I went to our back yard garden to sit in my favorite blue Adirondack chair, surrounded by white and yellow daisies and wildflowers my wife has cultivated over the years.  I wanted to listen to the birds while meditating.  I don’t often do this – go outside to mediate - but this year, we seem to have more birds chirping and singing in our yard than at any other time in the 36 years we’ve lived here.  I was looking forward to the joy of having birdsongs guide my way to stillness.

I was just beginning to settle into my meditation, when a neighbor from two doors down started up his very loud, gas powered lawnmower.  Knowing that my neighbor’s yard is smaller than mine, I figured he would only be mowing for about 20 minutes at the most and that I could find a way to ignore the noise as I tried again to settle into thoughts of peace.  Being a Quaker, I’ve learned that seeking the Divine requires quiet and not necessarily silence. 

Sure enough, in less than 20 minutes the lawnmower stopped.  The silence was stark and welcomed, the sound of the birds re-emerged and I found myself smiling.  I could once again focus on the bird songs, on the weight of my body on the chair, on my rhythmic breathing as I allowed my thoughts to float past, as if they were leaves in a stream.

Whap, Whap, Whap, Whap, Whap – the sound of my neighbor’s weed whacker punctured my reserve.  Jesus, I thought to myself, come on!  But then I caught my growing agitation and refocused my energy on letting things go.  Letting my irritation go.  Letting the sound of the motor sink to the background.  This letting go was working and shortly, the motor stopped and the silence returned.   Thank you – I thought to myself.

Even with all the interruptions I was finding some stillness while sitting in our garden.  I was pleased that I didn’t allow the noisy lawn care to drive me inside.

Suddenly, I was startled by the high pitched whine of a leaf blower the same neighbor was using to blow the grass clippings off his sidewalk and back onto the lawn.  At this point, I just had to laugh, and ask myself, what is the lesson I can take away from this comedy of meditative challenges.

As I sat there listening to the relentless sound of machine blowing grass and dust into the air I had a sense that even though it was irritatingly loud, the man and the leaf blower were both connected to the universe. 
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I went to my backyard to find the Divine in the sound of the songbirds.  Instead, I found the Spirit of God through the intrusive roar of a leaf blower.  My meditative thought is that the Spirit is everywhere and cannot be ignored anywhere; that the whine of a lawnmower is just as much the sound of the Divine as is the melody of the songbird.

Are we spiritual beings having a human experience or are we human beings having a spiritual experience, is the famous question asked by Jesuit priest and philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.  I believe it is the former, that we are spiritual beings at our core.  But, taking it one step further, I also believe that everything within the Cosmos has a spiritual foundation; that the spirit of the Divine is woven throughout the universe and that God is the weaver.

If it is true that the Spirit is woven through all things and for all time, then there can be none other than a spiritual solution to any problem.  In this context, all problems become spiritual problems. 

A few years ago, I was having an online conversation with a conservative Christian friend about what the bible says on the matter of the division between church and state.  My friend – a bible literalists – was adamant that there is a clear demarcation between church and state, citing the new testament passage of Mark 12: 13-17 where Jesus takes a coin with the likeness of Caesar and announces that all should “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”  The question Jesus answered was about paying taxes.  What I believe he was getting at is this:  What in the cosmos does not emanate from God?  If you are arguing over whether the religious should pay taxes, you are focused on the wrong question.  If everything comes from God, what does it matter?  Pay the silly taxes to keep yourself out of harm’s way – but don’t lose sight of the fact that everything comes from the Divine. 

From my perspective, Jesus was saying that everything is spiritually focused; that we actually live in a spiritual world but get lost and confused in our worldly machinations.  

A Quaker F/friend of mine has spent many an anxious moment pondering what can a person do to raise the consciousness of the general public – and of our leaders and decision makers – about the pending environmental disaster unfolding within our lifetime and most certainly within the lifetime of our children and grandchildren.  We Quakers believe there is “that of God” within everyone, and that the voice of the Divine leads and guides each of us.  If that is true – and I believe it is – then God is at this very moment whispering to those recalcitrant decision makers that the earth is crying out; that they need to pay attention; that they need to act.  Now.

