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How We Chose a Meaningful Resting Place

I am not alone.
I am one with all the Earth.
What an adventure!

—Edward Ashley

Dad died this past summer. Instead of a churchyard burial, he rests in the middle of a meadow filled with six-foot-tall wildflowers, hovering bees, mooing cows, and songbirds. Dad’s body was wrapped in his mother’s quilt that had the words “Sweet Dreams.” His grandchildren carried the body, which was wrapped in a shroud and placed on a board, and they used ropes to gently lower him into a shallow grave.

Family and friends threw wildflowers picked from the meadow onto his body. Afterward, three grandsons shoveled about three tons of dirt onto his flower-covered body. Dad’s body lies in an unmarked grave in a conservancy cemetery, where the grasses and tall groves of wildflowers take over his plot. Only GPS coordinates locate his remains.

The author’s father in Saxapahaw, N.C., where he lived for the last year and a half of his life. No Ready Burial Ground

Setting aside the idea of burial within a churchyard or military burial ground can be a monumental leap for a family. As ours decided on a green burial within a conservancy cemetery, we embraced the possibility of the wild, open space of nature. For regular Sunday churchgoers raised in a formal faith structure, this ceremony was very different from the priest-led devotional liturgy and the songs, blessings, and ceremonial faith structures that bookend sacred moments. Baptism, confirmation, weddings, and funerals are standard appointed times for the church community to individually and collectively encounter God. As many questions emerged in the weeks before Dad’s death, our family actively engaged in “worldmaking”: we felt we were creating a unique, sacred space. The meadow was a world where Dad could rest after death and where we could feel connected to both his and our collective stories, and open to the great story beyond this one. My family embraced the act of questioning where to place our loved ones after life.

In light of these profound questions, more families—religious as well as nonreligious—are exploring alternative burial plans and rejecting passive acceptance of “the way things are.” Sacred burial sites now extend beyond religious buildings and grounds; other places can now qualify as sites where families can opt to memorialize their dead loved ones. Families are rethinking the nature of the sacred: where and how it is expressed and what its role and value might be after death and for the living left behind.

For those lucky enough to live in North Carolina, state regulations permit families to pursue alternative burial options called “green burials.” A green burial place is dedicated to following specific protocol and may be part of a cemetery or a new area altogether. Green burial involves the use of the overall ecological well-being of the land. For some, environmental concerns and questions about health hazards influence people to choose a green burial. The standard conventional funeral, complete with embalming and burial in a lawn cemetery, is fraught with health hazards, thereby requiring the permanent installation of non-biodegradable vaults around non-biodegradable caskets. In green burials, embalming is forbidden and natural decomposition of the body is encouraged with a more shallow grave.

As the public demands access to more information about the resulting health risks associated with crematorium pollutants, questions arise, such as “Is there a safe level of exposure to mercury?” With no Environmental Protection Agency oversight and with increasing public awareness surrounding environmental health concerns, preservation and restoration of local lands, and concern over rising costs of funeral products and productions, green burials are becoming an increasingly attractive option.

While Dad was less interested in the politics and economics of green burial, he quickly became interested in the ecology of the conservancy cemetery. Dad saw humans as part of God’s total creation and nature a manifestation of God’s presence. We engaged in a process of nurturing deep care for God’s creation while we planned to bury Dad within a green conservancy cemetery. Mom and I chose Dad’s final resting place eight hours before he died; we rested well knowing Dad’s future burial would be in a place of spirit-nurturing, transformative beauty.

Wildflowers collected in the fields near the burial site. Creating Space for Death and Memorialization

The last week of Dad’s life saw us asking a new whole line of questioning about burial places. Earlier in the year, my parents and I visited a half dozen church graveyards as potential final resting places. I suggested that none of the children and grandchildren would be eager to visit a churchyard that held no real connection for my parents. The decision needed to be made soon now that Dad was dying: he desperately wanted to know where his wife would eventually join him after death. The churchyard cemetery’s purpose of memorializing people and even serving as a cultural marker of history did not fill him with comfort, especially when considering that he might be buried in a random cemetery. As a past marine, the military burial ground—a free option for both him and Mom—wasn’t interesting. Neither of them felt any kind of attachment to nationalistic fervor or the armed services. Ultimately, both wanted to know that their children and grandchildren would visit them after their deaths.

Dad, Mom, and I seriously questioned any remaining options for Dad’s final resting ground. They had no religious roots in any of the churches they had visited over the past year, and we all agreed: wherever Dad would be buried, Mom would eventually follow. We needed to find a burial place that could include Dad’s history, provide the family with connection and continuity, and inspire a sense of the sacred. Ultimately we were searching for a burial ground that would serve as some kind of reverential and awe-inspiring place: literally and figuratively rooting Edward Ashley and his family in the years to come.

My father was vivaciously curious about the beauty of existence, and he was deeply connected to the story of God’s love in all of creation. In The Common Good and the Global Emergency: God and the Built Environment, T. J. Gorringe writes: “Places of transformative beauty—places which inspire, motivate, give meaning and fulfillment—are spirit nurturing.” In the last week of Dad’s life, after having visited one of 13 green conservancy cemeteries in the country, he and my mom decided to make their final resting place in a natural environment. They had allowed for what Gorringe describes as “a kind of interior pilgrimage” to take place. And it felt like a miracle that the closest green burial site to our location was a conservancy cemetery. It seemed strange to Dad that meadows and woodlands might serve as a burial ground, operating under the premise that nature and natural growth eventually obscure burial spots.

Dad hung onto the sides of the four-seater cart as we spun around the acreage through the woods and surrounding meadow teeming with life; we talked about a kind of sacred sensibility of green burials. In the drive up to and around the 126 acres, he noted a kind of felt “sacred anticipation” as he searched for signs that people were resting within the beautiful landscape of woodlands and meadows. Visitors walking through the woods on well-made trails were all part of this life cycle. Dad appreciated how the conservancy cemetery centered the social and community value of people individually and collectively, so that the celebrations of loved ones were engaging and inseparable from the place. The conservancy cemetery offers opportunities for families and volunteers to forge ongoing relationships with the physical environment through Friday workdays (for trail making, gravedigging, wildflower picking, and volunteering during funeral services) and offers them a physical way to live out their moral and social values.

