Quakers have a saying about not out running a leading or outrunning one's Light. This is kind of like advanced math, in order to understand it you have to be able to understand some basic things about leadings to begin with. While other religions do have some similar beliefs like believing ministers will receive a "call" to a congregation or to a certain work, I believe (perhaps with bias) that Quakerism has a more complex and developed tradition around leadings than other faiths, This is complete with a clearness committee process designed to help us properly discern if we are "led" or not.
Embedded in our traditions around both clearness process and around elders for a ministry (now commonly called an anchor committee) is the idea that in addition to the danger of not properly discerning an initial leading from a thought, or from ego, or the danger of not acting on a leading, is the danger of out running the leading. What this means is to have an initial leading and set off on that undertaking only to become distracted by ego, or to have the thinking/planning mind sort of take over the leading and remake it in its own non-divine image. In some cases it can simply mean that the person has become burned out or completed in the ministry and needs to acknowledge this and lay down the leading before it becomes forced or empty.
This was a hard thing for me to learn about as a young woman full of excitement and enthusiasm for the work of the spirit. I remember serving on a clearness committee when I was 22 for someone who was about 10 years my elder. She had a leading to do something. To me that was enough I was ready to say Yes! But the other older, wiser members of the clearness asked other questions: What about her husband? How did he feel about it ?(not supportive it turned out) They were almost entirely dependent upon her income - how would the family manage if her income was cut back? (Seems she did not have clarity about that part.) The other members of the clearness committee wound up saying that they did not sense that this was the right time for her leading. I felt frustrated and annoyed: was being married a dis-qualifier for leadings? Was it her fault her husband was unsupportive? Would God care about that? The fact that he sort of lived off her felt to me like a really unfair reason to say the finances were not right at this moment, etc.
However, as it unfolded her husband turned out to have cancer. He became quite sick in the next year (the time she had been contemplating traveling with a ministry) and required her nursing till his death. In retrospect it became completely clear that her clearness committee had indeed been correct that it was not the right timing. Also as an older hopefully more mature person it now also becomes clear to me that while "not fair" to have marital issues interfere with spiritual work, it is indeed true that they do interfere, that it is indeed necessary to get our "house in order" before we can undertake a spiritual work.
Another story about the timing of a leading is a story from John Woolman's own journal where he writes about a strong leading he felt to go to the Barbados to minister to Friends there who held slaves. He purchased in advance the ticket for passage on a ship and traveled down to the port it was to leave from. However, arriving at the port he had a strong sense of the leading as having been completed and so did not sail but turned around and went home! When I first heard that story I was again non-plussed on the level of getting stuff done in the world. And I must confess it certainly opens one up to looking very crazy to one's friends and neighbors! However, from a faith perspective I'm awe struck with the faithfulness of remaining listening not just after the initial urge to go and the initial steps were set in motion for going, but at each step. I'm also awed by the faithfulness to lay it down, regardless of how that looked, when he no longer felt the inner prompting!
In a similar example of my own impatience of youth, a woman moved to the Meeting I grew up in and was led to first have a clearness committee and then out of that ask the Meeting to record her as a minister. She indeed had great gifts of ministry. This caused a great uproar in my Meeting. It is a fact that all throughout Quaker history that Friends with a gift of ministry were so recorded, and were recorded with a leading to travel to minister with a certain message. Examples ranging from "how we will stay low" (meaning not in ego) to the vanity of lace! But despite these facts, no one had been recorded with a gift of ministry in my Yearly Meeting probably because of the conflict over "paid ministry" which was at the heart of the splits in Quakerism.
So some Friends in my Meeting found her request quite threatening or audacious. Others saw it as simply a historic footnote and could see no current relevance of doing such a thing. The Meeting discussed her request but did not reach consensus on it. To me if God had lead her to this then I felt there would be a long struggle in my Meeting to get others to understand this. But to my great surprise she announced that she had been faithful to the leading she had been given to her and that she found no further Light to proceed further and thus was content to lay the matter down. I remember feeling disappointed by this at the time, however, now I can again look in awe a the careful faithfulness to discern that the leading was complete. As I left home at that time I was not there to observe how this course of action may have impacted my Meeting or the woman who asked. But I'm sure that in someway it did because I believe the Creator always has a magnificent intent without accident!