If the Spirit is active and present within every person, then what is needed is a conversion of heart.  What is needed is a spiritual revival to awaken all to the call of the Divine on climate change; on gun control; on voter repression; on race, on  equality, and on all other issues of justice and decency.  

How do we get there, how do we get to this global conversion of heart?  We pray… for ourselves, for those who are or will be  impacted by these issues, and for the decision makers – that they will quiet themselves enough to hear the faint whisper of the Divine and act on it.  Is prayer enough?  No.  If prayer were enough, these seemingly intractable issues would be resolved.   

We must listen to the voice of God within our own heart and act on what we hear.  We must become models of a people who are spiritually focused and who believe – whole heartedly – that the answer to all problems is spiritual.  After all, we are a spiritual people living in a spiritual world, seeking a spiritual solution.  

Perhaps renowned spiritual leader Henri Nouwen said it best:  “Every time in history that men and women have been able to respond to the events of their world as an occasion to change their hearts, an inexhaustible source of generosity and new life has been opened, offering hope far beyond the limits of human prediction.”
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We must pray.  We must act.  We must believe that our prayers and actions will be enough.  And then, we must give over everything else to the Divine.

        
 
I have the joy of helping to care for our toddler granddaughter every Thursday, and on a recent visit, I was struck by how her words and actions could be translated into solid management techniques. 

I know what you might be thinking.  Many of us have had the unfortunate experience of working for a supervisor who acted like a toddler; who thought only of him/herself or who threw temper tantrums when things didn’t go their way.  But that’s not what I’m talking about here.  There are positive lessons we all can learn from observing little ones at play.  Following are a few examples.

Know What You Want and Provide Clear Directions – Any employee who has tried to get a clear directive from a waffling or overtly political  manager can appreciate the explicit tone of a toddler. There is no ambiguity about what our granddaughter likes nor in what she wants from adults.  “Pop-pop (her name for me), sit here and read the Color book with me.”  “You wear the green hat, I want the red one.”  “I’m going to hide in the closet, you stay here.”  Clear.  Simple.  Direct.

Be Authentic but Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously – There is nothing more frustrating or disempowering in an organization than a manager that tries to be all things to all people.  It is equally important for a good manager to have a sense of humor and to not take themselves too seriously.  I’ve worked with managers who put themselves and their career above the good of their employees and the organization causing suspicion a chaos in their wake.
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That’s not what you get from toddlers who have no guile and who are uniquely comfortable within themselves.  Our granddaughter is exactly who she is and spends zero time considering how she may come across to those around her.  She will happily place heart and butterfly stickers all over her face and dance around the house feeling all the more special for it.  She will make a noise with her mouth and then laugh boisterously over her “joke.”  Happy is the organization when a manager can laugh at themselves, acknowledge their mistakes, and move on.

Be Kind and Inclusive – A good manager will ensure that everyone is cared for within the organization.  Employees will be more loyal to the company and will take more risks if they believe their manager has their back. My granddaughter innately knows this.   If we are playing tea party, she makes sure that everyone gets a cup and a cookie.  If I’m off in another room and happen to cough, our granddaughter will come running to me to ask “are you OK Pop-pop?” 

Here’s a real-world story that I wish every manager could emulate.  My daughter is a teacher and one day last year her school experienced a “code red,” meaning there was serious trouble in the building.  Everything turned out fine, but she was shaken.  On her ride home she called me, just to talk.  She finished up our conversation saying, “I just want to go home and hug my baby.” My daughter did go home and hug her baby (my granddaughter) who was 15 months old at the time.  As she hugged her child, my daughter began to cry.  Seeing her mother distraught, our granddaughter took the pacifier out of her mouth and handed it to her mom – knowing intuitively that her mom needed comforting from it more so than she. 

If a manager showed me that amount of kindness and empathy during a time of turmoil and strife, they would have my undying loyalty.

There is a lot we can learn from children, if we just open our eyes and our hearts and get out of our own way.    For me, it can all be summed up to this:  be honest, be authentic and be kind and everything else will take care of itself.
 

Science has caught up with what mystics and religions have been saying for hundreds of years: that there is a singular consciousness unifying everything and that death is no more than a transition from one perspective to another.

