Meditations—Musings and Gleanings

small community, present communitgy

2012-02-24T12:14:00.000-05:00

Clerk’s Corner February 22nd, 2012
Dear Friends,
One thing churning round and round in my head these days is Margaret Mead’s oft quoted assertion, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” Even in this world where our cultural literacy seems boiled down to a series of sound bites, where it’s easy to forget that Mead was the first anthropologist to ‘get’ that to understand a people you needed to live with them for an extended period of time, it’s easy to embrace she was born into a Quaker family. That quote could easily be an accurate Friends’ historical motto if we were attracted to such things. And we’re we’re a small cluster of Friends at Plainfield Monthly Meeting, even in a world of small clusters of Friends.
For years and years after being convinced to our understanding of the Truth I couldn’t figure out for the life of me why there weren’t long lines outside the doors of Friends’ Meetings. I mean, after all, we understand—we get it. We embrace the paradox that the journey is arriving and that arriving is merely a threshold in the journey. We seek transformation and sometimes find it. Actually I still don’t understand but I’ve come to accept that our way is not the way of most folks…that a different kind of faith community speaks to other folks or that they embrace the secular or that clear black and white answers to the “big” questions resonate with them. Alas.
The other thing that has been rolling around in my thinking is from an interview I recently heard with Sharon Brous, a Conservative rabbi and part of a Jewish spiritual and social revival. She suggests that there if one finds taking a hike or reading an inspirational novel more meaningful than worship with a faith community than that is what you should do and, indeed, that is what young folks more often than not will do in today’s world. As much as I love worship, as much as I love the community of Friends, I couldn’t disagree with her.
So here we are—a group of people who are open to each other, who share a deep understanding that we are seekers and finders both, who are tied together by history and experience. So here we have it—in any way of stacking things up we’re in a minority. One of our greatest strengths is our understanding that God’s Truth is too big for any single set of words, and it’s our Achilles' heel too. We have other weaknesses too—we nip prophetic leadership in the bud, we can become insular, and we can become too serious. But we have also have strengths—we are open to continuing revelation. We embrace the mystery. We take risks, both with each other and with the world. As much as diversity challenges us, we look for unity in it.
And certainly we are an not idle community. We grow and develop. We change and adapt. While a long time member finds a new home in another faith community another joins us and yet another transfers her membership to recognize a home made with us. There are other long time attenders who may feel a part of us but who do not join. Should they? Are they inclined to “put their name on the line?” Do we love them enough to ask them? I hope so.
We are a small group; I’ve grown to be okay with that. There are folks who claim connections through us through childhood but don’t seek or find, and I’m okay with that too. There are folks who show up on Christmas or on Easter or on an odd Sunday or two and never come back. Do I wish they did? Absolutely. But I’m okay with that they don’t. I want to embrace all of us, but if we are called to be a witness—a rock in the middle of the river where folks can hang on a bit to rest before floating off on their own, I’m okay with that too.
I’ve come to see that this is one of the quiet things God calls our community to do. Be present. That and, of course, and do God’s work as it is revealed to us.
In faith,
Carl

Seeing with new eyes

2012-02-17T05:36:00.002-05:00

A Meditation:
I’m always pleased when the high school students I spend time with link the things we study with their lives; now and then their connections astound me. In United States History we’ve been talking about westward expansion and the subsequent clash of cultures…the westward moving Anglo culture, the strong Hispanic culture in the southwest and on the west coast, and the cultures of the indigenous people—the Sioux, Ojibwa, Navaho and the others who had a delicate balance among themselves before our arrival. The other day we were having one of those wandering discussions—sometimes logical and sequential, sometimes circular, and sometimes flying hither and yon, thought-to-thought. We were dancing around the strangeness those first interactions between “us” and “them” must have held: the surprise at the foreignness of the others’ outlook, and how initial assumptions about each other must have fallen away to confusion before the violence. One student began a long soliloquy about the “male dominated warrior culture” of the Sioux and the other Plains Indians. I assumed this was going to be a replay of the kind of radical feminism rhetoric she loves. All of a sudden, she took a sharp turn in her comments and started talking about the bravery of counting coup, touching your enemy with a short stick and getting away unscathed. How curious it must have seemed, she wondered, to have unexpectedly faced the different cultural way of warring by being shot at a distance with a rifle. Her comments turned the class discussion on its heel and what evolved was a conversation—a halting, uncertain and searching adolescent exploration—of the other, trying to embrace a different point of view, to understand the stranger. —cdw

“Near our tent, on the sides of large trees … were various representations of men going to and returning from the wars, and of some being killed in battle …. and as I walked about viewing those Indian histories… and thinking on the innumerable afflictions which the proud, fierce spirit produceth in the world, also on the toils and fatigues of warriors in travelling over mountains and deserts; on their miseries and distresses when far from home and wounded by their enemies; of their bruises and great weariness in chasing one another over the rocks and mountains; of the restless, unquiet state of mind of those who live in this spirit, and of the hatred which mutually grows up in the minds of their children, —the desire to cherish the spirit of love and peace among these people arose very fresh in me.” —The Journal of John Woolman, Chapter 8

a prayer

2012-02-10T05:23:00.003-05:00

God you are the thousand shades of green in trees, the cool emerald moss—living, breathing things all around me. God you are.

You’re the vibrant scarlet clouds at sunset, the crisp red of a maple leaf in fall, a pair of joyous cardinals against the snow. God you are.

You’re the deep cobalt of a lake and the crystal azure of the sky and the faded blue of my favorite shirt. God you are.

You're dusk-dark just when shapes begin to blur, and night’s darkest corner where there’s no hint of morning though it’s only moments away. And God you are those tendrils of light bringing a new day, the brilliant scorching light of a summer’s noon and the soft muted light of a lingering evening after a long, hard day. God you are.

God you are a pallet of color, rich open possibilities there waiting for me, waiting for my brush, waiting for my awe.

And I, I am a poor painter searching for a canvas. —cdw

A gift

2012-02-03T05:42:00.001-05:00

A meditation:
“All the lovely qualities of peace are to be found within your own being, for there is My throne and there do I dwell, every ready to take you out of the confusion into a place of quiet and loveliness. As you approach Me in this Holy place, all discord falls away, and you may be at the will high in the mountains with the scent of pine carried on the soft mountain breezes as they kiss your cheek. Or again, you may be with Me by the ocean.... Why live in outer tumult…? Be still! Pictured in your mind the sitting you wish of our meeting and so surely shall I be able to make my presence felt that when you again take up the duties of the day, you shall be refreshed of body and renewed of soul.” —Eva Bell Werber, In His Presence, 1946

Snowshoeing around deserted 19th century granite quarries one crisp bright white winter afternoon with two of my children, come from their own busy lives. Both have new-style lightweight snowshoes—all aluminum and webbing with crampons for extra grip. I use my dad’s snowshoes—varnished bent wood and rawhide. As wonderful as traditional snowshoes are, when you’re traipsing about with five-foot long contrivances attached to your feet, you need to keep your mind on your business and, well, to be honest...I tend to daydream a bit and I’m not very graceful either. The kids, with their crampons, wait at the top of steeper slopes while of necessity I make my way more slowly, leaving a herringbone design behind. Half way up one of these stretches a most interesting knot in a tree catches my attention, the toe of one snowshoe catches in the back of the other—and it’s head over keister into the snow. Face down, snowshoes sticking up at odd angles the kids take a couple of snapshots to record my predicament for their bother and posterity, and wait chatting on the edge of the quarry, leaving me to my own devices to disentangle myself. I twist and turn, get the snowshoes off only to find myself standing in waist deep snow to put them on again—all in all an awkward operation.

My kids, in sight but out of hearing. A cardinal’s “wheet, wheet, wheet” interrupts the woods’ muffled silence. Quite suddenly, quite unexpectedly, amidst the pulling and twisting with snow down my jacket and in my boots, my fingers numb from working leather straps I’m overwhelmed with the Presence, that gentle whisper—that ever-present murmur. I’m at the throne—God awaits, grace abides. —cdw

Seeking

2012-01-27T07:42:00.001-05:00

A meditation:
“And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness….” —Isaiah 35:8

“I walked after the plough, I was filled with the love and presence of the living God, which did ravish my heart when I felt it, for it did increase and abound in me like a living stream, so did the life and love of God run through me like precious ointment giving a pleasant smell, which mad me to stand still.”—Marmaduke Stevenson, 1659

“Upon the 9th day of the Eleventh Month, the word of the Lord came to me that I should go to New England, there to be a witness for Him. So I was made willing to offer up my life and all, in obedience to the Lord; for his word was as a fire, and a hammer in me….”—Henry Fell, 1656

Dawn’s frigid wind
White-gray branch on slate gray sky
God’s path revealed—cdw

The world yanks me toward it...

2012-01-20T05:03:00.000-05:00

A meditation:
“… present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.“ —Romans 12: 1-2

The world yanks me toward it. I don’t know if it is something cultural I carry or something hard wired in my brain, but this whole idea of submitting to God is a continuing challenge for me. I approach it and then when I’m not looking, it slides away from me. On one hand I wrestle with feeling I must know better than God’s quirky way forward, and with a deep sense of self-doubt on the other. Sometimes I wrestle with both at the same time. Really, I suppose, they are both the same thing. When God offers me a task, it is not up to me to say, “I’m sorry God this is much to menial for me. I’m much to busy to make time for such a meager job.” Nor is it my place to say, “What are you crazy God?! I cannot do that; it’s too important a task and I don’t have those skills.” The calls I receive are not measured by the ways of the world. There are not more important or less important jobs, only calls to faithfulness. It is not mine to judge a call, but let go of the shore and float into the warm nurturing (but sometimes a bit scary) river of the Presence. I know that the journey is as important as the destination. Wading into the waters of faithfulness—of trusting God’s call—is always an active process. Even if the water feels cold at first, even my footing isn’t as firm as I’d want it to be, I belong here and not up on the shore.

Williams Patrick Williams

2012-01-14T09:24:00.000-05:00

William Patrick Williams was born December 27th in 1948, I some six weeks later. As adults we lived very different lives but growing up we were in the middle of a gaggle of cousins; there were four of us born within a few months of each other—Larry, Charlotte, Bill and I. He and I were double cousins-our mothers sisters, our fathers brothers—and so in those early years was ever present. And always running ahead that one. Climbing the highest tree and then jumping from one to the next (how Aunt Leone, his mother, would demand and cajole him to come down) In kindergarten we watched out for each other, he and I. I made sure he was understood and he protected me. My cousin Bill. Running ahead still. Thanks for the whole lot of it, Billy.

Tired

2012-01-13T05:46:00.002-05:00

“Precious Lord, take my hand
Lead me on, let me stand
I am tired, I am weak, I am worn
Through the storm, through the night
Lead me on to the light
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home.

“When my way grows drear
Precious Lord linger near
When my light is almost gone
Hear my cry, hear my call
Hold my hand lest I fall
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home.”–Thomas A. Dorsey, 1932

What magic God embraces—swirling dancing loving growing reaching teaching. Life is not always good, not always easy. In life terrible things happen—evil things, sad things by the wheelbarrow full. An intimate relationship with God gives strength to face those things with an abundant heart, with certain knowledge of joy, in the face of dreadful reality. I’ve experienced it, and I know. The magic of the Divine presides in my life for the asking—nourishing, healing, giving hope where none should logically exist. It’s often not easy. It’s rarely logical. Ultimately though a life of faith, a life in relationship with an ever-present Divine, is always wonderful.

