Polarization

Typically in polarized issues we think of it as sort of either or.  It is a or b, black or white, good or bad.   We do not as often think of the polls as falling on a spectrum, and we definitely don’t think of a spectrum as curving the point where the far ends might meet up (An example of this being if you put American politics on a circle the far left anarchist and the far right libertarians begin to meet up.)

It is painfully apparent that the US is extremely polarized right now on almost every issue and politics have become so divisive again (I say again because it is actually not the first time – remember families divided by the civil war? or not speaking to each other in the 70’s over hot button issues?) that once again there are families that cannot sit down to a civil Thanksgiving and where people I know are disowning family members.   I hear much despair both about how these gulfs will be bridged in families but also about how our country will be governable again.

Ironically, at the same time my Meeting has also become very polarized – but over a very different issue.   A registered Sex Offender has come to our Meeting and there was been far-ranging response to his presence in Meeting as well as far ranging interpretations of his behavior while in Meeting.  The Meeting initially came up with a policy regarding sex offenders and then after an incident where it became very clear that vagueness in the policy resulted in widely varying interpretation of whether the policy was violated or not, the Meeting has set out to rewrite the policy.  Sadly, the Meeting has also become very polarized in the process.

One Friend has helpfully asked us to think of this polarization as not whether x did Y or whether Z has unfairly accused x of something, but rather as that all of us in Meeting fall at different places on a spectrum that at one end values welcoming people, anyone, especially those who maybe underdogs in our society into the Meeting, and the other end of the spectrum those valuing safety for all the members of our Meeting and holding up the Meeting Community as of supreme importance.   This same member has then invited us in a series of conversations to notice the things we actually believe in common – which winds up being that:

* we would all like to feel safe

*that we believe in the redemptability of our fellow human

*we all want to be welcoming to other humans

*the world holds no guarantees anywhere about safety

*we believe in taking sensible precautions to reduce risk when we can, etc.  

By finding these initial values we agree upon we are slowly inching our way forward.

Like most Friends in the Meeting I was so dismayed that we were having this conflict and also that it was having the destructive power that it was having in the Meeting. I wondered how this could possibly come out right?   But also being new to the Meeting it was very clear to me that the conflict like some sort of bull dozer was pushing up to the light of day all the dark places, all the dysfunctioning and broken places in the Meeting.   And it becomes increasingly clear that there is no way through this conflict without fixing all the broken places….which if we fail will leave us shattered and if we succeed will make us stronger and vastly better as a community.

Recently George Lakey came to town giving a workshop on his new book: How We Win.  One of the very encouraging things George shared was how in his research for his previous book Viking Economics he discovered that the Scandinavian countries, now amazing models for the world in so many arenas, were a “mess” before they transformed into democratic socialist countries.  He discovered that they were at their most polarized point right before that change in governments.  Out of the polarization the common people kicked the 1% out of rulership.  He then looked at our own US history and realized that out of the polarization and class divide of the Great Depression came all of the reforms of the New Deal and out of the polarization of the 60’s and 70’s came the civil rights movement, the Clean Water and Clean air act, etc.   In listening to a friend of his who did beautiful metal work he heard his friend talking about having to heat up the metal to make it pliable and George realized that this is what polarization does – it heats things up till they become changeable. George asks us to see the polarization of our time as an amazing set of possibilities about to unfold.

I have believed about the Meeting conflict that if we succeed that we may find some answers that our society has yet to find about how we allow people who have committed crimes against society to be welcomed back into society and integrated back in.   But this week I had the even more radical thought that the nations polarity on immigration goes on the same poll between those who want to be welcoming to all and those that want our country tot be a “safe place” that provides for those already here.  I realized that if the Meeting succeeds maybe we will find some answers on how the heat of conflict and the longing to be community allows for the transformation of our broken US society.   Maybe it will equip some of us with some ways to approach the yawning US political divide which I think begins with finding where we hold common values even when our rhetoric and preferred policies are worlds apart. 

It is also very helpful to remember that God exists at all points of our poll.  The Creator is not just hanging out on one side of that poll.  So if God is in all part of the poll, the Divine is able to hold the tension of those conflicting points of views and to keep seeing as loveable all members of the conflict.

The Blessed Community

Recently a query was read at Meeting, the query was "what do you long for in community?"  What immediately came to my mind was "the Blessed Community".   However, I then began to realize what do I really mean by The Blessed Community?  I think we all have this very idealized notion of the Blessed Community - it is one where love is the coin of the realm.   All our welcome, we are all kind to each other.   We act in union, apparently effortlessly and we are able therefore to do much productively.   God is the center of this community - holding us and connecting us.  There is joy and deep rewards from the connections and joy we experience in this community.

