tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78279888305343313532024-03-08T03:32:35.717-08:00The Friendly SeekerA birthright Friend in the unprogrammed tradition talks about Quakerism today.Lynn Fitz-Hughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00275558885734332460noreply@blogger.comBlogger137125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7827988830534331353.post-84395354516791681472023-07-11T21:13:00.000-07:002023-07-11T21:13:11.805-07:00How to misuse Testimonies<p> The reason Quaker's call them testimonies and not creeds is because we believe in continuing revelation. We hold up our testimonies as the truth as we know it so far, with the idea that God can reveal the Truth anew to us or in a new way - that our understanding of the truth can evolve. So you would think that we would hold the testimonies lightly.</p><p>And yet - I moved to a city where Friends were in deep conflict about an issue before the Meeting. Increasingly sides were be taken and each side could point to certain testimonies and say how those should be carried out by certain actions the meeting should take. In short we had thoughts and feelings about the testimonies! And so did I. But my "idea" was to take a third way - to not get caught up in conflict - to find a bridge across the differences. (Thus making me unpopular with both groups.) The Meeting eventually split over this issue and at least a dozen people left...myself included. In the end I was not mad because one side or the other prevailed (In fact neither side prevailed - the issue sort of collapsed in exhaustion - aided by a pandemic imposed separation from personal contact on Sundays.) For me I left in despair of realizing that in all the side taking we had not asked: "What does God say? What are we hearing from Spirit". It was as if we held a big fight and did not invite the Divine.</p><p>I am sort of amazed at this slippery slope - how easily our thoughts about our beliefs can take us out of our belief - out of the continuous seeking Spirit and divine revelation. I am bemused that the Buddhist practice of mindfulness is to watch the "monkey mind" and all its tricks it plays on us.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhBrk_EUR5zqDKtNHeXtMXW7snKfC2bJJLkMInF0g-513hCMksYmONtM8ztNCRfSz46ANpzvfJE0XTRMS0Ylas45Lm_nS02i5f2vzf0N14DT7ePlqj99qlhFBKIXs5uEg1DC5Lnd-QC_qZha2Q4KLZL5qWyKx5jvpfjK-JLhSTRQa5PNjScK4khqX4NSKUT" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="792" data-original-width="1200" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhBrk_EUR5zqDKtNHeXtMXW7snKfC2bJJLkMInF0g-513hCMksYmONtM8ztNCRfSz46ANpzvfJE0XTRMS0Ylas45Lm_nS02i5f2vzf0N14DT7ePlqj99qlhFBKIXs5uEg1DC5Lnd-QC_qZha2Q4KLZL5qWyKx5jvpfjK-JLhSTRQa5PNjScK4khqX4NSKUT" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p>Lynn Fitz-Hughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00275558885734332460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7827988830534331353.post-30176192557917245982022-11-26T18:02:00.000-08:002022-11-26T18:02:03.069-08:00This is what a blue wave looks like under gerrymandering<p> I am sick and tired of the pundits prattle. Of the remarks that it was not the red wave that was predicted or that the Dems did better than expected. I am dismayed by the sort of sigh of relief of progressives that it was not the shellacking they feared. I am tired of the sort of business as usual "live to fight another day" attitude that assumes "well maybe better next time" - as if we just have two more years to suffer though the grid lock we have already had for two years. (While both Trump and Biden signal their intentions to run again in 2024 potentially setting us up to live in a perpetual rerunning nightmare where Trump never leaves the newswaves, where a landslide is referred to as a stolen election and where one of two elderly white men continue to run our country.)</p><p>This prattle incorrectly fails to identify that this was a blue wave - it was a blue wave under severe gerrymandering. If one looks at how close so many individual races were, it is clear that without the gerrymandering that took blue districts and divided them between two and sometimes even 7 neighboring districts to bury the votes of people of color, youth and suburban women, that the Republicans would not have even the house.</p><p>I am concerned that progressives seem to believe that we have a good chance two years from now to have a different outcome. There seems to be a failure to understand that between stacked courts, redistricting that happened after the 2020 census and a 40 year plan on the part of the Koch brothers and their think tanks...the game can in fact be too fixed to ever again be "won".</p><p>The Koch think tanks have been planning for decades. They planned to slowly take over statehouses, (check), to use wedge issues (check), to interfere with Democratic appointment of Judges (check), and to stack the Supreme Court so there would be no where to go for relief, (check). All of this was designed to make it so that after the 2020 Census, they would control enough statehouses to gerrymander enough states as to ensure a permanent Republican advantage. Their plan was not concerned about who would be the Republican President or who would get elected under this plan, as it was assumed that all members of the Republican party favor big business over the little guy. It seemed certain an oligarchy could be accomplished.</p><p>What they never could have imagined, and has been a great fly in their ointment, is Donald Trump. Who would have imagined in the 80's or 90's or 00's that a bad businessman, a reality tv star, and a person with narcissistic personality disorder could run for President and win? Remember they tried pretty hard in the beginning of the 2016 primary race to tip it for a Bush, Cruz or Rubio (really anyone familiar and typical). But when he won the nomination, I think the Republicans still thought he could be their puppet. (They did not know that Putin had already claimed puppetmaster.) They simply could not imagine the kinds of irrational and counterproductive decisions that a narcissist makes to serve their own ego. They could not have imagined that he would both eliminate all competition for 2020 and also lose the election because of his poor performance as president! </p><p>They briefly thought they would then be rid of him in the way it has worked throughout history that the losing figure recedes into obscurity. But again they did not count on the sort of desperate personality disordered behavior that would lead him to encourage seditionists to over throw the government. On Jan 7th 2021 they briefly stepped back from him thinking this time he had gone too far, and they would be rid of him. However, when the media did not immediately condemn him, they had already learned that to fail to back him could mean political ruin. Thus they stayed loyal to him, swallowing hard on the new party line that the election had been stolen. They privately worried about his pushing this rather than solid policy for the mid-terms and bit their tongues as he picked incompetent men for the mid terms simply for their willingness to kiss his ring. But only now as this has lost them the House are they beginning to step away from him.</p><p>So Trump has sort of screwed up the great Koch think tank plan. The Republican elected in 2020 was supposed to be easily re-elected. The Supreme court had already been delivered. The Gerrymandering was supposed to assure that in 2022 he would have everything he needed in the way of complete control of all three branches of government, and any other additional rules could be changed to assure that a Democrat would never win again. Except Trump is so hated that we had a blue wave in 2020 bringing in Biden and a thin majority for him. But the Republican control was great enough to mostly block Biden's agenda so he simply looks in effective and his ratings have dropped. Yes still the blue wave came out to stop Trumps minions from getting elected in the midterm.</p><p>The problem of course as the fan of any team that never wins can tell you - over time people stop coming out as they sense the impossibility of winning. So 2024 is not in my opinion simply the next election season. To have any effective strategy at all, the Democrats are going to need to start naming that the game has been fixed.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjFSRJSjAcW8qnzlx-i4Sjr0Ie7ksP7-6sRFYnGzdJ-2uHuQU8RVIJQ16w43WXAQn8V3lVDibdoVWrG2H30ML7EpqtZy9UOU_jptUmq8Fr_xFtwCwMOy991yVKk8zH_F6l0KbAP_TOws3ocUIhyKU_RszZYuOPc21KaGVlzOK23OjNSJzDiiLJtzPBQ5Q" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="750" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjFSRJSjAcW8qnzlx-i4Sjr0Ie7ksP7-6sRFYnGzdJ-2uHuQU8RVIJQ16w43WXAQn8V3lVDibdoVWrG2H30ML7EpqtZy9UOU_jptUmq8Fr_xFtwCwMOy991yVKk8zH_F6l0KbAP_TOws3ocUIhyKU_RszZYuOPc21KaGVlzOK23OjNSJzDiiLJtzPBQ5Q=w400-h266" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p>Lynn Fitz-Hughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00275558885734332460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7827988830534331353.post-90930177357442990952022-09-02T21:02:00.000-07:002022-09-02T21:03:23.506-07:00Integrity<p> Recently I was invited in worship sharing to visit the topic of Integrity. Most of my Quaker life this has seemed very straightforward Quaker topic. I have felt quite clear about the importance of telling the truth and found it pretty easy to tell the truth. I have listened to the Quaker imperative to tell truth to power and even found that fairly easy to do.</p><p>However I saw in this round of queries that living in a country that has been plunged into a crisis about truth by 4 years plus after shade of a President who has told a record number of lies and who responds to being caught in a lie by telling another one, has worn on all of us. Between him and the Fox news propaganda machine ideas like "alternative facts" that at first seemed like a bad joke to me have become sadly quite common place situations in our polarized country. We are not all looking at the same facts or even the same sources of information. In a country that has never really achieved scientific literacy we seem unclear about how you test something for truth. </p><p>I also recently listened to a podcast that talked about confirmation bias and how when something questions our position we dig in tougher on it - so that means right now a very polarized country. Even as certain very damning facts come out about the former Presidents illegal behavior I despair that it will not cause reevaluation of his behavior but dig some folks in even deeper. I despair that if a fact cannot uproot a lie, how will wed uproot the conspiracy lies and mythologies that have a solid hold on 1/3 of our country?</p><p>But I also see that someone I have respected has put forth the idea that we do not own oppressive systems the truth - especially if they will only use it to further the oppression. I think of how in Nazi countries Jews were required to register. Most obeyed because they were being truthful. But the ones who did not tell the truth to the authorities were the ones mostly that survived. What is the truth in the hands of those who do not serve the truth?</p><p>I also have reviewed with much sadness the numerous times I have told groups of people/institutions truths that I knew they were not happy to hear, but that I believed it would serve the group to know or improve itself - only to see that this was received with anger, disregard or actual persecution. I am realizing this is another one of my "internalized Quakerism" traits that outside of Quakerism is not expected or well received. I think it still makes sense to testify to the Truth - to make public testimony to the truth of the Arms race, Climate Change, sexism and racism. And I am rock solid clear that to tell an untruth when it would cause wrong things to happen is unacceptable. To tell a lie to cover my own bad choice or make me look good is also not ok. But I am questioning whether it makes sense to tell people who don't want to hear it that the way we run our organization is not effective, or has unintended consequences or wastes money, etc. etc. if that serves any question. Does it make sense to give "true feedback" when it is unwanted feedback?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZxjvQHiV_onqx7g_5VZ_DjOJYVWeHV1yuJNVmGYGzPclG4fK93sfuc9U7NxvgN6k5XMaBiYRNGOUdoUFAtmO_9l-eQbikdxDFiFnz0T989FEr6kd-92V2OaRd9l4fhVjlRVoWl2rfefn4v9sisawLjXHhO12djWQcDns18X97i-YLb0q3ciGzgC7iSw/s4000/naked%20lady%202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZxjvQHiV_onqx7g_5VZ_DjOJYVWeHV1yuJNVmGYGzPclG4fK93sfuc9U7NxvgN6k5XMaBiYRNGOUdoUFAtmO_9l-eQbikdxDFiFnz0T989FEr6kd-92V2OaRd9l4fhVjlRVoWl2rfefn4v9sisawLjXHhO12djWQcDns18X97i-YLb0q3ciGzgC7iSw/s320/naked%20lady%202.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>Lynn Fitz-Hughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00275558885734332460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7827988830534331353.post-17615589068561395842022-07-31T20:40:00.001-07:002022-09-02T21:04:21.329-07:00Spiritual Deepening<p> This month I went to the online FGC and I took a workshop entittled Spiritual Companions...but as one participant stated at the end of the workshop it really should have been called: Spiritual deepening through Spiritual Companionship. I had thought the workshop was an extension of Marcelle Martin's work which turned out not to be the case so it also had some different aspects although both very much point to the traditions of Early Friends. I share here some pearls I gathered from this workshop.</p><p>Early on the workshop leader, Nadine Hoover, defined Convincement. Her definition was very different than what I have thought. I have just seen it as there are birthright friends and those who are "convinced" which I had understood meant, convinced of the Truth found in Quakerism. But Nadine points out no, this was meant to be that through Quaker silence and inward searching that folks had an experience of the Divine so profound and personal that they are forever Convinced of God. There is no period of silence or detachment or crisis that can shake them in their belief. I find that a helpful definition and one that helps me realize that I am both a birth right friend and a convinced Friend.</p><p>She also defined being convicted....also different than how I have thought about it. She very much directed people to notice their feelings and clear those that stand in their way. It is curious because as a therapist I am certainly aware of how our feelings can get in the way in our professional life, our family life and our social lives. But for some reason I had never thought about how they could get in the way in our Faith life. I was certainly aware of how conflict can erupt in a Meeting and stand in the way of the Meetings progress as a community, and I have been too distressed to worship in a Meeting before, but I had not really considered how carrying that distress interfered with the spiritual life. That sadly made me realize how my broken heartedness at things I have encountered in the past has long been an obstacle in my spiritual life. I am glad to have realized this as I think it is helping me to move some obstacles out of my way.</p><p>She introduced to us the query: What do I need to take up or lay down in order to be more available to Spirit? She recommended that people ask themselves this question every day and also discuss once a month with a spiritual companion this question. I was particularly pleased that it included what to lay down. I think that Quaker's can focus overly on having leadings and yet as she pointed out if we have "clutter" in our way (things that busy us to no end and need to be layed down) we cannot be faithful. She commented that we often think God will hand us down some great leading (like we expect a 5 page manual) and are disappointed when this does not happen. But as she said: How would we get this if we have not been faithful to the little things that have been asked of us? If we have not learned to listen, to hear and to obey the small requests? I hear Susan Stark' beautiful voice singing: "Be faithful to the Light that is given to thee and more shall be given." This is an old and ancient Quaker belief ....why have we forgotten it?