In experiencing God's love in my daily life, in the tragic and the mundane, the magic becomes real. And in becoming real the magic grows and multiplies and overflows in unexpected places and unplanned ways. There is great risk in giving your life over to God, even giving it over a little bit. But the surprises, the elation at encountering magic unfolding, are magnificent beyond language, beyond description.

And as certain as the joy is I get lonely and tired and worn. When I need it most, and when I find a way to open myself, I am led toward comfort. —cdw

Some queries for a new year

2012-01-06T18:23:00.001-05:00

Queries for a new year:
o Do I laugh each day, knowing I am embraced by a loving presence?
o Are we a group of individuals drawn together for mutual support, or are we a corporate body that walks a path together?
o Do I look to model my days after the life Jesus lived, or do I look to push Jesus into a life I find easy?
o Which of our traditions are dead, their time past? Which should be kept alive? Which might be reinvigorated?
o Do I nurture the in-dwelling Seed in my heart?
o Can we love “the other” if we don’t work to love each other?
o When God calls me, do I answer with joy and in faith? —cdw

some thoughts on Ruth Hathway

2012-01-06T18:21:00.000-05:00

One of my lasting memories of Ruth is watching her walk, arm-in-arm with Corrine Elliot and Mike Butler, across a field on a slow, hot summer day. The reason I was able to watch their leisurely wander across Plainfield’s Community Field was that I was selling popcorn to raise money for the Central Vermont Association of Retard Citizens at Plainfield’s Fourth of July celebration. The reason I was selling popcorn was Ruth Hathaway. Yes, indeed.

Ruth has been much on my mind since I returned last week from my cousin Bill’s funeral. I’ve been missing her and celebrating her and enjoying our time with her for a long time so it feels a bit odd. She was one of those quiet, constant presences among us for so long that, even when she was in the nursing home with Parkinson’s Disease I regularly felt her presence; I can often see her and Richard sitting in their accustomed back bench seats during worship in the meetinghouse.
I met Ruth soon after Diane, the kids, and I moved to central Vermont in 1981. I was working at deinstitutionalizing folks from the Brandon State Training School. She was the executive director of CVARC, an organization in transition from running the Green Mountain School for children with developmental disabilities in Montpelier to an advocacy and support organization for both adults and children. I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but within a year of meeting Ruth I found myself on the board of CVARC. Over the next decade I watched her presence work quiet magic….at the luncheons she hosted annually for Vermont legislators, in tense or unhappy situations supporting folks with disabilities in crisis, in schools and in residences.

But I came to know Ruth best as an undeclared elder of our meeting community, wise, loving, patient. While Diane and I were looking for a spiritual home I discovered there was a Friends Meeting in Plainfield and that she was a member and I asked her about it. With uncharacteristic brashness she told me, in no uncertain terms, that it was a religious society, and not a social group like the Elks or the Masons. We laughed many times about that conversation over the years but her vehemence, her commitment, to Friends was unwavering and crystal clear.

Her self-effacing style belied a depth of character and profundity of understanding of human spiritual experience. Back in the days of Quaker Day Camp it took some fast-talking to get her to be our ‘Friend of the Day’—she would have rather brought snacks and done the dishes instead of being the center of attention. But the stories her seeking and coming to Friends, as well as her stories of participating in Quaker work camps in Mexico captivated the children.

It was Ruth who, as a representative of nominating committee, first asked me to clerk meeting. It was Ruth who, after the first time I spoke in meeting, confirmed my message and in a few words supported and nurtured that part of my journey. Ruth with quiet counsel supported the building of the meetinghouse and who, with Larkin, dipped shingles and swept shavings from the floor as the meetinghouse was built.
She was a gentle presence. And though she’d balk at these words, she was a holy presence. Our community of Friends is centuries wide and generations long. In her last years as her health deteriorated and she lost Richard, Ruth showed us how to live, how to be graceful in the face of impenetrable desolation, how to embrace the realities of life.

“This is the Comfort of Friends, that though they may be said to Die, yet their Friendships and Society are, in the best Sense, every present, because Immortal.” William Penn

Thank you, Ruth.

Carry the past forward

2011-12-30T07:35:00.002-05:00

When it happens someone inadvertently discovers that I am a Friend, often the person struggles a bit to put it that knowledge into a schema they understand. I am rarely asked about my understanding of Jesus, or about witness, or of making God’s love visible. People who don’t know Quakers, finding one in their midst, often react in one of two ways. One group is a little surprised that we exist at all—we seem to them an aberration from high school history books. They are surprised that we drive cars, don’t use “thee” and “thou” in daily conversation, and, for the most part, use a style of dress little different than the rest of the culture. This group finds our testimonies quaint and homey. Alternately we are viewed in a new agey way of fuzzy spirituality and feel-good group hugs. In this view individual whims reign supreme and there are no wrong answers, only therapeutic insights.

Neither of these views is inherently bad, just not accurate. Our history seems most quaint from the distance of centuries. But there is nothing especially picturesque when faithfulness requires long stays in poorly ventilated unsanitary jail cells, or having your ears cut off, or being tied to a wagon and whipped as it winds way through the village toward banishment. We seem the most quaint when our deep Christian roots, rigorous discipline, and historic oversight of leadership and leadings are blurred through the lens of today’s assumed need for instant gratification and the cult of individuality.

We move forward in time with an ever-revealing Presence in our midst. We Friends seem at a cross roads of sorts; we can accept one of these societal pre-conceived notions of who we are, or we can fade into other faith communities, or we can embrace our history — as Publishers of Truth and followers of God and move forward with that vision. Are we the prophetic group of seekers that our spiritual ancestors taught us to be? If we are, we will change the world. If not become a quaint, but spiritually dead, Society.

In those terrifying days of British Civil War and violence our first spiritual ancestors stood against the tide of their culture. When early Friends were classified with Ranters –the religious anarchists of the day—we said, “No, that is not us.” When we were asked to join the fight against monarchy, and later the fight with monarchy we said—eventually— “No, that is not us, either.” Standing firm is hard. Standing firm outside of the circle of culture is even harder, yet that is what our foremothers and forefathers did. That is how we acquired the history that now seems so quaint, and that is what we are called to today.

Back in those heady and frightening days the words of John called us plainly and unmistakably: “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends….” (15:15)

There is a prophetic vision among us waiting to be embraced. A vision of community. A vision of witness. A vision of faithfulness. A vision of God’s love made visible. —cdw

the gift I bring

2011-12-23T06:32:00.004-05:00

A meditation:
I read somewhere that Persian rug makers leave an intentional mistake in each carpet, and that Amish quilters do the same thing in their craft. True or not, it’s an interesting concept. If only God is perfect, the logic goes, than I will ensure my work, a fine as it may be, is not.

Last week I spent time in the nooks and crannies of a day taking student family tree projects (each a physically large document, many with family photographs and three dimensional decorations) off the wall of my classroom, putting them in easily assessable, organized and logical piles so they could go home. And, while I like to be in my classroom when kids come in so I can get a feel for their day and set the stage for our time together, sometimes that doesn’t happen. So I arrived to the classroom after most of them, and there seemed to be family trees hither and yon. I hadn’t realized I was running on empty, but I guess I was, and found the state of things very, very frustrating. Without asking even one question I let them have it. I laid them out in lavender. Had a hissy fit. Lambasted them. Bawled them out. Called them to task. Raked them over the coals. Castigated them. I scolded about responsibility and ownership and just moving stuff without a reason. I forgot that it was the kind of thing I don’t do in class, and I did it. Big time. A few minutes later, after setting properly contrite students to work on a task, I walked into the back of the room realized what I first perceived to be a mess wasn’t; they had only done what they should have done, taken initiative and gotten their own work ready to take home at the end of class. Nuts.

My apology was, of necessity, as lengthy as my tirade and, I hope, as heart felt. Sometimes, I told them, you’re just wrong and I was not only wrong, I was way on the other side of wrong. “Mea Culpa!” I shouted, and the next time I’m making a fool of myself, I said, I hope that someone tells me before I finish.

A long way from perfect, me. But, as a Friend from my quarter reminds me, “God paints with a limited pallet.” My faults are many, my strengths few. But that is all I have, and I offer the whole mess up. I offer my humanness—my weakness and my fear along with along with any cleverness I may carry, any bravery I may find. It is the only gift I have. —cdw

Advent

2011-12-16T06:09:00.002-05:00

A meditation:
I understand the idea of Advent.

I get the whole thing about early-times northern people’s annual focus on the lessening light and their great joy with its gradually returning at the solstice—their waiting and their celebration. Maybe it’s genetic—my grandfather came from the Sligo in the northwest of Ireland. Or maybe it’s just because I’ve made my home north of the 44th parallel and, while the shifting seasonal light is not as dramatic here as some places, this time of year I pretty regularly leave my house to go to school in the dark and return home in the dark. I understand the way darkness can seep into your being this time of year. The dark can be sad and lonely and scary. I get the ancients—their waiting and their wonder.

I get how those natural patterns translated into rejoicing with Jesus’ message of a loving, forgiving God, how we shifted from the darkness and despair of oppression into an always loving, always forgiving Presence. The kingdom—the experience—of God embraces me like a sunny afternoon, my loneliness and my fears retreat. Waiting and wonder.

I get how George Fox and other early Friends came to understand waiting and wonder was not part of a calendar, but written on our hearts, and that the searching and the finding of God’s embrace were really one and were always present. Advent yesterday. Advent today. Advent tomorrow.

