Every Sunday -- Meeting for Worship 

10:00am -- 2 Dr. Lords Rd. Dennis MA

ALL ARE WELCOME  --  COME CHECK US OUT

We are located at the corner of Route 6A, Dr. Lords Rd. and Sesuit Neck Road

There is a parking area in the front and on Sesuit Neck Rd and well as on Dr. Lords Rd.  just beyond the house and barn. Barnstable Friends Meeting is a Preparative Meeting of Mattapoisett Monthly Meeting. 

               NOTE: in the summer months the property is the space for the Eden Hand Arts

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Unprogrammed Worship

contemplation, silent prayer

At the center of Friends worship is the core belief in God as “present in dwelling teacher”. The silence of unprogrammed worship is not empty silence. During the silence there are heroic things happening. The Spirit is gently nudging each person in worship toward a central truth. The gathered meeting is the way of discerning that truth and ministry is the way that truth breaks the silence and is experienced.

FOR INFORMATION ON QUAKERISM IN GENERAL VISIT:  ~~ http://www.quaker.org/

A PERSONAL BLOG OF ONE MEMBER'S SPIRITUAL REFLECTION          Shttp://reflectionsfromtheeaglesnest.blogspot.com/

These are prayers, messages or reflections that came to us out of the silence of our worship in the manner of Friends.

FOR PREVIOUS MESSAGES USE THE ABOVE "From off the Meetinghouse Floor" TAB, OR CLICK ON "read more" at bottom of message. AND please consider "Following" the podcast.

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OR IHeart radio https://iheart.com/podcast/144758371/

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5/26/24 — From Off the Meetinghouse Floor Message

First Corinthians in reverse

In the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, my parents taught at an ultra-wealthy boarding school. The students there, though, never displayed their wealth. It was not unusual for them to have custom-tailored or Brooks Brothers jackets with elbow patches. Occasionally, classmates came whose families were new money and didn’t understand this. These students were thought of as vulgar and crass and were ostracized until they got the message. It is conceivable that one of the reasons for this behavior was that to show off wealth showed off greed, and greed was felt to be a very, very bad trait. The religious called it a sin. Wealthy people did not behave in an ostentatious way until the 1980s, when a significant part of our culture shifted, and greed became something good to be aspired to and admired. I think that has been a very serious complication and problem for our society.

As I brought this into worship, it occurred to me that people often think that the opposite of love is either hate or indifference, but maybe it’s actually greed. What came to mind was how Chapter 13 in First Corinthians defines love as patient and kind and not jealous or boastful, etc. Greed is the exact opposite. In reverse, First Corinthians, chapter 13 would say the following: “If I do not have greed I gain nothing of material value Greed is impatient; greed is unkind; it envies, boasts, and is proud. It dishonors others, is self-serving and easily angered, and always seeks revenge. Greed delights in evil and rejoices with lies. It always betrays, always distrusts, always produces despair, always perseveres. Greed makes societies fail. ... And for now, these three remain: falsehood, hate, and greed. But the greatest of these is greed.”

However, the original First Corinthians, chapter 13 gives me hope, for it says, "Where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect, our prophesy imperfect, but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. When we were a child, we thought like a child, and we behaved like a 2-year-old child. When we become adults, we put away childish things. For now, we see only a reflection; then, we shall see face-to-face. Now we know in part; then we shall know fully, even as we are fully known. So, in the end, these are the three things that remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love."

And the final thing that came out of Meeting for Worship is that “It’s always today.” .....................

5/19/24 — From Off the Meetinghouse Floor Message

Fire and Meeting for Worship

With a fire in the fireplace to take off the chill this morning, what came to me was the similarity between a fire and a Meeting for Worship.

A single candle is a thing of beauty in its simplicity, and this can be very meaningful as even mass-produced candles each burn very differently. However, when a fire of different logs is kindled, it burns in a different way. As a single log burns, it moves, which influences and moves the logs it touches, which influences and moves the others. This can happen in unexpected ways, which means it is important to pay attention to ensure that the fire remains contained. As the fire burns, it matures and adjusts to its changes until the time it turns into smoke then ash. After its process is complete, the ash goes to replenish nutrients in the soil. These nutrients help new trees to grow so the cycle continues. Just so, in a Friends Meeting for Worship. As the spiritual light moves within one individual, it connects us to the others gathered in worship. This, in turn, moves us both individually and as a group in unexpected ways. The result is that this provides us with the soil and nutrients for new growth. =====================

5/12/24 — From Off the Meetinghouse Floor Message

Mproper preparation

Today, I was thinking about how, as a preteen, I adored going to Meeting for Worship. I would enlist my brother to coerce my parents to go to Meeting in South Yarmouth in the summers and Framingham in the winters. The only thing I didn’t like about it was that in the 20-to-30-minute car ride to get to the meeting houses, we were not allowed to read the comics. We were also not allowed to fuss or argue with each other because these were not considered proper preparation for Meeting for Worship.