</p><p>I am trying to pay attention. I had a small niggling to hold an event for people to process what happened with Roe vs Wade. It did not fit my general organizing strategy, or what I organize on so it did not make sense, but I decided to do it as an exercise in faithfulness. I don't know yet what will emerge out of this. Various women their considered various next steps. I have to assume like a message you deliver in Meeting that makes no sense to you but is for someone else, that whoever acts from that event will be moved as God so intends, and I was only the vessel to help that happen.</p><p>Then as she taught us how to be present with others during their turn in the spiritual companioning she taught that we are to listen for one thing and one thing only (not whether we agree or what we think - that is none of our business, and certainly not to give advice). Rather we are to be able to tell the other person at the end: "How did I hear 'the Life and Power' in what was said?" I feel like this should be published in all the Faith and Practice books around Quakerdom. I am not kidding. I have so often watched people misunderstand the purpose of clearness committees and try to make comments of their own thoughts about what was said, or give advice. Even when I have tried to explain in advance that we are not to do that and to hold in prayer what is said and confirm or not the truth of the leading as we heard it - I get blank stares and I have sat through way to much advise giving. This one sentence so much succinctly and clearly explains what we are to do. So I highly recommend Nadine Hoover's workshop!</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKDPFwiaHRBMQtPob4Qrot4nfyDBesPFLepSIEbheEQNPyFKqhmsMYZ5ZjaBLKJfx9bStrIiZub-YJ7lmlz-YEaoytFAJpSkSQ62H8uU0tpghkHlDJPVtq3LH5eMP24sA8EmWUAQJH_yV10ONdcTS14FMzNdPQC2Mbrs7qd8-buiRfBLR68xx4klcyRA/s4000/IMG_1336.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKDPFwiaHRBMQtPob4Qrot4nfyDBesPFLepSIEbheEQNPyFKqhmsMYZ5ZjaBLKJfx9bStrIiZub-YJ7lmlz-YEaoytFAJpSkSQ62H8uU0tpghkHlDJPVtq3LH5eMP24sA8EmWUAQJH_yV10ONdcTS14FMzNdPQC2Mbrs7qd8-buiRfBLR68xx4klcyRA/w480-h640/IMG_1336.JPG" width="480" /></a></div><br /><p></p>Lynn Fitz-Hughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00275558885734332460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7827988830534331353.post-31409338019103022622022-06-29T20:32:00.001-07:002022-06-29T22:21:35.391-07:00Mad as Hell and not going to take it any more<p> I guess you have to be of a certain age to recognize the words: "I am mad as Hell, and I am not going to take it any more." Or even the phrase: "Hell has no fury like a woman's". But quite honestly I am furious, and I am not the only one!</p><p>My anger runs well past the obvious. I am not simply mad that we have lost Roe vs Wade - that 50 years of case law has been swept away. I am mad that this is only the beginning of what this extremist stolen court will do. I have been furious since 2016 that Obama's last appointment for the Supreme Court was stolen (and that he took it.) I have been furious that anyone died while Trump was in office. I was mad that he of course would nominate a misogynist who had attempted rape and gotten away with it. I was appalled that at any other time in my life the controversy Kavanaugh engender would have caused a normal president to withdraw his nomination. I am mad at Susan Collins that she either played dumb then or she thinks we are dumb so as to now claims surprise and horror that he lied under oath saying Roe v Wade was "settled law". </p><p>My anger does not stay on one side of the isle. I am also angry with RBG, as much as I loved her, that she could not step away from her own passion for her position to do what was right for the country and retire before Obama's last year...but instead by her ego brought us Amy - the final nail in the coffin of the current Supreme Court. I am angry with the whole Democratic party who somehow has not been able to come up with strategy for 20 years while the Republicans methodically took over statehouse after statehouse, redrew districts to stack them and took over enough of Congress to neuter first Obama and now Biden. The Republican have had think tanks and a long term plan...why haven't the Democrats? I am mad at countless Democrats over this country who were lazy enough or "did not feel excited enough" to vote in countless elections over the past 20 years...allowing the above drama to play out. I am appalled that our public schools are poor enough and civics are not taught enough that people have not understood that every presidential vote they cast and every Senate vote they cast is creating the Supreme Court. I am terrified of how this court may undue the last shreds of our Democracy.</p><p>Having spent my professional life listening to women I am heartbroken about the children who will be born to mother's who do not want them and will begrudgingly raise them so that they will feel on an unspoken level: unwanted, resented, unimportant and well worthless. I am aware that adopted children spend a life time trying to feel really wanted, really like they matter or of value - it is a foundational wound we pretend does not exist when it in fact does. I am already mourning for the women who will be force to give birth because they are poor and will become more poor. I am already mourning for the women who will be forced to carry a rapist's baby to term or for the women who will die because their bodies cannot handle a pregnancy. Right now I know a woman who in her mid 30's, a single mom with two young kids is dealing with her second round of breast cancer. A year ago while in remission she turned up pregnant and her oncologist told her "you have hormone driven cancer - if you have this baby you will get cancer again." She with sadness aborted and wound up with cancer anyway - which she would not be able to treat if she had been forced to carry that baby to term - thus probably leaving 3 children orphaned. I am angry about all the suffering I see ahead - decided by men who have never birthed a baby.</p><p>I am horrified for my own daughter. I spent all of my reproductive life under Roe vs Wade - from my first period to my last. The idea that my 25 year old daughter already has less freedom than her mother is an aberration of history. It defies the natural order of evolution.</p><p>I am mad at the Women's movement. Where have you been? Just send a few dollars to Planned Parenthood every time they are threatened? That is not enough. Where are the voices of leadership from Women? Gloria Steinem is 88 years old - we cannot expect her to be the voice of the Women's movement - although reporters did still seek her comments. Why in the past 50 years has no new voice of the movement arisen. Why have Millennial women told me that we did not need a feminist movement any more because women were no longer discriminated against? (Not making that up: actual conversation I had just 12 years ago.) Why has not any of the endless threats against Roe vs Wade woken up a movement who saw the need to fight for it? This is not to be confused with women leading things. There are plenty of women leading states, corporations, organizations and certainly Black Lives Matter, etc. That is not the same as women leading a movement on behalf of women. We cannot win change through hashtags. Yes there were women - many who organized the two years of Women's Marches - but in a decentralized enough way that they had no one to make a plan, a strategy for what would come next. I am mad at the media not covering their announced response to this decision (A march on WA for July 9th and a women's convention Aug 12-14 in Houston.) </p><p>I carry an anger (way beyond this issue) that we do not teach the history of social change in our schools - that American's are largely ignorant of how powerful movements for abolition, for suffrage, for civil rights, for FLBGQ rights, for the end of wars, have been won in this country. Americans carry the bizarre notion that voting and lobby is the only way to effect change. And activists largely think that holding a protest rally or getting arrested (sitting down because we have so little imagination) is the only way to effect change. It was not surprising therefore, but infuriating none the less, that after the leaked SCOTUS decision there were two protests called nation wide and then people sort of went home to WAIT! Wait for what? How on earth was it thought to be effective to wait during the one window of time that could conceivably have made a difference. (The person who risked their whole career to leak that document sure must have been disappointed how little difference that made - just made enough time for the razor wire barricade to be built around the SC.) I was furious at the two demonstrations I went to that speaker after speaker could only urge the crowd to "vote in Nov" ( a clearly too late strategy.) We must stop relying on voting to solve everything.</p><p>What you say could have been done? What should be done? The research of Erica Chenowith on regime change clearly shows that when just 3% of the public remains in the streets (day in and day out) a dictator falls in a very short time. (And make no mistake that we have a dictatorial court right now.) What would have happened if women had stayed in the streets after the leaked decision- if they had remained noisy without stop. Would razor wire have felt like enough of a protection? More to the point why was a Women's strike not held? What if wait staff, store clerks, bus drivers, secretaries and office workers, teachers, civil servants, doctors and nurses of all genders refused to go to work?- what if 69% of women who want abortion and their male allied went on strike??? I think everything would grind to a halt. And what if that did not stop till actual solution were implemented.</p><p>What do I mean by solutions? Well three have been proposed: one is that Brent Kavanaugh and Neal Gorsuch were impeached for lying under oath? (Or Clarence Thomas for encouraging violence during the Jan 6th event?) The other solution is that new Supreme Court seats be added - this is constitutional as the constitution does not name the number of seats the SC will have. It started with 6, in 1801 it was reduced to 5 to try to limit the incoming party, it was quickly again increased to 6 and by 1807 that party increased it to 7, in 1837 it went up to 9 and briefly during the civil war was even 10, it was reduced again in 1866 to 7. By 1869 it was put up to 9 where it has remained till now. Given that very political history the only thing stopping us is the will to do it. Similarly the Democrats could cancel the filibuster (another thing not in the constitution) and then pass a national abortion bill - or better yet a constitutional ERA amendment could be passed by a majority of states that includes the right to abortion. But all of these things cannot be done in the current timid Democratic climate - they could only happen - any one of them if American's were in the street for weeks - if there was a national strike until change was adopted. </p><p>I was at first terrified by Justice Thomas' comment about how they should "review" Gay marriage and trans rights, and contraception. But then it occurred to me that if 69% of Americans want Abortion rights, 70% want gun control, and if all these mad people of all different races and genders joined together with the scared LBGTQ community and the scared BIPOC community - a very small out numbered handful of straight white men cannot keep us all down! We just have to join together in unity. But you have to want this enough to leave your homes. You have to want it enough to keep fighting. You have to want it enough to not rest until we win.</p><p>Time to stop just being mad and to not take it any more.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9_kZb7SJRuLPN6eC2S-xLIG_LKiNan0VkqjsvyJi7Z5ru-wK8DMDlyw7GT61DQSSVBwGA6cjcYqOYjAniBBktqg1wC7u_SszF8y-vbkEy_GfRKbT5G4XbQxGCDAacA43A-w1TvG_aoF1qpGP5a-6PEf-gzQ5K-B1wt1KEUdNGUdWC0Klo_jfkESTKXg/s4032/20180120_124909.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9_kZb7SJRuLPN6eC2S-xLIG_LKiNan0VkqjsvyJi7Z5ru-wK8DMDlyw7GT61DQSSVBwGA6cjcYqOYjAniBBktqg1wC7u_SszF8y-vbkEy_GfRKbT5G4XbQxGCDAacA43A-w1TvG_aoF1qpGP5a-6PEf-gzQ5K-B1wt1KEUdNGUdWC0Klo_jfkESTKXg/w640-h480/20180120_124909.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>Lynn Fitz-Hughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00275558885734332460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7827988830534331353.post-41701691907099051722022-04-23T22:36:00.000-07:002022-04-23T22:36:12.388-07:00Finding Center Again<p> Todays worship sharing topic in my worship community was about how we re-find or renew Center? A Friend shared a sort of amusing dream where he was in a vehicle with his parents and his father was struggling to get the vehicle to work correctly and to find directions. His mother kept suggesting she had some magic words for finding direction if we wanted them. When he finally asked she said: Use GPS. We all laughed in recognition of the stubborn part of each of us that will not take guidance.</p><p>I have a lot of reliable ways to re-center. I wonder over and over again why I don't make regular use of my spiritual practices. Why I am so determined to try to navigate by my own brain? I liked the metaphor that I could have direction if I would just decide to turn on the GPS.</p><p>I thought of a time in my childhood where my Dad and my sister and I were visiting Cambridge and trying to go to the Friends Meeting there. There is a round about quite close to it that does not connect directly to it. We kept going around this roundabout, getting off at different spokes and not finding the Meeting. We were already 10 mins late, I was begging my Dad to stop at a gas station and get directions but being a man he stubbornly refused insisting he was going to find it. We were 15 mins late. Finally at 30 mins late he said we were too late and it would be too embarrassing to enter late and so we gave up never having gotten there.</p><p>Many Friends shared this sense that we actually do know how to center but that we allow ourselves to be distracted, to be "too busy", to try to gut our way through things. That for reasons mysterious to most of us we refused to turn towards the guidance that is available to us when we will turn to it.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjl6oY2m1l0WBA27ZFeN7rxq_rwgldIfAqOIDURbhK7JCgkMUDcuq3j_7ca54qZivanA9lRKxdKWdJEiHElFa0fq1WJPAY_U994VKogyJfVo1Rgu5KAB-xGbRgBYDZyS1C9jt8MploQehMaLn8gMFyWc9FmfxEok6Ccwf-LMJLp8cDs9b86DepNFukNgA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="400" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjl6oY2m1l0WBA27ZFeN7rxq_rwgldIfAqOIDURbhK7JCgkMUDcuq3j_7ca54qZivanA9lRKxdKWdJEiHElFa0fq1WJPAY_U994VKogyJfVo1Rgu5KAB-xGbRgBYDZyS1C9jt8MploQehMaLn8gMFyWc9FmfxEok6Ccwf-LMJLp8cDs9b86DepNFukNgA" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Yes for those who have wondered about why this is the picture for my blog, it is about focusing on the center.</div><br /><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Lynn Fitz-Hughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00275558885734332460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7827988830534331353.post-29230177059770128992022-03-26T17:17:00.000-07:002022-03-26T17:17:29.190-07:00Pushing and Pulling<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Early Friends believed that we could receive Divine Guidance for our lives. That we could listen to the "still small voice within" for that guidance. They were clear that we had to still ourselves so we were not let by ego or vanity. Below is a quote from a modern day meditation teacher.</span></div><p> <i><span>This path of
using life to evolve spiritually is truly the highest path.</span><span> </span><span>There really is no reason for tension or
problems.</span><span> </span><span>Stress only happens when you
resist life’s events.</span><span> </span><span>If you’re neither
pushing life away or pulling it towards you, then you are not creating any
resistance.</span><span> </span><span>You are simply present. </span><span> </span><span>In this state, you are just witnessing and
experiencing the events of life taking place.</span><span>
</span><span>If you choose to live this way, you will see that life can be lived in a
state of peace.</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><i>Michael Singer
</i><o:p style="font-size: 20pt;"></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Another
Quote:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><i>I am sorry
there is fear in the world. That is what
you have come to transform. I am sorry
for the forgetting that cause dark nights of loneliness for all of you. You have come to walk in the forgetting in
order to move to the remembering again.
