Mary Dyer's husband

I have a personal sort of relationship to Mary Dyer.   The above famous statue of her was created by Sylvia Shaw Judson, a member of the meeting I grew up in.   A small 2 foot high study that Sylvia had made sat in the entry way to my Meeting.  When I went to Earlham College there was 1 of 3 bigger than life size sculptures of Mary outside the Meeting house - allowing me to get a picture of myself in her lap.  When I look in her face I see Mary Stickney, a member of my Meeting who was the model for the sculpture.  A few years later while in Boston I had this picture taken with Mary. The third and last statute of Mary is at Quaker Center in Philadelphia.  So it has always felt like I  had a personal appreciation for Mary for her courage and as the most famous Quaker martyr in our history.

For those not familiar with the story of Mary Dyer.  Mary was a convinced friend in Puritan Massachusetts during colonial times.  Massachusetts forbade any form of worship but Puritanism, but Mary and many Friends continued to meet for worship.  Eventually she and William  Robinson and Maraduke Stephenson were sentenced to die by hanging for persisting in this practice.  On the gallows the governor stayed her execution and ordered her banished while hanging her two companions.  Mary, feeling still under the command of the leading returned to worship in Boston and to her most likely death.    She was again sentenced to hang and this time did.   This story is well known to most Quakers (and even most American's who paid attention in HS US history class.)

Part of why it is so well known is the amazing quotes from Mary.   She is widely quoted as saying to the marshalls who came to take her to the gallows: "Yea, and joyfully I go. My life is not accepted, neither availeth me, in comparison with the lives and liberty of the Truth and Servants of the living God for which in the Bowels of Love and Meekness I sought you; yet nevertheless with wicked Hands have you put two of them to Death, which makes me to feel that the Mercies of the Wicked is cruelty; I rather chuse to Dye than to live, as from you, as Guilty of their Innocent Blood."

This of course is what always grabbed me about Mary, the joy in her faithfulness, the calm in the face of her own death, the witness to a truth greater than her own life, and a groundedness in the power of God to cause her to go in this spirit to join God.  In fact, I recently heard a Quaker who went to see this statue on the Boston commons, ran into other tourists who were the descendants of Edward Wanton, one of the marshalls who was from their account (and history's) was so moved and awe struck by the power of the palpable spirit present in Mary at her death that he was lead to explore Quakerism and eventually himself become a Friend.

So I must confess that until this month the only thoughts I have had about Mary were admiration for her courage and powerful life of the spirit.  I had a similar reaction to stories about Tom Fox, the modern day Quaker who was traveling with Christian Peacemakers in Iraq with two companions and was kidnapped by Al-Queda and eventually beheaded.   Tom was a peacemaker acting on a leading for peace in the middle east.  He was also deeply loved in his yearly meeting and especially among the Young Friends for whom he had served as a Friendly Adult Presense for a decade.  While horrified, like most people, by the fact that he was beheaded, and deeply saddened by what seemed like the misguidedness of killing what was in reality one who came to help.  I felt primarily proud of the way this Quaker had lived his life.  Later, I came to know some of those who grieved deeply for him and did think about the unintended fall out of one faithfully following a leading.

I have in the past looked more seriously at this "underside" of a leading in the case of Norman Morrison who self-immolated himself at age 31 underneath Robert McNarma's office window in 1965 in protest of all the loss of innocent life in Vietnam.  This caused quite a stir at the time in national media because while people had started getting use to Buddhist monk's immolating themselves in protest of the war, no American had before or after.  I was too young to be aware of his death at the time, but Quakerism was still talking about it when I was old enough to understand. Norman was a Quaker; there had been no clearness committee.   Was this an act of witness or an act of suicide?  But most troubling to me, always, was that Norman had the youngest of his three children, Emily a toddler with him, who he had at the last moments passed off to someone before lighting himself on fire.    As a therapist I can only be horrified at the trauma that surely had to create for his youngest even as she was too small to fully understand the event, and the pain that I instinctively understand was caused to a widow and her three small children.  His wife Anne refused to speak publicly about it for years, not wanting to diminish the witness that he paid for with his very life, but eventually writing a book about it that revealed her deeply conflicted feelings about it and the pain and loss that she lived with.  As a therapist I cannot help but notice the similarities to suicide completers who are wrapped in their pain to the point that they cannot consider the impact and pain caused to their family and friends left behind.

I have always been a big fan of leadings and looked at them as gifts from God and important missions to be carried out in the world.  However, recently when my 18 year old daughter has been called to a series of civil disobedience actions that if gone text book would involve nothing more than an arrest, but if gone wrong could involve serious physical injury if not death....I began to notice the underside of leadings.   There is no promise that God makes that we will be safe, or even alive.   If we are content, as Mary was, to go to our death in God's arm than there is that blessing, but there is no certain protection.   Somehow as I have realized this something has gone a bit upside down in me regarding leadings and the admiration of faithfulness.

