches that had been burned. They all returned. Some white people, from the North, who went to help Black people in their struggle for Justice and Equity, in the South, returned in a box. That got my attention. 2 of 8

1973 – August. I was hired, as an Elementary Principal, in the Town of Weston, MA. After I was hired, I learned 7-years before, 1966, a handful of individuals, were ‘outraged’, and made a commitment to ‘help others’ by addressing decades of inequity and injustice in BPS. That got my attention.

Quakers understood, before Independence in 1776, there was something very wrong, fundamentally wrong, with a social, political and economic system that was unjust, and oppressive, and supported by The Christian Church.

Quakers understood the lofty concepts of ‘Freedom’, ‘We the people’, and ‘The pursuit of life, liberty and happiness’, were not inclusive, they were a ‘Myth’! Some groups were intentionally excluded from the Social Contract: Native People, People of Color, Women, and those who did not share ‘religious beliefs’ of those in power.

There have always been two versions of The United States of America story:

• ‘Land of the free and home of the brave’.
• ‘Land of the free and home of the brave, with significant flaws, from the beginning, which continue to result in profound conflict’.

Today, I will draw your attention to interventions, created by individuals, to address one of the profound flaws – inequity and injustice in education.

There are two take aways. First, Quakers have had a long history of challenging tradition, being outraged, and trying to live enlightened lives, by actively honoring the Greatest Commandments. Second, here are two illustrations of non-Quakers, being outraged, and acting on Quaker values.

• Jonathan Kozol, and
• A few citizens of Weston, MA.

“Overcoming Obstacles”  Time Line: 1950’s and beyond, modified by Roland A. Gibson

1954 – Brown v. Board of Education, Supreme Court landmark decision. Implications?

1955 – Roland graduates high school, enlists US Air Force. I took an oath to ‘Defend the Constitution and the United States’. What was I supposed to do about the flaws that impacted me and others? A conversation for another time.

1960 – Roland attends College, in Quincy, had to deal with matters of race; puzzled, because this was a ‘Christian College’. Race matters never addressed in classes.

1963

a. Spring – ‘March on Washington’. Why?

b. Every city in America was in turmoil – why? Boston – Huge Demonstrations by black parents and boycotts by their children. Why? Gross inequity and injustice in BPS; was never addressed in college classes.

1964

a. Operation Exodus – Black and White parents came together to address problems.

b. Jonathon Kozol begins teaching at Gibson Elementary School, Dorchester. He was 28. The next year I was 28, teaching in Town of Harvard. (Read excerpts – ‘Frozen In Time, Remembering The Students Who Changed A Teachers Life’, June 30, 2015, NPR, All Things Considered)

1965

a. Spring – ‘March on Selma’. Why?

b. Summer, Camp Blue Hill, Roxbury Weston – Initiated by a handful of white suburban parents, women who were ‘outraged’! See Weston Historical Society November 2017 Bulletin, pages 8, 14-16.

c. Fall, Roxbury Weston Pre-School. See Weston Historical Society November 2017 Bulletin, pages 11-14.

d. Fall, Roland begins teaching career Harvard, Mass, upper income, suburban town. My students were baffled by turmoil. What was I supposed to tell them?

e. Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity (METCO), created, transportation initially funded by Carnegie Foundation, and later by the Massachusetts Legislature.

1966 – 200 Boston resident students bussed to 6-suburban towns:

Arlington, Braintree, Lexington, Lincoln, Newton and Wellesley.

1967 – Weston Public Schools becomes METCO partner, along with close to 30 other suburban towns.

1968 – National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorder, Kerner Commission Report:

a. Our country is moving toward two societies, one black, one white, separate and unequal.

1973 – Roland appointed Elementary School Principal, Grades 3 – 6, Weston Public Schools; first cohort of Boston resident students in grade 6.

1974 – U. S. District Court Judge W. Arthur Garrity found Boston’s Schools to be Unconstitutionally segregated…initiated forced busing plan.

1984 – Roland becomes 5th Weston METCO Program Coordinator, inherits major challenges.

