The old two-holer at the end of the horse shed. It needed to be available the day we celebrated the 250th because our well pump had failed, disabling the indoor plumbing.
What We Do, We Do Together
Agenda and Materials for October 19, 2025 Business Meeting
The reports and other materials for the October 19, 2025 DMM Business Meeting are HERE.
Durham Monthly Meeting Agenda, October 19, 2025
1. Approval of September minutes
2. Trustees
3. Ministry and Counsel
4. Woman’s Society
5. Peace and Social Concerns
6. Finance
7. Other business
“Hold Fast the Hope That Anchors the Soul,” by Leslie Manning
References and links from Leslie Manning’s message at Durham Friends Meeting, October 12, 2025.
“Hold fast the Hope that anchors the soul, which is sure and steadfast, that you may sail above the world’s seas.” George Fox’s Letter to Friends in America (Epistle 314). [Note: Fox’s Epistle to Friends in America is based in Hebrews 6:19]
New England Yearly Meeting Called Meeting on Gaza Sat. October 18, 3-6 PM on Zoom: https://neym.org/events-calendar/2025/10/called-meeting-gaza
Statement from Eight Quaker organizations on Genocide in Gaza: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uOryTVQSzVIhsGfyvJC_Z0yeHy3QQN1F/view
Quakers and the Holocaust: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/quakers
Falmouth Quarter to Meet October 25, 2025, 9:30 to 3:30
Falmouth Quarter will meet on October 25th from 9:30 – 3:30 at Durham Meeting Meeting (or by zoom, link password 1775). We invite you to come and share about the life and spirit in your meetings. Our hope is that our entire time together is a time of worship, with laughter, business, connections and fellowship. All are welcome.
We invite you to come and share about the life and spirit in your meetings. Our hope is that our entire time together is a time of worship, with laughter, business, connections and fellowship. All are welcome.
The schedule for our time together is:
· 9:30 gather
· 10:00 Meeting for business – agenda at end of this announcement
· 12:00 break, brown bag lunch – there is a stove, microwave and tea kettle in the kitchen.
· 1:00 Afternoon program:
Description of the afternoon program:
“Rekindle the gift of God that is in you… for God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control” (2 Tim 1:6-7). “Behold I will do a new thing” Isaiah 43:19
We are living in different times, do we have the what we need now? How can we find our spiritual bearings in the face of the institutional cruelty locally, nationally and internationally? What is the Truth that is needed now and how do we tell it’s story?
We will listen to the story as told in Isaiah that the community learned to tell during the exile in Babylon, and listen to the story told in Ramallah by Jean Zaru in the present time.
Through their stories, we expect to begin to find new threads of Truth that speaks to our current condition — the story that we need today. A story that equips, empowers and encourages us.
Agenda for business meeting:
· One of the essential responsibilities of a Quarter is to pay attention to and nurture the spiritual health, experience and ministry in the monthly meetings of the Quarter. Please come prepared to share about the life of your meeting.
· Report from Annual Sessions –
o The concern brought by Falmouth Quarter about supporting LGBTQAI+ communities and especially Transgendered folks.
o Our experience of the bible half hours brought by Kirenia Criado Perez
o Other
· Treasurers report, approving the budget, approving donations.
· Approving the Quaker representative to the Maine Council of Churches.
· Approving the dates and suggesting topics for Quarterly meetings for the coming year.
Maker Cafe, Thursday, October 16, 2025
“Durham Friends Meeting at 250: Kindling a Fire with Gratitude” by Doug Bennett
Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, October 5, 2025, on the occasion of Durham Friends Meeting’s 250th Anniversary and also World Quaker ay 2025
Today, October 5, is World Quaker Day, a day for Quakers around the world to recognize and celebrate one another – and worship, too, in one worldwide community. Across the globe, Quakers are gathering today, holding hands with one another across the miles. Kenya to Kansas; Norway to New Zealand; Bolivia to Brigflats in England; Durham in England to Durham in North Carolina to Durham in Maine. We join in that celebration.
We are also gathered today to celebrate 250 years of this Meeting. This Meeting began before people in this country declared their Independence and founded a new nation. We do not know the exact date, but sometime in 1775, Quakers first gathered here in Durham, Maine for worship. Those first members worshipped in the house of one or two of those earliest members. So we have chosen to celebrate this 250th anniversary on World Quaker Day 2025.
A celebration: is this what we are having? We celebrate birthdays. We do that with a cake and candles. We celebrate the 4th of July, the beginning of our new nation. We do that with hot dogs and fireworks. We celebrate triumphs. We do that with parades and cheers. But how about a Quaker Meeting that has existed for centuries? Is this a celebration? Is it an occasion for taking pride? It’s hard not to feel some pride, but should that we the center of our experience of the day? I think we celebrate such a day with gratitude and with worship.
There is a story here, a story of faithfulness, I’m thinking. Just like the Bible, read cover to cover, is a story of faithfulness. We should tell that story, but no one can tell the whole story and certainly not in fifteen minutes. It is a story of a shared journey, and no one of us was present for the whole journey. Certainly none of us gathered here today were present at these beginnings. We are inheritors of those who journeyed before us, seeking and striving to build a Beloved Community. And for that inheritance we are grateful.
Where does the journey begin? A long, long time ago.
Each week when we gather, we remind ourselves that we gather on Abenaki land. The Abenaki were here in this place for thousands of years before there were Quaker settlers here. And we are grateful to them for their stewardship of this beautiful place. These were our first neighbors; we’ve had many others.
We are grateful for those neighbors, and for the many others who have been our neighbors here in the Androscoggin Valley, in a place we today call Durham. We have neighbors farther afield, too: those who have worshipped here once or many times and now live elsewhere. For instance we have neighbors in Cuba, at Velasco, our sister Meeting, and in Cuba Yearly Meeting. “Love Your Neighbor” is the theme of this year’s World Quaker Day around the globe.
A little closer to the present, in 1652, George Fox preached at Firbank Fell in England to a large gathering of seekers. Perhaps that’s the beginning of what we know as Quakerism. He gathered people in worship. In 1657, just five years later, the small ship Woodhouse took eleven Quakers on a voyage to the Americas that eventually landed them in Rhode Island. I think that’s a part of the story.
Those on the Woodhouse had a fitful journey. Robert Fowler, who built the boat and was their captain, wrote about going ashore one day. He says, “they gathered sticks and kindled a fire, and left it burning.” That’s pretty dodgy as a contemporary environmental practice, but it’s an arresting metaphor of tending and spreading the Light. It’s what we do week by week, year by year: We gather sticks, we kindle a fire, we leave it burning. It’s a welcome we offer, and an invitation to know God’s will, gathered here with others.
In 1661, just four years after the Woodhouse, we have the first gathering of New England Yearly Meeting. We are grateful to be a part of New England Yearly Meeting all these years.
1775, 250 years ago, is the first gathering of Friends in worship here in Durham. 1790 we acquire this land, purchasing this plot from a Quaker family that had purchased a larger plot. In 1800 we built a new larger Meetinghouse. In 1829, we built this new brick Meetinghouse, where we have gathered in worship ever since – and gathered, too, for pot-luck suppers, for singing hymns and singing folk songs, for plant sales, for fellowship – and for many, many other purposes. We invite others to use our Meetinghouse as well.
There is so much that has happened here over our 250 years of worship together.
For many years there were separate entrances for men and women. Men and women also sat separately, and they held business sessions separately, at least until 1881. This despite women being leaders in this meeting, and among Quakers generally, right from the beginning. I do not know when we removed the separate entrances or the sliding partition: sometime in the 19th century.
Over the 250 years, there were schisms in Quakerism, sometimes bitter divisions. Hicksite Quakers contended with Orthodox Quakers in the 1820s and for decades after. But not so much here in New England. At Durham we were relatively untouched by that schism. A few decades later, a visit from English Quaker Joseph John Guerney brought a revitalized evangelical thrust to American Quakers, and that was felt here in Maine. Our fondness for hymn singing probably stems from that renewal.
In 1914, we hired a pastor for the first time, a woman named Laura Ellison In doing that, we were a minority among Friends in the east coast of America, but joined with a majority of Friends around the world. We had a pastor for about 100 years, until recently, when we decided that we would continue having a prepared message most First Days, but have no pastor. Through all our years, we have especially wanted a time of still and silent worship in which anyone present may feel called to rise and speak as they are led by God, by the Holy Spirit, by the Inner Light. We do not insist on any one way of speaking of the source.
We remember fondly many of those pastors: Dwight Wilson, Ralph Greene, Jim Douglas, Peter Crysdale, Daphne Clement, Doug Gwyn, just some of these pastors. We have also been blessed by our elders, people we regard as unusually faithful and wise. This morning I’ll just name a few who departed from this life in the memory of those present: Beatrice Douglas, Louis and Clarabel Marstaller, Margaret Wentworth, Sukie Rice. For all these Friends, we are grateful.
Throughout our history, we seem to have been a Meeting with a relatively wide tolerance for differing theological understandings. Quakers in general, and this Meeting in particular, have no Creed. There are no beliefs to which one must swear allegiance. We trust one another in our faith journeys, our lifelong efforts to find God’s will. We gather in silence to hear what God is saying to us, and speak what we find when we feel moved to offer ministry.
An 1899 history of Durham describes the Friends as “quiet, industrious, honest and devout.” I suppose that was accurate as far as it went, but we’ve always been more than that.
In our shared worship, many of us find ourselves compelled to take action. That has been a thread throughout Durham Meeting’s history, but there has been quite a variety in the ‘leadings’ (that’s what we call them) to which we find ourselves drawn. Many from Durham Friends served as missionaries both here in the U.S. and abroad, in Ramallah Palestine, for example, and in Africa. For many years we had a vacation Bible school. Friends from this Meeting have served important leadership roles in New England Yearly Meeting and with other Friends organizations. We have supported an orphanage in Kenya.
Today, our Woman’s Society offers a monthly meal at Tedford housing. We support the LACO Food Pantry; we donate to Women’s Shelters in Maine. We maintain three cemeteries that provide for simple burial of those departed. (Just this weekend, a man named Po, born in Hong Kong, was buried in Lunt Cemetery.). We donate mittens and coats in the winter, and to funds to provide home heating for those in need. Friends from this Meeting are active in prison ministry efforts, in peace vigils, in efforts to end gun violence, in efforts to improve education in social justice, in support for migrants and refugees. I could go on.
We worship as a community; have done for all our history. We’re not just a collection of individuals; what we do, we do together. We support one another; we gather strength in being together. I especially appreciate what Noah Merrill, the superintendent of New England Yearly Meeting, had to say at Annual Sessions this year. He voices our hope, our commitment:
“The Religious Society of Friends, our local meetings, were never meant to be places for the welcoming, respectful practice of hyper-individualism. The discovery and nurture of these fellowships, centered in worship, was always intended to help Friends gather and be gathered by the Spirit into local covenant communities—
- anchored and shaped in worship,
- nourished in fellowship and mutual care,
- formed in exploration of our living tradition, and
- sent forth by the overflowing of Love in our hearts into service and love of neighbor in the whole of our lives.