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Sunday, January 18, 2015
Completing the work of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Jr Day. Much will undoubtedly be written about 50
years after key civil rights legislation and the sadly still needed “Black
Lives Matter” movement which is happening right now. For me this is the logical falling out of the
fact that Martin Luther King Jr did not get to finish his work before he was
taken from this earth. I have little
patience for those who simply want to say it is evidence that we have not
gotten very far. This is a superficial
understanding of institutional racism and the violence that interrupted attempts
to get to its root.
In the past year I have heard Tavis Smiley give an hour long
talk on his book Death of a King: The last 365 days of Martin Luther King,
Jr., and I have just seen the movie
Selma. Smiley makes the point that
after King came out against the Vietnam War his popularity took a huge
hit. Many people felt he was “going too
far” and that he was “off topic” by talking about the war. If you have never heard or read the talk
King gave on the war I encourage you too because his words were nothing short
of prophetic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b80Bsw0UG-U It will be 25 minutes well spent!
King very deftly ties in the role of capitalism in the
oppression of poor people of all races.
He uses the term revolution which won him a death sentence with the powers
that be. He was increasingly clear in
the last year of his life that we would have to change the economic classism of
our society if the role of Black people in US society was really to
change. He was in fact in Memphis to
support the garbage collectors at the time of his death because he was trying
to focus on the economic struggles of the poor.
I encourage people to follow the activities of Smiley and Dr. Cornwall
Davis as they have taken up in their previous Poverty Tour, the task of calling
American’s to complete the uncompleted work of MLK on economic equality!
King’s message was radical and that is why he suffered huge criticism
and shunning at the end of his life even from people who had been his
supporters. He states in the speech
that he “agrees with Dante that the hottest place in Hell is reserved for those
who in a time of moral crisis maintain their neutrality. There comes a time when silence is betrayal.” As someone who is a climate activist these
words remain timeless to me as they so well apply to our current crisis which
people remain silent about. It is also
ironic because as Smiley well documents many followers betrayed him by being
silent, not defending him against the verbal targeting in the difficult final year
of his life.
One of my favorite parts of his Vietnam speech is where he
says he finds it amazing that the same people who praise him for calling for
non-violence in the face of the violence of white man, Bull Connar, would
condemn him for calling for an end to US violence against the brown skinned
people of Vietnam. Here Martin
encounters the same experience that Quakers have for centuries that our call
for non-violence is ignored or found amusing until we make the call to our own
country to disarm at which point we are treated as traitors. But in the point he is making there and elsewhere
in the speech where he talks about the colonization of Vietnam, he is decades
ahead of his time in pointing to the colonial
and violent roots of racism!
While it has been known in movement circles for years that
The FBI had MLK watched all the time (apparently his own photographer was on
the payroll of the FBI), his phone tapped, and deliberately put women in his
path to seduce him and then sent tapes of him with the women to his wife to
weaken his marriage – it was surprising to me to see a mainstream movie
actually acknowledge that. I see within
the social justice movement and public in general when people wonder what harm
it is that the govt has recently revealed it has all our phone records…that we
have forgotten our history. We have
forgotten how the govt has used people’s personal information to target them
when they dissent.
I appreciate about both Tavis’ book and the movie Selma
their efforts to help those of us who lived through the civil rights movement
and those who have been born since to not forget our history. Many people believe the Republican talking
line that we have “outgrown” the need for the Voting Rights act. Perhaps when people can see the great
sacrifices that were made by African Americans in order to win the vote and the
deep systemic attitudes and practices that created obstacles to voting, then it
can be understood why things like requiring id to register to vote just starts
again the creation of obstacles for the poor to prevent voting.