In an article for Oxford’s Literature and Theology journal titled “Embodying the Artistic Spirit and the Prophetic Arts,” Willie James Jennings writes:

To consume is holy work. It is tied to life. But what happens when it becomes bound to death? I do not mean the death of that which must be consumed, but consumption that conceals death’s operations, consumption that isolates us from one another, and leaves us alone in our hungers.

In the world of green burials, there is a pragmatic release and liberation from the increasingly business-centered burials of funeral homes. The end result of those burial practices—largely for monetizing purposes—has served to disconnect folks from the raw rites of passage with their loved one. It is right and good that contemporary families question the mode of consumption that impedes and denies the human species’ natural connection to the lives and deaths of other humans, as well as from nature and creation.

In the business of death and burials today, there can be a kind of denial and detachment about the realness and naturalness of dying, as if we could separate this moment from creation: from the life and death cycle of abiding reality. It was this curiosity and wonder about life and living, creation and God, that brought Dad to tour the Bluestem Conservancy Cemetery, a mere six days before his death. There was a mindful practice of presence as we spun through the trails, looking for possible burial spots for Dad and Mom. We recognized a series of feelings: grief, hope, love, connection, and loss. There was hopefulness hiding in the beauty of nature, and it was powerfully invigorating. My family and I experienced a “vision of the sacramentality of the world which is not sentimental,” as Friend Steve Chase writes in Nature as Spiritual Practice. The nature of space matters.

Green burial is a way to care for the deceased beloved in the most natural manner possible. With no box or embalming fluids, it allows for a burial with minimal environmental impact. My family eventually found peace and value in burying Dad in his mother’s quilt and laying him directly in the earth without a casket. With Dad simply returning to the earth, the family found comfort in the idea that Dad’s burial would also aid in the restoration and preservation of the local habitat as well as aid in the conservation of the acreage for the next one hundred years.

The post My Dad’s Green Burial appeared first on Friends Journal.

Each year, in the days leading up to Christmas, I set up a small crèche depicting the birth of Jesus based on the story in the Gospel of Luke. I have read and heard that story read many times; it has become the basis for the popular way the birth of Jesus is represented and re-enacted. The Nativity scene I own includes a small structure for the stable, a few cows and donkeys, a manger, and several figures to represent Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, the angel, the shepherds, and the three wise men. I put them out in the order in which they appear, as if I were directing a play, and then, when the wise men (who are “borrowed” from the Gospel of Matthew) depart, I put them back in the box for another year. As I was putting the figures away last year, I had reached the point where only Joseph and baby Jesus were left when something made me stop. The little statue of Joseph depicts a middle-aged man with dark hair and a dark beard. He is kneeling, gazing down—in my mind gazing lovingly—at the baby lying before him in the manager. As I looked at the figure, I was reminded of the times I gazed lovingly at each of my two sons right after they were born. A wave of emotion passed through my body, bringing forth momentary tears of joy at the memory of those two occasions. Whether Joseph was the biological father of Jesus or not, he must have felt the same emotion gazing at this baby who was now his son. Suddenly, I saw Joseph as a real person, as a father like me with a son he loved.

Saint Joseph with a young Jesus. Illustration by Marco Sete.

The gospels tell us little about Joseph. Some apocryphal stories say he was an older man, even in some cases a man in his 80s, who had six children from an earlier marriage, thus accounting for the reference to Jesus’s brothers and sisters without abandoning the idea that Mary was a perpetual virgin. I don’t see Joseph this way. I see him as a young man of typical marrying age for his time, maybe 18 at most to Mary’s 14 or 15. Two teenagers experiencing the miracle of the birth of life together, an event that must have filled them both with joy and awe.

Matthew’s Gospel tells a different version of Jesus’s birth in which Joseph plays a very significant role. It says that he is visited by angels on three occasions, more than anyone else in the gospels, including Jesus. In the first, an angel tells him that Mary is pregnant by the Holy Spirit and that he should accept her and name the child “Jesus.” The second angel appears sometime after Jesus’s birth and tells him to take his family to Egypt, and the third appears in Egypt, telling him that it is safe to return home.

There is no way to know which version is true, or whether they are each the invention of the gospel writer. But both suggest that Joseph had reason to believe his son was something special. If so, did that affect his role as a father? Did he allow Jesus to go off to the synagogue to read Scripture as was Jesus’s preference, or did he require him to remain in the carpentry shop until Jesus was old enough to make his own decisions? Or being only human, like myself, perhaps he just tried to be the best father he could be, having no idea what that would lead to and, if we are to believe the stories, not living long enough to find out.

The Calling of the Sons of Zebedee (Vocazione dei figli di Zebedeo), 1510, by Marco Basaiti. Accademia delle Belle Arti, Venice, Italy.

Joseph is not the only father who appears in the gospels, but he is one of only two mentioned by name. The other is Zebedee, father of the disciples James and John. Zebedee appears for a brief instant in Matthew 4:21, the scene where Jesus is walking along the Sea of Galilee and summons James and John to follow him, while they are in the boat with Zebedee mending their fishing nets. When I originally read this verse, my attention was drawn to James and John. I marveled that they could so easily walk away from their past lives. Did they know Jesus already, and did he know them? Were they disciples of John the Baptist and at the river when Jesus came to be baptized? Or were they among John’s followers when—as some stories say—Jesus stayed with John for a while thereafter? Or did they go simply because their friends Simon and Andrew were with him, and it looked like something more interesting to do than mending nets? Whatever the reason, their sudden departure is amazing and even more extraordinary if we assume they did not know Jesus at all but were simply drawn by the magnetic nature of his presence and his unusual and unexpected invitation.

But when I think of this incident now, in the context of my thoughts about Joseph, it’s the figure of Zebedee that draws my attention. How did he feel when both his sons jumped overboard and went off without asking permission or even saying a word of goodbye? Perhaps he shouted after them, “Come back! Where do you guys think you’re going; there’s work to be done!” Did he expect them to obey as good Jewish men brought up to honor father and mother should rightly have done? Or did he say, “Go with my blessing. Come back sometime and tell me what you find”? Did he harbor a twitch of envy, wishing he had the freedom to abandon his own life and follow Jesus himself? Did Joseph have similar conflicting feelings? Did he allow Jesus to leave the carpentry shop to go study in the synagogue because this was clearly his preference, or did he require him to stay until he was old enough to make his own decisions?