While preparation is often seen as doing something, this was an example that sometimes preparation can be not doing something. Sometimes, during these car rides, when a gentle parental nudge was not sufficient, we would hear the ominous “We will talk about this later.” Gradually, we learned that often, when “later” came, the issue had dissipated or clearly that it wasn’t as big as we had thought.

As we connect to spirit not only in worship but in our wider experience, our preparation could involve not doing some things. If living a centered and grounded life is our intention and goal, perhaps one of the secrets to this is in the phrase, “We’ll speak about it later.” By giving ourselves a time of seasoning and discernment, a new awareness can arrive, and we could come to understand that the issues that distract us from being fully, spiritually prepared are probably insignificant, and ultimately, proper preparation can carry us forward into that life connected to each other, connected to that which is eternal and infinite Love ............................

5/5/24 — From Off the Meetinghouse Floor Message

My Quaker great-grandfather’s blacksmith hammer

Much on my mind lately has been my finding and using my great-grandfather’s blacksmith hammer. There’s something that feels special about working with tools connected to ancestors. It occurred to me that he used the hammer to prepare horses for working in the fields to grow their food, and I used it to prepare the soil for trees to flower, fruit, and grow. This led to contemplating how important preparation is in all we do. Whether it’s cooking a meal or making a piece of jewelry, everything needs preparation, even coming into Meeting for Worship

It’s often said that only a bad craftsperson blames his or her tools or blames somebody else. This is because blaming the tools means either a lack of skill or a lack of experience in choosing or maintaining the tool correctly, and blaming someone else is a method of deflecting responsibility. Sometimes, in Meeting for Worship, we can find ourselves blaming the hard bench, the traffic noises, or a breakfast that upset someone’s stomach for not centering well into worship. In reality, if we have the ability to look at ourselves and specifically to look at the preparation that we engaged in prior to worship, we could find that there are things that we ourselves need to bring to that moment. This is why I set aside Saturdays as a day free from work and use it for R&R, reading, reflection, and prayer.

As this occurred to me, I thought about another grandfather’s tool that my father used almost every day, and I use it upon occasion. It’s a wooden mallet that my grandfather named the “Friendly Persuader.” Sometimes, maybe that’s what it takes in the end. Sometimes we just maybe need that friendly persuader and trust it to nudge us to pay attention to the preparation and get us back on the right track so that our lives can truly be lived in beauty and in peace, in community, and in love. =====================

4/28/24 — From Off the Meetinghouse Floor Message

Searching for Treasure

What was on my mind during worship was the title of the previous day’s daily message, which was searching for treasure. I thought about what the word “treasure” means. If you ask people if they were searching for treasure, what is it that they were hoping to find? The primary definition and what most people would probably answer would be something connoting wealth, some material thing. For others, treasure might be fame, prestige, and respect. Still others might think of treasure as gaining power – power over situations, policies, people, or even over life and death. Looking at the world leaders, the treasure they seek seems to be all of the above – material wealth, prestige, and power. This is essentially what has created such a dire situation, an existential threat to the globe on so many levels.

Contemplating this, it occurred to me that if you change the tense of treasure from a noun to a verb and instead ask people what it is that you treasure. To this, one of the first things people might answer is my family, my friends, and other people I love. And if they do mention an item of wealth, it probably is associated with a person, such as my mother’s engagement ring. Some people might also answer the times of peace, of centeredness, of connection that is felt during worship or a walk in nature, something that connects them to something larger than themselves.

On a recent walk to the beach, my husband and I stopped to chat with an almost 90-year-old man who’s lived on Cape Cod all his life. He said to us that “excessive tranquility is a bad thing,” and the implication was that everyone needs some tension and challenges in their lives to grow and live life to the fullest. Are there any circumstances where excess is not a problem? If everything should be in moderation, does that include moderation? If complete peace is a problem, then when is there something that is, in excess, a good thing? The only thing I could think that qualifies is unconditional love. It is in that space of unconditional love that the problems with the noun, treasure, with searching for wealth or power, or the need for prestige and fame all dissipate. We left with the fullness and that beauty and that light of one in that love. =====================

4/14/24 — From Off the Meetinghouse Floor Message

Full Circle

Just before Sunday’s Meeting for Worship, I read an article about three quotes from Carl Jung. The first was about what we resist persists in our lives. The second came out of the Jungian concept that we as individuals are part of a larger self, and the quote was that you meet yourself hundreds of times in your lifetime, and the third was that which you reject is manifested as an event.

