Hat Honor

It is fairly well known among Quaker's that early Friends refused to doff their hat to those of higher class an offense for which one could be jailed. Friends did this, as well as using differently thee and thou, as a way of making the point that we are Children of God and equal in the Creator's eyes.

I think that mostly modern Friends think of this as another cool or exemplary piece of Quaker history.  However, I wonder how many of us have stopped to actually feel out what this really would be like.  Imagine standing in front of someone who in these modern times has way more status than you and then imagine deliberately doing something which you know will offend them, and in fact will probably get you arrested.  Yeah, you may notice as do I, that this takes some nerve!

Actually it takes faith.  It means that in a non-creedal, non-doctrinaire way that one takes action not as an expected ritual action, but as active witness to a Holy One that you are in active communion with.  I am reminded of the feelings I had while taking part in an active civil disobedience on the White House lawn during the Reagan administration.  I had felt lead to this action and felt engulfed in Light in a most intense way as we sat praying on the lawn.  It felt literally sort of amusing to me when the secret service men read us an ordinance against sitting on the law and ordered us to leave.  I was amused that mere mortal men thought they had any power over me as I sat literally covered in Divine Light.  It seems to me that in the Peace Testimony when it says "we act in the Life and Power that takes away the occasion of all war" that it is this same intense Life and Power that they are describing.  And I think that when early Friends refused to doff their hats that they were faithful to that same Presence.....otherwise it was just a lot of nerve!

Recently I was at an action that was some thing between a demonstration/street theater and an arrestable act of civil disobedience.  A group of twenty entered Ameritrade bank which has funded the XL pipeline and inflated an pipeline replica (made of black garbage bags) and read a declaration condemning the bank for its part in destruction of life as we know it on this planet and imploring it to stop.  One person had to keep reading while the security guard literally jumped up and down in his face, while another person had to try to reason with the guard asking for time to finish reading.  The rest of us sang or chanted to distract or emphasize the point and we all left before the police arrived (although standing out side legally protesting as they arrived and left.)  But as the reader continued to read while the bank manager freaked out I was reminded of hat honor.

On one level if you think of it as getting arrested for not taking your hat off it seems ridiculous.  On another level if you think of it as making the point that all people are equal it is an extremely important point to make where ever that arises.  And yet today, in the totally non-arrestable action of simply what we buy and what we don't buy we are confronted with: bananas, teas, coffees, sugars and chocolates which are planted and harvested instead of food for the citizenry in the countries that provide them to us for dirt cheep.  Also our chocolate and the metals mined for our cell phones are made by child labor (sometimes slave labor) and yet we still buy these items.

We read in the papers the slow chipping away of our civil liberties, our right to privacy, workers rights, etc.  Are any of these important to us on  a level of our testimony's for social justice?  Corporations continue to heat our planet in a thousands ways.  What feels important enough to you to stand your ground for?  To not doff your hat for?  To risk arrest for?  For what will you be Holy Obedient?

Let Your Life Speak: a Book Review

Strange to review an almost 14 year old book; but this is a timeless book and worth knowing about.  Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation is a short book by Quaker theologian Parker Palmer.  I picked up to give to my niece, started peeking in it and wound up reading the whole 109 pages (i.e. it is a quick read).  While good for anyone looking at vocation issues, I found it just a very lovely description of the life struggle to live in faithfulness to the Divine.  One of the things I most appreciated is his own very sincere and humble sharing of his own struggles with vocation, confrontations with his own ego and public acknowledgment of struggles with clinical depression (which I think few well known people are willing to do.)

In the first chapter on Listening to Life, he describes the process of listening to the events of our life as a way of hearing God’s whispering to us.  In the 2^nd chapter he explores the idea of our true self and leaving behind pretense or the strivings of the ego for attention and releasing false selves.   The third chapter, the Way Closes, is one of my favorite as he here puts forth the idea of discernment that it is not all doors opening that show us directions, but also some that close behind us (with a thump)!  A nice quote from this chapter:  “If we are to live our lives fully and well, we must learn to embrace the opposites, to live in a creative tension between our limits and our potentials.  We must honor our limitations in ways that do not distort our nature, and we must trust and use our gifts in ways that fulfill the potentials God gave us.  We must take the no of the way that closes and find the guidance it has to offer – and take the yes of the way that opens and respond with the yes of our lives.”  P. 55

Chapter IV however, is my favorite because as a therapist I have a deep appreciation for how he talks about depression and his attempt to get others to understand what is helpful and what is not in another’s response to depression.  He helpfully lists the following as not useful: 1)sympathy 2)efforts to “cheer one up” – alienating because the depressed person cannot get there 3)Being told what a good person one is or all the good one has done (alienating because it has no bearing on the present suffering) 4) saying one knows exactly how the other feels (as he points out we never really do and so it simply rings false all that follows afterwards, and potentially invalidates what ones friend is experiencing 5) advising giving (which he adds sets the giver free not the receiver)  He argues for the rejecting of simplistic solutions and for the embracing of mystery.  He describes responses that were helpful saying: ”It is a love in which we represent God’s love to a suffering person, a God who does not ‘fix’ us but gives us strength by suffering with us. By standing respectfully and faithfully at the borders of another’s solitude, we may mediate the love of God to a person who needs something deeper than any human being can give.”  P. 64  He also argues for seeing depression as a path down, but to understand that as a path to “the Ground of Our Being”…meaning a path to God.