In dark nights, in fear, ask your heart,
“Is this all there is?” Your heart
knows the answer.</i><o:p style="font-size: 20pt;"></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 20pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium; line-height: 107%;">This second quote suggests the dark night of the soul experience where we forget God - that while pushing or pulling and coming from a place of fear that we are forgetting God, but this opens up the opportunity to be remembering God again and moving towards the Holy again. The question is this all there is? Is posed as a way to notice if we have gotten caught up in a world of superficial or illusionary concerns.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium; line-height: 107%;">What is your
experience with the pushing and the pulling of life described above and of the
just being?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium; line-height: 107%;">What pushing
or pulling might you need to lay down?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">What happens if you ask your fear – Is this all there is?</span><div><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5zZaFvCMQcDRybjvkzm1KrdZ0dqcE7WhM9171OfCqomoDDvLAGE0QpPmAQ6XX-BtzmM5eb8cmJRyooArekmBl7OfFuR8Tfpph0kJcGDQgKH1-getQTHIEM3hWKA6LlQa85OtWz0gM4ZaJe11nY8kkAYNRHOgN3s1ah6Tmu9l2DHqUYVT67cduqJWUYg/s3072/SAM_0109.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3072" data-original-width="1728" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5zZaFvCMQcDRybjvkzm1KrdZ0dqcE7WhM9171OfCqomoDDvLAGE0QpPmAQ6XX-BtzmM5eb8cmJRyooArekmBl7OfFuR8Tfpph0kJcGDQgKH1-getQTHIEM3hWKA6LlQa85OtWz0gM4ZaJe11nY8kkAYNRHOgN3s1ah6Tmu9l2DHqUYVT67cduqJWUYg/w360-h640/SAM_0109.JPG" width="360" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>Lynn Fitz-Hughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00275558885734332460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7827988830534331353.post-23404076818639647442022-02-27T21:14:00.011-08:002022-02-28T14:54:11.791-08:00Everything Matters; Nothing Matters<p> <span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">"<i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 107%;">I saw, also, that there was an ocean of darkness and death; but an
infinite ocean of light and love, which flowed over the ocean of darkness. In
that also I saw the infinite love of God, and I had great openings".</span> George Fox</i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p style="background-color: #fce5cd;"> </o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 107%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">"Eventually you will understand that there is an ocean of love behind all
this fear and pain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That force will
sustain by feeding your heart from deep within."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Michael Singer</span></i><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p style="background-color: #fce5cd;"> </o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 107%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">"Nor is the God-blinded soul given blissful oblivion but, rather,
excruciatingly sensitive eyesight towards the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sources of suffering for the tendered
soul are infinitely multiplied, well-nigh beyond all endurance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I recently had an unforgettable hour with a
Hindu Monk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He knew the secret of the
paradox “Nothing matters; everything matters.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is a key of entrance into suffering.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The one who knows only one-half of the paradox can never enter that door
of mystery and survive."</span></i><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 107%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Thomas Kelly</span></i><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p style="background-color: #fce5cd;"> </o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 107%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">"God give me the strength to change the things I can, the serenity to
accept the things I cannot and the wisdom to know the difference."</span></i><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 107%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Serenity Prayer</span></i><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #fce5cd; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: black; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 107%;">These 4 quotes come together in an interesting way for me. As a life long Quaker I have most of my life had an outsized sense of what we have the strength to change - ie Quakers lead the Abolition movement and the suffragette movement, etc. so it seemed possible to change BIG things. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #fce5cd; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: black; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 107%;">As someone in my 20's I was very much an "everything matters" person and as Kelly describes with excruciating sensitive eyes to the suffering of the world. I worked hard on the disarmament movement and through most of my 20s did not intend to have children as I thought they would simply be blown up in a nuclear war. Somehow in my 30's that shifted enough to have my beloved daughter, and now I live with the irony that instead it maybe climate change that will destroy her and her peers life. In my 2o's I also took that famous Fox quote as a powerful affirmation that love wins, that love has the power to overcome the darkness.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #fce5cd; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: black; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 107%;">However, through my life I have seen much personal suffering as well as watching my clients suffer and much of the social justice gains of the 70's and 80's dismantled by the Bush and Trump administrations. I began to feel some what disconnected from the power of love....it seemed hard to locate it in the face of so much suffering. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #fce5cd; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: black; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 107%;">It is helpful to hear Singer, a mindfulness teacher, slight twist on the ocean of love, that it is "behind the fear and the suffering. Jampolsky famously said it is not hate that is the opposite of love but fear...it is fear that causes us to shut down and disconnect from that Divine Ocean of Love. Recently I heard a podcast with the author of Eat, Love, Pray. And she described her daily spiritual practice of decades - she writes a letter between she and Love. Just hearing it my mind turned towards Love and started talking and I was amazed by the ocean like wave of Love that rushed towards me with compassion and encouragement! It is important to me to realize that it is a Presense that is always there - and that is quite divorced from whether it "overcomes" hate or darkness or fear. In other words - this is not a competition where one is winning. Both suffering and Love are constantly present - it is simply how we learn to live with them.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #fce5cd; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: black; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 107%;">A decade or so ago I heard a famous mindfulness teacher. He was talking about observing our emotions, observing suffering - from a position of "just noticing" He described his wife who he was happily married to coming to him upset and angry and being able to just observe and hear a voice that said: "and this too". It was to me an acceptional ability to notice that everything matters and nothing matters. That of course it mattered that she was upset - and that in the hugeness of human experience and the vast universe - it also did not matter. It was a surrender to the fact that there are no seperate or protected parts of our life - immune from the suffering or strife.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #fce5cd; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: black; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 107%;">I have been wondering if I have become numb or if I indeed are coming to some of the "wisdom" of the serenity prayer, but I have noticed in the last 5 years that as the long, ever increasing list of calmaties, system failures, irreverible man made environmental collapses occur that there is a voice in my head that just says "and this too". This does not stop me from still trying to effect change. But it does (usually) stop me from despair or desperation. I remain in a calm center acting as I can and surrendering the rest to the ocean of Love. This week I have faced that we may all soon die in a nuclear war...or we will once again skate thru another confrontation by nuclear powers with the price of the conquered Ukraine, and all the death and suffering this has brought. Given the US invation of Iran, Iraqi and Afgahstan in the last two decades (also encased in death and suffering)....I can hardly find any difference between these acts of aggression by imperil powers. So everything matters and nothing matters.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhMPqzYTXka6WZjWtSzSiQieKQxwMxeHqp2YRxevt0NSmS1J4EBC1GlXCp_-fmw8awrXYmddm2228Tacqh9M8pOXW3ZyP6co23lpXr9JC53k5Ec_ZLFqzdPrJe2JTScID3wEf8vcQa9aA5dQFsAGas2LurxZtdl23YvhLy4WPjxLJDaubJpmWw6z_cIAA=s4032" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhMPqzYTXka6WZjWtSzSiQieKQxwMxeHqp2YRxevt0NSmS1J4EBC1GlXCp_-fmw8awrXYmddm2228Tacqh9M8pOXW3ZyP6co23lpXr9JC53k5Ec_ZLFqzdPrJe2JTScID3wEf8vcQa9aA5dQFsAGas2LurxZtdl23YvhLy4WPjxLJDaubJpmWw6z_cIAA=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14.5pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span><p></p>Lynn Fitz-Hughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00275558885734332460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7827988830534331353.post-45342666922717572052022-01-27T20:37:00.001-08:002022-01-27T20:37:11.768-08:00Sacraments<p> Quakers don't participate in Sacraments. We rejected them as forms made empty by ritual. I certainly understand that. The "How are you? I am fine" ritual is meaningless and insincere in our society regularly pushing people to hide and given insincere answers. Even the regular parting of "I love you" can be come so routine with someone we truly love that it is no longer connected to our heart when we say it.</p><p>So boo for empty rituals, but it seems we threw out all rituals. Well actually we also have unconscious rituals - old practices like calling it First Day that most modern Friends no longer no the reason we do this. (the days of the month and of the week often had secular reference - August was named after Caesar Augustus. This was an attempt by Friends to forsake the secular and let all days belong to God.) Even the sitting in silence and the idea that one speaks only once...these are our rituals whether we recognize them as such or not.</p><p>But what about the creation of rituals that are not repetitive and are sacred? Mystics have often used symbols and intention to create deep and meaningful ceremonies or sacraments. I lament that our ritual of sitting and in silence leaves little space for spontaneous ritual. I once saw a woman rise and dance in the middle of the room and was struck by her bravery because I could feel some Friends shock as she did.</p><p>When I was about 23 I sat in a circle at a Young Friends of North America Gathering. We were doing worship sharing. Someone started by referencing the story of Adam and Eve. They had an apple in their hand and they took a bite out as they said the query of the evening: "What for you is knowledge that would disrupt innocents? What is temptation that would take you away from God?" Each person took a bite as they answered the query and passed the apple on. The answers were deep and the act of the apple going the circle became a sort of sacrament - a breaking of the bread.</p><p>I am told that in recent years at FGC, the Young Adult Friends group celebrates a "feast of love" where they feed each other. This to me is a meaningful ritual that brings us into deep spiritual fellowship with each other.</p><p>How can friends make spontaneous and symbolic acts that help us go deeply and touch the sacred between us?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhEt64m6S3bRoZZ02Koo_ClYURI6gATQA-lA3C9AvJJNiPFWpg8bBlFaC38znF7Td2VHmYgxAqPk_GMyQomZkZ6EparHHg2sNo80n3qoP2WqANB-y2FHzHiJyrHSFcGBYB0cqBA-ExCzEQWaOUNak6YEjB6_uGH8ZihEeqXwcr_cdeCdSJFaIC2v5Lj_Q=s4000" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhEt64m6S3bRoZZ02Koo_ClYURI6gATQA-lA3C9AvJJNiPFWpg8bBlFaC38znF7Td2VHmYgxAqPk_GMyQomZkZ6EparHHg2sNo80n3qoP2WqANB-y2FHzHiJyrHSFcGBYB0cqBA-ExCzEQWaOUNak6YEjB6_uGH8ZihEeqXwcr_cdeCdSJFaIC2v5Lj_Q=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>Lynn Fitz-Hughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00275558885734332460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7827988830534331353.post-69154089724992994362021-12-28T22:04:00.002-08:002021-12-28T22:09:27.415-08:00To Lay it Down<p> In the Quaker lexicon is the phrase "to lay it down". Sometimes we talk about laying down a committee. Other times we talk about laying down a leading. Very occasionally we talk about laying down a whole Meeting. This language is different than the secular notion of ending or terminating a committee or a position, because with all things Quaker it implies that there is discernment and faithfulness involved. The idea is that that The Holy One both leads us into or gives life to a thing and will in due time lead us out of, or allow for the death of a thing. As written about in a previous post, we are not to "out run" a leading, to stay at something beyond the time that the Creator intends for us to carry out this activity. The idea here is that both the beginning and the end are Divinely determined - not just driven by one's own thinking, will or ego.</p><p>How then might one discern to lay something down? If the thing no longer has life or vitality this might be regarded as a sign. If a new leading or a new direction has arisen to supersede the old path. Sometimes a thing begins to feel heavy and a burden. Sometimes it seems as if the path forward has nothing but obstacles and difficulties and is "no longer open". Friends sometimes speak of a "door closing" and that when one door closes another may open.</p><p>One of the most famous stories about laying something down is the apocryphal story of William Penn speaking to George Fox. In this story William Penn was, as was the way of men of title wearing a sword. But he was troubled by this as he sensed it did not fit the Quaker testimony on nonviolence, and so he asks George Fox if he should still be wearing his sword. Fox is said to have replied: "Wear thoust sword as long as thoust can." Meaning it is up to you, your conscience will guide you. This I think speaks loudly about a Quaker sensibility that a time will come when a thing will come clear and nothing else will be possible.</p><p>I think Friends would be well served to examine carefully our committee structure and to see if some committees are perhaps ready to be laid down, to not simply assume that because we have already had such a committee for a long time, because it is "traditional" to have that committee that it is still rightly ordered to proceed with it. Many a Friends Meeting as it shrank in size has struggled to keep and fill all its committees when it would have been better served to pare down the number of committees so there more energy and vitality on each committee. The sense of stress and over stretchedness maybe in deed a sign of something ready to be laid down.</p><p>I once witnessed the nominating committee of the Yearly Meeting come and report that they recommended that they be laid down because they had struggled mightly to fill many committee positions and had not been able to do so. They felt they had been faithful in their work but that the way was closed and they wished to name it as so. The crisis this caused on the floor of the yearly meeting led to an ad hoc committee being formed on the spot to address the situation and many Friends stepping forward to fill unfilled positions. By their faithfulness the energy was shifted and a new way forward was found. This was profound faithfulness, that ego would not have allowed for. It points to a profound truth about laying something down: it takes courage.</p><p>Quakers are greying terribly, the average age is now in the 70's. Many Meetings are shrinking terribly and are struggling to have enough members to pay the upkeep of the building. The truth is...we are now facing, as are many churches all across America, that many of our Meetings will need to be laid down in the next decade. How can Friends discern to lay down a Meeting? How could it serve a greater good? Here are some queries that occur to me:</p><p>When is the ownership of a building a burden rather than a support to a worshipping body?</p><p>Is our worship still vital with this number?</p><p>Are there circumstances we can forsee that might grow this Meeting again?</p><p>What other good works could be done with the Building? - as tenants or as recipients of a gift?</p><p>If we sold our building what other good works could we empower with the money?</p><p>Does it feel energizing or deadening to consider releasing our building?</p><p>How would my life be different if I did not attend this Meeting?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhD6KXkSRAiVTFPHI8c3rmOqybPHoDgSJ38InNL1zCflpB9Bhjoz6Oqcf2aSBladw9LZQuNJ7Hr6bOfcM3kdeQG-fuK01hSxWdOSGtfuDHB0KMDAd6WbU5bDtj3FnM3bXkjirokFSOoB-aBuJjGmYFwrhqv3QhsPAoV0uEJJoJYfsasrS6gp4ZI8tnyVg=s4000" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhD6KXkSRAiVTFPHI8c3rmOqybPHoDgSJ38InNL1zCflpB9Bhjoz6Oqcf2aSBladw9LZQuNJ7Hr6bOfcM3kdeQG-fuK01hSxWdOSGtfuDHB0KMDAd6WbU5bDtj3FnM3bXkjirokFSOoB-aBuJjGmYFwrhqv3QhsPAoV0uEJJoJYfsasrS6gp4ZI8tnyVg=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Lynn Fitz-Hughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00275558885734332460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7827988830534331353.post-7418983135995877792021-11-30T22:44:00.000-08:002021-11-30T22:44:11.641-08:00Pastoral Care<p> For over 300 years Friends have had Ministry and Oversight committees or just Oversight or just Pastoral Care, or Care and Concerns. Recently Friends have begun to shed the term oversight for its cultural insensitivity. Really the purpose of the committee however named is to do pastoral care. But what does that mean in a setting where we have no pastor? It would seem it means how do we care for each other?</p><p>Pastoral Care committees (or substitute other name your Meeting uses) traditionally handle membership applications, weddings, clearness committees of all kinds, the creation of the annual state of the meeting report, etc. Since the AIDs crisis brought the death and dying of many members who often did not have close family, Meeting has also created Care committees for those in poor health or in some stage of dying and those are typically managed by the Pastoral Care committee (or in some very large Meetings by a seperate Care Committee that manages the care committees.) Many other churches do have the casserole brigade that brings food in the case of a death or illness....mostly in my experience we don't do this so well.</p><p>But what kind of care do we need? It has been my observation that many older friends are fiercely self sufficient and while willing to help others would be mortified at receiving "help" from others. This stands in contradiction to the reports from folks who have served on care committees that talk about it being deeply meaningful, and being spiritually enriched by the opportunity to give. Are we willing to give the gift of receiving?</p><p>I also note that our original pastoral care practices were developed when Friends lived and farmed in the same community, often having many other daily paths of intersection: as neighbors, business owners/patrons, mid-wife, social relations, etc. So they knew if someone was sick or dying, they knew if someone suffered a financial loss, or lost a job or suffered in various ways. Now Friends are often spread out, seeing each other only on Sunday and mostly in silence. How then do we learn of each others spiritual and physical needs? Some meetings do some version of sharing joys and concerns (that may happen once a month or weekly). Some meeting take prayer requests (which only some are brave enough to participate in) and some meetings have worship sharing with some kind of frequency which may fill in some details about people's lives...but for the most part we are often in the dark about each others needs which is why we struggle to do pastoral care well.</p><p>Recently a F/friend of mine who belongs to two Meetings broke her foot and was in a foot cast and confined to her house with orders to walk as little as possible for two weeks. She later confided to me that no one from either Meeting had reached out to her or asked what she might need. This is what I mean about how do we do Pastoral Care? In other churches the pastor might have checked in on her.</p><p>Years ago a member of the Meeting I then belonged to who was a very active member, clerk of various committees over the years, weekly attender, etc began to report her mother was dying. She was absent flying across the country to be with her mother several times. We said prayers for her and waited for her return to give her hugs and sympathy. Her mother died. But she did not return. We thought she was taking time to grieve. After about 3 months Pastoral Care called, to discover that she was mad, quite angry with us. No one had called her during that time, Pastoral care had called once, and she had received no cards or emails. She felt abandoned and uncared for by her spiritual community and had begun to question what kind of community was it really? </p><p>For me it raised many questions about our assumption that we would do all our pastoral care when we see each other. What does it mean to be in a spiritual community?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIK2dlrD-7cLMsAfxYeUCvo8vJp-8O6iM7p-KDROPnvnp864gz8-pmM9H3hKRzH-dg4HE54UuD11sWju1X6tgOJ43yLqu7B5QU7sU1Uwx-DOmvF1IpfWJXzy-EFWwcB_2oJlOVUr9S4u69/s2048/20170925_145232.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIK2dlrD-7cLMsAfxYeUCvo8vJp-8O6iM7p-KDROPnvnp864gz8-pmM9H3hKRzH-dg4HE54UuD11sWju1X6tgOJ43yLqu7B5QU7sU1Uwx-DOmvF1IpfWJXzy-EFWwcB_2oJlOVUr9S4u69/w400-h299/20170925_145232.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>Lynn Fitz-Hughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00275558885734332460noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7827988830534331353.post-85050402547834392622021-10-27T19:55:00.001-07:002021-11-09T19:52:26.132-08:00Perfectly Unfinished<p> We all live unfinished lives. With the exception of an older man I know
who had recently updated his will, paid all his bills on a certain day and went
out for a run, came back feeling “tired” and lay down and never got up
again…all of leave a lot of things undone.
