8-16-26 - The Cheerful Revolt of Returning to Joy

The Cheerful Revolt of Returning to Joy

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

August 16, 2026

Good morning, Friends, and welcome to Light Reflections. The scripture I have chosen to support my message for this morning is John 4:10 from the  Message version.

Jesus answered, “If you knew the generosity of God and who I am, you would be asking me for a drink, and I would give you fresh, living water.”

Friends, last week, after I shared about going to the sea to be renewed and revived, I had some great conversations about our travels, but one conversation had me thinking more about this “Living Water” that we hear about often in the scriptures.

Whether it was specifically the invitation to the Samaritan woman at the well or Christ’s invitation to each of us to partake in the “living waters” that flow from his heart, he was offering something that we seem to struggle to engage with still, today.

I will be the first to say, there are seasons when the Living Water feels far away.

It is like we are landlocked spiritually.

We may even look inside ourselves and find only a dry well.

The weight of the world, the static of our daily anxieties, and the sheer exhaustion of trying to manage life in our own strength can slowly extinguish our inner joy.

We do not lose our faith, but we lose our voice or maybe even the song of our heart – that spark of joy that gives us hope and purpose.  

In our Quaker tradition, we know it is a mistake to fake this condition. We do not manufacture artificial joy (or at least we shouldn’t).

We should not force a smile to mask a heavy heart. To do so would be a violation of our commitment to integrity.

When joy is absent, we must first have the courage to acknowledge the silence and the emptiness.  

As I started my sabbatical, I was in need of seeking the Living Water and I will be honest, my inner well was dry.  

But I had to face and acknowledge what was causing my dryness.  For me, social media, politics, family challenges, life changes, the struggles of my neighbors and friends, and just daily ministry were all weighing heavy on me as I entered my sabbatical time, and I knew I could not just flip a switch to return my joy.    

Quaker Bruce Henry (I do not believe any relation to me), presiding clerk of the Religious Society of Friends in Australia echoes this truth; that we cannot flip a switch and be brought back into the light. In a reflection in The Daily Quaker Message, he says.

“It is very hard to find anything joyful if you are suffering grief, loss, pain or sadness... [He continues] For me those feelings don't stay with me, so I find myself returning to silent prayer over and over.”

Turning off social media and the news, alone, allowed me to enter the silence and hear again the still small voice of the Divine. I found as my three months progressed entering the silence became easier, and the Living Water returned - first as a trickle and by the end I sensed a fuller flow, again. 

But let me not get ahead of myself.  

A query that I needed to ask myself, and I know many of you struggle with, is

“Why does our joy leave us in the first place?”

Often, it is because we have allowed our outer busyness and the weight of the world around us to sever our connection to our inward Teacher.

We become captured by the "notions" of the world—the constant pressure to produce, to fix, and to control.

When we are overwhelmed, our instinct is often to hide. We retreat into the shadows of our own minds and seek to protect our exhaustion.

But folks, joy cannot grow in isolation.

If we wrap ourselves tightly in our worries, we block the Living Waters that are trying to refresh us. As the 20th-century Quaker sociologist and peace activist Elise Boulding wrote in her classic pamphlet:

“The real difference between happiness and joy is that one is grounded in this world, the other in eternity. Happiness cannot encompass suffering and evil. Joy can... Joy leaps into the future and triumphantly creates a new present out of it.”

Returning to joy requires a “holy” surrender. Did you know that we are offered a moment each week to do this right here? When we enter a quiet meeting for worship, we sit down with our weariness, and then have the opportunity to actively lay it down.  

What I realized is that this does not just have to happened in worship, but it can happen anywhere.  It could happen in your backyard, on a walk, in the car, sitting by the river or the sea (I think it might be easier there as I said last week). 

Another thing I realized was that we must stop trying to solve ourselves. In his seminal book, A Testament of Devotion, 20th-century Quaker mystic Thomas Kelly described this process as "centering down" to a place of eternal peace. He says,

“The mark of this simplified life is radiant joy... It binds all obedient souls together in the fellowship of humility and simple adoration... This amazing simplification comes when we 'center down,' when life is lived with singleness of eye, from a holy Center where the breath and stillness of Eternity are heavy upon us and we are wholly yielded to Him.”

Joy returns when we realize that the Seed—the Christ within, the Divine Spark or Light (whatever we want to call it) - has never actually left us. It was merely buried under the rubble of our crowded and complicated lives.

When we quiet our own frantic spirits, we allow the soft, persistent warmth of God’s presence to melt the ice around our souls.

Richard Foster builds on this, reminding us that true joy frees us from taking our own egos too seriously:

“Joy, not grit, is the hallmark of holy obedience. We need to be light-hearted in what we do to avoid taking ourselves too seriously. It is a cheerful revolt against self and pride.”

Even though Foster calls it a “cheerful revolt,” joy is not loud or boisterous. Rather, it’s a quiet, resilient peace. It’s the steady assurance that we are held in a love that does not depend on our circumstances.

When joy returns to you and me, it inevitably breaks outward into our actions. It alters how we walk in the world. It makes us tender, prompting us to notice the simple gifts we were previously too busy to see. I cannot agree with this more.

Friend Judith Goedecke beautifully observed:

“Faith and hope are not about believing everything will be alright. They call us to our purpose: to love one another. They call us to constantly cultivate love in quiet ways through it all… In turn, faith and hope promise us that... joy and love will comfort...”

Folks, true Quaker joy is experimental - meaning it is lived, tested, and experienced. That means it must be tried and honed in a community we can trust and feel safe in.

Thus, you and I can build the strength to face a broken world not with despair, but with a radical, quiet hope, together.

Let us sink down to that holy center today, so that we may leave this place ready to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in everyone.

Amen.

Now, as we center down and enter our time of waiting worship, think about what you need to surrender this morning and ask yourselves the following queries:

·      Am I running, willing, or striving in my own strength right now, and has it crowded out my access to the Inward Teacher?

• Am I expecting happiness (which depends on outward happenings) or am I actively centering down to cultivate joy?

• What distractions or worldly pressures must I actively lay down on the floor of the meeting house today so that my mind can become still and receptive?

• How can we, as a community, support one another when a Friend's light has grown faint, holding space for them until their joy returns?

8-9-26 - I Go to the Sea…

I Go to the Sea…

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

August 9, 2026

Good morning, Friends and welcome to Light Reflections. The scripture I have chosen to support my message for today is Revelation 22:1 from the New Revised Standard Version.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.

It is hard to believe it has been three months since I shared a message with you, but it is good to be back and catching up with all that has been happening in your lives. I am extremely grateful for my time away and for your dedication to fill the gap while I have been gone.  Specifically, thank you to our great ministry team, Beth, Eric, Chrissy, and Rebecca, Ministry & Council, Fellowship and Connections Committees, and all of you who stepped up to provide messages, write articles, and give pastoral care to one another. I am grateful for your dedication to our Meeting and proud to call you Friends. 

This morning, I would like to briefly share a little of my journey and something I have gleaned from my time away. Since Sue and I covered over 6300 miles by boat, car, and on foot, I have not only learned a great deal, but experienced much more, which to be honest will take months or even years to fully process. 

Without any interaction on Social Media for three months, I found time to read ten books during my sabbatical. And I bought or was given almost 30 books during the three months to further my studies on a variety of subjects (thanks to library sales, Goodwills, used bookstores, and museum shops on our travels).  

For a week between travelling, I fully engaged my creative side at IU Heron School of Art where I stepped out of my go-to medias and tried my hand at jewelry and print making, as well as interpretive painting and linocuts. 

Over the hottest July 4th weekend, I think in Indiana history, Sue and I became Traveling Fast Pitch Softball Parents for our 15-year-old niece, as her mom (Sue’s sister) is battling cancer. Talk about a new experience coming from a family of all boys.  

Since the first book I ever really enjoyed reading was Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn in 7th grade, I dedicated some time on this sabbatical to follow the life of Mark Twain. After reading Ron Chernow’s wonderful biography of Twain, Sue and I spent a week in Hannibal, Missouri on the Great Mississippi for our wedding anniversary. We traveled to Florida, Missouri where Twain was born, saw all the sights in Hannibal from his boyhood home to the cave that inspired Tom Sawyer.  We even took the Mark Twain paddle boat for a trip down the Mississippi during a picturesque sunset on our anniversary. 

Later in the summer, we visited Twain’s eccentric home in Hartford, Connecticut and finished our travels in Elmira, New York to see the actual study where he wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn on his summer retreats.  We also paused to pay homage at his grave before heading back to Indiana. 

Since one of my goals for sabbatical was to seek my own family and Quaker history, we began our east coast trip in New Castle, Delaware. There, Sue, Sam, and I stood on the pier where both my ancestors and William Penn stepped foot in the New World.  After a full day of immersing ourselves in the New Castle, Delaware history, we ventured outside of town to the land in which William Penn gave my relatives called Barker’s Bridge.  I took a moment to walk down to the creek that ran through their property and see the beautiful land which today is both a new subdivision and a nature preserve. 

