Empty Forms? Living Waters

I am at annual session of NPYM because the Friend in Resident this year is Jay O'Hara.  This is a journey to annual session that I have not made in 7 years because of my frustration over form heavy structures in our Yearly Meeting, and an appalling experience I had with the clerk 7 years ago telling me outside of session what decisions "would be" made by the business meeting.  (Despite my protests that if we our approaching business meeting as faithful listening for the guidance of the Holy One that no one could know in advance what would be decided.)

Jay was billed as speaking about Climate Change, and although he has, he has even more called us to be a Gathered People listening to Divine Authority.  He has challenged us to examine where we have empty forms that are keeping us stuck and driving away young Friends and where to go more deeply towards our traditions of receiving spiritual guidance, and centering our actions and life together in that Power.  For me it is a very welcome eldering of our whole body.

In my last few blogs I have written about ways in which our committee structure and nominating process can become empty forms, or limiting structures.  I often hear Friends lament why are we an older, graying religion?  Why are numbers dwindling and "where are the young people?"  I often also hear older Friends attribute to the youth that there disappearance as soon as they are old enough to not go to Meeting is because they have better things to do, are more interested in hanging out with peers, or have been swallowed by wide world values.   While certainly that is true in some cases, or may even be expressed as "better things to do"...I want to say as someone who has spent time listening to Young Adult Friends in their 20's and 30's, there is a certain blindness here operating about why they leave.

The male privilege and class privilege and racial privilege is readily apparent to anyone who has those lens and enters our Meetings.  If they speak up about these things they can be treated like a "child" of the Meeting and dismissed, or because they are a distinct minority they can find it daunting to try to raise this alone.   And if they do raise for example a complaint about mansplaining (if you do not know what this is please look it up) and are responded to with defensiveness, no support by whoever is clerking and a continuation of the behavior, they can wind up feeling so frustrated and trapped as to just decide that the benefits don't out weigh the pain.

How then do we go towards Living Waters?  There is a bit of a what comes first the chicken or the egg problem.   When people experience authentic Spirit voiced ministry and the experience of a covered Meeting, they are hungry for more.  They themselves are opened up spirituality and you thus get more Spirit moved vocal ministry.  There is a synergy that moves things deeper.   But when we experience inauthentic ministry, that which is driven from head and from ego, it is dampening to the worship and to the soul.  There is a disorientation from sorting the wheat from the chaff.  There is a discouragement - like a pollution in water.

This takes me to eldering.  Eldering in its orginal and intended form was to hold each other accountable to the faithfully minding of the Light.   People were eldered if they spoke from head and ego and not from an inward prompting.  They were also eldered/mentored in how to listen to the inward promptings.   People were eldered if they behaved in ways that blocked the corporate experience of true worship.  They were given experiences of true worship so they knew what to aim for.  And they were eldered if their behaviors in the world were oppressive to the Light in others.  They were provided patterns and examples of how not to do this.  As I have written about in other previous posts, eldering has gotten a bad name among Friends.   We need to return to this as a living practice, not a badly applied censoring of something we personally dislike.

I understand that the discernment of what is a living form and what is an empty form is a confusing thing for many people - perhaps in the eyes of the beholder.  All of us have experienced somewhere empty forms that are maddening to have to comply with and feel simply like "because I said so" dictates of a power over parent.  If forms in their original creation were ever useful, ever life giving it was because they were created to try to name and protect a way of doing things that had discovered to be life giving.  But when we teach people "how to" do something, without teaching them why to do it that way (and maybe do not even know ourselves) then we teach an empty form, something which has simply become a ritual.   Some of our forms made sense before copy machines, phones, facetime technologies, internet, etc.   But they now are forms frozen in time, trying to serve a purpose which maybe better served by new forms. 

So just as I have written about our committee structures, we have to go back to questions about what are we trying to achieve and apply those to our structures to see if they do serve.   If Fox was saying to the religions of his times "These rituals are empty forms" then we need to examine carefully whether 350 years of practice has rendered us some empty forms.  If some of our forms serve valued purposes we need to start being able to articulate and practice those forms in ways that make that clear to all beholders.

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.

Conflict in Meetings

Recently I was asked by someone on my Yearly Meetings Faith and Practice committee for suggestions for a new section they are writing on Conflict in Meeting which prompted this blog.