And all of this, all these fruits of this journey together, however imperfect, are our Testimony.
“But there is one thing needful. We must not allow ourselves to fall into despair of the living water, even in this parched wilderness. It is the witness of countless generations, who like us suffered and struggled and mourned and rejoiced and lived and died in faith, that the Life and Power we seek is closer than breath to us, always seeking new channels through which Love might continue to come into the world.”
We’ve been here 250 years. A long time. We celebrate that new beginning in 1775 here today. This morning, this beautiful morning, however, I’m thinking the story doesn’t begin 250 years ago. It doesn’t begin a few thousand years ago with the coming of the Abenaki into this valley. It doesn’t begin at Firbank Fell with Fox speaking to gathered seekers. It doesn’t begin with the voyage of the Woodhouse or the founding of New England Yearly Meeting. The story begins with time itself. It begins, as it always does and always should, with God.
From their beginnings, Quakers have been especially drawn to the Gospel of John. Most of you know the beginning of that Gospel, that telling of the story.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
This day is an occasion for recommitting ourselves to what was done on that First Day when Friends gathered in Durham 250 years ago, and on the First Day a week later, and on the First Day after that, and so on for about 13,000 First Days. We gather here in worship. We gather to hear what God has to say to us. We gather to hear what God would have us do after the rise of worship.
Like those who voyaged on the Woodhouse, “we gather sticks and kindle a fire, and leave it burning.”
As we prepare to settle into silent worship in the manner of Friends, will you join with me in reciting a very special song of gratitude, the 100th Psalm. It seems especially appropriate this day:
Psalm 100 (King James Version)
100 Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.
2 Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing.
3 Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise:
be thankful unto him, and bless his name.
5 For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.
Also posted on River View Friend
October 2025 Durham Friends Meeting Newsletter
Durham Friends Meeting Minutes, September 21, 2025
Durham Monthly Meeting of Friends met for the conduct of business on Sunday, September 21, 2025, with eleven people in attendance at the Meetinghouse and two by Zoom.
1. Meeting Opening
Ingrid Chalufour, serving as clerk pro-tem, opened the meeting with an excerpt from Amanda Gorman’s poem The Hill We Climb, written for President Biden’s inauguration, January 20, 2025:
This is the era of just redemption.
We feared it at its inception.
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs
Of such a terrifying hour.
But within it we’ve found the power
To author a new chapter,
To offer hope and laughter to ourselves.
So while once we asked: How could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?
Now we assert: How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
We will not march back to what was,
But move to what shall be:
A country that is bruised but whole,
Benevolent but bold,
Fierce and free.
We will not be turned around,
Or interrupted by intimidation,
Because we know our inaction and inertia
Will be the inheritance of the next generation.
Our blunders become their burdens.
But one thing is certain:
If we merge mercy with might, and might with right,
Then love becomes our legacy,
And change, our children’s birthright.
So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left.
With every breath from our bronze-pounded chests,
We will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.
We will rise from the gold-limned hills of the West!
We will rise from the windswept Northeast, where our forefathers first realized revolution!
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the Midwestern states!
We will rise from the sunbaked South!
We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover,
In every known nook of our nation,
In every corner called our country,
Our people, diverse and dutiful.
We’ll emerge, battered but beautiful.
When day comes, we step out of the shade,
Aflame and unafraid.
The new dawn blooms as we free it,
For there is always light,
If only we’re brave enough to see it,
If only we’re brave enough to be it.
2. Approval of Clerk and Recording Clerk, pro-tem.
The Meeting approved Ingrid Chalufour as clerk pro-tem.
The Meeting approved Sarah Sprogell as recording clerk pro-tem for the meeting.
3. Approval of Minutes of July 2025
The Meeting approved the Minutes of the July 21, 2025 Business Meeting.
4. Finance Committee Report — Nancy Marstaller
Nancy reviewed the attached written and numerical reports for the first and second quarters of the year. She highlighted that our income is higher than usual for this time of year because of a large financial gift received at the beginning of the year, and a large interest payment when a CD was cashed in. On the expense side, Peace and Social Concerns’ spending is high but is balanced by a grant from Obadiah Brown’s Benevolent Fund and a donation from the Meeting Care Coordinator funds. Legal fees to resolve the Babcock estate have been an unexpected expense. Despite the over-budget items, however, we continue to be in good financial shape at this point in the year.
A suggestion was made that we encourage and promote weekly giving and direct deposit giving.
5. Trustees Report — Sarah Sprogell
Please see the written report for a summary of recent work done at the meetinghouse to replace our bulkhead and the meeting sign at the corner. It was suggested that we include a history of the “Quaker” star added to the sign, for those who are not familiar with it.
Trustees request the Meeting’s approval to spend up to an additional $10,000 for legal expenses that may be necessary to carry out the probate work needed to resolve the Babcock estate. A detailed report of the history and progress of this effort is attached. The next hearing date is October 22, 2025. There was a suggestion to consider mediation if that is appropriate.
This brings the total amount approved thus far to $20,000.
6. Ministry and Counsel — Renee Cote
M&C recommends that we ask Falmouth Quarterly Meeting to address our concerns about the current environment of cruelty being expressed towards immigrants and other targeted groups in our communities.
Meeting for worship on Nov. 2 will be a Meeting for Grieving. It will be a time to remember those who have passed away this year as well as other heartfelt losses.
M&C is planning an adult-hour series of Quaker instruction called Quaker Way, to be offered at 9:30am two Sundays a month, from November through March. There was a sense of gratitude and appreciation for this opportunity.
7. Peace & Social Concerns — Ingrid Chalufour
Ingrid reviewed the attached report of updates and activities including the October 4 movie night for World Quaker Day/DMMF 250th Anniversary, the Social Justice Book Project work at Kate Furbish Elementary School in Brunswick, and a teacher training conference focusing on Wabanaki curriculum being planned for January 2026. Please see the report for details.
8. Woman’s Society — Dorothy Curtis
Women’s Society would like to hold a silent auction in November.
The Meeting heartily approved.
9. Other business
The Town of Durham request for help with parade and/or other activities to celebrate the US 250th anniversary in 2026 – carry-over from July Monthly Meeting:
We did not reach unity on this request, and it was suggested that further discussion with a larger group of Friends would be beneficial. Leslie Manning will reach out to Durham to gather more information.
10. Maker Café Update —Kim Bolshaw
There was a knitting group at the September Makers session with an excellent instructor and 10 knitters. Many non-knitters also came for the conversation, meal and music. About half of those in attendance were not associated with the Meeting. Jenny, who bought the parsonage a few years ago, came for the first time, and also came to meeting for worship today! The music and food were enjoyed by all. Donations covered our expenses with $72 to spare.
11. Meeting Closing
Business Meeting was adjourned with appreciation for everyone’s input and the beautiful fall day.
Respectfully Submitted,
Sarah Sprogell, recording clerk pro-tem.
Request for Assistance to Cuba Yearly Meeting
From Falmouth Quarterly Meeting’s Puente de Amigos Committee
Dear Friends,
In November Cuba Yearly Meeting will celebrate 125 years of Quakers in Cuba. We are delighted that New England Yearly Meeting General Secretary, Noah Merrill, and Jacqueline Stillwell of Monadnock Meeting have been led and found clear to travel to Cuba to represent New England Yearly Meeting at this week-long celebration. The events run from November 9 to the 16th.
These plans were made quickly as the concept for this trip came together at NEYM Sessions in August. Due to the short time frame, there has been little time to raise funds to take to Cuba on this trip. The Puente Committee has committed $2,000 to purchase needed supplies and to send cash. Noah and Jackie could carry an additional $3500 to donate to Cuba Yearly Meeting to use for their many acute needs, especially capital projects to repair churches.
Please consider donating funds to the Puente de Amigos Committee so that Noah and Jackie can carry the maximum amount of cash allowed. Whatever you can contribute will be a great help to our Cuban Friends.
Time is short. We need to have the funds in hand by Saturday, November 1, in order to convert it to cash in time for their departure. There are two ways to contribute.
You can send a check made out to New England Yearly Meeting with Puente in the menu line to our bookkeeper, Roland Stern at 86 Barrett Street, Needham, MA 02492.
Or you can go to this website: https://www.tfaforms.com/5028973 to use a credit card.
Thank you for considering this gift. En Fe,
Carolyn Stone and Richard Lindo, Co-clerks of the Puente de Amigos Committee
“Letting Go – My Path to Peace,” by Shelley Randall
Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, September 21, 2025. That same day, Shelley Randall was welcomed into membership at Durham Friends Meeting.
Today, September 21, 2025 and tomorrow September 22, carry a few designations for the world at large and for me personally.
First of all – today has been deemed International Day of Peace by the United Nations. I don’t know where and how that came about but considering the current circumstances the designation seems almost laughable if not for the fact that the state of our world and its beings are in such desperate straits: on-going genocide, starvation, cruel injustice. It is all so very, very sad – almost too much to bear.
And tomorrow is the autumn equinox – a fleeting time of equal light and dark. We blink an eye and the balance, the equilibrium is gone – replaced by fading light into darkness. That’s what it feels like to me now in the external world as I am bombarded by ever more bad news for our country, other countries and peoples and ourselves as individuals, buffeted about, lost in the chaos of it all.
What I once knew is now uncertain and much of what I took for granted, in fact, is lost. In law school we studied and discussed “due Process rights and the constitutional right of free speech”. Now I wonder what is being taught since both seem to be a thing of the past. Race based detainment has been upheld by the Supreme Court, at least temporarily. ? What has become of the apparent guardrails in our democratic system I wail?!
My body, a source of strength and comfort has begun signaling I have lost track of equilibrium as I experience a constant dull achiness and outright sharp pain.
But I know there is good news here – if I begin with me and my body. And the ancient systems I return to when all seems to be lost.
In the 5 Elements theory in Traditional Chinese Medicine each season corresponds to earth elements, body organs and functions, emotions, foods, colors, sounds and more. The premise is the interconnectedness of all.