When I hear people responding to Black Lives Matter by
thinking that the solution is simply to indict police officers who have shot
black citizen’s I again feel that there is a lack of understanding of the
deeply rooted racism. Yes they should
be held accountable, but that is a bandaid after the wound. We must first understand the deep fear and “otherness”
that racism creates that makes officers quick on the draw and quick to pull the
trigger. Only when we complete Martin’s work
will we make America safe for Black people.
Sunday, December 28, 2014
To be Tender
Early Friends were urged to be Tender with each other. Till fairly recently this admonishment seemed meaningless at best - overly sentimental at worst. That was before "James" was part of my Meeting. (Name changed to protect the innocent). James was a convinced Friend who became a member while attending our Meeting. He had been a Minister previously in another Church and for various reasons had left it. He did fairly often give vocal ministry which I enjoyed, as his messages to me seemed spirit led and used much metaphors, and were interesting. However, some in my Meeting were suspicious of the frequency of the messages and some began to think he still thought of himself as a minister and had simply found a new pulpit.
Then he had a run in on the committee he served on. One of the members of the committee who I have known and loved for a good dozen years confided to me how she found his deep voice intimidatingly reminiscent of her older brother who had been somewhat of a bully. Another member of the committee would much later complain that he did not appropriately understand Quaker process and had too much of an agenda.
Eventually things came to a head during a business Meeting. As I was someone who felt warmly towards him and was not bothered by his general behavior, but did understand the concerns of others I was asked to give him a call. I did - during the call he referred to someone who had spent years caring for our property as "controlling", and my friend who unbeknownst to him was afraid of him as "silently disapproving."
On one level it was somewhat amusing to see how her fearfulness of him was interpreted by him as "silent disapproving." For a moment I wanted to tell him about her brother, but thought better of it. I am not one who believes in big T truth - I think truth looks very different depending upon which side of the road you are standing on when the cars crash. So while I prefer to see the member of property committee as motivated by love and devotion rather than power...I can not dismiss that from another perspective it could look that way.
Which brings me to being tender with each other. The more we know each other, in love, there is forbearance. When we know each other well enough to know others insecurities, hopes, values, experiences there is a protection against misreading each others intentions, and a gentling of how we respond- even when we disagree. When we listen in the spirit we can listen for that of God in each of us. And when we trust that we are entering business in a worshipful manner then we can also trust that others share from Spirit and measure these sharings against Spirits leading. We can have forbearance for the imperfect vessels that we each are when we speak. We can see the insecurities, timidity - or pride and stubbornness - as slight imperfections in the vessel currently trying to deliver Source to each other.
I struggled as I tried to talk to James - and ultimately failed - to explain that these traits he was bothered by were simply imperfections in a vessel delivering the truth as they knew it. But I failed because at least then James did not understand Quakerism well enough to have a that picture of what we are attempting in Quaker business practice - to both speak and listen for the truth. He knew a different paradigm from another church where people argue for the truth and persuade and decisions are made by majority sentiment. So I could not find a way to tell him the value of being tender with each other.
I have recently been reminded of another way we are tender with each other. Members of my Meeting keep getting dementia....we are on our 4th or 5th in the dozen and half years that I have belonged to my Meeting. One man was always very touched by the children's return to the worship room in the last 10 minutes and would frequently rise to remind us that the Bible says: "We will come into the Kingdom like little children." Another woman found many occasions to tell us with delight that of all the woman her husband had known that he had chosen her as his wife - how proud she was to be his wife (this was particularly sweet to me after their 60 some years of marriage that she still sounded like a besotted teenage girl!) Most recently a member of our Meeting with Alzheimer's tells us weekly how he came to serve on the Church Council of Greater Seattle on our behalf, and how impressed he was by the people of all different faiths, all trying to do good, all good people. His wife is embarrassed that he tells this so often. I try to tell her not be - because we all understand. This for me is part of being tender to each other. It is fine for me once a week to know how deeply that experience of ecumenicalism touched his soul. In all three cases I feel like some of their beauty has been revealed to me in their dementia. So part of being tender to each other is also seeing each other more clearly in our diminishment.