See Historical Society Bulletin, pg. 27

1993 – District recognized by Mass Board of Education – ‘Exemplary Integrated Education Model’; and The Network, a Private Non-Profit – ‘Outstanding efforts in celebrating diversity’. See Weston Historical Society Fall Bulletin, pg. 29.

2017 – November: Roxbury Weston Preschool and Weston METCO Celebrate                 50 years.

a. Weston Historical Society Forum speakers: 1 – Founder citizen; 1 – Founder                     educator; 2 – Weston METCO Coordinators.

b. Over 100 people in the room, standing room only! Founders, parents and students from Boston and Weston. Some parents and students were in my school and spoke with me about the impact this program had on them and their children.

c. One panelist asked: ‘Why are you here?’ Responses:

• (1) To say ‘Thank You.’
• (2) To continue to support the program’
• (3) I see value and have personal experience with the program.
• (4) Panelists are great!
• (5) We still have ‘flaws’ and not dealing with them is not an option!

d. Follow-up meeting, to ‘Brain Storm’ initiated.

This is not about ‘blame’ or ‘guilt’. It’s about making a commitment to honor the ‘Greatest Commandment’; it’s about being ‘Outraged’; it’s about ‘showing compassion and the will to help others’, something very personal, seeking and finding ‘the purpose of human life’.

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Mr. Gibson began his education career as a Social Studies Teacher, grades 7 – 9, at Bromfield School in 1965, during The Civil Rights Movement – the latest struggle by African American citizens, to achieve Civil Rights equal to those of white citizens, following centuries of oppression, inequity and injustice. His 50-plus years of service, in public and private schools include positions as: Department Head; Teacher; Assistant Headmaster, Director of Admissions; Field Elementary School Principal, Grades 3 – 6; Graduate School of Education Professor, UMass Lowell; School Committee member in Littleton, his home town; Educational Consulting, and facilitating workshops in: conflict resolution, parent training, problem solving, board development, staff development, cultural identity, equity and diversity.

Mr. Gibson challenged traditional views of identity, which profoundly impact student achievement. He believes strongly that each educator has a role to play in improving the education process for all students and creating change in society. As a result of his work to improve outcomes for all students and facilitate change Mr. Gibson has received numerous awards.

From a message by Doug Bennett, November 26, 2017

Here is something surprising about the Christmas stories in Matthew and Luke, the only Gospels with Christmas stories: there is never any mention of the Jesus’s birth in the Gospels or in the rest of the New Testament for that matter. It’s as if everyone forgot about that miracle birth. No one ever says to Jesus, “Aren’t you that guy that was born under a gigantic star?” Or “aren’t you the one the Magi came and showered gifts on? Whatever became of all that gold? Do you have a trust fund?” Or even, “wow, you must be the real deal! I remember what a fuss the angels made about your birth. That was amazing!”

Not a word. If no one in the Bible remembers, why do we make such a deal out of it? The collective amnesia is all the more surprising when we remember that the Gospels are full of hints and suggestions and confusions about whether Jesus really is the Son of God. Wouldn’t this have clinched it, if someone had just said: “Remember the amazing birth, the Magi and the angels and all that?” So what’s the point of these two Christmas stories that are part of these Gospels and yet not part of them?

There were plenty of other born-of-a-God stories in the world into which Jesus was born: Achilles (in the Iliad), Alexander the Great, Augustus Caesar: all claimed to have gods as parents. This Jesus that is born in glory turns out to be completely different from anyone else who has a “born-of-a-God” beginning. Those others were garden-variety heroes, strong warriors, born to rule and to dominate others. Those others become powerful. They dominated others. They had the ‘right stuff’. Now in Jesus we have something completely different. Strength is turning the other cheek. Love, not power is the major chord. Peace seeking, humility and simplicity are the order of the day.

For me, it’s not possible to understand the Christmas story without thinking about the other stories about Jesus that the Gospels tell, the stories after the Christmas story. These are stories that challenge us to live a different life.

