Semi Programmed Worship Experiment

​​Dear Friends:

You are invited to the third *Semi Programmed Worship Experiment* in the Boston area! 

After a period of singing and silence, Alfredo Garcia will bring the Message. Alfredo is currently pursuing a Master of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School -- focusing on the intersection of immigration and faith as a mechanism of agency and resilience for undocumented immigrants living in the United States. He is active with the Cambridge Interfaith Sanctuary Coalition. He will share his story and explore some of its implications for people of faith. 

We will close our time with silent waiting. 

Come at 6pm for simple supper (provided) and fellowship - then transition to worship at 7:15pm. 

We're super excited to be hosted by  and collaborating with the good people at Old West Church for this worship! Old West is a warm, welcoming church that seeks to make a difference in the community and the world practicing: Radical Faith. Bold Hope. Lavish Love. 

Old West Church is located at the corner of Cambridge Street and Staniford Street, near Government Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Holiday Inn. 

The MBTA offers four subway stations that are a ten minute walk from the church.

Green and Blue lines – Government Center

Blue line – Bowdoin Station is open Monday – Friday until 6:30 pm

Red line – Charles/MGH

Orange line – North Station & Haymarket

Old West has validated parking on Friday nights at the Charles River Plaza Parking Deck - located near Whole Foods.  Be sure to park in the underground deck, and bring your ticket for validation. 

Questions? Kristina [at] whatlovecando [dot] org | jvb@thebornes.org

Posting from RJ Cross: Quaker Summer Program at the UN in Geneva

Greetings!

My name is Ronald James Cross and I have been attending Beacon Hill Friends House since December 2016. I have been a Christian my whole life but have never truly felt at home and in the exact right place until I got involved with Friends meeting. I initially went to the Cambridge meeting and although it was wonderful. It made me curious about what exploring what other meetings might be like. After finding BHFH I knew that this friends group was the place for me! I have never looked back and enjoy every meeting that I attend. I have signed up to volunteer for responsibilities multiple times now and it helps me feel even more connected to everyone. The worship is so powerful! I grew up Pentecostal so it really was a culture shock to what I have been used to! At 29, I have never experienced anything quite like the peace and tranquility that comes from this type of spiritual fulfillment.

A few months ago I heard at about the opportunity to serve at the Quaker Summer program at the United Nations in Geneva. I was very excited and reached out to the program director and got the information I needed to apply!! The application process was intensive and there was a lot of competition! I received a letter this month that I was chosen!!! I am so very very excited!!!!

As part of the program there is some funding that I would like to request help with for travel expenses. I work as a special education aide and I would love to be able to brag about how rich I am spiritually AND monetarily but for now I'll just brag about how cool my church is. I am humbly presenting to you in the hopes that those who feel compelled would contribute to costs that would contribute to travel expenses. I would be happy to talk to anyone about what this experience will entail and how I will use it to impact my community when I return. Thank you so much for taking the time to read through this!

Enjoy your day and see you soon!

RJ Cross ronaldjamescross at gmail.com 

(posted by Scott at RJ's request)

Good Friday reflections

For many years now, I've been drawn to stay local and walk the neighborhood Stations of the Cross organized by the parish of St. Mary of the Angels. Good Friday is viscerally real on the streets of JP/Roxbury's Egleston Square. Yesterday, different members of the parish took turns carrying the cross - brown hands, black hands, young hands, wrinkled hands, women, men. Who needs a Roman centurion when you stand where a young man was shot after being chased through the parish and library yards? Unexpectedly, I found that also in my heart was a mother I and many of my coworkers had helped take care of in her multiple hospital admissions, who lost her life to addiction a couple of weeks ago shortly after her child was born.

Were you there when they laid her in the tomb?
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?
Sometimes it makes me tremble, tremble, tremble....
Were you there when they laid them in the tomb?

Collectively, we failed him. Collectively, we failed her. We do not love our people enough.

Perdona a tu pueblo, Señor, (Forgive your people, Lord)
perdona a tu pueblo,
perdónale, Señor.

Along the way, there are glimmers of hope. Likely filled with fear, Simon helps carry the cross. Veronica nonetheless wipes a sweaty brow. It's tempting to rush to Easter and Resurrection. But we need to know how to walk together through this bleak place.

Passover is drawing to a close. The Hebrew people spent 40 years - 2 generations - in the desert on their way to liberation, living into the transformation they needed to make from an enslaved people to a free people, learning to trust the guidance of pillar of smoke by day, the pillar of fire by night, learning to trust that there would be manna and water enough.

Reflections from Friend Judy Goldberger

In today's readings (March 9), Psalms 138:3 says: “You heard me on the day when I called, and you gave new strength to my heart.” The Ignatian Solidarity Network asks “When do you find yourself relying on Divine strength as you work for justice?”

These days, as an immigration justice activist and as a nurse, I find myself witnessing horrific hate and devastation. Yet more and more, I keep finding myself falling into communion, the Presence of our Creator who sustains, enlivens, and liberates us. That's the Good News I have to share: that G-d is strong, and real, and with Her children, and how we can find Her.