As I briefly enjoyed this idea I realized "what kind of people occupy this Blessed Community?" and this is where the ideal met reality.   I realized that the Blessed Community would not be some gated community where people who are dogmatic, or domineering, or annoying, or needy, or ignorant, or you supply the adjective are barred from entrance.   So if the Blessed Community must be made up of all who show up.....then all above described personalities are part of the Blessed Community.   In fact it would not be that different from your Friends Meeting or mine.  I think it is different than secular community in that it is a community of those who are bound by their relationship to the Divine.

But it does mean it is a community in which some people speak to long in business meeting (or in worship), some people make too much noise during worship, some people push their own agendas that others do not appreciate, some people speak in grating voices or inarticulately or not loudly enough or too loudly.  Some people agree to do things and forget to do it or just don't, etc. etc.

So all that said is Blessed Community any different than what we might think of as "regular faith community"?  Yes I think there is something more we could keep striving for in our Meetings in the way of creating Blessed Community.   I do think that Blessed Community is a place of love and support for its members as well as radical truth telling   (ie loving eldering when we have fallen from our highest self and need to be called back to our greater self.)   It is a place where we hold each other in forebearance (see my Nov 2018 post) which gentles the edges on our encounters and reminds us to see that of God in each other and to speak to that spark even when we do not see it.

It also means that we are fed spirituality by our community.   That we are better off because we have this community.   That in our own dry spells that rather than sitting in thirst we are nourished from the well of our community.  That the spiritual depth of the Meeting is there to turn to and draw upon in those times of dryness or dark nights of the soul.  That we have spiritual elders, regardless of our age, to nurture and support of spiritual development.

Additionally, I hope Blessed Community is also a place of "barn rising" - that we collaborate and help each other in ways that strengthen each others lives, and that we carry this out in a spirit of joyful fellowship where a network of mutual support enriches us all.  That we have a feeling of breaking ground that is Holy Ground.

And finally I hope this creates in our community moments that feel like the "living communion" that Friends forsook the "empty ritual" of formal communion for.   That we have moments of breaking bread that feel like the sharing of the body of the Living God.   That our fellowship in general feels infused with the Divine Presence, unified and bonded by Love, enliving and renewing to our spirit and moving us forward in united action.

May we all, with deliberation, move into the Blessed Community.

forebearance

Early Friends spoke of holding each other tenderly, in love and in forebearance.  In John 13:35 it is said: "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

In the age of Trump this can seem like a fairly foreign concept.  What is modeled from the highest office in the land is anger, hate speak, intolerance to any difference and bullying.  Unfortunately, as studies show, examples from highest levels trickle down.  Thus it is even more important that we act from love and give visible example to forebearance.

We long for the blessed community, but in truth in thru our doors come the same people who are "out there" - people who are carrying their wounds, some with anger, some with depression, some trying desperately to avoid all conflict in ways that also do not serve, etc.  At times we have conflicting needs and at times we are simply rubbed the wrong way by someone else's personality.   So what does it look like to hold that tenderly, in love and forebearance?

I think at the heart of it is this central idea of Quakerism that there is that of God in each person.  It means that at the moment you annoy me, or hurt me, or anger me that you are still a child of God.   And if we have come to know each other in the fellowship of community then hopefully I have seen your shining strengths, your gifts of the spirit, your good heart as well as in your vulnerabilities and your hurts.  In other words that I have already seen you as a child of God.  That aught to be a help.  It aught to make it easier to reach for the Spark within you rather than speak to the most clumsy or dark part of you, or worst yet project onto you my own darkness.  God did not say I will send you only the nice people, or the fun people, or the dedicated to be your fellowship.  The creator apparently loves all of us and intends for all of us to love each other too with all our warts and snarly parts.

Years ago someone came, relatively new to our Meeting, having left a previous faith.  He became excited at one point about a project he wanted to do and yet met some resistance from the property committee.  At a business meeting he lost his temper and yelled at people and made various accusations.   I called him later to talk about what had happened.  In the conversation he made various characterizations of individuals he was upset with.   He spoke of one woman who is known to be very gentle of spirit and actually sort of afraid of men, as being "unmoveable and patronizing".   I did understand how through his filter he had made that interpretation of her, but having known her for many years I felt this was a misreading of the situation.   It was an interesting moment for me of seeing how knowing the members of my Meeting was protective against misunderstanding them, their motives or their behavior.   That is not to say none of them never annoyed me.  It just meant I had another way to think about their behavior - through the eyes of love.