The following day, we traveled to Old Swede’s Church in Wilmington, Delaware to begin the search for the graves of my ancestors.  After a tour of the church where several of my ancestors were married, we began the search for any of the surviving tomb stones of my relatives.  Searching through the 1000 or so mostly washed-out stones left us with no success, that is until we received some help from our guide, who found the burial sight of Margaret Barker and then Samuel who originally came with William Penn on the ship, Welcome in 1682. There are few words to describe the moment we realized we were standing at their graves and putting our history together. This memory will remain with me the rest of my life.

After the success of validating my family history at Old Swedes, we began what I will call a Quaker history tour.  We stopped at Wilmington Monthly Meeting and Graveyard, where we received a tour of the Meetinghouse from the caretaker. Wilmington Meeting was the last major stop on the East Coast overland route of the Underground Railroad. Buried outside the meetinghouse was Thomas Garrett (Stationmaster of the Underground Railroad), who led the anti-slavery effort on the Delaware peninsula. Garrett is credited with helping more than 2700 slaves escape to freedom.

Leaving Delaware, we stopped briefly in Hartford, Connecticut for Mark Twain’s home before continuing our Quaker history tour at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. We spent an entire day in this dense museum, learning not only about whaling history but our Quaker history as well.  If you get a chance do not miss experiencing New Bedford and this museum.  

From there we settled in Bourne, Massachusetts, in the heart of Cape Cod.  Two miles from our hotel was Sandwich, Massachusetts, where stands the Sandwich Meeting of Friends and Quaker graveyard, established in 1657, it is the oldest continuous Quaker Meeting in North America.  

We spent most of one day in Woods Hole learning about the Oceanographic Institution and ocean research and science and enjoying a sea village on the Great Bay.

After some good advice from a bookseller in New Bedford, we changed our plans and backtracked to Westport, Massachusetts out off Buzzard’s Bay.  There we were told to visit Allen’s Pond Wildlife Sanctuary part of the Massachusetts’s Audubon. On the way we were encouraged to stop at Davoll’s General Store – a market, bookstore, and pub. (I almost decided to stay here.) After a nice lunch in the pub, I purchased a book on Quaker and Captain Paul Cuffee (who I have preached on a couple times at First Friends). If you remember, Paul was the son of a freed slave and an Indian mother and created the first integrated school in America. He achieved great success as a mariner, merchant, even returned ex-slaves back to Africa.

While reading through the book that night, I found out that the land we had taken an 8-mile hike on that afternoon in Allen’s Pond was once Paul Cuffee’s land.  And even Davoll’s General Store (the oldest general store in the United States) was originally named Slocum’s - which is Paul Cuffee’s dad, Cuff Slocum’s last name and that property once was theirs as well. We had to make a stop at Westport Monthly Meeting and Gravesite to visit the monument and grave of Paul Cuffee.  The Meetinghouse there was established in 1787. 

From there we travelled to Boston and walked the Freedom Trail from Boston Common to Bunker Hill.  It seemed a perfect time to visit as our country is celebrating it’s 250th birthday.  So much history in a 2.5 mile stretch of Boston and so much to ponder about our founding and the many atrocities that helped form our “not-so-perfect” union.

From Boston we made one last stop in Salem, Massachusetts. Each year on the Sunday nearest Halloween, we here at First Friends celebrate “Advocate for Witches Sunday” in honor of Quaker Thomas Maule who wrote the first condemnation of the witch trials.  Fellow Friend and Pastor Rachel Doll O’Mahoney had encouraged me to visit the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem.  They have an entire section dedicated to the true history of the Witch Trials.  At the end it acknowledges Thomas Maule’s work.  But even more the museum houses the actual 1679 meeting house that Thomas Maule helped construct. Interestingly, this meetinghouse would fit probably four or five times in our meeting room, it is more like a large red shed. I plan to share more about what all I learned in October. 

Well, that is a very brief overview of our travels and I am sure I will be sharing a lot more in the weeks and months to come.  But this morning, I want to share one interesting revelation I received on my time away. 

If you notice, many of the places we visited involved water.  To help us start off our rest and relaxation part of this sabbatical we took a 7-day cruise in the Atlantic and Caribbean Sea. In Hannibal, I mentioned that we stayed on the Mississippi River.  In New Castle we stayed on the Delaware River.  In Cape Cod we stayed on the Cape Cod Canal and visited both Cape Cod Bay and Buzzard’s Bay, and Woods Hole’s Great Bay.  We ended the Freedom Trail in Boston at Boston Harbor.  In Salem we could not miss Salem Harbor. And at Marblehead we had a view of the Atlantic Ocean from a top “Old Burial Hill” – one of the Oldest Graveyards in our country dating back to 1630.

There is something about water, about a river, about the sea that speaks to me.   

I found you can’t go to New Bedford Whaling Museum without yearning to read Moby Dick (which I am half-way through right now). In it, Ishmael goes to the sea to cure his depression and escape the gloomy land.

Mark Twain wrote in Life on the Mississippi (which I read during sabbatical),

“The face of the water, in time, became a wonderful book—a book that was a dead language to the uneducated passenger, but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice”

In my first weeks of sabbatical, I was given the book Theo of Golden (maybe one of the best books I have read in my entire life).  I read it once in two days and then read it out loud to Sue through a variety of emotions.  In that book the river is seen as a place of reflection, continuity, and the quiet transformative power of human connection. It represents a space for introspection, allowing Theo (the main character) to process his past, consider the lives of others, and plan his acts of kindness, which ultimately ripple through the community. Sue and I took a detour on our way to Florida for our cruise to stop in Columbus, Georgia the town that the story Theo of Golden is based upon. It lies on the Chattahoochee River. 

Now, I grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana – a town where three rivers converge.  My grandparents lived on Canal Street in New Haven, Indiana which once followed the Wabash Canal.  I have lived close to both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.  I have worked on the Chain-o-Lakes, Lake Texoma, and just down the street from Silver Falls State Park (which was known for the most water falls on the entire west coast).  

Bodies of water and rivers have been important to my development and spiritual growth.

It was while I was in my master’s program that the book, “Streams of Living Water” by Quaker Richard Foster introduced me to the river and stream metaphors that center on the life-giving flow of the Spirit and the convergence of historic faith traditions. This imagery helped me embrace the unification of diverse spiritual paths, and ultimately the refreshing nature of God's grace.

Maybe this is all because rivers, streams, oceans and bodies of water are powerful symbols of life and change.

They can be seen as mirrors reflecting our own struggles and triumphs. They teach us about the cycle of life, the importance of balance, and the resilience of nature. They remind us that even in the face of destruction, they can heal and renew. Just maybe instead of watching the news – we should go sit by a river or pond. I know it has renewed me these past three months.

At the beginning of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem is a section titled, “Water, Land, and Sky” from a Native perspective.  There it reads,

“Water is Life…Water sustains us all, providing sustenance and shelter for all living beings, including humans, plants, and animals. In its many forms, water shapes the land and provides oceans, rivers, and lakes.  Water figures prominently in origin stories, ceremonies, and political relations for many Native peoples. Water ways connect Native kinship ties across Turtle Island, a collective term for Indigenous North America.”

And all this brings me to the scripture I chose, today. In the book of Revelation of all places. It describes a River of Life. It too is a metaphor or symbol of life and spiritual nourishment. It is said to flow from the throne of God and of the Lamb, representing the sustaining presence of God Himself.

The river's clarity and purity symbolize the holiness and righteousness of God, from which all blessings flow. It serves as a reminder of the healing and restoration that God offers to His people, offering hope and comfort in the face of trials and tribulations.

So, on this sabbatical…

·      Like Ishmael, I went to the sea (and will continue to go).

·      Like Twain the “face of water” has shared its secrets with me.

·      Like Theo I have reflected, processed my past, and considered the lives of others.

·      Like Foster the streams have led me to new insights and refreshment in God’s grace.

·      And like Native people, I have learned that water has been prominent in my origin story and continues to bring and sustain life.

I must continue to go to the sea, the river, to the bay, to the stream, to the pond, to the water.

Amen.  

Now, let’s take a moment to quiet our hearts and ask ourselves some queries:  

·      What body of water has inspired or spoken to my soul? And why?

·      Am I being called to go?

8-2-26 - The Splendor of God Revealed through Creation - Beth Henricks

The Splendor of God Revealed through Creation
Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting
Pastor Beth Henricks
August 2, 2026

Psalm 42:1-3

As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.  My soul thirsts  for God, for the living God.  When shall I come and behold the face of God?  My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me continually, Where is your God?