Then he had a run in on the committee he served on. One of the members of the committee who I have known and loved for a good dozen years confided to me how she found his deep voice intimidatingly reminiscent of her older brother who had been somewhat of a bully. Another member of the committee would much later complain that he did not appropriately understand Quaker process and had too much of an agenda.
Eventually things came to a head during a business Meeting. As I was someone who felt warmly towards him and was not bothered by his general behavior, but did understand the concerns of others I was asked to give him a call. I did - during the call he referred to someone who had spent years caring for our property as "controlling", and my friend who unbeknownst to him was afraid of him as "silently disapproving."
On one level it was somewhat amusing to see how her fearfulness of him was interpreted by him as "silent disapproving." For a moment I wanted to tell him about her brother, but thought better of it. I am not one who believes in big T truth - I think truth looks very different depending upon which side of the road you are standing on when the cars crash. So while I prefer to see the member of property committee as motivated by love and devotion rather than power...I can not dismiss that from another perspective it could look that way.
Which brings me to being tender with each other. The more we know each other, in love, there is forbearance. When we know each other well enough to know others insecurities, hopes, values, experiences there is a protection against misreading each others intentions, and a gentling of how we respond- even when we disagree. When we listen in the spirit we can listen for that of God in each of us. And when we trust that we are entering business in a worshipful manner then we can also trust that others share from Spirit and measure these sharings against Spirits leading. We can have forbearance for the imperfect vessels that we each are when we speak. We can see the insecurities, timidity - or pride and stubbornness - as slight imperfections in the vessel currently trying to deliver Source to each other.
I struggled as I tried to talk to James - and ultimately failed - to explain that these traits he was bothered by were simply imperfections in a vessel delivering the truth as they knew it. But I failed because at least then James did not understand Quakerism well enough to have a that picture of what we are attempting in Quaker business practice - to both speak and listen for the truth. He knew a different paradigm from another church where people argue for the truth and persuade and decisions are made by majority sentiment. So I could not find a way to tell him the value of being tender with each other.
I have recently been reminded of another way we are tender with each other. Members of my Meeting keep getting dementia....we are on our 4th or 5th in the dozen and half years that I have belonged to my Meeting. One man was always very touched by the children's return to the worship room in the last 10 minutes and would frequently rise to remind us that the Bible says: "We will come into the Kingdom like little children." Another woman found many occasions to tell us with delight that of all the woman her husband had known that he had chosen her as his wife - how proud she was to be his wife (this was particularly sweet to me after their 60 some years of marriage that she still sounded like a besotted teenage girl!) Most recently a member of our Meeting with Alzheimer's tells us weekly how he came to serve on the Church Council of Greater Seattle on our behalf, and how impressed he was by the people of all different faiths, all trying to do good, all good people. His wife is embarrassed that he tells this so often. I try to tell her not be - because we all understand. This for me is part of being tender to each other. It is fine for me once a week to know how deeply that experience of ecumenicalism touched his soul. In all three cases I feel like some of their beauty has been revealed to me in their dementia. So part of being tender to each other is also seeing each other more clearly in our diminishment.
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
Faithfully Delivered
There is a well known Quaker joke: Two men sit next to each other on a bench. The one shakes for a long time in Meeting and yet never rises. Eventually the other man rises and gives a message. The Meeting for Worship ends and the second man turns to the shaker at the rise of Meeting and says: "Next time give your own damn message." This is funny to Quakers (yeah try giving this joke to a group of non-Quakers... you have to explain the joke just to get polite smiles.) because we recognize what it is to sit on a leading to speak. We have all done it at some time. I have also heard people say "Yeah not going to do that again...not worth the heart attack" meaning that the racing of the heart and the butterflies in the stomach felt while not delivery the message are not worth it!