The Fall time corresponds to the element of metal, once used to forge tools to cut and slice away. Hatchets, swords, knives. These metal tools can be seen as a metaphor to cut away from my life that which no longer serves my best interests. Relationships, habits, foods, etc. When the cutting away occurs, we naturally feel a sense of loss and sadness, these emotions correspond to the Autumn and metal season. I like to think about the maple trees letting go of their leaves as they prepare for winter time, the most yin, quiet time of the year. The trees cannot sustain their leaves as their energy and nourishment fades. So they let go and say good-bye, at least temporarily. And we mourn our losses of what once was. The long warm summer days that allowed us to spend hours outside. And we mourn the losses, even those habits that we give up because we must. I taught Qi Gong at a 28 day residential program for addiction treatment and I used to talk about mourning the loss of our relationship to our addictions. Though in our best interest to let go of this relationship there must be a period of mourning and reflection around how they served us and why we need to say good bye. And what will take its place. And what can we develop to fill that place where drugs and alcohol once resided?
The saying good-bye part, the mourning and reflection is always the most painful. We have to look at how we got to that point squarely in the eye, being brave, feeling the agitation, sadness, the rage and the fear.
And I come face to face with my Self when I go through this process. This time around, my body was screaming at me, and I needed a professional to tell me – this pain is an issue of lack of mobility. And I was mad. At me, at my body. Why can’t I just relax now that I’m older, why can’t my body do what I want it to do without the extra time and effort to stretch and build strength. How did I forget that this practice needs to be part of my life?
And most importantly, Who am I now that I am older? What can I do and not do as a result? What are my limitations? And Who do I want to be going forward.
I am also cognizant that I am a person that feels deeply and the state of our country and the world affects me as it affects all of us deeply. How do we manage the sharp and overwhelming emotions that arise daily as we are bombarded with what seems to be more and more bad news, as we perceive that our country and our world as we know it is falling apart and what is our role now.
I come back to the premise of mourning. I know now that I must cry everyday in order to expel the grief that I experience every day, as I let go of what I thought were givens about how our government was supposed to operate and conduct itself. I can no longer hold onto the premises that I grew up with, that were instilled in me as a child. This is what is so shocking and so disturbing, along with what we know could happen if the guardrails in a democracy are completely destroyed. This potential is terrifying.
In the book Our Life is Love, The Quaker Spiritual Journey written by Marcelle Martin, she writes about Bill Tabor, “ a longtime teacher of Quakerism at Pendle Hill” and the pamphlet he wrote called Four Doors to Meeting for Worship. In it he recommends taking a period of “daily retirement” from the outward activity and business of one’s life. During such a period, Friends can contemplate a passage of the Bible, rest silently “in the eternal arms”, meditate, appreciate beauty, or pray for themselves and others.” (pgs. 147-148, Our Life is Love).
It is carving out time for this that creates the struggle in me. Is this enough for me to do? Shouldn’t I be doing more? The country is exploding in violence and I need to contemplate beauty? I ask myself. And then my body slaps me upside the head with that pain reminding me that I must take care of myself, first and foremost. I must give myself the time to mourn the devastating losses I am witness to. I must be in right relation with God. Only then can I be of service.
And this is a huge letting go for me. I was once a warrior, armored up, not needing anything but conviction and a facility with language to defend the violated and the oppressed.
But I am no longer that person. I have morphed, evolved into something else, something softer and more approachable. A body now with a heart that is open and strong and willing and filled with God’s love. A whole being that cares deeply. About myself as God’s child and about God’s other children and Mother earth and all her beings. And how can I maintain my equilibrium in order to be of service to this world that seems to be exploding around me. How can I utilize my skills and keep myself safe.
In Our Life is Love, Marcelle Martin writes about our Quaker forebears that sacrificed their lives for us to worship as Quakers. I applaud their heroics and am grateful that they led the way for me to stand in front of you today. And each of their stories demonstrate a knowing that God was with them up until the end and they were calm.
So as I let go of the warrior I once was and fill that space with quietude to connect with God’s beauty. I can fill my heart with God’s loving strength and know that I am led and will always be led to where I am most needed. And I know also, that because I am filled with God’s strength and courage if I am called to do more than what I am doing now, I will show up. But in the meantime I must respect what God has put in front of me to do and continue my daily practices of respite.
This knowing and trusting that God will show me the way when I remember, alleviates the fear and the anxiety when my ego screams at me that I am not doing enough. This knowing and trusting comes from the “daily retirement” that Bill Tabor speaks of that provides me with strength to move forward just as I am.
So I let go of the hard wiring for action that has so defined me. And I mourn this loss and mourn the losses and suffering currently being experienced by so many humans, animals and ecosystems on the planet and I wait for the way to be opened.
And I’m painfully aware that a “daily retirement” is a luxury provided to me. I am not starving to death, or in the midst of a civil war or getting bombed out of my home and country. And again, what do I make of this? What is my responsibility in this midst. How can I contribute to Peace nationally and internationally on this International Peace day.
I try to return to my body and my heart. Am I at peace with myself? If not, how can I get there? Usually I need to recognize a resentment about someone or something, or a fear about something or someone – neither of the someones or situations I can control, so it has to be an internal shift towards understanding and compassion towards the someone or situation.
This is internal shift towards Mercy, a seemingly “old fashioned” word or biblical term has been lodged in my brain of late. The dictionary definition of “mercy” is Compassion or forgiveness shown towards someone whom it is in one’s power to punish or harm.
Mercy. The Spanish name Mercedes references Mercy. Girls in the U.S. were also once named Mercy. This a reminder that Mercy was not only found in our daily vernacular of old but also it was a name attributed to girls and women.
So when I hang on to a desire to punish myself or others, perhaps I can conjure the word “Mercy”. Mercy with a capitol “M”. Because as I know and have experienced, hanging on to the anger and the desire to harm can create its own discomfort in my body, my mind and in my heart.
The lack of mercy propelled me in my job as a warrior. The urge to punish those that I believed had oppressed another or were being unfair or who did actual harm. As a Child Protection Lawyer, I could understand and have mercy for the parents who harmed their children knowing that they had been harmed by their parents and the harm followed generations. What I held onto was the anger and desire to punish those in power who were oppressing vulnerable populations. This desire to punish was borne from my own sense of powerlessness operating within a skewed and unjust system.
It was my the lack of mercy by the government that is what I could not get past. And I suffered for it. I was a body charged and crackling, emanating anger and resentment and people were afraid of my energy and punished me. Ultimately, I was ejected from the very system that I was convinced I could help and contribute to. It was this urge to punish and hurt in the face of injustice that I had to let go of, it was eating me up, diminishing me and isolating me.
I realized I had not done the internal work necessary to find that place of balance to work towards justice without succumbing to the urge to punish and do harm. I had to find another way which required removing myself from the situation – of course, the system gave me a little nudge – and diving into the inner recesses of my being to uncover what – I did not know.
And as I’ve delved deeply internally, with God’s help, I’ve come face to face with two things: the infinite power that is Love and my own finite limitations. So it is here that I rest in a state of readiness to heed God’s call. It is here that I retire daily to connect with whatever God’s message and direction is for me. This trusting is a daily practice and this daily practice brings me to a sense of peace and rightness with the world that I can share with others. And that is enough. Right now, that is what God is calling me to do. There is peace in the sense of enoughness.
And now that I have let go of the should and mourned the loss of my old ways of being and make sure to take my daily retirement, I can go out into the world and carry peace with me to others, knowing it is enough and praying my favorite peace prayer.
Peace, peace, peace.
May I have peace in my heart,
Peace in my speech and
Peace in my mind.
May all beings know peace, as I wish to know peace.
Author unknown
Friends Committee on Maine Public Policy, October 16, 2025, 4-6 pm
From Shirley Hager, regarding the Friends Committee on Maine Public Policy (FCMPP):
Please save Thursday, October 16, 4:00-6:00 p.m. for a fall FCMPP meeting on Zoom.
Maulian Dana Bryant, Executive Director of the Wabanaki Alliance, will be our guest to share highlights of what the Alliance would like to achieve in the upcoming legislative session, and also to talk about the importance of Question #1, on the ballot this November, for Wabanaki communities and for all of us. This is an opportunity to get revved up and focused on upcoming important issues, and to have your questions answered.
Members of the Episcopal Committee on Indian Relations are invited as well. I have included several of them in this email and invite them to spread the word on their committee.
Stay tuned for further details of the meeting, and for the Zoom link, a bit closer to October 16.
Best wishes to all amidst this beautiful fall weather.
Shirley — Shirley N. Hager
https://www.thegatheringsbook.com; And now an audiobook! https://utorontopress.com/utp-audio/ (click on book image)
Please include a request for anyone wanting to join us who are not on the FCMPP list to email me at: shirley.hager@maine.edu, so that I can send them the Zoom link and meeting details closer to the meeting date.
“Thoughts on the Spiritual Journey,” by Joyce Gibson
This meditation was Joyce Gibson’s opening reflection at Durham Friends Meeting on August 31, 2025
Thoughts on The Spiritual Journey
On the drive from Massachusetts this morning, my thoughts turned to my work with my first spiritual advisor Dr. Margaret Benefiel, now head of Shalem Institute, who taught me how to stop and discern how God was leading me; in the middle of our hourly sessions, which were focused on my efforts to stay on the path of my spiritual journey, she would ask that we take a few minutes to be silent for guidance. Figuring out what God would want from me in the everydayness of my life was new to me then. Being present with Him at any time of day was also what I was not doing, or practicing! I now make an effort to be present to God, yet it is ever the struggle.
Today I would like to introduce two of my special people, Father Thomas Keating, known as the Father of Contemplative Prayer, someone I actually experienced in one of his presentations in Boston, and Father Richard Rhor, a Jesuit who founded the Center for Action and Contemplation, (CAC) based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and whose work I follow in daily meditations and through his books. meditations@cac.org
This excerpt is from a lecture Father Keating was invited to give as part of the 1997 lecture at Harvard Divinity School– the Harold M. Wit Lecture on Living a Spiritual Life in the Contemporary Age, and was published by St. Benedict’s Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado in 1999. The book is The Human Condition: Contemplation and Transformation. Father Keating was the former Abbot of the Trappist Monastery in Spencer, MA, and one of the foremost teachers of contemplative prayer in the Christian world. He begins his lecture with a question, “Where are you?”
The spiritual journey, writes Thomas Keating, is not a career or a success story. It is a series of humiliations of the false self that becomes more and more profound. These make room inside us for the Holy Spirit to come in and heal. What prevents us from being available to God is gradually evacuated. We keep getting closer and closer to our center. Every now and then God lifts a corner of the veil and enters into our awareness through various channels, as if to say, ‘Here I am. Where are you? Come and join me.‘(back cover, 1999)
Today’s meditation from Richard Rohr, Choosing to Become Present, connects quite well with Father Keating’s message in his lecture.
He writes:
Anyone familiar with my writing knows that I believe that immediate, unmediated contact with the moment is the clearest path to divine union. Naked, undefended, and nondual presence has the best chance of encountering Real Presence. I approach the theme of contemplation in a hundred ways, because I know most of us have one hundred levels of resistance, denial, or avoidance….