In the fifth chapter on Leadings from Within, he discusses what leadership really is (as leadership is a critical part of his life path)  He also shares somewhat humorously a time he learned the real meaning of the Outward Bound motto:  “If you can’t get out of it, get into it!” and the usefulness of applying this to certain spots in life.  In talking about certain dark truths that leaders must face I especially appreciated the third that he named “functional atheism, the belief that ultimate responsibility for everything rests with us”.  This I recognize as an aspect of my own “God who” disease brought on by fear, followed by the rapid forgetting that there is a Divine Creator of  this universe!  He also makes a lovely argument for bringing the work of the spiritual life into the public realm.

I must confess the last chapter is my least favorite (maybe it is last for a reason?).  He attempts to use the movement thru the seasons: fall, winter, spring and summer as a metaphor for the movement of our lives on a spiritual journey.  But somehow I simply did not find what was said in this chapter to be very enlightening.

Overall this book with personal examples and vulnerable honesty helps us understand the journey to find and to change vocation as an ultimately spiritual journey and gives us the encouragement to face the journey as mystical journey.

...Answering to that of God in Others.

Walk Cheerfully over the earth answering to that of God in others.  George Fox

In the summer between My Freshman and Sophomore year of college a letter came for me in the mail.  It was from Jim, a guy who had lived on my hall the previous year.  This would not seem eventful, but it was, because Jim had spent half of the last year not speaking to me (and half the other people on the hall.)  He'd gotten mad at us all for some reason which was never clear to any of us and then refused to speak. Not only that, he also pretended I did not exist, so he would attempt to walk through me in the hall and speak when I was speaking.

I was perplexed and annoyed by this, but after some consideration I decided that he'd done me no wrong and I would treat him accordingly, but most specifically I would stay true to the idea that he had that of God in him and try to speak to that of God in him.  As the months dragged on I was somewhat discouraged by the lack of change this wrought, but I continued to do it because it seemed like the right thing to do.

So indeed it was a surprise to receive a letter from Jim.  In the letter he told me that he'd spent the summer working for the forest service, so he'd had a lot of time to think.  He said he'd come to feel bad about how he'd treated me and wanted to start over next year and be friends.  He said that he wanted to apologize to the others, but I was the only one he thought would forgive him.  Sometimes directing ourselves to that of God in someone is the best way to connect with their highest self.

Some years later I worked as a volunteer in the prisons for nearly a decade with the AVP program.  I made the decision in going into the prisons that I would look for that of God in each of these men.  Without exception I found this quite possible to do, and in fact not even very difficult in most cases.  I think it also made it a very pleasant experience.

During that same period of time I believe I avoided being raped by also following this same practice.   A man arrived at the church where our office was and was asking for the pastor.  I let him in to the big deserted building.  He started asking me about the program I worked for, so I took him into my office and told him about it.  He started saying flirtatious things and otherwise making me uncomfortable. My initial attempts to get him to leave also failed.  Somehow as my anxiety rose I remembered to notice that of God in him and speak to that.  I eventually got him to leave the building to get some food and in so doing got in a public setting again where I was able to then tell him I had to go and separate from him.  Later a friend who worked in a shelter told me upon hearing the story that he knew him and that he had several sexual assaults on his record.

I am reminded while walking with others that most people do not approach the world this way.  For most there is a quick judgement of others as to whether they are friend or foe, good or bad, and little patience for the challenges that others may present us.  This means the opportunities for conflict and frustration are many. I don't think walking around looking for that of God in others is easy, but I do think it brings me into a better more loving connection with others for which I'm grateful.  It has brought me away of life and a way of being in the world which I'm happy with.

The Quaker and the Buddhist

Many Buddhists have crossed my path in the last decade.  Not a surprise really when you note the commonalities between Quaker's and Buddhists.  The most obvious is the form of worship...silent meditation although the goal and the intent is somewhat different in that silence.  Quaker's intentions are to clear the space to know God's mind.  Buddhists do not believe in God precisely, but see meditation as a discipline of the mind and a path to loving compassion.  Both Faiths hold high the pursuit of Truth.  As I jokingly like to tell my Buddhist friends, unlike Quakers, Buddhists number everything and find 4 this and 8 that and 4 subsets of the eight, etc.

Buddhists say that the way to end suffering is the eightfold path.  I'm fascinated by how the eightfold path is both similar and different from Quakerism and below are my reflections on the eightfold path.

1. Right Understanding: Learning the the nature of reality and the truth about life.

Early Friends called themselves Friends of the Truth, or Publishers of Truth and saw their role as to seek and know God and God's will and to be absolutely faithful to this.  This is still why we gather in silent worship.