Certainly there are many examples of our tenderness with each other that has to do with service to each other: care committees that have cared for people onto death, loans that have been made at critical moments that buoyed someone over a rough spot, rides to meeting that were given to folks who would not otherwise have gotten there, etc.   These are important ways we come together as a community that resonate on the physical level.

But forebearance happens on the emotional, spiritual level.  Last year a member of my Meeting died of Alzheimer's.    For years he has certain messages that he gave over and over and over again.   I believe there were some members of our Meeting that found this annoying, and certainly his wife was very uncomfortable fearing he was annoying us.   But most people listened with love in their hearts for him.   When he would raise his hand in business meeting the clerk would lovingly say: "OK, hold on a minute I will come back to you."   He would allow us to navigate through the item at hand and then at the end call on this member so he could speak, but not disrupt us with a somewhat incoherent thought.   For me it became a spirit exercise to listen to the repeated messages and hear the heart which was underneath them, and indeed I found this easily - the messages spoke to what inspired him, or to what amused him or a concern he had for us - and that was where the love lived even in dementia.  I spoke at his memorial to this perception of mine and a member later thanked me saying the message was useful to her in terms of seeing how to listen in tongues.

Expectant Waiting

Do we expect to find God at Meeting for Worship?  Excuse this bold question, but it has come to me that I think maybe we don't really.  How would are Meetings be different if in fact we did expect that every time we settled into silence?

Some months ago I got up late and decided instead of going to my Meeting I would go to another Meeting in my neighborhood which meets later on Sunday.   As I settled into worship I realized that I was excited.  I did not know most of the worshipers.  I had no preconceived ideas about who would usually speak or what they would usually say.  (Sound familiar?).  And because it is a large Meeting I felt fairly sure that a message would be given.

I wound up giving a message because as I noticed my excitement I realized that it was "expectant waiting" and with that phrase I remembered that this is actually the spirit in which we are invited by our traditions to wait in silence for the Holy One to speak...through us.  Ironically, Spirit seemed to want me to speak and remind Friends gathered that this is what we are waiting for.

I think modern Friends are very easily losing this idea.  I have heard Friends from different Meetings across the country complain about Friends who come with a book to read from "for inspiration" or the now famous NY Times headline message, or its' sister the book report message. Additionally, I have heard Friends complain about the person who speaks every Sunday or who speaks clearly not from the Spirit.  But primarily they are complaining about Friends not following protocol.  I do wish they were complaining about our failure to expect Spirit to show up.

After all this is really not different from those of us who go for "peace and quiet" from our families, "a place to think", for the fellowship, or to sit and try to figure out our problems.   All of these fail to wait expectantly for Divine whisperings although we follow protocol.

In fact I think that most Friends would not make a distinction between a Living silence and a dead silence.   Next time your in Meeting try to notice...which is it?   Recently a member of my Meeting told a very funny story to which we all laughed about how when her kids were young they arrived late one day and she was fussing about this and her daughter said:  "Don't worry Mom, I think we are late enough that they will all already be asleep."    Amusing as this, I think it speaks to a dead silence if a child cannot feel anything moving in that silence.  In fact my teenager complains that the Young Friends do not like to come to business meeting with us in any of their Meetings because they cannot feel the Spirit present or available to us in our conducting of business.

This of course brings us to the problem: how do we bring forth a living silence in our Meetings and an expectant waiting?   Well some of this may have to do with what we have lost when we did away with the facing bench and the elders.   They were not just grim old folks who stared down at the other members.   Part of their "job" was actually to hold the Meeting for Worship in prayer - to attempt to ground the whole Meeting for Worship.  I remember once when I was on Ministry and Worship suggesting that the member of the committee who had responsibility for breaking Meeting also hold the Meeting in prayer during the whole Meeting.   I no longer remember what we concluded about that experiment, but I do remember that during that same time I often felt we had Gathered Meetings. What if we asked our whole Meeting to do such an experiment on the same Sunday?

And of course there is always how do we tend to the Life of the Spirit in our Meeting for worship throughout the month?  Do we tend our own spiritual life?  Do we prepare for worship?   Do we use worship sharing formats to share with each other about our spiritual lives?   So often we meet in Silence and have no real personal exchanges and do not know each other spiritually.  Early Friends lived in small farming communities where they knew the members of Meeting as their neighbors and local business owners.  They did not have to have sharing time at Meeting to know of births and deaths and other highs and lows of the lives of their fellow members.   But now we don't know unless we create a way to know.   My Meeting started at tradition over a decade ago of during the last 10 minutes of Meeting for Worship we ask for the sharing of joys and concerns to be shared in the spirit of worship.  (We added that last phrase to remind or inform new folks that we expect still to have silence before and after each sharing.   But we do not hold the same bar of expecting a divine prompting to share a joy or concern.)  Occasionally regular messages are also still shared during this time as well.  In my opinion it has deepened our community because we know each other better.