Good morning, friends.  It is wonderful to be with you today for our Sunday Funday.  I’d like to welcome Bob and Sue back from their 3-month sabbatical.  We look forward to hearing about their experiences  over the next few weeks and months and how this sabbatical has impacted them.

 I love this day for so many reasons.  What a joy to watch our young people have such fun on the water slide and  play other games on our lovely property.   I always look forward to enjoying our annual picnic, tasting the special treats many of you prepare to share.  And our worship on this Sunday outside takes on an added element of reverence and awe as we experience the splendor of God revealed through nature. 

God does reveal God’s self in many ways to us.  This is the way we know God is real and not just some consciousness of the mind.  God is certainly revealed through the life and teachings of Jesus and through the truths shared in the Bible.  God is also revealed through our children and our relationships one with another.  But for me, the dazzling purity and sense of brilliance is most revealed through nature and all creation around us. 

The pastor and writer David Owen wrote, “One way to love God whom we have not seen is to love God’s creation which we have seen.  In part, to love creation is simply to enjoy it, but for me , loving creation as God’s creation includes wonder and awe and reverence in the face of that creation.” 

I appreciate the story in Exodus 33:18-22 where Moses wants to make sure that he is following God’s will and asks God to show himself.  Moses said, ‘Show me your glory, I pray.’ 19And God said, ‘I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you the name, “The LORD”; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. 20But’, he said, ‘you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live.’ 21And the LORD continued, ‘See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock; 22and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; 23then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen.’

God wants to respond to Moses request but knows that no one can visibly see God that is beyond being.  What an intimate gesture that God puts Moses in a cleft of the rock where he will be safe and can experience the presence of God through his surroundings (because I don’t think God has a back but it makes a great story).

God is continuously revealed to us if we only have eyes to see and ears to hear. 

I like what the writer and pastor Eugene Peterson writes in Lights A Lovely Mile,

“Speaking to our sense of and our speculation about the absence of God is the single word manifested.  From the same Greek root, we get our word phenomenon.  When a manifestation takes place, when a phenomenon occurs, it means that there has been a showing, a revealing, a display.  In other words, God has shown us something of himself.  He is not absent; he is here, and we can see the evidence, the phenomenon.” 

“”God, you see, was no hidden manager of the universe, no enigmatic universal force, no mysterious secret occult.  He was a God known among his people.  God’s splendor was that he showed himself.” 

The revelation of God is constant.  Every dawn, every dusk, every rainfall, every tree, flower and brush, every animal, every baby that becomes human from a cell and a sperm etc.  It is all amazing, incredible and a miracle if we take the time to observe. 

Mary Oliver is one of my favorite poets and she often finds and describes God in creation.  In her book, Upstream, Selected Essays   she writes  “Do you think there is anything not attached by its unbreakable cord to everything else?  Plant your peas and your corn in the field when the moon is full, or risk failure.  This has been understood since planting began.  The attention of the seed to the draw of the moon is, I suppose, measurable, like the tilt of the planet.  Or, maybe not – maybe you have to add some immeasurable ingredient made of the hour, the singular field, the hand of the sower.”

We have been talking this summer about community, connection and interdependence here at First Friends.  These values extend beyond our own community and into nature, creation,  our country and the world.  We go to the center to find the source of our connection.  Everything is interconnected and cannot survive without all the webs of connection within and without.  While God is revealed in creation, we humans have an important role to play to continue the evolution of life from birth, death and rebirth.  This cycle plays out into eternity and we have a responsibility to be good stewards, good sowers, good hands and feet in the revelation of God.  May we practice this awareness with each breath we take, each bird we see, each child we watch play, each piece of food that enters our mouths today and with the fellowship we experience on this glorious Sunday Funday.

As we enter our time of waiting worship, I offer a few queries for your consideration:

In what ways does God reveal God to you?
            What is my part of creation?
            What can I do today to reveal God to others?

7-26-26 - Change, Conflict, and Trust - Tom Rockwell

Change, Conflict, and Trust

Tom Rockwell

July 26, 2026

I’m Tom Rockwell, Associate Superintendent of Western Yearly Meeting

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately talking to Meetings about change, transitions, and the fears and anxieties that surface in these unpredictable periods of new beginnings.

And if there was ever a season when congregations needed a new beginning, it is now.

Pretty much every church in America—of every size, tradition, and theology—is trying to reinvent itself for the current moment.

And if we’re honest, most are not doing very well. The world has changed faster than most churches' habits and structures, and faster than our imaginations and cultures can even grasp.

The lack of adaptation shows: Quakers closed 24% of their meetings and churches between 2010-2020.

Pretty much every other church sees similar or worse decline. The world has changed very rapidly and churches have struggled to keep themselves relevant to the lives of younger generations.          

So in pretty much every church you see a much greater share of grey heads than you would have seen 30 years ago.        Churches being mostly older is not problematic in every way but it obviously bodes ill for the future of churches.

There is a vast array of sociological changes that underlie these trends: the digital revolution, change in american family structures, huge economic changes, women entering the workforce, the rise of spiritual but not religious people. The list goes on.

But for now I just want one statistic that emphasizes the amount of change younger generations experience to show what we have to respond to.

So I have focused on moving: Baby boomers moved on average 1.28 times per decade after reaching 18 years of age. Millennials have moved 2.97 times per decade.

So on average, millennials have moved every four years or so. Not easy to settle down, to join a community, to lay deep roots, when you’re constantly on the move.

And Friends Meetings are all about deep roots and deep communities. What we have to offer - the deep community that young people really want - is very difficult for younger people to really access.

First Friends Indy has been talking this summer about how they can be closer as a meeting and develop deeper relationships. I think this is exactly what meetings should be focusing on. How do we deepen our relationships and then how do we invite new people into those relationships?

I want to focus in on the ways the anxiety we all experience from how much our world has changed gets in the way of deep relationship

            There are tangible ways like young people moving, but there are also more nebulous ways this anxiety impacts that I think are really important.

The instability and anxiety that comes from our constantly changing world often causes us to avoid conflict in our inner circles because we just can’t deal with more change and anxiety

Those avoided conflicts tend to pile up and erode our trust with each other because we’re never talking about what’s really going on and very small conflicts can become difficult to navigate, let alone bigger conflicts.

Conflict is actually necessary for us to build trust with each other and trust is the bedrock of deeper relationship.

So, Today I want to talk about ways change, anxiety, and conflict, appear in the Bible and how the people of God have responded to those changes.

I especially want to focus on anxiety.

When we are forced to deal with new things and unknown people, we become anxious.

We don’t know what will be expected of us, it becomes difficult to even define who “us” is. Who are the people we are trying to serve? How do we try to meet the needs of new people, we don’t even know what they want?

If we want to be a people who can speak to the brokenness of the world and the people caught in that brokenness. It is important for us to speak the truth and to be able to navigate the conflicts that inevitably come from the truth.

It is important for us to say aloud: when we start to talk about change, when we start to be more direct with each other and willing to enter conflict in order to build trust, we start to experience anxiety. Trying to change touches nerves. It awakens grief. Conflict puts us on edge. It surfaces fears we have carried silently.

And that is not a problem—that is actually evidence that God is working. Our job in thinking about the future and change is to remind each other that God is calling us to be a community that can speak to what folks in the world need today.

To do that work we need to be able to remind each other that anxiety and discomfort are normal in change and conflict and build skills to encourage each other through the process.

Now,I want to look at three images of this kind of change work in the Bible so that we have some stories to fall back on in encouraging each other and thinking about change.

Scripture gives lots of powerful images of communities in transition, mostly filled with anxiety. I want to focus on three examples.

The first image is Israel in the wilderness

Discomfort with change comes up repeatedly throughout the stories of Israel’s exodus from Egypt. These stories are the standard image for talking about change and anxiety in the Bible.

In the stories the people of Israel have escaped Egypt and crossed the Red Sea. God has parted waters, fed them with manna, guided them with cloud and fire.

And yet—they are anxious. And anxious communities revert to old norms.

They say, “Let us go back to Egypt. At least there we knew what to expect.” They grumble, they get nostalgic, they idealize the past, they turn on their leaders, they lose courage. And they express a desire to go back to a situation where they were literally enslaved to avoid having to deal with new situations that make them anxious.

My favorite Specific Example is the story of the Israelites when they have first surveyed the promised land of Canaan.

Numbers 14:14:1-4: That night all the members of the community raised their voices and wept aloud. 2 All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, “If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this wilderness! 3 Why is the Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?” 4 And they said to each other, “We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt.

God has brought the people to a new home, they are on the cusp of the reward God has given them for faithfulness and rather than act in faith and go into this new land, they revert to anxiety.

Rather than look at the actual issue they’re dealing with: the fear they have of the people who live in the promised land, they say instead we need new leaders who will take us back to comfort.