I get it. Each day I await the loving Divine Light. Each day I find it. Advent in my heart, in my soul. Waiting and wonder. Hallelujah. —cdw

Whittier and me

2011-12-02T06:11:00.002-05:00

A meditation:
“In calm and cool and silence, once again
I find my old accustomed place among
My brethren, where, perchance, no human tongue
Shall utter words; where never hymn is sung,
Nor deep-toned organ blown, nor censer swung,
Nor dim light falling through the pictured pane!
There, syllabled by silence, let me hear
The still small voice which reached the prophet's ear;
Read in my heart a still diviner law
Than Israel's leader on his tables saw!
There let me strive with each besetting sin,
Recall my wandering fancies, and restrain
The sore disquiet of a restless brain;
And, as the path of duty is made plain,
May grace be given that I may walk therein,
Not like the hireling, for his selfish gain,
With backward glances and reluctant tread,
Making a merit of his coward dread,
But, cheerful, in the light around me thrown,
Walking as one to pleasant service led;
Doing God's will as if it were my own,
Yet trusting not in mine, but in His strength alone!” —John Greenleaf Whittier, “First Day Thoughts,” 1852

My “old accustomed place” is not a place at all, but like Whittier, at worship. We’re a broad and diverse community. Some of us found Friends because our parents were Friends, and what resonated with them resonates with us. Others found the Society as a place to live faithfully, close to the center, and others as the best expression of a life close to Jesus. Still others, because of pacifism and others as a safe haven from another faith community. For many reasons, we arrived at the door of a meetinghouse and found ourselves home. Sometimes, because of excitement and conviction, we speak in ways that alienate our brothers and sisters. Or we hesitate to speak at all of the loving Presence in the language of our experience. At our worse ego reigns and we weigh our words not so much by what God expects of us but by what will give us the best response. We allow the world to take weight over faithfulness. Having said that we are more often at our best—or at least near there. Through the risk of speaking, and the greater risk of listening to others’ understanding of the experience of God in their lives, we learn from the Teacher and walk closer to the Guide. Gathered with all of you in worship, “cheerful in the light around me thrown,” I experience God. —cdw

in community

2011-11-25T07:26:00.000-05:00

A meditation:
“Jesus, grilled by the Pharisees on when the kingdom of God would come, answered, ‘The kingdom of God doesn't come by counting the days on the calendar. Nor when someone says, 'Look here!' or, 'There it is!' And why? Because God's kingdom is already among you.’" (Luke 17:20-21 from The Message © 2002)

A year or so ago, I set about to move a bulky, heavy wooden futon frame upstairs. I had waited a few days, thinking maybe someone would come by and I could get a hand, but tired of that and one day just moved it. Then, when I had it raised to its full length over my head in the well of the stairway, I realized that perhaps waiting was the better choice, and said out loud, ”This might not go well.” But none of the things that might have gone wrong did, and the job was accomplished with only a few nicks and scratches on the walls. Tackling chores by myself that are really for two is a pattern with me, and not one I’m especially happy with. But it’s an idea firmly in our culture here in America. Our stories and our myths urge extreme self-reliance. Our heroes are often folks who change the world on their own, or least it’s presented that way. Really, though, things truly accomplished are accomplished mutually. We are meant to work together, to wrestle big things and big ideas as a group.

Friends have always had the deep understanding of the power and the necessity of community. We come together as a worshiping community, sure of the Presence, awaiting transformation. We put our hands to God’s work recognizing that the work grows and is reinforced in our communities. We embrace ministry not as a single person but as a voice of a meeting community.

When I reflect on where I’ve achieved in life and where I’ve failed, I am acutely aware that any success is rooted my community. I am so grateful to friends who help me with the heavy lifting in my life and Friends who point me to God’s path. Both surround me with abiding love—cdw

“Let us give thanks for a bounty of people:
For generous friends, with smiles as bright as their blossoms.
For feisty friends as tart as apples;
For continuous friends who, like scallions and cucumbers, keep reminding us
that we’ve had them.
For crotchety friends, as sour as rhubarb and as indestructible;
For handsome friends, who are as gorgeous as eggplants and as elegant as a row
of corn; and the others as plain as potatoes and as good for you.
For friends as unpretentious as cabbages, as subtle as summer squash, as
persistent as parsley, as endless as zucchini, and who, like parsnips, can be
counted on to see you through the winter.
For old friends, nodding like sunflowers in the evening-time.
For young friends, who wind around like tendrils and hold us.
We give thanks for friends now gone, like gardens past that have been harvested, but who fed us in their times that we might live.” –“A Harvest of People” by Max Coots

...of Greeks and gifts

2011-11-18T05:57:00.002-05:00

I can only imagine the desperation with which the Syrophenician woman approaches Jesus in Mark 7:26-30. When I read this story I see a woman far from her homeland—unpretentious, humble, alone in a strange country and desperate to save her dying daughter. When she approaches him, Jesus is arguing with the Pharisees and scribes about the law. It is a sophisticated argument and Jesus is fully immersed in his own culture, weighing the fine points of requirements for living a faithful life. She knows this is an inopportune time but her hopelessness makes her daring and she interrupts. "She besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter."

Jesus' initial response is one of dismissal. She, a outsider, has no place to call upon him. He rejects her, "Let the children first be filled; for it is not meet to take the children's bread and cast it to the dogs." Unquestionably this woman loved her daughter very much. You can almost feel her heart breaking as she gathers her courage to continue confronting Jesus. She combines pleading with challenge in the way anxious mothers filled with fear for their children have done for time immemorial. "Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs." In my mind's eye I can almost picture Jesus looking at this frantic woman, made rash through despair, whispering a long, slow "hmmm.” It is an important moment in Jesus' ministry. He is stretched by this woman to see beyond his own people—to see all humanity as children of God.

This moment of understanding for Jesus is an important story in Mark as it defines the scope of his ministry, a new radical understanding of the breadth of the kingdom of God. The movement to include all of humanity and not just the children of Israel in the fundamental message of God's experience now and in the future has moved through cultures and time, remaining vital for two thousand years. Certainly it has been misused. It has also given hope and strength to the dispossessed and the downtrodden. Certainly it has been exploited. It has also been a model for generations of people to live their lives simply and with quiet purpose. One of the great beauties of the message is that it cuts across time and through cultures. As the message moves it melds to different cultures at different times. Where ever it lands, it supplies the answers that are needed in ways that can be understood. A gift from a Greek woman. —cdw

Fáed Fíada

2011-11-11T06:11:00.002-05:00

A meditation:
“I arise today, through the strength of Heaven:
light of Sun, brilliance of Moon, splendor of Fire,
speed of Lightning, swiftness of Wind, depth of Sea,
stability of Earth, firmness of Rock.

I arise today, through God's strength to pilot me:
God's might to uphold me, God's wisdom to guide me,
God's eye to look before me, God's ear to hear me,
God's word to speak for me, God's hand to guard me,
God's way to lie before me, God's shield to protect me,
God's host to secure me.” —from Fáed Fíada (also known as the Lorica of Saint Patrick or Patrick’s Breastplate)

For some time now, I’ve committed to live close to the Spirit, to make every action a prayer, every word a celebration of the Presence. I began this part of my journey thinking it would be finite—that I would practice some skills, that I would adapt to looking at the world through this newer lens and than I would be done. Ha! I falter all the time. I backslide, and “yeah, but…” myself, and get sidetracked.

I never seem to completely arrive at the destination. I’m no Brother Lawrence or John Woolman, that’s for certain. Don’t get me wrong I’m not complaining; I accept it as just what is. And I’m lucky it’s organic, because if there were a final exam—a kind of driver’s test to living in the life of the Spirit—I’d fail miserably.

In some gigantic enigma I’ve come to understand the journey is the arrival, walking the path is the destination. Seeking God I need God to show the way (there’s that enigma again). I need to use my will to surrender my will (and again!). I strive toward faithfulness. I’m sure of the Presence. I’m sure, like Patrick, that I am protected, that I am nurtured. So each morning, before I put my feet on the floor, I take a moment and know. I know God’s presence, knocking at the door of my heart. I know that today I can be faithful. I know the kingdom of God—the experience of God—is here and now. —cdw

Rest

2011-11-05T06:46:00.002-04:00

A meditation:
“O God of life, this night, darken not to me Your light.
O God of life, this night, close not Your gladness to my sight.
Keep Your people, Lord, in the arms of your embrace.
Shelter them under your wings.
Be their light in darkness.
Be their light in distress.
Be their calm in anxiety.
Be strength in their weakness.
Be their comfort in pain.
Be their song in the night.
In peace I will lie down, for it is You, O Lord, You alone who makes me to rest secure.” —Ita’s Compline, 4th century

Frost comes early to this corner of the world; most folks with gardens feel fortunate if they are able to keep things going much into September without a hard frost. When I have my wits about me by the first week in October I’m putting the garden ‘to bed’ for the winter. It’s a favorite way to spend a crisp sunny morning—stalks and roots pulled, the last of the ready compost turned into the soil, and a thick layer of shredded leaves on top if it all.

There are chapters in my life where, at least in hindsight, I see I’m like the garden in the fall, before it’s covered with a think layer of snow. Quiet and gray. Waiting. Active sure but the activity is all below the surface, out of sight. Waiting. Preparing to walk the Path. The waiting is palatable. It’s dark and I rest in the arms of my Teacher, secure. –cdw

Sanctuary

2011-10-27T19:59:00.000-04:00

A meditation
There is an oft-sung verse at New England Yearly Meeting sessions—sometimes sung boldly in rounds, other times quietly whispered or hummed. Sung in greeting and sung in farewell. Sung in harmony to the children, hummed to Friends on their departure from sessions. It is one of my favorites, frequently stuck in my head playing over and over and over. It's meaning, though, had faded in my mind, like a dried flower, pleasant but without freshness or any brilliant color:

Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary
Pure and holy, tried and true
With thanksgiving, I'll be a living
Sanctuary for You

And than a month or so ago I received an email from a friend whom I love dearly but haven't seen in a long, long time. He wrote, in part, " 'Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary.' I like this. I will live to this, for this…." Those sentences caught me. It happens sometimes when something you know too well is presented unexpectedly, clearly without all the clutter and layers time sometimes creates. Meaning opens. Significance broadens. It is a wonderful experience.

As I sat with the song during my prayer time for several days my friend’s message propelled me beyond the verse echoing in my head. In Exodus God tells Moses to “let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them “(25:8). They are talking about a building for God but in the last two millennium the physical necessity of a building has changed.

It’s the good news—we each are a sanctuary. We are a sanctuary for God. We are a sanctuary for each other. Every place is holy, we don’t need to set spot aside from all the others. We each are a child of a loving God who’s presence carries us through the ordeals of life, and offers us the lessons (sometimes sweet, sometimes bitter) we need to learn.

Divine Presence, transform me into a sanctuary that you may dwell within me:

•Allow my communities to take me for granted that they feel safe and know I will be present.
•Make me a place of comfort to my family that they come to me from affection and not obligation.
•Allow me to be strong for my friends that they will seek me out when they are in need.
•Make those folks who don’t like me know that I won’t take advantage of them. Help me accept their manipulations and their harsh statements about me as my sacrifice to you.

Help me grow into a safe haven for all your children. Dwell in me, transform me—change me to your likeness, dear God. —cdw

Lessons

2011-10-21T05:11:00.000-04:00

A meditation:
“O Lord my God.
Teach my heart this day where and how to find you.
You have made me and re-made me, and you have bestowed on me all the good things I possess, and still I do not know you.
I have not yet done that for which I was made.
Teach me to seek you, for I cannot seek you unless you teach me, or find you unless you show yourself to me.
Let me seek you in my desire; let me desire you in my seeking.
Let me find you by loving you; let me love you when I find you.
—Anselm of Canterbury c. 1033–1109

This past month has been punctuated with a quiet afternoon with Friends with a concern for Gospel Ministry and the joy of leading a Friends’ retreat. Both were wonderful, wonderful gifts. But they belie the flow of the month, which has been hectic to a point of frenetic: more than usual to do at school, a series of appointments, and a cluster of chores badly wanting to be done. Perhaps the frenzy was best epitomized by the arrival our winter supply of pellets. Four tons dropped off in the driveway on Monday, heavy rain forecasted for Wednesday Thursday and Friday. So that left Tuesday. I like my school evenings quiet and focused and unencumbered but Tuesday dusk, after a series of frustrating after-school meetings, I—with noteworthy assistance from a one of my students—moved the two hundred forty-pound bags. I kept up with Ezra, but only barely. While we hefted (and I huffed), he and I had a long rambling conversation about life and grief and what to do after high school. When he left I felt more warm than tired, more full than frazzled.

