Before Black History Month ends, I need to tell a story of a slave born in 1790. The memory of this man needs to be kept alive. For the past month, I have thought much about his life and his example. He was not famous, did not do anything the world would consider significant, and few have heard of his life. I read his story in the hand written journal of Elkanah Beard that lies deep in a vault of the archives in Richmond, Indiana. The journal began in 1860 when Beard was 24 years old. He did not start the journal thinking that one day he would be famous or the journals published, but he wanted the journal to be a future reference to the working of the Holy Spirit in his life.

The first entries told about his life, his family and his leading to travel to Mississippi from Indiana during the Civil War where he and his wife spent several years as relief workers for freed slave encampments near the Mississippi River. On June 29, 1863 in Helena, Arkansas Elkanah met and befriended a 73-year-old gray-headed ex slave named Uncle Abram Brown. Uncle Abram’s story was recorded in Elkanah’s journal and it speaks to my tired soul these days.

Born into slavery in 1790 to a kind master, Abram’s life changed when his owner fell into debt. Sold and chained to a gang of slaves, the strong, robust 24-year-old was marched to Tennessee and sold to a cotton planter named Brown. Abram found life difficult, but he began to think of ways to make his life better and more comfortable. He was encouraged to use the female slaves for his own pleasure by his master with the hopes of breeding more slaves. Abram said he soon decided that he wanted to keep himself entirely free from that sin. “Not that I had a regard for the laws of God or the welfare of my soul, but secretly felt that I wanted no children to trouble my head about who would without doubt be sold at the age of 10 or 12 and shipped south. I hated the religion of the Slaveholder and was disgusted at the prayers I heard from my Master. He told us we had no soul and the prayers of a black man never went higher than the braying of a mule.”

A few years later Abram had an opportunity to go to a camp meeting in the neighborhood with the Brown family. The meeting awakened his soul and he became convinced there was a religion for the black man as well as the white man. Abram was changed and sobered about his own life and his eternal life. Mr. Brown observed during the meeting that Abram looked thoughtful and sad and he feared his slave caught a spark of light from the ministry. In Mr. Brown’s eyes, that would render Abram useless as a slave. Mr. Brown resolved Abram would not attend any more camp meetings and this good Methodist plantation owner told all of his slaves that it was preposterous for them to assume to be religious or even attempt to call upon the high and holy name of the God who made heaven and earth. That was a privilege of white men only. A Negro’s highest attainment was to obey his master’s orders and revere him.

In spite of that warning, the light of God was awaken in Abram’s soul and later that night, Abram met God in a powerful way alone in his cot. As he told this story to Elkanah, he said that his soul filled with a Godly fire and he rose from his cot and vocally magnified the name of Jesus. He thanked God for giving him evidence that his sins were forgiven. Abram said “before I got up off my knees I prayed to the good Lord that he might bless the colored people everywhere and free them from all their sins and from their yoke of bondage.”

God heard Abram’s prayers, as did Mr. Brown. The next morning Mr. Brown ordered Abram stripped of his clothing and tied to receive 250 lashes for “trying to pray and for asking the Lord to set them free from their bondage”. Abram never opened his mouth and bore the pain with courage, but this event stopped Abram from vocalizing his prayers. He continued to pray in his heart and day by day he drew near to God in the secret of his soul. He occasionally slipped away into deserted places in the woods where he cried out and told Jesus all of his longings. Abram said “I always went mighty hungry out there, but the blessed Jesus filled my soul brim full before I came away.”

Not too many years after this flogging, Abram decided to marry a wife. He hoped and prayed the woman he chose would be modest and moral. Several years after the marriage she proved not to be and left Abram and took up with another man. He remained single and childless until the end of his days.

Life for Abram seemed mostly peaceful until Mr. Brown and all his slaves moved to Mississippi in 1859. In his 69th year, he was silver haired and could not see well but was permitted to stay in a small cabin to himself where he spent his time basket weaving, a trade he learned at night when he was a boy. One day Mr. Brown ordered a basket made for his wife and Abram worked hard on the basket. He hoped his master would offer him praise for his work as all the other slaves had done when they saw the basket he made for the Misses. On the morning that the basket was complete, Mr. Brown came to Abram’s door and took the basket, turned it over in his hand looking for a defect. He found a small split on the bottom of the basket that stuck out 1/2 inch and Mr. Brown took his faithful servant to account for this mistake.