The Parable of the Prodigal Son: Received Home by His Father,
c. 1680–1685, by Luca Giordano. Uppark, the Fetherstonhaugh Collection (National Trust).

The answer to these questions and some insight into how both Joseph and Zebedee might have seen their relationship with their sons is suggested by a story about another father and his sons: the one called “the prodigal son” in Luke 15:11–32.

This story has interested me for a long time because I am the father of two sons whose personalities are similar to the two sons in this story. My older son is generally the more responsible one, as is the older son in the story. This does not mean he chose to stay home and help run the farm, so to speak; he’s gone off and had an adventurous life, more adventurous than my own. Nonetheless, he seems to be more grounded and responsible in his behavior. This is not to say that my younger son is irresponsible, for that would be inaccurate too. But he does seem to be more adventurous, more willing to take off on the spur of the moment to walk the Camino for a month or climb the mountain to Machu Picchu. He is definitely the one who would not hesitate to ask me for his share of my estate to go off and pursue his own interests.

While this story is labeled “the prodigal son,” it is really about the father and his relationship with his two sons. In response to his younger son’s request to receive his future inheritance so that he can go off and pursue his own interests, the father could have said, “No way, I need you here on the farm,” just as Zebedee might have told his sons to come back. As a compromise, he might have given him some money for a short vacation but not his entire inheritance with no strings attached. He essentially says, “Go with my blessing. Come back sometime, and tell me what you find.” In addition, he gives him the resources necessary to do that. If Jesus is telling this story to illustrate how a loving father should act, then we must also assume that both Joseph and Zebedee send their sons off with a smile and a blessing. And if that is the case, it would be natural for both men to greet their sons eagerly and joyously when they returned home, as the father in the parable does. In addition to giving his son a ring and a robe, I can imagine him saying, “Tell me all about your adventures. I want to hear everything.” While they are feasting on the fatted calf, the young man enthusiastically might have told his father a slightly censored version of his experiences. And when he later tells his own friends about them in more candid detail, I have no doubt they secretly would wish to have the same opportunity.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent
forth. . . . 

Let your bending in the Archer’s hand be for gladness. 

For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so he loves the bow that is stable.

—Kahlil Gibran

In his book The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran provides a wonderful description of the relationship between parents and children that is relevant to Joseph, Zebedee, and the father in the parable of the prodigal son. It begins with these words: “Your children are not your children. / They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.” At the end, he uses the analogy of an archer to convey the notion of what it means to be a parent. In this analogy, the parent is the bow and the child is the arrow. The function of the bow is simply to launch the arrow. It does not determine the target, the path the arrow will follow, or whether it will go high and long or short and low. This is the responsibility of the archer who directs both arrow and bow.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the Archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so he loves the bow that is stable.

Throughout the gospels, Jesus frequently refers to God as “father.” Some people believe that the story of the prodigal son is intended to illustrate what he means in using this term. From that perspective, the father represents God; the sons represent all of us; and the moral of the story is that God loves us, no matter what we do. If, however, the story is intended to tell us that God’s attitude toward us is illustrated by the father’s attitude toward his son, then it also tells us that God wants us to enjoy our lives and to follow our dreams: follow our own particular destinies. The father in the parable wants his younger son to enjoy his life on his own terms. Joseph and Zebedee want the same for their sons. All three fathers allow themselves to “bend in the archer’s hand [with] gladness.” They send their sons off with their blessing to pursue their own destinies.

And so, we must assume that in Jesus’s view, the gift of life comes with God’s blessing to go forth and enjoy our lives: to see what life has to offer, to explore, have adventures, and pursue our own particular destinies. With that blessing comes the resources to fulfill it: a beautiful earth on which to live, food and water, and friends and companions with whom to share our adventures. And I imagine God is just as eager to hear our stories when we return as were the three fathers.

It seems strange to me to have these thoughts now. My sons are in their mid-40s, both adults with lives of their own. These ideas would have been more relevant, and more helpful, when I was younger and trying to learn how to be a loving father. So why do I find them now? Perhaps it is to encourage me to consider how I’ve done: was I a good bow? Did I send them off with my blessing and with resources to help them pursue their own destinies; did I greet them eagerly and with unconditional love when they returned? I can easily see the places where I might have done better, but overall, I think it would be fair to say the answer to those questions is yes. However, that’s for them and not me to judge.

But perhaps this message isn’t for me at all. Perhaps I am just a messenger, enlisted to pass it along to my sons to help them understand what it means to be a loving father to their children, my grandchildren.

Be a good bow; bend in the archer’s hand with gladness. Remember that once you were the arrow and what it was like to fly.

FJ Author Chat Show notes for the interview.

The post The Gospel Model of Fatherly Love appeared first on Friends Journal.

An Expanded Vision of Conscientious Objection

“In these difficult times” has become an overused phrase in recent years. We disagree vehemently with our neighbors, with family, and with Friends. Sometimes the tone in meetings for worship and meetings for business has been harsh. We speak in intemperate language, complete with name calling and accusations, even from the Friends most dedicated to peace. How can we move forward?

When I was the director of the Center on Conscience and War (CCW) (formerly NISBCO) in the early 2000s in Washington, D.C., I traveled among Friends and other faith communities throughout the United States. During that time, I observed a great disparity between beliefs. Occasionally faith communities would drop their connection with CCW because we accepted non-Christian faiths, such as Muslims (Jews were okay, they would say).

I had to tiptoe around the issues of the death penalty and abortion as well, since there were many conscientious objectors (COs) who vehemently disagreed over those issues.

Sometimes what you need to do is to realize that your life has brought you at this time to a particular place on the continuum of the issue you are discussing and accept that where other people stand is where their lives have brought them at this time.

The U.S. Department of Defense defines conscientious objection as a “firm, fixed, and sincere objection to participation in war in any form or the bearing of arms, by reason of religious training and/or belief.” Vietnam-era draft boards (and modern-day investigating officers for military personnel seeking CO discharge) ask stumbling-block questions, such as “What would you have done in World War II?” or “What will you do in Armageddon?” For many decades CCW bought into the government definition of conscientious objection; after all, the founders of the center had helped craft it.