Every so often you read a story about a guy who seemed to have everything: smarts and charm and wealth, and then it all goes bad. Everything sours. He ends up without friends, in prison, and finally he’s executed. Maybe he was guilty of something, maybe he wasn’t. But he’s forgotten soon after the news story. So sad, we say.

Jesus’s story is like that. It starts in glory and ends in execution. Only we’re not supposed to think ‘so sad’. When Jesus dies, he is ushering in something completely different; he triumphs. But he triumphs only if we follow the new way: the way of love and forgiveness. We certainly won’t see that surprising triumph if we only remember the first part of the story, the part in which he is born having it all, a good family, wealth and adoration. It’s what happens next that really matters. So stay tuned. Can we make the new way triumph?

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The entire message can be found at the blog River View Friend.

From a message in November by Edwin Hinshaw

A beatitude is prophetic pronouncement of joy, hope and promise used most effectively by Jesus in his teaching. Beatitudes are not peculiar to the New Testament. They are found throughout the Bible. They are pronouncements upon the person who is righteous, who keeps his/her hand (life) from doing evil, looking forward with confidence and trust in God. Beatitudes are not eschatological in nature (such as rewards after death or the end), but promises realizable during one’s life time upon earth.

The joy and happiness expressed in the Beatitudes comes not from good fortune or reward but from the fact that action being considered reflects the nearness of God. While the Beatitudes cited by Jesus follow the general pattern of all Beatitudes, he adds a special dimension or paradox. Persons who in no way appear fortunate are those declared blessed. The special dimension comes from taking a risk in faith with justice, peace, simple living and witness to God’s love.

In addition, Beatitudes are so stated as to release us from the tension of the present into the joy of the moment. In planning for tomorrow, the next day after that, or the next year, may our goals be joyful, hopeful, risky, moral and affirmations of the nearness of God: Beatitudes for the future.

A message by Craig Freshley on November 19, 2017.  You can listen to a recording of it here. Here is a partial text:

I’m going to retell a story that I heard from my friend Gary, I’ve colored in some of the details but basically it goes like this…

Gary was on a business trip for a month, in Bangkok. He was tired, ready to go home. He had been dealing with translators, restaurants, hotels, and difficult relations with business partners. He was headed home to New York, but he had to stop half way there. The flight from Bangkok to Abu Dhabi went well but when he walked into the airport, his heart sank. There were people everywhere: sleeping, talking on cell phones, babies being fed, crying. He made his way to the flight information board and saw his flight… cancelled. He was trying to get home for Thanksgiving. He was tired, hungry, and he kinda snapped. He was angry. He had been doing pretty well with the customers and the changes, but he didn’t need this.

He made his way to the customer service line, and figured he was about 40^th. One ticket agent. Tempers flared, tears cried. As he waited, he planned his speech. He figured he was going to get about 3 minutes with this representative, a face-to-face conversation with the faceless corporation that had done him wrong.

After about 1 1/2 hours, he found himself maybe 4^th or 5^th in line, close enough to overhear what other people were saying, and he refined his speech. He heard the customer service representative. After each person walked away, she gathered herself, looked in the eyes of the next person, and she said, “How can I help you?” He watched her do this repeatedly.

Gary closed his eyes and meditated. He prayed for help, his prayer began with something like “Please help this woman get me to New York”. But then his mind wandered a little bit and he started thinking about her, wondering: Did she have kids? She was about his age. How does she get to the airport? Drive like everyone else and park in the same garage? Maybe she takes the bus – it must be a long bus ride; this airport is kinda far outside the city. Does she wear her uniform on the bus? Do they have to check in through TSA? Maybe… she was called in. Maybe she was called away from her family on short notice, to deal with all these cancellations… I wonder if this is a holiday in Abu Dhabi…

Suddenly he had a new way of looking at the situation and he decided – when I get up to the counter – I’m going to have an attitude of “How can I help you?” He threw out the old speech. He didn’t make a new speech, but he just cultivated a new attitude of ‘how can I help you?’