Yes, I’m busy. Too busy. Way too busy, and I am work at doing something about it. But, just like the poorly timed necessity of moving wood pellets had an unexpected gift, the month has been abundant in opportunities to be faithful and to find blessings amid the rubble of half completed projects and typing I neglected to proof-read. Even so I’ve worked on the discipline of prayer. And if feels as though God has been about the quiet business of teaching me—where I can find the Divine, and how I can be embraced in the Presence not only through the good and the bad, which may be relatively easy, and also through the mundane, which I find much more challenging.

I seek. I listen. God awaits. —cdw

a prayer

2011-10-14T06:06:00.002-04:00

I give you my eyes today, Lord.
Be my vision; show me your tomorrow.

I give you my lips today, Lord.
Be my inspiration; help me tell your story.

I give you my hands today, Lord. I give you my feet.
Be my work, my walk; my every act celebrates your Presence.

I give you my mind today, Lord.
Be my wisdom; bless me with understanding.

I give you myself today, Lord.
Be my guide; show me the way—
Lead me to Jesus’ path. —cdw

Just a closer walk...

2011-10-07T06:09:00.002-04:00

A meditation:
I’m an early riser, especially on school mornings. I rise with a dual purpose—retirement in the traditional Quaker sense of prayer and reflection, and preparation in the schoolteacher sense of getting ready to face classes full of eager—and not so eager—minds. For the last a decade a predawn walk with Sasha, a joyous dog, separated my prayer time and stepping into whatever the day held. Whether reflective contemplation or a more worldly grocery-list-of-things-to-do switching gears, Sasha’s job—and she’s was an expert at it—was to make sure they happened.

Coming downstairs, Sasha is ahead of me by the door, waiting, using up every jot and tittle of patience. Last button, good to go, thank you very much. Now. Right now. What’s the hold up? Let’sgolet’sgolet’sgo. If I stop to put up the coffee, or linger on a task that’s not putting on shoes and jacket she’s whining and dancing and giving me pleading, demanding looks meant to produce, perhaps, a combination of guilt and speed. Once outside she’s calm and focused at the task at hand. We’re together, but apart. She’ll brush her snout on my hand occasionally to say hello and if there is something particularly exciting she’ll let me know but for the most part I’m walking watching the stars and the changing silhouettes of the trees against the early morning; she with her nose to the ground smelling the new smells and checking favorite spots.

While I’m opposed to the personification of pets, the pet-sonification of people is an entirely different matter. And it occurs to me how like Sasha I am. I become so impatient when the Divine feels remote or slow with things not happening in a time frame I deem appropriate. A friend says that when she is feeling separated from God, she looks to where she has put up barriers, and I agree with that sentiment, but I find myself, like Sasha, prancing impatiently by the door of faithfulness— “Here I am! Let’s get going!” Then, in the times that I feel connected, and experience the Presence, I bask in it. I go about my activities and projects, walking paths of faithfulness. Just sensing God’s presence is enough.

Yes, I stumble but coming to know the Divine in my life pales the falters and the fumbles. I am grateful, and as corny and unsophisticated as it might seem I, like David, am filled with praise and thanksgiving:

“Thank you! Everything in me says ‘Thank you!’ Angels listen as I sing my thanks. I kneel in worship facing your holy temple and say it again: ‘Thank you! ’Thank you for your love, thank you for your faithfulness; Most holy is your name, most holy is your word. The moment I called out, you stepped in; you made my life large with strength.” (Psalm 138, The Message)

My life spirals closer and closer to the Center, in concentric circles towards God’s presence. The journey carries twinkling wonder, gifts of grace, and glints of wholeness. It is also has a good measure of loneliness, icy winds and self-doubt. Surely, in this slide toward faithfulness, I falter as much as I’m successful. But, wax or wane, every morning holds new opportunities, and I start by offering up the day and committing to faithfulness. —cdw

God is alive, magic is afoot

2011-09-30T06:27:00.001-04:00

A meditation:
“God is alive.... Alive is afoot....Alive is in command. Many weak men hungered. Many strong men thrived. Though they boasted solitude, God was at their side...”

In 1647, a twenty-something George Fox, cutting across a field to a relative’s house, came to a deep awareness. “... it was opened in me that God, who made the world, did not dwell in temples made with hands. This, at first, seemed a strange word....But the Lord showed me, so that I did see clearly, that he did not dwell in these temples... but in people’s hearts.... the people were his temple, and he dwelt in them.”

God, everywhere, no longer needs visiting at a burning bush or by trudging to a mountaintop. Friends have long celebrated God in all places, not just in human designated sacred sites. We experience the Divine Presence all along the gamut from solitary moments to gathered meeting for worship regardless of where we are.

“Though laws were carved in marble they could not shelter men; Though altars built in Parliaments, they could not order men; Police arrested magic and magic went with them, ah! For magic loves the hungry.... But magic would not tarry, it moves from arm to arm, It would not stay with them; it cannot come to harm.”*

It’s a radical concept—at worship, at prayer, or taking a short cut on a cold winter’s night, God is present. To sense that Presence is to experience magic. And there’s more. After arriving at his destination, the evening held yet another ‘a-ha’ moment, for Fox, “... I brought them Scriptures and, and told them there was an anointing within man to teach him, and that the Lord would teach his people himself.”

Not only is God present, the Divine is assessable to each of us without intermediary, without proscribed ritual, without formal prayer. God’s grace is directly accessible to everyone. True religion is learned from our searching and listening not from books or repetition of certain words. It surmounts discordance and anguish, overwhelming them and celebrating in persistent love. Pretty fantastic stuff. Because it is so much part of the framework of Friends understanding it is easy to forget just how radical a concept it is when it stops being conjecture and becomes a life lived.

God is present for the noticing. God is alive. The lessons of the Divine are there for the taking. Magic is afoot. Talk with each other of God in your life. God is afoot. Rejoice. Magic is alive. (*quotations from ”God is Alive, Magic is Afoot,” a poem by Leonard Cohen (c) 1966, Fox quotes from The Journal of George Fox, Chapter 1) —cdw

Bonds and boundaries

2011-09-24T08:38:00.001-04:00

A meditation:
I have this large rambling extended family, and with the tools of technology—from pens and stamps to the automobile to the Internet—I maintain some level of relationship with many of them. They’re an interesting, disparate bunch. Some are easier to love at a distance than they are close up. A few of them I count as my closest friends though we may, in fact, only rarely have an opportunity to break bread. We are, I suppose, a kind of community. We share this common heritage, this internal and eternal connection. Though we rarely talk about it, it enfolds us. It binds us by defining our relationships through connections with earlier generations. Equally it defines our boundaries. Husbands, wives, significant others are included but after that, there is a gentle but fairly firm understanding of who is included and who isn’t.

Happenstance has brought me to pondering that same question in our Society—both in my spiritual heritage and in our own little faith community tucked in a bend along the Winooski River. What are the bonds that tie us together and, equally important on some level, where are our boundaries? A decade ago a woman who wanted to her daughter to marry in a Quaker wedding and asked it to be under our meeting’s care, told me that Quakerism is an “anything goes” kind of religion. I was polite at the time, perhaps too polite, and that comment has kind of rankled me ever since. Yes, we are an open and a diverse group. Yes, we don’t bind ourselves by the words of a creed but we aren’t a do-your-own-thing kind new age of group either. We share some common understandings that may be broad (broad enough to lead to schism even) but that is a long way from our being Ranters or accepting predestination.

Last week when some of us gathered in an ad hoc committee to look at the options for outreach and in-reach, one of the things we pondered was how much we could, or would, stretch ourselves with new people. Certainly when a uniformed cadet from Norwich University’s military college attended a few times recently Friends were opening and welcoming. On the other hand I know Christ-centered Friends are sometimes a hesitant to talk in the way that would be most comfortable for them. In our liberal meeting would a “born again Lord and savior” Bible thumping kind of Christian feel at home with us—one who talked about sin and repentance? How about someone who was elsewhere on the political spectrum than our own little tight-knit community? Do we know how to open our hearts and our arms to those we usually consider “they” if their path led them to our door to explore their spiritual life? Are we comfortable enough to know who we are as a community and as individuals to embrace them on their search?

And then, when someone’s path leads them to walk with us, what is it that makes us accept them as a long term participant? What, exactly, is a member? There is a fairly high percentage of our community who while deeply involved in Friends and committed to our meeting, eschew membership. Though they aren’t on the list of members they are important active members of the community. On the other hand there are some formal members we rarely see though they are generally unencumbered to participate. Why is it that while we offer a home to some, some are comfortable in the “I-don’t-join” paradigm but who belong to a number of other groups and organizations?

Just who is it you we are? Can we explore just what it is that binds us together, and where our borders really are? Is there a way to become a vital community to ourselves—so vital Friends couldn’t imagine not belonging? When challenged, can we talk of our faith and the faith of our sisters and brothers in this beloved community of Plainfield Friends Meeting?—cdw

A meditation

2011-09-16T06:01:00.000-04:00

Dear God I offer up every step, every action, every small joy to you. I offer up every sadness, every misstep and every frustration as well.

Over the years I’ve grown more robustly committed to live a life close to the Spirit, to make my every action a prayer, my every word a celebration of God’s presence. And, as a modern Friend, I am committed to that old idea, even if it may seem trite, of a life “ in the world but not of the world.” This decision of mine seems a series of thresholds in a long hallway. At each doorway there is an opportunity to turn away and at each one is also the prospect of unintentionally sliding slowly back toward the world. There are times I’ve thought—mostly in jest but on occasion seriously—that Friends had it easier when they dressed differently than the rest of the world, when they wore their decision quite literally on their sleeve, even though I know that outward signs can quickly become dry and hollow. Other times I think that it would be just easier to put all this aside and just ‘fit in’ (whatever that means) with the rest of the culture. Certainly I’d spend less time driving long distances to committee meetings and travel in the ministry and more time with my feet up reading books-of-no-great-importance. But those are pretty fleeting thoughts. There is a Presence in my day, a joyous undercurrent. God calls, I listen. I call, God listens.—cdw

“Be thou my vision, Lord
this day and every day,
the centre of my life,
the focus of my thoughts.
Be thou my wisdom, Lord
the inspiration of my words,
in every situation,
Your Spirit my support”
— John Birch, Kidwelly, Wales, found at:
http://www.faithandworship.com/Morning_Prayers.htm#ixzz1Y3XBOqm7

Strength in diversity among Friends

2011-09-09T16:48:00.000-04:00

A meditation:
All Friends everywhere,
Meet together, and in the measure of God's spirit wait, that with it all your minds may be guided up to God, to receive wisdom from God. That you may all come to know how you may walk up to him in his wisdom. That it may be justified of you, and you in it preserved up to God, and be glorified. And Friends meet together, and know one another in that which is eternal.…. Knowing one another in the light which was before the world was… brings you to know one another in the elect seed…. Therefore in the light wait and walk, that you may have fellowship one with another. I charge you all, in the presence of the Living God, that none boast yourselves above your measure of light….All who dwell in the light which comes from Christ, come to receive the eternal life. And here the love of God is shed abroad in the heart and dwelling in love you dwell in God…whose love does not change. And so with the light (you dwelling in it which leads to the life) you will come to witness the faith unfeigned, and the humility unfeigned, and the faith which works by love….And this is the one faith…. George Fox –Epistle 149

A sentiment expressed during one of the Triennial devotions has been swirling around my prayer time this week—that diversity is not a sign of weakness but an indication of strength. My experience of long-term relationships—really long term ones—is that there is a flow to them. Times when commonalities are underlined counterbalance other times with differences in the forefront. Friends have been in relationship for more than 350 years and our pendulum has swung both toward our common understandings and toward our divergence during over the years.