Suddenly I have asked myself "what about Mary Dyer's husband?"  I knew Mary was married, but it is with surprise that I realize I had never considered what did he go through? how did he feel?  In the two more contemporary cases mentioned above, I have given it some thought because of hearing Friends who knew the individuals talk of the pain of the families.   In Tom's case I still felt it was faithfulness, in Norman's I have more questioned whether mental illness wore the cloak of leading? So I was moved to do some research about Mary's husband.  William himself was not recorded as a Friend.  I learned that the first time she was sentenced to hang he wrote the Governor begging for her life, and it is widely believed that this is indeed why she was spared.   He did indeed write the gov. the second time as well, but this time his request was not granted.   Interestingly, in the second letter to the govenor he said of his wife's actions  "it is a kind of madness".  Which has left me to wonder: martyr or crazy person? Two sides of the same coin?  Simply a point of perspective?  It is after all often said that the line between spirituality and madness is a thin line.   Emotion and spirituality dwell in the same part of the brain.

As my daughter said:  "but the families are not given the same leading"   Thus I am left to wonder why we never talk about William, Mary Dyer's husband....and how do we as Friends given adequate attention and support to the loved one's of those who are lead into dangers way.  Among early Friends when one was called to ministry outside of their community, in confirming the leading the Meeting was agreeing to provide support to their family: to come bale the hay and watch the children, etc. Meetings gathered funds for suffering for those who were arrested for worshipping in the manner of Friends.   But what support could possibly be have extended to a martyr's husband that could mend his wounds?

However, the reason Mary is so famous in American history is that it widely believed that it was the two forks of those who had come to the colonies to escape religious persecution in their countries of origin, and then the playing out of this same persecution against other American in the Massachusetts colonies, against Mary and her 2 Quaker companions, that lead the founding fathers to include freedom of religion in the Bill of Rights of the American Constitution.   So it is not a hard argument to make that the Mary was lead to an act that would change history for the protection of thousands over centuries to come.  Something to take joy in indeed and a rich accomplishment of a lifetime.   Maybe it does take a certain kind of madness to over come the survival instinct and to make one's entire life's meaning about a certain witness?

A Missing Piece of the Truth

Quakers have a wonderful belief that not only can one person say NO, but that they may have a piece of the truth that the rest of the group has not noticed.  We believe this because in Meeting for business for Worship we are ALL suppose to be listening for the truth.  Thus this one lone voice is not someone's opinion, but gives voice to a deeper truth.

Like many other Quakers I belong to many other groups who operate by consensus, but in those groups usually a single or even several dissenting voices will be ignored so we can "get things" done. And of course in those groups there is no belief that we are looking for divine guidance.  In those groups we are looking for the group wisdom or just unity for action.  There we believe we are guided by our own intellects, so it again becomes easy to get competitive about differences of opinions and to be attached to desired outcomes.

In a previous piece about internalized Quakerism, I have shared about how the Quaker ways I was raised in influence the way I operate in the outside world: sometimes for the best and sometimes for the worse.  When it is for the best I am able to help inform, educate and elevate other groups I belong to.   When it is for the worst, I am unconsciously expecting people in these other secular settings to behave like Quakers and am surprised, distressed or ill prepared when they do not.  I'm sure all Quakers have had the experience of being in a secular setting where a group has to decide on something and someone calls for a "vote" and after a few people make "persuasive" ranging to "bullying" or "domineering" comments, the group votes.   The vocal majorities view point installed and everyone else's needs or wants are disregarded.  As a Quaker there is a distinctly bad feeling knowing that many people have just lost.  It does not feel better to me, as a Quaker, when my "side wins" the vote because I can feel the subtle violence of people being run over.

So the interesting question to me is how can we bring a little bit of Quakerism to the rest of the world?  I'm not talking here about preaching about Quakerism.   I think in general the voice that says: "the way my group (church) does it is..."   Is not a voice that is well appreciated.  However, I do think that if we simply use what we know to make suggestions, if we hold out the idea that it is possible that a minority view point is worth listening to, or that if we don't rush to vote once we have a majority number, but keep problem solving till more people are happy, or suggest that there could be a win/win that will please everyone...I think these suggestions are powerful ones that can be transformative for groups we are in.  I have verbalized to my climate group on several occasions that a sole voice of dissent can still be bringing us valuable information and asked us to consider that. I think this has been a very revolutionary thought for many in the group and changed how we listen to each other.

I remember in my 20's going to anti-conscription meetings that an older Quaker man was in.  He did not speak often, but whenever he did it was to urge the group to look more deeply at a minority view point that had already been stated, or to ask us to look for third ways, or to ask us to figure out how we could make the "proposal on the table even better" by addressing concerns raised about it.  I remember being comforted by his mere presence in the room and awed by how he consistently made the group function better.   Now in retrospect I can see that he was choosing to "clerk" the meeting even without the title.  What if we all did that where we are?  We could be "patterns and examples" wherever we go.