I thought these were interesting, but what really blew my mind was the context in which this article was written. The writer related the discomfort they experienced during the process of a colonoscopy, with the spiritual discomfort they felt from these quotes by Jung. While this was an odd concept, the thing that blew my mind was less than 24 hours earlier, a friend also spoke to me about the discomfort of preparing for a colonoscopy and the difficulty in relating it to spiritual fasting.

While coincidences are scientifically explained by probability or confirmation bias, making that connection just seemed so improbable and unusual I wondered if there was something important I was to pay attention to. So, in prayer, I circled back to those Jungian quotes.

For me, “what I resist persists” is clear in the context of resisting the urge to eat a piece of cake, which does nothing to lessen the desire. I’ve also come to know that things I don’t like in someone else are often things that are present but unacknowledged in myself, and things I reject often manifest in my life. So, what if the message is about coincidence itself? When present, what does it say to us? How does it teach us? How does it form and manifest as the whole universe?

As I was finishing up editing this for this week’s podcast, the Quaker daily message happened to be about spiritual fasting. While the connection could certainly be seen as confirmation bias, I decided to do a search on the spiritual meaning of coincidence. The 1st thing that came up was an article in Psychology Today saying that most scientists believe synchronistic events only seem meaningful and that the concept of synchronicity was developed by (drum roll, please) Carl Jung. So, we have come full circle.

This universe of being is a living wonder. So, perhaps that’s the answer, that it’s all part of and all connected to the awesome creation. Sometimes it’s funny, and sometimes it’s sad. Sometimes it’s beautiful, and sometimes it’s uncomfortable, but we are all just along for the ride and part of the whole. =====================

To many of us at Barnstable Friends Meeting, it seems that as a society we are at an inflection point. 

Great and horrible things are afoot and collectively we can choose which path to take. As this time requires active, diverse, powerful and spiritual ways to move us personally and societally forward toward the goal of beloved community,

please share with white people you know who might need to learn a bit more about why Black Lives Matter.

https://tools4racialjustice.net/ 

May all our lives speak Truth, Justice, 
Peace and Love,
Barnstable Friends Meeting

Toward real peace in a beautiful world

Toward Real Peace in a beautiful world -- published in Cape Cod Times Oct. 16, 2014

Recent letters to the editor criticize County Human Rights commissioner Elenita Muniz for saying “…everyone who is white-skinned is racist.”  One author says she "…should be investigated for hate speech and terminated.”  My purpose for writing is not to judge or get into an argument. Rather to offer a personal statement originally written in 2002 (with slight updating). It also contains a prayer from me and my Friends Meeting for this holiday season, a time of Light returning. 

...

Hello, my name is Rachel and I'm a racist. No, I'm not secretly a member of the KKK; rather I have come to admit that my attitudes and assumptions around race are unmanageable in a just society. I look to a Power greater then myself to restore me to sanity. 

Just as our collective thinking about what it means to be an alcoholic has changed from simply a derelict with a paper sack to include "respectable" people, so my personal thinking has changed regarding the affliction of racism. The American Heritage Dictionary defines a racist as a person who “…believes that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.” While I certainly don't consciously believe this, what about an unconscious belief because of being raised in white privilege? Doesn't this count?  

At a very early age I was very carefully taught and conditioned. Being from a "good" Quaker family, it was most easy for me to deny any part of this problem.  Of course prejudice is wrong. And after all, Friends were on the forefront of the civil rights movement.  Yet white privilege has affected the very structure of my mind. I viewed white practices, customs and attitudes as the norm against which others were to be compared. My spirit requires that I now struggle with the results of these attitudes and entitlements not enjoyed by other groups, including: 

•  Not having to see or feel that Ferguson or all such incidents — before and after — are in any way connected to me or are my problem.

•  Still looking at faces of my society’s leaders and seeing mostly people of my race (congress is 87% white yet people of color make up 30% of our population).

•  Having my race be the source of all the art and music "Great Masterpieces.”

•  Being taught in school about all the famous explorers, philosophers, leaders, etc. who happened to all be members of my race. The list goes on.