What is it that draws Friends together? Why is it that we aren’t Methodists or Lutherans or Unitarians, or something else or nothing at all? Certainly there are some pretty big differences between us. The schisms and separations in America have left us divided, each with a part of the heritage of our Quaker ancestors, and each with a tendency to look toward the rest as not having it quite right. We can point fingers at the others, smug in our comfort that we carry the important part of Friends heritage, or we can find our common ground and find ways to celebrate a heritage that is complete. Being a diverse faith community is hard, but there is great strength in it. We seem to have the easiest time loving each other locally. It’s not so much that our differences, our idiosyncratic inclinations, our theological breadth are unimportant, or even particularly easy. The joy is in knowing each other in worship and on committees and at potlucks where our connections in faith slide to the forefront.

The things that bring us together are wonderful things, awesome things: That Christ is come to teach his people himself. That direct access to God’s grace is open to each of us, and each of us, as we are led into a ministry, look for confirmation in our community. That we, not conformed to the world, are transformed by the Presence. That is, indeed, of God. And that’s just the beginning. Surely, there is more to draw us together as there is to drive us apart. Our faith is a rock large enough for us all to stand on.

It’s time for us to all see where our faith, in all its expressions, connects us. It’s time to allow our differences. It’s a time for transformation. —cdw

Happy New Year

2011-09-02T18:15:00.002-04:00

A meditation:
“Everyone should give whatever they have decided in their heart. They shouldn’t give with hesitation or because of pressure. God loves a cheerful giver. God has the power to provide you with more than enough of every kind of grace. That way, you will have everything you need always and in everything to provide more than enough for every kind of good work….The one who supplies seed for planting and bread for eating will supply and multiply your seed and will increase your crop, which is righteousness.” –2 Corinthians 9:7-10

To say I’ve been involved in school for all my life is an exaggeration, but only a slight one. I’ve spent my childhood, my adolescence and my adult life in the rhythm of North American school systems as a student and a teacher, as a parent and a general hanger-on-er. So, while I know about solstice and Gregorian calendars and New Year’s Eve in Time Square, this is really the time of new year for me. The beginning of the school year—an annual fresh start. After a summer of growing and changing students arrive, kind of cleaned and scrubbed with new shoes and full of the kinds of hope all humans carry—to be happy and successful and appreciated. It’s my role, as a high school teacher, to talk history for sure, but also to teach through my actions. I aim to create an environment where students are comfortable taking risks and changing their mind and being wrong—to honor them where they are, while challenging them to push themselves further—to respect their essence and encourage them to be proud of themselves.

The kids start the year expectant and hopeful, even the ones who’ve been a bit beaten down by life. I start the year expectant and hopeful. Sometimes I succeed, other times I fall short, but here’s the truth of it: in all the planning and reading and creating I do, I get more than I give. I get challenged, sometimes in annoying ways but mostly in good ways. I get eye rolls. I get little corny practical jokes. I get to spend times with kids excited by learning and get to see “a-ha” moments about their eyes. I get to see kids struggle in the most noble and honorable ways. I get to see good students deal with challenges, and non-traditional students deal with success. I am so grateful –cdw

Stand still

2011-08-26T06:28:00.000-04:00

A meditation
“…waiting in that which is pure, it will lead you into that which was before the world was… and here you will comprehend the world, and what is done in the world. …And your strength is, to stand still, that you may receive refreshings; that you may know, how to wait, and how to walk before God, by the spirit of God within you. So God Almighty be with you….” —George Fox, Epistle 43, 1653

The day holds a sweetness that, in my busy-ness, I sense but don’t pause to savor. I begin the day hurriedly, like a long distance racer in some existential competition.

I recognize beauty but, in my hurried-ness, catch it only in the corner of my eye and don’t slow to enjoy. I rush through the day as if I were always late.

I hear just a snatch of a whisper—God’s call—but, in my rushed-ness, I don’t listen. I hasten forward as if I were on some mad, misunderstood mission.

In my haste, I embrace the world at the expense of knowing the Divine.

God calls me to lean into the whisper, to gaze fully at the beauty…to be refreshed while I walk the Path. Easy enough and yet this other way, this worldly way, is a trap I fall into without much difficulty at all. Sometimes God trips me to slow me down. Hallelujah.

Stand still. Submit. Wait. Expect the Presence. There is holiness there, and peace and wholeness and wonder. —cdw

Transformed, not conformed

2011-08-19T06:26:00.004-04:00

A meditation:
We modern Friends—Friends of every ilk—tend to look a bit askance at Quietist Friends of the 18th century. While we note exceptions we often judge them as insular and inward facing: they didn’t share the good news, they didn’t do enough social justice work, and they didn’t celebrate the experience of God with joy. A sober and, well, quiet lot. Friends during this period, though, did deeply understand that being in the world pulls us away from being with God. They encouraged “hedges” to separate themselves from the world—distinctive dress and archaic language and tight closed communities. Outward signs reminded the world and Friends themselves that they lived apart. Looking back it seems easier, though I know it wasn’t. Sometimes I envy those days a bit.

“And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” (Romans 12:2)

Friends of every tradition embrace this passage. It is, I think, one of the places we unite. The world is attractive, captivating. There is an allure to it that pulls us into its ebb and flow. Today’s secular world offers us things, nice things, attractive things, fun things. Even those of us who don’t have televisions feel the pull of advertising—to have this style or that color. The world calls, but it is a trap. Being pulled into the world is being pulled away from God. It’s not that it’s necessarily a bad thing but it’s not our thing.

This call to transformation is both individual and a call to our Society. Our call is to stand apart from the world as hard as that sometimes is. Our call is to be a faithful loving joyful light upon a hill. Our call is to love each other, our enemies and our Friends—to embrace all of our brothers and sisters. Our call is to recognize God’s light and Christ’s seed in our neighbor and ourselves. Our call is to walk in Jesus’ footsteps.

Dear God my teacher, show me the way to live to bring forth your experience to all your children. Help me renew my mind lead me to your will. —cdw

Transformation

2011-08-12T06:10:00.000-04:00

A prayer:
May Christ’s seed sprout new branches in my heart today; may I come to God’s work with an open spirit.

I offer up my rising today,
my coffee making
and my prayer time.
I offer up my morning,
my garden weeding
and my porch painting.
I offer up my afternoon,
my time spent reading a book-of-no-great-importance,
and my time spent in study.
I offer up my evening,
my time with friends
and my leisurely walk.

Dear God, too often I talk to you about the big things in my life, the successes and failures, the celebrations and the anguish. But, if I am going to really walk your path, really be transformed, that is not enough. Today I offer to you the little things that make my every day self, both the tasks I do from love and those I do from obligation, the modest triumphs and the minor disappointments. (Romans 12:1) —cdw

the Dancer

2011-08-08T07:32:00.001-04:00

A meditation:
“Thou art giving and forgiving, ever blessing, ever blessed,
Wellspring of the joy of living, ocean depth of happy rest!
Thou our Father, Christ our Brother, all who live in love are Thine;
Teach us how to love each other, lift us to the joy divine.” —Henry van Dyke, 1907

God, Dancer in long, heavy, flowing robes, swirls and whirls around me—always moving, always enthusiastic. Sometimes distant, I watch kaleidoscopes form in movement. Sometimes close, I feel just a hint of breeze from the Dancer's robes. Now and then I can catch a glimpse of the Dance reflected in the faces of others—gathered for worship, or deep in conversation or even on a car trip. In shifting seats, silent intent faces mirror the Dancer’s exuberance. Other times I catch its fragrance if the window is open and the breeze just right. Then it wafts by me, a silent whisper in fresh rain.

I join the dance with hugs and hand holding, in joy and sorrow, in challenge and contentment. I join the dance with the ease of knowing the steps of kindred spirits. I join the dance, a bit awkwardly, learning new diverse steps, leaning into the jubilation of other Friends. Called into the dance we practice together, filling life and coming to see each other more wholly, love each other more completely.

The Dancer calls us to the dance, offering patterns of deep care for our sisters and brothers. God is ready to teach. Am I ready to learn? —cdw

Faith

2011-08-05T06:13:00.000-04:00

“O God, teach me to breathe deeply in faith.”— Søren Kierkegaard

Over the past few years, in my efforts to make the lawn more self sufficient at no cost, I’ve transplanted day lilies from places they are to places they aren’t. They are in full bloom now, on steep slopes and low borders, their orange blossoms standing high above themselves. Hardy, they prosper and multiply wherever I put them. Delicate, they cannot be picked and brought inside. Though there are not native, they are common in this neck of the woods and easily overlooked, but when traipsing around the local woods are a sure sign of former human habitation.

They are like my understanding of faith—both hardy and delicate. Easy to grow and just as easy to overlook but strong and solid and every expanding. —cdw

Letting go

2011-07-22T06:26:00.000-04:00

A meditation:
“You feel the isolation, slowly take a toll
This season of waiting, is starting to get old
Looking for acceptance, and aching for a home
So tired of trying to make it out on your own

There's no easy answer, but one thing you should know

You're not alone, anywhere you go
You're not alone, hear the voice whisper to your soul
A promise you can always hold:
You're not alone ….” –written by Jeff Tweedy, sung by Mavis Staples

Not too long ago, a friend shared a metaphor that intrigued her:
Imagine being at a circus and watching two people high above the ground on trapezes, the pattern of their swings almost, but not quite, synchronized. There’s that moment when one of them lets go, perfectly assured that before an unavoidable downward fall there will be hands to grab onto. Letting go into empty space, yet knowing that before you plunge to the ground you’ll be safe, be grabbed, be held. That empty space, that nothing-ness, she told me, between the letting go and the grabbing on is faith.

With living a life close to the Spirit, there comes that kind assuredness, eventually. It has taken me practice, though, and I still don’t always have it down pat. Stepping off the edge is not an easy thing. Faith teaches that the Presence is there unseen and ready. Wrapped in faith we know that in those dark, dark hours of burden and anguish we are embraced in the Presence of God. Even when it feels alone and hollow, as I approach free fall, God is there to catch me.