Recently in my secular climate group we went to meet with our two Senator's staffs.  In the first meeting the aid was saying things that were frankly quite ill informed and fairly useless.  One of my comrades in anger snapped at her "Could we talk to someone who knows something."   X I called out his name, stopping him, then to her I said "I'm sorry for that; we would like to know..."  After we left he was curious about why I had stopped him and eager to tell me that she did not know what she was talking about and it was appropriate to be angry."  I told him: "Emotion is always appropriate, but not disrespect.   She is simply trying to do her job.   She is a child of God just like you and I, and we get to disagree with her as much as we want, but it is not ok to treat her with disrespect".   Thus I did not have to tell him all about God within each of us, yet still I had "eldered" him about a Quaker principal in a way he could hear and understand.  (He conducted himself respectfully in the next Senator's office.)

I have written in a previous blog about having to learn how to testify in secular settings not from my intellect, but from still listening for the truth I am to speak.  This again is an example of learning how to bring my Quakerism into my activism.

My most recent and startling realization is that I was clerking secular meetings where I was providing no point of view, but trying to get the group to look at the deeper questions with the assumption that that would lead us to the truth.  After a number of very dissappointing times of the loudest voice in the room carrying the day or many people being uncomfortable because they did not know the answers to the questions I was raising, I finally realized I was misapplying the Quaker model here.  I was operating as if people where going to listen for God's voice when they were not.   So instead I listened in myself for what the truth might be as best I could grasp that.  I put it down on paper as a "proposal" and brought it to my group, stating clearly that I was not attached to the proposal and willing to see it change if we could think of better ideas.  It gave the group a jumping off place for discussion, it gave us focus and rather than hours of wandering around lost in circles we were able to have a productive discussion and come to a decision.

It was fascinating for me to realize that in that case, before hand my Quaker assumptions or patterns were not serving me well.  I now have a better way, but I will need a Quaker committee of elders or anchor committee, so I do not get lost in ego or blindspots by this way of trying to lead.  In general the American public does not see the search for Truth as part of the work of life.   But there is no reason we cannot call our fellow citizen's to look for the Truth.  In fact what a breath of fresh air for most people to have presented the idea that the Truth is out there and available and that we can hold it up!

Quaker Parenting

This article appeared in Friends Journal in the April 2015 issue.

By: Lynn Fitz-Hugh & Sara Alice Grendon

My daughter, age 16, is a dyed-in-the-wool Quaker.  Other Quaker parents are often very curious how I pulled this off.  To me one of the most significant things is that from her birth, I felt I was steward of a spiritual being, a soul sent into my care and nurture.

I noticed early on her own expressions of spirituality, and unlike non-religious parents who might ignore or even discourage these expressions, I encouraged and nurtured them. My daughter had a great love of nature and expressed a sense of awe that tied what she encountered to a sense of majesty and the mystical.  I affirmed this.  I was influenced by the writings of Barry and Joyce Visnell who say that our image of An All Powerful and hopefully Loving God is shaped by our early experience of our own parents as all powerful.  This makes much more important how we as parents use power and model just, fair, compassionate and truthful behavior.

I am a leader among West Coast high school Friends, and soon to be part of a lovely team of powerful young Quakers, clerking FGC’s high school program. You don’t get this way by accident. There are choices my mother made as a Quaker parent which led to my growing into my Quaker-ness, and I suspect if one asked my weighty Young f/Friends how they got that way, we’d have similar experiences.  If we really wish to see the Religious Society of Friends continue, Quaker parents must raise Quaker children, and this does not have to mean shoving your beliefs down your kid’s throat. 

It seems Quaker parents rarely tell their children what to believe. However, they often don’t give them the spiritual framework to figure it out themselves, which is oh so necessary for a child exploring their own spiritual life. What I find most horrifying is when we don’t acknowledge our kids as having spiritual thought. As if somehow being a child means they can’t feel the Spirit. Doesn’t that contradict the idea of, “that of God in everyone”?

“Mommy, what is God?” I asked from the 3-year-old booster-seat.

“I can’t tell you,” my mother said. Unsatisfied with this frustrating answer I asked, “Why not?”    

“I could tell you what I think God is, but you’re going to have to form your own definition,” she told me, meeting my eyes thru the baby mirror.  I know that I proceeded to ask my mom for her definition of God, but I couldn’t tell you what she said next, because that isn’t the significance of this memory. This conversation from the back seat on a spring day when I was 3 is still so memorable because this interaction set a precedent for the rest of my life. I knew from that point onward, that my mother would never tell me what to believe.  

When Sara was about 3 or 4 we went to the Olympic Peninsula and camped overnight on a bluff looking out at the rock stacks jutting up in the ocean.  We woke at low tide and walked through the fog out to the base of the now exposed stacks.  The ocean had retreated to reveal starfish, barnacles, and small fish in tide pools swimming to the music of the ocean!  Sara was enchanted!

A number of years later when 7 she announced to me:  “I know what God looks like.”

Some parents would have rushed in with logic about how no one can know what God looks like.  I held my breath and calmly said:     “What does God look like?” 