We all also have stories of times where people's messages deeply spoke to us which, is both magical and a deep motivation to faithfully deliver messages given to us. My own story of that happened on an occasion where I had gone to not my own Meeting, but a local meeting in Jan the Sunday after Martin Luther King Day. On that Sunday I was deep in thought concerned about an issue concerning my then step-son and feeling somehow like two cherished values were pitted against each other and trying somehow to figure out which one was actually more important or how to reconcile them. Towards the end a young man rose and said: "I went to the Martin Luther King march this Monday and I was very struck during the pre-rally by how someone quoted him saying: " But I want to tell you this evening that it is not enough for us to talk about love, love is one of the pivotal points of the Christian faith. There is another side called justice. And justice is really love in calculation. Justice is love correcting that which revolts against love". As I heard this it shot through me "Oh yes Love. Love is the answer. Love trumps all and I had forgotten this.
After Meeting I went to him and thanked him for being faithful in delivering the message because it had spoken to my condition. His eyes got big. He said: "I have never spoken in Meeting before and I did not know why I should just repeat that quote. It seemed silly, but I kept shaking so I finally did." Both parts of this story are important -that he was faithful and spoke to my condition and that I let him know as this wound up being an eldering in the importance of being faithful. Interestingly, I had had a strong urge to go tell him. I also had been faithful to the inward prompting. This would be an example of how we are one of another in community. I would also note here that I did not say "I liked your message", but "thank you for being faithful". This is an important distinction; when we thank Friends for "their message" we add to the confusion about where messages come from and tempt the ego of the one who delivered.
I remember once going to a Meeting in another town and being given a message, but no prompting to give it. I was confused by this and spent much of the hour trying to decide whether to give it, but eventually concluded that I was not to. I wound up thinking it was a message that God intended only for me. And in fact it was meaningful to me for quite a while. Then one Sunday in my Meeting I somehow felt moved to give the message. "Really God?" "Yes really" So I stood and gave the message. Later a Friend who did not often come to Meeting, came and thanked me for the message saying how much the message meant to her. Wow, I had no idea that God could work in such a way!
I'm not sure if that is the oddest way The Holy One has brought a message to Meeting through me or if it would be this story. I once woke on a Sunday morning from a dream in which I had been in Meeting for worship and one of our Members had sung a message and some other thing had happened. I went to Meeting and thought about this dream - after a while I started feeling the familiar stomach sensations indicating to deliver the message. 'really?...but this is a dream its not a message" Yes really! So I rose and told the dream and sat down embarrassed. Late,r the person who had sang in my dream came to me and said that she had been for several months been getting words to a new song in Meeting for worship but did not think of herself as a song writer and so had not written them down. We looked at each other and she said: "I guess I had better write them down huh?" She did and some months later sang the song for Meeting.
In my Yearly Meeting there was for two years a Clerk who was very good at racing through the agenda, but not very good, it seemed, to listening to the Spirit. In his first year an issue arose where the nominating committee was not being able to get people to agree to serve on committees. So they took the position of laying themselves down to force the Yearly Meeting to look at the issue. However, as people began in business meeting to look deeply and focus on what was wrong in our Yearly Meeting, the clerk abruptly cut off discussion in favor of simply having an Ad Hoc committee create a new nominating committee. Later, I simply thanked the tearful clerk of nominating for being faithful. For it was clear to me that she had been faithful in delivering a painful message, and that she had done all that was her part, but was thwarted by others not listening in the Spirit.
The next year we were down to the last hour of business in this clerk's term and again someone began to question the creation of yet another committee to try to solve the same problem that we had quite possibly created a committee earlier in the morning to solve. The question was again raised what is wrong in our Yearly Meeting? This time speaker after speaker rose speaking of their distress about the condition of our Yearly Meeting, the non-spiritual nature of business meeting, etc. It was like a geyser that could not be contained. The clerk again tried to cut off the discussion, but this time a young woman, not even from our Yearly Meeting rose in tears about the her sense of the Spirit being stiffled and plead that we would sit in silence and listen to the Spirit and so this time (and in part because worship was next on the schedule) the clerk surrendered and the messages poured out for another half an hour. For me this was a very powerful example of how Spirit is determined to be heard and will use every faithful voice in the room to bring the truth home.
What dear Friend is your experience of being Faithful in delivering a message?