Does it make those dark times easier? Not especially, at least not for me. What it does, though, is two fold. It prepares me for the lessons that those experiences offer and it as I approach free fall, it’s just remarkable to know I’m already encircled. —cdw

A seeker and a finder~

2011-07-20T06:31:00.001-04:00

A meditation:
O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly;
My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You,
In a dry and weary land where there is no water.
Thus I have seen You in the sanctuary,
To see Your power and Your glory.
Because Your lovingkindness is better than life,
My lips will praise You.
So I will bless You as long as I live;
I will lift up my hands in Your name.
My soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness,
And my mouth offers praises with joyful lips.
When I remember You on my bed,
I meditate on You in the night watches,
For You have been my help,
And in the shadow of Your wings I sing for joy.
My soul clings to You;
Your right hand upholds me….. —Psalm 63

I’ve been practicing for some time now though I know fail as often as I succeed. Over the past few years I’ve come to this growing understanding of what God is asking of me. It’s blossomed from tentative to resolute—this burgeoning sense of celebrating God in worship and in daily life, of facilitating Friends coming together to find the unexpected gifts that lay waiting to be opened, and of being a God centered presence in places where God isn’t spoken of—to be “an example, a pattern.” It’s precise and at the same time ambiguous, always changing, always the same. Each morning I God calls. God is there, around every corner, waiting. I am a seeker and a finder. —cdw

Cwm Rhondda

2011-07-18T06:26:00.001-04:00

A meditation:
Arglwydd, arwain trwy’r anialwch,
Fi bererin gwael ei wedd,
Nad oes ynof nerth na bywyd
Fel yn gorwedd yn y bedd …

Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah
Pilgrim through this barren land
I am weak but Thou art mighty
Hold me with Thy powerful hand….

(There's that flash—
when the vehicle hits a patch of ice and slides out of control,
when, in the darkest night, you just don't know what to do, every choice seems clouded or just plain wrong,
when your grief is so deep, so vast, you are sure there is no other side to it.

There’s that instant—
when you reach a peak and look out over a world both right and wondrous,
when you step outside into a winter dawn and the moon is glistening on the crystal snow in rainbow colors,
when you feel deep unconditional love from another, unasked for and unearned….

There’s those moments when it’s absolutely crystal clear I have no control but am held in God’s powerful hand. —cdw )

…Mawl diderfyn. Mawl diderfyn
Fydd i'th enw byth am hyn.
Fydd i'th enw byth am hyn.

…Songs of praises, songs of praises
I will ever give to thee.
I will ever give to thee. —“Cwm Rhondda”, words Williams Williams (1745), music John Hughes (1907)

Singing our song in a strange land

2011-07-16T06:07:00.000-04:00

“By the waters of Babylon
Where we sat down
And there we wept
When we remembered Zion.
For the wicked carried us away, captivity,
Require from us a song;
But how can we sing King Alhpa's song in a strange land?
Oh, let the words of our mouths and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight.” –Brent Dowe and Trevor McNaughton (the Melodians), with apologies to Psalm 137

I find a certain universality of experience in Quakers gathered—be it yearly meeting or a committee meeting, pastoral or unprogrammed, conservative or evangelical. More often than not, I walk into this open, wonderful mutual assumption that we expect to come to know each other in the presence of God. It resonates with me deeply. When we let go of ourselves and slide into it, it is the place of seeking unity through our disagreements not in spite of them. Regardless of geography, it is my home; it is Zion

That being said, we’ve chosen (or perhaps have been chosen) to stand outside the broader culture and walk a separate path. We make our way in a peculiar, sometimes wondrous, but often fearful world—outcasts, strangers in a strange land. Has it always been that way or does our age—full of the horrors of sophisticated killing and torture, alienation made extreme through callous and self serving nation-states and dehumanization exaggerated by technology—hold a unique corner on creating exiles? Friends have, for me at least, found the way through that wilderness to a place of wholeness. Even with the hedges we’ve built to help us on our collective path and structures to buffer us, it is arduous, this spot we find ourselves along the waters of Babylon. How can I sing King Alpha’s song in a strange land? With the words of my mouth, the meditations of my heart and the nurture of my beloved community of Friends. –cdw

Unity among Friends

2011-07-15T06:18:00.000-04:00

A meditation:
“Even in the Apostles' days, Christians were too apt to strive after a wrong unity and uniformity in outward practices and observations, and to judge one another unrighteously in these matters; and mark, it is not the different practice from one another that breaks the peace and unity, but the judging of one another because of different practices... For this is the true ground of love and unity, not that such a man walks and does just as I do, but because I feel the same Spirit and Life in him, and that he walks in his rank, in his own order, in his proper way and place of subjection to that; and this is far more pleasing to me than if he walked just in that track wherein I walk.” - Isaac Penington, 1659

We are a dissimilar lot; we sometimes don’t get along very well. When I trying to explain to new folk the schisms of the 19th century and I often get incredulous expressions and questions to match. Sure there are real and deep differences between us. Our diversity is a challenge. I’ve also found abiding connections within our divergence. Our diversity is also our strength. Coming together to know each other as children of God, as sisters and brothers, is how to find that strength. What holds the Religious Society of Friends together is travel among ourselves: in large gatherings, like the upcoming Triennial, in smaller gatherings like workshops, and quarterly meetings, and as individuals traveling in gospel ministry among our meetings and churches. It is the way we come to look past our outward differences, put aside our judgments, and celebrate the love and unity of the “same Spirit and Life” we share. —cdw

Mowing...

2011-07-08T09:15:00.000-04:00

A meditation:
I imagine over time we all become fairly apt at seeing the big holes and obstructions in our paths of faith, even though they may cause us to falter from time to time. What I find at least as challenging are those small roots and cracks across the path—how often I trip without even noticing they were there! With that in mind, I confess that since my kids have grown and left the house mowing the lawn has moved from a minor but necessary chore to a major annoyance. Though I’ve planted a large perennial labyrinth in the largest part of the lawn where for years we played kickball and badminton and wild games of capture-the-flag, though I’ve made the lawn smaller by letting the borders become wider, it is a task I abhor. It’s not so much the time it takes as it is the task itself. I have an old-fashioned push mower I prefer—in theory—but procrastinate so much that the grass is always much too long and thick to use it. If I didn’t live in a neighborhood, by now I surely would have let it gone wild under the guise of being more environmentally friendly and creating small animal habitats. But that would have been a red herring. I do not like mowing the lawn.

But I do it. Yesterday I mowed the thick wet grass, stopping frequently to clear clumped sodden grass packed around the blade stalling the mower. I was not having fun. Argh. I was in something of a snit. Then, as I mowed close to an edge of the bank, an overhanging branch caught my glasses and flung them off my face. Perhaps it was a coincidence; perhaps God was slapping me upside my head. Were they caught up in the tree or in the deep border plants? Had they dropped near or been flung far away? After turning off the mower and trudging up to the house for an old pair of glasses, I spent a half hour looking in tree branches and on my hands and knees amid ferns and hosta…searching. Eventually I found them, flattened by my own foot, exactly where I had stopped mowing. I sat there awhile, listening to a woodpecker and a cardinal, full of the smell of the mowed grass and immersed in the greens of summer. A gift—I was embraced. The reminder was more than worth the price of getting my glasses fixed. All around me a Presence that I, in my irritation around this silly little chore, had ignored. —cdw

“Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Do not quench the Spirit; do not despise prophetic utterances. But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil.”—1 Thessalonians 5: 16-22

Real unity

2011-07-03T15:39:00.001-04:00

“The unity of Christians never did nor ever will or can stand in uniformity of thought and opinion, but in Christian love only.”—Thomas Story, 1737

Every few years I teach a high school introduction to sociology class. One of the first tenants I share is, “All groups encourage conformity.” The students raised on a diet of modern advertising and the myth of rugged individualism, are a bit challenged to find it in themselves though they are open to seeing it play out in others. While this need to belong seems hard wired more often than not we humans carry it a step further looking askance at those we decided don’t quite fit the bill. I know I do, almost against my will sometimes, but I do.

But that is not what Jesus teaches. Jesus leans toward others—the stranger as well as the neighbor. His lot is quite joyfully with those who’ve made bad decisions—the bandit, the prostitute, the outsider. And with those whose life has a different pattern than his—the Centurion and the leper and the Syrophoenician. In story after parable after story he underlines that it is not the outward appearance, it is not the lifestyle, nor the choice of words that brings us together. Who do I look at today disparagingly? In today’s world who shows love and faith, but I close out of my circle?

Dear God, teach me to love, not judge—to embrace, not belittle—to celebrate not criticize. Help me see Jesus neighbors and strangers alike. —cdw

Creeds and understandings

2011-07-02T07:07:00.001-04:00

“…Your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. We speak God's wisdom in a mystery, even the wisdom that hath been hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds unto our glory: which none of the rulers of this world hath known…. But unto us God revealed them through the Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God” —1 Corinthians 2: 4-5, 7, 10

One of the things I love about Friends’ tradition is our understanding that God’s Truth is deeper than any set of words we might string together. We try, of course, and manage to get some pieces right but know on some essential level that God is too big to wrap words around, that one set of words can capture neither the breath of God’s love nor the depth of the experience of God. We get that if we set about ourselves a standard of mere words we’ll leave out some corner—or chapter—of the Truth. So, rather than being a people of a creed, we’ve become a people of the narrative. It’s in our stories of searching and finding God’s Truth that we see the girth of what God calls us toward. It’s in hearing others’ stories we come to know God more deeply. That’s why, among early Friends, spiritual biography was so important; it’s why we continue to read them today. It’s a wonderful thing watching the beauty of the mystery unfold in a life from the first floundering attempt of an answer to God’s call to a life well lived in God’s service.

I’m grateful for representing my yearly meeting at the upcoming Triennial for any number of reasons. What excites me is, as part of this people gathered, I can ask, “How does the Truth proper with thee, Friend?” In the answer I can search a deeper unity among us and I can come to know the Divine more deeply. —cdw

Ancient Spring of Living Water

2011-07-01T10:50:00.000-04:00

A meditation:
As a boy I loved to bicycle with my cousins from my house in the village to my grandparents’ house in the woods. There was no better way to spend one of those endless hot summer days than that long bike ride to see Pa and Gram. It wasn’t the weeding in the garden or stacking wood when we got there, nor was it the lemonade or the cookies or the swim in the pond, (though all of those were wonderful), but the basking in their presence that filled us. The eight or ten mile trip—from the village with its shops and gathered gossiping adults, then up and down the hills through the farms with their barking and sometimes frighteningly fast dogs—felt like a long haul when I was 10 or 12. Not too far after the last farm the road entered the woods, the pavement turned to dirt, and a little bridge crossed the end of Lake Julia. A path, with its entrance almost entirely hidden by bushes, led down the lake to place where a four or five foot drop in the bank opened to a spring of the clearest coldest sweetest murmuring water. A thick glass mug hung on an overhanging cedar branch but as kids we never used it. Full of the adventure, hot and tired, there was nothing like the refreshment that spring offered. Reinvigorated the last mile of the ride flew by in laughter and joy.

Now, some fifty years later that child that I was continues to teach me. As much as my week is an adventure it often challenges and scares and tires me. But there is a spring—clearly present but whose entrance path sometimes seems hidden. It is an ancient spring of living water. I drink deeply and I am quenched. (Revelations 21:6-7) It invigorates me and renews me. I continue the journey with laughter and joy. —cdw

Advent

2010-12-10T16:30:00.001-05:00

I understand the idea of Advent.

I get the whole thing about early-times northern people’s annual focus on the lessening light and their great joy with its gradually returning at the solstice—their waiting and their celebration. Maybe it’s genetic—my grandfather came from the Sligo in the northwest of Ireland. Or maybe it’s just because I’ve made my home north of the 44th parallel and, while the shifting seasonal light is not as dramatic here as some places, this time of year I pretty regularly leave my house to go to school in the dark and return home in the dark. I understand the way darkness can seep into your being this time of year. The dark can be sad and lonely and scary. I get the ancients—their waiting and their wonder.