She then described to me the mystical experience she had on the Peninsula that morning and said solemnly “that’s what God looks like.”  I could only agree and be amazed at her wisdom of recognizing the Presence of the Creator when 3 years old.

            I never set out to teach Sara the testimonies.  I tried to live them and this made them values that were real to her.  Each of us describes below our memories of how some of these things were communicated/learned:

Social Justice: 

When Sara was three, WTO took place in our town.  I decided I would take Sara to the demonstration but leave if it got violent or tear gas was released (this was before all that began.)  How to explain to a three year old what was happening?  She knew who our President was, and most children’s books had Kings as rulers, so I explained to her that there was an important meeting happening in Seattle where Presidents and Kings of other countries were coming together to decide how things like water and food would be made available to people all over the world, and some of the things they wanted to do would make it hard for people to have clean water or enough food.  Sara said,  “We should tell them to share with everyone.”  I told her that the people we were going to walk with would carry signs to make that message to the Kings and Presidents.  When the tear gas started a mile ahead of us I quickly pulled us out of the march and turned around to go home telling her simply “we need to go home now.”  She cried saying “No mommy, I want to see the Kings first.  We have to tell them.”

I think children naturally want to do what is right for all and if you don’t confuse them by doing otherwise they stay with that belief.  Throughout Sara’s life I explained why we bought certain foods or products and not others and what the labor conditions of the workers or the implications for other people were. Politics were constantly discussed at our dinner table.

I am an Activist. Most 16 years olds will not own up to that yet.  One of my frustrations with our faith is that not all Quakers are Activists, but I believe the words should be synonymous. When social justice is a testimony of our faith and we believe in peace, equality, integrity, and stewardship why would we not stand up for these?  I was taught to. Partly out of being born with a rebellious spirit, but largely due to my mom’s example.  I still remember WTO protest and many other protests. I was taught that if you want justice in this world you must seek it through non-violent revolution and that it doesn’t get done any other way.

Peace:

 My own parents, also Quakers, would not let my sister and me have toy guns or even water pistols growing up.  I resented the water pistols part so when Sara was little I got her a plastic fish that squirted water.  I did however always tell her that it was wrong to kill under any circumstances because there was that of God in everyone and that one should not hit or be violent to others either. I also told her that her classmates would believe otherwise because of how they were raised by their parents and prepared her for the idea that beliefs about this differ widely in our society. She never entertained the idea that violence was a way to solve things.  I acknowledge readily to parents of boys that I think this is much more challenging when raising a boy because of the messages in our culture to boys about violence.

The peace testimony is one I’ve watched parents nail bite over, and is perhaps the hardest to teach in a society that worships violence. In the simple logic of my toddler’s mind it wouldn’t make sense to hit another kid in the face for a toy, because then they would hit me, and who wants to get hit in the face? But it’s a little more complex than that; our culture is so saturated in violence that it’s hard to not expose our kids, but that’s the key: exposure. I was not allowed to watch certain TV shows, or movies rated higher due to “violent themes.” I won’t lie: I didn’t like it. When all your other friends with non-religious, non-pacifist, and very American parents get to watch something and you don’t, it’s not fun. But it was those kids that hit each other for building blocks and used violent language.  I’ve grown to appreciate my mother’s sensibilities.

Equality:

I was not allowed to watch Disney as a kid. This was the hardest media sensor of all because little girls love princesses, all my friends loved princesses, and wanted to be one. Of course I eventually saw some of the Disney Princess movies at other little girls’ houses, but that didn’t stop my mom’s intention from living on.  She would tell me;

          “Disney is sexist and racist; all those princesses are always rescued by men, why do they need men to save them?”  I never had an answer for that question. I look back now on my childhood and I frequently tell folks that my mother’s greatest feat as a parent was not allowing me Disney. Because I didn’t watch Disney I didn’t learn from the crows in Dumbo, or the warthog in the Lion king that, people who talk in Ebonics or with a Latin American accent are dumb.  I didn’t learn from the shading differences in lion’s fur that “bad guys” are darker than the other lions. In fact I didn’t learn the concept of “bad guys.” Simultaneously hearing in Children’s meeting that God is in all of us, along with less exposure to stereotyping, I learned equality.

  I did not want Sara to learn good/bad dichotomies or stereotypes about gender and race , but all her friends could watch Disney, and so this was frustrating to her.  I would explain to her what a stereotype was and that these movies had them.  This was uninteresting and unsatisfying to her and I did not think I was getting anywhere, till one day when she was four she was looking at a Disney T shirt of princesses in a store (a previously much coveted item) and she said to me:  “I don’t want this anymore.”  I asked why and she explained:  “There is no princess for Layla” (an African American friend in her preschool).  I knew at that moment that she understood.

Integrity:

 I told Sara it was important to tell the truth and I always told her the truth.  Sometimes I would tell her a subject was too adult and I would not talk about it, but even when I made her promises I would not make them unless I knew I could follow through on them.  I also made clear to her that I expected her to tell the truth and that it was important to me that she not lie.  I realized when she was small that if she did something wrong and I punished her when she told the truth, this would teach her to lie.  So if I asked her something like “How did this get here?  Who spilled this?” or “Who broke this?” and she told me the truth I did not punish her.  I just told her what I wished she had done or expressed my disappointment or other feelings about it.  I also sometimes expressed appreciation that she was telling me the truth. 