But I became increasingly uncomfortable with the government definition, and instead more open to the idea that it needed to be more flexible and inclusive. In early 2007, I reached out to the group Appeal for Redress, which consisted of career military personnel who objected to the war in Iraq but would deploy there, if ordered. They wanted Congress to act but had no intention of refusing orders; it was their job. Many who supported CCW thought I was wrong to do that.

Around that time, some of the service members involved with Appeal for Redress were featured in a segment on 60 Minutes, and I was invited to a celebratory dinner for them held a few days later. At the event, a young marine and I had an interesting conversation. He was concerned that there might not be any vegetarian choices on the menu. I asked him why he was a vegetarian: health reasons, climate reasons, cruelty to animals? He said he refused to kill animals. I was startled for a moment and then said, “I am not criticizing you but am trying to understand: you don’t want to kill animals, but you are willing to kill humans?” A couple of weeks later he filed a CO application.

This moment reminded me of growing up as the youngest of five very smart children. Every time I would learn something I thought was really interesting, I would relay that information to one of my siblings. They would reply: “Yes, I already knew that.” By the time I was in junior high, I was convinced I was pretty dumb compared to my siblings.

But then, one day in my 20s, I had an epiphany: my siblings had all taken the classes in school before me and read the books before me. They weren’t necessarily smarter, but had simply had the experiences before I did. Their different experience was the crux of the situation. This was confirmed when I went to law school, and none of them did. My different experience changed my understanding.

Different experiences are not just age-related, of course, but come from families, neighborhoods, class, economics, and just being in a particular place at a particular time, such as being in Washington, D.C., during 9/11 and watching the smoke plume rise from the Pentagon—something I witnessed.

It may come to pass that you move; it may come to pass that they move. It may come to pass that you both will stand where you are or you both will move closer together. But you should still reach out your hand to others.

Over time, I began to have a vision of conscientious objection as a continuum: that we all stood along a line. That line extended from the consistent life (sometimes called the seamless garment or web) ethic’s objection to war, death penalty, abortion, and eating animals and continued along the line to those who objected to all wars but supported the death penalty and legalized abortion. Further along were those who objected to only one war, such as Muhammad Ali, who in interviews said he had no argument with the Vietnamese and cited that as one motivation for his conscientious objection. And at the far end of the line were those, like the Appeal for Redress career military, who objected to a particular war but would still participate in it as part of their job.

I spoke about this vision at the Truth Commission on Conscience in War at Riverside Church in New York City on March 21, 2010, pointing out that we should not allow the government to define conscientious objection. Everyone objected to some war at some time. Therefore, we were all conscientious objectors.

I was reminded of all of this last October at the 2023 Baltimore Yearly Meeting Women’s Retreat, which was held on Zoom and in person in College Park, Maryland. There we gathered with the theme of “Hope for an Inclusive Future.” During a group discussion focused on including all genders identifying with women and all People of Color, one young woman spoke about young Friends’ frustration with waiting for unity. She had a different vision for Friends not able to come to unity: she said that those who were clear should move ahead even without unity, but—and this was the most telling moment at the retreat for me—go forward while turning around again and again to others left behind and say in a friendly way, “Are you coming?”

When you think about it, a similar pattern is what has played out for most of the cutting-edge positions throughout Friends’ history. John Woolman did not walk out on Friends when they did not understand the evils of enslavement the way he did. He went to meeting after meeting, home after home, and invited Friends to join him in ending enslavement. He lived his life where he was but did not reject others for not being there with him; he invited them along.

It was after the divisive 2016 presidential election when I began looking again to help bridge the large divides found along political lines in our country. Pulling from my own experiences working with all kinds of people, I created a workshop and training called “Conversations with the Other: How to Speak with People with Whom You Disagree,” and began offering it to Friends and other groups. A lot of the effort of that training is learning to listen and getting past the idea that all you have to do is show them the “error” of their thinking to resolve your disagreements since they are clearly wrong. (This approach doesn’t work in relationships either, or in meeting for business).

Sometimes what you need to do is to realize that your life has brought you at this time to a particular place on the continuum of the issue you are discussing and accept that where other people stand is where their lives have brought them at this time.

It may come to pass that you move; it may come to pass that they move. It may come to pass that you both will stand where you are or you both will move closer together. But you should still reach out your hand to others, as I do to you.

Are you coming?

The post Planting Ourselves in Time and Place appeared first on Friends Journal.

L

ast year, Hellen Lunkuse, a co-clerk of Bulungi Tree Shade Meeting in Kamuli, Eastern Uganda, earned a Global Leadership Award from Vital Voices Global Partnership for her work as founder and executive director of Rape Hurts Foundation. Rape Hurts Foundation is a nonprofit, non-govermental organization that offers trauma-informed care, education, and vocational training to female survivors of rape. Lunkuse accepted the award at an October 25, 2023 ceremony at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

Vital Voices supports the foundation through capacity building, funding, and relocating rape survivors, according to Lunkuse. Since 1997, Vital Voices has supported more than 20,000 women, enabling skill acquisition, networking, and publicity, according to its website.

During a week-long capacity building training in D.C., Lunkuse shared her work with more than 1,000 people. Speaking of the training she received, she said, “It was a very important period of time.”

Rape Hurts Foundation and its partner organization, Bulungi Tree Shade Meeting, have a long-standing relationship with Olympia (Wash.) Meeting in the United States, which financially supports them and has sent members to visit them in Uganda.

Lunkuse and Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the awards ceremony. Clinton is a cofounder of Vital Voices with the late Secretary Madeleine Albright.

In 1995, Lunkuse was raped at age 11 while gathering firewood and water. The attacker was a well-respected man in her community. Lunkuse’s father, as well as the rest of the village, demanded that she marry the assailant, but she refused. Lunkuse’s mother supported her, and the father threw both of them out of the house.

Based on her own experience, Lunkuse founded Rape Hurts Foundation in 2008, which offers practical and psychological care to women and girls who have survived rape in rural districts of Eastern Uganda. Poverty often keeps rape survivors from advocating for themselves, so the foundation offers vocational training to economically empower women and girls who have been victimized.