In my novitiate I was exposed to an early method of silent Franciscan contemplation called pinsar sin pensar or no penar nada as described by the Spanish friar Francisco de Osuna. I didn’t totally understand what I was supposed to be doing in that silence of “thinking without thinking” and probably fell asleep on more than one occasion. Yet it had the effect of moving me away from the verbal, social, and petitionary prayers I had been taught almost exclusively up to that time.
Prayer is indeed the way to make contact with God/Ultimate Reality, but it is not an attempt to change God’s mind about us or about events. It’s primarily about changing our mind so that things like infinity, mystery, and forgiveness can resound within us. (Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditations, Week Thirty-Six: Practicing the Presence, Sunday, August 31, 2025)
As we move into waiting worship, consider, “Where are you?”
Agenda and Materials for September 21, 2025 Business Meeting
The reports and other materials for the September 21, 2025 DMM Business Meeting are HERE.
Durham Monthly Meeting Agenda, September 21, 2025
- Approval of temporary clerk
- Approval of July minutes
- Trustees
- Finance
- Ministry & Council
- Peace & Social Concerns
- Woman’s Society
250th Anniversary Celebration – October 4 and 5, 2025
Our Meeting is celebrating its 250th year as a worshiping community on the weekend of October 4 and 5.
Saturday (October 4) will feature a Tribute to Quaker Activism, featuring the film “Citizen George” which presents the life and work of Philadelphia-based contemporary Quaker activist George Lakey, a nonviolent revolutionary who has worked his entire life for justice and peace, guided by his ideal of societal transformation, with community singing to open our time beginning at 6:30 PM.
Sunday (October 5), which is also World Quaker Day, will open with worship at our usual time of 10:25 AM and will also be available on Zoom. Our prepared message will be given by Doug Bennett, a member of Durham Friends and President Emeritus of Earlham College, a Quaker institution in Richmond, IN. This will be followed by a luncheon and celebration (and possibly more singing).
All are welcome to any and all of this celebration. Instructions for attending Sunday Worship via Zoom are available from our website durhamfriendsmeeting.org
For questions or more information, please contact durham@neym.org.
Maker Cafe, Thursday September 18, 2025
NEYM Youth Retreats
We’ve received the following letter from New England Yearly Meeting regarding Youth Retreats.
Back to school greetings to you! As Yearly Meeting youth program staff we write to you today in hopes you can help ensure that as many Friends as possible know about our Quaker youth retreats. Could you share this message with Friends in your meeting?
New England Quakers have been blessed with spiritually robust, well attended, and much-loved year-round youth programs. Among our most cherished ministries, our weekend youth retreats offer a meaningful opportunity for Quaker youth to connect with peers, experience loving community, and grow in their faith. Our retreats are fun, centering, playful, grounded, youth-centered spaces for Quaker and Quaker-curious youth.
Are there families or individuals in your meeting who might be interested but don’t know about retreats (or don’t know where to find the details)? If so, the best way to stay in the loop about youth retreats is to subscribe to receive updates for the age group(s) of interest at https://neym.org/newsletter-signup. You can also read basic information about retreats on our website here.
Attached is an electronic version of postcards with the retreat calendar and information about our programs for elementary, middle, and high school youth (Junior Yearly Meeting, Junior High Yearly Meeting, and Young Friends). If you would like physical copies mailed to your meetinghouse for distribution email Kara Price (kara@neym.org). These postcards will be sent directly to families who already participate in our retreats.
Thank you for reading, spreading the word, and helping to make the upcoming retreat year a wonderful one.
Warmly,
Xinef Afriam, Teen & Outreach Ministries Coordinator (Xinef@neym.org)
Kara Price, Children & Family Ministries Coordinator (Kara@neym.org)
Nia Thomas, Program Director (Nia@neym.org)
Interfaith Council Announces Fall Community Song Circles
The Brunswick Area Interfaith Council has announced three Song Circles this fall: September 30, October 28, and November 18, all on Tuesday evenings, all at 6:30 pm. Various locations.
September 2025 Durham Friends Meeting Newsletter
“The Experience of Interdependence,” by Lisa Steele-Maley
Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, August 15, 2025, by Lisa Steele-Maley
Each summer, I noodle over the idea ~ and the experience ~ of Interdependence.
I know this is spurred on by a desire to create counterbalance to the annual celebration of independence every July and I suspect it is sustained by watching the plants and insects of the garden interact with each other and the waxing and waning of sun, rain, and wind.
I, perhaps like many of you, was raised in a family and culture that values independence. As I have grown older, I have seen how the idea of independence creates a separation that contributes to environmental and human exploitation, consumerism, competition, overwork, and dominion over creation rather than responsibility to it.
The ideal of independence also keeps us from asking for help, leaning on friends, and fostering community, no doubt helping to create the epidemic of loneliness.
To be fair, Independence does have its place – it allowed this country to originally become independent from the greed and control of a ruler king. It allows children to grow up and into their own lives. Because we are independent, we make up our own minds on matters of moral and ethical consequence. We love. We dream. We create. We can, in fact, choose to live our way toward a more whole, just, and loving world.
But independence also creates a scar. You have heard of the idea of original sin? I think of separation as our original wound… and many of the wounds we experience in our lives and inflict on others stem from that original hurt.
Interdependence is our true nature. Our brief lives on this Earth are truly interwoven, intermingled, and interconnected with all other beings throughout time and space….
We can not actually be independent of each other. We are wholly interdependent on each other, on the Earth that sustains us, and on a holy living truth that is greater than ourselves. Whether they name this unifying divinity God, Buddha Mind, Universal spirit, Brahman, Pachamama, or Holy Mystery, most traditions point to a sacred that is both immanent (within us) and transcendent (all around us).
It is this holy weaving ~ around, within, above, below, and between that assures and reminds me that we inter-are.
Inter-are comes from the word inter-being, coined by the buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh. He says “ I was looking for an English word to describe our deep interconnection with everything else. I liked the word “togetherness,” but I finally came up with the word “interbeing.” The verb “to be” can be misleading, because we cannot be by ourselves, alone. “To be” is always to “inter-be.” If we combine the prefix “inter” with the verb “to be,” we have a new verb, “inter-be.” To inter-be and the action of interbeing reflects reality more accurately. We inter-are with one another and with all life.” This concept of interbeing really gives our American minds, bred on independence, something to chew on.
It is in letting this concept integrate into my body and heart that I can really live into it, creating a counterpoint for my mind that can get stuck in habitual loops that reinforce the myth of separation.
In our bodies, we have no choice but to know that we inter-are. After all, we require air every minute, water and food each day. The living, breathing world quite literally sustains us.
We breathe in because our bodies require oxygen. We breathe out carbon dioxide. Trees take in the carbon dioxide that we exhale and release oxygen. We are co-breathing with trees all of the time. This is perhaps the simplest and most profound example of interdependence that I both know and also pay little attention to most of the time.
But paying attention to the many ways that I am in fact connected to All That Is has been particularly helpful this summer amidst the fullness and frantic pace of the news cycle that keeps my lizard brain on high alert.
Paying attention with my whole body, letting my senses inform and bless me re-members me to my true belonging to this living world. I don’t need to do anything to be worthy of it. It is simply already true.
I’ve had the opportunity to swim a bit this summer. Every time I get in the water, I lay back and float for a while, feeling the water hold and suspend me while the sun warms my face. It’s been really nourishing to remind myself that I am always this supported.
During a humid morning a few weeks ago, I was startled by the intoxicating dream-like fragrance of the blooming milkweed. I smelled it before I saw it. As I drank in the smell, I noted that the flowers are offering themselves to the pollinators of the insect world and I am an adjacent beneficiary. Later that day, when I noticed the monarch butterflies fluttering from stalk to stalk, my body recalled the morning’s fragrance. I could actually feel the butterfly’s attraction to the flowers as an expansion in my own heart.
I said a minute ago that I don’t have to do anything to be fully integrated in the web of connection. That is true, and it is also true that I can actively work to tend and weave the web of connectivity with my actions and sacred imagination.
When I introduce one friend to another, I am weaving a web of connection by bringing together two people whose lives may be enriched by knowing each other. When I usher a fly out of my house instead of swatting at it, I am supporting and enhancing the life of another being. When Leslie broke her ankle and put out a call for help, she was building new strands of connection. When I responded to her invitation, I reinforced the integrity of the web. We are co-weaving with one another.
We are, in fact, always giving and always receiving. As I attune to interbeing in this season, I recognize reciprocity everywhere. As Robin wall Kimmerer says, “All Flourishing is Mutual”
A few nights ago, the night was humid when I laid down for sleep. The window beside the bed was open but the air felt still and the night sky was silent. It was calm. Peaceful. Yet, as I lay there, a thought intruded, “this is the kind of night that bombs are dropped on.”
I brought my hand to my suddenly racing heart. (Studies have shown that this simple touch activates the vagus nerve which plays a role in regulating the nervous system.) My thoughts went to far away lands – to Gaza, Ukraine, Yemen, and Iran – and it felt abundantly clear that the safety that I was enjoying in that moment was not guaranteed. It does not have to be this way and it can change in a heartbeat.
Laying in bed with my hand over my heart, I let my sacred imagination weave a connection to another mother in another land, a mother laying in bed with fear in her heart, and hunger in her belly as the night sky rang with the sounds of destruction.
I prayed with her for peace, for the safety of her children, for space to grieve the immense losses that she has already suffered. I prayed that she might wake to a quiet sky and a table graced with fruit and bread to nourish her family. I prayed that the planet will recover from the devastating pollution and destruction of war. I prayed that humanity will someday heal from this violent separation that is created by distinguishing “us” and “them”. As I drifted from prayer toward sleep, I felt a touch of peace born of connection and faith.
In just a few minutes, laying in bed, I moved from isolation and desolation to profound connection and peace. It is all so much bigger than I can know.
I’d like to close with the words of Joanna Macy, a brilliant thinker and activist who developed the Work that Reconnects. She died on July 19 of this year at the age of 96.
Trusting the Spiral
Active Hope is not wishful thinking.
Active hope is not waiting to be rescued
By the Lone Ranger or by some savior.
Active Hope is waking up to the beauty of life
On whose behalf we can act.
We belong to this world.
The web of life is calling us forth at this time.
We’ve come a long way and are here to play our part.
With Active Hope, we realize that there are adventures in store,
Strengths to discover, and comrades to link arms with.
Active hope is a readiness to discover the strengths
In ourselves and in others;
A readiness to discover the reasons for hope
And the occasions for love.
A readiness to discover the size and strength of our hearts,
Our quickness of mind, our steadiness of purpose,
Our own authority, our love for life,
The liveliness of our curiosity,
The unsuspected deep well of patience and diligence,
The keenness of our senses, and our capacity to lead.
None of these can be discovered in an armchair or without risk.
