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……

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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 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.