I am not a romantic. I tell people being married is like living in a war zone. My experience with life in a war zone in Africa were days and days of everyday, mundane living interspersed with moments of sheer terror, incredible passion, and overwhelming uncertainty. Marriage is kind of like that.

Back in the olden days when I was a romantic, I thought my husband, Ron, was a pessimist. Of course, Ron defended himself by telling me he was a realist. In my old age, it is obvious I really am the pessimist, and Ron is indeed a realist. When I was a romantic, I believed people were allotted a defined number of difficult things to deal with in life, and once you reached your quota, life would be wonderful. Too quickly, I learned the age-old truth: life is difficult. With that realization, I lost some of my ability to be a romantic, to believe that life was all about mystery, beauty, romance and adventure.

Sometimes I miss being a romantic. I should have guessed I would end up this way. The song we chose for our wedding, He Giveth More Grace, was not a traditional wedding song. We liked the song and it seemed appropriate for Ron to sing it in that meeting for worship. As I approach the 34th anniversary of that meeting for worship, the words to this song are daily on my mind and my heart:

He giveth more grace as our burdens grow greater,
He sendeth more strength as our labors increase;
To added afflictions He addeth His mercy,
To multiplied trials He multiplies peace.

When we have exhausted our store of endurance,
When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources
Our Father’s full giving is only begun.

His love has no limits, His grace has no measure,
His power no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again.

I had no idea 34 years ago how deeply those words would touch my life or how those words would influence and shape who I am and how I relate to everyone around me, and especially my husband. I may not be a romantic and I spend too much time being pessimistic about life, but I have discovered in life a deeper joy than I ever, ever thought possible. This incredible joy comes from an unexpected place: the evidences of grace in the world and in my life.

I always thought marriage would be about romance. The truth is, it is about the evidence of grace. Grace is evident in forgiveness. Forgiveness for mistakes in a relationship, forgiveness for sin and selfishness, forgiveness given and forgiveness received. Grace is evident in dealing with difficult days, with difficult people; grace is evident in the frailties of life such as tragic accidents, cancer, death, heart attacks and strokes, things that change life and relationships forever. Grace lies in the gift of hope when everything else in my life screams to give up, to quit, to go away, or to say something I know I will regret. Grace lies in the spirit of God speaking to me and through me, walking with me and giving me strength to face the difficult world and the inevitable difficulties of being alive. Grace encourages me daily to fall in love all over again with my Savior, my God, with my husband, and with my life. Grace helps me breathe again and to go on living.

You know…..I believe grace may actually turn me back into a romantic……

I hate weeding.

This is the second year for a community garden at the YMCA in our county. Things are going well. We have new gardeners this year, we are building a shed for tools and hoses, and we have increased the planted area by a third. Soon we will be providing extra produce for the local food pantry and setting up a table at the local Farmer’s Market for produce to be available for a donation. Money raised at the Farmer’s Market goes to our local food pantry. Last year we were able to raise $650 for the food pantry with donated produce. The community garden inspired and encouraged another community garden in a nearby town. This year they are up and running with 60 small plots. Yes, things are going well.

The weeds are growing well too. I spend many hours out at the community garden planting in my plots and working around the garden. It seems no matter how much work I do, the weeds always get the best of me. One of the ways I try to keep the weeds under control is to use a mulch of newspapers and compost on the pathways and between rows. I am thankful the city gave the community garden free compost. Free is good, even though I seem to spend quite a bit of time and energy pulling ground up plastic water bottles and plastic bags out of the composted leaves. It is worth it though, and by the end of the growing season, the newspaper is decomposed and ready to till in with the compost. I finally finished planting in the garden and now my attention turns to spreading newspapers and compost...and of course, weeding.

For many reasons, I do not subscribe to a newspaper. I do read newspapers. Several Friends in our meeting drop by their old newspapers for me to read and then recycle. I don’t mind reading news several days old and I hope this saves a tree or two and a bit of money.

