Read at DMM business meeting, May 17, 2026

Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, May 17, 2026

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

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

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

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

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

Is this making sense to you? 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Also posted on Riverview Friend

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

Welcome and Happy Mother’s Day!

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

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

And sometimes men mother their children.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And I waited.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is the path of love.

MAY WE ALL BE MOTHERS

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

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

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

May we find interdependence and connection with all Beings

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

May it be so. Blessed Be. Amen

Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, May 3, 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

I acknowledge and honor the relationship that I have with water during my walk by squatting on the bank of the Santuit River and submerging both hands in the water long enough to leave my scent in the river. I anoint my forehead with river water from one hand and the nape of my neck with the other hand, so as to carry her scent. I am in the river, and the river is in me. We are one. After all, we are 50-75 % water, the average being  60 percent water. Of course we are related: kinfolk. Some days I am given to singing or humming to the river. A soft singsong that has words or not, maybe hummed, is pleasing to do and appreciated by the river. If the songs have words, they always express gratitude and may be the same words repeated over and over. Wampanoags have appointed water keepers, always women, whose service it is to sing to the water. If we bear witness to the beauty of Nature And witness to the ways she suffers, we might be led to discern what is ours to do.; perhaps to be the voice for those who have no voice. What we love we protect, but for the desire and commitment to do so.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you for inviting me to bring a message.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Pause]

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

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

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

Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, March 15, 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But how do we do this?

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

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

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

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