As she got older she would sometimes initiate discussions with me about situations with friends where she was struggling to figure out how to act with integrity.  The sincerity with which she examined these things always impressed me, and I wished some adults I knew would give as much thought to their integrity!

Integrity is my favorite testimony; it’s also the hardest to live by 100% of the time, which is why it is my favorite. Every kid will experiment with lying; when I did my mom didn’t get mad, just disappointed. That disappointment was enough to make it feel icky, and it remained so. But integrity is more than simply honesty.

This testimony I learned alongside equality, and in my world they are inseparable. I learned Integrity to myself as female, being spared images of Barbie’s “basketball boobs,” and Disney princesses’ helpless wails. Like violence, it’s about what you expose your kids to.

As a child I played a game with which I still do. When I didn’t like my classmates I’d look for their Light, in trait that wasn’t that awful, or the way they drew with crayons. Now I look for what I can relate too, even if it’s only their teenage insecurity. This is how I learned to treat even the kids I didn’t like with integrity.  

Simplicity:

We all know the United States is a hot bed of consumerism.  The encouragement to want, want, want, and buy, buy, buy, is a trap easy for children to fall into, since advertising is catered toward them. In part I learned simplicity because growing up with a single mom we never had a ton of money, so when I’d ask for luxury grocery items I was denied.  But she would say to me with my bottle of Nutella in hand. “Do you need that?” And I couldn’t make a case for why these things were a necessity, so this logic forced me to put them down. 

From my Aunt Cindy (who is not Quaker) I learned that gifts aren’t always material. Every year she takes me to a show for my birthday, and it’s the best gift she could give me.  My mother lives simply (as Americans go) and I learned by example, but never felt deprived or empty, only fulfilled by life.  

  Like most children Sara wanted toys her classmates had or things she saw advertised on TV.  We had a LOT of dialogues about how and why I was not going to buy most of these items.   I tried to tell her that she had enough and did not need toys that do things for you.. Everyone and their uncle was giving Sara stuffed toys, and when there were 30, I put my foot down!  I told her she had too many to play with and they needed to be loved by someone.  Then I said that from now on if she got another one she would decide whether to keep it and give up one she already had or to just give it away.  She kept to this and as a result we could see some parts of her bed!

If I had to say one thing to Quaker parents it would be that Quaker parenting requires a lot of hard stands, swimming against the tide of popular society, needing to explain a lot of things and having the strength of your convictions, but it also unites with that which is innate in all humans—a sense of fairness and love and wanting good for all.  The results are pretty stunning.

Sara now goes by Alice.  Both belong to Eastside Friends Meeting near Seattle, WA.  Lynn is a therapist and Climate Activist.  Sara Alice has turned 18 since this was written and attending Hampshire College and Mt. Toby Meeting and is a climate activist in her own right.

Corporate Witness

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To Give Testimony

Early Friends talked about giving testimony to the Truth.  This meant speaking publicly one’s full passion for the Divine.  Speaking even when it was not welcome.  Carrying such messages as:  "I will not take my hat off to recognize your social status", or "I will not swear on a Bible because my commitment to the Truth is always."

I testified on Thursday, but it was not in this way that early Friends spoke of.  I was with the rest of my 350 Group attending a hearing by The Army Corp of Engineers to hear public comment on the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the second dock at Cherry Point, WA.  BP built this pier illegally in 2010; illegally because they never did the environmental impact statement required by the law.  Illegally because Warren Magnuson, the very powerful former Senator of WA, added an amendment to a bill that he intended to protect the fragile ecosystem of Puget Sound (or the Salish Seas as the Native people call it), to protect it forever.  The amendment said it would be illegal to export oil through those waters.  The oil industry has already stretched that for decades by receiving oil from Alaska and shipping it to other parts of the US which is not “exporting” technically.

So the Army Corp which allowed them to build without an EIS was sued for not doing the EIS, lost in court and 8 years later produced one.  The public was coming to comment on the study and request that the Corp impose some sort of regulatory limits on them…all the way from tearing down the pier, to restricting to them to pre-1996 levels of shipping, to basically doing nothing.

Putting on my political activist mindset, not my centered is the spirit mindset, I prepared and gave the following testimony about half way through the 35 people who all testified against the dock.

     “My name is Lynn Fitz-Hugh Coordinator of 350 Seattle with over 900 members.  I have come here today to talk about a run away train, although paradoxically there is also an exploding train in this story.  

     Typically when we think of a run away train we think of one with no intelligent life in charge of it, that is dangerous and headed for disaster.  That run-away train I submit to you is BP.

Over 10 years ago they built this dock without environmental review which they knew was required and they did so because they wanted to.  And even though it took months and months to build no one stopped them and so they got what they wanted.   