Quantum theory – through decades of propositions and experiments -  has upended scientific thinking about how the universe operates at both the micro and the macro level.  Here are just a few of the revolutionary ideas that have now become accepted fact among many in the world of physics:

• Matter and Light remain as waves until they are observed, at which point they collapse into electrons or  photons.  In other words, perception births reality.
• Science can only predict the probability of where or how these electrons or photons will show up.  Until they are observed they remain in a state of superposition, or said differently – in a state of multiple probabilities (or multiple universes) where “everything that can happen actually happens”.
• Time and Space may not exist as an object or thing, and perhaps was conceived in our minds as a way to measure progress.
• The Universe is “monistic” and everything is part of a unified whole.

One of the fundamental experiments upon which Quantum Theory rests is the double slit experiment which comes to the confounding conclusion that waves become electron or photon particles when they are observed and measured. When a light wave passes through the double slits, it continues to act like a wave.  However, if there is an attempt to measure the wave, then it somehow turns into matter (a photon particle) and ceases to act like a wave.

A similar experiment split the wave into two pathways, one shorter than the other.  At the end of the longer path is a meter to measure the wave.  A lab assistant randomly turns the meter on and off.  As expected, when the wave that had taken the longer path is measured, it turns into a particle.  Amazingly – the partner wave that split and took the shorter path – retroactively turned into a particle, as well.  The split waves are said to be “entangled” and the two act as one entity – doing so even when they are hundreds or thousands of miles apart.  When one changes, the partner particle matches the change and seems to do so instantaneously, calling into question the actual nature of space and time.

A couple of quotes from the famous physicist Stephen Hawking may be helpful…or not:

“ There is no way to remove the observer – us – from our perceptions of the world…the past, like the future, is indefinite and exists only as a spectrum of possibilities.” 

“..One day there may well be proof of multiple universes. It would not be beyond the realms of possibility that somewhere outside of our own universe lies another different universe…”

So, here is what we have so far:  entangled waves in superposition wait - possibly in multiple universes – for an observer to birth them into existence as matter.  One has to remember this isn’t science fiction, but rather it is a set of proposals supported by a growing number of leading physicists, three of whom won the 2022 Noble Prize for their experiments on this very topic.

This raises all kinds of vexing questions, not the least of which is: what is the role of consciousness in these developments?  And, even more fundamentally – what is consciousness?

Dr. Robert Lanza – hailed by Time Magazine as one of the world’s 100 most influential people – has written several books on Biocentrism that weaves together the concepts of quantum theory with the idea that it is consciousness that created the universe and not the other way around.  And if there is no universe without a conscious presence to perceive it, then the only logical conclusion is that there must be a universal consciousness beyond our individual sense of self.

Lanza is one of many proponents of the Multiple Universe Interpretation of quantum theory, suggesting  - like Stephen Hawking - that possible alternatives of life may be occurring now in multiple universes.  For example:  In one universe Russia succeeded in sweeping through Ukraine in a matter of days, while in another universe there was no war at all and Ukraine won back its occupied territory through diplomatic initiatives.

Finally, Lanza speculates that consciousness never ends, and quite possibly we just transfer our conscious self into another alternate universe.

There is so much of quantum theory that I find baffling and have a difficult time to comprehend fully.  Kind of like religion or spirituality.  There is a great deal that can be read about the individual soul and the Divine, but at some point belief comes down to a quiet faith.  Now that, I think, I can handle.

I read an article recently that caused me to ponder my own spirituality.  The article described how both of the conservative candidates for WI Supreme Court graduated from the same evangelical based law school founded by the TV evangelist Pat Robertson.  It further described how Wisconsin judge Jennifer Dorow begins each weekday by reading her bible and praying.

My theology is this:  if you open yourself up to the Divine, then you will be led to the work you were meant to do to realize the Kingdom of God on earth.  Now.  My experience of the Spirit is that the Divine is a God of love, of relationship, of preferential options for the poor, of justice, of mercy.

I do not doubt that Judge Dorow’s faith is real.  But how can someone who sits in the presence of the Spirit every day come to a place where she says the worst decision by the U.S. Supreme Court was the one striking down Texas anti-sodomy laws which opened the doors for legal same-sex marriage?

Is Judge Dorow praying to God and not listening for God?  Or, am I listening for God but mistaking my own voice for that of the Divine?  Is one of us wrong?  Can both of us be right?  Can God be leading us both in ways unfathomable to our conventional understanding?