He decided that he was going to try to see the problem as “their” problem. Not her problem to solve for him. They were both just trying to do their jobs, both in a difficult situation that neither one of them asked for. He decided he was going to be polite, to be patient. He was going to offer her compassion and respect, he was going to provide a respite for her in between dozens of angry customers. And when he got to the counter, he did those things. He acted out the attitude and when they were done, and he was about to walk away, he thanked her for being so helpful.

Gary walked away from that customer service counter feeling better than when he had arrived at that customer service line, not because of what he got from the transaction, but because of what he gave. I never heard if Gary made it back for Thanksgiving. But I’m thinking that maybe it doesn’t matter so much. I suspect that Gary walked away from that counter proud of himself for flipping his attitude and brightening that gal’s day, and he was probably okay with the outcome, whatever it was. I’m guessing.

You know what else? The material outcome probably wouldn’t have changed one bit if he had used speech number one. To me, the story illustrates the power of prayer. To me, I haven’t really seen direct evidence that prayer changes outcomes. Not in a way that is scientifically, or evidence based defensible. I have seen that prayer changes attitudes. That’s what happened in this case. What matters is not the accounting ledger of how people have done me wrong versus how people have done me right. Stuff happens. Bad things happen to good people. I can get myself in such a knot, such a bad mood trying to keep track of that ledger and trying to manage that ledger. What matters is a feeling of peace and happiness. We are seduced into thinking that by managing the ledger, by trying to get more than I paid for, that’s going to bring me peace and happiness. But, there is a short cut. The short cut is a change in attitude. In Gary’s case, his attitude changed through prayer and meditation. Attitudes are contagious. I like to think that while Gary was at the customer service counter, having his conversation, a person 3 places back overheard a snippet of that conversation and a way opened for that person to see things in a new light.

From a message by Nancy Marstaller in October, 2017

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to discern what God’s will is—God’s good, pleasing, and perfect will. (Romans 12:2)

Transformation was the themeof yearly meeting this year. I was blessed to be able to attend and want to share a story from that meeting that has stuck with me.

Friend Xinef Afriam retold us the familiar story about a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, but added new information that I didn’t know and that gave us a whole new view of transformation- both for caterpillars and for humans. I was so intrigued, I looked up more about this when I got home.

As we know, after a time of eating and eating, a caterpillar finds a place to make a cocoon or chrysalis. Imagine the monarch butterfly caterpillar, which makes the wonderful J shape and spins its gold-decorated chrysalis around itself. But it’s not as simple as we think. There are cells, which are dormant in the caterpillar and called “imaginal cells.” It turns out that before hatching, when a caterpillar is still developing from an egg, it grows an imaginal disc for every adult body part it will need- such as eyes, wings, and so on. In some species, these imaginal discs remain dormant throughout the caterpillar’s life. In other species, the discs begin to take the shape of adult body parts even before the caterpillar forms a chrysalis or cocoon.

When the imaginal cells are awoken from dormancy, at first they operate independently as singlecelled organisms inside the caterpillar. They resonate at a different frequency so are regarded as threats and attacked by the caterpillar’s immune system, which digests some of them. But they persist, gradually multiply and grow stronger. The caterpillar’s immune system can’t keep up and the caterpillar digests itself. The imaginal cells survive, forming clusters and clumps. Because they resonate at the same frequency, they can communicate. They connect and become a multi-celled organism – a butterfly is formed!

What really struck me was that the caterpillar at first resisted this transformation, which got me pondering about how humans change.

There is a hymn we don’t sing often but did recently. The first verse is, “Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, in the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side. Some great cause, some great decision, off’ring each the bloom or blight, and the choice goes by forever ‘twixt that darkness and that light.” It terrified me as a young child. I worried that I had missed the moment, that somehow, I had chosen for evil, that I was doomed. As an older child, I felt our country had chosen for evil, that we had been slaveholders, didn’t give equal rights to all, were killing innocent civilians in Vietnam. But I also believed that there is that of God in everyone, meaning we could change, be better.