I do feel guilty not subscribing to a newspaper though. It is difficult to see the decline of printed news. I constantly weigh my financial and environmental concerns with the concerns of keeping and encouraging this important source of information in the world. It is obvious there is a generational commitment to newspapers. Those who generally bring me newspapers to read and use in the garden are people my parents age and older. The internet changed the world for those of my generation and younger. I found it interesting as I placed newspapers down in my garden this last week that the size of the newspapers from larger cities has decreased by about 2 inches the past year. All of the newspapers have reduced the number of pages they print each day. It takes way more newspapers this year to cover the same amount of area. As I laid out the newspapers in the garden, I thought it seemed unwise for those smaller newspapers to be using smaller print considering the people who still subscribe.

Placing several months of newspapers down at one time in the garden gives me an opportunity to see patterns in headlines. Obviously, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico dominated the news over the past months. Reading about the spill everyday is overwhelming, but something happened as I looked at paper after paper with headlines concerning the spill over a matter of hours. The headline “Mike Pence critical of Obama, green groups after spill” pushed me over the edge. Representative Mike Pence is my representative and holds a senior leadership position in Congress. I pulled that front page out of the mulch pile to take home and re-read. I do that often. My husband accuses me of spending more time reading in the garden than I do hoeing weeds.

In the article, Representative Pence blamed left-wing environmental groups for “seeking to exploit this environmental tragedy and deny the American people access to our domestic reserves offshore.” Pence supports drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, but draws the line at the Great Lakes. In other words: “not in my back yard.”

The other front-page article that caught my eye that day was touting the incredible success of the “Double Down Sandwich” from Kentucky Fried Chicken: two pieces of chicken sandwiching bacon and cheese. 540 calories, 32 grams of fat, and a day’s worth of salt. KFC expects to sell its 10 millionth Double Down this month.

Garden time is thinking time. Those headlines made me think.

There is more than enough blame to go around for the oil spill and everyone is quick to find someone else to blame. I don’t see any articles blaming me for the oil spill and I should. This oil spill happened because of a demand for oil to meet the need of those who choose to drive a car, use electricity, eat food, and fly on planes. It takes oil to do most anything these days. It is amazing the amount of oil it takes to support the American lifestyle so many enjoy. I wonder how many gallons of oil it takes for every “Double Down Chicken Sandwich”? When you add the oil needed to grow corn and soybeans, oil to process corn and soybeans into food for chickens, hogs and cows, oil to process these animals into meat or make cheese, oil to transport finished products all over the US to KFC franchises, and oil for someone to drive there to purchase the sandwich, it has to be a significant amount. I read recently that it takes 22 gallons of oil per day to support every soldier deployed in war. It is hard for me to be critical of any of those figures because I do not know how many gallons of oil it takes me to live the way I live. It may not be 22 gallons per day, but I’m sure I would be embarrassed by the actual numbers of gallons it takes to support my lifestyle.

I read complaints every day from people around the Gulf who drive to the beach and find tar balls and oil messing up their recreation time. I read of the bitterness and anger by those whose livelihoods have been destroyed by this man-made disaster. The complaining, the anger, the bitterness all arise out of a frustration with not being able to do anything to “fix” this oil spill, of not being able to quickly and easily stop the destruction.

I don’t seem to be reading much about how my demand for oil to live the way I want to live is part of the problem. I’d like to think my efforts in the community garden or my efforts to live a simpler lifestyle make a difference. But even growing much of my own produce requires oil in many forms. Oil for the compost, oil for the newspapers, oil to grow the plants.....the list seems endless.

I’m not really sure how to respond to this crisis on the shores of the gulf. As I pick out shredded plastic from the compost, I pray for all those affected by my choices and I am reminded I need to be a good steward of every piece of plastic I touch in my daily living. Each newspaper headline reminds me of the pain so many endure on a daily basis, and I pray for them. As I make meals and feed people with the produce I grow, I will thank God for the opportunity to do something to change my life and my community, even if it is just a drop in the ocean.

38 computer monitors
34 computer towers
25 printers/copiers
22 televisions (2 very large flat screen televisions)
13 cell phones
12 radios
10 phones
5 microwave ovens
4 scanners
4 laptop computers
2 electronic word processors
1 video camera
+ Boxes full of computer parts, transformers, chargers, a sewing machine, an iron, a mixer, an ice crusher, a shredder, a digital scale, a calculator, a blender, a can opener, 2 way radio equipment…..the list goes on and on.