They say let's just go back to the way it was! This is too different and too hard!

They avoid what they’re actually afraid of and find a scapegoat - moses - for their fears.

RECAP: This image of God bringing the people of Israel into a new way of life of plenty and freedom that they continually reject out of fear, is the perfect image for our congregations today. It is a continual reminder that we are going to have anxious reactions to new situations and new people and we have an obligation to encourage one another to resist this anxiety.

The second biblical image around Change is Jesus himself.

The pattern of the gospel is death and resurrection—letting go and receiving something new. Change is not the enemy of faith in Christ; it is woven into its very center. You cannot follow a resurrected Lord and expect nothing to die. Christian faith is not about trying to keep dying things alive just the way they are, but instead to live into a cycle of renewal through the new life God continually brings us.

This Christian focus on death and renewal runs against our natural instincts. We tend to fear letting of what we have more than the reward of what will come from change.

Sociological research - Loss aversion

Obviously the wider Religious community of Jesus day was threatened and made anxious by Jesus ministry of change, they decided that they had to kill him to put an end to it - at least so they thought.

But it’s important for us to remember that Jesus’s message of change was threatening for those who believed in him as well.

Matthew 16:21-23: Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

22 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”

23 Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

Jesus’s ministry was uncomfortable for those who believed in the ministry. It was not what they were expecting. They thought God was leading them in the direction of a new king who would rule over a new Israelite empire. But instead God was leading them to a kingdom of service to all peoples, not just the people of Israel.

In his fear of the unknown, Peter rejects the center of Jesus ministry, against the words of Jesus himself, and instead focuses on the way he currently experiences the world rather than the new world that God is inviting Peter into.

Jesus refuses to let Peter avoid this essential truth, he pushes back against Peter and says “No you’re seeing things all wrong, this is what has to happen and what is going to happen”.

The story of the Israelites in the desert and the story of Jesus are examples of poorly navigated conflict and well navigated conflict, they’re also big stories where God intervenes very directly in the world. God is leading the people in the desert, Jesus is physically present with the disciples.

But the changes we are experiencing ourselves are a bit different, sociological changes in a rapidly changing work. The change we are looking at is how do we make the message of God as interpreted by Friends relevant to a world that has drastically changed through modernity.

The Bible has another example for us that fits the situation we are in better. That model is the apostle Paul:

The ministry of Paul is all about interweaving people from very different life experiences and cultures into one people. Very similar to the work we are trying to do today. And not shockingly a huge number of Paul’s writing are about conflicts in the early church.

Paul was trying to bring together Jews who were becoming Christians and saw Christianity as the fullest expression of Judaism and Greeks who had no background with Judaism but saw a new way of living in Jesus.

Many of the Jews wanted to retain Jewish practices, many of the Greeks did not see the point in continuing with that old tradition. Throughout his letter Paul is trying to get people to be honest with each other, to talk about what is going on, so they can move on to the larger work of building up their communities.

Paul talks about a ministry where “I have become all things to all people, so that by all means I might save some.”  Paul is willing to set aside cultural differences and adapt to the different situations of the people he is working with to try to meet them where they are at.

I believe this is the heart of our work going forward: The work of God is not static; The good news is always the same in that God is inviting us into the same ministry of Jesus: to love one another more fully. But the good news is always different for the different challenges that people of different eras and cultures are facing.

But “being all things to all people” doesn’t mean avoiding our differences and pretending they’re not their, it means leaning into our differences, working to have tough conversations, so we can build trust with each other and deepen our relationships.

The gospel is an invitation to living in a way that declares that God is among us in a way that allows us to live very differently from the ways of the world.

Where the world encourages us to be selfish the Gospel encourages us to seek connection with others. Where the world tells us there is danger in the unknown, the Gospel encourages us to leaps of faith that guide us to new faithfulness. Where the world tells us we don’t have enough and we need to simply protect ourselves and our family, God gives us an offer of a deeper abundance that has enough for all people.

Our job is to take our sense of God’s work and see where our current culture and the religious seekers in it are most in need of God’s presence.

This very much mirrors the ministry of Paul trying to be all things to all people so that we could have a love that goes beyond the cultures of the world and helps us connect with new people.

Howard Thurman said: Community cannot for long feed on itself; it can only flourish with the coming of others from beyond, their unknown and undiscovered brothers and sisters.

We need to constantly reach out to new people to deepen our lives. When we bring in new voices there are inevitably going to be differences and conflicts. The essential work of new r and deeper relationship is tough, honest conversations together. When we speak the truth to one another, God begins to work through all of us. When we avoid the truth because it’s easier to just let it go by, we lose out on the opportunity for God to do something new among us.

We have to remember that like the Israelites in the desert God is leading us in new directions that will make us uncomfortable and we have to be honest with one another about those discomforts.

We have to remember that the ministry of Jesus is a reminder that we have to be willing to let go of some ways of doing things that have ceased to be life-giving and that the pain of those changes is something we need to be able to acknowledge and talk through.

We have to remember the work of Paul, bringing people from very different cultures together into the body of Christ and navigating their differences with the people of God.

As we enter the silence, I encourage you to think about the ways that you can lean into tough conversations with other Friends and find deeper faithfulness.

Query:

How can you lean into tough conversations with other Friends and find deeper faithfulness?

7-19-26 - A Reflection on the Nature of God: Exploring Similarities in Buddhism and Quakerism - Megan Alderman

A Reflection on the Nature of God: Exploring Similarities in Buddhism and Quakerism
Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting
Megan Alderman
July 19, 2026

Psalm 139:1–10 (NLT): 1 O LORD, you have examined my heart 

      and know everything about me. 

    2 You know when I sit down or stand up. 

      You know my thoughts even when I’m far away. 

    3 You see me when I travel 

      and when I rest at home. 

      You know everything I do. 

    4 You know what I am going to say 

      even before I say it, LORD. 

    5 You go before me and follow me. 

      You place your hand of blessing on my head. 

    6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, 

      too great for me to understand! 

    7 I can never escape from your Spirit! 

      I can never get away from your presence! 

    8 If I go up to heaven, you are there; 

      if I go down to the grave, you are there. 

    9 If I ride the wings of the morning, 

      if I dwell by the farthest oceans, 

    10 even there your hand will guide me, 

      and your strength will support me.

Friends, good morning. Our VBS theme this year is Exploring the Nature of God, no small task, and it got me thinking about my own evolution of the concept of God. I grew up Catholic and thought I had to believe in a certain set of rules and perform certain rites and rituals to experience the Divine. I was to pray to a Father-like being who would consider my petitions if I did my Catholic duties the “right way”. In college, I was flailing a bit spiritually since I no longer found resonance in the Catholic tradition. I remember very clearly a professor and mentor telling me that I needed to let go of the God of my childhood to find my spiritual path. I found that advice incredibly freeing. During this period of exploration, I discovered yoga and the basic tenets of Buddhism, and they really struck a chord with me. I think part of the reason I became a Convinced Quaker is that so many of our practices as Friends overlap with Buddhist philosophy. I even describe Quakerism to my friends as Buddhist Christianity.

If you're okay with it, I'd like to focus a bit on this overlap with Friends and Buddhists, especially when contemplating the question: What do we mean by God, and how do we experience the Divine? By focusing on three themes: our dependence on silence, our Inner Light or the Buddha Nature, and our embrace of uncertainty. The obvious place to begin is the value both traditions place on silence for spiritual transformation. Buddhists use meditation and deep silence on their spiritual path to enlightenment. Quakers incorporate Centering Down with silence to give room for our Inner Light to speak. But I think if we dig deeper, it's not just the silence that connects us, but how both practices see silence as a direct connection to the Divine. We don't need intermediaries or rites to tap into that. How freeing! Freeing but also a bit of a call-out because this is an active process that requires a good degree of personal responsibility–because if we can directly access the Divine, then we better be doing it with some regularity. It's not enough to come to Meeting to "feel good" during silent worship and then return to our regularly scheduled life without taking time to connect with the Divine and letting that Inward Light guide our thoughts and actions.

I think Buddhists would agree with that conclusion, as the goal of Buddhism is an active journey towards spiritual enlightenment or bodhi (awakening). To achieve this, one must give up attachments to desires and material things, hatred and anger, and the delusion that we are all separate from each other. Doesn't sound too different from some of our SPICES, does it? Simplicity, peace, community, equality, they're all in there.

One of the central ideas in Quakerism is the belief that there is "that of God in everyone." George Fox described people coming into the Light that showed them both their darkness and their possibility. Many Buddhists would probably nod along with that, not because they would call it God, but because they would recognize the experience.

In Buddhism, there is the idea of the Buddha Nature, that beneath all our fear, ego, greed, and confusion is something fundamentally awake. Not something we earn or from something outside of ourselves. Something that has been there all along and is just waiting for us to wake up and pay attention. That sounds remarkably similar to how many Friends speak about the Inner Light.

