If you're able, please light a candle and think of all three of us. We appreciate prayers, thoughts, energy and intentions our way as Rachel births this new life into the world and Ben supports this incredible time of transition. Please pray for us as we become parents and for our little one, for all of our health, and for quickness of labor and for safety. 

July 8, 2016 marked my 31st birthday. It was a good day of celebration, starting out with breakfast donuts with a dear friend, a few hours of work, and then a fun adventure up to Maine for lobster and more friends. My birthday each year is my new year. It is a time for me to reflect on the year past and dream about the year forward. Though this year, I didn't really do that until some time later. My new year was full of being in the present; full of joy; full of love. 

The theme of the conference is “Living the Transformation: Creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God.” This theme has been broken down into four parts in the study booklet and Friends have been encouraged to look at one or more as their section facilitates worship. Latin American Friends from the FWCC-Section of the America led this morning’s worship. We stood together in song as the Latin American Friends gathered in the front of the plenary room and encouraged us to think about what it meant to be “Living the Transformation.”

Perhaps an odd title for a blog post, though that’s exactly what has been happening here as Ben and I acclimatize to the altitude in Cusco. Its high here, 11,000 ft. That is more than 2 miles high! And for folks like us living at sea level in Boston, well, we are moving slow.

Ben and I arrived last night in Cusco and both experienced headaches and shortness of breath. The coca tea that everyone raves about didn’t help me much, probably kept me up most of the night instead, but today I am feeling better. We are taking it slow though, which means walking slow, moving slow, eating slow, and talking slow. Our lungs tell us that we need to breath deeply and our bodies are telling us to be patient.

Here are some photos from this year's New Year's Day hike in the blue hills organized by some F/friends of Ben and mine from Beacon Hill Friends Meeting. 

I choose wonder for the theme of this worship earlier this week—thinking about this time of year, the wonder of the birth of Jesus in the Christian tradition, the wonder of the oil lasting seven days in the Jewish tradition, and the wonder of the turn of the year, the equality of light and darkness in the celebration of Solstice. 

I've heard it called the Quaker Holy Day for Friends on the South Coast of Massachusetts, that is the day of the annual Allen's Neck Clam Bake. The one day a year where friends and families; attenders and members; and people near and far come to the Westport/Dartmouth Massachusetts area to partake in this event. 

Tonight I met with some folks from Beacon Hill Friends Meeting and neighborhood friends to share stories of the Camino de Santiago. Several of us had all sorts of good memories to recall and plenty of advice to impart on one of BHFM’s members who is going to hike the Camino in the fall. When I hiked the Camino in 2009, it was a significant turning point in my life- I walked with the prayer “God, teach my how to love, how to love myself and how to love others…” So many years later I would not have guessed this prayer to be so central to the work I do and the needs I still have in relationship with the Divine. 

I took a bunch of pictures and videos while I was there- though I only got my camera out a after a few days had passed, so all of the photos are from Tuesday & Wednesday.  This year's Annual Sessions gave me a lot to think about; about love & truth, about community, about assertiveness vs aggression or passivity, and so much more. I really appreciated all of the people that checked in with my about my experience this year and all the people who supported and care for me throughout the week. Its taking time for me to adjust to NEYM as a transplant from Baltimore Yearly Meeting, but each year things get a little bit better.

I’m not going to Burning Man this year since my chaplaincy residency starts on the 30th of August and conflicts. Its one of the many things I’ve given up to do this residency, and while I’m still processing the grief of not seeing my lovely friends and being in camp this year, I ended up traveling to Colorado before Annual Sessions to help with the HeeBee Cooking weekend. This is the weekend where my Burning Man camp cooks much of the food for the festival week. We slaughtered and processed 20 chickens and cooked all sorts of goodness. 

And then, walking back from a Spiritual Caregiving visit with an 87 year woman who is just so alone in the world, I thought: My faith propagates love. Its a love that is often hard and challenging, like these conversations with this high school classmate; conversations that I hope can continue in private- not posted on a Facebook wall for all to see and hurt. Its a love that is living and breathing, that comes from visiting friends and family and strangers who need us to listen, to care, and to be present. Its a love that interrupted my whole day so that I could pour my heart out over these words and a love that is not exclusive to Quakerism, Christianity, or any particular faith or community. But it is a love that bring some people to my faith- and people to other faith communities who live this love too; it is a love that brings people who are hurting, people who are needing to be seen and heard, and people who have felt rejected by the world, into our doors and into our hearts. We Quakers have a lot to do to grow and expand that love, but at the core we propagate love.

The following is a sermon I gave this morning at Allen's Neck Friends Meeting in Dartmouth, MA. I read the news yesterday of West Hill's Friends Church and Northwest Yearly Meeting and it weighed heavy on my heart. I've included a recording of my sermon this morning as well, if you'd like to listen as you read along. 

Sarah shared how much leading this delegation felt like her experiences leading international delegations. Detroit, the most trafficked city between the USA and another country, is on the front lines of our impending water war. The stories of people facing water shut-offs, corrupted public services and undemocratic governmental structures are very real and the people whom CPT talked to and walked with this past week are living out these realities.