Abram pleaded “Master, I’ve gotten old and my eyes are failing so, I didn’t see the mistake!” Mr. Brown replied, “Abram, I’ve been watching for a chance to give you a whipping for a long time, now strip your clothes.” Mr. Brown used a used a cowhide whip to lash him 40 times. At the end, Abram exclaimed “O Lord, have mercy on me a sinner.” This only angered Mr. Brown and he ordered the lash given to Abram with even greater determination until he received over 300 lashes. (Elkanah wrote in his diary that the gashes had not healed at the time he met Abram 3 years later.) Mr. Brown ordered Abram to ask him for forgiveness for calling upon the name of the Lord, but Abram’s faith was not shaken. He received too many blessings at the hand of the Lord in answer to prayer to withdraw his trust or allegiance to God. Mr. Brown ordered another 100 lashes. Before the thongs could be untied that held the bloodied Abram to a log, in a weak yet firm voice Abram said, “Now master, I prayed to God all the time you had me beaten to forgive you all your sins and I expect to keep praying and praising the blessed Jesus long as I lives.”

Abram was too weak to walk or stand and was carried to his house, washed in salt and water, greased and rolled up in a blanket where he lay several weeks almost helpless. Several who were present as Abram told this story to Elkanah Beard witnessed the beating. Elkanah asked Abram if he felt those who bought and sold human beings would ever know the mercy of the Lord. Abram replied: “I expect God has a mighty big store of mercy and lets a heap of folks repent just before they die,” Elkanah then asked how could Abram pray for those who treated him so cruelly? Abram explained that if Christ could forgive those who crucified him, he believed Christ knew what was best and he “never felt no happier than when I could in truth pray for my baddest enemy.”

I struggle with forgiveness. Events from the past month highlight the fact I harbor resentment and hard feelings about things I should have forgiven long ago. God speaks to me through this story about a little known man and his simple, deep faith and trust in God and his incredible willingness to forgive.

I believe Quakers give a gift to the world through journaling. From George Fox and John Woolman to Elkanah Beard, Quaker men and women, published and unpublished, record the workings of the Holy Spirit in the world and in their lives. I pray Friends today are as faithful to keep record of these stories and to keep the memory alive of people like Uncle Abram.

Recently I agreed to write a book review for Arkansas Quakers about Thomas C. Kennedy’s new book: A History of Southland College: The Society of Friends and Black Education in Arkansas. For the last month, I’ve been deep into the story of the Arkansas Delta in the aftermath of the Civil War and the work of a group of northern Quakers from Indiana who started an orphanage for freed slaves.

I love history, so it was not a hardship to read this book. I had an added interest in the story because of Elkanah and Irena Beard. With the influx of freed slaves after the emancipation proclamation and the fall of Vicksburg, Mississippi in 1863, a Union General prevailed upon Indiana Yearly Meeting through their field agents, Elkanah and Irena Beard, to establish an orphanage near Helena, Arkansas. I currently live in Elkanah and Irena’s home. They gave it to Winchester Friends Church in 1898 and it has been a parsonage since that time. Beard’s had no children, were refugee workers with freed slaves for 6 years during and after the Civil War, then went to India on behalf of London Quakers to work and teach, before landing in Winchester, Indiana in 1874 to begin a “new” monthly meeting in the city. Since my husband and I have no children, spent a large portion of our married life overseas working with refugees, and now find ourselves living in their home as pastors of the meeting they began, I feel a kinship with their lives.

One of the reasons I love history is that I learn from history. The story of Southland encompasses 60 years, from the Civil War until the mid 1920’s. The orphanage and school transitioned into a teachers college and in later years incorporated vocational/agricultural training components. Throughout the entire time, the task of raising funds for a group of northern Quakers to help a group of needy human beings (whom endured unspeakable treatment during generations of slavery) seemed an unending and eventually, insurmountable problem. I could not help but be embarrassed for Quakers who seemed to ignore desperate appeals for financial support for this important work.

Money eventually decided the fate of Southland. Maybe it was because Quakers did not see visible results from the work in Southland or maybe it was because of difficult financial times for the country. I would hate to think that racism had a hand in why Quakers would not support this school, but I do not know. In any case, the Quaker author of the book pointed out that: “the more desperate the financial situation became, the more grandiose Quaker rescue plans became.” Sometimes it is hard to wait for funding to arrive to carry out ministry and mission. One of the many lessons the history of Southland taught me was how important it is to nurture discernment in community for financial obligations and ministries, but more importantly, to do what I can with available resources. Money should not rule passion or vision to do what is right and what serves God, but neither should vision and passion outrun commitment from the community.