– excerpted from Active Hope by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone
“Living in the Life and Power,” By Noah Bishop Merrill (Putney Meeting)
Message given as New England Yearly Meeting Secretary at NEYM Annual Sessions, August 2, 2025
I want to speak about convincement, about becoming implicated in each other’s faithfulness, and about our Testimony. I want to speak about living in the Life and Power. Some of what I share may be difficult to hear, but these are difficult times. I trust with all my heart that we are eternally held, and pray that our Guide will help us hear whatever we need to hear.
Almost 20 years ago now, I spent five years of my life engaged in a ministry of humanitarian aid, advocacy, and peace activism in support of people internally displaced or made refugees as a result of the United States’ invasion of Iraq in 2003, its precursors, and its devastating aftermath.
In those years, I encountered daily, with visceral intensity, the evidence of what the weapons of war do to human families, to the human body, to human hearts and souls. Working alongside a group of Iraqi, Palestinian, and American activists, we sought to partner with efforts to find vitally needed support for people in need of significant and often lifesaving medical care.
When not in the Middle East and West Asia, through the support of several US-based organizations, I had the opportunity to travel across the United States, telling stories, with permission, that some of the people I had worked with had trusted me to share. They were stories of profound suffering, abandonment, shattered hopes, broken lives. Stories that would defy comprehension, if they weren’t true.
They remain with me still, etched in memory. A man my age paralyzed by a fall from his roof caused by the concussive impact of bombs falling on his neighborhood. A young woman learning to live with unremovable shrapnel in her body, the only survivor of a missile’s destruction of her whole house and family, including her baby daughter. A 6-year-old boy burned from head to toe by an explosion caused by a U.S. Marine raid on the camp where he and his family had taken shelter from sectarian violence. A woman’s face burned by acid, part of attacks by sectarian militias who had been armed and empowered by the U.S. occupation forces. Their trust in me, and their yearning for their stories to be shared with a world seemingly or willfully oblivious to the hell they were living, spurred me on.
In those days, I was mostly fueled by anger. It drove me. I remember how it felt to bear witness, face to face, to the stories and the experiences like these I have just shared. The weight of that burden. Maybe some of you have felt a burden like that, in your own context. Perhaps some of you are feeling that kind of burden here and now.
Sometimes, the only relief that I could feel was when I was speaking to a group of people in the United States, and I realized that the pain that I had shared had brought tears. Knowing that I had disturbed people’s hearts, that they had felt in some small way the pain of those whose stories I carried, that I had made them hurt. Anger is an insufficient word for how I lived my days. So is guilt. So is obsession.
In 2008, I was in Syria, in a neighborhood that was later reduced to rubble in the Syrian civil war to come.
I’ll always remember the words. “He wants to meet you.” For weeks, we had been hearing stories about a man who had suffered profoundly, unspeakably. People said we should speak with him, but his location was a secret, out of fear of retribution given what he had been through; Syria was an uneasy refuge for those fleeing violence and chaos in Iraq in those days.
But now we had been approached with an invitation. To meet with this man, to drink tea, and to hear his story. One of the man’s companions led us to the place, through the winding streets of the Old City of Damascus.
The man was seated and waiting for us. After the tea was poured, he began to tell his story.
He was an Iraqi Christian, he said, part of one of the oldest Christian communities in the world. His ancestors had lived in Iraq for centuries, largely peacefully with their neighbors of all faiths.
But when the war came, and the chaos followed it, ethnic and religious minorities began to be increasingly targeted by rival sectarian militias, groups intent on creating polarization, mutual distrust and division, and fear, leading to ethnic cleansing.
He told me how a gang of men with their faces covered with black masks dragged him from his bed into the street. They took him to the basement of a now-empty house somewhere he didn’t recognize. And there, in that cellar, they tortured him. Not for any action he had taken, but simply because of his religious identity, and to serve as a warning to others. And then, in sacrilegious mockery of his most deeply held faith, they ended that night of horror by hanging him on the basement wall. They crucified him. And they left him to die.
With whatever partial consciousness he had remaining, he prayed. He prayed that God would free him from this suffering, even if it meant helping the end come soon so that he wouldn’t have to endure the pain and humiliation any longer. He prayed that Jesus would save him from the evil that had been unleashed among his neighbors and in his country, that Jesus would save his country.
It was then, he said, that the miracle happened. He said that he saw an image of Christ, bearing the same wounds he bore, coming toward him amidst the shadows and desperation. But, he said—and this he said was important—this Presence didn’t take away his suffering. The One he experienced as Christ didn’t take him down from where his broken body was hanging.
Instead, as he described his experience, the Presence of the Living Christ joined him in his darkness and desperation, climbing up to accompany him where he was hanging on the wall to share with him completely in his suffering and misery and grief and yearning for justice. And in that moment—though time seemed to fade away—he told me that he felt an all-embracing sense of peace, an overflowing of a profound joy. And then, everything went dark.
When he awoke, he realized that he had been thrown in a vast garbage heap, left for dead. And somehow, through step by grace-filled step, he was given the strength to escape the neighborhood, the city, the country. With help from Muslim friends, he crossed the border into Syria, was found again by caring people there, and offered this place to live, and to heal.
As he finished his story, my hands were shaking—with rage, despair, and powerlessness. It was as if all the burdens that I had been carrying in those years, all of the horror and the anguish of the evil of which we are capable as humans broke like a dam in my head and heart. I was unable to speak, maybe even to think. For a long time, I couldn’t lift my head to reach his eyes.
And then he spoke again: “Wait, my friend. This is why I wanted to meet you. This is what I wanted to tell you, this is what I believe you need to know, and what I want you to share—Did you hear that He came? And do you see that I am Alive?” His eyes, I now saw, were shining. And his face was radiant with light and joy.
In that moment, I suddenly understood that he had called me there not for him, but for me, and all whose hearts might be opened by his testimony. The story he had called me there to hear was not—at its heart—the story of an encounter with evil, but of an encounter with the power of being met by the peace that the world cannot give, and brought home into the transforming power of God. It was a story of Life triumphing over death, a narrative outpost in enemy-occupied territory, a breaking in of divine Love restoring human dignity and personhood in a parched wasteland of despair. And this was the story to which he had called me to bear witness—through sharing this experience in his life, and, if I chose it, in my own living as well.
Friends speak about moments of conviction in our spiritual lives, when we come to see the condition of our hearts and souls with a clarity and starkness that offers an almost irresistible invitation—even a crying need—to change and grow. This encounter was such a moment for me.
I came to see that, in my quest for justice, and even in my yearning and advocacy and organizing for peace, I had so often been bearing witness not to the Life and Power, but to the power of anguish, tragedy, terror, and evil. I had been preaching what could be called a “gospel” of despair. There was no “good news,” only more anger, more struggle, more relentless fighting to assuage my conscience and keep the nightmares at bay. And in this way of living, there was no invitation to another kind of Life. I was sunk down in the ocean of darkness and death; the ocean of Light and Love seemed like a fantasy.
I realized then, with a shudder that swept my whole body, that I was in the tendering presence of a human being who had come to live in the Life and Power. And in this encounter, the cords that bound about my heart began to loosen. The burden I had been carrying, and the way I believed I had to carry it—with anger, desperation, and the need to control, to fix and save—began to change. And in the breaking of my heart, a living stream of joy began to flow—slowly at first, then growing, as I attended to it, to be of service in ministry. It had been there all the time, waiting. And in the many years since, while I have often been distracted, denied it, dishonored it, or suppressed it, I know that it has never stopped flowing.
“Living in the Life and Power.” George Fox, one of the founders of the Religious Society of Friends, used these words to describe his experience of the inward reshaping of his heart that made him unable to engage with outward weapons in the warfare and social turmoil so rampant in the bloody times in which he lived, and in which the Quaker movement was born.
Reflecting on a meeting with recruiters for one of the armies who claimed that they were fighting for justice, liberation, and the Kingdom of God, who had seen his gifts of leadership and were seeking to give him a military commission to command soldiers in battle, he wrote in his journal,
“I told them that I lived in the virtue of that Life and Power that takes away the occasion of all wars and strife … I told them that I had come into the covenant of peace, which was before all wars and strivings were.
This testimony to a direct experience of the Spirit at work in a life, and in the lives of those around that person, has been at the heart of what Friends have called “testimony”—the ways in which the liberation and repatterning of our hearts, and the actions arising and patterned by that freedom and joy, bear witness to the Truth, as Friends have used that word, to describe not a set of principles or list of rules or a catchy acronym, but a relationship—that is, a relationship and journey with the Spirit, present and active, at work in our world, within, among, and through all whose hearts are willing.
We can help remind each other, when we inevitably forget or get distracted or confused or frustrated. Our meetings’ rhythms of common life are intended for that purpose. In our own Faith & Practice, that trusted handbook on this pilgrimage together, the query for the twelfth month that is read in many of our local meetings for worship, including my own in Vermont, reads:
“Do you live in the virtue of that Life and Power that takes away the occasion of all wars? …when discouraged, do you remember that Jesus said, “Peace is my parting gift to you, my own peace, such as the world cannot give. Set your troubled hearts at rest, and banish your fears.” – John 14:27 (from F&P 1985, pg. 147)
Queries such as this are designed to help us reflect as a worshipping community on what is most essential in our living tradition, and how it shapes our living. Because this is the essential part: Friends have found that this seeking, this abiding, this growing and testing and acting in the Spirit, is a pilgrimage on which we need accompaniment. Some of us are given frequent or overwhelming experiences of this spiritual reality, others only glimpses. For some of us, our experience has yet to reflect the words we hear about worship, about leading, about living in relationship with this tender, unshakeable, and infinite Love Who seeks us. And that is why we need each other. As my friend in Syria was for me in that moment of conviction, we are called to present to one another, to help unbind each other’s hearts.
I have spoken about joy, and I want to take care not to be understood to glorify suffering or urge passivity, or to suggest that mere “happiness” is an antidote or a thin bandage that we should cultivate to cover over the very present manifestations of humans’ capacity for evil—in these times, or in any. These platitudes are the story our society is selling all around us. I am speaking about something different when I speak about this kind of joy.
New England Friend and minister Elise Boulding gives words to this difference with clarity and power:
For the real difference between happiness and joy is that one is grounded in this world, the other in eternity. Happiness cannot encompass suffering and evil. Joy can. Happiness depends on the present. Joy leaps into the future and triumphantly creates a new present out of it. It is a fruit of the spirit, a gift of God—no one can own it … Joy is the ultimate liberation of the human spirit. It enables the human being to travel to the very gates of heaven and to the depths of hell, and never cease rejoicing.