The first thing I think is to realize that many Friends come to us from other traditions and are attracted to our reputation as peacemakers.  I think there is a hope that this means no conflict.  We must surrender our pretense about this.  We have as many conflicts as any other group!  Conflicts happen because people have different needs or point of view. Conflicts happen because there are difficult personalities or personality combinations in any group of people.  Conflicts happen because we have an opportunity for change that we maybe trying to avoid.

For many Meetings the most important thing would be to start to recognize the conflict amidst us.  This means that when someone disappears we do not assume they are busy, or have changed their minds about our Meeting.  We need to have a practice of M&O, Oversite, or Pastoral Care (depending upon what you call this in your meeting) – keeping track of people and doing a friendly check in if someone has disappeared.

It also means that when something is bothering us in Meeting, rather than gritting our teeth and assuming “they” will handle it, and why aren’t “they”  (who is they?) that we decide what committee should be addressing the issue and go speak to the committee stating clearly what our concern is and what if anything we see as a way forward on the issue.

It means that as a community we need to reclaim what eldering is suppose to be about, nurturing people in faith and holding them accountable lovingly if they are behaving in unQuakerly ways.  For example if someone is starting to make people in meeting uncomfortable with their behavior that we speak to them stating clearly what the behavior is and how it effects people rather than hoping the problem will just stop and waiting till a bigger crisis arrives when they upset someone who then also acts inappropriately.

It means that when there is a “difficult” personality in the Meeting, that the committees which are affected need to talk about how to respond lovingly.  This may mean setting clear boundaries for the person, consistent feedback, support so they can observe requirements of the meeting, mediating between them and other Friends they have upset, or naming clearly to community what the problem is.  The committee handling it needs to consider whether there is a mental health issue at hand.  Ignoring this question often leaves the committee under prepared and misguided in their approach.  If it is a mental health issue, consulting with a mental health professional, and tailoring an appropriate response will be more effective and ultimately more loving.

Some examples of this:  One Meeting had a man who was schizophrenic who came and would regularly stand and give long delusional paranoid rambling messages.  Pastoral care first gave him guidelines for appropriate speaking in Meeting.  When he was not able to observe these guidelines, they told him that some of them would meet with him each Sunday in the library for worship until he could observe boundaries.  He came to the library a couple of times and then chose not to attend anymore.

Another Meeting had two people who were very provoked by each other and often responded to each others messages, “arguing” in their responses.  M&W met with each separately reminding them of the ground rule of not responding to each other in Meeting for Worship.  When this did not work they convened a meeting with both present to discuss the problem and their reactions to each other.  While this was not wholly successful either, it is an example of engaging the problem rather than avoiding it.

In a third example a person regularly had “tantrums” during business Meeting – nothing was done, awkward silence followed month after month.  More and more members started leaving the Business Meeting and also the Meeting as a whole.  This is an example of not handling the conflict and the price that is paid.

Sometimes a difficult issue may cause huge conflict over a period of time in business Meeting and when the issue is finally resolved or laid down, there are still hurt feelings and disturbed relations within the Meeting.  Again best to address this directly, sometimes M&O can facilitate healing dialogues with parties especially estranged.  Another practice used successfully by many Meetings is holding a “Meeting for Worship for Healing” after the conflict ends.  Someone reads a brief statement of what has occurred that has left wounds and then the hour is give to worship for healing.  Remarkable messages and forgiveness can arise out of such Meetings for Worship.

I want to recognize also that conflict is different in Meetings of different sizes.  In very large Meetings often things can fall between the cracks because not everyone is even aware of a problem, it is often unclear what committee should address it, etc.  In more medium size ones members maybe stressed with other Meeting demands and find it hard to marshal time and energy around conflicts.  But in small worship groups or Meetings conflict can be really deadly.  There is no “neutral committee” because everyone is involved in some way.  Conflict can threaten to have people leave and this can than threaten the very survival of the group itself.  Those who contribute more to the Meeting, whether energy or money, maybe attended to more than others, etc.   So in small Meetings it becomes especially important to figure out how to pull in outside resources.

Seeking outside resources may mean inviting someone from M&O of Quarterly or Yearly Meeting, or a FGC traveling ministry Friend, or even sometimes inviting speakers or outside Quaker visitors can break up the dynamic and bring new ideas, points of view, etc.  It may mean knowing social service resources available in the community.  In general I think a Meeting has to view realistically the energy and people available within the Meeting and figure out when to pull in outside resources or when they maybe more appropriate.  For example a couple having problems in the Meeting may better be served by a referral to couple’s counseling than by a clearness committee trying to work with issues beyond their skill level.