2. Right Aspiration Making the commitment to living in such a way that our suffering can end.

Quakers have testimony's which we say are the truth as we know it.  We have a firm believe in continuing revelation and so believe that no statement of Truth can ever be final.  But the testimonies which we do have are our statement of the truth as we currently know it and as such we commit to trying to live them out to the best of our ability.  I have noticed that Quaker's really beat themselves up and guilt trip themselves about the failure to do that.  Because of another Buddhist belief numbered in 4 that has to do with stepping away from ego I think Buddhists do a better job of accepting their short comings in reaching their aspirations.  (Or maybe I only think so because they have 4 reasons not to get caught in ego about this endeavor.)

Interestingly non-violence is one of the right aspirations of Buddhism...which of course coincidentally is one of the truths that Quakers have also been lead to.

3.  Right Effort Just Do It. No Excuses.  Be in Wholesomeness.

Hmmm... well that would seem to contradict what I just said above wouldn't it.  I must say it is a trait I like about Buddhists that they live in a very committed and dedicated way in the world.  Although I suppose from the outside many would say the same about Quaker's going to prison to avoid conscription, or for not taking off their hat to the King etc.  This is also said by Buddhist to mean no taking of life, no stealing and no sexual misconduct.  So again Buddhist and Quakers share a commitment to non-violence but because of how it is stated this means vegetarianism for Buddhist, but not for Quakers. (Although many Quakers have made that logical connection.)  Somehow not stealing just seems hardly worth discussing if you are trying to live peacefully with others.  I have not heard Quaker's talking about sexual misconduct, so I do not know if this is an issue we should be examining or not?

4.  Right Speech Speaking the truth in a helpful and compassionate way.

I have seen this written in other Buddhist contexts as a commitment not to lie, be divisive, abusive or to gossip.  It is interesting that it focuses on speech since early Quakers used thee and thy differently than the rest of the population in an attempt to not make class distinctions and to treat all people as equal.  They also refused to swear oaths because those implied that truth was only spoken sometimes and we had "one standard of truth" to be spoken at all times.  Our testimony on integrity is all about truth telling and Quakers are very committed to only telling the Truth as well as applying non-violence to our language.  However, I think we could stand to examine the Buddhist challenge to not gossip or be divisive because....well I think we are a little prone in that direction, Friends.

5.  Right Conduct Living a life consistent with our values.

Well this again would seem like the emphasis Quakers put on trying to live out our testimonies, to live by the truth that has been given to us.  It also points to the Quaker idea that if you follow a leading (an opening to the Truth) that you will be lead into greater Truth, and that you must also listen for the end of a leading so that you do not "outrun your Light, or your Guide."   Quaker's talk about things as being "rightly ordered" which means that it does with prayerful attention and listen to the Light, not out of ego or pride.

6.  Right Livelihood Earning a living in a way that doesn't hurt others.

Early American Quakers gave up slaves 100 years before the rest of the US because they were lead into the corporate truth that this was a violence against other human beings.  Early Friends in England were farmers and business men because they were due to religious restrictions not allowed in many other professions.  As such they started universal pricing (instead of bargaining) so there would be one truth about the value of things.  They have for the most part avoided professions in defense, gambling, production and marketing of addictive substances, etc. as inconsistent with the Truth as they knew it.  Buddhist similarly were urged not to work in the sale of weapons, people, meat, intoxicants, poison, etc.

7.  Right Mindfulness Recognizing the value of the moment; living where we are.
This is one I think Quakers could stand to benefit from paying some attention to.  For the most part I think our seeking is sort of outward, to know God.  It is not reflective upon the very moment, and yet in my personal experience it is a very attuned awareness to the moment that I can most clearly see God speaking.

8.  Right Concentration Expanding our consciousness through meditation.
Again this I think is where the path of Buddhism separates from Quakerism.  Quakers are for the most part fairly undisciplined about how we meditate and in fact I have heard long term Quakers still expression confusion or discomfort about what they do in the silence.

Internalized Quakerism

Those familiar with oppression theory know that it assumes that all people, even from privileged groups, internalize both beliefs that are held about their group and patterns of behavior that are common to their group.  I’m writing this as someone raised Quaker grappling with what I see to be my “internalized Quakerism”―both the good and the bad―of that.  My ex-partner met me when he was 33 and he said I turned his head because he’d never met anyone who’d been raised as a pacifist and with the values of equality, simplicity, and integrity – everyone else he knew in the peace movement had made their way to finding  these things.  He said “It was just sort of knit into you.”  It is, and I’m glad of that; my joke to people is “I chose Quaker parents to save myself the time and trouble of finding Quakerism.”

However, over the years I’ve come to realize there are ways of looking at the world through a solely Quaker lens that, well, at minimum are “different”―some might say have a “downside.” One thing is that being raised with the idea that there is “that of God in everyone” and urged to look for it; nothing was said about being aware of that “not of God” in others.  I have learned, partly the hard way, to recognize that people can make choices in ego, vanity, pride, greed, rage, jealousy and hatred―and those choice are not of God and represent a turning away from God.  I absolutely believe in redemption, that no one is beyond returning to God’s love and God’s healing and direction, forgiveness, if you will. 

