To be Tender

Early Friends were urged to be Tender with each other.  Till fairly recently this admonishment seemed meaningless at best - overly sentimental at worst.  That  was before "James" was part of my Meeting.  (Name changed to protect the innocent).  James was a convinced Friend who became a member while attending our Meeting.  He had been a Minister previously in another Church and for various reasons had left it.  He did fairly often give vocal ministry which I enjoyed, as his messages to me seemed spirit led and used much metaphors, and were interesting.  However, some in my Meeting were suspicious of the frequency of the messages and some began to think he still thought of himself as a minister and had simply found a new pulpit.

Then he had a run in on the committee he served on.  One of the members of the committee who I have known and loved for a good dozen years confided to me how she found his deep voice intimidatingly reminiscent of her older brother who had been somewhat of a bully.   Another member of the committee would much later complain that he did not appropriately understand Quaker process and had too much of an agenda.

Eventually things came to a head during a business Meeting.  As I was someone who felt warmly towards him and was not bothered by his general behavior, but did understand the concerns of others I was asked to give him a call.   I did - during the call he referred to someone who had spent years caring for our property as "controlling", and my friend who unbeknownst to him was afraid of him as "silently disapproving."

On one level it was somewhat amusing to see how her fearfulness of him was interpreted by him as "silent disapproving."  For a moment I wanted to tell him about her brother, but thought better of it.  I am not one who believes in big T truth - I think truth looks very different depending upon which side of the road you are standing on when the cars crash.   So while I prefer to see the member of property committee as motivated by love and devotion rather than power...I can not dismiss that from another perspective it could look that way.

Which brings me to being tender with each other.  The more we know each other, in love, there is forbearance.  When we know each other well enough to know others insecurities, hopes, values, experiences there is a protection against misreading each others intentions, and a gentling of how we respond- even when we disagree.   When we listen in the spirit we can listen for that of God in each of us.  And when we trust that we are entering business in a worshipful manner then we can also trust that others share from Spirit and measure these sharings against Spirits leading.  We can have forbearance for the imperfect vessels that we each are when we speak.  We can see the insecurities, timidity - or pride and stubbornness - as slight imperfections in the vessel currently trying to deliver Source to each other.

I struggled as I tried to talk to James - and ultimately failed - to explain that these traits he was bothered by were simply imperfections in a vessel delivering the truth as they knew it.   But I failed because at least then James did not understand Quakerism well enough to have a that picture of what we are attempting in Quaker business practice - to both speak and listen for the truth.  He knew a different paradigm from another church where people argue for the truth and persuade and decisions are made by majority sentiment.  So I could not find  a way to tell him the value of being tender with each other.

I have recently been reminded of another way we are tender with each other.   Members of my Meeting keep getting dementia....we are on our 4th or 5th in the dozen and half years that I have belonged to my Meeting.  One man was always very touched by the children's return to the worship room in the last 10 minutes and would frequently rise to remind us that the Bible says: "We will come into the Kingdom like little children."  Another woman found many occasions to tell us with delight that of all the woman her husband had known that he had chosen her as his wife - how proud she was to be his wife (this was particularly sweet to me after their 60 some years of marriage that she still sounded like a besotted teenage girl!)   Most recently a member of our Meeting with Alzheimer's tells us weekly how he came to serve on the Church Council of Greater Seattle on our behalf, and how impressed he was by the people of all different faiths, all trying to do good, all good people.  His wife is embarrassed that he tells this so often.  I try to tell her not be - because we all understand.   This for me is part of being tender to each other.  It is fine for me once a week to know how deeply that experience of ecumenicalism touched his soul.  In all three cases I feel like some of their beauty has been revealed to me in their dementia.  So part of being tender to each other is also seeing each other more clearly in our diminishment.