Now I realize that for most of us there is no one dramatic moment, but constant moments of choice throughout life in which we can choose right or wrong, better rather than worse. One of the ongoing discussions at yearly meeting and among many of us in our country is white supremacy. I feel like I am called to do something about overcoming it, and currently that is mostly reading. When talking with people of color at yearly meeting and hearing their stories, I was saddened and angered by the ongoing overt and structural racism that pervades our society. How one mother feared for her dark-skinned middle-schooler to go downtown in Castleton, Vermont, worrying what could happen just because of the color of his skin. Something I never even thought of as a mother of a fair-skinned boy. I am learning how privileged my life is in ways I have taken for granted – I don’t worry I will be discriminated against in any aspect of life because of my whiteness and that is SO different from the experience of many others.

So, I am praying, hoping, and visualizing that the “imaginal cells” that seek racial justice, that seek to do what is right, that seek to do God’s will, are growing within myself and within society. May we resonate at the same frequency, communicate and grow stronger, so that together we can bring more peace and justice into the world.

I’ll close with a passage from Psalm 19, to which I’ve added a line: O let the words of my mouth, the meditations of my heart, and the transformations of my life be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord.

An excerpt from a recent message by Sukie Rice in October, 2017

“Humanity is like an enormous spider web, so that if you touch it anywhere, you set the whole thing trembling… As we move around this world and as we act with kindness, perhaps, or with indifference, or with hostility, toward the people we meet, we too are setting the great spider web a-tremble. The life that I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place and time my touch will be felt. Our lives are linked together.” (Frederick Buechner, 1926 – )

I have pondered this quotation many times; it makes me very aware how we “tremble each other’s webs” all the time. Sometimes in large ways, sometimes small, although we rarely know when it happens. An example: I’m a total grouch early in the morning. I would drive to school each morning, grumbling about all those children I was going to have to be nice to, wishing I could just be left alone. But then, in the parking lot, a child would run up to me exclaiming, “We have music today, Ms. Rice. I can’t wait!” “That’s great, Maryann, I’ll see you soon,” I’d say, and my grumbly web would be shaken. Then two boys would come up with, “Can we help you carry the autoharps, Ms. Rice? At home I’ve been singing that song you taught about Charlie on the MTA. And my mom knows it.” By the time I’d reach the school door, I’d be feeling chipper and looking forward to being with the children. They trembled my web. They never knew it.

Now here is a story of something major that happened this summer. Friends of Kakamega decided to provide a SunKing Solar Light for every child/youth in our program. For this we needed to raise over $8,000, a hefty amount. But because clean, renewable light in a home is so important, we made this commitment. It happened!

But it wouldn’t have happened without one of the people going on our summer trip to Kakamega, a college student named Liz, researching solar lights. She discovered this unique light, specifically designed for Kenyan homes and convinced Friends of Kakamega to make the big commitment. She trembled our imagination.

Backing up the web: Liz wouldn’t have gone on the trip except she had gone to school with Mitch Newlin, who has been to the Care Centre seven times and is now a valuable member of the Friends of Kakamega board. He trembled her web with stories of the Care Centre. But Mitch never would have gone to Kenya except he attended a benefit dinner at Durham Meetinghouse when he was 12 and exclaimed to his parents he wanted to go to Kakamega Care Centre when he was old enough. When he turned 16 in 2011, he went with his dad, John, and the rest is history for Mitch. The Care Centre has trembled his web in a huge way and his whole life will be different because of it.

The trembling doesn’t stop there. Durham Meeting wouldn’t have held that benefit dinner (and all the subsequent ones) except that Dorothy Selebwa, founder of the Kakamega Orphans Care Centre came to Durham Meeting one Sunday at the end of April 2002. She trembled my web and turned my life upside down, as this project has done for so many people: children and families in Kenya, and for Americans who have visited and experienced themselves the hope and miracle of the Care Centre.

There is more. I wouldn’t have been there to meet Dorothy, but I began to visit Durham Friends Meeting in 1980 and, although it was very different from my Quaker experience before, I wanted to return again and again. I was an odd duck for Durham, but the women welcomed me. Betty White, Charlotte White, Mary Curtis,

Lydia Rollins, Margaret, Clarabel. They made me feel so welcome and I wanted to make it my home.