However, that belief in redemption does not really provide guidance for anticipating that others will, sometimes predictably, choose or otherwise be impelled to act out of “that which is not God.”  I sort of wish my Quaker parents had provided such guidance before adulthood (and thus I write this partially for all readers who are parenting Quaker children).  I wish I’d been told, “look for that of God in others, also notice whether they stay close to God or stray.  Invite forth that of God in them always, but don’t deny the truth, or sugar coat it in yourself.  Ask the Provider’s guidance and protection when you face that which is unfaithful in others.”  I think I would have less wear and tear marks on me if I’d been told that.

On another happier note of internalized Quakerism, I’ve realized that a sense of political potential or empowerment is something I get from Quakerism. Being an activist I see how few of my fellow citizens have this sense of efficacy. Going in and out of Quaker business meeting all of my life has taught me, 1) we can make decisions―even important ones, 2) it is your duty to have a voice and speak the truth and, 3) you can make things change even as only one person!  These are powerful profound messages!  Think about what it is like to function in other areas of your life: your work place, your neighborhood, your relationships and to believe that it is possible to change things.  That sense of possibility is, I think, one of the gifts of decades inside Quakerism.

Because the Quaker values of peace, justice, equality, etc., are congruent with American liberalism, another internalized trait of Quakers is a fairly unexamined liberal bent. I mean by this that there is a permeable membrane where perhaps there should not be one.  Ideas, campaigns, and norms from American Liberalism enter into our thinking and our awareness somewhat under analyzed – and with little consideration of whether they come from, or belong with, the life of the spirit.  An example would be the assumption that we will have (are entitled to?) a typical American life style: a college education, a job, a home, etc.  Such a belief in modern Quakerism may actually stand in the way of perceiving or being faithful to calls for Holy Obedience that would bring us into conflict with the authorities and threaten such a life style.

American liberalism, substituted uncritically for Quaker values, would also argue for a form of tolerance and permissiveness that would make no demand of our fellow member.  It adopts an almost co-dependent posture where literally anything goes, where we must accept any mentally ill behavior, any religious behavior brought in regardless of its non-Quaker nature, or any violation of our actual value-set―all in deference to the liberal norm of acceptance of all.  Lost is the sense that we are a gathered and faithful people, called by God and asked by God to stand for certain values, to wrestle in love with those outside that which God asks. 

Perhaps the most important aspect of internalized Quakerism for me has been my internalized expectations in the encounter with others for process and the disappointing results of this.  It has taken me years to recognize that when a decision needs to be made involving another (partner, friends, co-worker, groups of any kind.)  I straightforwardly state my opinion or idea and then sit back waiting to hear other ideas, opinions or at least reactions.  I have been fooled many a time by their apparent agreement and willingness to adopt my thoughts without discussion.  Imagine my surprise when later I’m informed that I had been “opinionated” or perceived to be arbitrary, taking charge, etc.  In self-defense, I have taken to trying to warn my non-Quaker peers ahead of time that my statements of opinions should not be seen as coups d’état, but this warning has not been particularly useful.  My surprise has also run the other direction when I have entered a group assuming that all our opinions were welcome or desired, only to have it be made known that decisions would be made elsewhere and not inclusively!

I also see that this internalized Quaker expectation for process has permanently and deeply impacted my leadership style.  I never assume that I will make the decisions or say what will happen.  I have no solo leader model, only a facilitator model―a facilitator so bound to group, that without group nothing happens.  In any group, I naturally (whether leader or not) seek to elicit others’ opinions, look for what I can hold up and affirm in what others say, and look for ways to bring the group into unity.  How great, you say!  Well, yes and no; it is great for the feelings of the group members.  But for the groups unfamiliar with this process, unaccustomed to having their opinions sought, or untrained in how to bring differing opinions into unity, this cans seem bewildering, scary or at worst a huge waste of time.  The democracy model with which they are all familiar demands a vote and on to the next thing.  Thus, those who look to me (or to other Quakers) for leadership in the wide world may actually be frustrated by our ponderous process―or in some of my more frustrating situations Quakers may simply be pushed aside for more traditional top-down leadership.

It has taken me more than 50 years to consider that perhaps if I want to be effective in the world outside of Quakers I may need to be more individually decisive, I may need to learn to lead by example, to claim my ideas, to persuade when necessary, yet still I ask how can I empower those who’ve never been empowered to make decisions to be part of the process themselves?

Recently I was looking with a F/friend who has been Quaker for about four decades at her astrological chart.  We giggled together about how Quakerism has softened or blunted her inborn tendency to blurt things out, to grab the ball and run down the court with it, to ignore others opinions.  So certainly internalized Quakerism looks very good on many of us.  What about you?  How have you internalized Quakerism?

This article was published in Friends Journal in Dec. 2013

God is not Done Speaking Yet

Over a year ago the UCC church down the street from my Meeting had a big banner which said:  "God is not done speaking yet".  At first I thought rather smugly "Well Quakers know that the Truth is evolving, that is why we have testimonys and not creedal statements."  But I eventually came to just appreciate the sign as a good reminder that we have to keep listening to hear and know God.

