I have written a number of posts on this blog about climate organizing. All of which have been secular organizing. I have turned over a new leaf and I have begun to organize from leading. One leading was to get together activist I knew who belonged to churches and have a conversation about what would it look like for the churches to have a powerful moral voice on climate? We did not have an answer on that but we did decide to organize a conference on Faith and Climate...and 175 people came to that. Many seeds were plants and many ripples are going out from the event. It would seem that we will keep organizing as people of faith.
We had as our keynote speaker Jay O'Hara. I hope as Quakers reading this you all know who Jay is, but my guess is that because of how the mainstream media is that you do not all know who Jay is. Jay is the Quaker guy from the Lobster boat blockade. Jay and his co-defendant Ken Ward, piloted a small lobster boat in 2013 in front of a 40,000 lb coal barge to prevent it from delivering its carbon load to the Brayton Point coal plant, the largest coal burning plant in Massachusetts. (Now slated for closure in 2017). They of course were arrested for this act of holy obedience. But in one of those openings that only God can create when the Judge decided to allow their defense of the necessity plea (a legal defense that says you had to break a law to prevent a greater harm...eg break in into a building in order to get someone trapped within.) the prosecuting attorney held a press conference and stated he was dropping all charges because he believed their act was necessary that the government was not doing enough to stop climate change!
So Jay was our keynote speaker. Jay was great. He did something I did not think possible in 45 minutes - he explained the heart of Quakerism. He began with telling the joke about how there is a button in Quakerism that says: "I am a Quaker. In case of emergency be silent." Yes you all know the button. But the audience laughed and then Jay explained to them that this would not be like what they expected from a keynote speech that there would be silence, but the silence would not be because he forgot what he was saying but because he was listening for what spirit would have him say. In this very simple way he explained Quaker silence and Quaker ministry. And so there were many silences filled with a Living Silence. In this room of 175 people where few were Quaker you could hear a pin drop in the silence and it was a holy silence. People of other faiths were also listening in that silence.
Those of you who have ever been in a Covered Meeting (and with any luck it is still the case that all of you have had that experience at least once and I hope more) will understand what I mean when i say a living silence. I am posting a link here to the talk and I hope you will all make the time to listen to it because the content is wonderful. Other than the very first silence which the camera man edited out because it was 3 minutes long, all the silences are in there. But the thing which is so interesting is like me none of you have ever been in a meeting for worship which was recorded. So know moments of Living Silence have been recorded. so what I discovered when I listened to it again is that those silences are in there but they are not living silences, they are just silences....because the Living Silence is being in the Presence of God and that is something which cannot be recorded on film - it is quite literally something that lives in that real time moment.
Jay also introduced and explained his elder Erin who was there with him holding him in prayer while he spoke. While you cannot unfortunately see her in the video many people said how touched they were by this reminder that we are not faithful alone, and that we must hold each other in prayer to do the big things we must do to stop climate change. Jay and Erin had been in prayer for quite a while in the morning leading up to the talk, and as a result Jay was centered, able to be faithful and to give ministry, to allow the words to come through him like one does in Meeting for Worship when given a message. This also taught the audience about Quakerism about what we listen for in silence and what comes through.
Jay talked about his own journey from secular activism to faith based activism and explained getting a leading and discernment - two other critical Quaker concepts. He peppered in some Quaker history, mentioning both George Fox and Margaret Fell. He called Quakers to return to their roots and he called everyone in the room to find the radical and spirit alive roots of their faith and live it. People have been telling me ever since how Jay's words, really how The Holy One's words, touched them. I invite you to listen as well to this message:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXdKCHjekjc&feature=youtu.be
Monday, October 24, 2016
Saturday, October 1, 2016
I take Thee...the Radical notion of Quaker Marriage.
Earlier this month two friends of mine who have been together for 35 years married each other. They have been together longer than any of my friends who are married. They identify as atheists and anarchists. Therefore they saw no reason to be spiritually or legally joined. But as retirement came into view, and one person went over the handlebars of a bicycle and wound up unconscious in the hospital, the idea of being able to share one's social security post death with one's life long partner loomed larger.
When they went to look at the vows that the justice of the peace would have them say they were distressed by certain verses which felt to them religious in nature. But primarily they were distressed by the fact that the Judge would marry them to each other. They both felt that they were marrying each other - that this is not something that another person could do "to" them. Having known me all their adult lives and having attended my wedding they were both very aware that Quakers are married neither by a Judge or a minister which is what they wanted. They began a dialogue with the CA Secretary of State about the fact that due to separation of state and church that the vows language could not be legal, nor could the requirement of either a Judge or minister to marry two people. They pointed to the example of Quakers that the law did allow for an exception to those requirements, but that the exception could not fairly be applied to only one religion. The Secretary's office wound up agreeing that this probably was not constitutional. They were issued a license to get married and were allowed to marry each other in their living room with two witnesses.
Most Quakers I know will proudly say that nothing compares to a Quaker wedding. I have to agree because their is something so beautiful and so democratic about any family or friend being able to speak of love, relationship, marriage, community and good wishes at a Quaker wedding. There is something so deeply right about the couple rising out of the silence to face each other and to say in vows that have not changed over 300 years "I take thee". What a joy to have a document hanging in one's home with the signatures of all the loved one who joined and witnessed your wedding!