I am sad the work at Southland ended but even sadder Indiana Quakers failed to nurture and maintain relationships in the Arkansas Delta. When the school closed, there was encouragement for Quakers to take “personal responsibility for promoting interracial harmony and good will”, but the current lack of African-American participation and membership among the Society of Friends suggests this may not have been successful. When the end came to Quaker involvement in the Arkansas Delta, the grandiose plans the Quakers had for improvement of the school or the beautiful buildings they built (but let deteriorate) were not what the community around Southland remembered. People remembered the northern Quakers as people who helped them “live kindly and honestly and to build a community which stands for ambition and energy and peace.”

The Quaker presence in the Arkansas Delta nurtured several Quaker monthly meetings and at times reported a membership in the Society of Friends of over 400 souls. Northern Quakers were not the only Christian influence in the Delta. Many of the ex-slaves were Christian and there were other local churches among the population in the Delta. Evangelism was present in the work of Friends, but the draw to Quaker worship and membership in monthly meetings was the visible witness of the northern Quakers. They lived out Christian principles and values of service, temperance, and spiritual equality – regardless of race or gender.

Being lost in Southland this past month renewed my commitment to make relationships a priority in my work and my life. It is too easy to lose focus when the business of mission and vision consumes time and energy. The work of listening and learning, of nurturing relationships within my faith community and between my faith community and the Living God should be my business. I believe being lost in Southland was a good way to start a new year.

“I saw also that there was an ocean of darkness and death, but an infinite ocean of light and love which flowed over the ocean of darkness. And in that also I saw the infinite love of God; and I had great openings.” George Fox (1647)

I was in jail all day yesterday.

Actually, I was in the lobby of a big city jail waiting with a friend for the release of her 20-year-old daughter. In the large lobby, I spent the day watching hundreds of people coming and going. Some were like us: waiting for released family members. Some were waiting to visit incarcerated family members. Upon our arrival, we sat down in two of the only empty chairs we found, only to discover after several odd looks that we were sitting next to the office door for sexual offender registration. We moved. It was sobering to witness the number of people going into that office.

It was difficult to watch young women with toddlers or grandparents bringing cashier checks that probably represented precious and scarce money to put on inmate’s accounts. The number of legal representatives and lawyers going through the doors was staggering, as was the amount of money their presence represented. I watched the release of several dozen people. Many had no one to meet them as they walked out the door. Many laughed as they walked out, arrogant in beating the system one more time. It saddened me to see how many seemed to be under the influence of some type of drug or substance, or how many seemed to be in the process of withdrawal of those influences. No one, with the exception of my friend and I, seemed embarrassed at being there, uncertain about what they were doing or who they needed to talk to. The only one who cried upon release was the young woman we met as she walked through the doors at the end of a very long day.

I spend a lot of time in jail. And most of the time I find it oppressive, depressing, and discouraging. I am thankful I was able to walk with my friend through her first day in waiting in a jail lobby and in her first experience with the correctional and judicial system. I pray this will be her last experience. At the end of that very long day as we drove the hour and a half back home I struggled with the ocean of darkness and death I experienced that day and the lifestyles that cause people to make jails the center of their existence and the people who are innocently dragged with them into that way of life.

December is a month full of contradictions for me. I hate the coldness that settles on the land and especially my garden. I struggle with the shorter days of sunlight and the long, dark nights. A birthday this month forces me to recognize the passage of another year of my life. I find the constant barrage of a consumer-oriented celebration of Christ’s birth dispiriting and many of the Christmas decorations gaudy and out of place for the sacredness and meaning of this season.

Yet I love the Christmas season. I have the opportunity to spend my days baking loaves of whole grain bread for every household in our faith community. I love the privilege of sitting and visiting with friends as we deliver each loaf. I love the fellowship each year during cantata practices with neighboring Friends meetings and the special holiday meals and desserts we share with so many Friends during the Christmas season. I love getting together with friends to make and share hundreds of cinnamon rolls for Christmas Day.

Most of all I love the Advent Tree that sits in our meetinghouse. Advent is a time to prepare for Christ’s arrival into our world through the nativity and through the Second Coming. For over 10 years, Winchester Friends encourages one or two Friends each week during each Advent season to share how Christ arrived in their life. Friends then hang an ornament on the Advent Tree that in some way represents their story. I love these stories and the opportunity to hear how Christ arrived in individual lives. It is through these stories that I see Christ’s presence visible in many different ways to our community and to our world.