I have heard Friends from different Meetings describe starting worship by focusing for a moment on each Member present (and sometimes even those absent) and holding them in Light.   This is something only possible when we know each other in personal ways, but it again speaks to this idea of grounding into worship.  Prayer is something we can do any where, but to come into communal worship - to expect to be used by Spirit for each other and to be ministered to by Spirit through each other is a very different matter indeed.

Corporate Witness

"There is a journey that some follow by starting in prayer and others follow by starting in action.  It is the witness of our tradition that those who are naturally inclined to begin in prayer will eventually feel led into outward action, and those who are naturally inclined to begin with action will eventually feel called more deeply into prayer.  However, it is sometimes the case that those who pray do not act, and those who act do not pray.  There is an unfortunate tendency among some Quakers to separate prayer and action rather than to integrate them."
Daniel Snyder   Quaker Witness as Sacrament p.22

I encountered this quote recently in a worship sharing.   I am reminded of the idea: does something arise from an inward motion or an outward motion?  When said this way it is clear that either motion can be the motion towards a leading.   That certainly has been my experience.   At age 16 when someone handed me a flyer describing the despicable conditions of farm workers, I thought: "Someone should do something about this".   Then I heard a voice that said: "And who is someone?" which resulted in several years of activism on this issue. This would be the example of an outward motion.

When I was 21 walking through the Smithsonian museum, having somewhere on a back burner a wonderment about whether I should take part in an act of civil disobedience designed to testify against cutting the safety net from under the poor, I had a sort of mystical experience walking through the museum.  Panorama after panorama showed the lifestyle and technology and struggles and advances of Americans throughout its history.  By the end I sat down on a bench and felt as if I was in a covered Meeting- I felt powerfully the eternal struggle of humans to provide a better life for the next generation and that at its base was a struggle for goodness and for uplifting fueled by Love. Somehow in that same Centeredness I knew I would act the next day in solidarity for the struggle for people to have basic needs meet and lives of dignity.   This was an inward motion.

Although as the last example shows the world may take us to prayer, and the deep seatedness of the testimonies, of basic values that point us towards the Truth as we currently understand it, makes even the encounter with the outward injustices of the world, a nudge to return to deeper truths.

I have to say growing up inside Quakerism I saw that Friends I knew fell easily into categories: the social justice Friends for whom that was always what motivated them and the spiritual Friends who gave beautiful ministry but seemed never to take social action.   It is unfortunate that in modern day Quakerism that which was bound inextricably in early Quakerism is so easily divided.  However, in those Friends who have most deeply touched me and who are often found to be "weighty Friends" I find that those to threads are interwoven.

Recently, I have heard people from many different Meetings lamenting that many Friends within the Meeting do "good works" but that the Meeting has no shared social witness, or action that it does together.   Sometimes this is accompanied with a wondering of how they could get this?  (With a wistfulness that I liken to wondering how one could get some of those magic beans that Jack got?)  My feeling is that we are forgetting our own history.  If one examines the history of  Quaker corporate witness: to worship freely, to not swear oaths, to oppose slavery, to support Women's equality, and to support Civil rights within the US - you will notice that each of those things began with the witness and leading of one or a small handful of Friends.  Those Friends were NOT always happily received by their fellow Friends, and were controversial in their time, and yet they also did exert substantial influence which grew with....well the power of Truth, until a 100 years later Friends could stand in unity against slavery, or support a 100 year movement for women to get the vote, etc.

It strikes me that once again the influence of American liberalism within Quakerism is a sort of tolerant "We all have the freedom to do whatever we want, and we don't have to require anything of anyone else".  So therefore we are free to pursue our individual good works but it is considered annoyingly inappropriate and perhaps self-centered to insist that others MUST/SHOULD unite with our view of the truth.   The problem with this is that early Quakerism believed there was A Truth, one that God called us too.  They saw themselves as in community for the purpose of raising up that Truth to the general society.  Thus corporate witness meant not giving a member a pat on the back for good works, but having to discern with that Friend if they were bring Truth for the whole group.   I am not sure that in our current use of clearness process or business process that we still expect to find corporate Witness.