     About two years ago the whole petroleum industry decided they wanted to start shipping Bakken Shale on trains after having added highly flammable additives to make the shale more manageable.  The result is we have had exploding trains all over this country.  Again they did not ask anyone because they knew there was no regulation against this because no one had ever thought of such a thing.  So they just did it because it was what they wanted to do.  Now the Petroleum industry wants to do away with the Magnuson Amendment and start shipping export oil out of Puget Sound, from the Second Pier.  

       From my point of view, they have a dock, and they have a refinery and they have a supply of oil, and I am afraid that regardless of the law they will just ship it.  Because that is what they do – they do what they want, what suits them, what makes them profit.  So I am asking you to use all of the regulatory tools at your disposal, all of the things people have asked of you today, to stop this run away train that is BP and to protect life.

     We have become confused in this country about profit.  We have put in on an alter and treat it as if is sacred, as if it is an idol.  We tell regulators not to mess with profit.  But we have forgotten that profit and business were created to serve life, not for life to serve profit.   So I am asking you to act for life and to stop this runaway train.”

It was good testimony; it drew the first applause of the night.  The only bigger applause was for a colleague of mine who got up and said he was awed at how the other good people who came out to testify had been able to be polite and keep their emotions in check…because he said raising his voice:  “I am outraged.  I am outraged that this was clearly illegal then and now and that we are even discussing this.”  He went on yelling and at first I was fine with the moral indignation.  Jesus after all entered the temple of the money changers and turned the tables over in anger and outrage.  Sometimes outrage is the only appropriate response.  But then he turned to attacking them personally (and I watched their faces harden and defend.)  He said that they did not care, that they were not doing their jobs, that they were bad.  The Quaker in me said no to this; no to the denial of that of God in them.  I had from a Quaker mindset carefully tried to appeal to their consciences, seeing them as people with that of God in them that could be reached.

Another colleague of mine took a more nuanced approach to this.  He began by saying:  “Boy hard night to sleep!"   He talked about what a difficult decision they had to make, and how later history would look back and judge us in this period of time for not having done enough and celebrate those who did.  He said how tragic it would be to poison the Sound in the last years of our desperate gasp for oil.  He said "we have to give oil up; it is the only way to survive.  All of us in this room".   He asked them to come down on the right side of history.  And then threw in “and if you cannot find a way to do the right thing in your job then time to quit your job.”   It was admirably true Gandhian  Satyagraha  (Truth force).   A third colleague claimed he would talk for the non-human creatures.  But then really just said his own opinion.

So here several days later I sit in the Silence of Meeting and I realize that I did not center down before hand, I did not ask for the Truth to come through me, to use me.  And that I regret.  I am learning, slowly that I will have to have an anchor committee from my Meeting for this work that I do, or it will not be possible for me to stay “low” as early Friends called it.   Now in this silence I see that was waiting to be said (which I had a small bead on) was:

     "Senator Magnuson, Chief Selth, DeCarte and any other number of our ancestors are turning in their graves right now.  Why?

     Several thousand years ago we made a mistake in our scientific paradigm.  We saw ourselves, as part of that already existing and mistaken paradigm as separate from the earth, and as superior, as ones who could observe, understand and control the natural world around us.   The mess we have all around us is pretty much testimony to the falseness of this idea.  In fact, quantum physics now tells us that the very act of observing something changes it and that we are inextricably bound to all of life; there is no separate us and that.   So the problem we have with these EIS’s are they expect you to study the environmental impact to a site.  But the problem with that is how do we define site when any site is part of an ecosystem?   And an ecosystem is part of a food chain that goes beyond its boundaries and etc etc.

     It is commonly objected that when activists request for climate change to be included in an EIS that the request is “too big” and beyond the scope of the study.   But everyone in this room knows that the truth is that this whole Globe is bound by one atmosphere.  

     So I point all this out to you to point out that beyond this dock which you are asked to examine is ecological damage being done to extract this Bakken Shale and also future Tar Sands, then it is shipped on trains with flammable additives’ extremely prone to explosion and more ecological damage and then it is brought to this illegally built dock, where the owners wish to thwart a 40 year old law put in place as one of the last acts of Senator Magnsuon to protect the fragile Puget Sound forever.   And you are asked to study the environmental impact!  Which impact?  Oh yes the extraction site, the destructive path here is all outside your scope of study and the leak into the Sound isn’t suppose to happen!  Well, I would argue all of life is inextricably bound.  You cannot ignore this damage that is all around it.  Nor can you ignore that in making it possible to ship you unleash the carbon to the atmosphere of this WHOLE joined ecosystem.