Bulungi Tree Shade Meeting, which Lunkuse started in 2019, gathers twice a week to meditate and to share the individual struggles that worshipers are facing. The meeting is also caring for 125 boys who were victims of sex trafficking. The police referred the trafficking victims to the meeting, according to Lunkuse.

“All the people that gather with us are survivors. Most of our people are typically needy,” Lunkuse said.

To address worshipers’ economic needs, the meeting offers food and education, including training in such skills as soap making, knitting, and crocheting. Members who have experienced sexual trauma start on a path to self-forgiveness through the meeting’s psychosocial support, according to Lunkuse.

Left: Members of Bulungi Tree Shade Meeting, including Lunkuse (second from left) and Rape Hurts Foundation program director Robert Mboizi (right). Right: A group of boys under the care of the meeting. Some of the boys are survivors of trafficking in persons, and others were abandoned by the guardians or parents. Photos courtesy of Hellen Lunkuse.

The meeting and the foundation receive support from Friends at Olympia Meeting, whose members David Albert and Kathleen O’Shaunessy first got involved in working in Uganda through serving on the board of Friendly Water for the World, an organization that partners with residents of countries in Africa to improve water supplies. At the village level, Friendly Water promotes building water storage tanks; at the household level, it offers slow sand filters to remove pathogens. Lunkuse’s undergraduate degree is in environmental management, and she started collaborating with Friendly Water for the World in 2015. Albert met Lunkuse when he visited Uganda in 2018 as part of his work with Friendly Water. That year a team came to Uganda for a conference, and Lunkuse got to know O’Shaunessy. Lunkuse appreciates the love and care of Olympia Meeting.

O’Shaunessy is a clinical psychologist who works with survivors of trauma and sexual abuse, and she attended a week-long conference in Mityana, Uganda, in 2018. During her month-long visit, she volunteered with Lunkuse to assist clients of Rape Hurts Foundation. Speaking through an interpreter, she counseled 25 female rape survivors for an hour each. When she asked each what they most needed help with, many mentioned food security and adequate shelter. O’Shaunessy credits Lunkuse for preparing the women to speak candidly about their lives and struggles. One 19-year-old woman who worked as a police officer explained that she would be fired from her job if her supervisors knew she was attending counseling sessions through Rape Hurts Foundation.

“They came prepared to be honest with me about their lives. And a number of them were kind of anxious. I felt frightened. But they all did. Every one of them did remarkably well. They were honest, and they had talked with me about what had gone on,” O’Shaunessy said.

The post Quakers Partner to Aid Survivors of Sexual Violence in Uganda appeared first on Friends Journal.

Giggling, she runs from the family room couch
where I sit and count, both hands over my eyes.
“1,2,3,4,5 and 5 is 10. Ready or not, here I come.”

First, in the kitchen, opening and slamming cabinet
drawers and doors, “No, not here. Not here, either,”
repeated loud while lifting corners of the tablecloth,

again as I look under a chair cushion, behind the curtain,
then seek into the living room to flip pages of a book
on the shelf, “She’s sure hiding good, where can she be?”

Muffled laughter in the closet, ever her same hiding spot,
as I pass the half open door, again not seeing her crouched
smiling presence as I continue my search into the hall.

“I wonder where that girl can be, I’ve looked everywhere.”
A tug on my pant leg, I turn around in wild surprise,
“Here I am, Papa, right here. See. You couldn’t find me.”

“You certainly are a wonderful hider, much better than me.
Now it’s my turn.” She counts with covered eyes as I slip
into the closet, same place as when her mommy was small.

The post Ollie Ollie  appeared first on Friends Journal.

At that time Jesus said,

Plant trees easy
for kids to climb,
cherry and apple,
low to the ground,

or cloud-high
and many-branched
like the pine.

Let willows swing
laughing children
over the river.

Let catalpas provide,
with their great, green hearts,
places to hide and heal.

Suffer the children
to come to the trees.

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Her breath rose and fell
spaces between in and out growing wider
Gasping for air, heartbeat shallow and fast
feeble voice barely heard
pink skin turning purple
finally, breath stopped, heart raced a few seconds, concluded its beating.
The doors of body closed.
There is no return.

      May the rising sun sanctify and bless Your name
      We sing praises to the Holy One
      for the life of one we loved so long

Gasping for air, crying on an inhale
learning the in and out rhythm of breath
The fast heartbeat that slows with growth
purple skin turning pink
lungs growing a louder voice.
The gate of womb shut.
There is no return.

      May the falling rain sanctify and bless Your name.
      We sing praises to the Holy One
      for the new life we have been blessed with.

May the Lord of doors and gates
Going out and coming in
acorn and oak
child and old woman
bless our hearts with unceasing wonder
as we witness the commonness of mystery and holiness.
May Your name be praised into all eternity.

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Praying for results

Peter Blood-Patterson’s article on holding in the Light (“We Are All Held in Love,” FJ Mar.) really spoke to me. I have always felt that praying for a particular result was risky. As he stated, if the desired outcome does not come to pass, the pray-er may feel that they didn’t pray “hard enough,” or that the prayer’s beneficiary was somehow “out of harmony with God.” In addition, one can lose faith in a loving God who does not heal a person or situation in response to a fervent prayer.

He mentions scientist Jocelyn Bell’s stance that it is incongruent to believe in a God who is both all-loving and omnipotent (if omnipotent, how can a loving God allow tragedies?). This is also the conclusion reached by Leslie D. Weatherhead in the 1940s, who wrote The Will of God. I read this book as a college student in the 1970s and have re-read it several times since. Like Bell, Weatherhead, and Blood-Patterson, I have chosen an all-loving rather than all-powerful God. This has been invaluable in dealing with several personal challenges in my own life, which consequently did not shake my faith.

Kate Hood Seel
Greensboro, N.C.

Online: Peter Blood-Patterson discusses his article in a video interview at Friendsjournal.org/blood-patterson.

The power of prayer

I really appreciate Stan Becker’s exploration of prayer through a scientific lens (“Holding in the Light, Prayer, and Healing,” FJ Mar. online). As a former hospital chaplain, I was called upon to minister to strangers in the emergency room all the time. If someone was open to prayer, I would pray with them.

