Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, March 16, 2025

 “Be a good ancestor. Stand for something bigger than yourself. Add value to the Earth during your sojourn.” – Marian Wright Edelman

Last fall, when Ingrid, Cindy and I cleaned out the Sunday School cupboard we found a small box labelled “Time capsule” with messages that Durham Young Friends and others created on Childrens’ Day June 12, 2011. Evidently it didn’t get buried in the ground as planned!  It seemed like the start of a message to me and I offered to bring one sometime. The opening to contemplate past voices of Durham Friends arrived this week,and it seems a good followup to Doug’s message last week about the history of our meeting.

Last month I had the privilege to visit the Acoma pueblo outside of Albuquerque NM. This is my understanding of their story and hope it accurately reflects their story. The Acoma people have continuously occupied the area for over 2000 years. They built a town- now called Sky City around 1100  atop a 365 ft mesa.  Until the 1950’s it was only accessible by climbing the stone wall vertically using chiseled recesses in the rock. Everything including water, food, bricks needed to be carried up the steep rock wall. Acoma elders still choose to live there even with no electricity or running water. They are resilient people. In the past 2000+ years,  they have experienced massacres over and over, enslavement and Spanish colonialism, climate change, enforced conversion to catholicism.  In the 20th century, their children were removed by our government and by 1922 most were in Christian boarding schools. 

A remarkable part of the Acoma pueblo atop the mesa is the huge Adobe church built at the command of the Spanish in the 1600’s. Acoma men were forced to walk 30 miles away to fell tall 40 foot ponderosa pine trees and carry them back and up the rockwall to build the church roof.Men women and children were forced to build this church.  No record exists about how many Acoma died as a result of slave labor.  But the church exists today and holds many stories, both painful and miraculous. How Queen Isabella who initially ordered the enslavement and massacre changed her mind and stopped the killing of the Acoma. How President Lincoln singled out the Acoma and several other pueblos and wrote into law their sovereignty.

Our thoughtful and knowledgeable tour guide, Brandon, told the history of the trauma and resilience of his people. He said the Acoma have chosen to share their stories and allow visitors. They have been able to survive by compromising at times but more importantly holding a spirit of forgiveness in order to not be racked with hate. As we stood to walk out of the church, I asked him how he and his community are feeling in the current day. He said they are terrified, angry but resolute in maintaining their culture amid the current political situation. He worries about his kids and the children in the community. He said they have been threatened with deportation and chuckled about the irony- where will they send us back to? His Aunt called him recently and was fearful and depressed. He told her to remember the Beatles Song “Let it be.” Their community will stand together, and band with the other 18 Pueblos in New Mexico to fight injustice both for them and for everyone’s children. 

When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom
Let it be
And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom
Let it be
And when the broken-hearted people
Living in the world agree
There will be an answer
Let it be
For though they may be parted
There is still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer
Let it be

Our meeting family has been around for many fewer years than the Acoma- only 250. And we have many stories of the people and events that make up the fabric of our community. Last week, Doug gave a wonderful account of some of the tales of our meeting. We have experienced trauma but also the power of the Spirit that has bolstered our resilience and sustains us. And we have shared many sacred hours.

 Each of us also is part of our biological family with its share of love and trauma and resilience and sacred moments. When I was looking through family documents and papers on my recent visit to my dad, I found a letter that troubled me. It was from a family member and was a cruel, vengeful account of several experiences this person witnessed from other family members. I was troubled because it was told from a narrow perspective as each of us is prone to do. This letter accused other family members of damaging our family beyond repair, and in my view were inaccurate and didn’t leave room for discourse on healing.  In talking with a friend about what to do both with this letter and my response she told me about her experience working as a hospice chaplain and the dilemma people face with family stories that reflect a bad decision or human frailty but can be destructive. Some stories become stuck in the past and don’t allow for healing or redemption.  Her wisdom to me was to sort through what family stories are constructive to pass on and what stories may be acknowledged, faced head on, but possibly reframed or not passed on. Allow the story to run its course.  I was reminded of Brandon’s wisdom about holding our stories with a spirit of forgiveness.

My current ruminations are around stories- my family stories, my Meeting family stories and our country’s stories. How do I, how do we, recount our history? We have so many stories- our  conversations, relationships, events. How do we account for human frailty, unkind words, injustice that we have inflicted or received? Which stories have no purpose, which can we reframe to strengthen bonds of love and wholeness? These are all questions I’ve been wrestling with. What legacy do I want to leave my family, my Meeting family, my community, my world?

James Baldwin wrote:

“This is why one must say Yes to life and embrace it whenever it is found — and it is found in terrible places; nevertheless, there it is.

For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have.

The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.“