These are times of terror, of scattering, of collapse, when evil masquerades as truth, and despair is crouching at the threshold. When corruption seems ascendant, and mercy is outlawed by human authorities. Yet they are also times of healing, of remembering, of new vision, of weaving and reweaving the threads of covenant community in ways more resilient, more authentic, more willing to invite and share our testimony to the Life and Power in which we have covenanted to travel on this adventure of faith.
The Religious Society of Friends, our local meetings, were never meant to be places for the welcoming, respectful practice of hyper-individualism. The discovery and nurture of these fellowships, centered in worship, was always intended to help Friends gather and be gathered by the Spirit into local covenant communities—anchored and shaped in worship, nourished in fellowship and mutual care, formed in exploration of our living tradition, and sent forth by the overflowing of Love in our hearts into service and love of neighbor in the whole of our lives. And all of this, all these fruits of this journey together, however imperfect, are our Testimony.
But there is one thing needful. We must not allow ourselves to fall into despair of the living water, even in this parched wilderness. It is the witness of countless generations, who like us suffered and struggled and mourned and rejoiced and lived and died in faith, that the Life and Power we seek is closer than breath to us, always seeking new channels through which Love might continue to come into the world.
There is a fragment of a poem, a gift from Denise Levertov that has become a prayer to me—and a vow—one that speaks to me in the deserts of my soul; I hope it might speak to us:
Don’t say that there is no water
to solace the dryness at our hearts
It is still there and always there
with its quiet song and strange power to spring in us
up and out through the rock.
How Durham Friends Meeting Came to Be On This Land in Durham, Maine
When we gather for worship each week, we remind ourselves that We Worship on Land That is a Homeland for the Wabanaki. How did our Meeting come to be where it is, on land that is a homeland for the Wabanaki?
Wabanaki is a word that encompasses Native American peoples that lived in what is now Maine before European settlement: the Mi’kmaq, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy, Penobscot, and Abenaki.The Abenaki lived in the Androscoggin and Kennebec River valleys (also west and south into present-day New Hampshire and Vermont). With other indigenous peoples in what is now New England and Atlantic Canada, they were decimated by disease in the early 17th century. And then they endured a number of wars (late 17th and early 18th centuries) involving the Wabanaki, neighboring indigenous groups, the English and the French colonial powers and their settlers.
It was after the conclusion of these wars in 1775 that our Meeting was established in Durham. This was about 14 years before Durham (then called Royalsborough) was recognized as a town. At first, the Quakers who had moved into the area from Harpswell, Falmouth, Weare (N.H.) and places further south worshipped in one another’s houses. Then they acquired the land on which our Meetinghouse sits from one of these earliest members. We can work our way backward from the purchase of the parcel by the Meeting to earlier times when it was unquestioned Abenaki land.
On November 25, 1791, a man named Joseph Estes and his wife Mary Estes sold a one and a half acre parcel to Joseph Rogers and George Philbrook “for and in behalf of the people called Quakers, known by the name of Durham Monthly Meeting.” They paid two pounds. (A distinct U.S. currency had not yet been created in the new republic.). All of these people were part of a group of Quaker farm families who moved to the area in the mid-late 18th century.
Here is a link to a scan of the deed. The Meeting possesses this original deed. Some of it is printed and some hand-written. It appears that New England Yearly Meeting (founded 1661) had printed up a number of such documents for newly forming Meetings to use in acquiring land, the particular Meeting to fill in the particulars.
The deed states the meets and bounds of the parcel on which Durham Friends Meeting built its current Meetinghouse. (Actually a succession of Meetinghouses, earlier ones having burnt to the ground.)
How had Joseph and Mary Estes (themselves Quakers) come to own the larger parcel from which they sold off a corner lot?
Almost certainly they bought it from a group of English land speculators that called themselves the Pejepscot Purchase Company (or Pejepscot Proprietors). The Pejepscot Proprietors had gained control of a larger tract of land earlier. (At the end of this post there is a map of various large land company holdings b y English proprietors in 17th century Maine.).
In the 1760s, when conditions seemed right, the Pejepscot Proprietors marked out the plan of a settlement that would become the town of Royalsborough. (Royalsborough was renamed Durham after the Revolutionary War.) They had that portion of their holdings surveyed by Joseph Noyes; you can see a copy of his 1766 map here. Joseph and Mary Estes bought a lot in this now surveyed land in the new town, and it was a corner portion of that lot that the Estes sold to the Quaker Meeting.
So how had the Pejepscot Proprietors come to have title to this land? In 1714, they had purchased a large portion of what is today midcoast Maine from Richard Wharton. For a few decades after their purchase things were too unsettled in the midcoast — clashes between English settlers and native Americans — for any new settlement, but by 1766, most of the surviving native Americans in the Androscoggin and Kennebec Valleys had moved inland, toward the St. Lawrence River. Remember 1725 was the year of the slaughter at Norridgewock.
In turn, how had Richard Wharton come to have title, or at least title recognized by the Massachusetts colonial government and thus by the English King and Parliament? In 1620, King James I granted a charter to the Plymouth Company (the New England Charter). The Plymouth Company was a group of English nobles many of whom lived in and around Plymouth, England. This Charter covered all the land in the Americas between the 40th and 48th parallels, a huge tract.
In 1632, The Plymouth Company in turn granted a Charter to Thomas Purchase and George Way, two Englishmen. Purchase moved to these lands; his kinsman Way stayed in England sending provisions to Purchase. Purchase maintained a trading post, most likely at the Brunswick/Topsham falls. (Many histories of Brunswick start with Purchase as if he were the First Man.)
In 1683, with Purchase and Way no longer living, their heirs sold the land to Richard Wharton.
That same year or perhaps the next, looking to add legitimacy to his title to the land, Wharton entered into an agreement with a group of Abenaki led by a Native American known to us as Warumbo. You can see that Warumbo Deed (or Wharton Deed) here.
The Warumbo Deed was signed shortly after the conclusion of what we have come to call King Philip’s War (1675-78), the first of the several Abenaki-English wars fought between 1675 and 1763.
While there was a good deal of litigation in later years between the Pejepscot Proprietors and the rival Kennebec Proprietors about the boundaries of this Warumbo deed, it seems clear that Royalsborough (Durham) was agreed by both to be part of the Pejepscot lands.
Should we respect the Warumbo Deed as honestly passing title from Native Americans to colonial settlers? Knowledgeable opinions vary somewhat, but most scholars agree that if any deed in Maine between Native Americans and colonial settlers should pass muster, the Warumbo Deed is the one. There were plenty of coerced or dishonest deeds, but this one seems honest and freely entered into.
Most of the Warumbo Deed concerns the boundaries of the parcel in question, and some concerns the payment. Still, it does contain an arresting provision that we all should know.
Provided Nevertheless yt nothing in this Deed be Construed to deprive us ye Saggamores Successessors
[?] or People from Improving our Ancient Planting grounds nor from Hunting In any of s’d Lands Comgo [?] not Inclosed nor from fishing or fowling for our own Provission Soe Long as noe Damage Shall be to ye English fisherys…
That is, Warumbo and his fellow sachems reserved the right to hunt and fish and fowl on the lands they were ceding so long as those activities didn’t disturb the English fishing activities. This right the Abenaki never surrendered.
All the land titles in present-day Durham as well as most in Brunswick and in some neighboring towns share this history.
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Warumbo Deed //Wharton Deed, 1684
To all People to whom these presents shall come, Know yee that whereas neere Threescore years Since Mr. Thomas Purchace Deceased Came Into this Country
as we have been well Informed did as well by Power or Pattent derived from ye King of England, as by Consent, Contract, & Agreement with ye Saggamores and Proprietors of all the Land Lying on ye Easterly Side of Casco Bay & on both Sides Androsscoggan River, & Kennibeck River,
Enter upon & take Possession of all ye Lands Lying five [?] miles Westward from ye uppermost falls In said Androsscoggan to Maquoit on Casco Bay & of the Lands on the other Side Said Androsscoggan River from above said falls down to Poiepscott, & Merry Meeting Bay,
to bee bounded by a Southwest by Northeast Lyne, to Run from ye Upper part of Said falls to Kennibeck River,
& all ye Land from Maquoit to Poiepscott and to hold ye Same Breadth where ye Land Will Bear it, Down to a place Called Atkins His Bay neere to Sagadehocke, on ye Westerly Side of Kennibeck River,
& all ye Islands in Said Kennibeck River & Land between S’d Atkins his Bay Smals Point Harbour the Lands, Ponds and Rivers Interjacent, containing there [?] In Breadth about three [?] English miles more or less,
and Whereas wee are Well Assured ye Major Nicholas Shapleigh in his Lifetime was goth by Purchase from ye Indian Saggamors our Ancestors & Consent of Mr. Gorgos Commes.
Particularly of a Neck of Land Called Meraconeey and an Island Called Sebasco Diggm,
and Whereas ye Relicts & Heirs of S’d Mr. Purchase & Major Nich. Shapleigh having reserved accomodations for their Severall familyes Sold all ye Remainder of the aforesaid Lands & Islands to Richard Wharton of Boston, Merch’t.
and for as much as Said Mr. Purchase did personally possess Improve & Inhabit att Pojepscott aforesaid neere ye Center or middle of all the Lands aforesaid for neere fifty years Before the Late unhappy War
and wheres the Said Richard Wharton hath Desired an Inlargement upon & Between the Sd. Androsscoggan & Kennibeck River & to Incourage ye Said Richard to Settle an English Town & promote ye Salmon & Sturgeon Fishing by which we promiss our Selves greater Supplyes & Reliefs
Therefore and for other good Causes & Considerations and Espechially for & In Consideration of a Valuable Sermon [?] Rec’d from the S’d Wharton in Merchandize
wee Warumbee, Darumkin, Wihikermett, Wedon Dombegon, Neononganset and Nimbanizett Chief Saggamores of all ye aforsaid & other rivers & Lands adjacent Have in Confirmation of said Richard Wharton’s title and Propriety fully freely & absolutely Given Granted Ratified & confirmed to him the s’d Richard Wharton all the aforesaid Lands
from ye uppermost of Androscoggan falls five miles westward & soe down to Maquoit & by ye s’d River to Pejepscott
& from ye other side of Androscoggan falls all the Land from said falls to Pejepscott asnd Merry Meeting Bay to Kennibeck & towards ye wilderness
to be Bounded by a Southwest and Northeast Lyne to Extend from ye upper part of s’d Androscoggan uppermost falls to said River of Kennibeck
and all the Land from Maquoit to Pejepscott & to Run & hold ye same Breadth where ye Land Will bear in
to Atkins his Bay in Kennibeck River & Small Point Harbour in Casco Bay and all Islands in Kennibeck and Pejepscott Rivers & Merry Meeting Bay & Casco Bay within ye aforsaid Bounds
Especially the afors’d Neck of Land called Meracaneey and Island Called ye Casco Diggin [?].