We all also have stories of times where people's messages deeply spoke to us which, is both magical and a deep motivation to faithfully deliver messages given to us. My own story of that happened on an occasion where I had gone to not my own Meeting, but a local meeting in Jan the Sunday after Martin Luther King Day. On that Sunday I was deep in thought concerned about an issue concerning my then step-son and feeling somehow like two cherished values were pitted against each other and trying somehow to figure out which one was actually more important or how to reconcile them. Towards the end a young man rose and said: "I went to the Martin Luther King march this Monday and I was very struck during the pre-rally by how someone quoted him saying: " But I want to tell you this evening that it is not enough for us to talk about love, love is one of the pivotal points of the Christian faith. There is another side called justice. And justice is really love in calculation. Justice is love correcting that which revolts against love". As I heard this it shot through me "Oh yes Love. Love is the answer. Love trumps all and I had forgotten this.
After Meeting I went to him and thanked him for being faithful in delivering the message because it had spoken to my condition. His eyes got big. He said: "I have never spoken in Meeting before and I did not know why I should just repeat that quote. It seemed silly, but I kept shaking so I finally did." Both parts of this story are important -that he was faithful and spoke to my condition and that I let him know as this wound up being an eldering in the importance of being faithful. Interestingly, I had had a strong urge to go tell him. I also had been faithful to the inward prompting. This would be an example of how we are one of another in community. I would also note here that I did not say "I liked your message", but "thank you for being faithful". This is an important distinction; when we thank Friends for "their message" we add to the confusion about where messages come from and tempt the ego of the one who delivered.
I remember once going to a Meeting in another town and being given a message, but no prompting to give it. I was confused by this and spent much of the hour trying to decide whether to give it, but eventually concluded that I was not to. I wound up thinking it was a message that God intended only for me. And in fact it was meaningful to me for quite a while. Then one Sunday in my Meeting I somehow felt moved to give the message. "Really God?" "Yes really" So I stood and gave the message. Later a Friend who did not often come to Meeting, came and thanked me for the message saying how much the message meant to her. Wow, I had no idea that God could work in such a way!
I'm not sure if that is the oddest way The Holy One has brought a message to Meeting through me or if it would be this story. I once woke on a Sunday morning from a dream in which I had been in Meeting for worship and one of our Members had sung a message and some other thing had happened. I went to Meeting and thought about this dream - after a while I started feeling the familiar stomach sensations indicating to deliver the message. 'really?...but this is a dream its not a message" Yes really! So I rose and told the dream and sat down embarrassed. Late,r the person who had sang in my dream came to me and said that she had been for several months been getting words to a new song in Meeting for worship but did not think of herself as a song writer and so had not written them down. We looked at each other and she said: "I guess I had better write them down huh?" She did and some months later sang the song for Meeting.
In my Yearly Meeting there was for two years a Clerk who was very good at racing through the agenda, but not very good, it seemed, to listening to the Spirit. In his first year an issue arose where the nominating committee was not being able to get people to agree to serve on committees. So they took the position of laying themselves down to force the Yearly Meeting to look at the issue. However, as people began in business meeting to look deeply and focus on what was wrong in our Yearly Meeting, the clerk abruptly cut off discussion in favor of simply having an Ad Hoc committee create a new nominating committee. Later, I simply thanked the tearful clerk of nominating for being faithful. For it was clear to me that she had been faithful in delivering a painful message, and that she had done all that was her part, but was thwarted by others not listening in the Spirit.
The next year we were down to the last hour of business in this clerk's term and again someone began to question the creation of yet another committee to try to solve the same problem that we had quite possibly created a committee earlier in the morning to solve. The question was again raised what is wrong in our Yearly Meeting? This time speaker after speaker rose speaking of their distress about the condition of our Yearly Meeting, the non-spiritual nature of business meeting, etc. It was like a geyser that could not be contained. The clerk again tried to cut off the discussion, but this time a young woman, not even from our Yearly Meeting rose in tears about the her sense of the Spirit being stiffled and plead that we would sit in silence and listen to the Spirit and so this time (and in part because worship was next on the schedule) the clerk surrendered and the messages poured out for another half an hour. For me this was a very powerful example of how Spirit is determined to be heard and will use every faithful voice in the room to bring the truth home.