We live in a disposable world. Computer too slow? Buy a new one. Cell phone too big? Buy a new one. Radio not digital? Buy a new one. Television too old? Buy a new one. Of course, many of the above items that now reside in my garage simply quit working and no one was able to fix them. Knowing what to do with old, broken, or used electronics is a difficult thing. Landfills are not acceptable for the above items. They are not biodegradable and they contain toxic metals.

In a week or so, Workforce, Inc. will drive a truck to Winchester to collect this garage full of E-waste. These items will go to a warehouse in Indianapolis where they will be dismantled. Gold, silver, and palladium will be collected, plastic, aluminum, and steel will be recycled, and toxic materials will be properly disposed of where they won’t pollute water or soil.

For the last six months, Winchester Friends has been the collection point for E-waste from our county and Quaker meetings in our Quarterly Meeting. Eight different monthly meetings brought items that were old, used or broken to be stored in our garage until collected for recycling. The project’s goal was to highlight the 3 R’s of the 21st century -- recycling electronics, reclaiming what is valuable, and restoring lives. From the list of items collected above, it appears this is a needed project in a disposable world.

For me, the real value of the project is the third R: restoring lives. My husband and I spend a lot of time in jail leading worship services in addition to spending time with people recently released from incarceration. We experience first hand how difficult it is for ex-offenders to find work. Finding a job is difficult in a good economy, and now almost impossible in a struggling economy. The United States with 5% of the world’s population consumes 25% of the world’s resources. The US also has 25% of the world’s prison population. Workforce, Inc. connects those two numbers by increasing recycling and reclamation of electronic resources that would often end up in landfills and providing a place of employment for ex-offenders. At times, I wonder if our disposable society considers ex-offenders disposable people. This warehouse in Indianapolis reduces the need to dig and drill for precious resources through recycling electronics and ex-offenders find a place of employment to provide them with meaningful work and a way to keep from re-offending and returning to prison. Workforce, Inc does an incredible thing in our world.

Workforce, Inc. matters greatly to me these days. I received a letter recently from the young man I’m writing to in prison. Over the years of his incarceration, we’ve developed a good relationship. To be honest, I expected to be living overseas when this young man - a man who broke into my home and held me hostage - finished serving his 14-year sentence. I did not prepare myself for the possibility of his presence with me one day in meeting for worship. In his recent letter, I learned of an upcoming sentence modification and he expressed hope to one day join me in worship with our faith community. This means the possibility of a reduced sentence and the reality of a personal, face-to-face relationship with this 35-year-old man. This young man has spent a majority of his adult life in prison for burglary, perjury, possession of cocaine and escape. I am not afraid of my friend, and I am not afraid of his presence in my life. I am not afraid of how my faith community will receive this young man if and when he comes to worship.

I fear a broken heart.

I fear the changes he made in prison won’t be sustainable once he’s out. I fear for the struggle it is for ex-offenders to start new lives and find dignified employment. I fear for the difficulty of breaking ties with old friends and family members who encourage destructive addictions and ways of living. I fear the loss of hope for a different and better life for my friend and for his family.

Several months ago my husband and I visited Workforce, Inc. We are impressed with the emphasis on dignity and work, on community building and accountability. Workforce, Inc impressed us by paying ex-offenders to spend the first hour of each workday together, sharing and supporting one another. Few ex-offenders have this type of support system and few have the opportunity to work. I am thankful for Workforce, Inc and their work and ministry to recycle electronics, reclaim valuable metals and to restore lives. Chances are slim my friend could find such work and support upon his release. But knowing there are men in the world who choose a vocation and livelihood providing ex-offenders a place of work gives me hope. The owner creates opportunities and support for ex-offenders to change their future and provide a way of restitution in their lives. Ex-offenders are a part of our society greatly at risk and desperate for change. I believe it is a high calling for the owner of Workforce, Inc. to invest in ex-offenders and offer them hope. Having a full and messy garage is a very small price to pay for such hope.

My spring was full of numbers.

