Newsletter – Page 2 – White Meeting House Blog

News from the White Meeting House — February 25, 2022

Dear friends,

As I, with the rest of the world, gasped in horror at the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on Thursday by Russia, the words of the former Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul amplified my horror and the conundrum in which the world find itself. He reported to Rachel Maddow on last night’s news that he’d had a conversation that afternoon with a friend in Ukraine who told him, “The worst thing is we have to fight this bastard alone.”

This Ukrainian friend was not only lamenting his country’s isolation against what we must now call, after McFaul, a rogue state with nuclear weapons, but he was also recognizing the potentially more devastating repercussions were the US to start bombing Russian positions.

Intellectually, I am with Ambassador McFaul, who is not prone to hyperbole — the world must respond now with the might of right against evil. Sanctions are good and morally laudable. But they will not alter the devastation of a poor, democratic and sovereign nation now.

Timothy Snyder, one of the world’s leading authorities on authoritarianism recently sent out a post to his subscribers offering ways to be in solidarity, right now with Ukraine. I take the liberty, as is his wish, to repost most of that here:

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Ukraine has been invaded by Russia. All day long people have been asking me what to do. You can show solidarity. You can give an organization a little bit of your money. It will not stop a war. But it will help Ukrainians to help themselves. And it could save lives.

Ukraine is not a rich country. The average household makes less than $7000 a year. A little money, sent in the right direction, can make a meaningful difference. And it might give you a sense that you have done the right thing, at least in a small way, at the right moment.

Russia and Ukraine are different in many ways. Russia is a militarized country which spends its hydrocarbon earnings on weapons and intervenes beyond its borders on a regular basis. Ukraine has small armed forces with much less impressive weaponry. In Russia, everything is centralized by the state and controlled by one person (we see the result); in Ukraine decentralization and informality are the rule. Ukraine’s army is partly crowdfunded.

Everyone has different values, and so here is a range. Please do something.

NGO that arranges life-saving equipment for Ukrainian soldiers: https://savelife.in.ua/en/donate

Hospitallers working at the frontline: https://www.facebook.com/hospitallers/posts/2953630548255167

Ukrainian Women’s Veteran Movement: https://www.uwvm.org.ua/?page_id=3437&lang=en

NGO that assists internal refugees: https://unitedhelpukraine.org/

NGO that assistants internal refugees, especially from Crimea: https://www.peaceinsight.org/en/organisations/crimea-sos/?location=ukraine&theme

NGO that aids traumatised children: https://voices.org.ua/en/

Foundation that assists healthcare and education in eastern Ukraine: https://razomforukraine.org/projects/zhadan/

Be well,

Peter

Star Island with Dan Senning

Register before March 10 for the 2022 All Star I Family Conference on Star Island. All Star 1 is a family conference that emphasizes intellectual, musical, and artistic pursuits with lots of time for intergenerational fun. We have many multi-generational families who return year after year, but always welcome new people to our one-week conference in July on Star Island in New Hampshire.

A day at All Star I starts with a polar bear dip (fortunately optional) and ends with evening chapel often followed by some late night music. In between, are the morning lecture on the week’s topic, morning and afternoon children’s programs, talks-on-the-rocks, art on the porch or in the barn, and plenty of time for chatting in the rocking chairs on the porch and quiet time on the rocks. However, while the day is full of activities, what and how much you chose to do is up to you.

The heart of our community are the children who are involved in morning and afternoon classes and the adults rejoice in watching the trust walks, the Children’s Stunt Show, and the infamous Great People Hunt. There are clenched teeth all around as the community comes together to see if the Junior Teens’ handmade boat will make it to Smuttynose and back!

The Theme for the Week this year is “Consideration, Respect, and Honesty . . . Creating and Nurturing Our Relationships and Communities In Today’s World.” Daniel Post Senning will be our guest, featured speaker.