What dear Friend is your experience of being Faithful in delivering a message?
Friday, October 31, 2014
Expectant Waiting
Do we expect to find God at Meeting for Worship? Excuse this bold question, but it has come to me that I think maybe we don't really. How would are Meetings be different if in fact we did expect that every time we settled into silence?
Some months ago I got up late and decided instead of going to my Meeting I would go to another Meeting in my neighborhood which meets later on Sunday. As I settled into worship I realized that I was excited. I did not know most of the worshipers. I had no preconceived ideas about who would usually speak or what they would usually say. (Sound familiar?). And because it is a large Meeting I felt fairly sure that a message would be given.
I wound up giving a message because as I noticed my excitement I realized that it was "expectant waiting" and with that phrase I remembered that this is actually the spirit in which we are invited by our traditions to wait in silence for the Holy One to speak...through us. Ironically, Spirit seemed to want me to speak and remind Friends gathered that this is what we are waiting for.
I think modern Friends are very easily losing this idea. I have heard Friends from different Meetings across the country complain about Friends who come with a book to read from "for inspiration" or the now famous NY Times headline message, or its' sister the book report message. Additionally, I have heard Friends complain about the person who speaks every Sunday or who speaks clearly not from the Spirit. But primarily they are complaining about Friends not following protocol. I do wish they were complaining about our failure to expect Spirit to show up.
After all this is really not different from those of us who go for "peace and quiet" from our families, "a place to think", for the fellowship, or to sit and try to figure out our problems. All of these fail to wait expectantly for Divine whisperings although we follow protocol.
In fact I think that most Friends would not make a distinction between a Living silence and a dead silence. Next time your in Meeting try to notice...which is it? Recently a member of my Meeting told a very funny story to which we all laughed about how when her kids were young they arrived late one day and she was fussing about this and her daughter said: "Don't worry Mom, I think we are late enough that they will all already be asleep." Amusing as this, I think it speaks to a dead silence if a child cannot feel anything moving in that silence. In fact my teenager complains that the Young Friends do not like to come to business meeting with us in any of their Meetings because they cannot feel the Spirit present or available to us in our conducting of business.
This of course brings us to the problem: how do we bring forth a living silence in our Meetings and an expectant waiting? Well some of this may have to do with what we have lost when we did away with the facing bench and the elders. They were not just grim old folks who stared down at the other members. Part of their "job" was actually to hold the Meeting for Worship in prayer - to attempt to ground the whole Meeting for Worship. I remember once when I was on Ministry and Worship suggesting that the member of the committee who had responsibility for breaking Meeting also hold the Meeting in prayer during the whole Meeting. I no longer remember what we concluded about that experiment, but I do remember that during that same time I often felt we had Gathered Meetings. What if we asked our whole Meeting to do such an experiment on the same Sunday?
And of course there is always how do we tend to the Life of the Spirit in our Meeting for worship throughout the month? Do we tend our own spiritual life? Do we prepare for worship? Do we use worship sharing formats to share with each other about our spiritual lives? So often we meet in Silence and have no real personal exchanges and do not know each other spiritually. Early Friends lived in small farming communities where they knew the members of Meeting as their neighbors and local business owners. They did not have to have sharing time at Meeting to know of births and deaths and other highs and lows of the lives of their fellow members. But now we don't know unless we create a way to know. My Meeting started at tradition over a decade ago of during the last 10 minutes of Meeting for Worship we ask for the sharing of joys and concerns to be shared in the spirit of worship. (We added that last phrase to remind or inform new folks that we expect still to have silence before and after each sharing. But we do not hold the same bar of expecting a divine prompting to share a joy or concern.) Occasionally regular messages are also still shared during this time as well. In my opinion it has deepened our community because we know each other better.
I have heard Friends from different Meetings describe starting worship by focusing for a moment on each Member present (and sometimes even those absent) and holding them in Light. This is something only possible when we know each other in personal ways, but it again speaks to this idea of grounding into worship. Prayer is something we can do any where, but to come into communal worship - to expect to be used by Spirit for each other and to be ministered to by Spirit through each other is a very different matter indeed.