     If this ecosystem could speak would the oysters cry out to you and say: ‘We already are failing and dying under the acidification of the ocean; we can bear no more.”  Would the Salmon call to you and say:  “We are already endangered because of the damns on our rivers and the pollution within them; do not make it any harder for us. ”  Would the Cherry Point herring chime in: "We are only 10% of the population we were 30 years ago and a should a spill happen during our laying time our entire future generations would be obliterated."   Would the Plankton at the bottom of the Sound say to you “Kill us friends and you have set your own time clock.  We are the bottom of your food chain.  How will you survive without your food chain?”  Would the birds flying over head say we do not want to be coated in oil."  Would the Sound itself speak saying:  “The ocean breaths for the entire planet taking in c02 and returning oxygen.  Kill us and you will kill yourselves.”  Chief Selth is said to have warned us over 200 years ago of this very greed for money and disregard of the land as leading to our own end.

     Oh I know you are only poor regulators expected by your superiors to keep to very narrow parameters.  You exist in a societal framework that has elevated the right to make profit to the Holy and has said that it is bad to interfere with that.  We have gotten to this hearing because the oil companies are so powerful that they did what they wanted and operate outside the law.  But we are also in a moment of history where we can no longer afford to operate in side that old paradigm which pretends that we are separate from the earth or get to make decisions over it.   We can no longer survive and ignore our connection to it.   So just as the Nuremberg tribunal  judges told the former Nazi officers brought before them, there are some evils so great that even if legal we must not obey them, but must act for higher truths.

     So I am asking you to step away from normal expectations, or typical definitions of an ESI, I am asking you to not focus narrowly but to look at this whole big picture and this moment in history and I am asking you to decide what is really TRUE, to listen to the ecosystem of which you are a part of, to do what really needs to happen here.  I am asking you to tear the pier down or forbid it any export!

Climate Change: an update on the Emporer's New Clothes.

In 2007 when I first heard the movie: The Inconvenient Truth as someone with a political science degree what I was immediately struck by was the implications not stated: that if we were going to have sea rise and drought that we would have mass refugees and wars over resources like water and fertile land- in short death and suffering on a large scale.   I have been working on climate issues steadily ever since, but still even as I watched the carbon inching up I have been waiting for it the "future" human impacts.

I am also aware that the corporate controlled media has been doing an amazing cover-up on climate change. It is is amazing how you can impact public awareness about something by simply NOT talking about it. Naomi Klein reports that in all of 2010 the 3 major networks did a total of 32 stories on climate change.  Let's face it, just about any gossip about a movie star gets more coverage than that.  I sort of scream at my tv and radio in despair as they report on the drought in the SW and the forest fires, telling how bad they are but without ever a mention of climate change.  It is like some bad episode of the Emperor's New Clothes.  However, since I read alternative media and mostly stuff about climate change, I did think that when the mass deaths started happening from climate change I would know.

I noted the deaths from the hurricane's and the stubborn insistence by some that no single hurricane can be attributed to climate change. I noted also the absence of talking about increased frequency or higher high water marks of these hurricanes.  I noted the death's from fires and earthquakes and tsunami's  and again the line "none can be attributed specifically to climate change as these occur naturally". I was reminded of the tobacco companies line for so many years that cancer could not be attributed to smoking since it has many different causes, and how years later we would learn that they suppressed for decades the studies that did link smoking to lung cancer.  Even once it was linked, they argued that a particular case of lung cancer could not be linked to smoking.   No not if we continue to ignore all that we know- then we will indeed be vulnerable forever to the "whims of the Gods".

I noted with my usual frustration that the deaths of hurricane Sandy were far more real and concerning to Americans than the deaths of the people of Haiti when their country was struck.   Are the lives of people far away or with brown skin or with not much of a house to begin with actually less valuable to us than mostly white strangers who live in far better houses in our own country?  I drove through parts of WA where miles and miles of "evergreens" are brown and dying because the beetles are no longer killed by winter frost and are infesting the trees and killing them.   I cursed the media for not covering that at all.

But still I was waiting for the reports of climate wars, ones caused by refugee influxes, or fighting over scarce water or food during drought.   But the ones I knew about were caused (so I believe) by religious differences, ethnic/tribal infighting, over throws of dictators, etc.   I like most Americans had bought the explanation of "Arab Spring" as a wonderful uprising of democracy - people saying enough to oppressive rulers, all started by a common food cart peddler immolating himself in protest. Then I watched The Years of Living Dangerously the series on climate change that has been playing on cable's Show Time channel.  

First in one episode they communicated the idea that the Syrian war has actually taken place because after the worst drought in years the starving farmers, having gotten no relief from the government, rose up in arms. Then in a later episode it was explained that the Egyptian revolt, televised from Tahrir Square over throwing President Murbarak, also presented as the end of a 30 year dictatorship, in fact corresponded to a year in which world wide droughts had so reduced the wheat available for import to Egyptians that it had left the poor in Egypt literally without bread.  In fact, I remember listening to an NPR story on the radio where they were interviewing farmers in the Midwest whose whole crop had failed and then a policy person who explained that American would feel little impact in grocery costs because the US produced so much food that it would simply reduce our exports.  I remember thinking then:  "Well that is not without impact, the impact is simply being exported".

