Barnstable Friends Meeting
a Preparative Meeting of Mattapoisett Monthly Meeting
Sunday
Thursday
Wednesday
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.
SPOTIFY
OR RADIO PUBLIC
3-03-24 — From Off the Meetinghouse Floor Message
WXYZ = the Answer. (hint: like the beloved childhood game something hidden is only discovered by seeking)
One of the things I’ve been contemplating is how almost everyone, at some point, will ask themselves, “What is my purpose in life?” We ask ourselves over and over at the different stages of our lives “Why am I here,” . There can often be radically different ways we respond to this existential question.
Recently, a dear friend who had only a few more days to live asked me if I knew for certain how to tell that your life has purpose, if I knew how to know if the work of your life is completed. When I shook my head “No,” she responded, “If you’re alive, life has purpose; if you’re alive, the work of your life isn’t complete.” Clearly, her life’s purpose was something that she was thinking about, and she was modeling the answer.
As this came into my meditations, I had a sort of odd, whimsical response to this question. At any stage of our lives, the clear purpose is found in the last four letters of the alphabet, WXYZ. The explanation goes like this: “W” is a double “U” as in “you.” It’s the “you” that exists here on the material level and also the “you” that is on the spiritual plane, the “double you.” Next, the letter “X” is often used mathematically for times or multiplied by. So now we have the “double you” multiplied by “Y” as in w-h-y.
It is within the WHY,within the asking of the question, that our purpose is revealed. It is the seeking that is important and not actually the finding. Growing up every time I shared a thought or said I wanted to do something or go somewhere or buy something my mother would ask me why. I found it extremely annoying, but later in life, I realized how important that question is. Life and our purpose here is about the journey rather than the destination.
WXY being explained left me wondering about the “Z.” It occurred to me that the “Z” is often colloquially used for sleep, and sleep is a form of rest. Perhaps the time of rest is a critical piece of this experience. It’s the seeking and then the resting that allows the journey to happen. In music, if there were no space between the notes, it would just be noise. Music needs periods of rest to make it both meaningful and beautiful. Rest gives us time to listen deeply; it gives us a moment to truly see what is all around us. Rest allows us to enjoy the warmth of love and the light of awareness of our connections.
On all levels of our lives multiplied by seeking and resting, we find our purpose. With all the others who share this journey around the sun year after year, we build the world, until by using the last letters WXYZ, we transition to whatever comes next. =====================
2-25-24 — From Off the Meetinghouse Floor Message
Treating each other tenderly in that place of love.
his morning, I was thinking about how one of the key tenets of every religion that stems from the Abrahamic traditions holds that one should not engage in idolatry. Yet it doesn’t take a lot of deep thinking to wonder about whether that’s been forgotten in this supposedly predominately Christian society.
Idolatry is defined as excessive or blind reverence, devotion, or worship of something or someone other than God. The primary source of this is, of course, Biblically when the Israelites, whether by request or coercion, donated their wealth to construct the golden calf. Today, perhaps that idolatrous behavior can be seen in the bronze statue of a bull on Wall Street, the exuberance of a bull market, or even the purchase of golden sneakers. What does our society as a whole really, really worship? How different is that from the Israelites in the desert?
As I thought more deeply about that, it became clear that even if true, challenging someone else’s hypocrisy is absolutely foolhardy. So, rather, I thought about myself. How and when is it that another person can productively encourage me to look at some of my behavior critically, especially if it’s something I hold dear? I realize that it is possible only if the person who is sharing their observation is someone who I know truly and deeply loves and respects me and, even then, only if the observation is being shared with a tender heart. So perhaps that’s the key: the only way to move forward with one another is to be in that space of deep, abiding, and committed true love, care, and respect. Perhaps it is by treating each other tenderly in that place of love that can bring the light to form a more perfect union with each other and with that which is Eternal. =====================
2-18-24 — From Off the Meetinghouse Floor Message
The importance of learning.
Toward the end of Meeting, something came strongly to me about the importance and role of learning in our lives. Sometimes we think of learning as just something we do when we go to school, but actually we learn every moment of our life. We learn how to tie our shoelaces, and later on in life, some people might need to learn how to drink a glass of water with shaky hands. We learn from the time we are born to the time we die. The process of being open to and loving learning can mean that each morning, we wake up excited about the chance to learn something new, and this increases joy in our lives. This love of learning keys us together into the creative process that exists inside ourselves and each other and connecting all of us together with the ultimate Creator, the Divine creation of love, light, and peace.
Another message was about the personal meaningfulness of two Mother Teresa quotes: first, “We can do no great things, only small things with great love;” And to the speaker of this message the truth is that great things are made up of a lot of small things. And the second quote, "we can all do small things with great love, and together we can do something wonderful.” =====================
Saturday
Thursday
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
Wednesday
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-HarperBarnstable Friends Meeting