The Chinese character for conflict also contains the character for opportunity. Perhaps if we approach conflicts in Meeting this way we can also reap its benefits.  Just as we experience in consensus decision making that by listening more deeply to each other we can sometimes to come to more eloquent and complete responses.

Quaker Outreach - or Letting our Light Shine

Recently at my Yearly Meeting, the opening night we did a series of short exercises to help us get to know each other.  Everyone got in a circle clockwise from oldest to youngest one.  The oldest was born in 1922, and we all cheered.  The youngest were 4 HS students who were in the room.  But for me the exercise confirmed my worst fears.  We raised our hands:  "everyone born in the 20’s, everyone born in the 30’s" (both about 10 to 15 people – what you would expect in age groups diminished by death), "everyone born in the 40’s" – the largest group in the room – probably 80 of our 200, the Baby boom.  “everyone born in the 50’s”  another huge group – the tail of the baby boom.  Probably 75 people.   There I was, the very last person born in the 50’s, born just two days before the 60’s started.  As I have my whole life, I felt not quite part of that group and anxiously looking over my shoulder to see who was coming behind me.  To my dismay, I saw 4 people in the ‘60’s, 3 in the 70’s and 3 in the 80’s and the 4 high schoolers born in the ‘90s.     My heart sank as I don’t think the 15 of us will be able to run the Yearly Meeting in 25 years!

Ok, I will grant you, it may not be quite as bad as it seemed.  The people in the 60’s thru ‘80’s are all working.  Some did not take off from work and arrived later in the week.  Some may have been out of the room putting children to bed.   However, I know because all the time I try to figure out who is “behind me”….there are not that many.  I also realized during this exercise that for the oldest members they look behind and see the huge bulge of baby boomer Friends and feel assured that there are capable hands to take over from them when they die.  For those born in the boom, in the 40’s and 50’s, they stand in a thick grove of trees and see lots of comrades, healthy numbers and nothing to worry about.   For me though serving among those born in the 50’s I was always the youngest in the room.  I was always waiting for the young people to come…..and they did not come.  In the my twenties and thirties I thought “well people this age don’t attend churches in great numbers”, but my the time I hit my 40’s I felt very worried.  Now in my 50’s when I think of it, it is more of a feeling of panic- deep fear for the survival of unprogrammed Friends in the world and now also a grief.

Another way to think about this is: what was happening in the Society of Friends in the 80’s (when those born in their 60’s were coming of age) and in the 90’s when those born in the 70’s were coming of age)?  Clearly in the 60’s and 70’s Friends were front and center in the civil rights movement, the women’s movement and the Peace movement – so lots of baby boomers saw us and saw our values and joined.  The ‘80’s and ‘90’s were quieter times in the nation and in the Society of Friends – but apparently young people did not find us as a result of our low visibility.

I don’t think it is just my Yearly Meeting – I think a similar exercise could be done in Yearly Meetings around the country with similar results.  I think this sheds a whole different light on the so many State of the Meeting reports that say that nominating committees are having a hard time finding enough people to serve on committees.  It is not just because we are all “busy”; it is because there are not enough of us! I think if we all don’t want 15 people to be running our Yearly Meetings in 25 years, we need to be shining our Light to our community so that those who need and want Quakerism can find us.

Several years ago my Quarter had a theme  “Don’t hide your Light”.   I was asked to be on a panel about the subject.  Mostly it was addressed from the point not hiding our individual gifts and beauty.  But I talked about it from the point of view of Quakerism and Quaker outreach.  Afterwards, I led an interest group on outreach – about ¼ of our attenders showed up to it!  Just out of spur of the moment curiosity I asked us to start by going around the room and asking everyone there how they first found Quakerism.  (Since then I have continued the experiment by asking different Friends as I meet them – with very similar results).  The stories were interesting, but disturbing to me in one similarity – how accidental the encounter was and how hard it sometimes was to find Quakerism. 