Daniel Post Senning is the great-great-grandson of Emily Post and a co-author of Emily Post’s Etiquette, 19th edition and The Etiquette Advantage in Business, 3rd edition. He is also the author of Manners in a Digital World: Living Well Online. The Emily Post Institute Inc. is a fifth-generation family business that has been promoting etiquette based on consideration, respect, and honesty since Emily Post wrote her first book ETIQUETTE in 1922.

Dan specializes in relationship building in all areas of life, whether it is at home, at work, or online. He is a personable and dynamic presenter who takes pleasure in making the topic of etiquette useful and approachable to all audiences. Together with his cousin Lizzie Post, Dan answers 21st century etiquette questions on Awesome Etiquette, a podcast from American Public Media.

Dan conducts business etiquette seminars and delivers speeches across the country and around the world. Dan is an active spokesperson for the Institute, and has appeared on the Today Show, The History Channel and ESPN. He has contributed to The Huffington Post, and has been interviewed by publications including The New York Times, Slate, Esquire, GQ, Glamour, Time Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal.

With a focus on relationships and our communities, Dan’s talks will cover such topics as ‘thinking forward, the past evolution of social norms and what we might expect in the next century with climate change, global consciousness, and infinite connectivity’; ‘putting relationships first, balancing individual and community needs’; and ‘finding value in imperfection, a practical approach to holding high ideals’.

Pledge Ingathering 2021

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,
let us also lay aside every weight … and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.
— Hebrews 12:1

One year ago, when I sent out our annual pledge in-gathering letter, we were still coming to grips with the new world reality of lock-downs, Covid-19 testing, mask-wearing and perpetual vigilance against a tricky, invisible enemy. To top it all off, we were then, as we still are, sifting relevant scientific information from misinformation and conspiracy theories. I said then in the understatement of the year, “Our pledge in-gathering comes at a difficult time.”It is still difficult, of course. Yet, you have not let the difficulty of these days crush you; through perplexing times, you have remained steadfast. Though I care never to repeat last year’s week-in-week-out Zoom worship situation, I will look back upon that time (when we’re finally out of the woods, and the threat of a return to Zoom is past) with some affection. I would often find myself leaning into the screen, in an effort to see your faces more closely and to take strength from your presence. You were for me, as I hope we all were for each other, a veritable cloud of witnesses.

Curiously, the Letter to the Hebrews was written to a church under their own set of crushing difficulties. It wasn’t a pandemic, it was a persecution, and the threat of death and dissolution must have been hard to bear. The author’s fine point is one you’ve heard me repeat often — through mutual love, we’ll get through this. By continuing to be a church with concern for each other and by offering hospitality to others, by acting with a sense of generosity and large-heartedness we bear testimony to what he calls salvation, but which really just means life — the life that really is life.

The church leadership teams and I have decided to persevere with in-person worship trusting that as the delta variant tapers off, which, as of this writing it seems to be doing, and as a vaccine becomes available for children under 12, we will gradually, comfortably and naturally return to a more normal worship and community life together.

Last month, a few weeks after the church was painted, I ran into someone I know from about town. I don’t know her well, and have only had a handful of conversations with her in the 21 years I’ve lived here and never about the church or religion. She inquired about how things were at the church, and I told her that we were fairing pretty well. She noted that the church looked so beautiful and she thanked me for allowing the kind of genuine, open-hearted community we are, to be. She told me that she was raised a Catholic and will not set foot in the church again, but that she was grateful for our church being a light on the hill and thereby important to her as a community member.

We have been the light on the hill in this community for 220 years. Floods have not drowned us out. Covid will not extinguish it. Year in and year out, members and friends of this church have offered their generous support to this extraordinary reality, that God does not regard us from our frailty, and that God has no favorites, loving all equally with a love that will not end. That’s what it means for us to be the light on the hill. And that is why we are free to support the church so generously and persistently and in such good faith today.

Please offer your continuing support by filling out and sending in the included pledge card by November 1. Included with this letter you will also find a brief description of last years’ budget. It is your budget of mutual love, and the Board of Finance thanks you for your generosity which makes it possible.

May the peace that passes all understanding and the love that never ends, go with you and hold you close.

Love,
Peter