A client of mine’s father was a hoarder and when went to a nursing home
her siblings and her had to hire a squad of workers with a truck to spend two
weeks basically excavating the house and taking everything to the dumb. (A task made harder by the fact that there
were a few valuable objects and documents mixed into the mess.) My best friends mother, mad after her
husbands Aunt died leaving them excuators of her estate in another state
(without asking) and the years it took them to handle everything, was
determined to not leave this sort of burden to her kids. Unfortunately, her husband who declined into
dementia did not have the capacity to do the same. So for years after his death she sorted boxes
and got rid of things and organized and gave things away. And yet after her death it took her daughter
a good six months to separate out the items for family members and get them to
them, have Salvation army take other things, and yes sort….the boxes and boxes
of photos before putting the Condo on the market, and there will still be
paperwork for another year. I think
somewhere between the man who died at the end of bill day and the hoarder,
there is a balance that represents living but being thoughtful of those who
will clean up behind us. (I have to say
all three of these people died as they lived.)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There are no finished lives. A friend of mine is dying in a hospital
right now. (post note she died 10/26/21). She is essentially without
family. There will be no one to clear
the stuff out of her apartment. The
landlord will be left to get a squad to haul everything out, and that is with a
month unpaid rent as well. She also had
established no medical power of attorney which made things very difficult after
she got in the hospital. Those she was
most close to were not allowed updates on her medical status and had to beg the
doctors to hear the relevant information we had about her health condition. The law defaults to next of kin, meaning the
hospital found and called a sister she had not spoken to in years and asked her
to make final decisions about medical care for my friend. Reader, if you don’t have a medical power
attorney established, stop pretending you will never die and get the paper work
done! We are all after all in a
pandemic. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There are no perfect lives.
A client of mine has struggled for years with a sort of perfectionism
that keeps her stuck. Afraid to choose
anything for fear of making a wrong choice, or passing up a right choice she
remains firmly affixed to the fence unable to make choices that would move her
forward. She is a potter and recently as
we worked on the perfectionism in the rest of her life she had the insight that
in pottery she knows she had to be experimental or she would do nothing. That it is all “practice” and that sometimes
she likes the piece enough to keep it and others are composted and she begins
again. She realized she has to live
life this way. That she has to be able
to be experimental, make mistakes and start again. She said: “Nothing is
perfect. Nothing is done. Safely never finished”. It is true there is safety in being unfinished
because if we had to live our lives with everything just so, everything ready
to be in its final state. …we could not live.<o:p></o:p></p>
<span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Live a perfectly unfinished life. I have told me daughter that when I die the
box of college papers I could not part with, the file drawers of old campaigns
I worked on and finacial papers, and old journals can go straight to
recycle. I have shown her where the one
file is that has important legal paper work in it and where all the passwords
to my computer stuff can be found. I
have told her to take what possessions of mine she wants and give away or
dispose of the rest. But I hope that
whatever laundry is undone, dishes undone, projects or paperwork, that the
expression of love, and the acts of kindness and the fight for justice has been
done in a perfectly unfinished way! I
hope that I will feel that over all I have spent the hours of my life on the
things that matter most. </span><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLtuhMM65_PPlAkdpgPJoFVui2WWd3y3i3Y6KxDxqEzeO5xEzlxbw365E6SlLncxZBCXSukGq7G1tnwv2ntm09f6oo0CSzbuRy-9BSlFlkSdA1NnfmydNdf7g8c21RJP446XAOl_0Leikr/s2048/purple+iris+dead.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1151" data-original-width="2048" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLtuhMM65_PPlAkdpgPJoFVui2WWd3y3i3Y6KxDxqEzeO5xEzlxbw365E6SlLncxZBCXSukGq7G1tnwv2ntm09f6oo0CSzbuRy-9BSlFlkSdA1NnfmydNdf7g8c21RJP446XAOl_0Leikr/w400-h225/purple+iris+dead.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>Lynn Fitz-Hughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00275558885734332460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7827988830534331353.post-78659251907258216392021-09-19T22:49:00.001-07:002021-09-19T22:50:34.213-07:00Living with Uncertainty and other teachings of Corona<p> Our country is getting more and more polarized over the Coronavirus. I was amused when Donald Trump's press secretary first spoke of alternative facts. What an oxymoron. But now like living into a science fiction movie, there are people on both sides of the divide furious with the other side for doing what they regard to be life threatening or life worth living threatening behaviors. There is no way for them to even discuss the "facts" of the issue because they have different news sources and literally different facts. In my clinical practice I listen to families that are being torn apart by these differences, and literally to people moving to other states, so they can either live where people are vaccinated, or live where they do not have to wear masks.</p><p>My last blog about the virus I said "well clearly Corona is not done teaching us. We are still being held still in order to learn." But I was getting pretty tired and board myself with that. It was easy to just feel like "I wish those other people would hurry up and learn so we can get out of purgatory." That is never a good position when you stop noticing what you might need to be learning.</p><p>Recently while talking to one of my clients - I noticed that all of us, both sides are grasping desperately for certainty, for normalcy. One side grasp for an end through vaccination and herd immunity, the other grasps to maintain a freedom of choice and the normalcy that comes with that. It occurred to me that through out time humans have looked for and made up explanations for the scary and unexplained thing in their time. Ancient people explained earthquakes, volcanoes and hurricanes as the God's were angry with the people. A previous generation believed the earth was flat because that was what they could see and the idea it was round felt like we could "fall off". In a pandemic gone by people not knowing about germs and how they spread believed that whole towns fell ill because witches communed with the Devil. There is a long list of things that without understanding the science, people made up explanations for. Actually part of how our brains are literally wired is to fill in missing pieces of info to make sense. If you print a word without a vowel most people will substitute it and not even know they did.</p><p>We don't want uncertainty. It is uncomfortable; it feels scary. We feel better with an explanation even if it is as horrible as one of our neighbors is a witch who has turned the whole town over to the Devil.</p><p>What arises for me out of this - especially if Corona is here as our spiritual teacher, is how do we learn to live with uncertainty? It seems to me it requires quite a bit of faith, a belief in a Supreme being who is weighing in for good. It means learning how to live inside the Serenity prayer. It means having to surrender the desire for certainty and big T truths. It means embracing the mystical which is the unknown and trusting being on a journey. It means not turning away from the suffering which is part of the unknown experience we are having. It means having to learn to respond with compassion and find hope from within.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikwKjDVzhQijAsOE_XiwhR_LbOT-dtyp9MYy6Ysx24zrfhjl88Qnnx764BpU-BrrYT-TxuZ-aODqLYQeb-WKwr8y4S-PSLaLwq3wZhVzkHZJpljJT-I6I83SAIJJ66pUxa5hdEa26BJlQw/s2048/105.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikwKjDVzhQijAsOE_XiwhR_LbOT-dtyp9MYy6Ysx24zrfhjl88Qnnx764BpU-BrrYT-TxuZ-aODqLYQeb-WKwr8y4S-PSLaLwq3wZhVzkHZJpljJT-I6I83SAIJJ66pUxa5hdEa26BJlQw/w480-h640/105.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>Lynn Fitz-Hughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00275558885734332460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7827988830534331353.post-12467169966787807672021-09-01T23:38:00.004-07:002021-09-01T23:38:24.299-07:00Love, Lover, Beloved<p> I have a friend who is Sufi. She tells me that Sufi's frequently talk about God as Love, Lover and Beloved. This is interesting to me. Certainly Christianity talks about God as a force of Love, and certainly a sense of Beloved. But the idea of God as Lover seemed new.</p><p>In my 20's I grappled with questions of "what Gender is God?" and tried on what was the experience of tuning into Goddess. While this did seem to tap into slightly different aspects of the Divine, in the end I came down on the feeling that the Divine is genderless or as we would say now nonbinary. During that time I was working out what to call God. In a particular episode I heard the words of the Cris Williamson song: Song of the Soul. This is a song which had played in the background of my life without my putting particular attention on it. So I would hear this part:</p><div class="ujudUb" jsname="U8S5sf" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 12px;"><span jsname="YS01Ge">Love of my life</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">I am crying</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">I am not dying</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">I am dancing</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Dancing along in the madness</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">There is no sadness</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Only a song of the soul</span></div><div class="ujudUb WRZytc" jsname="U8S5sf" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span jsname="YS01Ge">And we'll sing this song</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Why don't you sing along?</span></div><div class="ujudUb WRZytc" jsname="U8S5sf" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span jsname="YS01Ge"><br /></span></div><div class="ujudUb WRZytc" jsname="U8S5sf" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;">and in my minds eye I thought it was a song about a human lover: "love of my life" But suddenly one day as I listened more closely I caught the first line:</span></div><div class="ujudUb WRZytc" jsname="U8S5sf" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><br /></div><div class="ujudUb WRZytc" jsname="U8S5sf" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span jsname="YS01Ge"><span jsname="YS01Ge">Open mine eyes</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">That I may see</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Glimpses of truth</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Thou hast for me</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Open mine eyes</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Illumine me</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Spirit divine</span></span></div><div class="ujudUb WRZytc" jsname="U8S5sf" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span jsname="YS01Ge"><span jsname="YS01Ge"><br /></span></span></div><div class="ujudUb WRZytc" jsname="U8S5sf" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span jsname="YS01Ge"><span jsname="YS01Ge"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;">and I could finally see that this was a song about Spirit Divine - but also about God as Lover, as Partner, and in a dramatic turn then all of the names I had played with as the right name for "God" played in my head to the beautiful melody of this song, Song of the Soul, profoundly making the point that all of them are names for God.</span></span></span></div><div class="ujudUb WRZytc" jsname="U8S5sf" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span jsname="YS01Ge"><span jsname="YS01Ge"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div class="ujudUb WRZytc" jsname="U8S5sf" style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span jsname="YS01Ge"><span jsname="YS01Ge">So as my Sufi friend tells me that they think of God as Lover, I realize this does open a new energy for me around the Holy One. Many of the Christian descriptions of God are of a parental God or "Lord" a sort of powerful ruler. While Jesus calls god Aba, there is not God as Mother (Only Mother Mary) and there is certainly not words or frames for god as partner, friend or lover. This is a kind of intimacy that Christianity does not suggest. It is however an exciting set of possibilities. It suggests a more tender approach from God, and a much closer in relationship - not a God that is "in the Sky" or otherwise far away but one that is right there at ones side. And put next to the word Beloved, it also suggests a sort of reciprocal loving and adoration. I think I will be living into this idea for a while.</span></span></div><div class="ujudUb WRZytc" jsname="U8S5sf" style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span jsname="YS01Ge"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlFqO2qCF4hx11drTo2ZmuUbN9V6hhkgUmlu4VM1gR3bhJZNrU1qT3kDal_b0X7tGZyAE1IyYH8Z2_fVG8m7UTPRRUDwoL52vUiH2VzQS730uN4Wn12W1-M_5iqKL1L2N8HwTgVS7GnZ2E/s2048/20190527_134812.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlFqO2qCF4hx11drTo2ZmuUbN9V6hhkgUmlu4VM1gR3bhJZNrU1qT3kDal_b0X7tGZyAE1IyYH8Z2_fVG8m7UTPRRUDwoL52vUiH2VzQS730uN4Wn12W1-M_5iqKL1L2N8HwTgVS7GnZ2E/w300-h400/20190527_134812.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /></div><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge"><br /></span></span></div>Lynn Fitz-Hughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00275558885734332460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7827988830534331353.post-69216256826023201592021-07-27T20:03:00.002-07:002021-07-27T20:03:53.856-07:00Your Services are no Longer Needed<p> Recently I spoke to a f/Friend of mine who I had not seen in over a year. She is in her later 70's and she has been clerk of our midsized meeting for the last 12 years. But recently the nominating committee told her that "because she is so busy that they wanted her to have a break" by which they meant that they were not renewing her nomination as clerk. They offered her no other role either.</p><p>There are several things wrong with this picture. One is that she was allowed to serve for 12 years as clerk to begin with. That reflects either poor nominating practice or an absence of other leadership and a too convenient reliance on those who will continue serving. It makes sense that if other leaders finally came along or someone finally named the bad practice of over reliance on some Friends that they finally addressed it. But what else is wrong with this picture is how it was addressed. Friends, it is not Quaker plain speech to project onto someone, to tell them they are too busy, when they themselves have not made that complaint. (Yes she had complained about busyness in a way that each of us do when pressed for time....but not in the way that we do when we state I have too much on my plate. I need relief.) It seems fundamentally inappropriate to decide for someone that they are too busy. It might be a very good question to ask. Or in the case of people who really do try to do too much and do it poorly it wound be Quaker honesty to say "We see that when you are doing, x, y, z and A and B that you are making mistakes. We are having trouble with some of the mistakes. We feel like this won't work unless you are willing to release some things which things are you willing to release. And to involve the person in solving how things will become manageable again. The final thing wrong is that her position was taken away without giving her any other role which seems to imply that she suddenly has no value or role to play in her beloved Meeting.