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!