Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, June 14, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n
People of my generation (and I use that term very loosely to include many of us) may not know much of the Bible. Unlike my parents I didn\u2019t grow up memorizing Bible verses. But most of us in my generation know the first eight verses of the third chapter of the 21st<\/sup> book in the Hebrew Testament. That\u2019s because some guy just took those lines (from the King James Version), set them to music, and recorded it as a song. That was Pete Seeger; he recorded it in 1962. When the Byrds released a version of it in 1965 as \u201cTurn, Turn, Turn,\u201d it went to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. And the song still has the distinction of being the song that reached #1 with the oldest lyrics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here are those first eight verses of the third chapter of the 21st<\/sup> book of the Bible, the book of Ecclesiastes<\/em>, a book that by legend, was written by King Solomon:<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3 <\/em><\/strong>To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n 2 <\/sup><\/em><\/strong>A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n 3 <\/sup><\/em><\/strong>A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n 4 <\/sup><\/em><\/strong>A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n 5 <\/sup><\/em><\/strong>A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n 6 <\/sup><\/em><\/strong>A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n 7 <\/sup><\/em><\/strong>A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n 8 <\/sup><\/em><\/strong>A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s a song with a strong connection to an era of peace protests and civil rights demonstration, an era of insistence on doing right. It was a call to peace and justice \u2013 and it still is. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA time to keep silence and a time to speak;\u201d \u201ca time of war and a time of peace.\u201d For many of us, the song came to mean that now, right now, was a time for peace and a time for speaking out. More than a half century later, here we are again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n How can that be? Have we learned nothing? Have we achieved nothing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Quakers, for worshipping communities like us, silence is at the core of our spiritual practice. We gather in silence for worship. Sometimes we stay in silence for the whole of our worship time. But this doesn\u2019t seem like a time for silence; it seems like a time for speaking. And more than that, it seems like a time for doing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve been thinking that there are two kinds of silence, and they are quite different. <\/p>\n\n\n\n One kind we might call holy silence. We quiet ourselves to hear God. We quiet ourselves to give attention to what God is asking of us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The other kind we might call worldly silence. We\u2019re silent because we\u2019re lost or confused; we don\u2019t know what to say. We\u2019re silent because we\u2019re biting our tongues. We know what to say but we aren\u2019t strong enough or brave enough to say it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Worldly silence is a stay-on-the-sidelines kind of silence. Holy silence is a getting-ready kind of silence, a getting ready to speak and a getting ready to act kind of silence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What is it we have to say? It\u2019s not good enough to say we\u2019re against racial inequity; it\u2019s not good enough to say we that Black Lives Matter. We Quakers (not us, but those who came before us) were early to speak up for the abolition of slavery. But we were largely unprepared for what would come after slavery. We didn\u2019t welcome African-Americans into Friends Meetings or into Quaker schools or colleges. Fit for Freedom But Not for Friendship<\/em> is the quite telling title of the book that Donna McDaniel and Vanessa Julye wrote about that. We were silent, tongue-tied maybe, or worse. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Many Quakers supported the civil rights advocacy of the 1960s that led to the civil rights act of 1964 and the voting rights act of 1965. But in our lifetimes, we\u2019ve seen those weren\u2019t enough. And worse, we\u2019ve seen those steps forward rolled back, gutted. We may not have wanted that roll-back, but we didn\u2019t speak manage to speak out strongly enough to stop that rollback<\/p>\n\n\n\n 401 years since the first people were brought to these shores in chains, enslaved; 244 years since we proclaimed all people created equal; 155 years since the end of Civil War and the end of state-authorized slavery. We still have deep and persisting racial injustice in this country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We see police violence. And nothing done about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We see persisting gaps in achievement in our schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We see school expulsions and suspensions disproportionately exercised against people of color.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We see the right to vote denied to African Americans. Polling places closed. Voter registrations cancelled. Gerrymandering. Voting machines sabotaged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We see prisons disproportionately filled with people of color.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We see neighborhoods segregated by race. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We see deep and persisting inequalities in employment. In income. In wealth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In every conceivable way we see unjustified \u2013 unjustifiable \u2013 gaps between the life experience of people simply on the basis of race and color. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We see worse health care and worse health outcomes for people of color. COVID 19 is hitting people of color particularly hard. I read recently that in the last decade 1200 scientific papers were published calling attention to racial disparities in health and medical care. Noticing isn\u2019t enough. Talking about it isn\u2019t enough. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Here in Maine we can stand a little to one side of all this \u2013 the whitest state in the union (or is it Vermont?). But is that anything that excuses our silence, really?<\/p>\n\n\n\n In every realm of life, we see injustice. If we don\u2019t see it, shame on us. If we don\u2019t speak out about it, shame on us. If we don\u2019t try to make it right, shame on us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, we are called to see that we make good on the promise of equality. We are called to speak out \u2013 to insist that we truly be a country that accords liberty and justice to all,<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are political currents that are working on this: movements, organizations, campaigns. Black Lives Matter, the Poor People\u2019s Campaign, the American Civil Liberties Union, many others. These all need our support and we should give support to them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We should also remember where we will find our bearings. We\u2019re not going to find our deepest bearings in politics alone, in movements or campaigns no matter how passionate or righteous the cause. It\u2019s not where we should look to find them. We need to go deeper<\/p>\n\n\n\n To be at our best, our clearest, our most courageous, we find them here in worship. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We will find them in the holy silence we share. We will find our bearings in the holy silence in which we listen for God\u2019s leadings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We will learn again and anew: that each and every human being is a child of God. We will learn again and anew: that each and every human being has the capacity to know God, to hear what God has to tell us, us humans, and to share that with others. Those others include each and every human being, whatever their race, or religion, whatever their age or their occupation \u2013 teacher or student, protestor or policeman. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We will learn again and anew that violence and domination won\u2019t work. They only prepare the way for more violence in the future. We will learn again and anew that in listening carefully to God \u201cwe can be changed\u2014even transformed.\u201d We will learn again and anew that in the holy silence, \u201cWe can come to live lives reflecting the Light and Love of God\u201d and that this will give us the clarity and courage to transform the world. Those words, that \u201cwe can be changed\u2014even transformed\u201d and \u201cwe can come to live lives reflecting the Light and Love of God\u201d are right up front on the New England Yearly Meeting website about \u201cwhat we believe.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA time to keep silence and a time to speak;\u201d \u201ca time of war and a time of peace.\u201d Those are words from Ecclesiastes. In this troubled time, we need to gather in silence to see where God would direct us, and we need to be prepared to speak and to act when we leave Meeting. In this time of hate and or war, we must prepare the way for a time of peace and of love. We need holy silence but not worldly silence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Cross-posted on Riverviewfriend<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, June 14, 2020 People of my generation (and I use that term very loosely to include many of us) may not know much of the Bible. Unlike my parents I didn\u2019t grow up memorizing … Continue reading