</p><p>When Friends have served long terms because of unusual circumstances where nothing else is possible it should be established clearly by the nominating committee: "we normally only have two 2 year terms for clerk. Because the incoming clerk's partner was diagnosed with cancer we are asking you to do one more term. We regret having to over extend your term and we will replace you at the end of this term." The nominating committee, the person in question and the Meeting should avoid idea that there is any position that only one person can do. That is pride and incorrect. Someone with no experience will do it differently and perhaps less well but this maybe divinely ordered growth on their part, or a much needed chance for the Meeting to experience change. But if someone has been needed in an extra term it is good to have it set up with the expectation that the term will end so it can be celebrated when it ends! Leadership is always an act of love and sweat and we need to celebrate each other for what we give to our Meetings. When a nominating committee if being indirect and not genuine in their communication about end of term, the person is left to wonder did they screw up, did people not see their labor, and ultimately where they unappreciated which certainly leaves a bad taste in the mouth. I strongly suspect that they were so worried about hurting her feelings by telling her they did not want her to be clerk any more that they made up this story they were taking care of her. The thing is they were not so it actually did hurt her feelings because she was left to wonder all the question above and if she had done something wrong. </p><p>This is one of the many reasons why it is good Quaker practice to have terms for committee service (even if different for some positions) and to have a limit on how many consecutive terms a person can serve. Our Meetings have many positions so certainly a person has other places to serve. It is thinking too narrowly about any/all of us to think we have only one or even two places we can well serve the Meeting. It is possible to set up situations where people who have not served on a committee come on under someone's leadership and learn by serving with them and then leader rotates off and the newer member is ready to step up. This is also good practice to create the conditions to grow leadership. </p><p>But what, I can hear someone saying, if there really is not enough people to serve? Well that is a crisis best faced rather than papered over by having some people lead forever. It both burns out people and it creates a failure to face the cross roads the group is at. I recall one year at my Yearly Meeting the nominating committee came to the session and reported that after a whole year of "begging" people to serve and still having 17 unfilled positions they were laying themselves down and asking the Yearly Meeting to face the real issue - that we had a committee structure too big for who we now were. I thought it an inspired move. (The sitting clerk handled it very badly.) If we name that we don't have enough people then it does give us the opportunity to look at how do we need to simplify and at what point do we even have to lay a Meeting down/</p><p>Simultaneous to this my F/friend is also a founding member of a Quaker organization for whom she has played many leadership roles over decades. In that situation, it has sometimes been the case that her involvement made others feel they could not match her enthusiasm or commitment, so hang back from really fully engaging themselves. Being aware of that, and the fact that she will not live forever, she has herself tried to step back again, so there is space for others to learn rules and take leadership. But when someone who had agreed to be clerk of that organization abruptly withdrew they turned back to my f/Friend and asked her to step back in, only to later rather abruptly remove her when they felt they had found a replacement. It seems to me that this again fails to see her as a person rather than a needed function or skill set. </p><p>This is where the nominating committee needs to sit down in a very honest conversation with her about what does succession and right use of her gifts look like? To say (which she knows but as if the person does not) "You have played an essential role in this organization. We would be no where if but for you....and you will not live forever. How can you help us plan for the time when you will no longer be here? What do you see needs to be passed on and how? What role do you want to play as those shoes are filled?"(There is a reason why there are "emertis" roles in institutions. They are a chance to retain institutional knowledge and wisdom while it is still here with us.) It is also I think incumbent on a group like this to find a way to publicly celebrate the role of a founder and not just let them diminish away. Or worse yet have things taken away from them one by one "your services no longer needed" until they feel a pariah to their own organization.</p><p>No ones service should become an institution. No one is irreplaceable. On the other hand no one who has served their Quaker Meeting or institution should feel like they are used and thrown away, a disposable in a throw away culture. Our culture needs to be one that celebrates people and has a right place for everyone and knows how to celebrate gifts given.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjevJXrzDXSjSQ7sNiiN0kIugsKy9YocWvuqLto-P56Lex38O4ARa9vSU3jyvUOAFaADXmNKYnl_1QozOaIhUJc9dafk4pZjlCGL7FHqy9UgLcwhF9DOJKmLQn4GCRLIcrqdXlGDAog2qva/s2048/World+Calling+060.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjevJXrzDXSjSQ7sNiiN0kIugsKy9YocWvuqLto-P56Lex38O4ARa9vSU3jyvUOAFaADXmNKYnl_1QozOaIhUJc9dafk4pZjlCGL7FHqy9UgLcwhF9DOJKmLQn4GCRLIcrqdXlGDAog2qva/w640-h480/World+Calling+060.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /> <p></p>Lynn Fitz-Hughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00275558885734332460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7827988830534331353.post-39270431029850202202021-06-26T21:39:00.000-07:002021-06-26T21:39:46.758-07:00Pagan Quaker<p> Recently in my worship group I gave a message about how in novel about stopping climate change the author imagines them creating a new religion which will save the earth but jokes it is really an old religion Paganism. It is about loving the earth. </p><p>To my surprise after that about 4 other messages were given (in our already quite small group) about people never believing in the "Old white bearded dude in the sky, but in Mother Earth", about talking to trees, or being able to center in nature and find spirit there. Later we did a worship sharing with the simple query How is nature spiritual for you? I noted for me that the bigness of nature; the ocean, the mountain, the forest, all have this majesty and eternal quality to them that brings me back to the Divine Mother. Others spoke about the beauty as the thing that brought them in harmony. The second query was how can we come more deeply into relationship with the earth? Many of us acknowledged that this one is harder to answer. So much has been done by existing paradigms to seperate us from the earth. We have so many blind spots. But it seems important. In fact critical at this moment on earth.</p><p>The person who created the queries notes that she had looked in Faith and Practice and also at Quaker Earth Care Witness queries. But she had not been able to find ones she liked. She had not been able to find them because the ones she found still had a sort of how can we care for or have stewardship over the earth. She sensed that it is still a separateness paradigm or worse yet a human over earth view point. She could not find queries that acknowledged the inherent spiritualness of the earth or asked us to be "in relationship" with the earth as Native spirituality so clearly does, or as the science of eco systems does.</p><p>What would it mean to be a Quaker Pagan? To come back into relationship with the earth - to sit under the silence of a tree and hear its message?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicctl7phGjZBPAjzKeHL7923Lo3xVkGAd62-DmJaUPW2XO-ONYECEf0hneFVACe-CS-FlwNAjJKeoJmbzZiw_EoTfS7nyx-5PUK5TWaEAughF3enF7IeIa4JCL0jlbSOTJ1O2MTcngR2vX/s2048/IMG_1322.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicctl7phGjZBPAjzKeHL7923Lo3xVkGAd62-DmJaUPW2XO-ONYECEf0hneFVACe-CS-FlwNAjJKeoJmbzZiw_EoTfS7nyx-5PUK5TWaEAughF3enF7IeIa4JCL0jlbSOTJ1O2MTcngR2vX/w400-h300/IMG_1322.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> Crescent Lake, WA</span><br /><p><br /></p>Lynn Fitz-Hughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00275558885734332460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7827988830534331353.post-33162922960788412232021-05-31T17:00:00.001-07:002021-05-31T17:00:26.960-07:00The Love or Fear Epiphany <p> I have long walked with an "evolutionary question". This is a concept from the book the Celestine Prophecy and is a spiritual question that you are working on. Mine has been: "<i>How to bring God/spirit into shatter false dualities that keep us from serving higher purpose/creating a true justice."</i> I moved two years ago to a Meeting already in a deeply polarized situation. I felt initially that my evolutionary question gave me some Light to work with. That by not taking a side (despite others who sought to assign me a side) that I could stay out of the polarization and operate as a bridge between the sides. Ultimately this failed miserably, and I instead simply earned the ire of both sides. Initially this was just too profoundly confusing in regards to my evolutionary question, and I simply stopped thinking about it.</p><p>However, recently I was having a spiritual conversation with a friend and the evolutionary question came up so I told her mine. In so doing my attention went back on it and I realized again that I had not reconciled my question with what had happened. As I renewed my reflections on this I remembered what another Friend had written about this: They wrote that we can be in a state of Love or a state of Fear (but not both) and that it seemed to them that the Meeting had operated in fear, and that we had not stopped to see "What can Love do?" Their words seemed very true to me.</p><p>This is when the epiphany happened. Evolutionary questions are suppose to weave together all the strands of your spiritual inquiry and growth. Yet I have had a separate very significant spiritual truth in my life which is that when I get in a state of fear then I forget God, and have to travel some period before some self reflection reveals to me that I am in a state of fear and again disconnected and then I can reconnect. Suddenly like a puzzle where you have been working separate parts and you suddenly find the piece that connects the two bits and see that it actually one bigger piece I had an epiphany - I saw how the piece about fear connect with my evolutionary question.</p><p>I realized that it is the being able to see the fear and name it , both my own and other peoples that is the thing that disempowers dualities, and allows God's healing Love to flow in. My evolutionary question is now:</p><p><i>How do I notice and name fear, both my own and others, in the face of false dualities, in order to turn towards and open towards God's healing love and allow more truth and more justice to manifest?</i></p><p>In the conflict that happened in the Meeting, the duality was named, but the fear underlying it was never named and so it had great power. One side afraid they would not feel safe (and valued) in the Meeting, the other side afraid we would not live out a value of inclusion and thus would fail our greater self. Somehow it feels like it should be easier to respond with compassion when these fears are named, and also to figure out how love could help. And yes to name that their is no action we can take that will vanquish all are fears or make everything safe for everyone. I also see it is time to take an inventory in my life, to list out the fears lurking under the surface of my own life. To notice what they are and to offer them up to God.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEGaVseGp7zpGpN6AeJMx9SS_nCrGCgqWMfKPjJyxodxv32mBKyTFUxoJcSC_wxmsYKzrCqs2udN_rhJ9ltjWXm8qapE8Q29VRjQjsUvPePNHKLHNmqFmgkjGw0CuVTjmVzIpgBX2v_aLQ/s3072/SAM_0258.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1728" data-original-width="3072" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEGaVseGp7zpGpN6AeJMx9SS_nCrGCgqWMfKPjJyxodxv32mBKyTFUxoJcSC_wxmsYKzrCqs2udN_rhJ9ltjWXm8qapE8Q29VRjQjsUvPePNHKLHNmqFmgkjGw0CuVTjmVzIpgBX2v_aLQ/w400-h225/SAM_0258.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p><br /></p>Lynn Fitz-Hughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00275558885734332460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7827988830534331353.post-88450899774482806252021-04-25T20:57:00.004-07:002021-04-25T21:01:35.989-07:00A Quaker Celebrates Earth Day<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZq47jFFygKFbFysG99fkcMcc5TwrzAD_g4TiOm6sDADUYo2Rxde4CTzjtVAQDsH_D0n64rUbBECgrhe-zdopOTKjD6m6aFc2fV5Zk92uHALGdmp9curHNxx-_DrmgYLh20Yl3uVAkAhKf/s2048/20180518_111222.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZq47jFFygKFbFysG99fkcMcc5TwrzAD_g4TiOm6sDADUYo2Rxde4CTzjtVAQDsH_D0n64rUbBECgrhe-zdopOTKjD6m6aFc2fV5Zk92uHALGdmp9curHNxx-_DrmgYLh20Yl3uVAkAhKf/s320/20180518_111222.jpg" /></a></div><br /> The below are comments I made at an Interfaith service celebrating the 51st annual Earthday. Each speaker addressed what their faith instructs them about their response to climate change:<p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Quakers
believe that, there is that of God in everyone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Many things flow from that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
believe that we can know the truth experientially, and that our understanding
of the truth may change over time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
we hold up, as the truth we have found so far, a belief in non-violence, in
equality, in integrity, in simplicity, in community, and in stewardship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To truly embrace any of these things, leads
quite quickly to the need to stop climate change as it threatens all of those
things.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">One
cannot embrace equality and non-violence and turn a blind eye to how climate
change is wiping out small island nations and creating catastrophes for some of
the poorest people on earth, as well as creating wars over resources.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What does it mean to live in community when
your neighbor suffers?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How can we be
good stewards on an earth where we are extracting and burning fossil fuels with
reckless abandon?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Our historic call to simplicity has been to reject
consumption that is bought at the cost of others’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>suffering or distracts from relationship with
the Holy One– this is only <u>more true</u> now. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everything which is manufactured, carries a
carbon foot print – some items larger than others – but <u>which</u> are
actually necessary for our life? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So many
plastic do das, throw away objects, electric potatoe peelers, etc that both
clutter the unsimple life and also create more greenhouse gases. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The testimony of integrity is to tell the
truth regardless of what it costs you personally – There is a lot of radical
truth telling to do these days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of
the painful truths is about our own complicity in a first world life style that
is not sustainable for our Mother Earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The whole planet is sustainable at 2,000 Kilowats per year per person.