The summer issue of Friends Journal is on Testimonys and has challenged us throughout the issue to not put a rich deep history, most of which was lived without any such concept of testimony's, into neat little boxes.  It challenges to keep living in the Root of those testimonys and not in their fruit.  It demands of us that we not make them things and as such creedal statements instead of living testimonies.

Parker Palmer, the well known Quaker theologian, many years ago wrote of the cross that it is the intersection between the vertical now of God, and the horizontal here and now of our lives as we live them on this plain.  It is a powerful intersection.

Both that cross and that issue of FJ ask us, as the Peace testiomny does "to live in that Life and Power"....yes the one that takes away the occasion for all war, but also the one that can invade our being and reorder it, that can center us in a second, that can fill us with Love, and give us the courage for powerful action.  There is a decision I have made throughout my life, over and over again, that I want to live in that center...and yet over and over again I find myself somewhere else and having to return to the attempt to live in that center.

I can bring my body to Meeting for Worship, and I can sit and think about my problems.  But when I do that I am doing that out of the old habit that I am author of my life.  It is an entirely different thing to bring those problems to The Holy One, to ask for guidance, to submit them in prayer, and to sit still wait listening to hear the answers from a God who is still Speaking.

Living in that Life and Power

I have long felt the most fascinating phrase in the peace testimony is not the famous part of "All bloody Principles & Practices, we do utterly deny, with all outward wars & strife, & fightings with outward Weapons, for any end or under any pretence whatsoever. And this is our Testimony to the whole world."  but rather the phrase, "We live in that Life and Power which takes away the occasion for all war."   This second phrase to me speaks so powerfully a real testimony of faith, a witness to the whole world of a transformative and overwhelming power and rock upon which early Friends found the strength not just to refuse conscription but to stand non-violently in the face of harms way in any number of other witnesses to the world.  It also describes the peace of living in God's Life.  It calls the listener forward to want that life.  And I have sometimes wondered, feared, whether we modern Friends have lost hold of that Life and Power.

Recently an email came into my inbox entitled: "Towards a testimony on Gun Violence." Oh how exciting I thought.  I opened it in anticipation of something that calls out in a similar way to the listener to forsake the violence of Guns.   Imagine my surprise when instead I read what I can only describe as a policy proposal for Friends to endorse existing proposals for gun registration.  I was quite disappointed.  Now mind you I have no objection whatsoever to gun registration; it is a logical and much overdue step.  Certainly it is strategically the next step this country could/should take.  But is it a Quaker Testimony? Certainly not.  In fact I was moved to write the committee writing the minute saying if it was presented at Yearly Meeting that I would most probably rise to oppose it as long as it used the word testimony because as such it violated my sense of what a testimony is.

I was raised with the understanding that our testimonies are different than creedal statements because they are statements of "the truth as we know it now."  I was told that the Truth is known experientially and that we struggle as a community to hold up to each other the truth and to find it together and reach unity on the Truth, that we act as a corporate body when we recognize together a shared Truth. Well Friends, it cannot be that the greatest truth we have after 350 years as pacifists is that guns should be registered!  When we say that we live in the Life and Power that takes away the occasion for all war...do we not also feel it takes away the occasion for violence?  Do we not feel that while we may fail, that we are called to live as nonviolently as we can?  I assume that means that little ol' Quaker ladies are not packing pistols in their purses, nor do Quaker men keep guns in the bedside table.   I think we are called to put our faith in God for safety and to live in ways that make no one intent on hurting us, and to speak to that of God in the stranger who may come with ill intent, and to suffer an injury if need be rather than to inflict one.  This, I believe, would be consistent with the Peace Testimony.  And in fact when we look at the first part that I quoted: "all outward wars & strife, & fightings with outward Weapons, for any end"  (emphasis added) it would seem pretty clear.   A gun is an outward weapon and it is rejected for all ends or means.

Now I realize that in proclaiming to the world that they should lay down their guns and try to live nonviolently that this will seem dangerous to some, laughable to others, way too idealistic to be "practical," a threat to the Second Amendment, etc.  But why should that stop us from proclaiming the truth?  After all the peace testimony itself is seen to be absurdly impractical and idealistic to most of the world and has for three and half centuries and that has not stopped us!  In fact, when we first suggested to the world that they give up slaves that was seen as unrealistic (something that we had first had work a century on within our own ranks) and yet it was useful to the world that we held out that idea, or the idea of women's suffrage, or same sex marriage.  Eventually the world sometimes catches up to idealists.  It still has not come to accept the idea that it is wrong to fight wars and yet I don't see us laying down that testimony any time soon.

So instead it is time to note that if a testimony is the "truth as we know it so far" that it is indeed now time to expand the peace testimony.  I think it is time for us to tell the world that we are called to that Life and Power that takes away the occasion for all violence against other humans.  That we utterly deny the use of any weapon against another child of God and that we are called to walk in struggle for understanding, love, and compassion which can lead us into peace with others when there is conflict.