Some Friends are able to name the day and the hour when Christ arrived in their life. Many tell about the process of Christ’s presence growing over the years as they put themselves in places with people who encouraged worship, service, and love for God. Some knew of Christ’s presence at a very young age and had a desire to cooperate with God’s intentions for their life. Almost everyone who shares tells about the importance of Christ’s arrival in how they live today and in how they face difficult and tragic events that are a normal part of living. And almost everyone shares how they find encouragement and strength through a faith community that walks with them through the good and bad experiences of life. I’ve heard Friends confess they heard stories they didn’t know from their parent’s Advent stories. For Friends who have died since the telling of their story, the ornament on the Advent Tree is a reminder every year of their story and their life lived among us.

The Advent Tree has an incredible variety of ornaments: a compass, a playing card, a watch, a wreath, a miniature loaf of bread, a wooden church, a globe, a tractor, a small bible, a ruler….the list goes on and on. Each ornament on the tree tells a story and is a reminder that Christ’s arrival into a life makes a difference. Each ornament represents the multitude of ways an ocean of light and love flows into the world through the arrival and presence of Christ in individual’s lives.

There is always a choice in which ocean I swim. There were times in my life when I could have made the center of my existence the dark oceans of addictions, jails, and courtrooms. There are reasons I am not swimming there today. After spending a day in jail and the next day listening to an Advent story, I know to the depth of my soul the only reason that really made a difference is the Advent of Christ into my life. Christ’s arrival opened an ocean of light and love to me. Christ’s arrival brought shalom to my life, giving me the gift of a life filled with wholeness, well-being and most of all, peace.

I came away from my day in jail overwhelmed by the darkness and the hopelessness I found around me. The Advent Tree this year reminded me of the ocean of light and love flowing over this ocean of darkness. More importantly, the infinite love of God through Advent makes it possible for me to find openings: in jails and jail lobbies, in walking with those who face darkness, and in a world overcome with hopeless and chaos. How blessed I am this season to know that because of Advent, I swim in an ocean of light and love and in that I find hope for my world.

My grandfather was a pacifist. He believed it was what Jesus taught. I need no other reasons to remain a pacifist for the rest of my life. The fact is I encounter reasons daily which create a desire to cherish and nurture this Christian Quaker testimony in my life. I pray, I hope and I work for this testimony to become a reality in the world.

Although I do not enjoy speaking in public, I recently accepted several speaking engagements in our community to tell the story of a young man whose death in 1945 matters greatly to the Winchester community today. His story is one of the other reasons I am a pacifist.

John Best was born in 1925, the only child of a 45-year-old Quaker couple here in Winchester, Indiana. He grew up in Winchester, helped his parents in their grocery store, attended meeting for worship at Winchester Friends Church, and played the trumpet. He was an outstanding trumpet player by the time he graduated from high school in May of 1943.

In December of 1943, towards the end of World War II, John was drafted. He went into the army in January 1944. With his trumpet skills, he was assigned as a bugler to the Infantry. After about a year in training camps, he became a part of the 106th Calvary and sailed to Liverpool, England.

Within a month of arriving in England, John’s unit was in the middle of Europe preparing for what was to become the Battle of the Bulge, the bloodiest battle American forces experienced in WWII. The German Ardennes Offensive was thrown in force without warning at the 106th Calvary on December 16, 1944 and John’s unit was the first to report heavy mortar fire from the Germans. Within an hour, the enemy penetrated the unit. John’s division had been on the continent for only 15 days with many new soldiers and an average age of 22 years. There were almost 20,000 Americans killed in the Battle of the Bulge, almost 50,000 wounded, and John was one of the 23,000 captured or missing during the battle.

Another Indiana son, author Kurt Vonnegut, was close to the same age as John Best. His novel Slaughterhouse-Five is largely based on his experiences as a combat infantryman in the 106th Infantry Division. Vonnegut was also one of the soldiers captured during the 106th's defeat at the Battle of the Bulge. He was taken to an underground POW camp in Dresden where he experienced first-hand the Dresden fire-bombing. His experiences as a member of the 106th and a POW heavily influenced many of his early novels.

On January 16, 1945, a year after John went to war his parents received notice their son was missing in action. After weeks of not knowing what happened to their son, on March 7th they received a letter from John, written from a prisoner of war camp in Germany. While John was a prisoner of war, the Yalta Conference took place. Shortly afterward the fire bombing of Germany began. On March 31, 1945, thirty-six British aircraft bombed Halle, Germany from an altitude of 25,000 ft. The British commander reported in his flight diary “flak was meager and inaccurate and all the aircraft returned safely to base with no casualties”.