I get how those natural patterns translated into rejoicing with Jesus’ message of a loving, forgiving God, how we shifted from the darkness and despair of oppression into an always loving, always forgiving Presence. The kingdom—the experience—of God embraces me like a sunny afternoon, my loneliness and my fears retreat. Waiting and wonder.

I get how George Fox and other early Friends came to understand waiting and wonder was not part of a calendar, but written on our hearts, and that the searching and the finding of God’s embrace were really one and were always present. Advent yesterday. Advent today. Advent tomorrow.

I get it. Each day I await the loving Divine Light. Each day I find it. Advent in my heart, in my soul. Waiting and wonder. Hallelujah. —cdw

Fall~

2010-11-15T10:17:00.000-05:00

I love the fall, the fallow time, the time of nature’s rest. I like cold gray rainy days and spending an idle Saturday reading what I think of as a book-of-no-great-importance. I like walking in hard autumn rain, and lingering with a friend over a wandering conversation and a cup of something warm. I like this time of year and it’s pause, but there are chores to be done, expectations to be met, things to be accomplished. So, today, when the sun was fully up but the frost still on the ground, I found myself standing in the garden ready to finish the last of its season—compost and mulch and stakes laid neat. Unexpectedly, suddenly, an image of myself in the circle of God’s love and light enveloped me. In a sort of waking dream, the world I’ve built for myself, my self-definitions were no longer important. There was only the Presence, and a sense of wonder. Hallelujah.

"Up above my head, I hear music in the air
Up above my head, I hear music in the air
Up above my head, I hear music in the air
I really do believe, I really do believe there's a Heaven somewhere."
Up above my head, I hear music in the air
Up above my head, I hear music in the air
Up above my head, I hear music in the air
I really do believe, I really do believe there's joy somewhere." (Friends with high speed internet connections might want to listen to Sister Rosetta Tharpe - "Up Above My Head") —cdw

an ordinary day

2010-09-12T07:22:00.000-04:00

A meditation:
“O Lord, My God. Form me more fully into your likeness. Use the circumstances and interactions of this day to form your will in me.
From the frustrations of this day form peace.
From the joys of this day form strength.
From the struggles of this day form courage.
From the beauties of this day form love.
In the name of Jesus Christ who is all peace and strength and courage and love.” -Richard J. Foster

Yesterday was a common day, an unremarkable day. Up early and coffee. A time of reflection followed by a long walk with more prayer. At school-correct papers, revamp a power point, write a test, grade a quiz. Begin a project with Student Council. Talk with a kid who could be doing better, should be doing better, and with another who is surprising even herself with her brilliance. A common day. A nothing-special day. And in it's a ordinariness, great opportunity. A chance talk, to listen, to witness, to be faithful. A day to share my gospel Truth without words, without the need of a topic sentence. -cdw

Papunehang

2010-09-03T05:39:00.000-04:00

A meditation:
“On the evening of the 18th I was at their meeting, where pure gospel love was felt, to the tendering of some of our hearts. The interpreters endeavoured to acquaint the people with what I said, in short sentences, but found some difficulty, as none of them were quite perfect in the English and Delaware tongues, so they helped one another, and we laboured along, divine love attending. Afterwards, feeling my mind covered with the spirit of prayer, I told the interpreters that I found it in my heart to pray to God, and believed, if I prayed aright He would hear me; and I expressed my willingness for them to omit interpreting; so our meeting ended with a degree of divine love. Before the people went out, I observed Papunehang (the man who had been zealous in labouring for a reformation in that town, being then very tender) speaking to one of the interpreters, and I was afterwards told that he said in substance as follows: -- ‘I love to feel where words come from.’” —John Woolman’s Journal, Chapter VIII, 1762

Do I listen with the open heart of Papunehang, or do I judge and assume and presume? Am I open to God’s lesson where ever it comes from, or can I only hear those who talk like me, think like me, see like me? Bend me, Divine Teacher, to your will. Help me listen to your word no matter where it comes from, no matter the words used, no matter the voice. Help me listen when it comes from the other, the stranger. Help me when it comes from my sister and my brother. —cdw

a meditation on 1 Kings 19, part 1

2010-08-23T07:46:00.000-04:00

A meditation:
“When Elijah saw how things were, he ran for dear life …. He left his young servant … and then went on into the desert another day's journey. He came to a lone broom bush and collapsed in its shade, wanting in the worst way to be done with it all—to just die: ‘Enough of this, God! Take my life—I'm ready to join my ancestors in the grave!’ Exhausted, he fell asleep under the lone broom bush. Suddenly an angel shook him awake and said, ‘Get up and eat!’ He looked around and, to his surprise, right by his head were a loaf of bread baked on some coals and a jug of water. He ate the meal and went back to sleep. The angel of God came back, shook him awake again, and said, ‘Get up and eat some more—you've got a long journey ahead of you.’ He got up, ate and drank his fill, and set out. Nourished by that meal, he walked forty days and nights, all the way to the mountain of God, to Horeb. When he got there, he crawled into a cave and went to sleep.” 1 Kings: 3-9

It’s one of my favorite parts of this story—how the angle keeps telling Elijah to rest and eat; it’s a part of faithfulness that took me a long time to learn. Just a few years ago on a long car ride to lead a retreat with a New York meeting, the Friend traveling with me explained the difference between introvert and extrovert in a way that made sense. “It’s not,” he said, “whether you like being with people or alone. It’s whether being with them charges or drains your ‘batteries.’” That information was a gift; I love teaching, and it most certainly drains me. Since that conversation I’ve always carved out some time at the end of the school year to just be at home, alone. I always bill it as catching up with yard work, or beginning a project but what it really is, is a chance to re-charge myself a bit. It’s made a huge difference, this time for reflection and evaluation and prayer. Like Elijah, I need to rest.

One of the side effects of the busy-ness many of us find ourselves in today is in not taking time to unwind. It’s a trap, this need to run at top speed where, if we aren’t trying to multi-task, we feel unsuccessful. How else can I accomplish God’s work? Run, run, run. Do do do. But resting is also part of being faithful, preparing and getting ready for God’s witness and God’s work. God calls us to rest, to contemplate, to have times of quiet. —cdw

a meditation on 1 Kings 19, part 2

2010-08-23T07:42:00.000-04:00

A meditation:
“Then he came there to a cave and lodged there; and behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and He said to him, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’
“He said, ‘I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the sons of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars and killed Your prophets with the sword And I alone am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.’” 1 Kings 19:9-10

I know how Elijah must have felt: “What do you mean, God, what am I doing here?! Jezebel is going to kill me because I did what you said—that’s what I’m doing here.”

In younger days I had this instantaneous reaction to any moment of internal clarity, a full-throttle-ahead response without feeling the necessity of thinking things through very carefully. Sometimes it was a bit awkward, but it’s not always worked out badly—it’s how we ended up in Vermont some thirty years ago. My wife and Friends’ process of seeking clarity in leadings—from prayer to clearness to minutes—has helped me slow down a bit and ‘God’s time is not my time’ has become has become an oft-used mantras. Sometimes I still, as the old time Friends would say, “outrun the messenger,” and when God asks me what on earth I’m doing here I have to say, “Well…it seemed like a good idea at the time.” More frequent in recent years is when faithfulness puts me in a hard place, a place of stretching myself, a place where I’m not entirely sure I should be, and in the clear cold dawn light, God will ask me what I’m doing here. (My take is that God loves irony and has quite a dry sense of humor.) After a lot of internal complaining and arguing and sidestepping, I look around rather sheepishly and say, “I’ve come to be faithful.” —cdw

Mediation on 1 Kings 19, part 3

2010-08-23T06:26:00.003-04:00

A meditation:
“So He said, ‘Go forth and stand on the mountain before the Lord.’ And behold, the Lord was passing by! And a great and strong wind was rending the mountains and breaking in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of a gentle blowing. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave ….” 1 Kings 19: 11-13
When I was starting out, I was much taken with pizzazz and flash. I liked big statements and larger than life heroes—Martin Luther King, and Mohandas Gandhi, and Eleanor Roosevelt—super women and men who’ve made the world a better place. I’d seek the Divine there, admiring the way God reflected in larger-than-life people, and I looked to make myself one of those kinds of people. But while I continue to honor them and celebrate their importance, I learned that, for me, it’s not where I find God, it’s not where I am called.

I was blessed with a grandmother who taught me multitudes with no words of instruction; her last lesson came a number of years after she died. Through a series of coincidences and mistakes, I ended up with a box of her Super-8 home movies, spanning from the late 50s through the early 70s. It was joyful time travel, that weekend committed to watching them in order to winnow out snippets of family gatherings and family places. I piled them in chronological order and in a darkened bedroom began. The movies were mostly of trips she had taken; family was the stuff of filler, a few feet between jaunts or at the end of the reel. There were long sequences of bus tours—panned scenes of a group of widows standing with their bus driver at the Grand Canyon, in Alaska, in Copenhagen. There were hotels and points of interest and friends made during the trip, all seeming vaguely unimportant. I waded through them hour by hour. But as time passed, I realized I was looking at the world through my Gram’s eye. Those unknown friends and unremarkable lunch stops took on the importance of a surprise gift. And here’s what I found—at every stop, try as she might to record the panoramic beauty of an expanse of the Rockies or the sweep of the Rhine, her eye, the camera’s lens, was always drawn to some little blooming weed, or some pattern in a stone wall made by the frost. Surrounded by new sights, big sights, important sights, she found beauty—God’s grace—in the small things that might by some be left unnoticed. She couldn’t help herself. Like Elijah, God was there in that still small voice, in that gentle whisper. God is there, patiently waiting. For her. And for me, too. —cdw

Lilacs and peonies

2010-06-28T10:31:00.001-04:00

A meditation:
This was a lucky spring for me. Last April we were out in Seattle visiting one of our kids and the lilacs were in full bloom. What a treat to come home to Vermont and watch them come to bloom a month later. In May I was in Columbus and the peonies were out. Peonies are one of my favorites—they populate childhood memories from my in mother’s garden to the wallpaper at my gram’s house. Three weeks after I came home they blossomed here. It was an indulgence to have them twice this year, and I rejoiced in it. One morning, the dog and I were out on our jaunt. Just as the dawn sky lighted we stopped in front of a neighbor’s house to admire their deep red peonies. Next to them, all but hidden, a snow shovel leaned against the porch. Seeing those together so casually gave me pause. They were incongruous, but fit together in some unexpected way. And in my prayer time they’ve continued to resonate—day-to-day items from different seasons, things I don’t think about, that don’t really go together, but have quietly populate my years in the world together. Perhaps out of place but not incompatible, they fit together, cogs in a cycle. God calls us to both celebrate the peonies and still be ready to shovel; calls us celebrate snow shoveling and still be ready to plant peonies.

Dear God, thank you for startling me, for showing me my everyday world in unexpected ways. Inner-Teacher, lead me to the place where all things come together, to the center.

teach me...