Spring started with flowering dogwoods. Every year on the Sunday before Earth Day, our meeting gives out 100 small trees for planting. This year we reached the 1000th tree mark. What a joy to visit friends and see the trees they have planted over the last 10 years. Small twigs in cups have turned into beautiful, tall, living trees that bless our earth. The tilling and plotting of the Community Garden and the Compassion Garden happened these last few weeks and gardeners are now planting seeds and plants. This spring I am celebrating the goodness of God’s earth.

I love gardening. It makes me happy and it reminds me of my grandparents. Their love for farming and gardening had a profound influence in my life. In mid April, I celebrated what would have been my Grandfather’s 98th birthday. I miss him. He has been on my mind a lot these last few months. In February, I learned my cousin’s wife has a rare form of stomach cancer. This news broke my heart. I know they are a part of a praying and supportive faith community. I know God’s presence surrounds them through these difficult days of treatment. Nevertheless, I wish they did not have to face this event in their lives. When I first heard the news, I wondered what my Grandfather would say to all of us. His presence, wisdom and deep trust in God was a foundation on which our family depended for many years. This event made me realize that my grandfather taught us well. He passed on to another generation a deep trust in God and a faith that sustains us through difficult times. This spring I am celebrating the goodness of my earthly heritage.

Spring finds my husband and I teaching in the public school system week-long courses on sex education called “Creating Positive Relationships”. We usually teach about 350 6th grade students each year in our county and sometimes the weeks are difficult. We have already taught in two schools that have pregnant 6th graders. There are times when we are overwhelmed with the world we live in. As a part of our time with the students, we have them write down a question everyday and I spend the first part of the hour answering their questions. One day a student asked if my husband and I fight. When we talk about sex this is not usually one of the questions the kids ask. Ron and I spent a few minutes in class debating the question. He claims we do not fight and I said I think we do. The students laughed. I know the homes many of these students come from and I know that a majority of them come from broken families. I was blessed with a thankful heart for the 34 years we’ve had to fight about fighting. I am thankful for a positive relationship in the midst of a world of divorce and heartache. On May 1, I celebrated what would have been my grandparent’s 79th wedding anniversary. Their lives together blessed me. They were not perfect and they had some difficult times, but they taught me the incredible joy of a positive relationship and of growing old together. This spring I am celebrating the goodness of love.

This spring has been difficult. I’ve been overwhelmed, disappointed and discouraged. There are always too many negative relationships to deal with in my life and I struggle to be all that God wants me to be. With the good anniversaries I celebrate in the spring, I also celebrate some difficult ones. On May 3 I celebrated the 41st anniversary of my father’s death in a car accident. Life changed greatly in those days for me and for my family and in many ways, it defined who I am and how I relate to those around me. I celebrated the 7th anniversary this spring of the day an escaped prisoner broke into my home and held me hostage. At times, I find it challenging to make negative events matter for good in the world.

One of the greater gifts of the last few months was increased communication with my cousin. Over the last few months, we’ve shared many good things with each other. The most important for me was my cousin sharing a list of 10 queries he wrote in the hours after my grandfather’s memorial service. Because we grew up in different homes with very different parents, my experience with my grandparents was different from my cousins. I added 4 queries to his list and this list of 14 questions shaped how I perceived the numbers in my life this spring. These queries gave me a way to look at the difficulties and shortcomings in my life and to discover an incredible joy in choosing to nurture my relationship with God and others. These 14 queries gave me a way to celebrate life this spring.

Grandfather Farner’s Queries written by Frank Engle Jr. and Pam Ferguson:

Do I love Christ deeply?
Do I encourage members of my family and pray for them daily?
Am I faithful to my church, attending faithfully, giving generously and being active in leadership?
Do I support and encourage my pastors?
Do I take an active role in my community, being a witness and sharing my talents?
Do I uphold the Sabbath by avoiding major projects, other than essential chores?
Am I journaling faithfully? Reading scripture consistently?
Do I love my wife (spouse) more with each passing year? Is she (he) my “angel?”
Am I a gentleman (gentlewoman), showing kindness and consideration to all?
Am I impartial towards each child? And towards future grandchildren?
Am I a good steward of the land? Am I a good steward of all God’s creatures, great and small?
Do I speak truth in all my words and actions? Am I willing to make right the wrongs I committed unto others?
Am I conscientious about my financial affairs, not living above my means, not going into debt needlessly?
Am I a good witness of my Quaker faith and my Quaker community, living out of a commitment to truth through the testimonies of simplicity, peace, integrity, community and equality?