I brought this conundrum with me to my Quaker Meeting for Worship where I can hand over my concerns and wait in expectant silence to see if a path forward emerges.  On this topic I received a clear and compelling answer; one that is so simple that it made me chuckle to myself while sitting in silence. 
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The answer was this:  Don’t worry about it.  Don’t concern yourself with why or how others may be led.  Simply listen for your own leadings and act on them.   Attend to your own heart and give everything else over to God.

The phrase “we lift as we climb” has a powerful pull on me.  It assumes that the goal of climbing is not to reach the summit alone, but to ensure that everyone else ascends to the top of the mountain as well.

I have been fortunate to experience this type of community effort at multiple stages of my life, mostly while working as a community organizer in numerous places across New England and in the Midwest.  I have also found it, in a more quiet and peaceful version, with the Quaker community here in Milwaukee.

At the Milwaukee Friends Meeting (Quakers), where I’m a member, we have no clergy to lead us or to manage the day to day activities of the congregation.  Everything we do can only get done if someone from the congregation steps forward to make it happen.  For example, Adult Religious Education is led by a committee of volunteers.  Care for those who are sick or those who are in crisis, or those who are in need of food or financial assistance is managed by committees.  Upkeep of the building and the 3.5 acres of nature preserve under our care is managed by volunteers. We donate generously to the broader community and work to feed the hungry and homeless in our midst.  We have a vibrant Meeting as evidenced by the fact that we are roughly 130 members (including children and teens), but yet we have more than 30 active committees.  But the most evident way we lift as we climb is in how we nurture the spiritual growth of each other.

We Quakers have a wonderful tradition of helping people who are struggling with questions about life or spirituality.  It is called a “clearness committee,”  and it is the most empowering activity that I have ever encountered.  The wisdom of the clearness committee is the fact that wisdom is not imparted from one person to another, but rather, wisdom is discovered within oneself.  The only thing a seeker may need is a small group of friends to sit with them – asking open ended questions - to help them come to clarity.  During the clearness committee process, there is no attempt to fix, or advise, or counsel the person seeking guidance.  Rather, it is a deeply spiritual encounter where everyone present strives to hear their inward voice whispering from the depths of their soul, having faith that clarity will come  from that voice.

The other kind of lift as you climb community building I have seen up close was through my years of experience as a community organizer.

I loved being a community organizer.  I was taught that an organizer’s job was NOT to win on issues – although that was a critical component.  But that the primary job was to build up new community leaders and to create a neighborhood powerbase that city hall and drug dealers and absentee landlords were forced to deal with.  I wasn’t allowed to talk at public meetings, as that was a job reserved for community leaders.  If a decision was to be made, it was my job to bring it to the neighborhood leaders and help them work through the various scenarios to arrive at a solution that would be supported by the broader community.  But the decision was theirs, and the leaders were required to bring the decision to the community to garner support.  

We were all climbing forward – trying to build a new power dynamic in the community – each helping the other while each holding the other accountable for the commitments they made.  No one got a free ride.  If you were a community leader, you got the most doors to knock on and the most phone calls to make.  If you were a community leader, you were expected to bring your recommendations to the broader community so that everyone would be involved in the decisions shaping their lives.  

I will never forget one of my most proud moments as an organizer.  I had been working in South Providence, Rhode Island with this tiny block club that was fighting with the city to clean up the 15 or so vacant lots on the block.  These lots had become a midnight dumping ground and a breeding ground for rats.   The city wasn’t responding, so our leaders convinced their neighbors to march to city hall where they stormed into the office of the Commissioner of Public Works.  We had 20 or so residents ignoring the pleas of DPW office staff who tried to stop us as we walked straight into the Commissioner’s office.  When all were in the office, our block captain loudly shut the office door and locked it.  She then turned to the Commissioner and said, “My name is Connie Carter and I’m not leaving here until you agree to clean up our block.”  She locked the door!  She announced her presence.  Everyone in the room felt the power shift immediately from the Commissioner to the people in general, and to Connie in particular.  In that moment, Connie lifted her entire block as we all climbed together, one step closer to a better neighborhood.
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Often in life it may feel as if we are climbing a mountain in darkness.  If we are fortunate, we will hear the voice of a friend saying “don’t worry, I’ve got you,” as a firm hand reaches down to guide us safely forward.  What is clear to me is that we only get to the mountain top together, and to do so, we must each lift as we climb.