One of the most traumatic cases was with a woman who was raped early in the morning on her way to work. The rapist not only physically abused her, but disfigured her face. When I met her in the emergency room, she was in shock. I held her hand and explained that I would be with her throughout her time in the hospital. She stayed in the hospital for several weeks and went through many surgeries to restore her face. I asked her if she would be open to me inviting my colleagues to lay hands on her for healing. She said yes. Before the bandages were to be removed from her face for the first time, I asked the other Protestant chaplains to join me and lay hands on her for healing both physically, spiritually, and emotionally. I knew she would need a tremendous amount of support to get through this. She had not met the other chaplains when they came into the room, but she trusted me. We all laid hands on her in the bed and prayed. After the prayer was over, we could see a change in her eyes. We could see that her body had a physical response to the prayer. When she was able to see herself, she was able to accept the changes in her appearance with grace. I think that our prayers helped contribute to that acceptance. I do believe that prayer has an effect on individuals whether we know them or not.

Chester Freeman
Rochester, N.Y.

What the universe holds for us

Thanks to John Calvi for sharing “Carrying Light to Need” (FJ Mar.). I would love to think that holding him in the Light, to the best of my ability, would bring him back to the state he was in before. But experience is teaching me that we don’t go back; in the best scenario we move forward to what the universe holds for us. As Calvi has been teaching us, the work is to listen, and hear and feel. And then move.

Margaret Katranides
St. Louis, Mo.

Wonderful insights into both healing and prayer. The reminder that stepping stones are not homesteads is just one of the many images from this piece that will stay with me.

Vicki Winslow
Liberty, N.C.

Online: John Calvi discusses his article in a video interview at Friendsjournal.org/calvi.

Answered prayers

Chester Freeman’s Quaker’s Light is an interesting concept (“Pray without Ceasing,” FJ Mar. online). It’s certainly a powerful means of connecting with the afflicted, who are all around us. Too few take the time to show interest. We are too caught up in our own everyday activities. Chester shows us how to change that. The light that God gives us is for others to see. The transformation taking place in our lives will attract others (Isaiah 49:6). Paul tells us we do not always know how to pray (Romans 8:26–27). I find it useful to just get on my knees and let my mind come to complete quietness, letting God’s Spirit search me and carry what “He” sees as important to the throne of grace on my behalf. God knows what is on my heart.

Tom Rood
Penn Yan, N.Y.

I answer the phones at a local hospital. Recently I was having a terrible day, when out of the blue three different people asked if they could pray for me. I was overwhelmed and in tears, but a sense of peace came over me. I was told that it doesn’t matter how tired you are at night, a one-word prayer “thank-you” will work. One other thing I have learned is that a smile is almost as powerful as a prayer.

Nancy Dowd
Seminole, Fla.

How timely is this publication! This week our family, friends, and congregation have been “praying without ceasing” for a dear friend of ours and the medical staff caring for him. When we first received the news of the severity of his heart attack, I had no words, no cohesive thoughts. The only thing I could do was sing the hymns of my childhood that have carried me through the most challenging times, knowing God knew what was in my heart. Chester Freeman’s description of the two dimensions of holding someone in the Light is so well expressed. Prayers of thanksgiving are also vital. We need to celebrate answered prayers and the goodness in our lives.

Annaliese Parker
Farmington, N.Y.

God’s continued call

I think of heaven as a place where our discarnate souls can contemplate their past lives and plan for future lives that will give them a chance to develop spiritually (“Do Quakers Believe in Heaven?,” QuakerSpeak Feb.). I like Lynnette Davis’s explanation of energy. I think that souls are gathered into groups where they can learn lessons, and recognize what they have done insufficiently, kind of like a school.

I don’t believe in hell. Why would a loving parent condemn a child to eternal pain?

Allison Browning Richards
Camden, Del.

So it is true that often Christianity has been co-opted as providing simply a “ticket to heaven.” I believe we are called to help create (co-create) a just world in our here and now, on earth as it is in heaven. But I also believe in a heaven that is a next step where the love of God continues to call me. I have no idea what it looks like, but everything within me tells me there is more.

Deborah E Suess
Greensboro, N.C.

Such eloquent people. My prime reason for being a Quaker is their acceptance that I do not believe in God or an afterlife. This world suffices, and the spirit within us is our inspiration.

Jenni Bond
Hobart, Australia

Rustin preached, lived, and practiced what he believed

I deeply appreciated the review of the film Rustin (“Unsung No More” by Rashid Darden, FJ Nov. 2023 online; Jan. 2024 print). It is a movie everyone should see. I had the privilege of knowing Bayard Rusin, and working with him, when I was the president of New York Friends Group, a Quaker foundation on which he was a member of the board of directors. The film touches on a very important gift that he had in administration and the ability to carry out things to a successful conclusion.

But there were so many other concerns and actions that he took. At the time of apartheid in South Africa, he was deeply involved; at the conclusion of a report, he stated that the United States should seek “a nonviolent end to apartheid.” He preached, lived, and practiced this philosophy his entire life, including on his trip to the Middle East during the Israel-Lebanon war in 1982. At his 75th birthday celebration in 1987, it was inspiring to hear tributes from the likes of Congressman John Lewis and Elie Wiesel. As I wrote to Newsday at his death, “unfortunately in our society today there are so few who can see where we are as a people and how to survive into the 21st century. Bayard Rustin understood and saw what was needed. To say he will be missed is an understatement. He was unique and irreplaceable.” How relevant these words seem to me today.

George Rubin
Medford, N.J.

The history of protesters should be known

As a former protester (with an almost fanatic zeal) against the war in Vietnam from the earliest days, I get incensed when I hear all the praise of the Vietnam veterans and the sometimes-derogatory attacks on the protesters (“Escaping Oppenheimer’s Shadow” by Anthony Manousos, FJ Feb. online; Mar. print). Young people were desperate to get the young men out of the killing fields of Vietnam. We all had friends and family members who were there—most drafted—and in the end, we did get them home.

I knew pacifists who went to prison and heard of many who went to Canada, all for moral reasons. They should be the ones honored today. No one knows how many violent attacks there were on peace protesters in the early days when the war began, mainly on the young men who carried peace signs and burned their draft cards (I was at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill). This history should be known. People who refused to fight should be honored as the truest heroes. Thanks for a powerful article that brings these memories back.