The Fox, the Fisherman and God's Direction

A client told me a children's story she had recently read.  The story goes like this.  A fox was in the woods and saw a fisherman coming along the path pulling a wagon full of fish.  The fox wanted some and so decided to lie in the road and play dead.  The fisherman came upon the fox and thought him dead and said: "Oh boy, a fine fox fur for me!"  He threw the fox in the wagon and as he walked along he dreamed and delighted.  "Oh", he thought, “it is a beautiful fox, it will bring a nice price at market, and then with the money I can buy more nets and I will catch more.  Then with the more catch I can buy a bigger and better boat, and then with the bigger and better boat I can hire a helper and then I will catch even more!  And then when I have the catch of two..."  Well, pretty soon as his dreams built and built and built he saw himself living in a castle. And all the while as he dreamed, the fox was having a delicious meal of fish in the wagon!

Suddenly he turned and discovered the fox eating away.  He grabbed the fox and shouted in anger:  “You, you are supposed to be dead!"  "Oh," said the fox, "I shall tell my mother, she will be very sad."  "Thief!" cried the fisherman.  "Oh," said the fox, "I have only taken a few fish."  "No," cried the fisherman, "you have stolen my castle!"  

How many of us, like the fisherman, have built our dreams based upon one event or one idea and then felt "our castle stolen" when events do not work out as we had wished?  This is not unlike the Quaker notion of out running a leading - where God gives us a direction, but then we run past the original leading and start planning and elaborating from there our own will and intention.

In my Jan. blog on Gratitude and Expectations I wrote:  "And yet I am aware of how we can become so attached to a dream, or a goal as to have the expectation that life will be a certain way and experience great disappointment or frustration when it is not that way."  I described this very situation of our stolen castle.  Elsewhere I have also written about Santa Claus prayers, the prayers we make for something specific, addressing them to God as if the Creator was a dispenser rather than a source of wisdom, comfort or direction.  All of this brings us back to what early Friends described as the dilemma of remaining low, by which they meant not getting up into our ego or our pride, staying centered and open enough to hear God's will.

As I have confessed on a number of occasions my most common spiritual problem for me is to remember The Guide in times of crisis.  At such times I tend to go into fear and panic and start trying to figure my way out of the crisis completely forgetting that I have a divine source of direction.  Recently I had a different experience with this.  I had had a very bad dispute with my partner: between adrenaline, a misunderstanding, and harsh words, and stomping off, we were very disconnected.  Some prayer in the middle of this disconnect did allow me to reach out and thus created some dialogue between us.  While we were healing from the dispute, some of the fallout remained a question of whether we could carry out other plans we had made, or whether that felt too risky.  We had a good discussion of this, but no conclusion was reached.  I suggested sleeping on it and then suddenly realized what I really needed to do was pray about it.  I'm immensely grateful that this time I could remember the Holy One in the midst of a problem.

The next day at Meeting I asked The Guide to show me clear direction about the question of whether the original plan should be carried out.  First two people who rose gave messages about missed opportunities.  That seemed like it could be an answer...that this would be a missed opportunity if cancelled.  But was I reading into what was said?  Then a third person rose and said before delivering her message:  "I have been sitting with this message trying to decide if it is a message because it is very short, but it feels like I have to say it."  Then she said: "Sometimes strength comes from unexpected places.  Stay open and stay connected."  That seemed very indisputably an answer.  (And I encourage all Quakers here to notice the importance of delivering a message, even when it does not seem to you to make sense; to be faithful as this Friend was.  It can be so important to someone else.)  My partner had had his own unique experience at Meeting which confirmed to him that he should continue with the original plan.

My experience is that pretty amazing things happen when we live in God's Kingdom rather than in castles we build in our own imagination.

Climate Change, Duality and The Triune Truth

I have been doing Climate Change organizing for 7 years.  It is hard work because it is a depressing subject that most people wish to avoid.  It very easily evokes in people feelings of good versus evil, and a great deal of discouragement about the ability of David to beat Goliath.  However, in my spiritual life I have come to regard duality as a false consciousness, so this creates an interesting tension for me.  Neale Donald Walsch writes very interestingly about the falseness of duality and how there is always a third possibility.  I quote:

"This Triune Reality is God's signature.  It is the divine pattern.  The three-in-one is everywhere found in the realms of the sublime.  You cannot escape it in matters dealing with time and space, God and consciousness, or any of the subtle relationships.  One the other hand, you will NOT find the Triune Truth in any of life's gross relationships. 
   The Triune Truth is recognized in life's subtle relationships by everyone dealing with such relationships.  Some of your religionists have described the Triune Truth as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.  Some of your psychiatrists use the terms superconscious, conscious and subconscious.  Some of your spiritualists say mind, body, and spirit.  Some of your scientists see energy, matter, ether.  Some of your philosophers say a thing is not true for you until it is true in thought, word, and deed.  When discussing time, you speak of three times only: past, present, future.  Similarly, there are three moments in your perception - before, now and after.  In terms of spatial relationships whether considering the points in the universe, or various points in your own room you recognize here, there, and the space in between.
   In matters of gross relationships, you recognize no "in-between".  That is because gross relationships are always dyads, whereas relationships of the higher realm are invariably triads.  Hence, there is left-right, up-down, big-small, fast-slow, hot- cold, and greatest dyad ever created: male-female.  There are no in-betweens in these dyads.  A thing is either one thing or the other, or some greater or lesser version in relationship to one of these polarities.
   Within the realm of gross relationships, nothing conceptualized can exist without a conceptualization of its opposite.  Most of your day-to-day experience is foundationed in this reality.
   Within the realm of sublime relationships nothing which exists has an opposite.  All is One, and everything progresses from one to other in a never-ending circle."
Conversations with God: Book 1  p.30-31