Nine years ago I was introduced to a 72 year old Catholic ex-nun. We had several opportunities together before one day she called and asked if I would consider being her spiritual advisor.

It is okay to laugh…..I did.

I am not the spiritual advisor type. Somehow, it felt right to start spending time with this friend on a regular basis. We now spend an hour together on most Monday mornings and have for the past nine years. It is always an interesting time. We are different people and we challenge each other is different ways. During Lent each year, our Monday mornings center on what we are learning from the Lenten season.

This year my friend decided not to participate in the typical Catholic practice of giving up something for Lent, but instead decided to heighten her awareness of God’s gifts around her in a special way and to journal as much as possible. This past Monday we had an interesting discussion about her experience with Lent this year. She found herself writing something everyday, but not really writing with purpose or passion. She lamented the fact that Lent seemed to be ignored in her faith community and it was not as it was growing up in a Catholic neighborhood in New York City. There her peers in school and the community around her went to mass everyday and life revolved around participation in Lent in very visible, concrete ways. Things change. She now lives in a county where Catholics are a minority. With a shortage of priests among Catholics, the local Catholic parish now shares a priest with the larger Catholic community 10 miles away. This ended the daily mass for the local parish and I know that not having a priest available in the community is difficult for the parish.

As my friend reflected on why she was feeling detached from Lent this year, she commented that the one thing she appreciated and experienced here in Indiana that she did not experience in New York City was fellowship over coffee and rolls each Sunday morning after mass. She felt that time together in the parish hall was a continuation of the Eucharist the faith community just celebrated. Then she admitted that if she had to choose between her Lenten experience growing up in a Catholic neighborhood in New York City and the experience of coffee and rolls on Sunday mornings with this faith community, she would probably choose the fellowship and communion of coffee and rolls.

I am a Quaker and I do not lean towards the liturgical. My relationship with Christ is experiential and the physical often distracts me. You can imagine the interesting conversations on Monday mornings between a Catholic ex-nun and a Quaker. For my friend the center of mass, worship and the center of her life and her relationship with God revolves around Eucharist. It is good for me to hear how this moment in the celebration of mass connects her to Christ. For me, it is in the silence and centering of the gathered meeting that I experience Christ and communion. I have spent most of my life among programmed Friends and thankfully with faith communities who appreciate and nurture periods of silence and open worship during the programmed meeting. For me, the essence of worship lies not with the sermon, the music, vocal prayers or the physical things that happen in worship, but with the power and life of communion in the gathered silence with the faith community.

I am always surprised when I hear someone say silence in worship feels empty. I have rarely experienced an empty silence. When I am alone, I cherish silence because it gives me time to think and to center. In those moments of silence, God nudges me into conversation in thoughts and prayers. When I am in worship, I find the silence even deeper and richer. It is a time when the community gathers into the center of God’s presence. In that Presence the community experiences communion, guidance, Christ’s reconciling love and peace…together.

Lent is normally a time of giving up something, a time of self-denial and penitence in preparation for Holy Week. I understand this preparation and all it symbolizes for the Church and I understand my friend’s longing to be a part of community in this preparation. My friend’s frustration with Lent this year opened my eyes to see how important community is to the Church.

There is power in the shared experience of the crucifixion. The agony of the cross was Christ’s alone to bear, but it was shared and witnessed by a community whose lives where changed and transformed by Christ’s presence and ministry, and who gradually came to understand the incredible sacrifice of that moment. The power of the resurrection lies in the community who witnessed the empty tomb and walked beside the living Christ. The life of the Church for over 2000 years is the power of a community transformed by the crucifixion, a community who walks beside the living Christ day by day.

My personal experience with Christ transformed my life. But the power of this Lenten season and the joy of the Easter celebration is about more than my own personal spiritual experience, my spiritual journey or my personal relationship with God. The gift of Lent lies in its power to transform the world through a community where Christ’s presence and power, where Christ’s reconciling love and peace are made visible every day of the year.