So, because the women of Durham meeting trembled my spirit, I was there so Dorothy could tremble my web – and that of Durham Friends. Mitch’s web was trembled. His telling Liz about the project trembled her web. She decided to go, and did research on solar lights. Her research influenced Friends of Kakamega’s determination to provide solar lights for 260 homes, which has had a terrific impact on the lives (and webs) of so many people.

“Who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place and time my touch will be felt.” May we all keep trembling each other’s webs and let the trembling live on!

AUGUST 7: DOUG BENNETT: “I’m with Stupid”:  I try to remember that Jesus’s Disciples regularly had difficulty learning what Jesus taught.  I take comfort and guidance in their showing that spiritual learning is hard, and not well or easily captured in any Creed.

AUGUST 14: DOUG GWYN: George Fox’s last words: “All is well.  The Seed reigns over all.” And “I’m glad I was here.”  The Seed is the eternal dimension hidden within each of us, hidden within time and place.  While we live, we exist in particular places and times.  When we die, we no longer exist, we’re in the eternal.  The point is to start living eternity now, which is the kingdom of heaven on earth.

AUGUST 21: NANCY MARSTALLER: To stay open to the Holy Spirit, it’s important to have an open heart, to keep listening to others’ stories, for the messages they bring in various ways, even if the language is not our usual or not to our liking. We need to stay open to Spirit’s promptings to share our own stories and act as Spirit moves.  As Stephen Grellet said: I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.

AUGUST 28: DOUG GWYN: We exclude others through either/or thinking, like racism or sexism.  To build a civil society, we must work toward both/and, across our various identities and differences.  Life in community, especially religious community, goes still further, to neither/nor.  In community, we become real persons to one another, no longer this or that identity or difference.  And such communities are leavening agents, helping the wider society grow beyond either/or, at least to both/and.

current unit focuses on mass media, and how language is used to reach a certain audience and achieve a certain purpose. I figured that the lessons would be easier to plan and assignments simpler to grade if I helped the class narrow down the possible topics to three or four, and everyone could write on one of those; we could get some basic subject knowledge in each area, and they could supplement their own standpoint with individual research. In one of the first class sessions, a Dana pointed out that bloggers often don’t take full advantage of the freedom that blogging theoretically provides, since they are afraid of being labelled as biased, or of being attacked for their opinions. I thought quite a bit
about her point, which, although not new to me, struck me as more significant for Palestinian bloggers than for American ones, and it influenced the way I wanted to teach the unit. We began focusing on tactics to gain and maintain an audience, with a critical eye to how commonly used tactics to win “views” on the internet can alter a message. Provocative, exaggerated or gossipy headlines, polemical language, humor and metaphor are some of the popular devices employed as “click-bait,” a phrase the students taught me. But does the use of these tactics impact the message? “I’m writing about feminism,” said Nour. “I can’t use a gossipy tone.” Her classmates retorted that she could; “OK, but I wouldn’t” she clarified. Why not? I asked. “It would be unethical,” “It makes the topic seem unimportant,” “People wouldn’t take the topic seriously.” We discussed the dance that bloggers must do, in attracting an audience, while maintaining the integrity of their message. I’ve been impressed with how thoughtfully they have considered what degree of “self-selling” is appropriate to their topic, since many have chosen weighty issues such as stereotypes of Arabs, young girls sold into marriage in Syria, and the dangers Palestinian children face when travelling across occupied territory to get to school. I imagine Early Friends having contemplated a similar challenge: the truth they wanted to convey was too vital to be diluted for the sake of mass appeal. And yet they had to make their new message feel compelling and alive. In one sense, Friends then and now have it easier than bloggers. The blogger’s message is evident only through his written language. Friends can count on their lived example to attract others to their truth, a “click-bait” strategy which seems to speak louder than words. Mimi Marstaller, Volunteer Teacher at Ramallah Friends School

Created by Leslie Manning and presented at the Christmas Program, Sunday, Dec. 29, 2013
T’was First Day before Christmas and all through the Meetinghouse

Not a creature was stirring, not even the Meeting mouse.