What Walsch writes is so helpful to me because of my own spiritual path.  I feel I have come to earth to work on issues of violence and injustice.  Yet in both, it is so easy to quickly get caught up in good versus evil sorts of ways of thinking which I have come to see actually perpetuate "enemy think" and the continuation of the spiral of violence and injustice.  So it has become clear to me that part of the path forward is to step out of duality, and yet I find that in many of the things I feel most passionately sort of pull me towards some sort of right wrong thinking.

This past week I went to a "dialogue about climate change".  Obviously this is a topic which brings strong feelings: fear, despair, grief, anger, etc.  It is not a dispassionate subject.  After showing a very depressing TED talk we were divided into groups of three and asked first to share our feelings about the statement: “Things are getting worse”, then about the statement “Things are getting better”, and finally about the statement: “Things are perfect as they are, or things are as they are”.  During the first part you could hear  words like destruction, grandchildren, politicians, species loss, etc. whirling around; it was somber in deed in the room.  This was the "easy" part.  I think for many of us the second part was most challenging - how to be with it without feeling like we were going into denial or whitewashing what is happening.  For myself I can both notice various solutions and initiatives people are taking that are indeed hopeful - and yet I know if we do not get the political will quickly to implement these things they are all pointless.  From a cyncial point of view I can say "Well Gaia is healing herself; she is throwing off the leaches that suck her dry and poison her.  She will live in the much longer span of the planet even if all human and mammal life perishes." 

My first gut reaction upon hearing the word perfect anywhere around climate change was “bullshit”.  But when I just sat with the sentence, I found it was a huge change in perspective.  It was like a lens that moved me out looking at the earth as big marble and at our past, current, and future time.  From this perspective I could notice we are each individually learning lessons both personal and collective.  We are playing roles both personal and collective in the fate of the earth.  It took me back out into the mystery...into all that we do not know.  A man burned himself in the Middle East and it spawned the Arab Spring.  Who could have predicted that?  Humans have accidentally discovered all kinds of technologies and all kinds of love and all kinds of ways of organizing ourselves.  In the face of crisis they have suddenly behaved differently.  Who are we to know what the experience or the meaning will be of a global crisis shared for the first time in history by every person on the earth.  And honestly we have no choice but to live into the mystery.

When we returned to the whole group the woman next to me commented that the first two questions were the polarity, but that the third question took us out of the duality.  In fact I see the third question is what Walsch calls the Triune Truth: there is the getting worse (or the Great Unraveling as Joanna Macy calls it), and the getting better (Or the Great Turning as both she and David Korten call it), and then there is things as they are (which Joanna might call non-linear time).  As long as we deal with the political issues before us in the language of "gross relationships" (as Walsch calls it) rather than the sublime which transcends polarity then we continue to beat our head against a reality in which we just take turns playing bad guys and good guys.  I think many of our answers will be found in the third space.

An example of this has to do with good guys and bad guys.  When we believe in a world of gross relationships then we are duty bound to fight the bad guys often engaging as President Obama has in actions that create bad karma for oneself and enrage others who then arise against us as the “bad guy” and the circle continues.  Whether you believe in reincarnation and your own string of past lives, or simply in your ancestors and know enough of their stories to know: you will then observe that each of us is enmeshed in centuries of being both oppressor and oppressed, powerless and powerful, kind and cruel, and that we contain within us all of these experiences and possibilities.  Part of the heart of non-violence is to call out to that other set of possibilities that exist within the person currently acting as oppressor or “wrong doer”.  We can really only do this however, as we drop the righteousness of wielder of Good and meet the other on the plane of the Triunal Truth…where we are all one and share the same fate.  I think as we face climate change this way of approaching the issue will become increasingly necessary.

Rippling Rings

We toss a stone in a creek and the rings go out from stone. The first ones as they reach some other object, then beginning a new backwash of rings.  The first rings we can follow, but as smaller ones still eminent from the stone and as they begin to interact with the backwash rings a third motion begins, and it becomes impossible to keep track of all that is set in motion from the one stone we drop in water.

This is not unlike the effects we have in the world.  One reason I will always appreciate the movie "It's a Wonderful Life" is because it so profoundly makes this point.  George Bailey thinks his life has come to nothing because he has not realized his dreams and is currently overcome with problems.  But he is shown that events that he had completely forgotten from his childhood had kept a good man out of prison, and also by saving his brother saved a whole carrier ship of US soldiers during the war.  This is not to begin to account the qualitative better town he has contributed to because people own their own homes rather than living it debt, etc.  Each of us lives this way, setting in motion a chain of circles and loosing complete track of how they interact with other forces and how they impact others.  If our intentions are good they let loose a positive motion in the world.  When our actions are filled with anger and fear they set loose yet another set of energies that reverberate through our world.