A frequent theme was people “church shopping”.  People would describe the frustration of seeking and not finding what they wanted – years spent in churches that did not fit them.  They would describe things like going to check out the Unitarians and discovering the Quaker’s meeting in the basement.  Quite a number had found us by seeing a Meeting House sign and wondering….   But more sad to me were the stories of people who knew well some Friend – a coworker or a distant relative and being impressed or interested by what the Friend said, but NEVER being invited by the Quaker to visit their church.  (Including one story where the person broadly hinted to their coworker with no result).  In these stories usually years to decades later something made them decide to find the nearest Quaker Meeting to them and go. 

Quite commonly positive exposure to Quakers through Quaker camps, schools, relatives or the peace movement made people tuck away the idea of Quakers until some moment moved them to find us.  A number of people described how hard it was to find a Meeting while actually trying.  (They looked up Quakers not knowing it was listed under Friends, etc.)  There were only a few stories of people who knew a Quaker and were invited to come to Quaker Meeting.  But all the stories pretty much end the same way.  “When I finally came to my first meeting, I sat there in the silence, in relief and new I had finally found what I was looking for.  I was home.”

Friends, we can do a better job than this!  We can do better than listings that only a person who already knows the name of the Meeting can find.  Or Meeting houses whose sign do not speak to passers by.  We can do better than failing to invite the people we know to share one of the joyous experiences of our lives out of…shyness? Embarrassment? The fear of evangelizing?  I don’t believe anyone would fear evangelizing if they heard some of these tortured stories of true Seekers trying to find us!

In my therapy practice often if I ask people about their spiritual life, they will tell me: “Well I have no Religion, but I am a spiritual person.  I believe in God or something greater than myself…but I don’t like the dogma and rituals of the Church.  I wish there was someplace where I could go and just be a spiritual person; a place that supported my spiritual life.”  As a therapist it really is not appropriate to evangelize, so I just smile and nod.  But often I feel sad that these seekers will never stumble across the knowledge of the very thing they are looking for.  Friends we can do a better job than this.

From the Center

George Fox said: “You will say, Christ saith this, and the apostles saith then, but what canst thou say? Art thou a child of Light and hast thou walked in the Light, and what thou speakest is it inwardly from God?” This he said during a period of time when the Catholics and Protestants were fighting with each other about the ultimate source of truth: the Bible or Papal authority. Fox’s radical message was that people could have a direct experience of God and know the Truth themselves. It is still a very radical message.

It is to this Center – the direct experience of God - that we must return over and over again as we try to make our Meetings what we want them to be. How would our business Meetings be if we could listen for Divine direction? How would our committee meetings be if we could find that Guidance? How would our fellowship be if we could feel the Inner Light of those we are Gathered with? How would our worship be if we believed the Holy One would provide the messages and that is what we heard? This help is available to us in that Living Center.

In the early days of Quakerism Friends would greet each other: “How goes the Spirit with Thee?” This was a serious question. It was not the “How are you?” with obligatory answer of “Fine” (regardless of how we really are), but a sincere desire to know the spiritual state of the other which was considered paramount. Friends expected to know each other spiritually. Early Friends also worshipped with their neighbors. They raised each other’s barns, they birthed each other’s babies and they usually knew each other from cradle to grave.

Spiritual Nurture

It is harder for modern Friends to really know each other. We usually see each other only on Sundays, and we sit in silence which does not breed familiarity. One of the things we must find new ways to do is to know each other spiritually, so that when we look around our Meetings for Worship we know each other’s spiritual conditions and those speak to us also in the silence. It is good that in our adult ed hours we learn about Quaker history, our testimonies and about the social concerns of our day, but we need to do worship sharing together as well – to know who has a spiritual dry spell right now, who is alive with the spirit, who is in a spiritual crisis, what is the nature of the spiritual dilemmas we each struggle with? We need to know how our personal relationships with God are going!

When we know each other in this way, a work party is holy fellowship. When we know each other this way, we have patience and forbearance for each other in our committee work. When we know each other this way, we hear the holy message clothed in the personality and speaking style of our friend who has risen to deliver the Author’s message. When we are known this way, our community becomes The Parent’s arms which hold us in our struggles.