But most Quakers do not know the actual history of Quaker weddings. Since Quakers did not have ministers in made complete sense that a wedding would take place inside of a Meeting for Worship and that the intention to marry, already tested and confirmed by a clearness committee was a public witnessing/honoring by the congregation of a connection that was believed already forged by God. Thus Quakers believe a wedding is an acknowledgement of a partnership God has already created. George Fox said: "For the right joining in marriage is the work of the Lord only, and not the priests' or the magistrates'; for it is God's ordinance and not man's; and therefore Friends cannot consent that they should join them together: for we marry none; it is the Lord's work, and we are but witnesses" Therefore, when the laws of the society said that one had to marry before a preacher or a judge, Quakers saw no need to change their process to comply with marital laws. They were already use to going to jail for simply gathering to worship and used to being punished by the state for being faithful to their understanding of God. They were willing, as in all things, to stand with the Truth as they knew it.
Thus Quakers would marry each other and go on with their lives, unconcerned with whether this was regarded to be legal by the cities they lived in. But in the small towns and villages dotted across the US that they lived in, they were good neighbors and respected business people whose integrity and sincerity was well known to their fellow citizens. It did not sit well with their neighbors to consider them "living in sin". So not through their asking, many states passed "the Quaker exception" where instead of requiring them to be married by a minister, it was recognized that a ceremony witnessed by their congregation would be considered legally binding. Also many states developed legal precedents of "common law marriage", for any two people who for whatever reason lived together for more than 7 years were considered to be for legal purposes married. However, in the past decades common law marriages were swept away and domestic partnerships became a legal mechanism that allowed Gay and Lesbian couples, other wise unable to marry to share some of the legal advantages of marriage. In many states if Quakers want to be legally married they still have to go down to the court house and have their marriage officiated there.
My friends recent experience has caused me to reflect and to realize that Quaker Marriage is a case of what Gene Sharp, tactical non-violence expert, calls passive non-compliance. Where the failure of large numbers of people to comply with a law forces the law to change or become uninforceable. This is one of the many ways Quakers radically changed the society around them. The radical thing was that notion that we marry each other, that we are not married through some other authority figure. The original radical thing about George Fox's message was that we needed no inter-mediator between ourselves and God - that we could know God directly. And the radical thing about Quaker marriage is that it also says that we can know directly, discover inwardly God's intention for our lives and that we can live in the authority of that alone.
When they went to look at the vows that the justice of the peace would have them say they were distressed by certain verses which felt to them religious in nature. But primarily they were distressed by the fact that the Judge would marry them to each other. They both felt that they were marrying each other - that this is not something that another person could do "to" them. Having known me all their adult lives and having attended my wedding they were both very aware that Quakers are married neither by a Judge or a minister which is what they wanted. They began a dialogue with the CA Secretary of State about the fact that due to separation of state and church that the vows language could not be legal, nor could the requirement of either a Judge or minister to marry two people. They pointed to the example of Quakers that the law did allow for an exception to those requirements, but that the exception could not fairly be applied to only one religion. The Secretary's office wound up agreeing that this probably was not constitutional. They were issued a license to get married and were allowed to marry each other in their living room with two witnesses.
Most Quakers I know will proudly say that nothing compares to a Quaker wedding. I have to agree because their is something so beautiful and so democratic about any family or friend being able to speak of love, relationship, marriage, community and good wishes at a Quaker wedding. There is something so deeply right about the couple rising out of the silence to face each other and to say in vows that have not changed over 300 years "I take thee". What a joy to have a document hanging in one's home with the signatures of all the loved one who joined and witnessed your wedding!
But most Quakers do not know the actual history of Quaker weddings. Since Quakers did not have ministers in made complete sense that a wedding would take place inside of a Meeting for Worship and that the intention to marry, already tested and confirmed by a clearness committee was a public witnessing/honoring by the congregation of a connection that was believed already forged by God. Thus Quakers believe a wedding is an acknowledgement of a partnership God has already created. George Fox said: "For the right joining in marriage is the work of the Lord only, and not the priests' or the magistrates'; for it is God's ordinance and not man's; and therefore Friends cannot consent that they should join them together: for we marry none; it is the Lord's work, and we are but witnesses" Therefore, when the laws of the society said that one had to marry before a preacher or a judge, Quakers saw no need to change their process to comply with marital laws. They were already use to going to jail for simply gathering to worship and used to being punished by the state for being faithful to their understanding of God. They were willing, as in all things, to stand with the Truth as they knew it.
Thus Quakers would marry each other and go on with their lives, unconcerned with whether this was regarded to be legal by the cities they lived in. But in the small towns and villages dotted across the US that they lived in, they were good neighbors and respected business people whose integrity and sincerity was well known to their fellow citizens. It did not sit well with their neighbors to consider them "living in sin". So not through their asking, many states passed "the Quaker exception" where instead of requiring them to be married by a minister, it was recognized that a ceremony witnessed by their congregation would be considered legally binding. Also many states developed legal precedents of "common law marriage", for any two people who for whatever reason lived together for more than 7 years were considered to be for legal purposes married. However, in the past decades common law marriages were swept away and domestic partnerships became a legal mechanism that allowed Gay and Lesbian couples, other wise unable to marry to share some of the legal advantages of marriage. In many states if Quakers want to be legally married they still have to go down to the court house and have their marriage officiated there.
My friends recent experience has caused me to reflect and to realize that Quaker Marriage is a case of what Gene Sharp, tactical non-violence expert, calls passive non-compliance. Where the failure of large numbers of people to comply with a law forces the law to change or become uninforceable. This is one of the many ways Quakers radically changed the society around them. The radical thing was that notion that we marry each other, that we are not married through some other authority figure. The original radical thing about George Fox's message was that we needed no inter-mediator between ourselves and God - that we could know God directly. And the radical thing about Quaker marriage is that it also says that we can know directly, discover inwardly God's intention for our lives and that we can live in the authority of that alone.
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