The average American uses 11,000.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
painful truth is even those of us, myself included, that live simply, are
living way above our means.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Quakers also
believe we can receive leadings from the Divine Spirit – promptings to do the
right thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In our history that has led
us, to hide people escaping slavery, and to fight for women’s right to vote,
and to be imprisoned and even killed for our right to practice our faith.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It means that we can be asked to take risks
and not play it safe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think the
magnitude of the climate crisis again requires us, to be boldly faithful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our being faithful must begin with earnestly
asking the Divine author for guidance on how to rightly live and how to boldly
act in the face of this greatest moral crisis of history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Quakers also believe that when we listen in
silence that we can and will hear the Inner Voice prompting us.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">I have been
a climate activist for 14 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People
often ask me how I find the hope to keep struggling with this issue, and they
also ask me “Is it too late?”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have
surrendered the question “Is it too late quite” long ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because what I am clear about, is that
regardless of if we just squeak by, or if we are in a slow death spiral, our
moral commandment is the same: to love our neighbors as ourselves, to try to do
justice and to treat people with Love in the face of whatever may come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Interestingly some of the same things we have
to do to adapt to climate change are the same things we have to do to mitigate
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So it is clear to me that the holy
voice of Justice calls us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My hope lies
in the promise that God can enter a situation transformationally when we are
faithful.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>Lynn Fitz-Hughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00275558885734332460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7827988830534331353.post-75775480194938670072021-03-17T21:04:00.004-07:002021-03-17T21:04:43.474-07:00Why a Feminist Opposes Draft Registration for Womyn<p> I am a lifelong feminist and I am a lifelong pacifist, and I do not support extending draft registration to women. Yep you heard it right Congress is about to vote on extending draft registration to womyn. Jimmy Carter first reinstated draft registration after the end of the Vietnam war had ended it, back in 1980. At that time all young men ages 18 thru 20 were required to register. Many young men bravely publicly refused to register for the draft, challenging a system they felt would quickly lead to another active draft and more US military aggression. A few were prosecuted, thousands quietly did not register, the justice dept decided to start ignoring that the system was failing. (Audits showed most did not put in change of address forms and the usefulness of the registration cards was ever increasing.) Despite many states making registration automatic with getting a driver's license and the "Soloman amendment passing, denying Federal financial aid to those young men who could not show they had registered. And still they system has been so incomplete and inaccurate to be useless, and the military has continued to fill its ranks from the "all volunteer" military. Otherwise known as the poverty draft.</p><p>So why at this point in time would the government seek to extend the failing draft registration to womyn? The answer is interesting. A few years back several young men sued the federal government stating that draft registration was sexual discrimination because it only applied to men. They are correct of course. And they won. The government has been given a deadline and then and extension due to change of administrations to resolve the problem. The Trump administration spent a year with the NCMNPS holding hearings around the country that were quite restricted in who was allowed to testify at these "public" hearings. They toyed with ideas like making a mandatory public service for all young people for two years. (Hitler's youth?) While not military it would have done things in the public interest...as defined by who? Sounded like building a wall on the Mexican border to me. The Biden administration is just going with the recommendation of the commission that toured around which is that women be included in draft registration. <b>No serious consideration seems to have been given to the other obvious solution to the problem: cancel registration for any gender.</b></p><p class="MsoNormal">The NCMNPS heard testimony from a former Director of the Selective Service System that the current SSS database is so incomplete and inaccurate as to be "less than useless" for an actual draft, and that registration should be ended rather than expanded to women. But the NCMNPS conducted no research on current or likely future compliance, noncompliance, or enforcement of the registration requirement. This is an <b>outdated system that has never been used for an actual draft, never functioned well even 41 years ago</b> when implemented. <o:p></o:p>At a cost of $23 million dollars a year, this is just a waste. This means we have in my lifetime wasted $943 million dollars on this fiasco.</p><p class="MsoNormal">The tired logic has been trotted out again that if women are serious about equality that this means they must do this too. I am sorry but it is not a "move forward" for womyn to be eligible to be equally shot at, maimed or killed against their wills....because a draft is against your will by definition. It is a joke to make this claim at the same moment that womyn lost jobs at record rates in the pandemic and Roe Vs Wade is more threatened than it has been since the original ruling - in a year where womyn may actually lose control over their reproductive rights. But will gain the right to mandatorily be killed in war.</p><p>Womyn AND men deserve the right to equal OPPORTUNITIES (threat of death is not an opportunity). They deserve the right to equal choices - I stand for the rights of womyn who chose military service or who chose abortion. But neither group deserve to be equally oppressed. So I don't think we should keep the oppression for just one group (men). I think we should finally end this flawed and pointless draft registration system. </p><p>Womyn deserve equal rights but they are not the same as men. <b>There are still differences between men and womyn and differences that create increased risk factors for womyn in militarized zones</b>. The most obvious one here being the much greater likelihood of a female solider being raped whether by the “enemy” or as military records reveal disturbingly by her own fellow soldiers or commanding officers (<b>25% were sexually assaulted by fellow recruits and 80% were sexually harassed. </b> <b>In fact, currently they are more likely to be raped in service than killed in service</b>). Womyn in addition are on average not as strong and thus more prone to injury from things like marching long distances with a heavy bag on their back. (<b>Stats show womyn having twice the injury rate in training then men</b>.) But also studies are very clear that womyn are far more prone to PTSD – thus putting them in a situation very likely to create PTSD is putting them at more risk. (<b>10% of womyn wind up reporting PTSD versus the 4% of men reporting PTSD – although this is in part due to the high sexual assault rate.)</b></p><p>The solution to fixing a broken system which is
unconstitutionally applied to only one gender is not to apply the same mistake
to both genders! So far the wrong question has been asked which is
whether to include women in draft registration. The correct question
would be whether to end the militarizing of our young people of either
gender. A draft (which this registration collects contact info for) is by
definition is to enforce service against people’s wills. It is
(despite court rulings to the opposite) involuntary servitude. It is
wrong to force people of either gender to commit acts of violence and to face
potential maiming, psychological harm or death. Let us create equality by
treating both genders right rather than imposing on women the same harm already
imposed upon men. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Friends, FCNL strongly fought to end the draft at the end of the Vietnam war and also opposed its reinstitution in 1980. But now it is "not a priority". I understand we have limited staff and have to pick what we can do, have many issues we have worked on for years, etc. But FCNL in theory sets its priorities by having Meetings vote on priorities but this is not even brought to us to vote on. Non-violence, anti-militarism and the Peace testimony are historic issues for Friends, and yet most Friends do not even know that their daughters and granddaughters are about to be made draftable, because FCNL is not informing us. <b> Please let them know you do want this addressed.</b> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Also write to your Congressional representatives and let them know you want it to at least have a hearing in the House (more than happened in the Senate) and that you do not want this applied to women but rather a bill like HR 5492 from last year that would cancel draft registration altogether. <b>To change what is required for half the population when they reach the age of majority, to impose a requirement that if utilized could result in their deaths, and to do this with no hearing is outrageous</b>! </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD4jnXNgB_GelAYMAwEtOtllKs3yEJtd8VUFU5qHLDj2vIMcd_ofk1tRtQHUfbXl3ST5ZxVRRB-Y2JgCwhuQmTH0_yKpIT6k-gXMX2M6hh-9FJYdYrliZT0dcuA_ax_8j9bmAUXFFWJkA1/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="191" data-original-width="300" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD4jnXNgB_GelAYMAwEtOtllKs3yEJtd8VUFU5qHLDj2vIMcd_ofk1tRtQHUfbXl3ST5ZxVRRB-Y2JgCwhuQmTH0_yKpIT6k-gXMX2M6hh-9FJYdYrliZT0dcuA_ax_8j9bmAUXFFWJkA1/w400-h255/image.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p></p>Lynn Fitz-Hughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00275558885734332460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7827988830534331353.post-58336904806034135062021-02-25T21:15:00.003-08:002021-02-25T21:15:44.826-08:00For those with eyes to see...Lincoln was Gay<p> Sometimes the force of preconception to provide bias is really rather staggering. I read an article about Lincolns relationship from age 28 to 32 with a man that was provoking in the amazing blind spots that the preconceived assumption that our Presidents were all hetro-sexual seemed to render onto this person's ability to see the obvious. I suggest you first read this article with at least the consideration that in that day and age closeness between men was accepted but Gayness was not. Certainly one could not have career success, economic success or political success as an out Gay person. Thus the choice was to enter a marriage of convenience and then have a fairly non-sexual marriage, and/or to carry on one's actual sex life outside of the marriage. For someone with integrity the entrance into a marriage of convenience probably also meant to enter into a sort of voluntary celibacy.</p><p>http://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/print_only/did-abraham-lincoln-s-bromance-alter-the-course-of-american/article_8de9157d-f89f-52a4-a354-751780643fac.html</p><p>While I certainly buy the idea that in that day and age people could not always afford their own beds, that such were more of a luxuery and that often family members or friends shared a bed, so take that as a more minor piece of evidence in this story - I think the timing of both Lincoln's depression and his friend Joshua's speaks volumes. After living together for years and sharing a very, by all accounts, emotionally intimate relationship - they encourage each other to try to find women to marry. Lincoln first accomplishes this becoming engaged to Mary Todd, meeting her in 1839 two years into his relationship with Joshua, becoming engaged in 1840 a little after a year from meeting her and breaking off the engagement on Jan 1st of 1841 6 months later. It takes him almost two years from the broken engagement to actually marry her. </p><p>As our author points out, Lincoln becomes engaged as his friend plans to move away to take care of his father's estate. One could argue that in the face of being about to lose his friend and enter a marriage of convinence Lincoln facing this as a choice not congruent with his heart, breaks off the engagement and sinks into a depression about the poor set of choices before him as a gay man. Speed leaves and becomes almost immediately engaged to a woman he has just met (reads as a rebound to me.) But he upon becoming engaged also becomes depressed. I see two men for whom the enormity of marriage presents a final seperation of their relationship creating depression in both men.</p><p>Speed has moved to Louisville in the spring of 1841 , after being gone only 4 months, Lincoln comes to visit, for a month and while he is there Speed becomes engaged to a woman he has only know for months, immediately becoming depressed. He then goes back to Springfield to see Lincoln, staying with him for the rest of the fall only returning at the end of the year to "prepare for his wedding". You know normally a man in love would be wanting to be around his finance more than his best friend. This story reads to me that they both shared a belief that they must end their relationship and marry but as they attempt to do so each become depressed, they travel back and forth to see each other and only finally seperate so Speeds marriage can be carried out.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ3siBgxjLKRs0B9dovx0p1-KMb8zec4DI1pgpPKrQgUvvNPeh_VW2z08jo0oTNmsA2uW853tdBOoblgIqVgp4NvX1deW2IkoG-QRkU_-5F93Ksq0bnnxS95KWrkiqFklbn08Vn_dDo_sG/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1051" data-original-width="800" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ3siBgxjLKRs0B9dovx0p1-KMb8zec4DI1pgpPKrQgUvvNPeh_VW2z08jo0oTNmsA2uW853tdBOoblgIqVgp4NvX1deW2IkoG-QRkU_-5F93Ksq0bnnxS95KWrkiqFklbn08Vn_dDo_sG/" width="183" /></a>Joshua Speed</div><br /><p></p><p>Should you think me imaginative, I think the quotes from Lincoln's letters (apparently the matching set from Speed are lost) seem very conclusive. These letters are written after Joshua goes back to marry.</p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Martel, serif; font-size: 16px;">“You know my desire to befriend you is everlasting,” Lincoln wrote in one of these letters, “that I will never cease, while I know how to do any thing.” </span>I read this as: "I desire to be with you forever, and I will never cease while I breathe" <span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Martel, serif; font-size: 16px;">“You will feel very badly,” he says knowingly of Speed’s fears about consummating the marriage. And later: “…it is the peculiar misfortune of both you and me, to dream dreams of Elysium [paradise in classical mythology] far exceeding all that any thing earthly can realize.” </span>I find it very illuminating that Speed has fears about consummating the marriage - yes he was probably had never had intercourse, but if one is Gay it is an open question whether you can aroused enough to have intercourse with someone of the opposite sex. In fact this is enough in question that Lincoln does not reply to the letter confirming the marriage has happened but waits with baited breath to receive a letter from dear Speed confirming the consummation of the marriage. Saying: "<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Martel, serif; font-size: 16px;">I opened that latter (letter), with intense anxiety and trepidation — so much, that although it turned out better than I expected, I have hardly yet, at the distance of ten hours, become calm.”</span></p><p>Again I am astonished by how bias can blind us. To me the anxiety and trepidation is about whether his beloved has really crossed over to the life of marriage and the "it turned out better than I expected" is an acknowledge that neither knew if he could bed his wife, but it seems of significance that 10 hours later Lincoln is still not calm. I read that as he has wanted this for Speed but it is none the less unsettling and deeply emotional. I am astonished that the author reads this as Lincoln taking courage to confront his own fears of intimacy with women (but why those fears - no explanation) and giving him hope. Where does he speak of hope. Rather I see that with his lover now married off he goes back 4 to 5 months later and makes amends to Mary Todd and then also enters the worldly life outside of Elysium. Lincoln has written to Speed before they both marry: "We both dream of paradise that exceeds what we can realize on earth". To me that says "we can imagine happiness together but we know we cannot realize it in this society." and that in fact is the source of their mutual depression.</p><p>I am amazed by a historian who can interpret all these facts: a shared bed for 4 years, depressions after their engagements, letters and visits back and forth reflecting an intense attachment -as all hetro normative. I am reminded how historians interpreted the numerous signs of a early Crete, a matriarchal society, as representing weapons and hierarchy because that is all they had eyes to see, rather than the much less contorted interpretation that it was an egalitarian and matriarchal society. If one simply starts with the belief that it was hard to be Gay in the 1830's ...the clues are pretty straightforward - it in fact takes no real bending to arrive at the obvious conclusion that at minimum the later to be President was bi-sexual but probably Gay.</p><p>And if we stop assuming hetrosexual norms - President Buchanan who is usually referred to as our only "bachelor" President, in fact had a male "roommate" for 16 years before he died of tuberculosis, 4 years before Buchanan became president and was commonly rumored to be his partner. A little food for thought.</p>Lynn Fitz-Hughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00275558885734332460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7827988830534331353.post-64898847518404254622021-01-31T12:28:00.001-08:002021-01-31T12:28:49.784-08:00A Light In a Pandemic<p> We are coming up on a Year of Pandemic. Many of us have been in lockdown for 11 months. There is a national mental health crisis occurring. Depression and anxiety as well as substance abuse are at record levels. So are divorces. How do we find Light in all this? To answer that question I engaged in my prayer practice (previously mentioned) of holding a question with sacred (to me) texts and opening to the wisdom they reveal. So this is what I got:</p><p>From <u>Emanuel Book I</u>: "Look to understand your negative feels as a loving Mother would understand a confused and frightened child...Do not deny the part of you that is in darkness or it will manifest again. ...With awareness, you give yourself the gift of an opening for growth and change. Do not criticize yourself because in darkness you could not see."