A third similarity in our faith traditions is that we have the rare quality of embracing, dare I say encouraging, uncertainty. We believe that God is continually revealed to us, not a stagnant being from the Old Testament. Questions are given the green light–this is really quite rare in religious traditions if you think about it.

For example, if you ask 100 Quakers what God is, you're likely going to get 100 different answers. And that's OKAY, better than okay. Some Friends understand God personally. Some don't even like the word "God" because of past negative connotations. Some speak of Spirit. Some prefer Light, Love, Truth, or simply "the Sacred." Some identify as Christian, some as universalist, some as non-theist, and some are still figuring it out.

Buddhism similarly encourages investigation. The Buddha is said to have told his followers not to accept teachings simply because they came from tradition or authority, but to test them within our own daily lived experience. That doesn't mean "believe whatever you want or do whatever makes you feel good." It means remain teachable. Hold your convictions with humility. Expect that truth is larger than your current understanding. We live in a world that rewards certainty. Social media rewards certainty. Politics and the news reward certainty. But spiritual maturity probably looks a lot more like active curiosity–like listening, like being willing to say, "I may be wrong” or maybe, "I only see part of the picture."

Because maybe the question isn't whether God is a personal God or an aloof supernatural being sitting somewhere beyond the universe. Perhaps the better question is: What are people searching for when they use the word "God"?

The Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh once suggested that many people reject God not because they reject ultimate reality, but because they reject an outdated image of God. They reject a narrow version of God they've been taught that does not resonate with their personal experience. I find that deeply helpful and affirming. Maybe God is not an object within the universe or outside of it. Maybe God is the background Being (with a capital B) within our interconnectedness, the energy source from which compassion, truth, beauty, and love arise. Not separate from reality, but the deepest reality stripped to its most basic form. Some Christian theologians have spoken this way for centuries.

And suddenly Buddhism and Quakerism don't seem so far apart. Both traditions invite us to loosen our grip on the Ego. Quakers speak about yielding to the Spirit. Buddhists speak about letting go of attachment. Neither path is about becoming more important or worldly successful. Both are about becoming more faithful, or perhaps it's more accurate to say about becoming more awake. When we let go of the constant need to defend ourselves, to be right, to win every argument, something opens. We become better listeners, kinder neighbors, more courageous activists, a more peace-led people.

The philosophical foundations of Quakerism and Buddhism are different. But the practical result looks remarkably similar. Feed the hungry. Care for the sick. Work for peace. Tell the truth. Reduce suffering.Treat every person with dignity. Whether we call that following Christ, or expressing Buddha Nature, or answering the Inner Light, the results look the same. Jesus said we know a tree by its fruits–that feels like a helpful measurement, doesn’t it? Not asking whose theology is perfectly correct, but asking what kind of people our beliefs help us become. Do they make us more comfortable, more judging, more stagnant, more selfish? Or do they make us more loving, more humble, more courageous, more compassionate? If the answer is the latter, then we’re more likely moving towards Truth.

I'll close with a thought from the Quaker writer Thomas Kelly. He spoke of living from "the Light Within," allowing our outward lives to flow from an inward center. Whether we describe that center as God, the Inner Light, Buddha Nature, or simply the deepest truth of our existence, perhaps the invitation is the same: to become quiet enough to hear it. To become humble enough to follow it. And to become loving enough that others encounter something of that Light through us–by whatever name they’re most comfortable. May we continue seeking Truth together, not as people who have arrived at a spiritual destination, but as fellow travelers, learning from one another, listening deeply, and trusting that the Light is still shining.

Amen.

Reflection Queries

1.   When I become still enough to listen beneath the noise of my thoughts, what do I encounter? Do I experience it as God, the Inner Light, Buddha Nature, Love, Truth, or something beyond words?

2.   What attachment, certainty, or fear might I be holding onto that is keeping me from being more fully present to the Divine—or to the sacredness of this moment?

3.   If there is truly "that of God in everyone," or if every person possesses Buddha Nature, how might that change the way I respond to the people I find most difficult to love this week?

7-12-26 - A Crafted Life - Rachel Doll O'Mahoney

A Crafted Life
Rachel Doll O’Mahoney
July 12, 2026

Exodus 31: 1-9

The Lord spoke to Moses,  “See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God in skill, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all kinds of craftsmanship, to make artistic designs for work with gold, with silver, and with bronze, and with cutting and setting stone, and with cutting wood, to work in all kinds of craftsmanship. Moreover, I have also given him Oholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, and I have given ability to all the specially skilled, that they may make everything I have commanded you: the tent of meeting, the ark of the testimony, the atonement lid that is on it, all the furnishings of the tent,  the table with its utensils, the pure lampstand with all its utensils, the altar of incense, the altar for the burnt offering with all its utensils, the large basin with its base . . .

---

My aunt and uncle live in Wisconsin.

            In a semi-rural place near a lake.

            It’s a lovely place, wild turkeys, and cranes,

            Deer and coyotes.

Except that they have constant problems with deer eating their garden.

            One Christmas my father drew my Aunt and Uncles names in the Family gift lottery.

            And being a maker and tinkerer of things my father “got to thinkin”

            That with the parts from our old dishwasher, and the bits of hose that didn’t get run over by the lawn mower, and some of the tools in his work truck  he could remedy their deer problem.

My father died 22 years ago.

And when I visited my aunt and uncle they gave this to me:

This is a motion detecting deer sprayer.

It is a simple machine.

            The motion detector senses movement, the hose turns on.

            Scares the living daylights out of a deer-

            30 seconds later it turns off.

            It was gifted in the very bespoke wrapping paper of a towel wrapped around a bucket with a zip tie holding it together.

My father  could make or fix anything.

            From woodworking to electrical work.

            He once took our car apart and rebuilt the whole thing.

            Once made a pitching machine out of an old lawn mower.

            I have a dining room table in my house that he made.

                        We use it for art and crafting- trying to channel his creative freedom.

You probably have something in your home or your life that was made by an expert tinkerer, an artist, a creative or craftsperson-

Perhaps a person you love made it

Or it is an object or piece you saw and knew was built with precision, skill and care-

It is probably something you treasure.

A material item whose beauty is beyond just its form but is embedded with the labor and craft that a person using their hands, imagination, sweat, and decision making put into it.

I have a notion that every one of us is capable of being craftsmen… that might be part of what it is to be “made in the image and likeness of God.”

all of us have gifts and maybe when taken to the edge of skill, desire, precision and experience are a sort of craft.

And I  think that craft can be a great many things: From woodcarving to deep listening.

                        From stand up comedy to building an engine.

                        Gardening, childcare, or painting are all crafts-

All can be finely tuned skills that when borne with love and careful attentiveness move to the next level.

Craftsmanship is not limited to the work of just our hands but also our minds and bodies- our imaginations and presence.

Craftsmanship refers to the skill, artistry, and meticulous care a maker puts into creating an object or performing a task.

It [craftmanship] distinguishes high-quality, expertly made work from mass-produced goods…. (4)

Craftmanship is, of course not just about traditional artisanal skills.

            Not just about making gargoyles out of stone g or glass blowing.

            But is about hand-work.

                        About deep attention to the materials we work with

                                                And our relationship to those materials.

And that might happen with gardening or bread or painting on canvas or someone’s house.

            It might happen with repairs and building or relationships.

            It might even happen with Quaker business practice or caretaking your elders.

_____

Our scripture text today is from Exodus.

            And unless you know scripture REALLY well you probably don’t recall these two folks, Oholiab and Bezalel, very well.

BUT you probably have heard of their work because they built the ark of the covenant…

            Which you may recall is what Indiana Jones searches for, and finds, in the first movie.

The book of Exodus contains the great story of the Hebrew.

They  escape from enslavement by the Egyptians.

They receive commandments from God

            They travel-  hungry and thirsty, of wondering if enslavement is better.

Exodus is the story of making covenant and then days later breaking it by building a golden calf to worship it.

            And then being punished and asked to walk 40 years through the desert.

—

I imagine that some of that is vaguely familiar.

            And so in the people’s journey through the desert for 40 years the people need a way to bring the Holy with them.

frankly they have almost nothing else.

            They are not acquiring possessions or land or any sort of permanance.

Except for this container where they can envisage that God dwells with them…

A traveling box for their holy relics- and a seat that God sits on to be among them..

Exodus chapters 25-31, which our text is from today,

Are 6 chapters of Exodus which serve as an instruction manual for 2 craftsmen on how to build this impressive box/bench and all that comes with it.

______

I imagine that each of us has tried to put something together and the instructions were clearly written by someone whose first language was not you first language-

You try to follow along.

            Your hands aching on that stupid allen wrench.

            You realize 6 steps later that tiny hole matters and you used the wrong board on the wrong side.