How do I / we live out the balance of acknowledging the reality of horrific devastation and at the same time acknowledge the reality of deep abiding powerful revolutionary love? I'm understanding at a deeper level what happens when I / we operate from a place of fear. In that place, I either misplace trust in my own limited power, or I feel disempowered, and I can't see or I discount the power held by people bearing the brunt.

Grief is also present. G-d is with me when I open to feel it, and when I do, I move more fully out of the place of fear and more fully into a place of trust.

Many of you know I make pastoral visits with men detained by Immigration & Customs Enforcement (aptly, ICE) at our local Suffolk County House of Corrections. I often fall into communion with G-d and the men there. I’ll share just one story. Earlier this year, about thirty men, about half Haitian and half Latin American, showed up for our group. We offered to lead two groups, one in French, and the other in Spanish, but the men refused. They had become family to each other. Over the next hour, they alternated sharing Psalms and hymns, each in their own language, and we felt, as Lenni Lenape spiritual leader Papunehang had in 1763 when visited by Friend John Woolman, where the words came from.

A few of the other people who have given me some clues over the past few weeks:

• On the wisdom of opening to grieving: Parker Palmer in an old article “The Broken Open Heart: Living with Faith and Hope in the Tragic Gap” and a recent interview with Joanna Macy “Learning to See in the Dark Amid Catastrophe”
• The gathered wisdom of Toussaint Liberator, Dorotea Manuela, Yamilia Shannan, Nadia Ben Yusuf, and Richard Cohen at January’s Quaker Nonviolence day at Codman Academy, and the experience of meeting for worship in a community room in with open windows out onto the streets of Dorchester.
• Robert Lentz's Icon Mother of the Disappeared hangs on my bedroom wall. Below it is a quote I copied from Tucson Friend Jim Corbett's book Goatwalking, based in part on his experience offering sanctuary to Central American refugees in the 1980s (another devastatingly horrific time):
  Greed rules.
  Murder prevails.
  Love dies on the cross.
  Another purported messiah has come and gone, and the Creation remains unredeemed.
  Faith rooted in belief dies on the cross. ...
  Faith rooted in hope dies on the cross. ...
  There is a faith that is primarily belief. This kind of faith calls for definitive doctrines from which guiding objectives and priorities can be derived. And there is a faith that is primarily trust. This kind of faith expects to be guided by a unifying presence that enlivens each moment, breaks all borders, gathers us into communion with one another, and addresses us in all we meet.
• Isaiah 58:6-7 is followed by verses 8-11 - In order to be vital and flourish - including spiritually - THIS is what we must do. Period.
• Father Greg Boyle SJ, who works with gang involved youth in LA. One hour video of his February message at Boston College here. Some highlights: We've forgotten that we belong to each other. ... G-d isn't waiting for us to give up anything. G-d is waiting for us to give into Her tenderness. ... We are not called to go to the margins to rescue anyone. Somehow, everyone is rescued. We give each others' selves back to each other. Our selves are given back to us & we inhabit our nobility. ... We're all in need of healing. The sooner we realize that, the sooner the widow, the orphan, and the stranger can reach us. ... If love is the answer, community is the context & tenderness is the methodology. ... We each are created in the Image and Likeness of G-d. The Image is given. The Likeness we have to surrender to. THIS is the Beloved Community.
• Last week's open mic featuring unflinching Boston hip hop duo Foundation Movement (interview from a few years back here) - the Power of Revolutionary Love in action!
• Interview with undocumented activist Aly Wane "We Can't Organize out of Fear"

“Praise be to G-d … the Mother and Father of compassion and the G-d of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from G-d.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-="The measure of our compassion lies not in our service to those on the margins but in our willingness to see ourselves in kinship." Father Greg Boyle, SJ (On Being)

Hello,

In support of the Boston's Women's March on Saturday January 21, 2017 we will be gathering at the meeting house at 10 AM to create signs, make connections and prepare for the march. Please bring healthy hearty snacks for sharing!

Minute on Boston Women's March
Approved by BHFM January 15, 2017

Friends’ testimony of equality and our tradition of bold and grounded witness in the face of injustice lead us to speak out and step up in many ways. Sometimes Spirit nudges us to change our own inner patterns, or to insist on a revolution of values in a close relationship, family, or team. Other times the irresistible call comes to take public action, joining with friends and strangers alike to make a big change.

One of the first insights of Quakerism, deepening the roots of our religion’s engagement with every major social movement since its founding, was the recognition of women as full recipients and deliverers of God’s message to the world. Today, we are glad to continue honoring women as leaders —and, thanks to the gift of continuing revelation, to expand our recognition of equality to include many more gender identities than early Friends had words to describe. By engaging with and learning from the liberation movements of women, people of color, and so many other self-identified groups, Quakers keep faith.

Beacon Hill Friends Meeting supports the upcoming Women’s March for America, to take place in Washington, D.C., Boston, and many other locations on Saturday, January 21, 2017. This non-partisan, nonviolent demonstration offers an opportunity for Friends to publicly express our solidarity with women, immigrants, people of diverse faith traditions, gender identities and sexual expressions, people of color, people with disabilities, and all whose safety and freedom are threatened or undervalued. All in our meeting community are welcome to represent Beacon Hill Friends Meeting at this event.