2010-04-02T05:54:00.000-04:00

A meditation:
“Teach me, O God, not to torture myself,
Not to make a martyr out of myself
Through stifling reflection, but rather
Teach me to breathe deeply in faith.” —Søren Kierkegaard

When I go to sleep at night, you are born in the quiet parts of my heart, and when I awake you say to me, “Behold a new day; come wonder.” When I stop for lunch, whether alone or with others you tell me, “There is much to celebrate.” When I begin a new task you remind me to relish the one just finished, and when I return to one unfinished you show me the joy in the patterns of my life. It’s odd that amidst all this awe and delight I can make so much angst. Teach me God, teach me what I pretend to already know—what you’ve told me again and again, “my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:30 —cdw

a listening heart

2010-03-23T06:08:00.001-04:00

A meditation:
I’ve been re-reading a book called Listening Hearts: Discerning Call in Community by Suzanne Farnham, Joseph Gill, Taylor McLean and Susan Ward. It has a wonderful definition of Quaker ministry: “Ministry comes from the same root as minus, which means ‘less.’ …. Our call, then will place us in a role of a minister, on God’s behalf, in service to God’s creation. A minister is also one who waits, ready to respond, as called. A waiter serves not only when running to the kitchen but also while waiting attentively. In this spirit, we await God’s call to act in service to others… Ministry is the active response to God’s call. [It] is more than simply doing good…. Jesus says, ‘You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appoint you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last…’ (John 15:13)”

I like that description. It requires an involvement of the Presence, it requires an active response, and it requires a giving up.

It can become confusing. It’s easy to fall into a trap of using the word ‘ministry’ in ways that the broader world does—to mean a level of special relationship with God, a unique ability to interpret the Divine. But that is not Friends’ experience. God paints with a limited palette, indeed, and chooses folk that we might not think of for one thing or another. A few years ago I felt such a call and went to my meeting, with encouragement from some older more experienced Friends. What ensured was quite an experience, a challenge for some in my community, a time of searching for others, as the process ebbed and flowed. It was certainly a time of deep learning for me. I learned that God always allows me to step back over the threshold away from the call and holds no ill will if that happens. I learned that the Presence remains constant. I learned that God’s time is not my time (I seem to need to learn and relearn that with regularity.) Mostly I learned to let go. I am offered such amazing lessons in faithful living. Some are easy, many are hard, but all draw me deeper into the Presence.

Dear God, when you offer me a threshold, you don’t always show the path on the other side. The path is often not smooth. Even when I stub my toe, I am so grateful for your Presence. Thank you —cdw

an exercise

2010-03-21T07:05:00.001-04:00

An exercise:
With all of his putting the last of us first (Matthew 19:20-30), and avoiding judging each other (Luke 6: 37) Jesus revolutionized society. When Jesus called us his friends and not his servants (John 15:15) and when he put aside authoritarian law for the love of God and each other (Mark 12:28-32) he turned the world upside down. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul recognized this new reality. “…Before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed…. after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.” (3:23,25) He defines our new relationship with each other, “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.” (3:26) and challenges us to look at each other in a new way:

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” (3:28)

In the world of the first century, a Jew and a Greek would not be seen in the same place, a slave and a free person would be treated differently, just as men and women had rigid and hierarchical ways of relating. Paul reminds us that we are all brothers and sisters.

The world is not so different today. When we reject our sisters and our brothers, we lose the ministry and the wisdom God has given them to share with us. Who are these extremes in today’s world? Who are the people we consider not worthy? What groups do we exclude from our communities?

In the quiet of your prayer time, sit down and try re-writing Paul’s inclusion using the groups we exclude in today’s world. —cdw

Creators

2010-03-20T05:54:00.000-04:00

A meditation:
The sugar maples in this part of the Canada and the United State are having a good sap run with a long string of nights below the freezing and days above it; even though it takes 40 gallons of maple sap to make a gallon of syrup, it looks like there will be an abundance. Yum. I’ve read the Native Americans from this part of the world, faced with the luck of the maple trees but without pots to put on the fire, came across the idea of heating stones to put into birch bark buckets in order to cook down the sap and concentrate the sweetness. I don’t know that I would have ever, ever have been that ingenious.

To paraphrase the first chapter of Genesis: God created. God created some more. After that God created. God created and created and created and created. Than, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:7) Being created in God’s image isn’t about gender as some have assumed. Clearly, being created in God’s image is about being creators. And creators we are. Think about the first person that picked a silkworm cocoon off a mulberry tree and said, “Hmm, this would make a nice shirt.” Or the folks that looked at the papyrus reed growing on the edge of the Nile and said, “Hey, I need something to write on.” We’ve always created, sometimes for good, sometimes for ill. It’s easy to fall into a trap of seeing only what is wrong in the world, but stop for just a moment and look. What wonder is around us—mountains and crocus buds, technology and poetry, origami and railroad engines. Rhapsody in Blue, and “Softly, and Tenderly” and heavy metal rock.

I witness the splendor of God’s creation and the beauty of God-inspired human creation. I am grateful. Thank you. —cdw

I arise today!

2010-03-18T16:38:00.001-04:00

I arise today, through the strength of Heaven:
light of Sun, brilliance of Moon, splendor of Fire,
speed of Lightning, swiftness of Wind, depth of Sea,
stability of Earth, firmness of Rock.

I arise today, through God's strength to pilot me:
God's might to uphold me, God's wisdom to guide me,
God's eye to look before me, God's ear to hear me,
God's word to speak for me, God's hand to guard me,
God's way to lie before me, God's shield to protect me,
God's host to secure me.
—from Fáed Fíada (also known as the Lorica of Saint Patrick or Saint Patrick’s Breastplate)

For some time now, I’ve committed to live close to the Spirit: to make every action a prayer, every word a celebration of God’s presence. I entrust my being; I surrender to God’s plan. When I began this part of my journey I thought it would be finite—that I would practice some skills, that I would adapt to looking at the world through this lens and than I would be done. Ha! I falter all the time. I backslide, and “yeah, but…” myself and get sidetracked.

I never seem to completely arrive at the destination. I’m no Brother Lawrence or John Woolman, that’s for certain. Don’t get me wrong I’ve come to accept it as just what is. I’m lucky it’s organic, because if there were a final exam—a kind of driver’s test to living in the “Life of the Spirit” I’m sure I’d fail miserably. In some kind of huge enigma I’ve come to understand the journey is the arrival, walking the path the destination.

Seeking God I need God to show the way (there’s that enigma again). I need to use my will to surrender my will (and again!) Each day begins with God knocking on the door or my heart and me responding. I strive toward faithfulness, sure of the Presence, sure like Patrick, that I am protected, I am nurtured. So each morning, before I put my feet on the floor, I take a moment and know. I know God’s presence, knocking at the door of my heart. I know that today I can be faithful. I know the kingdom of God—the experience of God—is here and now. —cdw

Imperfect--

2010-03-12T05:01:00.000-05:00

A meditation:

Not long ago I spent time in the nooks and crannies of a day taking family tree projects off the wall of my classroom, putting them in easily assessable, organized, logical piles so they could go home with students. As luck had it, I wasn’t in the room when the class came in and when I arrived there seemed to be family trees hither, thither, and yon. I hadn’t realized I was on edge, but I guess I was and without asking even one question, or uttering one thought I let them have it. I laid them out in lavender. Lambasted them. Bawled them out. Called them to task. Raked them over the coals. I went on and on about responsibility and ownership and just moving stuff without a reason. I like to think I did it with a certain amount of aplomb and humor, with even a well-placed “argh” for emphasis. But I forgot that it’s a thing I do not do and I did it. A few minutes later I walked into the back of the room and realized what I first perceived to be a mess wasn’t; they had only done what they should have done, gotten their own work ready to take home at the end of class. Nuts. I stopped the class.

My apology to them was, I think, as heart-felt as my earlier rant had been unfounded. Sometimes, I told them, you’re just wrong and I was not only wrong, I was on the other side of wrong. “Mea Culpa!” I added with what I hope was amusing drama, “and the next time I’m making a fool of myself, I hope someone tells me before I finish.”

I’ve read Persian rug makers leave an intentional mistake in each carpet. If only God is perfect, the logic goes, than I will ensure my work, a fine as it may be, is not. I will not challenge God. I don’t need to worry about not being too close to perfect. But, I know that as imperfect as I am, I am welcome in the Presence.

Preserve me, O God, for I take refuge in You.
I said to the Lord, "You are my Lord; I have no good besides You."
You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy;
In Your right hand there are pleasures forever. —Psalm 16: 1,2,11 —cdw

Joyfully shaken-

2010-03-01T05:57:00.001-05:00

I’m up before dawn most mornings, put up the coffee, and spend a few minutes looking out the dining room window, contemplating the day ahead or the one just past while sliding into what Friends call a time of “retirement.” This morning the lawn glowed with a silky, reflective light from a heavy wet snow, which also had weighed down the row of lilac trees under the windows until they wept like willows. I pulled on boots and jacket and circled around the house. I shook each tree trunk, though since I hadn’t put on socks or hat my untied boots were full of snow, and I dumped quantities of snow on my head. Each tree sprung heavenward in turn.

I was back in the house before the coffee was ready. Standing by the wood fire, drying my head and feet and it occurred to me that I’m often a bit like those lilacs. They, weighed down by the snow, need a gentle, firm shake so as not to break and bloom come spring. Sometimes I feel weighed down too—by responsibilities real or imagined, or by the great sadness that sometimes seems to permeate the world. I can become overly serious and drab and focused on all kinds of minutia until I become something of a drudge. In that state I am no more likely to bloom than broken lilacs. But whenever I get to that sluggish plodding place quite unexpectedly God shakes me with some unbridled joy or some unexpected blessing, or some unanticipated calling to faithfulness and I bounce like the trees toward heaven.

Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth.
Serve the Lord with gladness;
Come before Him with joyful singing.
Know that the Lord Himself is God;
It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;
We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
Enter His gates with thanksgiving
And His courts with praise
Give thanks to Him, bless His name.
For the LORD is good;
His lovingkindness is everlasting
And His faithfulness to all generations. —Psalm 100

Barn jackets and faith

2010-02-19T06:42:00.000-05:00

A meditation:

I have this jacket I wear for winter chores—snow shoveling, wood carrying, early morning dog walking and the like. I think of it as a barn jacket, though my life is far from farm chores. I’ve had it since 1993, acquired it well used. When it belonged to my dad it was particularly warm, though that claim to exceptionality is long past. It is the opposite of “gently worn.” The outer shell’s nylon is no longer strong enough to hold stitches so I patch the larger rips and holes with duct tape. It’s not much to look at; I’d never wear it to school or to worship. When it get’s wet or dirty, if it snags on a nail or frays a bit more, I don’t mind. Its benefit is in its functionality. It hangs by the radiator, ready. The other day I was patching it (and my pack boots too, but that’s another duct tape story) and thinking about how much I don’t think about this jacket. I wear it almost daily from mid October through mid April; it just is—a part of my day-in-day-out life, with no fanfare or fal-de-rah, part of the underpinnings of what it is to walk in my shoes. It’s like my faith—not the dressed up good coat faith that I tout and share, but the elements of that faith.

Our faith is really deep in our fiber—those little things that you grab by the door and put on when no one is watching. It’s those things that you think but don’t bother to say; that you say when no one is hearing; the things you hold in your heart and share only with God. —cdw