"For one thing, the legacy of John Woolman invites us to be open to recovering more fully the collective dimensions of meeting for worship.  We are summoned to "dwell deep".  For another, we are invited to see our activism as a species of worship.   For activists, this is an invitation to root our activism more fully in the transforming power of meeting for worship and the love of God we encounter there.  For those who are more contemplative than an activist orientation, it challenges us to broaden our understanding of the boundaries of the meetinghouse, and the boundaries of worship itself."
Michael Birkel  "Mysticism and Activism: On learning from John Woolman  a talk at SEYM

 I close with this quote also from the worship sharing (special thanks Christine Hall) because I love Birkel's phrase activism as a species of worship - because I think of the times like on the bench in Smithsonian where my activism brought me into worship or the recent EQUAT action where 100's of Friends sat in PNB banks and prayed that they stop funding mountain top removal. And I know that without my community choosing to serve as an anchor to my activism, I am in danger of being swept into the ego, strategy, power plays, etc that can live in the world of activism.  I am challenged to keep foremost in me the Outward Motion of God's Love as the energy from which I act.   This also challenges me to think about which of the many faces of the Divine that I know: Creator, Lover, parent, Shepard, Comforter, am I connecting with and witnessing to when I act in the world for truth and justice?

Bringing Spiritual Intention to our Meetings

I have for many years now been a fan of Wayne Dwyer, author of the Power of Intention, among many books (and often seen on PBS) Dwyers messages is definitely spiritual, but no explicitly Christian, and so not usually spoken about in Friends Meeting - I would like however to bring part of his Light to our on going struggle to have our Meetings support the Life we want for our Meetings.

First I would say we need to have an explicit dialogue in our Meetings - what do we want?  What do we intend for our communities?  Do we want more young families?  Do we want to keep our youth? Do we want more vital ministries?  Do we want a more active and powerful social witness?  Do we want a deeper sense of community?  Do we want our business meetings to be truly spirit led?  Do we want to know the presence of God more deeply?

Whatever the longing - first we must name it - then we must imagine it fully achieved, the spirit of it - not endlessly lamenting the "not happeningness of it" as Dwyer might joke.  Then in tasting what it might taste like we must walk our selves backward from that image.  What conditions would have to exist to allow or nurture that vision?  Would a certain committee of the Meeting be different?  Would worship be different? Would community be different?  Then peel back another layer:  What committees or other activities prepare us for worship or to learn our practice?  What removes the obstacles in worship?  Do we expect to find the Divine on the bench with us? What practices could we change that would better support our cherished intentions?  What practices do we have because "we always did it this way"... or because when we had a lot of children we did x, or because of the force of personality of 1 Friend now long dead, or because we think this is how "all Quaker" do it, etc. etc?

How can we examine our practices and release those who no longer serve.  A number of years sabbatical years were popular for Meetings- laying down all committees for a year and discerning what was essential and bringing back committees only with intention and renewed purpose.  Do our committees match our numbers?  When does a meeting grown to where Ministry and Oversite should be separated (into Ministry and Worship & Pastoral Care)   And when have we shrunk to where they should be recombined into Ministry and Pastoral Care?

Sometimes this conversation becomes a little bit of a "What comes first the chicken or the egg?" conversation because we imagine we cannot do the work that it would take to make a better meeting without more people and yet we feel that without more people we cannot do that extra work.  Here Friends I would remind us that it is not our work alone to do.  This is where it is good to remember God!  How do we invite in God's help?  How do we remember that God also wants these things we want: deeper worship, greater community, etc.  and in fact if we can notice that it is really arranging the practices of our Meetings to let the Light shine through then it is not simply empty form or endless meetings - it is the joyful work of the Holy One and us as the instruments.

Releasing Ministers

The March issue of Friends Journal was dedicated to Funding Ministry.  Even the two words together were a little odd for me because Funding is a worldly term not a spiritual one.  But as I was reading along I enjoyed the modern term of "bivocational ministry" and found it helpful, and thought when I saw the second title that it would be about "released ministries".  I really liked the idea of using computer technology and crowd funding to achieve the OLD idea of releasing Friends.  However, I was very surprised that the article actually did not talk about the traditional method of releasing Friends to ministry, but only about the modern problem of no funding.  As I continued to read I started to feel a state of disbelief  "Oh my Gosh is no one going to say it?  Is this state of Quakerism today?  Have we forgotten our own traditions for releasing ministers".  I was relieved when the last article at least touched on it.

So Friends we had a rich tradition in the first 100 to 150 years of Quakerism of releasing Friends in ministry.  What this meant was a Friend would bring a leading to Meeting for discernment, if their clearness committee found them clear and the Meeting united in confirming the leading as coming from God, then the Meeting also embraced the support of this leading.  So for example if someone was lead to travel to an adjoining Yearly Meeting or even another country to minister to Friends there about how faithfully we were testifying to "A Gospel of plainness, staying low and not going to vanity".  Then the meeting provided both 1 or 2 elders to travel with the minister to assure that they stayed grounded and did not outrun their light, but the meeting also provided financial support.  What this meant was providing for their travel and board costs that were not provided for by Meetings they visited.  Some times it meant providing financial assistance to the family left behind or help with child care.  (Since many Friends were farmers often the spouse who remained behind could continue to provide financially as long as they got help from other Friends at key points in the growing cycle.)  But the commitment was clear that the member with the leading and their family were not to go with unmet needs.   It would seem that the articles in this issue point to the fact that we currently live much more self-sufficient not community oriented lives which means we are not providing this kind of support to our ministers.

