There is a well known Quaker joke: Two men sit next to each other on a bench. The one shakes for a long time in Meeting and yet never rises. Eventually the other man rises and gives a message. The Meeting for Worship ends and the second man turns to the shaker at the rise of Meeting and says: "Next time give your own damn message." This is funny to Quakers (yeah try giving this joke to a group of non-Quakers... you have to explain the joke just to get polite smiles.) because we recognize what it is to sit on a leading to speak. We have all done it at some time. I have also heard people say "Yeah not going to do that again...not worth the heart attack" meaning that the racing of the heart and the butterflies in the stomach felt while not delivery the message are not worth it!
We all also have stories of times where people's messages deeply spoke to us which, is both magical and a deep motivation to faithfully deliver messages given to us. My own story of that happened on an occasion where I had gone to not my own Meeting, but a local meeting in Jan the Sunday after Martin Luther King Day. On that Sunday I was deep in thought concerned about an issue concerning my then step-son and feeling somehow like two cherished values were pitted against each other and trying somehow to figure out which one was actually more important or how to reconcile them. Towards the end a young man rose and said: "I went to the Martin Luther King march this Monday and I was very struck during the pre-rally by how someone quoted him saying: " But I want to tell you this evening that it is not enough for us to talk about love, love is one of the pivotal points of the Christian faith. There is another side called justice. And justice is really love in calculation. Justice is love correcting that which revolts against love". As I heard this it shot through me "Oh yes Love. Love is the answer. Love trumps all and I had forgotten this.
After Meeting I went to him and thanked him for being faithful in delivering the message because it had spoken to my condition. His eyes got big. He said: "I have never spoken in Meeting before and I did not know why I should just repeat that quote. It seemed silly, but I kept shaking so I finally did." Both parts of this story are important -that he was faithful and spoke to my condition and that I let him know as this wound up being an eldering in the importance of being faithful. Interestingly, I had had a strong urge to go tell him. I also had been faithful to the inward prompting. This would be an example of how we are one of another in community. I would also note here that I did not say "I liked your message", but "thank you for being faithful". This is an important distinction; when we thank Friends for "their message" we add to the confusion about where messages come from and tempt the ego of the one who delivered.
I remember once going to a Meeting in another town and being given a message, but no prompting to give it. I was confused by this and spent much of the hour trying to decide whether to give it, but eventually concluded that I was not to. I wound up thinking it was a message that God intended only for me. And in fact it was meaningful to me for quite a while. Then one Sunday in my Meeting I somehow felt moved to give the message. "Really God?" "Yes really" So I stood and gave the message. Later a Friend who did not often come to Meeting, came and thanked me for the message saying how much the message meant to her. Wow, I had no idea that God could work in such a way!
I'm not sure if that is the oddest way The Holy One has brought a message to Meeting through me or if it would be this story. I once woke on a Sunday morning from a dream in which I had been in Meeting for worship and one of our Members had sung a message and some other thing had happened. I went to Meeting and thought about this dream - after a while I started feeling the familiar stomach sensations indicating to deliver the message. 'really?...but this is a dream its not a message" Yes really! So I rose and told the dream and sat down embarrassed. Late,r the person who had sang in my dream came to me and said that she had been for several months been getting words to a new song in Meeting for worship but did not think of herself as a song writer and so had not written them down. We looked at each other and she said: "I guess I had better write them down huh?" She did and some months later sang the song for Meeting.
In my Yearly Meeting there was for two years a Clerk who was very good at racing through the agenda, but not very good, it seemed, to listening to the Spirit. In his first year an issue arose where the nominating committee was not being able to get people to agree to serve on committees. So they took the position of laying themselves down to force the Yearly Meeting to look at the issue. However, as people began in business meeting to look deeply and focus on what was wrong in our Yearly Meeting, the clerk abruptly cut off discussion in favor of simply having an Ad Hoc committee create a new nominating committee. Later, I simply thanked the tearful clerk of nominating for being faithful. For it was clear to me that she had been faithful in delivering a painful message, and that she had done all that was her part, but was thwarted by others not listening in the Spirit.
The next year we were down to the last hour of business in this clerk's term and again someone began to question the creation of yet another committee to try to solve the same problem that we had quite possibly created a committee earlier in the morning to solve. The question was again raised what is wrong in our Yearly Meeting? This time speaker after speaker rose speaking of their distress about the condition of our Yearly Meeting, the non-spiritual nature of business meeting, etc. It was like a geyser that could not be contained. The clerk again tried to cut off the discussion, but this time a young woman, not even from our Yearly Meeting rose in tears about the her sense of the Spirit being stiffled and plead that we would sit in silence and listen to the Spirit and so this time (and in part because worship was next on the schedule) the clerk surrendered and the messages poured out for another half an hour. For me this was a very powerful example of how Spirit is determined to be heard and will use every faithful voice in the room to bring the truth home.
What dear Friend is your experience of being Faithful in delivering a message?
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