Except there were casualties on the ground during this air bombing. John was in a prisoner of war camp near Halle, Germany and died that day in the Allied bombing. He died one month before Hitler’s death and two months before the end of the war. When John did not come home at the end of the war, his parents went to post-war Germany and spent 2 months searching for him. They were not able to find him or his body but they did not give up hope he might be alive. Five years after the end of the war, John’s remains were found, identified and brought to Winchester for burial.

Winchester Friends Church is now a steward of the legacy and memory of John’s life. After his parents died, they left their estate to our Meeting, the local hospital and to the school system. For many years, Winchester Friends used their interest income from the trust to help with major building projects and normal expenses. When there was a surplus from the interest income, the meeting invested in certificates of deposit. About 10 years ago the meeting reached consensus not to accumulate more assets for the church, but to be active stewards of the excess annual interest income. For the past 10 years, over $110,000 of the surplus has been distributed outside of the walls of the meetinghouse to make a difference in the world.

Every year the meeting invests a portion of this money in the work of the oldest and largest peace lobby in Washington DC, the Friends Committee on National Legislation. Support of their efforts to work for a world "free of war and the threat of war" seems a fitting way to honor the life and sacrifice of John Best. And I also believe John’s parents would be at peace knowing their legacy and their love for their son is actively working to create hope no other parent will know the pain and loss of a child in war. I do not want this family and their contribution to Winchester and the world to be forgotten. In Africa, we called this “warming the money” and making it alive with the memory of the people who sacrificed to make our lives and our institutions a little better and a little more humane in light of the reality facing the world today.

This month Ron and I will attend the annual meeting of Friends Committee on National Legislation in Washington DC. It is an honor to represent Winchester Friends and Indiana Yearly Meeting and to represent the life and sacrifice of John Best. However, the greatest honor is to be released each day to live out Christ’s intentions for our world and to work for peace.

(Confessions of middle age)

I have been surprised by life.

I never thought I would reach middle age
and in the blink of an eye I’m 55.
I still catch glimpses of myself as a 16 year old,
a 20 year old, or a 40 year old.
I see where I came from, where I have been,
people from my past and sometimes
I see my life through their eyes.

And I am surprised.

What an amazing amount of experiences I’ve had in my 55 years,
some good and some bad.

I’ve seen the pygmies dance.
I swam in the Indian Ocean.
I gathered seashells on Zanzibar Island.
I’ve been to the source of the Nile.
I’ve seen the whirling dervishes in Khartoum
and a riot in the middle of Kampala.

I walked where Paul and Silas broke free from prison and I stood at the Acropolis where Paul told the Greeks about “the God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and doesn’t live in temples built by hands”.

I’ve eaten grasshoppers and termites,
rattlesnakes and crocodile.
I’ve smelled the blossoms of a coffee orchard,
incense from sandalwood, frankincense and myrrh
....and open sewers, burning trash, rotting flesh,
drying fish and camel dung.

I’ve awakened to the Muslim call to prayer,
applauded communion with Catholics in Africa,
worshipped in opulence with Greek Orthodox,
and in silence with Quakers on three continents.

I’ve heard the explosions of land mines and
gunshots fired in celebration, in fear,
in anger and in rebellion.
An AK 47 was aimed at me as thieves stole our car
and I was held hostage in my home by an escaped prisoner.

In spite of the good and the bad and the many surprises of life,
I discovered an unexpected peace in middle age.

Of course there are regrets.

I never experienced the joy of childbirth.
I spent too much time in sin and selfishness.
I’ve ignored my creator too many times in too many ways.
And I know there is much in life that I have not experienced
nor that I have lived as fully as I was capable,
loved as much as I could or forgave as much as I know God intended.

I am surprised those regrets aren’t the focus of life now.

Middle age always brings questions of

“who am I?”
“What have I given my life to?”
and “for what (and my whom) will I be remembered?”

I’ve yet to discover many of the answers.
But I am surprised I no longer fear the questions.

I’ve confessed that I never thought I would reach middle age.
I think I’ve always thought I would die before I got this “old”.
Now I am catching glimpses of the rest of my life.

What a joy to realize I’ve learned
material possessions matter less than relationships;
obedience is more satisfying than success;
and the highest calling in life is
to make a difference in the world for Christ.

Middle age is a wake up call to use
the time I have left to love unconditionally,
give unselfishly, make right what I’ve wronged,
cherish what time I have with the man I love,
and to use every waking moment to live and walk with God
and to grow in my love for God with each passing day.

Middle age is a gift. I am surprised.