Togeather with all Rivers, Rivoletts, Brookes, Ponds, Pooles, Waters, Water Courses, all Wood trees of Timber or other Trees, and all Mines, Mineralls, Quarryes & Especially ye Sole & Abfolute Use and Benefitt of ye sturgeon & Salmon fishing In all the Rivers, Rivoletts, & Bays aforsaid and in all Rivers Brooks, Creakes or Ponds within any of ye Bounds aforsaid and alfoe
Wee ye said Saggamores Have upon ye Considerations aforsaid given granted Bargained Sold Enfeoffed and Confirmed and doe by these presents Give Grant Bargain & Sell alien enfeoffe & confirm to him ye s’d Richard Wharton
all ye Lands Lying five miles above ye uppermost of said Androscoggan falls In Breadth & In Length holding ye Same Breadth from Androscoggan falls to Kennibeck River & to be Bounded by ye aforsaid Southwest by Northeast Lyne
and a paralel Lyne at five miles Distance to Run from Androscoggan to Kennibeck River as aforsaid togeather
with all profitts, Priviledges, Commodityes, Benefits & Advantages & particularly ye Sole propriety Benefitt and advantage of ye salmon & sturgeon fishing within ye Bounds & Limits aforsaid.
To have & to Hold to him the said Richard Wharton his heires and assigns for ever all the afornamed Lands Priviledges & premisses with all Benefitts Rights Appurtenances or advantages yt now doe or heereafter shall or may Belong Unto any part or parcel of the premisess fully freely & absolutely acquitted & Discharged from all former & other Gifts grants Bargains Sales Mortgages & Incumbrances Whatsoever
and wee ye said Warumbee, Darumkin, Wihikermett, Wedon Domhegon, Neonongasket, and Nimbanizett Doe Covenant & grant to & with ye said Richard Wharton yt wee have In our Selves good Right and full power thus to confirm and convey the premisses and every Part thereof against all & every Person or persons that may legally Claim any Right, title, Interest or propriety In ye premisses by from or under the aforenamed Saggmores or any of our ancestors or Predecessors.
Provided Nevertheless yt nothing in this Deed be Construed to deprive us ye Saggamores Successessors [?] or People from Improving our Ancient Planting grounds nor from Hunting In any of s’d Lands Comgo [?] not Inclosed nor from fishing or fowling for our own Provission
Soe Long as noe Damage Shall be to ye English fisherys,
Provided alssoe yt nothing herein Conteined Shall prejudice [?] any of ye English Inhabitants or Planters Comg [?] at present actually possesses of any part of the Premisses & Legally Derivesingo [?] Right from s’d mr Purchace & our Selves or Ancestors.
In Wittness whereof wee ye aforenamed Saggamores Well understanding ye Purport heerof Doe sett our hands and Seals at Pejepscott this Seventh Day of July In the Thirty Sixth year of the Reigne of King Charles ye Second and In the Year of our Lord one thousand Six hundred Eighty and foure.
The Marke Warumbee
of Darumkin & a Seale
of Wihikermett & a Seale
of Nimbanizett & a Seale
of Wedon Domhegon & a Seale
of Neonongansket & a Seale
August 2025 Durham Friends Meeting Newsletter
Durham Friends Meeting Minutes, July 20, 2025
Durham Monthly Meeting of Friends Minutes, July 20, 2025
Ellen Bennett — Recording Clerk
Durham Monthly Meeting of Friends met for the conduct of business on Sunday, June 15, 2025, with thirteen people in attendance at the Meetinghouse and two by Zoom.
1. Meeting Opening
Clerk, Renee Cote, opened the meeting with a quote that begins John Punchon’s Portrait in Grey. It is the fourth verse from the poem The Brewing of Soma, by John Greenleaf Whittier:
Drop Thy still dew of quietness
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.
[This is also the fourth stanza of the hymn “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind”.]
2. Approval of Minutes of June 2025
In item number seven of the June minutes, “Puente de Amigos” is the organization cited that could help with Kirenia’s travel.
3. Approval for suspension of Monthly Meeting for Business in August — Renee Coté
4. Ministry and Counsel Report —Renee Coté
Supporting Juno Kay in her need for medical care. (Please see report for greater details.)
The Clerks group approved sending monetary support to Juno from the Charity account on an expedited timeline.
Clerk read the certificate of transfer from Narramissic Valley Monthly Meeting regarding Margaret De Rivera’s transfer of membership. The certificate included words of praise for her three decades of membership there and her good works on behalf of the community and Quakerism. Durham Monthly Meeting will send an acknowledgement.
The Clearness Committee assembled for Shelley Randall recommends that she be admitted to membership. In honor of her membership, Shelley will receive New England Yearly Meeting’s Faith and Practice.
5. Peace & Social Concerns — Ingrid Chalufour
An article describing the Social Justice Book Project has been submitted as a feature article for the winter issue of Friends Journal.
There was a brief report about the planned event on October 4th, preceding World Quaker Day on October 5th — a tribute to Quaker activism, including the 99 minute film “Citizen George” about George Lakey. A list of Quaker activists, known to the Meeting, who have made significant contributions to Quakerism, their communities, and the world, is being assembled for recognition on October 4, as well. Please see report.
Printed material from a variety of sources should be made available for attendees, who are being invited to the October 4th event from a variety of faith organizations.
6. Trustees Report — Sarah Sprogell
Please see report.
Trustees seek approval of increased cost of replacing bulkhead.
Trustees seek approval for new language on the sign which is placed at the corner of the property.
The proposal from a Durham community member to purchase the 50 acre woodlot was shared. The Trustees believe it should not be sold. There was discussion about other possible uses of the tract. Any alternative/future uses of the 50 acres, e.g., putting in trails for community use, should be aligned with conservation purposes.
7. Finance: No report
8. Other business
The ad hoc committee tasked with considering ways to freshen the gathering room suggested moving the file cabinets and re-hanging historical pictures and photographs in the entry foyer as first steps.
The Meeting has been asked by the Durham Historical Society if there is interest in participating in the 250th Anniversary Parade — the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Participation would provide an opportunity to be clear about our values and our message. This request will be reviewed again in September. All are asked to think about our potential role and what we want to “say”. Meeting will respond to the request in the interim.
About 12 people met for this summer’s Falmouth Quarterly Meeting. There was time for reflections and queries and song. The steps the Quarter might take to support trans-gender individuals was discussed. The minutes addressing sexual orientation and gender identity, from Brunswick and Durham and a strong letter from Portland to the local press, will be shared at Yearly Meeting sessions.
Those gathered also discussed naming someone to the Maine Council of Churches, and building a clearness committee for that individual. The current representative has served in the role a number of years.
A Meeting member raised that this country, and the world, are going through very trying times, but the Meeting doesn’t seem to have taken firm hold of our role, our spiritual role, in facing the challenges. It was urged upon us that we think about this. Troubles have many faces and may aspects. Of all those, the unkindness to immigrants stands out. What do we have to say about this and who do we say it to? Note that there is a 2020 statement on immigration, a collaboration among Britain Yearly Meeting, Quaker Council for European Affairs, QUNO, FCNL, AFSC. Now especially we need to insist on basic humanity — the humane treatment of immigrants. The 2020 collaborative statement will be put up on the website.
It was noted that NEYM has a monthly support call for people involved in immigration issues in each of the six New England states.
Also important is the education of one another about both Quakerism and the complexity of these issues.
9. Closing
Clerk closed meeting with a moment of silence.
Respectfully submitted, Ellen Bennett, Recording Clerk
Kirenia Criado Pérez Traveling Minute, July 25, 2025
On July 25, fifteen Friends from Durham and Portland Friends Meeting joined in a potluck supper at Durham to welcome and enjoy fellowship with Kirenia Criado Pérez. The pastor of Havana Friends Meeting, she is traveling among Friends in New England this month before participating in NEYM’s Annual Sessions and giving the Bible half hours.
Below is her traveling minute. She is carrying several copies because there isn’t enough room on one for the notes added at the many visits she is making along the way. This is the second copy.
“Practicing Compassion,” by Leslie Manning
Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, July 13, 2025
“If you want to be happy, practice compassion.If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.” — The Dalai Llama
“Our human compassion binds us one to another –not in pity or patronizingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future.” — Nelson Mandela
What is Compassion? One common understanding, which I embrace, is that it is standing with people in their suffering and working together to alleviate it.
When Madiba “Nelson” a name give to him by an English school teacher, Mandela, a privileged prince of his people, allied with their suffering under the oppression of apartheid, he lost his status, his liberty and forfeited his ability to speak or act on behalf of those who could not speak or act for themselves. Sentenced to life imprisonment at a penal colony on a remote island, he was assigned to break rocks all day, every day, for 18 years. After contracting tuberculosis, he was relocated to the mainland where he was under pressure to ally with the ruling government as they came under increasing international pressure to “solve” their dehumanizing policies. His life sentence continued.
“The South African government periodically made conditional offers of freedom to Mandela, most notably in 1976, on the condition that he recognize the newly independent—and highly controversial—status of the Transkei Bantustan and agree to reside there. An offer made in 1985 required that he renounce the use of violence. Mandela refused both offers, the second on the premise that only free men were able to engage in such negotiations and, as a prisoner, he was not a free man.” — Encyclopedia Britannica
He was finally released in 1990, having been banned from public life on and off since 1952.
Yet, during all that time, his writings were smuggled out and published, his speeches taught and quoted, his will was never broken. And, he learned to forgive his captors and embrace non violence and active resistance.He was able to practice compassion not only for the injured and oppressed, he actively practiced compassion for their oppressors. He instituted the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as president of the country that had persecuted him, under the leadership of Desmond Tutu. The world celebrates Madiba Mandela Day on July 18.
In the words of the scientist and healer, Louis Pasteur, who gave us the germ theory of disease, which is once again under attack: “One does not ask of one who suffers: What is your country and what is your religion? One merely says: You suffer, that is enough for me.” — Louis Pasteur
And where do we stand , Friends? In our testimonies of Integrity, Peace, Community, Simplicity, Equality and some would add Service, are we seeking to live those values into the world?
Are our lives the “patterns and examples” as urged on us by George Fox? How do we “Answer that of God” in everyone we meet?
We do not do it alone, we do it in and with beloved community and in the words of Irish Friend Simon Lamb, (and for those of us who remember Edie Lamb Whitehead, she was a member of this same family, as her life showed) in speaking to an international gathering of Friends in 2002
“So here is God laying the burden of responsibility for changing our sad and broken world on our shoulders. For early Friends saw it as being called to bring the kingdom of heaven here to earth now. But God could not and does not abandon us to handle this task on our own. Nor does God expect us to achieve miracles purely in our own strength. That is why our living experiential relationship with God is so essential. For in this relationship is our strength. Our daily knowledge of God walking by our side, carrying us when we do not feel up to the task, encouraging and convincing us when we need that extra push, forgiving us when we choose to ignore or reject those burdens laid upon us, is what drives us into action and supports us while we carry out the responsibilities we are called to.” — Simon Lamb, Ireland YM, FWCC, 2002.