Another confusion for me throughout the issue was the word ministry seemed to be almost exclusively be being used to apply to what I would call pastoral ministry, either a religious vocal ministry or pastor care for our meetings themselves, serving a Meetings needs directly.  This is certainly a kind of ministry and one that non-programed Friends have much conflicted feelings about because in our split with programmed Friends this was one clear and noticeable difference.   They identified A pastor and paid that person.  But there is another kind of ministry, it is one of leading and is often out into the world on behalf of one of our testimonies.  It is a ministry for sure to the Truth as that person is lead, but it is not pastoral.  I would offer John Woolman as perhaps the greatest example of this.  He was passionately led on the slavery issue and spoke to Friends and non-Friends alike on this issue.

So in regards to the first kind of ministry: pastor ministry I think we need to get over ourselves and our history and decide to compensate fairly as valued employees those Friends who serve us in our Meetings and Quaker Organizations doing work that we value.  But in regard to the second type of ministry: a lead ministry I would like us to remember our own traditions of "releasing Friends".   As we enter into a time of environmental collapse many Friends maybe called to minister to our societal crisis in ways that will be full time work.  I hope that we can unite that they are indeed carrying a calling that we have joined with and just as they may sacrifice a better paying job or free time that others in the meeting sacrifice some comfort to put additional money into the "funds for suffering" (which is what Friends use to call the separate fund kept to support Friends and their family who were in jail for their witness or traveling under a leading.)  The idea here is that is a separate and additional obligation than our monthly tithe to the Meeting.

I would recommend to Friends the long out of print book: Charity Cook: A Liberated Woman by Algie Newlin Friends United Press.  This book describes the released traveling ministry of Charity Cook who lived in the 1700's and was the mother of 11 Children. I would also share that shortly after I graduated college I shared with Elders in my Meeting the passionate desire I felt to speak about peace, social justice and simplicity to others.  My Elders told me "this is a leading" and got a clearness committee for me, and a letter to my Yearly Meeting (Illinois Yearly Meeting) where my leading was brought to and confirmed by the whole body of the Yearly Meeting.  The entire small yearly Meeting paid into a sufferings fund for a year while I traveled to every Meeting in our Yearly Meeting speaking both to each Meeting and to outside engagements that they arranged while I was there.  I chose because of my ministry about simplicity and social justice to live at minimum wage, but none the less all of my living costs and travel costs were covered during that year.  I would like Friends to not think this is a quaint footnote of our historic experience, but that our history can help us, combined with modern tools like crowd sourcing, to release Friends today to minister to the urgent needs of our suffering world, and that those of us not actively engaged in such a ministry can see ourselves bound in community and shared testimony to the support of those lead ministries of other Friends.

Your Favorite Testimony?