</p><p>Those of you familiar with the classic, <u>The Prophet</u> by Kahil Gilbran know that the section on Laws talks throughout it about the contrast between a rigid law following spirit and a joyful and free spirit. He goes on to say: "What shall I say to these (the rigid law following ones) save that they too stand in the sunlight, but with their backs to the sun? ... What is the sun to them but a caster of shadow?...but you who walk facing the sun, what images drawn on the earth can hold you?</p><p>For me this passage serves as a reminder about getting caught up in shoulds or preconceptions which when rigidly held mean we are turned away from the sun and thus in shadow. It means having to face this pandemic with spiritual orientation - looking towards the Light. Which leads to...</p><p>Our beloved Thomas Kelly in <u>the Testament of Devotion</u>: "Continuous renewed immediacy, not receding memory of the Divine Touch, lies at the base of religious living. Let us explore together the secret of a deeper devotion, a more subterranean sanctuary of the soul, where the Light Within never fades, but burns, a perpetual Flame, where the wells of living water of divine revelation rise up continuously."</p><p>I love the rich poetic imagery that Kelly always uses. He emphatically brings home here are need for each other, for spiritual community, to help renew each other - that our sharing keeps us in a living experience of the divine. Thus as we face the pandemic community is essential.</p><p><u>Illusions</u> by Richard Bach from the "Messiah's handbook": "Every person, all the events of your life are there because you have drawn them there. What your choose to do with them is up to you" </p><p>This one serves to me as a powerful query. If the pandemic is not in our life as an accident but as collectively created event, then it is incumbent that we understand it on the spiritual level. I have previously written about this: http://thefriendlyseeker.blogspot.com/2020/05/i-sent-you-warning.html and http://thefriendlyseeker.blogspot.com/2020/07/covid-is-still-teaching.html But he also says all the people in our lives (and that means yes when they are annoying the heck out of us). Why have I drawn this teacher to me? As record divorce levels are occurring, and other personal ruptures it is important to ask this question. The next reading also emphasis this point of how we engage each other right now.</p><p><u>Emmanuel book II:</u> "Everyone on the planet is your soulmate. If there is a man selling newspapers on the corner and you are connected to that person with your openness, your love and truth, you are with your soul mate for that moment." </p><p>You may long for an encounter with a stranger right now, but most of us are still going to the grocery store. We interact with people on zoom, we talk on the phone to people. And now more than ever it maybe critical to see the soul of the person before us and know that they are sharing an emergency with us.</p><p>Neil Donald Walsh: "When you wish to manifest, seek not merely to think of things, but to feel it. <i> Feel </i>what it would be like to have that. <i>Feel </i>what it would be like to experience it....Feeling is the way we identify and magnify the energy we wish to experience more of, by resonating with it." </p><p>This is a reminder to those of us who belief in manifestation, as I do, that we must see and feel the thing. It is particularly hard right now because many of us long for contact with people and trying to imagine that taps into painful longing. The trick of course is to imagine a party of people, feel the feelings, and then offering it into the hands of God, knowing it will again be and releasing it. If one can do it with non attachment it is actually a nice little mental vacation trip.</p><p>Michael Singer in <u>The Untethered Soul</u> also reminds us that what we do with our mind can also be the source of our suffering and calls us into mindfulness: "You must stop telling your mind that the jobe is to fix your personal problems...Your mind has very little control over this world. it is neither omniscient nor omnipotent. ...Nor can it control all the people, places and things around you. ...Whenever it starts telling you what you should or shouldn't do in order to get he world to match your preconceived concepts, don't listen. ...The truth in everything will be ok as soon as you are ok with everything. All you have to do is stop expecting the mind to fix what's wrong inside of you. ... The minute you stop putting your whole heart into the mind as if it where your savior and protector, you will find yourself behind the mind watching it."</p><p>This is such a helpful reminder about not ruminating about all the political crap which has been happening - it points to how to do some of the above, how to turn towards the sun, how to notice why people an events are in our lives, how to touch into manifesting but in a non attached way. By stepping back and watching our mind, by adopting a posture of acceptance for what is.</p><p>Finally Wayne Dyer from <u>The Power of Intention.</u> Wayne frequently talks about having our intention (like in the Walsch quote) but being in alignment, noticing thoughts that take us out of alignment. He urges that we set an intention like: "I feel lovingly connected to others and hopeful." He encourages us to repeat this to ourselves when negativity arises.</p><p>So to summarize all this wisdom: Be gentle and accepting with your negative feelings. Turn away from rigidity and preconception and turn towards the Light. Use spiritual community to keep you in touch with Living Waters. See all the events and people in your life as teachers. See the soul of everyone you meet, and it will be a spiritual encounter. Hold a vision for a good life feeling into that without attachment. Stop trying to solve your life from your mind - observe instead the events of your life from a place of acceptance. Have a positive affirmation to say to remind yourself.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDmKdz37lFaLTKE5Ii6Mpa07WghnQA3icsXk8PGNlBqVu5UuZaOWzwSfsjCc48lldyTgEadRcLrVTFOGXdkmBsUspNNoCfbAnKJeWVXASv2Kq1LxkrNPmH9G6AYB7c8ve2OA4R88PHQHb-/s2048/World+Calling+026.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDmKdz37lFaLTKE5Ii6Mpa07WghnQA3icsXk8PGNlBqVu5UuZaOWzwSfsjCc48lldyTgEadRcLrVTFOGXdkmBsUspNNoCfbAnKJeWVXASv2Kq1LxkrNPmH9G6AYB7c8ve2OA4R88PHQHb-/w400-h300/World+Calling+026.jpg" width="400" /></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgecdYP5LsCBRdzVnxw7je1DztqejiqANXeU6X1eIFM2syc7Cx_ZeFRlvc0BnD_dKvYi76LW1oRLQWtOOoDCnWmJZdS-8n_ZcClY2_LdODqqtXAYtq9Gu6pAsO3kZybO8tAKXkO_A2IzYq9/s2048/508.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgecdYP5LsCBRdzVnxw7je1DztqejiqANXeU6X1eIFM2syc7Cx_ZeFRlvc0BnD_dKvYi76LW1oRLQWtOOoDCnWmJZdS-8n_ZcClY2_LdODqqtXAYtq9Gu6pAsO3kZybO8tAKXkO_A2IzYq9/w400-h300/508.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div><br /><p><br /></p>Lynn Fitz-Hughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00275558885734332460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7827988830534331353.post-82457018892480329612020-12-26T22:21:00.002-08:002020-12-27T12:18:43.040-08:00Genocide in our Prisons<p> WA state prisoners are dying of Covid as is true of prisoners throughout the country. On 12/23/2020 there were 2,294 cases of Covid
in the WA state prisons which was close to 10% of all the cases in WA state. We have all read how people of color and
native communities are disproportionately getting Covid and dying. This is both because of their disproportionate work in service jobs with high contact with the public but also because of lifelong substandard exposure to quality healthcare, as well as generally poorer diets leading to many pre existing health conditions rendering them more vulnerable to the virus. This is magnified under the racism of our
prisons. Due to racism, BIPOC are more
frequently charged, tried, sentenced and imprisoned for longer than white
people committing the same crimes. While
white people are 72% of the population of WA, they are only 60% of the prison population. Black people while being 5% of our state population
are 18% of the incarcerated, the 11% of Latinos are 13% of those imprisoned,
and Native Americans are incarcerated at 2.5X their rate in the population. Similar statistics exist around our country and are in fact much worth in southern states where the majority of prisoners are African American.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Initially the prisoners had no access to masks, ate in crowded
cafeterias– in short they were sitting ducks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Most of the prisons are overcrowded and they can be housed in rooms with
6 prisoners in bunk beds in one room or at least have cell mates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Masks arrived after infections had already
arrived.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The New York Times reported that in CA when San Quentin was ordered to reduce their overpopulated prison population (it was hoped through release of non-violent prisoners) they complied by transferring the prisoners to other state prisons which resulted in the spread of the virus to every prison in that state.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is little and
inadequate access to health care under the best of circumstances in state prisons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At this point all visitation has been cancelled
and prisoners are confined to their cells round the clock (an hour out for exercise every 3 days - showers on schedules) and yet still it spreads. The guards as well to attend their jobs risk their health and the health of their families.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Imagine being trapped with the virus unable to get away. Essentially just waiting till you get it. This is a mass experiment in herd immunity. This will be survival of the fittest. Those who get it must fight it off or die. And here again the prisoners of color have higher pre-existing health risks making them at greater risk to die from it.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This is genocide. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Please write to Governor Inslee (or your Governor) that prisoners
and guards should receive priority for the vaccine after frontline workers and those in nursing homes (also trapped where they are too easily exposed with pre-existing conditions.) Of course everyone in our country needs to be vaccinated. It is part of the ongoing tragedy of the Trump administration that we have so many cases and so few vaccine's. Since many people feel prisoners deserve to be punished and deserve whatever they get this will be a hard case to make. But even if one believes they deserve to be punished do they deserve a death sentence for every crime you can be incarcerated for? Should the racism that disproportionately placed them there also be a death sentence? There have been calls to protect them by releasing those with non-violent crimes to reduce the number of people at risk in the prisons. Those proposals have not been acted upon. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Please act</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5iBfa_PlYDc1FfApX9snIb3y6Sl9xYsN7vowTxJBjGtIby4gBAnqWfpwzFAFTB1maSTIMqGJ6SqkWpIJuYczbFmeZUrwizgsxgjLEBFDIrYiHWbpXltGA1P-9xQVDrtUrdiKarl4Yibm4/s4032/20190106_162642.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5iBfa_PlYDc1FfApX9snIb3y6Sl9xYsN7vowTxJBjGtIby4gBAnqWfpwzFAFTB1maSTIMqGJ6SqkWpIJuYczbFmeZUrwizgsxgjLEBFDIrYiHWbpXltGA1P-9xQVDrtUrdiKarl4Yibm4/s320/20190106_162642.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>Lynn Fitz-Hughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00275558885734332460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7827988830534331353.post-3296698823452342802020-11-25T21:27:00.005-08:002020-11-25T21:27:53.037-08:00UnTrumping Our Country<p> I have finally settle into some feeling of confidence that we will not have an unending rule of Trump. I have stopped the 4 years of breath holding, as I watched the march towards the "signs of fascism" check list playing out in my country of birth. <a href="https://thefriendlyseeker.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-rise-of-fascism-in-america-and-what.html" target="_blank">See previous post </a>written 4 years ago when Trump won: for the actual list from historians on the steps towards fascism. </p><p>So as we emerge into a new ruler of Corporate America or Empire in Decline 2020, I am clear on some important agenda items clearly revealed by the last 4 year debacle. These are agenda items for if we ever want to reclaim a democracy, for if we don't want to live in Oligarchy.</p><p>1) Serious Election Reform: It means passing absolute protections for voters right to vote. This would include figuring out the least tamperproof way of voting and making it the standard for our country (to hell with every county having a different way of doing it and different technology and some poor counties having inadequate machines). It means making registration be automatic with getting a drivers license (as hugely freed the Black vote in GA) and an easy way for people who don't drive to also register. It means passing national protections for physically safe voting during an election. In other words that it is guaranteed on the Federal level so no state court can ever again block a governor for ordering changes to accomodate protecting people's health during a pandemic or other health threat. Also perhaps by determining a national standard for how we vote it will take care of this but assuring that access to polling places cannot be restricted to make voting burdensome and that options are always available to people who work on voting day. Working should never be an obstacle to voting.</p><p>2) Overturn Citizen's United - or election finance reform. This will also need to be accomplished from a national bill. We need to outlaw dark money, and the best way to get the influence of money out of politics is just to set a ceiling for total amount of campaign advertising any candidate can spend. It will level the playing field and bring those of us who were harassed by hateful ads full of lies and endless robocalls some peace. Maybe then candidates would have to campaign on the strength of their message!</p><p>3) Police reform nationwide - we are tired of the murder of BIPOC people in our streets by the police. This must stop. This cannot be regulated, jurisdiction by jurisdiction, or state by state. Just like the passage of the civil rights bill reformed Jim Crow obstructions to voting (till over thrown by a biased Supreme Court) this problem of police violence must be solved on a national level. All of the standardly understood reforms like: de-escalation training for police, anti-bias training, body cams, no choke holds, etc. etc must be passed on a national level. In addition we must start seperating out on a national level the jobs that really belong to social workers - like responding to mentally ill citizens or wellness checks and start removing those jobs from police jobs and shift the funding. We also must demilitarize the police. There is no reason, never was, and never should be a reason for our police departments to be the "used equipment" sale ground of the military. Military level weapons should be banned from police departments! What might you say does this have to do with fascism? The increased militarization of police and use of them to control civilian populations is part of every facisist state.</p><p>4) Assure the Teaching of Science in our public schools - between climate change and the pandemic it is clear that a scarily high percentage of Americans don't really understand how science comes to its outcomes or believe in science. It is time this changes. It will only really change if we teach it in our schools.</p><p>5) Protect a Free Press and its role in a democracy. Between the effects of more and more people getting news online and more and more papers dying and less actual reporters in the world a free press is at risk and it is actually considered one of the cornerstones of democracy. It has also been under attack for 4 years by Trump which is typical under fascism that press becomes centralized, controlled and delegitimized. So I am going to stop treating press as service to choose or not choose and treat it as a cause to support because I believe in it. So I am going to buy actual online subscriptions as "donations". But beyond that it is very clear that anti-trust law will have to be applied to the consolidation of media which has brought us things like Fox news. We may also need some laws that clarify the line between opinion and the reporting of facts and return us to an era when the "editorial page" or the anchor opinion piece were distinct and the line was not blurred. The marriage between Fox news and the President more closely mirrored a propaganda channel or state sponsored news then a free press.</p><p>6) Decriminalizing the PIBOC community - It is time to end the disproportionate prosecution and longer sentencing of people of color. It is a long haul to a complete redo of our justice system. However, some good first steps would be mandatory anti-racism/anti-bias training for all prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges. We also need to move to a restorative justice model for all non-violent crimes. There is a long list of what needs to be done in this arena</p><p>7) Defining the 25th Amendment. While there are many things I do not agree with Nancy Pelosi about, I do agree that the 25th Amendment if not clear enough. Even before Trump it left a lot of grey areas about what to do if a President was simply under anthesia for a brief procedure, or was temporarily disabled by heavy drugs, or temporary medical symptoms. It sort of relies on the person holding the office to use good judgement before being disabled and to act in good faith. However, as we have seen under Trump if a presidents mental health deteriorates they maybe the last person to admit it. Thus we need a procedure which has been agreed to years before it is needed and which both parties recognize could be relief for a country from a bad situation. It needs to be spelled out very clearly! Given that we now know 6 presidents were deeply disabled/ill/dying at the end of their terms (and a few wives were secretly running the country) we just really need this reform.</p><p>8) Election disclosure reform. Before the 2016 election it had been "tradition" for a long time that the Presidential candidates released both their tax returns for a number of years and also their annual medical exam results. I think it is fair for the voters to know if someone who is going to rule this country is playing fair, paying their share, and is healthy enough to lead. Once again Trump proved these traditions are only as good as someone operating in good faith. I believe that once not shielded, we will learn of the depth of both his health problems and the depth of debt he was in that would have made him ineligible for national security clearance, if not elected, because of the risk of blackmail or influence peddling. This should never happen to our country again and can be prevented by passing a bill requiring these two disclosures of Presidential candidates.