There are more convinced Friends in the Society of Friends than ever before since the first generation of Friends. Some convinced Friends have been Friends for many decades, others have attended for only a few months. Small Meetings struggle with how to teach and model Quakerism to new attenders. When we fail at this, we risk losing our Center as a Religious Society of Friends. Mennonites are much clearer than Quakers in talking about God's Kingdom and the World, which is made up of "powers and principalities." They speak of two ways of being in the world – one with the Divine at the Center and one where we are lost in the values, customs and beliefs of the popular culture. Among Mennonites, non-conforming means not to adhere to World values, instead to be true to Kingdom values. When we, as Friends, fail to teach new Friends about the Divine Center, then democracy, a majority rule mindset, starts to sift into our business meetings and committee meetings. The way of the World suggests that we strike compromises rather than engage in the process of divine guidance that leads to spiritual consensus. A polite social distance that is not too "nosey" drifts into our expectations of how well we know each other. Uninspired messages, or no messages at all, are given because we no  longer know how to season or test messages. Ultimately, when we fail to teach and model Quakerism, the ways of the world start to sneak in and we lose what is most precious to us as Friends, our Divine Center.

Eldering:

To nurture each other well in Quakerism we must recapture the original meaning of eldering. Among Friends these days, ‘Eldering’  has taken on something of a “dirty word” status because in the worst days of our history during the splits, elders wrote people out of meeting and elders tried to keep a rigid orthodoxy. The phrase itself is not self-explanatory. While it seems to simply imply an older person, early Friends records show “elders” or “weighty friends” were often recorded in their 20’s; it had nothing to do with age. Eldering is about nurturing others in Quakerism and having spiritual discernment. We could attempt to substitute the modern day word mentoring, but a mentor is not necessarily grounded in Spirit, nor does the word connote spiritual support. This would again bring in concepts from the World that do not reflect the whole spiritual picture of the Kingdom.

It is easy sometimes to look at our Meeting  with frustration and see the shortcomings from the Quaker ideal, to compare this Meeting with others we have attended or to this Meeting in better times. I think instead we must approach our relationship to Meeting as one approaches a marriage. Two parties have entered into a mutually committed relationship: for better and for worse, in sickness and in health…and Quakers were so wise to add: “with divine assistance I will be such a partner”. So rather than looking at what is missing in our Meetings and feeling critical we must look at it as the beloved one that we are to nurture and that we will do this not alone but with Holy Assistance. Again as we turn to the Center we will receive guidance with which to improve our Meetings.

Ministry

If we feel that ministry is not rich in our Meeting, we must work to build worship sharing and ways of getting to know each other spiritually at a greater depth. If we feel our committees are not functioning well we must look to a spiritually grounded nominating process, and we must look to how we have built fellowship in general in our Meeting. If our committees are overburdened we must look to outreach, nurturing Friends who maybe disaffected, and to simplifying our committee structure so it serves well and does not merely mirror “how we have always done it”. If our Meetings for Worship for Business are tedious and non-productive we must look at the overall spiritual wellbeing of our meeting and how well our committees are functioning, as well as how we teach business practice to our new members. We must also look to how we use outside resources: FGC, Yearly Meeting, Pendle Hill, etc. to build skills in our clerk and committee clerks.

Marriages are work. They do not succeed without effort and nurturing. The same is true of Meetings. We are also enriched by marriages which provide us a place to give and receive love and to build a home. The same is also true of our membership in our Meetings. Some people wonder over the reason to become a member as opposed to remaining an attender. For me it is to commit ourselves to a mutually fulfilling relationship and the work which that entails.

Elders do this kind of work in their Meetings. They listen to the Center to discern the condition of the Meeting. They take actions designed to support the spiritual wellbeing of the Meeting, and they nurture other members in their spiritual life. This means everything from encouraging the unfolding verbal ministry of those who are just beginning, to nurturing the Children and newcomers in learning the ways of Quakerism. It means discerning and nurturing the gifts of members in our nominating processes. It means creating adult ed programs designed to support where the Meeting struggles and is trying to grow. It means providing pastoral care or oversight to Meeting members and attenders that deepens their connections to the Meeting and nurtures their spiritual lives. It means facing the conflicts in our midst and dealing with them with love rather than trying to sweep them under the carpet. It means being willing to share joyfully what we experience in Quakerism with those we meet in the world. It means sharing what we love and cherish about Quakerism, so that we may offer it as an attractive place for others to visit and find their spiritual home.

This was “given” as a message to the author while visiting AZ  Half-Yearly Meeting of InterMountain Yearly Meeting.

This was published in Friends Journal in Nov. 2010 under the tittle:The Divine Center and Communal Nurture