You undo all the previous steps, your hand now getting blisters.

            You start over again and again.

            And when its done- your irritated, your back aches, and the whole thing wobbles.

These instructions can be amusing at best.

            And confounding at worst.

This is what Exodus 25-30 is like.

            An instruction manual in Ancient Hebrew.

And there were 2 people who were entrusted to make this holy container.

            2 people who God had endowed with special gifts to do this.

            2 people who could build, craft, and create according to the instructions.

Oholiab and Belezal.

                        They are gifted people.

                                    They are skilled and talented artistants and craftspeople.

            And God wants them to make this container for the Holy presence to travel with the people of Israel.

__________

Bezalel and Oholiab are given a profoundly important role.

Without their gifts, the place for God to be among the people is lost–

            Without using their gifts-

                                    God cannot sit among them.

Their names are mostly forgotten.

But their work is as important as those who built Notre Dame,

What if crafting, creating, building- is vital to the presence of God in the world.

IF so, what are we all doing staring at our phones and shopping on TEMU.     

_________

The bible is full of craftsmen- named and unnamed-

            Perhaps the most known among them is Jesus.

Matthew and Mark liken Jesus to a carpenter- Which is kind of true.

            The best use of the Greek word isn’t carpenter really-

            But craftsman. (3)

He could probably do carpentry, stonemasonry, furniture making, and repair almost anything.

Being a craftsman is theologically important for Matthew and Mark because God is ALSO a craftsman-

God is artisan/ a worker/ builder/fixer

            God is a tinker-er and a creator.

—--------

crafts work is holy work.

            Hand work is holy work.

                        The work in materiality of this life holy work.

Paying attention to details the beauty and potential in the material world around us is attention to GOD herself.

In creating, in crafting, in making we are mindful of those who will receive our craft work

We are attentive to the problems and gifts inherent in things

            We slow down, bring our attention to things.

And all of that: mindfulness of other, attention to potential problems and gifts, and slowing down are all holy things!

“Craftsmanship nurtures the souls of all those who practice it. The maker's experience with their work is as important as what is created by them. Perfecting details, caring about quality and ensuring that artistry is present in the process is divinity at work.(7)”

________

I know a woman who cleaned houses for most of her adult life.

            And she was skilled.

            Down on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor, dusting the knick-knacks.

                        The corners of the homes she cleaned were not hide outs for grime.

But that was not the craft- not really-

when her clients got older she washed their linens and helped with laundry.

                        She took them to Doctors appointment.

                        And asked them for small favors they could do for her.

                                    recognized when things were in disarray in a new way and walked them into new thresholds.

Her real craft was in relationship building.

            Her craft was the slow burn of supporting people, of dignity sharing

            I don’t think she ever saw herself as having been a craftsman.

            But I do.

                        Slow, precise, attentive,

nuanced, personalized,

embodied and material work.

                        It was a slow dance over decades.

__________

Here is an invitation for you all-

            For us.

To make things.

            To use our hands.

                        To use our imaginations.

                                    To be artisans and creators.

                                                To be workers or cleaners or waterers.

                                                            To be makers and craftspeople.

                                                                        To be menders, repairers, fixers.

                                                                                    To be attentive listeners and meditators.

_______

Our particular gifts may not be Oholiab and Belezal’s but we are all gifted with something-

            Making a quilt or a table.

            Fixing your doorknob and making jam.

            It’s fiddling with our lawn mowers and making a homemade meals

                        Its learning the dance and laughing with the rascal toddler!

______

And this isn’t about being traditionalist either:

“Craft matters not because the past was better, because in many ways it certainly wasn’t, and not because there is any moral purity in kneading dough rather than buying bread,

but because there is something profoundly human in the wish to bring care to matter.

To take the time to learn the method and grow less clumsy through repetition, and do something well for no better reason than the doing of it well. .

We do these things because they satisfy something in us that remains hungry even after convenience has fed us. They give form to care and turn attention into something tangible that you can reach out and touch.

 Care becomes a cleared bed, a repaired sleeve, a jar of some fermented thing bubbling in the kitchen, or a loaf cooling under a cloth.   To make something well is to say that the world deserves more from us than use and disposal.” (5)

This is also a justice issue. 

IF this is so important and so human we need to make space for our neighbors to have access to time and energy and resources to be makers.

            To tap into our deep cultural wells of craftsmanship.

            To share gifts, capacities and resources.

                        This only happens when we all have enough time, money, space to do so.

_________

Perhaps the craft I have been spending the most consistent time on in the past couple of years has been sermon writing.

            In fact, before sitting with this reading and this text this week I would not call it a craft.

            But it is.

And here is the thing-

            AI doesn’t write any of my sermons.

            And here is the other thing- It could.

I could input the reading and have it draw up themes.

            Then I could pick out those themes and ask for more messages about that.

            I could ask AI to make things more Quakerly.

            I could ask AI to help me come up with some stories or studies or poems about these topics.

But the thing about a craft, and what makes it spiritual, is that we are changed by it too.

            We are changed by our gardening.

            By our pizza making.

                        We are changed by our tinkering at old radios

Changed by taking care of children and elders.

                        We are changed by the fixing and painting and reading.

                                    Change by watering, and witnessing.

We are changed when we craft.

            I am changed every week by sitting with the scripture passage, when I wrestle out my own stories my own context-

            I am changed as a person.

            I am also changed as writer.

That is a craft.

            And you are too.

            You will be too.

_____________

What I ddin’t share at the begining was that my Dad was a repariman by trade.

            He fixed dairy equipment at farms all accross southe central illinois.

            He was very good at what he did.

Last week, I was in my hometown.

            I ran into someone who knew my Father.

            He said to me, “Your Dad could fix anything.”

Maybe that’s why I’ve always kind of liked the image of God as father.

            Lets all be crafters. Let’s create. Let’s give our attention to the details.

Let's be the image and likensss of God.

We, with God, might be able to repair and create much more than we thought.

1.      Wiley, C. R. “Shop Class as Soulcraft: Let Us Recognize the Yeoman Aristocracy.” The Imaginative Conservative, June 9, 2025. https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2025/06/shop-class-soulcraft-matthew-b-crawford-c-r-wiley.html

2.     Crawford, Matthew B. Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work. New York: Penguin Press, 2009

3.     Robinson, Matthew K. 2021. “‘Is This Not the Τέκτων?’: Revisiting Jesus's Vocation in Mark 6:3.” Neotestamentica 55 (2): 431–445.

4.     CAERT, Inc. (n.d.). Craftsmanship (Lesson L600122). Illinois State Board of Education. https://www.isbe.net/CTEDocuments/TEE-L600122.pdf

5.     Cooper, Sam. “The Confidence of Weeds: Why Practical Work Feels Increasingly Important in Modern Life.” The Black Butter Club, May 16, 2026. https://substack.com/home/post/p-197762122

6.     Haider, Imran. “What Is Craftsmanship.” Markhor Journal (Medium), April 30, 2016. https://medium.com/the-markhor/what-is-craftsmanship-771b8db1c5f4.

7.     Uili, Joel. “The Craftsmanship Manifesto: Reviving Craftsmanship in the Modern World.” Archer Online. May 1, 2026. https://archeronline.substack.com/p/the-craftsmanship-manifesto

6-21-26 - Where's the Line? - Jeff Goens

6-7-26 - Come Join the Symphony! - Eric Baker

Come Join the Symphony!
Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting
Eric Baker
June 7, 2026

Good morning, friends and welcome to Light Reflections. Today’s scripture is from Romans 12:4-9 from The Voice.

”For in the same way that one body has so many different parts, each with different functions; we, too—the many—are different parts that form one body in the Anointed One. Each one of us is joined with one another, and we become together what we could not be alone. Since our gifts vary depending on the grace poured out on each of us, it is important that we exercise the gifts we have been given. If prophecy is your gift, then speak as a prophet according to your proportion of faith. If service is your gift, then serve well. If teaching is your gift, then teach well.  If you have been given a voice of encouragement, then use it often. If giving is your gift, then be generous. If leading, then be eager to get started. If sharing God’s mercy, then be cheerful in sharing it.  Love others well, and don’t hide behind a mask; love authentically. Despise evil; pursue what is good as if your life depends on it.”

I want to thank Beth Henricks for the invitation to speak to you today. I also want to acknowledge and give a bit of a high-five to the different speakers who have been in this position over the past month or so – Mary Blackburn, Jim Shearer, special guest Emily Provance, and then last week’s message from Patrick Jendraszak on connections felt in many ways like a part one to what I’d like to talk about today. Funny how that works.

As a lifelong musician and lover of music, I’ve worn many music-related hats, if you will. I’ve been a performing musician; I’ve been a studio keyboard player and vocalist, recording music for various projects; I’ve been a songwriter and arranger, a band director; and, as you know, I’m the music director here at First Friends, a role I’ve been honored to have for the past 10 years. But the hat I’ve worn that has probably given me the most unique sense of purpose is that of a music teacher.