Although I have been slow to precisely name my addiction, I have been in recovery for some time now.  Knowing that I am FAR from perfect, I try to educate myself, promptly admit it when I am wrong regarding issues faced by people of color, and work at make amends. Just as importantly, I seek through prayer to bring spiritual energy for a solution both within my heart and the world.  I look forward to someday reaping a harvest of Joy, Light and Oneness.

.....

In closing we ask each reader: Are we morally, spiritually and visibly, stepping into this moment?  Are we bearing witness both to the injustice and also to how Spirit is being made manifest for us at this particular time and situation? How do we build a truly beloved community that embraces that of God in everyone? Are we a part of this awakening, speaking Truth about who we are in relationship to all humankind, all our relations? 

At this season, may each of us be lamps of pure Love and Light to bring a new dawn of real peace into this beautiful world.

Rachel Carey-Harper

Barnstable Friends Meeting

Our Letters to the Editor

(letter appeared in Cape Cod Times August 20, 2015)

Not a Solution
Doing away with the Noah shelter is not a solution and could make the problem worse. Reduce the number of beds available and people will still be here, some causing more problems not less. Moving the shelter makes it hard for people we don't have cars to get to work or mental health services which doesn’t help. Ending homelessness need a layered approach. We need 1. some sort of housing that is affordable for people working minimum wage jobs,  2. housing, education and job development for people who have gone through recovery from addiction, etc but not solidly on their feet and for people beginning recovery, like Homeless Not Hopeless  3. a place like Noah shelter.
Most of all though, we need compassion.  We need to understand that this is holy work. The Bible specifically demands hospitality toward the other  "for you were strangers in a strange land" (Lev. 19:34 and see Ex. 12:49).  Isaiah states that one of the duties of those spiritually connected is to "give thy bread to the hungry," and to "bring the poor that are cast out to thy house" (Isa. 58:7).
Where will people go if Noah Shelter is closed?  Will you bring people into your home? What happens in January and zero degrees? What if it was your son or father, your sister or you?
Rachel Carey-Harper for Barnstable Friends Meeting (a Preparative Meeting of Mattapoisset Monthly Meeting)

(letter appeared in Cape Cod Times,  published  5/29/2014)

Dear Editor,
While we applaud Harwich Conservation Trust's hope to purchase 40 acres in Harwich ("Scrambling to buy some history" May 26 CCTimes), we are concerned that it would be a purchase of stolen land only once removed from the family that perpetrated, and for centuries profited from, the theft in the first place. By what right did the land transfer from Wampanoag people? In all likelihood it was through the Doctrine of Christian Discovery. Receiving stolen property is a crime and in many cases there is no statue of limitations.   We encourage people who are not descendants of the original inhabitants to consider this because the harm that has been done and the privileges enjoyed by our ancestors and even today by us personally, whether we know it or not,  have serious consequences for our souls.   That of God within,  the essence of who we really are, exists in eternity, therefore serious wrongs do not dissipate with the passage of time.  There is a good way to move forward in an effort to be in right relationship with our indigenous neighbors. The long journey of healing begins with the first steps of interrupting the behavior and knowing about and acknowledging the harm.  There are alternatives including a donation of the property to Native Land Conservancy, Inc.  19 Pine Road Mashpee, MA 02649. This way, true love can prevail.
Rachel Carey-Harper, Barnstable Friends Meeting (a Preparative Meeting of Mattapoisset Monthly Meeting)

(letter appeared in Cape Cod Times,  published  12/02/2012 )

Truth
A recent article about clearing the homeless camps says its purpose was to "encourage people living in them to get off the streets" but is this true? The high price for a rental apartment, "affordable housing" geared to middle income wage earners,  coupled with the extreme difficulties that any organization has in establishing a group living situation and the many bylaws of our towns seems designed to punish rather then help. To walk a path to solve this problem requires reassessment,  both community policies, priorities and personal attitudes.
We are ALL part of the Divine whole; the illusions of the world do give way to the infinite place of Love like the sun through a Cape Cod foggy morning.  Rather then punish the poor, the disabled, those who sleep in the dust , you and I can be part of the solution. We are all related, more same then different, each of us doing our very best to fulfill our divine purpose with all our stumbling even if we can't see it in the "other".  Let's be examples of healing not harm, focusing on Light in heart and mind and spirit and walk cheerfully through this together.
Rachel Carey-Harper, clerk
Barnstable Friends Meeting, Marstons Mills