But now slowly as I listened to this episode of The Years of Living Dangerously, it penetrated:  "People were fighting as result of climate caused droughts leading to famine".  Oh yes, we can celebrate if crisis' are bringing down governments that do not care about their people....but the Climate Wars have begun. Suddenly I realized that like the people watching the parade with a naked Emperor in it, that it had taken someone shouting out "he has no clothes"  ("Or it is a Climate War") for me to finally see what my brain has already known.   Too slowly grock the obvious because the power's that be have been telling another story; the one they wanted me to believe and not the Truth.

Quaker's have a long tradition of "speaking truth to power" and speaking truth to powerful people when it is not convenient.   So Friends who are you going to speak the truth too about the already arrived global warming?  How are you going to deliver the truth?  How will the truth change you? and How will you let your life speak?

Which One are You?

You are perhaps familiar with the kind of Bible study which asks us to take a particular story in the Bible and imagine that we are each of the individuals in the story to more deeply understand the story.  So for example, in Luke 10 we are asked to consider what it is like to be Mary enjoying having Jesus in her home and hanging on his every word and what it is like to be Martha working hard in the kitchen to make everything perfect for a meal with Jesus, but resentful of doing all the work.  And we are asked to think what it is like to be Jesus observing these two sisters, and telling Martha to concentrate on what is important.  (So then male person how does food get on the table?)

This weekend I went to a symposium entitled Transformation without Apocalypse.  ( A complete aside here would be my complete horror at realizing that there are people who actually welcoming our planet heading over the climate change cliff because they believe this is the way to the Apocalypse and second coming.  I cannot believe that a loving God would ever want us to commit planetary Genocide!) The symposium was about Climate Change and had speakers: Timothy DeChristopher, Joanna Macy, Kathleen Dean Moore, Sarah Van Gelder, Ursula LeGuinn, etc.  A true smorgasbord for the soul.

If you do not know who Timothy DeChristopher is, he is a young man who at the end of the Bush Presidency attended an auction in UT where beautiful public lands were being auctioned off to be mined.  He entered the auction with no particular plan in place but then was asked if he was there to bid, so accepted a bidding paddle (number 70).  He saw a woman he knew from his church at the back of the room, and she began to cry at the sadness of all these lands being destroyed.  Suddenly Timothy began to bid.   Ultimately he won 22,000 acres of land for 1.8 million dollars!  The only thing was he did not own 1.8 million dollars and bidding without the ability to pay is a federal felony for which he was arrested and released on bail. Ultimately he was convicted of two felony counts and sentenced to two years in jail.  The incoming Obama administration investigated and found the auctions had been illegal because the proper environmental impact statements had not been done.  Bush officials were simply rushing to sell the lands while they still could.  The land therefore that Timothy bid on was safe forever.  The Obama administration did not, however, stop his prosecution.  Timothy is considered by many to be a climate hero and in fact a very moving movie entitled Bidder 70 has been done about his story.  I recommend it if this story intrigues you.

But I find myself asking those Bible Study questions:  What would it be like to be one of the other bidders in the room, sent by oil companies to buy land to exploit?  Would you feel anything about your task?  Or only concern for succeeding and winning favor in your company?  What would you feel about this mysterious bidder that keeps winning parcel after parcel seemingly from a bottomless purse?  What would it be like to be the auctioneer?  Do you ever feel bad about what is being sold?  Or have you trained yourself to have no feelings about that which is sold because it is just a job?

What would it be like to be the weeping woman who comes in feeling powerless, only able to be witness to the destruction of the holy?  What would you feel as you recognize Timothy and see him begin to bid?  Are your prayers answered?  How do you feel as they take him away in handcuffs?  Do you feel guilty....like the famous exchange between Thoreau and Emerson where Emerson comes to visit Thoreau in jail for not paying his war taxes.  Emerson asking "David what are you doing in here?"  and Thoreau responds:  "Henry, what are you doing out there?"  Do you weeping woman wonder what you are doing out there free on the street as they take away Timothy who has acted upon your pain?

What does it feel like to be Timothy drawn to this troubling situation, suddenly seeing an action he can take?  Lead by God? Lead by Conscience? Taking an action that will change his life forever? And if all of these people had been listening, like in a Meeting for worship, where was the Creator's voice in the room?  Was The Holy One speaking to one or all of these characters?  Does God speak through a woman's tears or a spontaneous moment of inspiration?

At the symposium this past weekend Timothy's call was for us to tell the truth more plainly, to not white wash the truth of how bad our situation is.  He also said that we will all have to make sacrifices, that we cannot fight Climate Change and live the same comfortable lives we have been living.  Kathleen Dean Moore who spoke after him made a slightly different and yet profound addition to this point.  She said:  "People don't want to have to make sacrifices to save the climate, and yet what they are overlooking is that we are already making sacrifices; huge unacceptable sacrifices.  We are in the process of sacrificing a liveable planet; we are sacrificing future generations lives.  So really the question is which sacrifices do we want to make?"

So which person are you?  The auctioneer, the other bidders living in business as usual?  Or are you the weeping woman, sad but powerless, or are you Timothy DeChristopher, willing to take life changing actions?
Which sacrifices are you willing to make?

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.