</p><p>9) Ethics reform - rather than counting on meaningless promises to "drain the swamp" followed by just the opposite - lets make it law that someone who has been a lobbyist cannot be hired onto a cabinet post of head of a dept for at least 4 years after serving as a lobbyist. (This may also help some people not take lobbying position at the end of an administration if they hope in another 4 years to serve another President). Let's also in that same bill make nepotism illegal. No hiring of family members into white house positions or cabinet positions.</p><p>10) The End of the Electoral College! This one is so past due! Given that 2 of the 5 times that a President has gotten into office without winning the popular vote have happened in the last 20 years. It beyond clear that this structure was put into place by a land owning aristocratic founding fathers who did not fully trust the popular vote, and attempted to have a way to "correct" it through privileged electoral college voters "if needed". All this had really done is leave a way to manipulate away from the will of the people. Previously people have argued that some populist nut case could get it in if there was no electoral college. Quite the opposite, given that the electoral college, not the popular vote gave it to Trump in 2016, there is literally NO justification for this elitist institution. This will be hard to correct thru a constitutional amendment, as nothing is easy to do that way. <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact" target="_blank">But if a few more states pass the interstate compact against the electoral college it will be done</a>! If you live in a state that has not passed it yet...please do this work! </p><p>11) End Gerrymandering - As some have become painfully aware in the past 4 years - how one party has kept itself in power especially in state houses but also in the House is by creating districts that are so absurdly drawn that they <a href="http://geekpsychologist.com/wp-content/gismaps_maps/gerrymander/index.html">look like paint splats on a map</a>. It should be federal law that a bi-partisan commission draws the map, and it stops being the work of the party in control assuring that it remains in power. The same new legislation should protect the Census gathering which sets us up for the redrawing of districts. Protections should be put in place to prevent the politizing of basic data collection.</p><p>12) Restrictions on Pardons - Again the founding fathers imagined that whoever would be elected President would be a fair and honorable person. They never would have imagined the cronism and deceit of pardoning colleagues who are charged with committing crimes on behalf of the sitting administration. Since that has happened under the most corrupt Presidents (Nixon and Trump) let's place a limit on Presidential pardons. Presidents should be restricted from pardoning anyone who is charged with committing a crime in service of the current administration.</p><p>13) Protection of whistle blowers - It is critical to accountability within a democracy that whistleblowers can bring to the attention of the public and the press wrong doings that are happening within the government without fear of loss of life, career or reputation. The active firing and punishment of whistleblowers has a chilling silencing effect that breeds loyalty to authoritarian leaders and a climate of fear rather than openness in government service. Although we have a national whistleblower law apparently it again needs to be actually made law that whistleblowers cannot be fired. I hope the incoming President will restore the title and retirement benefits of everyone who was wrongfully fired.</p><p>14) Protection of civil servants- this country has always had civil servant positions in DC that were bipartisan. People were career civil servants and served under each administration of either party, faithfully carrying out administrative duties. Under Trump various employment protections were removed so they could be fired at will - again making the workings of government hinge on loyalty rather than faithful duty. This was particularly troubling when applied to immigration judges so they became vulnerable to being fired for a decision that the Administration did not like - jeopardizing the notion of a free and seperate judiciary. I hope the incoming administration will restore the protections for civil servants and immigration judges and also reemploy any who were removed for opposing the lawless behavior of the previous occupants of the White House. This is part of why Hitler had so much power is because all levels of government were loyal to him and operated in the fear of being perceived as not loyal.</p><p>15) The end to enemies and racial targeting - the hallmark of fascism is the identifying and targeting of enemies. In Nazi Germany it was Jews - as well as LBGQT folks, and radicals. In Trumps America it has been Muslims and Mexicans and Black people. It is time for this 4 year reign of hate and terrorism to end! We have a lot of children and parents to reunite, and a lot of restitution to be paid for the trauma's that have been induced. Clearly we will need to work hard on the teaching of tolerance and anti-racism. We need to correctly identify right wing hate groups and white supremist groups as national terrorist groups. I look forward to the day where when they march in a state capitol that the President speaks out condemning the behavior and when attempts to kidnap a governor is met with support from the national level and is followed by aggressive prosecution of actions like this that simply bring fear and unrest to our communities. I look forward to when peaceful protestors are not treated as threats and violent protests are stopped.</p><p>16) No National Service - we MAY have stopped just short of instituting a Nazi like Hitler's Youth. For the last two years the Trump administration has been positioning in reaction to a lawsuit that rightfully pointed out that drafting only men is sex discrimination, to make a youth service corp for all young people between the ages of 18 and 24 to serve two years. Some would serve in the military and some in civilian service such as building the hated wall. It would be better to end compulsory service for either gender and move toward the ending of our endless wars. Militarism is another sign post of fascism, nationalism, and empire. Our military is $100 billion dollars more in 2020 than it was in 2016. Let's cut the bloated military budget.</p><p>17) The end to rampant sexism...and isms. It will be such a relief to not have a President who is charged with 16 sexual assaults on women and who constantly displays blatant disrespect and misogyny. (President Biden is also charged with sexually inappropriate behavior). But it is nice to have a cabinet that is not an old boys club. It will be nice to not have sexism, racism, able-bodiedism, classism and homophobia and Xenophobia modeled by the most visible position in the nation to our children. Facicism uses the control of women as one of the ways to control a population. By stacking the Supreme Court to overthrow Roe Vs Wade, despite the vast majority of Americans supporting it...we were well on the way to returning to a state imposed control over female bodies. We will have to work hard in the next few years to counter the stacking of the courts and for the passage of the ERA so we can end the legal ability to suppress women.</p><p>18) The end of censorship - a classic tool of fascism used to control the expression of ideas. No more will government websites forbid the use of terms related to climate change, or dismiss or silence climate scientists who work for the federal government or scientists or doctors attempting to tell the truth about the virus even if it is inconvenient to the occupants of public office whose policies maybe flawed. It maybe necessary to pass laws prohibiting the censorship of government employees.</p><p>19) National neighbors - fascist countries/Imperialist nations terrorize other countries. We have been doing so for decades. But it would be nice to go back to keeping our treaties, not insulting other leaders at every turn with culturally inappropriate behavior, and being in some way participants in global efforts to work on global problems.</p><p>I am under no illusion that President Biden is some sort of saint; he is neo-liberal. I do not expect all these things to be done. I do expect some of them to be done. Some of this will depend upon what happens in the Georgian Senate racism and if Congress is able to act with some unity. But mainly I name these things because this is OUR work to do if we want a democracy.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBYwbkKzmGiaAvxXFIZrtfm16VIJtF8KPNxBHNRwbaxSL-kyoegrus7Rvm9NphUr__wt2y-8srKmUKuI5_oDZt-5JazQpNemJhVAXpn9QBCyHyCEdmX6wN5WqudSswUdqWjgtFBRBqxUcI/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="765" data-original-width="700" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBYwbkKzmGiaAvxXFIZrtfm16VIJtF8KPNxBHNRwbaxSL-kyoegrus7Rvm9NphUr__wt2y-8srKmUKuI5_oDZt-5JazQpNemJhVAXpn9QBCyHyCEdmX6wN5WqudSswUdqWjgtFBRBqxUcI/w367-h400/image.png" width="367" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p><br /></p>Lynn Fitz-Hughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00275558885734332460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7827988830534331353.post-4093330240675557722020-10-11T17:48:00.000-07:002020-10-11T17:48:02.293-07:00Living in the God Space<p>It is very tumultuous times in the US. We are facing the most important election in our history. One that will determine if we stop being a democracy and become an oligarchy instead. It is very unclear what will happen, and this is happening in the midst of a global pandemic uncontrolled in the US due to lack of leadership.</p><p>I feel like I have been distracted from my professional life as a psychotherapist, distracted from my clients. So today in Meeting I was praying for my clients. For me what this meant was to hold each of them one by one in my attention and imagine them whole. There were some clear themes that emerged of what seemed need to be and feel whole: To know that one is loveable and loved, to be able to lay down the injuries of that past to come fully into the present, to be able to self sooth and come into the peace of our universe, to be able to set boundaries so no harm comes and to be able to not have to try to hard, to relax into the universe as it is.</p><p>This made me think of quote (misattributed to Nelson Mandela but actually from Marianne Williamson) that has long been on my bulletin board:</p><p>"<i>You're a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insurece.around you. We were born to manifest the gory of God that is with us; it's in everyone. As we let our Light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others</i>."</p><p>That quote for me is about living into the bigness of who are as a Child of God. Who we really are before and after injury.</p><p>Recently when Trump was admitted to the hospital for Covid, I noticed a wonderful space opened up for me. It is was not the space created by rejoicing in his illness or potential death, but it was a space in which I was able to imagine for the first time in a long time my country not controlled or diminished or manipulated by him. It was a space where he is no longer President and no longer can create havoc. There was much relief and peace and possibility in that space. What I quickly came to realize was that whether he left the hospital, alive or dead, that it was I who was in charge of that space. It was a space I could choose to stay in and or to dwell with, or I could in fear return to a universe controlled by Trump.</p><p>This makes me think of the words in the Peace Testimony: "<i>We utterly deny outward strife and tumult. We live in the Life and Power that takes away the occasion for all wars</i>". Think of that it is a space, an energy that is not war, the opposite of war, a place without outward strife and tumult. And we live into that space. It too is a choice as one could live in the space where there is war and tumult.</p><p>I am not talking here about some Pollyanna world where we close our eyes and do not see or feel war, or Trump, or the injuries my clients have suffered. I am simply saying that in the God space there is another set of possibilities. Ones with more wholeness, more peace, more possibilities for growth, healing and justice.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiar8knIDgji08ljIUjzwC2O1vlw_tqQSNSw_zzHGRoksV1PJ6cKSmgNTt0OOhLYr2lMdKwc406BJ0bQ3qclr3nxHBGDL0WT1ky-FjMPpOEKrdXcvjy96EOhMv94Exo0Q863ypAOZKEx5jq/s2048/100_1275.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiar8knIDgji08ljIUjzwC2O1vlw_tqQSNSw_zzHGRoksV1PJ6cKSmgNTt0OOhLYr2lMdKwc406BJ0bQ3qclr3nxHBGDL0WT1ky-FjMPpOEKrdXcvjy96EOhMv94Exo0Q863ypAOZKEx5jq/w400-h300/100_1275.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>Lynn Fitz-Hughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00275558885734332460noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7827988830534331353.post-13671419246691102932020-09-26T21:19:00.006-07:002020-09-26T21:19:48.994-07:00To Elder<p> Quakers have this funny practice called Eldering. Even the name of it is antiquated. It comes from a time when someone very respected was called an Elder. However, from early on in Quakerism because of the value on equalatrism it was recognized that young people and women could be elders. (Rather unheard to in the 1600s). This was because it was a mark of being mature in the Spirit. The person was a spiritual elder, someone who lived a grounded, spirit inspired life. They understood Quaker practice and the underlying beliefs that went with Quaker practice.</p><p>There were many roles that Elders played. They sat on the facing bench and held the Meeting in the Light, thereby deepening the worship. They acted as anchors and mentors for Friends engaging in new ministry. They often would accompany a Friend who was in traveling ministry to help them stay true to their Light and not overshoot their leading. They would speak with and nurture those who were newly giving ministry in Friends Meeting, encouraging the development of faithful ministry.</p><p>But the practice of eldering is something slightly different. It was/is the modern day equivalent of "calling in" ( the opposite of calling someone out which is often with anger and criticism.) It was to speak to someone who was seen to be morally straying, or lost, or beyond their light, or behaving inappropriately and to lovingly call them back into the Light. A powerful example of this was when John Woolman would travel and meet with Quakers who were owning slaves and he would speak to them or the moral wrong they were doing TO THEIR OWN SOUL, and plead with them to sell their slaves. This is not to say that he did not believe in abolition or have great concern for the well being of the slaves. But since he saw slavery as a sin, he reasoned that to own a slave was a sin that corrupted and damaged the soul of the slave owner just as much as the enslaved person.</p><p>That was the power of eldering but it also got its self a bad name in the middle years of Quakerism when it became a sort of rigid litmus test of moral conformity with people being "written out of Meeting" by Meeting elders for such sins as singing, dancing, wearing lace or marrying outside of the faith. The over correction for this was Friends largely have turned their back on this practice. I regard this as too bad because from my point of view we are sadly lacking true eldering in modern Meetings. We both lack Friends who are really grounded in Quaker practice, we lack mentoring for younger friends in everything from clerking to giving faith ministry....but most importantly we lack a real accountability when things go estray.</p><p>Friends to a large degree have drifted into an American Liberalism - a desire to be open and accepting to everyone - to a point that often surrenders having an actual defined set of beliefs or boundaries. While Friends drift towards a more codified set of testimonies, calling them "SPICES", we oddly do not stand up for these truths that we have found. If Friends exhibit conspicuous and unsustainable possessions we do not even lovingly discuss Simplicity with them. When male Friends exhibit learned male privilege in our gatherings, we either sigh and turn away or attack with a Feminist critique, but we do not lovingly labor with them over how and why to change that behavior. It is rare that anyone talks about how us pacifists are all paying for war. We accept many behaviors in our committees and our business meeting which are frankly secular behaviors from our work places that are not part of Quaker Faith and Practice. (see also previous post on eldering and conflict: http://thefriendlyseeker.blogspot.com/2019/10/it-may-not-surprise-you-to-hear-me-say_30.html)</p><p>"Quakers behaving badly" is a phrase that brings a slight chuckle and smile to most long time Friends faces. Yes we know about Friends being behaving badly -we have seen it many times. This ranges from Friends who speak too often and too long. Friends who "mansplain" Quakerism (and other subjects) to the rest of us. Friends who rant and lecture about politics to the rest of us. Friends who talk about the news in Meeting for worship and who have never given a spirit filled message in their life. (Is this NPR or is this God?) Alignating young people and people of color with unconscious ageism and or racism. Letting fear about changing from "the way we have always done it" get in the way of considering what new Light might show us. Over editing minutes, hung up on Grammar rather than finding what Spirit is trying to say through us. Being attached to forms over the purpose they were intended to serve. Friends who have tantrums in business or committee meetings, who we silently allow to do this to everyone else. Refusing to talk about critical issues because we are uncomfortable with conflict and have forgotten that Light is available on all subjects. Unable to identify what we believe because we are practicing acceptance of all to the point where there is no Spiritual Center. I could go on, and feel free to add some of your own in comments below.</p><p>But the bottom line is we will continue to have Friends who are behaving badly until we again have Elders who can lovingly share Quaker practice and belief with those Friends behaving badly and loving show them another, Quakerly set of possibilities.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3fcHCIzy8xdI5poE3pBBoyFU9KgtE5Z7tYYYRD9BefpMk11YhnFl-9uoiJMTXVqdEYZjnyF5MjFRZh9wl7xtFmqVIsEnL0KUoSdYG9Z3rZ7ZDuCunB4_FPfJejBZ_tRamUyeT-P6qbN-j/s2048/015.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3fcHCIzy8xdI5poE3pBBoyFU9KgtE5Z7tYYYRD9BefpMk11YhnFl-9uoiJMTXVqdEYZjnyF5MjFRZh9wl7xtFmqVIsEnL0KUoSdYG9Z3rZ7ZDuCunB4_FPfJejBZ_tRamUyeT-P6qbN-j/s320/015.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>Lynn Fitz-Hughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00275558885734332460noreply@blogger.com1