Katherine van Wormer
Madison, Wis.

Corrections

In the March issue “Forum,” a letter from Mason in Marshall, N.C., stated that Clear Creek Meeting in Richmond, Ind., hosts an afternoon meeting for worship at 1:00 p.m. That worship is a program entirely run by Earlham College.

“Dear God, Help Me Here” by Sharlee DiMenichi (FJ Mar.) incorrectly listed Mickey Edgerton as worshiping virtually with First Friends Meeting in Indianapolis, Ind. She actually worships with First Friends in Richmond, Ind.

We apologize for the errors.

Forum letters should be sent with the writer’s name and address to forum@friendsjournal.org. Each letter is limited to 300 words and may be edited for length and clarity. Because of space constraints, we cannot publish every letter. Letters can also be left as comments on individual articles on Friendsjournal.org.

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Anderson—Mary Frances Anderson, 79, on June 3, 2023, at John Muir Health Medical Center in Walnut Creek, Calif. Mary was born on February 21, 1944, in Berkeley, Calif., where her mother, Anne Anderson (née Dowden) was studying nursing. Her father, Victor Charles Anderson, was involved in a research project in Southern California regarding underwater sound for military use during World War II.

Mary grew up in the San Diego, Calif. area. She married H. Lee Watson in 1963. Their son, Jeffrey Elam Watson, was born on April 10, 1966. Mary earned her doctorate in mathematics from New York University in New York City in 1970. She taught mathematics for two years at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pa., then for another two years at Wayne State University in Detroit, Mich., and for four years at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Mary returned to the United States and studied computer science at University of California, Berkeley. She held a series of computer programming jobs with the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC Berkeley, Bank of America, Hewlett Packard, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In addition, she offered programming services as an independent contractor.

In 1973, Mary married Lim Mah Hui from Malaysia and moved to Malaysia with him. After returning to the San Francisco Bay Area she met George M. Bergman, who was with her when Michael Lim Yong Ping was born on October 11, 1977. In 1981, Mary and George married under the care of Berkeley Meeting. On August 8, 1982, she gave birth to twins, Clifford Isaac Anderson-Bergman and Rebecca Nadia Anderson-Bergman.

Mary attended Berkeley Meeting, becoming a member in early 1978. She transferred her membership to Strawberry Creek Meeting in Berkeley, and, in 2020, asked to have her membership transferred back to Berkeley Meeting. Her membership was renewed at Berkeley Meeting on March 14, 2021. Beginning in 2015, she also attended Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church in Oakland, where she enjoyed singing in the choir.

Mary was an avid gardener, taking agriculture courses at UC Davis and elsewhere. She was a passionate singer. She volunteered for the Alternatives to Violence Project, a group that offers workshops designed to help participants find ways to resolve conflicts without coercion or violence.

Mary began to suffer falls in the early 2010s. She gradually developed other disabilities, and was diagnosed with corticobasal degeneration, a rare syndrome similar to Parkinson’s disease. In May 2023, a swallowing problem led to pneumonia.

Mary was predeceased by a brother, Victor Charles Anderson Jr.

She is survived by her husband, George Bergman; ex-husband, Lim Mah Hui; four children, Jeffrey Watson, Michael Lim Yong Ping Anderson, Rebecca Anderson-Bergman, and Clifford Anderson-Bergman; five grandchildren; and one sister, Judy Myers.

The post Mary Frances Anderson appeared first on Friends Journal.

Quaker author Peter Blood-Patterson was interviewed about his March 2024 article, We Are All Held in Love: Reflections on the Practice of Holding in the Light.

The post Peter Blood-Patterson Interview appeared first on Friends Journal.

Jharna Jahnavi, a medical student at the University of Vermont Larner School of Medicine, and the first in her family to pursue medicine as a career, credits much of her success to receiving a lot of mentoring throughout her journey. “I would not be where I am today without the support of the countless mentors and advisors in my journey. I want to give back and mentor the next generation and make sure they get the same support I did.”

When she moved from Philadelphia, a city where a majority of the population are people of color, to Burlington, Vermont, where more than 80% of the population is white, Jharna felt the change in environment acutely. Jharna found an opportunity to engage with the community and support medical education mentorship through her medical school’s Area Health Education Centers (AHEC) program and was an AHEC Scholar for the summer of 2022. Through AHEC, she was able to join their efforts of building a mentor network and providing opportunity to local high school students interested in healthcare and become deeply involved in the Health Education Resource Opportunities (HERO) program, which is designed to prepare high school students for careers in medicine.  

First, Jharna served as a HERO mentor, a fulfilling learning experience. “Being a mentor let me provide students with the kind of support I have been so lucky to receive. It also gave me more opportunity to connect with and work with young people, which is what I hope to do in my career, potentially as a pediatric physician.”

After participating in the Emerging Leaders for Liberation program, Jharna stepped up to take over one of the leadership roles from the previous students. She recruited for, coordinated, and implemented the HERO program on her medical school’s campus. Her biggest area of emphasis and drive for the program has been ensuring the program helps to empower students who might face accessibility barriers to the medical field. This includes students of color, first-generation students, students from low-income backgrounds and rural communities, and students who have immigrated or are part of immigrant families. Of primary focus in her various educational modules are social justice and social inequities in medicine. 

As Jharna prepares for the clinical component of her program, she knows that, short-term, she’ll have less time to be involved. But she’s focused on leaving it in good shape for the next student leaders, including developing age-appropriate curriculum for critical topics such as social determinants of health and social inequities in medicine, which she hopes will be in use for years to come.

 Jharna sees what she has learned as part of a lifelong commitment to mentorship, and to social justice in medicine. “I hope that I can be involved in HERO again in my career but regardless, this type of mentorship work is something I want to be working on throughout my career.” 

For Madeyson Dyce, a student at Guilford College and a participant in the Emerging Leaders for Liberation program, art creates a sense of possibility and solidarity. “When people are creating together, they’re learning about each other and connecting. When we use art to express our vision for a better world, we’re taking the first step to making that world real, and we often realize just how much we have in common.”