There’s an idea, a framework that has started becoming more clear in my mind as I’ve thought through the many students I’ve taught over the years. I refer to this specific framework as “approaching music vertically, and then horizontally”. I’ll explain what I mean.

If I’m learning a specific piece of music that is proving to be challenging for me, there are going to be specific passages of that piece, musical concepts, that I’ll need to really focus on. I might spend several days learning how to play this run, or that syncopation, or accenting the right notes, learning the best way to express the dynamics in a particular melodic line. I call this type of focus a vertical approach. And indeed, if I’m going to learn a piece, or generally get more proficient at my instrument, this type of approach is necessary. Head down, focused on specific parts of the whole.

But if I stay in that vertical approach, keeping my head down in that near-sited, concentrated focus, then I might very well fail to see how the different parts go together to create a beautiful piece of music. I might miss how the opening lines lead into the middle section. I might miss the connections between how the rhythms of the bridge section are echoed and elaborated on in the closing of the piece.

This idea gains even more significance when I start playing music with other people. Then, the things happening around me, the music being made next to me, it’s all happening in concert with my own contributions. But with that simple, near-sited approach, I might miss how my part serves what the violins are playing. Or how this chord really supports that cool saxophone line. In other words, to see the beauty in the whole piece, I’ll need to lift my head up, to zoom out occasionally, and really listen to the ensemble, the community of players, and not just pay attention to my own contributions, whatever they may be. This is what I call “approaching the music horizontally”.

Ok, why am I talking about music? Because for me, this is a good metaphor for other areas of life, as well.

When I wandered into this Meeting some 14 years ago, I knew nothing about the Quakers. Over the next several years, I became drawn to the idea of “centering”, something I’m still frequently not good at. I was also introduced to and began investigating our Quaker testimonies – the SPICES. These for me continue to be an ever-green source of both challenge and inspiration. Ben Wertz and I were chatting last week about how we reference the SPICES whenever someone gives us that confused look, asking what it means to be part of a Quaker community.

If you don’t know, SPICES is an acronym, denoting the values of simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality, and stewardship. I’ll be honest – I love talking about this. I love looking for evidence of these in my own life. But I don’t want to just talk about me today – I want to talk about us.

The idea of being curious is something I’ve talked about before. I think there’s a real value in curiosity – whether about history, ideas, or people, and how we are all “wired” differently. For me, my curiosity has been piqued at something very specific – something that has literally held my interest for more than a decade now. And that is, the many ways that our Quaker testimonies, these SPICES, get expressed through this community. But here’s the thing: If there was someone dictating how this had to look for everyone, how there was a “right” and “wrong” way to live these out, I would have lost interest a long time ago.

I remember a pastor saying to me once, “People have questions, and we’re here to give them answers.” When I inquired further about what he meant, asking specifically, “Answers to what?”, he responded, “How a Christian should act, how they should live, how they should vote…”. I told him I was quite sure I couldn’t get on board with that type of message.

Ok, back to our testimonies. The obvious, and first question to consider is this: What do these testimonies look like for you? How do one or two of the SPICES show up in your life? How are they “lived out”? But beyond that, if I were to ask you for examples of how these SPICES get expressed in this community, I’m guessing for some, there are a few things that might come to mind. For good reason, there has been some support behind and spotlight attention given to some really great things that many of you have helped to move forward – things like efforts to organize and bring attention to the inhumane treatment of many of our immigrant friends and neighbors here in our state; or organizing folks to volunteer at the Mid-North Food Pantry; or fun community-building events like Men’s Threshing or the sing-alongs that Jim Kartholl organizes. But I’m guessing for every highlighted event or effort that could be considered an expression of one of our Quaker testimonies, there are 10 or 20 or even 30 more that happen in the background.

Being curious about this, I conducted an informal interview with a few people in this community, asking them how they’re challenged and strive to express any of the SPICES in their everyday lives. And I want to highlight some of what I heard – not as a way to glorify or imply importance to one person or another, or even one way of doing things. In fact, quite the opposite. But more on that in a minute.

Carrie Sample is an English professor at Ivy Tech Community College here in Indianapolis. I asked her how she expresses some of the Quaker testimonies through her teaching. This is what she said:

I express Integrity by intentionally saying what I mean and meaning what I say. I have made a promise to my students that I will have their assignments graded within 7 days of submitting, so they never have to wait too long to know where they stand. If I don’t know something, I acknowledge that and we find answers together. If I make a mistake, I apologize and try to make it right. These might seem like "basic" expectations, but I have learned from student feedback that not all instructors do these things.

She continues, I express Community by getting to know my students and having the goal to call them by their preferred first names by the end of the 3rd class. I make it a point to welcome each student by their name as they come into each class session. I encourage them to help each other whenever someone struggles to master a concept. And I regularly have the students work in groups of 2 or 4 so they can also get to know each other.

One of the reasons I dearly love teaching in the community college setting is the closeness that we all develop with each other.

Adam Roth is very involved in the community garden here at First Friends, as well as efforts to maintain the grounds around the Meetinghouse. I asked him how the value of Stewardship is expressed in some of these passions. Here’s what Adam said:

Stewardship, put most simply, is the work of responsibly caring for the part of the world to which you feel a duty. It is the difficult work of maintaining and sustaining a family, Quaker meeting, a neighborhood, a city, a state, a nation or a planet. It’s often repetitive, tedious, messy…sometimes even filthy.

I was reminded of this as I assisted in the cleaning and repair of the fountain for the Meditational Woods last week. As I helped scoop out the foul-smelling handfuls of wet, decaying leaves that had accumulated there, I couldn’t help but laugh to myself about how often Stewardship literally stinks. Yet, look how well the fountain runs now after those efforts and will continue to run until it’s time to do that filthy work all over again. Where would we be without our trash collectors and sewage maintenance people? 

Fresh mulch too has a potent smell, as the Girl Scouts of Troop 2015 discovered to their collective disgust a few weeks ago. Christine Borntrager coordinated their assistance in the weeding and mulching of our courtyard. They rose to the challenge and were of great help. I was gratified to hear the scout leader specifically teach the concept that dirty, smelly work is required for the care of our world. 

The fact that Quakers place this as a central pillar in their values says a lot about who we are. The messy work of keeping the world running will not be disregarded as “someone else’s problem”. It’s ours and we take our collective responsibility to it seriously. 

Hearing from Carrie, and Adam, these are only two examples of the many ways that our testimonies get expressed, how they get presented to the world. I know there are so, so many other examples that no one, or very few others ever know about or see. Visiting shut-ins or those in the hospital, neighborhood clean-up efforts, leading poetry discussion groups, choosing to live below our means in order to give back, teaching yoga or other meditational practices, organizing efforts to fight against the death penalty in our state, organizing efforts to register voters in our community and educating about aligning public policy with our values, baking bread for our neighbors, creating non-profits to give back to the community… These are just some of the actual expressions of our Quaker testimonies happening in this Meeting.

I want to contribute. And I also want to pay attention; to notice, to listen. I want to be creative in my own approach to expressing these testimonies, but also to be inspired and challenged by what others are doing. I want to lift my head up and hear this symphony of music happening all around me – music that makes our world more beautiful, peaceful, sustainable, and welcoming.

As we now enter our time of waiting worship, I offer the following queries to consider.  

Of the SPICES – Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality, and Stewardship, which one(s) am I drawn to most naturally?

How am I expressing these testimonies? Or, what are some creative ways I could begin to do just that?

How could I learn of, and be inspired by how others are expressing the SPICES? Are there existing efforts and experiences that I’m feeling drawn to?

5-31-26 - Connections Bring Us Together - Patrick Jendraszak

Connections Bring Us Together
Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting
Patrick Jendraszak
May 31, 2026

Good morning Friends, and welcome to Light Reflections. Today’s scripture is Acts 2:42-47.

“These remained faithful to the teaching of the apostles, to the brotherhood, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers. The many miracles and signs worked through the apostles made a deep impression on everyone. The faithful all lived together and owned everything in common; they sold their goods and possessions and shared out the

proceeds among themselves according to what each one needed.They went as a body to the Temple every day but met in their houses for the breaking of bread; they shared their food gladly and generously; they praised God and were looked up to by everyone. Day by day the Lord added to their community those destined to be saved.”

Today is a celebration of Connections. We have a Connection Fair that will take place following Meeting for Worship. But “Connections” are much more than that … 

Connections are the leadings, the divine nudges, that bring us together. Connections are the glue that holds members together as a community, And “Connections” are what we do after we say “yes” to being a part of a vibrant spiritual community.