 I feel like I’ve spent my entire life straddling the line between the “inside group” and the outsiders.  In high school, I was friendly with the “cool kids” but felt more at home with the mountain boys and the greasers.  As a public policy advocate, I got to the point where mayors and governors and many elected officials knew me by sight and by name, and were friendly (for the most part) but I never had any delusions that I was ever really at the table with them (except for my stint as chief of staff to the mayor of Milwaukee.  But that’s a story for another day.)

It has been my experience that every group has an insider clique. My smart aleck quip is that there were only 12 Apostles – while the crowds following Jesus sometimes numbered into the hundreds.  

Did you ever wonder about the 13th Apostle; that liminal soul who was close enough to the “insider group” to have a sense of what was going on, but who remained an outsider - acknowledged but not fully accepted into the heart of the band of believers.

In fact, we do know who was the 13th Apostle (Acts 1:21-23).  His name was Matthias and he was chosen (by casting lots) to replace Judas.  In order to qualify for the position a candidate needed to be among the group from the beginning when Jesus was baptized and up and through the time he was taken away.  And only two men made the list: Matthias and Joseph. One has to wonder whether any women met the criteria but who were excluded because of gender bias.

Inner circles, outer circles, who is in and who is not.  These are issues plaguing groups since our early ancestors fought over who slept close to the fire and who was relegated to the cold and frightful dark of night.  What does this dynamic tell us about the human condition?  And what does it say about each of us as individuals who crave to be included?

The mystics tell us that our need to be acknowledged and accepted is nothing more than our little ego crying out for attention.  And, that if we were spiritually grounded, we would realize that we are magnificent transcendent beings playing hide and seek in a human body.

I must admit, I’m often not that enlightened.  I try, and sometimes catch a glimmer of the warm light of the Divine.  But for the most part I fail to live a life rooted in the knowledge that I am one with the Spirit.  I find myself craving love and attention.  I often measure my worth against others who seem to have it more together.

I realize that this self-doubt is directly related to the amount of time I spend in contemplative prayer.  Little time in prayer results in a lot of time in doubt.

What I learn in prayer – and must relearn time and again – is that I am God’s beloved.  And nothing I do or say can change that.  God’s love can’t be earned and it can’t be lost.  It just is.  

Whether there were 12 apostles or 14 is immaterial.  Creating an inner circle and an outer circle is a human construct that reinforces a false sense of self.  The secret is that we are all apostles.  We are all part of the inner circle.  It was Voltaire who said “God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.”

​For all of us who have spent most of our lives on the outside, yearning to be on the inside – like Joseph and Matthias - I’d like to say that being an apostle is a big deal.  But, it’s a group to which we all already belong. 

I turned 70 this summer, and it wasn’t an easy transition.  I found myself thinking about all the potential losses I had in front of me.  For example, I’m pretty sure I won’t be around to see any great grandkids and I’m not sure I will be able to “dance at my granddaughters’ wedding”  since the oldest is six and the youngest will turn two in December.

I wondered how many years of sailing I have left, as my knees are becoming increasingly stiff and I’m not as nimble as I once was scurrying around a moving boat.  I don’t want to become a liability and I don’t want to end up as one of those skippers who can only (and barely) just sit and steer the vessel.

My father died at age 66 from early onset of Alzheimer’s disease.  And now – every time I forget a name or why I walked down to the basement - I pause and wonder: is this how it starts.   I remember being a teenager, lounging in my bedroom reading a Sargent Rock comic book and hearing my dad talking downstairs.  I went down to see who happened to visit – only to find my dad reading a book out loud.
 
Now, there were two things odd about this: one, that he was reading a book at all as that’s not something I ever saw him do before or after; and two, the fact that he was doing so – out loud.  When I asked what he was doing, he just shrugged it off and said he wanted to “hear how the words sounded.”  In retrospect, it is clear that he could feel his mind slipping and he was trying to find a way to stave it off.  At the time, Alzheimer’s disease wasn’t commonly known, at least not in the circles I ran with in rural Western Pennsylvania in the late 1960s.