Picnic for Kirenia Criado Pérez, Thursday, July 24, 5 to 7 pm
From Portland Friends Meeting:
Please join us for: a picnic on the Eastern Prom of Portland to celebrate the visit of Kirenia Criado Pérez, a member of Cuba Yearly Meeting and pastor at Havana Friends Church.
When: 5 to 7 pm, Thursday, July 24th
Where: Near the playground of the Eastern Prom in Portland.
Food: Bring your own picnic or enjoy one of the many food trucks.
Parking: There is plenty of street-side parking in front of the playground and adjoining basketball courts. (See photo above.)
Seating: Please bring a blanket or chair. We’ll have a few extras to share.
Accessibility: There is a 10-foot hill from the sidewalk down to the picnic area. To the left of the playground is a gentler ramp.
Need Assistance?: Bart, Brooke, and others are available to help you get from your car to the picnic spot. Just give us a call at Bart’s cell phone: 207 899 5937. You may also alert me ahead of time.
Quaker Statement on Migration, 2020
At Monthly meeting yesterday, reference was made to “A Quaker Statement on Migration,” a joint statement issued December 8, 2020 from the American Friends Service Committee, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, Britain Yearly Meeting, the Quaker Council for European Affairs, and the Quaker United Nations Office.
Meeting members were encouraged to read it and consider how we might lift this up today, nearly five years later. Here is the statement:
“Shifting the World Toward More Compassion, Light and Hope,” by Martha Hinshaw Sheldon
Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, July 20, 2025
I was initially asked to share a message this morning after a scheduled trip to the West Bank with a group of Quakers led by Max and Jane Carter from NCYM who have led trips to the West Bank for many years and who have volunteered at the Friends school in Ramallah many times. Our aim for the trip was to listen to and hear stories from people in the West Bank and to do some work at the Friends School and nearby olive groves. To be Living Letters. We send letters to share stories, plans, dreams, concerns, success, – to connect and support each other. By being present and observing life in the West Bank the annual living letters trips create opportunities for those participating to be a presence, to see what life is like for those who have been trapped in a system that does not allow for much freedom and autonomy. It allows for those in the land to hear that they are not alone.
The trip did not happen due to the ‘war’ (a war implies 2 groups fighting on equal terms) in Gaza and the bombs between Syria and Israel that happened a few days before and during the departure times of those in the group. Flights from the UK and EU to Tel Aviv were cancelled a week before the departure date. Max and Jane and those going from the US had flights cancelled but were able to find alternative flights and made it half way before being turned back to the US.
So instead of stories from the trip that did not happen I give you other related stories. A conversation with a friend, inspirations from Rania Maayeh, the Friends Girls School principal, one of many challenges for Palestinian students in the West Bank, a philosophy from a book, stories from the Gospel of Matthew, 2 words, and Rick’s story.
A friend – Visited me a few days ago and there was much laughing. He is very funny. Laughing with him allowed for him to hear my saying ‘the women said what?’ after he called an older female a girl. Laughing and listening allowed us to hear each other. How can we say our truth in ways that others will listen?
Rania. Steadfast, intense desire to care for, support and protect the staff and students of Ramallah Friends School (RFS). Resilience, the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness. The message Rania is sharing with Yearly Meetings throughout the country and will be sharing more at New England Yearly Meeting.
“For over 150 years, RFS has stood as a living witness to what education, rooted in justice and love, can achieve. Founded in faith. Sustained by Resilience. Focused on the Future.”
Shadi Khoury – Oct 18 2022, Israeli military forces raided the home of Shadi Khoury, a 16 year old RFS student, in East Jerusalem, beating him, dragging him barefoot and blindfolded, and detaining him without charge or legal representation. He is not alone. Many young teens are arrested without a charge and held without legal representation. The school issued a statement condemning the violence and calling for Shadi’s release. A court hearing was finally held Thursday, 17 July 2025 with decisions to be made in September. A prayer offered “May the heavens open up for him.” Words. Opening up new visions, images for healing and transformation.
Olives. The fruit that has sustained the Palestinians for thousands of years. Samid a way of thinking and being that has sustained many Palestinians for thousands of years.
Samid. The Third Way. By Raja Shehadeh. A Journal of the West Bank. “Between mute submission and blind hate– I choose the third way. I am Samid.”-
The term “Samid” (or ṣamīd in Arabic) is part of a key Palestinian cultural and political concept called Sumud (or ṣumūd), meaning “steadfastness” or “steadfast perseverance”. It emerged after the 1967 Six-Day War as a form of resistance against occupation using a third way between violent struggle and passive submission.
Jesus teachings. A third way. My understanding of Jesus’ teaching to turn the other cheek, walk the second mile, and to give your cloak to your oppressor gives the same message. A third way of reacting to others and the oppressor.
Word, concepts. Semitic and Chosen. Semitic – relating to or denoting a family of languages that includes Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic and certain ancient languages such as Phoenician and Akkadian, constituting the main subgroup of the Afro-Asiatic family. Relating to the peoples who speak Semitic languages, especially Hebrew and Arabic.
The Chosen people of Hebrew and Christian scriptures was debated at Earlham School of Religion. Were they chosen to be in a particular land or chosen to be a light to all the nations. Biblical scholars have evidence that it could have been either interpretation. Not a simple answer.
Rick, a friend of mine, was a participant with Christian Peacemaker teams who, for many years have been a peaceful presence in conflict areas around the world. They observe and make known injustices incurred. One day Rick and a few others in his CPT team and some Palestinians were walking and observing in a West Bank village when a group of soldiers approached them with machine guns and a menacing attitude. They seemed to be on the verge of intimidating Rick’s CPT group and the Palestinians with them. Tensions rose. Rick’s phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket and listened for a bit. He then held the phone out to one of the younger soldiers and said, ‘Its your mom.’. A palpable shift occurred in the soldiers.
How can we be steadfast and resilient using our imaginations to help shift the world toward more compassion, light and hope?
Falmouth Quarterly Meeting Minutes, July 19, 2025
Falmouth Quarterly Meeting, July 19, 25
Hosted at Wendy Schlotterbeck’s home at 79 Skillings Corner Rd, Auburn, Maine
Present: Fritz Weiss, Portland (clerk), Marian Dalton, Brunswick, Christine Holden, Brunswick, Susan Gilbert, Durham, Sarah Sprogell, Durham, Tom Antonik, Portland, Wendy Schlotterbeck, Durham, Paula Rossvall, Portland, Mimi Marstaller, Durham (recorder), Sue Reilly, Portland, Ann Dodd-Collins, Portland
We opened singing together and sharing songs that we loved; concluding with the old girl scout song “Peace I ask of you O River, Peace peace peace…”
Land acknowledgement
Maine Council of Churches representative. We approved Jessica Eller-Fitze, Ann Dodd-Colins and Petra Doan for a nominating committee with charge to consult with Diane Dicranian, and bring a nomination to the Quarterly October business meeting. The rep will serve a three year term which starts in January 2026. Vassalboro also needs to approve the person at their November meeting.
We approved inviting Leslie Manning to join the committee.
We offered the following advice to the nominating committee:
- Go to the website, read their statements.
- Read the job description for the role.
- Attend a webinar.
- Seek someone who is committed to the responsibility and the likely political actions this role will entail.
- Seek someone who will bring forward the peace testimony.
- Seek someone willing to communicate to Friends outside the council.
- Seek someone who is deeply connected to source, to God, rooted in Quakerism.
- The person needs to be aware that they are representing all Maine Quakers, not just Falmouth Quarter.
- Keep in mind: this is a public position. The Quaker in this role will face arguments or pushback from folks (Quakers & non-quakers) who do not agree with the positions of the council.
- Be clear about the difference between a role on this council and the Maine Committee for Public Policy.
Support for the LGBTQAI+ community –
We read the minutes from Brunswick (attached) and from Durham (attached) and the letter from Portland (attached). Is there something that we would like the quarter to do?
There was clarity that it is important celebrate the trans folks who are a part of all our communities, and that we will work to advance justice and equality for the LGBTQAI+ community. Our relationship is more than solidarity, it is a relationship of community and family.
We considered several options:
- Write a minute (or a bundle) and send it to NEYM’s presiding clerk and ask that YM consider endorsing it or perhaps sending it out to the other Quarters for their engagement. This is a concern which cannot wait; trans and queer communities are experiencing “churches” condemning and threatening their existence.
- Support Pink Havens’ (Me) work creating welcoming villages for trans folks in Maine
- Write a statement that acknowledges the value in each of the statements from Monthly Meetings (Durham, Brunswick, Portland) and quotes the parts that are particularly powerful or held in common.
- We could send the three documents to NEYM to be distributed as advance documents.
What is possible at Sessions this year? We could ask Sessions to distribute our minute/letter of concern to other quarters so that we can have a discussion of it next year at Sessions.
The clerk shared that the YM Presiding Clerk Rebecca has indicated that she would like Quarters to have an opportunity to report what has been going on in the quarter. He suggested that Falmouth Quarter could ask for time in this section to share the three statements. He also shared his personal opinion that faith communities need to speak strongly & loudly if we are to counter the public statements by Christian figures who are threatening great violence to trans folks.
We approved this preamble to the letters when presented to the NEYM:
“We received with appreciation the minutes in support of our queer community and family from Brunswick and Durham and the letter of concern from Portland, and wish to state the view of Falmouth Quarterly Meeting that as Quakers we unite in celebrating our belief in the diversity of God’s creation. We ask all meetings in NEYM to discern the appropriate actions to be taken in this time of urgency. “
We ask our clerk to share this minute and these documents with the presiding clerk and request time at Sessions to discuss this issue.
Friends approved this preamble and the minute requesting the clerks’ role at Sessions.
Closing worship
Respectfully submitted, Mimi Marstaller
Agenda and Materials for July 20, 2025 Business Meeting
The Agenda and Materials for the July 20, 2025 DFM Business Meeting can be found HERE
Agenda
Monthly Meeting for Business, July 20, 2025
Opening
Approval of June 2025 Minutes
Approval for Suspension of Monthly Meeting for Business in August
Ministry & Counsel Report
Peace & Social Concerns: Ingrid: Brief report about the October 4 event (George Lakey film)
Trustees: Sarah: short report. Trustees have recommended that DFM does not sell the woodlot, but would like to hear the thoughts of others.
Additionally, Sarah was contacted by Durham Historical Society about the 2026 anniversary parade. Bring before MM.
Finance has no report.