Some months ago I got up late and decided instead of going to my Meeting I would go to another Meeting in my neighborhood which meets later on Sunday. As I settled into worship I realized that I was excited. I did not know most of the worshipers. I had no preconceived ideas about who would usually speak or what they would usually say. (Sound familiar?). And because it is a large Meeting I felt fairly sure that a message would be given.
I wound up giving a message because as I noticed my excitement I realized that it was "expectant waiting" and with that phrase I remembered that this is actually the spirit in which we are invited by our traditions to wait in silence for the Holy One to speak...through us. Ironically, Spirit seemed to want me to speak and remind Friends gathered that this is what we are waiting for.
I think modern Friends are very easily losing this idea. I have heard Friends from different Meetings across the country complain about Friends who come with a book to read from "for inspiration" or the now famous NY Times headline message, or its' sister the book report message. Additionally, I have heard Friends complain about the person who speaks every Sunday or who speaks clearly not from the Spirit. But primarily they are complaining about Friends not following protocol. I do wish they were complaining about our failure to expect Spirit to show up.
After all this is really not different from those of us who go for "peace and quiet" from our families, "a place to think", for the fellowship, or to sit and try to figure out our problems. All of these fail to wait expectantly for Divine whisperings although we follow protocol.
In fact I think that most Friends would not make a distinction between a Living silence and a dead silence. Next time your in Meeting try to notice...which is it? Recently a member of my Meeting told a very funny story to which we all laughed about how when her kids were young they arrived late one day and she was fussing about this and her daughter said: "Don't worry Mom, I think we are late enough that they will all already be asleep." Amusing as this, I think it speaks to a dead silence if a child cannot feel anything moving in that silence. In fact my teenager complains that the Young Friends do not like to come to business meeting with us in any of their Meetings because they cannot feel the Spirit present or available to us in our conducting of business.
This of course brings us to the problem: how do we bring forth a living silence in our Meetings and an expectant waiting? Well some of this may have to do with what we have lost when we did away with the facing bench and the elders. They were not just grim old folks who stared down at the other members. Part of their "job" was actually to hold the Meeting for Worship in prayer - to attempt to ground the whole Meeting for Worship. I remember once when I was on Ministry and Worship suggesting that the member of the committee who had responsibility for breaking Meeting also hold the Meeting in prayer during the whole Meeting. I no longer remember what we concluded about that experiment, but I do remember that during that same time I often felt we had Gathered Meetings. What if we asked our whole Meeting to do such an experiment on the same Sunday?
And of course there is always how do we tend to the Life of the Spirit in our Meeting for worship throughout the month? Do we tend our own spiritual life? Do we prepare for worship? Do we use worship sharing formats to share with each other about our spiritual lives? So often we meet in Silence and have no real personal exchanges and do not know each other spiritually. Early Friends lived in small farming communities where they knew the members of Meeting as their neighbors and local business owners. They did not have to have sharing time at Meeting to know of births and deaths and other highs and lows of the lives of their fellow members. But now we don't know unless we create a way to know. My Meeting started at tradition over a decade ago of during the last 10 minutes of Meeting for Worship we ask for the sharing of joys and concerns to be shared in the spirit of worship. (We added that last phrase to remind or inform new folks that we expect still to have silence before and after each sharing. But we do not hold the same bar of expecting a divine prompting to share a joy or concern.) Occasionally regular messages are also still shared during this time as well. In my opinion it has deepened our community because we know each other better.
I have heard Friends from different Meetings describe starting worship by focusing for a moment on each Member present (and sometimes even those absent) and holding them in Light. This is something only possible when we know each other in personal ways, but it again speaks to this idea of grounding into worship. Prayer is something we can do any where, but to come into communal worship - to expect to be used by Spirit for each other and to be ministered to by Spirit through each other is a very different matter indeed.
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
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?
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?
Sunday, August 31, 2014
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)