You see where this was going.  I mentally ran through every malady I knew of in my family’s history and imagined how each was a sentence hanging over me.   Will I end up with macular degeneration like my mother– or kidney disease that incapacitated my grandfather?  My uncle died from heart failure and my maternal grandmother became senile in her advanced years.  Is that my fate? 

Clearly, as I approached turning 70, I became focused on a life of diminishing returns: one of lost opportunities, physical incapacitation, and mental instability; a life of increased strife and an absence of joy.

Given my dreary disposition, it was clear something had to change.

Since becoming a Quaker, I have a touchstone reading that helps to ground me.  It is from Isaac Pennington – a 17th century Quaker:  “Give over thine own willing.  Give over thine own running.  Give over thine own desire to know or be anything.  And sink down into the seed God placed in thee and let that be in thee and grow in thee and act in thee.  And  know, through sweet experience that God knows that, God owns that, God loves that and will provide your life’s inheritance according to his portion.”

For me, this quote reflects a Zen teaching:  Acknowledge your feelings and desires, but don’t own them.  Give them over and then, focus on the present.

Upon contemplation, what I realized is that I have little control over what illnesses may befall me or how long I may live.  What I do have control over is my ability to appreciate the here and now: the amount of love I share with my family and friends and my ability to drink in and savor the moments – whether playing with my granddaughters or sailing or sitting in the yard watching the butterflies or talking about the day with my wife over a cup of coffee.

I am healthier now than I likely will be in 20 years.  The same can be said for my mental capacity or my sailing skills.  It is easier for me now to crawl around on the floor with my granddaughters than it will be years from now.  From that perspective, I don’t want to waste the joys of the present in painful fear of a debilitated future.  Now, I see 70 as the youngest I will be for the rest of my life so I plan on enjoying every minute of it.

Or as my favorite poet Mary Oliver wrote:
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“It is a serious thing / Just to be alive / On this fresh morning / In this broken world.”

The crew of sailing vessel IMUA battled wind, waves and broken equipment to win first place in the Cruising Division of the Milwaukegan Regatta; a 50 mile race from Milwaukee, WI to Waukegan, IL.  It was a race that saw nearly 60% of the fleet drop out due to weather.

The weather forecast for race day was ominous.   Meteorologists were calling for rain, possible thunder storms with SSE wind gusting to the mid-20s causing 4-6 foot waves.  The forecast was the subject of much discussion among the race committee on Friday evening, as they contemplated postponing the start from Saturday to Sunday, but decided to proceed because of all the logistic complications a postponement would bring. 

Our start was set for 8 am on Saturday morning.  The four of us on the team arrived at 6:30 in order to stow away gear, do a final boat check, and get underway so we could motor the 1.5 miles to the start line.  We arrived at the start line by 7:30 as planned and checked in by radio with the race committee.  As our start time neared, we hoisted sails and shut off the motor so we could test the conditions and craft a starting strategy.

We were definitely in heavy air but not up to the mid-20s as predicted and the waves were a manageable 2-3 feet, so we decided to start with a full set of sails.   

As our five-minute start sequence began, we tacked and jibed in order to position ourselves for a start at full speed and in clean air.  We had a good start, first off the line, but further down than we hoped.  Our first dilemma came up fast, as one of the double-handed boats in the division that started in front of us was foundering and began drifting right into our path.  We hailed them, but as we got closer we realized they were in trouble and we ducked under them – losing valuable distance and time.

Shortly after the start, the wind began to build quickly and it felt like the gusts were certainly in the low to mid 20s.  As the wind increased, so did the waves.  We buried the rail of the boat several times as the edge skimmed under water and the helmsman used both hands on the tiller, like he was rowing with an oar, to keep the boat edge out of the water and moving forward.  The skipper asked for the mainsail traveler to be dropped so we could spill wind and stay more upright, as the swells  grew larger and came in batches of three to five consecutive waves, one right on top of another. 
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With the waves coming in batches the helmsman could surf some of them but not all, and eventually the boat would crash from the top to the bottom of a six foot wave.  The team thinks it was one of those crashes that bent the boom vang extension to a 90 degree angle.  There was nothing we could do about the Vang, but cross our fingers and hope that the bend wouldn’t inhibit the mainsail from tacking when needed.  It was at this point that the skipper said “this is getting serious” and called for the mainsail to be reefed, shortening the amount of sail exposed to the wind in order to reduce heel and make the boat a bit easier to steer.