What connections called that early Jesus community together? I reflected on this Scripture during my meditations the last few weeks, I found myself reflecting on the leadings, the divine nudges, that helped connect those individuals in the early Jesus community. Who were the people who came together in those early communities? What were the connections in their individual lives that brought them to an openness to join this new movement?

Scripture indicates they heard the preaching of the apostles. Were they active members of their Jewish synagogue? Did they often visit the Temple in Jerusalem? Perhaps they had seen Jesus in his active ministry. Maybe they were among the people who unbound the raised Lazarus as Jesus led him forth from the tomb. I do not know what was their original “connection,” yet they followed their inner Light to become Jesus followers.

What was the “connection” that brought you to First Friends?

As this scripture touched my spirit, I examined my answer to that question. I was reminded of how I became connected to First Friends. In a way, the path was like the roots of a tree that weave alongside and interact with the roots of other trees in the forest. Those roots are inexorably linked together, providing nutrients, wisdom, and connection. My roots began more than thirty years ago when our family moved to Indiana and began worshipping in the diverse community that was St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church on 46th and Illinois. When I left active ministry in the Catholic Church after the pandemic, my wife Loretta and I knew we wanted to find a different worshipping community that was more life-giving for us. While we were led to find a Quaker community, we searched to find which one we should join. It was the connection of another former member of St. Thomas, now a member of First Friends, that drew us here.

What connection held that early Jesus community together? The Scripture verses present an idealized vision of that early Jesus community. Even Acts of the Apostles cannot get the story right. On one hand, community members owned all things in common; but on the other hand, they sold their goods and possessions to give their money to the common good. But it seems fairly certain that the early Jesus community was focused on caring for one another, having fellowship together, and praying together. I think it was focused on spiritual growth rather than doctrinal assent, since what they were doing was a new response to the teachings of Jesus. I have to imagine that their life was just as counter-cultural then as it would be today.

What is the connection that calls you to continue to be a part of this Quaker community?

I was struck first by the silent meditation of the Monday noon gathering here at the Meetinghouse. That was the introduction which my wife and I had to First Friends. I have always strived to have time for contemplation, sometimes with more success than others. But two things struck me about the differences of the silent meditation of the Monday gathering. First, as I heard Parker Palmer once say, we did not worship the silence — we worshipped in silence. It wasn’t as if being silent was the goal. The goal was to see and to hear the Light in the silence. Secondly, the contemplation was not an individual act, but rather a communal response, a collective listening to the Divine among us.

What connections flowed from saying “yes” to that early Jesus community? Of course, this Scripture passage is a small sample of how the community said “yes.” It seems clear that they prayed together, whether in their homes or in the Temple. Since it mentions they shared what they had, I have to think that some members had needs while others had means. I was struck by the fact that later, people would look at the Jesus followers and say, “Look how they love one another.”

What does your connection to First Friends call you to be or do?

I reflected a great deal on how my connection to First Friends calls me. It strikes me the essence of my connection is that I am led to both give and receive. In my life of ministry, I often led what was called “stewardship,” a Catholic term for something like connections. However, it often centered only around how an individual shared his or her time, talent, and treasure — nothing about how they received anything from the community. Yet, it is receiving from fellow Friends that I find the most humbling and the impetus to share whatever giftedness I can share.

Shortly after joining First Friends, my wife and I began seeking ways to share our talents: she did so through the Sunday children’s programs and I did so through the Connections Committee. But she has had three surgeries over the past two years now and through it all, we have received the support of the Meal Sharing program and we have felt the prayer and concern of this community. When I call this”humbling” I mean it is a way that we have experienced that of Light which is evident in the members of First Friends.

And so today, when we say there is a Connections Fair, it isn’t just an attempt to show how one can share their gifts with the community. It is also a way to show you how First Friends cares, one for another. If you have gifts, we want to allow you to share them. If you have needs, we ask that you allow us to help where we can.

And so I offer these three queries for your reflection this day.

What was the “connection” that brought you to First Friends?

What is the connection that calls you to continue to be a part of this Quaker community?

What does your connection to First Friends call you to be or do?

5-10-26 - Building the Community - Mary Blackburn

Building the Community
Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting
Mary Blackburn
May 10, 2026

Proverbs 31:10-12, NIV

10 [a]A wife of noble character who can find?
    She is worth far more than rubies.
11 Her husband has full confidence in her
    and lacks nothing of value.
12 She brings him good, not harm,
    all the days of her life.

Proverbs 31:25-28

25 She is clothed with strength and dignity;
    she can laugh at the days to come.
26 She speaks with wisdom,
    and faithful instruction is on her tongue.
27 She watches over the affairs of her household
    and does not eat the bread of idleness.
28 Her children arise and call her blessed;
    her husband also, and he praises her:

James 5:12-16

12 Above all, my brothers and sisters, do not swear—not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. All you need to say is a simple “Yes” or “No.” Otherwise you will be condemned.

13 Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

Today is our second week of celebrating the beauty of our special community of Friends of Jesus.  This summer we will continue to explore what spiritual friendship might mean for you and what it has meant for me.

I would be remiss if I didn’t honor Mothers’ Day today.  Today’s reading of selections from Proverbs 31 has highlights of the ideal woman, who is strong and wise and provides for her household. Another image that I love is the one from Matthew 23. Jesus has just told the Pharisees that they are missing the message of love that God offers.  He says he yearns to gather us under his wings as a mother hen gathers her chicks beneath her.  Can you imagine the warm fluffiness of being beneath a mother’s wings safe from predators above us? Bring to mind someone who has mothered you with love and warmth and security. Please bless those who have been a mother to you, whether related by biology or related by the power of love.  These people have been instrumental in creating who we are today.  Thanks to Moms everywhere!

The second scripture is from the Letter of James which was likely written in Greek sometime between 75-120 CE. Most likely, this letter was not written by James, the brother of Jesus, but is fairly early in the New Testament writings. The New New Testament is a recent compilation by scholars of writings that include other early Christian documents that give a fuller picture of the variety of practices of the early Jesus followers. The introduction to this writing states that it contains teachings from both the Hebrew scriptures and from Jesus’s own teachings. “It might also be a written version of teachings organized for meetings at meals, the primary place where early Christians received lessons in groups.” As many in the early community were Illiterate, these sayings and teachings were read or recited in these small groups.  One of the goals of our time during Bob’s sabbatical is to eat together and learn more together and grow closer as a community.

Have you wondered why Quakers do not swear an oath to tell the truth when giving testimony in court?  The book of James gives a very clear answer to that question. James 5:12 urges us to say a simple “Yes” or “No.” To say what we mean. Our words are to be trusted and we “affirm” that we are telling the truth.

One of the special gifts of being in a loving spiritual community is James 5:13-16.  We are to pray for one another through our joys and sorrows. That does not mean that we are to brag or wallow in our sadness. We are to open ourselves to divine Love that permeates us and the universe for strength and healing. 

Germ theory and other understandings of disease were not yet known in the ancient world, but we do know that when we have done the wrong thing and acted badly, it creates unease within our bodies.  Modern medicine knows that stress and guilt can suppress our immune systems.  Therefore, asking forgiveness and praying for one another can enable positive energy to flow.

Let me share some examples of this.  Several years ago, I had a very challenging situation at work.  I felt alone and an outcast because of false accusations made by a member of our team.  I didn’t know who believed her lies. I asked our pastor Ruthie Tippin to pray for me.  She prayed so sincerely that I felt seen as a person and I was finally able to cry and release many of the feelings of betrayal and shame that I felt.  Her prayers gave me strength to move forward.

My husband David and I have been a part of a small group since 2017 at First Friends.  It started when the whole meeting had the opportunity to choose a small group and share our spiritual lives while reading a devotional book together.  We welcomed over 15 people into our small living room and we promised to keep our sharing only within this trusted group. We built such a strong bond that we continued to meet after we finished the book, sharing dinners and fun times. When one member of our group was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, we marched in the rain for a cancer research fundraiser and supported his wife during his dying.  During the pandemic, we met outside for hiking and outdoor meals.  Later we went camping together, preparing meals together and sharing our love of God’s creation.  When David received a diagnosis last year of cognitive changes, our group held a healing circle for him.  David sat in the center and received our prayers, chants and touch. It makes me cry with thankfulness for such deep love. Have you ever had the experience of being in the midst of a healing circle of prayer?  One where there are no strings attached?  No expected outcome except to be covered in the love of others?  It is humbling and also so beautiful to receive.

We are and can be the blessed Community for each other. We aren’t all the same, we don’t all hold the same world view, but can see each other as Friends who are seekers after truth, putting God’s love into practice with each other and extending out into the world.

Let us now enter a place of stillness and wait for God’s spirit to speak into our beings.

Queries:

•  Is there anything blocking my relationship to others?

•  Do I need to forgive myself or others?

•  What gifts can I offer the community?