The Mitten Tree was hung by the doorway with care,

In hopes that each knitter would donate a pair.

Worshipers were nestled all snug on their benches,

Musing on Quakers from Foxes to Denches.

Nancy and Clarabel were planning to groove,

While Sukie and Choir would get us to move.

When out in the parking lot there arose such a clatter,

Some sprang from their seats to see what was the matter.

And there, on a blanket of new fallen snow,

Two weighty Friends were going at it, toe to toe.

Oh, No! “We ought not have a program,

A tree in the Meeting Room! We don’t have a liturgy,

that’s gone – Just like Naylor’s groom.”

“But, Friend, can’t you see we are all kinds of Quakers!

If we don’t adapt, we’ll be gone – like the Shakers!”

Right into that fray jumped a jolly old elf,

Our own fount of wisdom, Margaret Wentworth, herself.

“Christmas”, she said, “is more than the day.

Christ’s birth is lived as a path, as a Way

For all homeless parents to find room in our hearts,

Whether out at a manger Or working at WalMarts.

We are called to feed all of God’s children,

Bellies and souls, so shall we fill them;

To treat each other with love and respect,

To offer to ease the weight of neglect.

We don’t need a star to show us the Light,

We know in our hearts to do what is right.

So, friends, let us gather, As we do every week,

And honor the meaning of

“Let your life speak.”

From our Pastor’s message of Sunday, April 15, 2012
Rufus Jones grew up near here in South China, Maine. In his book “Trail of Life through the Early Years,” he wrote about what it was like to grow up as a Friend, to grow up “Quaker.” In the following quote, he is talking about what going to Meeting was like when he was just about 10 years old. He says: “Very often in these meetings for Worship, there were long periods of silence … I do not think that anyone ever told me what the silence was for. It does not seem necessary to explain Quaker silence to children. They feel what it means …”
Then on the next page he says: “Sometimes a real spiritual wave would sweep over the Meeting in these silent hushes, which made me feel very solemn and which carried me – careless boy that I was – down into something deeper than my own thoughts, gave me a momentary sense of that Spirit who has been the life and light of people in all ages and in all lands.”
It is that same “something deeper” that we are gathered this Easter in family Worship to recognize and to celebrate. What we are actually doing is FEELING … in the same way that Rufus Jones says Quaker children feel and just know why they’re sitting here together even without explanation. We are feeling our way down to the place where we get it that God is with us. Since that first Easter morning when Mary sees that the stone has been rolled away, when she meets and recognizes Jesus there in the garden; since that very morning we have all had direct access to the Light of the risen Christ. And Friends have always seemed to know that we find it in our own hearts. From the oldest of us to the youngest it is this that we come to know in Meeting for Worship.
But, until George Fox made his great discovery on Pendle Hill in England, until he had his direct experience of God — of the inward teacher — the risen Christ; until then, for nearly 1,500 years (and sometimes even today) this kind of knowing was almost forgotten. It got hidden, locked away really, in church ritual. And for most people hope got postponed, put off to the distant future … till the end of time.
Hope postponed reminds me of our human tendency of putting off until tomorrow what might be better done today. Why? Because moving the very present reality of God close at hand, into the future, into another time … a second coming … could be a way of saving the actual practice of Christianity for later. If we say “Christ is risen” but continue to see this spiritual reality only as a metaphor, something that is not real and certainly not very practical, we may be able to convince ourselves that it’s OK to cut some corners where justice is concerned. We may be able to rationalize slashing budgets for social programs, but continue to spend countless billions on armaments. These are the sort of corners that we might not cut so easily, if we knew, really deeply knew, felt from our own experience, that Christ is risen, eternally present among us. Would knowing this deepen our integrity and compassion?
At Easter we do this every year — we celebrate Jesus’ resurrection — but what, I wonder, does this inner resurrection actually look like? I know myself that I have been slow to understand and receive the guidance
of this Light. I think this is largely because the inner experience can be quite subtle, and because the Light of the inner resurrection shows up in the most ordinary places and times. It shows up in the everyday events of our lives.
Remember how from time to time you’ll have a flash of insight or a wise moment when you perceive some deeper truth, perhaps a truth that once you see it you just know and have always known it to be true?
Or perhaps you are working on a problem and suddenly you see your way forward, you just know how to proceed? These are, I think, gifts … gifts of the spirit to our better selves. But, for so much of my life I misunderstood them to be the product of my own mind. I did not understand the source of that still small voice within — I did not understand just how intimate God is, or what part Spirit plays in our daily lives. I do not think that I often realized just how much help we really receive. This is how it is: the inner resurrection helps us trace the footsteps of God as they wind their way through the ordinary moments of our lives.
The resurrection lets the Truth of God’s Presence shine.
So, it’s Easter and we celebrate the beauty of God’s world. We celebrate the shining Truth of the Resurrection, and we give thanks … for all the help we do receive.
For, He is, indeed, Risen this day.