" What is the most important Testimony?" This question was asked by one of the children in my Meeting during an intergenerational worship sharing where the children asked questions about Quakerism which we used as Queries. (Prewritten in First Day school the hour before.) The adults were quick to explain that there was no best testimony, that they were like children - you loved all of them and had no favorites. Someone acknowledged that at certain moments in your life one might be more important or more of an issue. What I found myself thinking about was that I feel all our testimonies flow out of the same beginning premise: the idea that that of God is found in all people. (A belief that I think may also be the one common connecting thread between all branches of Friends.) So far example, I believe that the Peace testimony makes sense because if there is that of God in another person how could you kill it? Or how could you treat one child of God with less equity than another? The Integrity testimony also follows because how can be dishonest or deceptive with another child of God? In the simplicity testimony we seek to avoid all distraction from knowing God. We do not adorn ourselves or our homes in ways that would distract others from experiencing that of God in us or them selves. It of course is also important to come into community with all parts of the Light dispersed amongst people, and to relate to the earth in good stewardship because this also is a creation of Our Creator. We strive for social justice because this is the only appropriate way to treat God's children. It is interesting to see that we do not all conceptualize these testimonies the same way, over time or location. Growing up I recall only 4 being taught: the Peace testimony, simplicity, equality and social justice. Integrity was understood to be covered in social justice. Looking at a pamphlet by East Coast Friend Gordon Browne I see he lists only 4 but they are Peace, Equality, Simplicity and Community. He then lists the call to truth telling and integrity as a requirement of equality - treating all of God's children the same with the same truth. However, he states that plain and honest speech is an expression of simplicity which he has described as not be distracted from God's truth in any form. He also sees stewardship and social justice as expressions of simplicity stating: "Respect for God's creation and, therefore, concern for the environment and the right use of the world's resources is another obvious expression of the testimony of simplicity." He says in relationship to social justice that American Friends are "privileged beyond the wildest imaginings of most other world's people. This fact is the occasion for special awareness of responsibility for good stewardship and for commitment to social justice." So certainly there are many ways to "slice" these testimonies! Similarly we do not all understand historic Quaker behavior as coming from the same testimonies. For example I have heard some people say Quakers wore black and white and grey because of the simplicity testimony and others say it was because of the testimony on social justice and the reality that in those days the dying of fabric was highly toxic and gravely shortened the life of the workers dying the fabric. I have also heard Friends involvement in abolition and the vote for women as alternately stemming from the social justice testimony or the equality testimony. Either, both - it really points to how interwoven the testimonies really are - perhaps because they come from this same root of acknowledging that of God in all others. Friends have testimonies instead of creedal statements because we understand them to be our best current understanding of the Truth. We believe that Truth is known experientially and that our understanding of truth can evolve over time with more information and more experience. So of course the truth is so completely interwoven!

Membership in the Society of Friends

The April issue of Friend's Journal raises a number of interesting issues about membership.  One being the peculiar habit Friends have of identifying through their membership in a Meeting (specific Congregation), a trait not found in other denominations.  It also asks us to look at whether this emphasis on membership also makes some (especially young adults not yet able to put down roots) feel unwelcome or like second class citizens.  These are good questions.  Too some degree the concept of membership is one that belongs heavily to another time and place.

However, I think, that like other things, in a heavily secular world we begin to forget the religious reasons for membership.  Early Friends believed deeply in an accountability to the fellowship which was held in a Meeting and a group of people. Quakers had rejected both a Pope or clerical hierarchy as the source of Truth and even said the Bible was not the primary source of truth (but A source of Truth), but rather that Truth was to be found experientially.  After the James Naylor incident, it became clear to Friends that there had to be some sort of check and balance on the truth that was found individually - that it had to be tested and held accountable to the collective wisdom or Truth of the fellowship.  Thus membership in a Meeting became the group which would discern with a member all of the most important decisions of a lifetime: to marry, to pursue a specific career or a call to ministry or activism.

Fast forward 350 years to the United States where the entire population is highly mobile - usually living in many locations during a lifetime - and where young adults are the most transit of all and our current way of doing membership does not fit particularly well.  I personally favor moving to allowing young adults to place their membership in their Yearly Meeting until they feel rooted enough in one place to move it to a specific Monthly Meeting.   I was raised a Friend and so went off to college with my membership sitting in the Meeting I grew up in.  I knew it did not make sense to transfer it while I was in college (often to tired to even get to Meeting on Sunday.)  And in my twenties and early 30s, post college I lived in 6 locations before I settled.  I then moved to Seattle which has 4 Meetings and worship groups.  For one reason or another I was in each of them before I finally knew I was home at the 4th one.  By then I was 36!  In other words it was a long journey, yet I had the convenience of having my membership sit in my patient Meeting I grew up with, while being able to list where I was sojourning at the time.  What if I had not already had a membership somewhere?

It makes more sense to me that we hold young Friends membership in their Yearly Meeting than go the direction that some would suggest of simply discarding the idea of membership.  They could pay theirannual fee directly into the Yearly Meeting.   Although of course there is the practical reality that Meeting Houses cost money and that membership is a shared agreement to shoulder together the costs of our collective existence.

For those who come to Quakerism from another faith I think our approach to membership is somewhat puzzling.  For many churches becoming a member is not any more significant than signing up for a book group.  We however, hold a clearness committee for potential members and report back to Business Meeting whether we feel clear to accept the person into membership.  For many this is an intimidating process.  I recall in my Meeting growing up a long time attender who never applied for membership out of concern that her husband's employment for a major arms manufacturer might "disqualify" her  - she was never talked out of this concern because there were indeed members of Meeting who felt they would not be clear to accept her under that circumstance.   Is membership as value free as taking out a library card?  Or does it stand for a set of values?  This I think is something we must continue to grapple with and not ignore.  I also recall someone in my Yearly Meeting not applying for membership because they felt they were not "good enough" morally pure enough.  That seemed tragic to me.