For this race, the boat was equipped with safety lines and the crew all wore harnesses, so that anyone leaving the cockpit could attach a tether to their harness and the other end to the safety line which would prevent them from going overboard in the wind and the waves.  Kurt volunteered to clip in to the safety line and crawled to the mast so the crew could reduce sail.  Jake and Wayne stayed in the cockpit ready to lower the main halyard when Kurt was ready.  I struggled to surf up the crest and down the trough of each wave, trying to keep the boat from violently crashing down a wave while Kurt was at the mast.  The reef was done without a hitch and Kurt crawled back to the cockpit – wet from the waves - but safe.

The wind and waves weren’t subsiding and The strategy was to stay on this starboard tack long enough so that when we did tack over to port, we would be aligned with the finish and we wouldn’t need to tack again until the end.  It was early enough in the race that we could still see plenty of boats around us.  We were even able to pick out one of our competitors who was a bit ahead. 

After 2.5 hours of hard sailing at the tiller I was tired.  My shoulders hurt, my hands were stiff and my jaw ached from clenching my teeth.  Kurt, an experienced long distance racer, took his turn at the helm, trying to keep ahead of the waves and fighting the wind.  Shortly into Kurt’s watch, we saw one, then another of the fleet give up the race and turn around.  I’m sure we all thought about doing the same.  I know I did, but no one said a word and we sailed on.

We drew even with our competition, but they were more than a mile east of us.  They tacked onto port and headed west, eventually passing in front of us.  We discussed tacking to cover them, but decided that we liked where we were and stayed with our strategy, slogging through the waves on starboard tack.

This was a long race and we couldn’t avoid using the head down below.  As the boat sailed on a 30 degree angle and bounced around with the waves, it was a struggle to peel off your foul weather gear and get to the head.  Three of the four of us came back from our respective trips below, feeling nauseous.  I couldn’t eat for the rest of the day and only sipped on water in order to hold off another trip to the cabin.  All but Wayne – who seemed impervious to the sea state below – avoided the trip at all costs.  By avoiding drinking water, we risked becoming dehydrated, but the alternative was to risk sea sickness and all that entails.  Not a good trade in our book.

We were about 10 miles east of the shoreline when the wind began to slow and then shifted to our bow, forcing us to either tack or fall off.  This wasn’t the place we planned to make our tack for the finish but decided we should take advantage of the lift we would see on the other end of the tack.  We called for a tack and crossed our fingers that the bent Vang would accommodate.  It did, and after the tack we shook out the reef to increase our sail area.  This felt good.  We peered below us and to the west to see if we could spot our competition.  They were no where around.  Did they surge ahead?  Did they fall hopelessly behind?  Did they abandon the race? We didn’t know.  What we did know is that this was the best ride of the day so far.
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Jake and Wayne took their turns at the tiller as we either picked up speed or slowed down with the fickle wind.  It was surprising how quickly the waves changed with the wind speed; growing when the wind picked up and shrinking when the wind lessoned. And it was like that for the remainder of the trip.

Finally, we could see the finish line off on the horizon.  We had been trailing a boat that wasn’t in our division and found ourselves mirroring their path.  It was clear that we would need to do two more tacks in order to cross the finish line, which we did.

We finished the race in 10.5 hours.  We saw one boat finish about 15 minutes in front of us and another about 15 minutes behind us, but neither was in our division.  We had no idea where we finished in the standings.  We were just happy to have safely arrived.

Later that evening, after we settled the boat and ate supper, we walked to the Waukegan Yacht Club to take advantage of the free beer they provided to the racers.  It was in the bar that we ran into the crew of the competitor boat we had been watching all day.  We learned that they finished nearly two hours behind us.  We figured we had a good chance to trophy after hearing that, but we never really dreamed it would be first place. 

We were happy but tired and a bit beat up, so we decided to motor sail the 8 hours home the next day.  During that trip Wayne looked up the results on his phone and announced:  IMUA – first place in the Cruising Division. 
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We competed in challenging conditions.   We pushed ourselves beyond our comfort zone and we didn’t give up – even though each of us contemplated doing so. The win felt like an affirmation.  After all, the name of our boat is IMUA, which is Hawaiian for “go forward with spirit.”