Madeyson has had an interest in the power of art since she was selected as a Futurist Fellow, a program that supports emerging leaders to make change through an Afrofuturist lens. When she joined the ELL program, Madeyson saw an opportunity to build on what she had learned in the fellowship and to develop opportunities for community art-making.

She also saw possibilities for social action, a way to foster solidarity among different social identities, a means of empowering marginalized people, and a way for a group to learn together about connection and intersection in social justice.

Madeyson’s first project – organizing a group of 12 students to draw a racial justice-themed work on campus on October 20 – was a major learning opportunity. “Planning was stressful. There were so many details to worry about, but seeing people working in community and growing together, it was really worth the stress. And, now we have this powerful creative work that reminds us of the work we have to do.”

As the drawing emerged, Dyce witnessed powerful learning, with the participants sharing and reflecting on what their identities, and what racial justice, meant to them. “I think this gave students a chance to seek control of their own lives and stand up against injustice.”

Dyce was particularly grateful for the support that AFSC gave her throughout the process. ELL Program Director Mariana Martinez helped Madeyson think through the project from the start, and overcome the obstacles she faced in bringing it to life.

The piece stands on the Guilford campus as an affirmation of Quaker values, like struggling for equality and working in community. And Dyce sees it as just the beginning of her work. She’s looking for new ways to embed liberatory creativity into the Guilford campus. “We have a regular paint and sip event, and I want students to think of that as an opportunity to express themselves on deeper issues. Painting flowers and clouds is nice, but what if we were expressing our identities, or painting our just and equitable future instead?” 

If Swarthmore College student Lucas Meyer-Lee has learned one thing from his Emerging Leaders for Liberation project, it’s just how dehumanizing a prison sentence can be. 

To help people understand what life is like for people living behind bars, Lucas wanted to deepen the work of Prison Radio at the nearby SCI Chester prison facility, creating connections between students and people incarcerated there. If successful, the work would give a platform to incarcerated voices, deepening relationships between those on the inside and the outside. Having previously met people like Kenjuan Congo, Jr., who is incarcerated at SCI Chester, Lucas understood that people at the facility would have plenty of stories, poetry, and political commentary to share, if he could help to get it out.

The concept was simple: the students would record the stories and perspectives of incarcerated people, then share them through existing platforms, building on Prison Radio’s existing model. However, Lucas knew that, for it to work, he needed to develop trusting and respectful relationships with people locked up at SCI Chester. 

He has faced administrative barriers every step of the way. The phone systems break. Individuals are transferred between facilities or moved between cell blocks, disrupting schedules and conversations already underway between people in SCI and Lucas. Even with incredible effort by his partner on the inside, Kenjuan, the project has been slow-going.

“Growing up a Quaker, I’ve always been opposed to U.S. mass incarceration,” said Lucas. “But now, seeing the prison-industrial complex up close, I realize all the ways it isolates people and makes them jump through hoops. I think about how frustrated I feel, struggling to maintain contact. Then I think about their families and loved ones, and how hard they must be working to stay in touch. It’s heartbreaking.”

Still, Lucas is undeterred. Inspired by some of the powerful conversations he’s already had, and with Kenjuan’s tireless work, Lucas is searching for new ways to help these individuals get their stories out. In some instances, he has used email to gather written statements; in others, he records conversations piecemeal and has individuals respond to each other’s thoughts serially. The complications have even spurred a bit of innovation: to broaden the conversation, and to show interviewees that people are paying attention and value their perspectives, he now plans to have listeners email questions. 

Strong allies have facilitated Lucas’s progress and helped him navigate the system. Prison Radio and War News Radio help people behind bars share their stories with the world; they’ve lent Lucas audio equipment, counseled him on the project, and put out audio on it. Knowing that these organizations, AFSC, and Kenjuan are standing with him has helped Lucas stay committed to the project, even in the face of all the roadblocks.

As the project grows, Lucas is excited to grow and evolve beyond Swarthmore. “Students have been integral to so many movements for change throughout history, but we have to move beyond campus to engage the broader community.” Lucas knows that it won’t be easy, but he’s ready to put in the work. 

Molly Dorgan’s relationship with her hometown of Waynesville is complicated. Growing up in the town of 10,000 people, nestled between the Great Smoky and Blue Ridge Mountains in Western North Carolina, she loved the community. But, she knew she would have to leave Waynesville to chase her dreams. She worried, for herself and for her friends, that the local schools didn’t have the resources to prepare them for the journeys ahead.

Through the Emerging Leaders for Liberation program, Molly is creating educational pathways for the next generation of young people from the region. With support from AFSC, and in partnership with schools across Western North Carolina, Molly organized the Field Summit this fall to help local students overcome the financial barriers, inadequate educational structures, and cultural differences that might keep them from college.

Molly understood growing up that she had an advantage. Her parents sent her to science and math summer camps where she not only sharpened her skills but also learned how to pick a college and then apply to it and reduce the cost through scholarship and support. As she headed off to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill supported by a Morehead-Cain Scholarship, her peers in Waynesville were never far from her mind.

Molly spent her first two years at UNC putting Quaker values into action, making the campus more welcoming as an UNC DEI Fellow and diving into public service as a Buckley Public Service Scholar and a member of Pi Beta Phi Fraternity for Women. She also studied the factors that keep students in places like Waynesville from getting to and succeeding in the best colleges.

When she learned about the ELL program, she saw it as an opportunity to make an impact on these issues by sharing her experiences with the young people back home and helping them chase their own dreams. The event, hosted on October 22, was attended by 25 young people, and included conversations and workshops that prepared them to get to, and thrive in, college. Students gained practical knowledge and skills on building their resumes, interviewing, volunteering and mentorship, and telling their stories in college essays.

Planning the event was a learning experience for Molly, too. She was surprised by the number of professionals throughout the community who were eager to pitch in when asked. And she gained a newfound appreciation of and understanding of their career paths.

She sees the event as the spark of something that can grow in the years to come. Starting with the curriculum that she developed and the relationships she built for the event, she’s considering how to build out a local mentoring initiative and virtual library of college access and success resources for students in underfunded rural schools.  Molly says, “I want every young person in the area to know that people want them to succeed and can help them succeed. Together we can build a network that supports them.”