For those older attenders who are ambivalent about membership - unclear what's its purpose or benefits might be, I would offer the following:  Some of us look for the perfect Meeting waiting to apply for membership till we find that Meeting- like some singles on the dating scene that will be an eternal wait - there are no perfect mates or Meetings!  In fact I think it is very helpful to think of membership sort of like a marriage - it is a two way commitment.  At its best it brings great gifts and fulfillment, at its worst it can be a lot of work and sometimes painful.  However, like a marriage when we find it not wholly satisfying or lacking in someway it is time to work at improving it, rather than treating it like we are spectators of a sporting event, uninvolved in the outcome.  Like a marriage we may also be asked of in ways that stretch us and lead to growth.

Both as a place of accountability and as a place of spiritual work and growth, I think the spiritual aspects of membership are compelling and not to be cast aside as some sort of old fashion idea.  We need to not confuse it with membership in a more secular group like a social club, or membership where memberships either help define social status or identity.  That is not I think what "the society of Friends" is about, or what membership means in this case.

Thinking as a Community

In Systems Theory if one starts at the level of a particle, to an atom, to a cell, to an organ, to a body, we reach the level we exist at- the level of the individual.  But from there it goes on to the community, the ecosystem, the bioregion, the nation, the continent, the earth, the solar system and the universe.  Systems Theory also states that each level is a holon- made up of the parts and yet more than the parts, and itself part of a larger system.  Evolutionary shifts or paradigm shifts occur when something changes from one level to the next.  

Therefore, it is useful to notice that we exist at the level of the individual and that is the level at which we do our thinking.   We think most of the time about ourselves and our needs and goals - sometimes we think about other individuals: our families, or members of groups we belong to, occasionally about our country or the planet.  But usually even when we do this we are thinking about how we are effected by those beings or what we want for those beings.  It is very rare for us to think collectively - to consider our decisions from the point of view of how they effects others on the other side the planet or generations to come.  And yet this sort of thinking is evolutionarily the next step for life on earth, and as we face crises like climate change and peak oil it is increasingly apparent that such thinking is critical for our very survival.

As a lifelong Quaker I realize that I have always existed in at least one context: my Friends Meeting where this sort of thinking on the community level is inherent.  Every business meeting run by consensus is a practice in thinking collectively, not individualistically.   I can be thankful for the practice I have at that, but it was a recent aha to realize how many of my fellow citizens have never had that experience.

Like most Americans I have grown up believing that I live in a Democracy. Recently I went to see the movie: Direct Democracy.  This movie shows among other things the experience of the people of Argentina when their government fell apart due to economic collapse.  People in rural areas got together in town meetings and discussed what they needed, from roads to irrigation improvement, etc.  The government had some funds for each regional area, but no means to govern or administer the funds; so they allowed the town halls to decide what they needed the money spent on and the would send them the money. 

The movie showed some of these direct democracy experiences of people arguing their cases to each other and then voting.  The movie also showed how after months of this if someone had come every month with a proposal, but did not get it passed because there were less people living in that neighborhood to support it, that eventually the whole group would vote yes on it out of a feeling that "it is their turn".  This is truly thinking as a group consciousness that I cannot imagine Congress every achieving.

While the people there’s experience started with direct budgeting, many workers also took over the abandoned factories left by their financially ruined "owners" and ran them as worker owned collectives making all the decisions for the business together.  In some of the scenes of town halls and worker collectives, the energy and excitement, and creativity is almost palpable to the audience!  There is an energy that is released when people have power over there lives that has been blocked by centuries of patriarchy, hierarchy, and capitalist power down models. 

I remember for years (especially during the Bush years) meeting with progressive groups who desperately wanted change. After complaining about what we did not like, the groups seemed at a complete poverty of ideas about what to do that would bring about change.  Mostly people could only think of writing to Congress which then evoked feelings of hopelessness in many in the group.  I could not understand why even group who saw Congress as completely broken, made up bought politicians could only think of this as an avenue for change.   After watching the movie it is now clear to me why.  

Most people have no experience of direct democracy.  They have no experiences in their lives of belonging to a group that has brought about any type of change.  They have no experience of influencing a group decision or taking charge of a situation and making it different.   Quaker's call ourselves a peculiar people because of our very different style of worship, but I realized after watching this movie that we have another unique experience - that of direct democracy where every one of our voices count and where everyone of us equally runs our Friends Meeting.   Perhaps this also explains 350 years of our feeling the audacity to think we can change our country if it needs it.

I have decided that the most radical question I can ask people these days is:  "What communities do you belong to?"  And to try to encourage and create experiences around me where people experience thinking as part of a group.  And I am extremely thankful for the way Quakerism has formed deeply in me the knowledge that humans can function as a collective body.