​The war in Ukraine has caused many of us to struggle with the Quaker Peace Testimony.  Below, I share some of the questions that arose in my own discernment, the act of which brought a sense of peace with where I have landed on the Quaker Peace Testimony.

Is God active in the world – performing miracles – in answer to human prayers?  With this theology, one may be able to support the Peace Testimony at all cost.  If we pray earnestly enough, and often enough, and in community with as many people as possible, will the Divine answer our prayers and convert the heart of Vladimir Putin or his soldiers and generals in the field to halt the war?  Is prayer and the rock solid belief in prayer the answer to this carnage?  Do we believe that Ukrainian mothers and fathers and children and soldiers and clergy are already praying fervently – hour upon hour – day upon day?  Do we believe that others around the world are also praying with heartfelt intent to petition God to end the war? 

I suppose the basic question is, why does the Divine need our prayers and petitions in order to act?  In fact, Jesus tells us “your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.…” (Matthew 6:7-8)

I suspect there is no scarcity of prayers, and that God isn’t in need of guidance from us in order to know what to do.  Which led me to the next set of questions.

Is God’s plan somehow unfolding with Russian aggression against the Ukrainian people?  We hear some version of this tenet often in sayings like:  “God doesn’t give us more than we can handle,” or “The Divine has a plan and who are we to question it,” or “God’s plan will unfold eventually, we must remain prayerful and patient,” or “There is certainly evil in the world because of mankind’s dark impulses and God-given free will, but goodness and light will overcome.”
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If the Russian invasion of Ukraine is somehow the result of God’s plan, then perhaps yes, I could stand firmly with the Peace Testimony, knowing that the Spirit will prevail.

I suppose on a macro level one can argue for the idea of “God’s Plan” but to me it seems cruel on the micro level.  For example – why does the Divine choose some children to die from leukemia while others survive?  Same for every other cancer victim and cancer survivor.  Why do some people walk away from a car accident while others die?  Why do some people die from a bombing attack while others survive? Is God picking sides?  Are those who died somehow unworthy of God’s love and protections?  Are they paying for the sins of their fathers – from generations long gone? 

What if God is not directly active in the world?  I had a “dark night of the soul” moment a short while back when I came to the realization that it is we who must choose the Divine in order to bring forth the kingdom of God on earth. 
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We are already chosen.  The Spirit is already within each of us, but that’s the full stop of it all, that’s where everything ends – according to my spirituality.  The spirit of the Divine is infused into every molecule throughout the cosmos – from the furthest galaxy to the microbes under out feet.  And that spirit is emanating love.  That spirit is love, a love that each individual can choose to believe in and embrace or to ignore.

For me, the freedom to ignore the spirit of God is how we end up with evil in the world.  It is how we end up with greed and murder and war.  Some choose to not embrace the spirit of God within, and to act on the impulses of the ego.  The spirit hasn’t gone away – it is just drowned out by the self-driven cravings for possessions, money, prestige and power.  For some, the siren call of the realm is louder than the soft whisper of the inward teacher quietly calling each of us to manifest God’s love.

For those of us whose faith is formed by an understanding that the spirit of the Divine is already present but, that each of us is free to embrace or ignore it , then helping Ukraine to arm itself in defense of an aggressor intent on violence, destruction, and domination makes sense. 

We don’t need to pray for God to be present because the spirit of God emanates throughout the cosmos, softly exhorting each of us to manifest love.  We cannot wait for the Divine to intervene into the matters of the world because God is already doing so, but only through our actions.  No miracles will be forthcoming other than the ones we create on our own.

There is certainly “that of God” flowing freely through us all, including both the Russians and the Ukrainians.  Some choose to embrace that love while others choose to ignore it in favor of amassing worldly gains.  Some believe it is an act of love to recognize the Spirit within each person and thus to oppose all acts of war.  Others – like me – believe that it is a greater act of love to aid those who are fighting – in real time – to protect the innocent. 

It is difficult for me to support the idea of treating the aggressors and their victims alike.  I will always come down on the side of the victims.  I can’t fathom loving someone so much that I am prepared to relegate them to slaughter rather than supporting them to take up arms and defend themselves