Peace Corps Volunteer, Cameroon

Asinge, Friends!

At a few degrees above the equator, my Cameroonian village in West Africa can at least depend on one thing arriving with consistency – nightfall at 6:30.  Water in the public taps, phone network, electricity, the long promised road repairs, teachers for the new school year, cross your fingers but don’t hold your breath.  Electricity has been out for almost a week now.

Today I traveled to charge my computer, only to find that riding over broken roads on motorcycles, or jungle humidity, or maybe lizard droppings, have gotten the best of my keyboard.  So many letters don’t work, what I’ve typed looks like code!  I’m typing by candlelight and have put out buckets to collect rain for my bath and dishes.

My alarm clock will be the bustle of early morning village life: chickens, babies, wood-chopping, open-fire cooking, neighbors yelling greetings to those trekking to their cocoa farms or hauling water.

It’s all part of my roller coaster ride as I try to integrate into my community as a Peace Corps health volunteer, the first foreigner to have a presence here in 20 years.  The learning curve has been more like free fall as I get used to hearing “WHITEMAN” yelled as I pass by villagers still taken aback by my presence, and keep my front door open despite my desire for privacy to respect the culture of openness.

My job, helping this community identify and address their health development needs, has been the most rewarding, exasperating, and eye-opening experience I’ve ever been thrown head first into.

Perhaps most moving has been teaching reproductive health to young women who are going through adolescence and womanhood without even basic information.  The school curriculum includes no sexual education, though premature pregnancy and STD’s are major problems among youth.  The first time I held a seminar for 7^th – 9^th grade aged girls I put out a “Question Box” for their confidential matters and could not hand out slips of paper fast enough for their outpouring of uncertainties.  I cried reading them later, realizing I’d hit a nerve of serious need that I could actually respond to.

Helping them navigate pregnancy, child-rearing concerns, introducing the benefits of family planning, and sending the message that they can positively influence their own lives is a role I love.  Doing so in the context of rampant need and the social and cultural complications I’ve been learning about for years is a dream come true.

Still, the going is slow.  The heat, harassment and endless house malfunctions can make crawling out of bed utterly overwhelming.  Yet, the headaches of trying to function where basic functioning often seems out of reach are made immediately worth it by the thrilling moments.  Yesterday a nurse and I hosted the first session of a support group we are trying to launch for HIV+ women.  It has taken months to find even a few women willing to share their status with others.  Talking about the free treatment available to these women, who have never had autonomy over so much as a dollar, let alone their own health, was powerful.

Kids have been the golden ticket to feeling at home here.  Their adoring greetings (“Auntie Tasse, Auntie TASSE!”) and laughter as we draw and play cards on my porch always brighten my day.  I can’t wait until they return from their relatives’ holiday care so I can distribute the equipment and supplies you sent through the Women’s Society.  What an amazing outpouring of childhood goodies that these kids have never known.  My heartfelt thanks to you all.  For pictures of my recent summer camp, check out my blog at tessincameroon.blogspot.com.  For questions or more dialogue, email me at tmarstaller@gmail.com Thanks for your prayers of support!