I think our words are particularly powerful in this rippling way.  Have you ever had the experience of someone coming back to you days or even years later to let you know they really thought about something you said, that the words really moved them?  I have.  But the most interesting example of this was that after I was divorced and feeling rather down, I received a post card from someone who had taken my workshop literally YEARS before.  The person said "just wanted to drop you a note to let you know how life changing my workshop with you was.  Thanks".  This was a ring that had gone out further than I could see it, and then came back to touch me at a moment I needed it!

Several years ago my Meeting had a worship sharing on "memorable messages".  We just shared messages that we had had heard in Meeting for worship at some point in our life which had touched us deeply enough to still be holding the message.  Think about it - this does not even come from us, but from our faithfulness.  The message is from God, but someone has to be faithful enough to the quaking to get up and deliver it, and because they do it is held for decades in someone else's mind!  And I have to say the sharing of them was a "covered worship" for it went deep.  In how many other ways can we make deep waves in the world by being faithful?

I invite readers to post here the messages you remember still.  Let the rings wash out far.

Gratitude and Expectations

I have been thinking about Gratitude.  I remember a f/Friend of mine who sent out a Christmas letter in which she invited us all to play the "thanksgiving game".  She said it is easy and gave examples that she is thankful that she can see so she can read, that she is grateful that she can walk so she can go places.  She is slowly loosing her eyesight and had polio as a child and so it makes sense that she is grateful for such things.  As an able bodied person it , unfortunately, never occurs to me to be thankful for such things.  I have an expectation that I will see and walk and because I have that expectation I take it for granted.  In fact I sometimes struggle to find what to be grateful for, focusing on problems and feeling sorry for myself about those things.  My expectations often cause me problems as I get upset by things which are not as I thought they would be.

Right now I have a lot of gratitude- in fact I feel a little like someone who has won the lottery and keeps expecting someone to come knock on their door and ask for the check back because it is all "a big mistake".  I have been thinking about how expectations, like goals and dreams are generally a good thing and help us aim for things and collectively move forward in life.  And yet I am aware of how we can become so attached to a dream, or a goal as to have the expectation that life will be a certain way and experience great disappointment or frustration when it is not that way.  So I have sat in the silence of Meeting trying to reconcile those two things - the good of our dreams and the problems of our expectations.

I thought about the old saying:  "I will do X tomorrow, God willing and the Creek don't rise".  One thing about that saying is it makes the assumption that all or our intentions are subject to God's will.  It occurs to me that the problem with expectations, dreams or goals is not having them, but when we do not subject them to The Divine Author, but rather see our lives as separate from God wholly of our own making.  Among other things this does separate us from the source of our blessings.  When we are not busy being our own Creator, it is easier to notice all the many small and large blessings and goodness of the Creator.

Is There a God?

I was 12 years old and I was sitting on a bench in Meeting for Worship and I was wondering: "Is there a God?"  This seemed like an important question to which it was not clear how one could get an answer to this question.  As I sat there I looked at a purple Iris outside the window with a huge dew drop on the petal.  The sun was hitting it refracting a rainbow within the dew drop.  I rejoiced in the beauty and majesty of all this!

I reflected upon what we had just been studying in biology: about how flowers reproduce, about how light is refracted, about how water evaporates and goes up in the air and is held in clouds and then is released in rain, and the whole rather perfect cycle of nature there, and in reproduction of plants, and of birth and death and rebirth of plants and animals, etc.  "It is all perfect", I thought.  And suddenly I knew; I knew there is a God.  Because I realized nothing could accidentally or randomly occur that was this perfect.  I saw there was an intelligence in the universe.  I felt an energy that could be turned to for guidance and wisdom.

As I got older I would contend with questions like: Why does God allow suffering? What does God want me to do and how do I know?  How do I pray?  And what is the correct name of God?  But for then, for 12, it was just good to know there is a God.

When I was much older I had a long argument with a friend who identifies himself as an Atheist.  I told him that while I could understand someone being Agnostic, not knowing if there is a God that I did not know how he could claim to know conclusively that there is not a God when others say they have experienced God directly.  He made various arguments and asked me several times to what my experience of God was.  I described it and he said he had not had that experience. I acknowledged that but said I still did not think he could dismiss others experience. 

He did acknowledge that there is a principle of intelligence within the Universe, but then said crossly that he did not understand why I was calling that God.  I said that I did not understand why he would refuse to call it God.  He talked over and over again about the evils of the church throughout history.  I acknowledged that the organized churches have done many evil things and that that is the doing of humans while hiding behind the cloak of the church.  I said that you could not throw God out with the churches.  He eventually said that if I was calling the Mind of the Universe God that he agreed that it existed, but found it unnecessary to call it God.

We were young then.  I have not asked him where he turns for comfort when the world looks dark?  Or where he finds strengthen when he has to do the hard things? Or what helps him to find connection to all people around him even the crappy ones?  But these are reasons why I have discovered there is a God not just a Mind of the Universe.