Past due: Reflections on book reading at FGC Gathering

Thanks to Robin, who wanted to know how the reading went when I introduced the book Writing Cheerfully on the Web during this past summer's FGC Gathering.

I was on the phone with QuakerBooks' co-manager Lucy Duncan in the early fall of 2008:

"That sounds like a worthwhile project, Liz," she may have said to me back then. "If you can finish the book in time for the summer Gathering, we can give you a reading slot to help promote it during the week."

When I first realized that the seed of an idea had taken root in me at the 2008 Gathering in Johnstown, Pennsylvania--to self-publish a collection of Quaker blogposts--I hadn't given it any thought as to how to get the word out. The steps that were directly in front of me included flying the idea of such a book by a few other blogging friends, and figuring out a way to identify potential blog posts to be included.

But Lucy's offer gave me incentive to stick with the project, and in February of 2009, I got an unexpected call from her:

"I'm calling to find out if you want a slot during the Gathering to promote your book. How's it coming? We're finalizing the schedule now for book readings because we have to get information about our events to the university..."

I was relieved that I could tell her, in fact, that the book project was moving right along and I thought I could have it complete by mid-June. I offered to read during the Monday slot that was available. The only other time slot I was offered, best as I can recall, was a Friday afternoon one--but I worried that Gathering attenders would fizzle out after the long week.

When I arrived at the Gathering in Blacksburg this year, I took time to find the handout that listed all the pre-scheduled events for Monday. The book reading was there--and so was another event, a panel of well-respected Friends, speaking on the topic "Living into Prophetic Witness."

Now, it's true that at every afternoon and evening time slot available at Gathering, there usually are two or three great-sounding events going on at the same time and people just have to pick one, based on intuition, discernment, or the Fear of Missing Something.

In this case, ooooooh, I seriously thought about canceling my book reading so I could attend the panel. I remember that Amanda Kemp was one of the panelists, along with Noah Baker Merrill and a few others.

But no, I had a commitment and I kept it. Plus, I had known that a few bloggers who are represented in the book would also attend, and I was curious who would show up and what I would say.

As I usually do, I looked at the room where the reading was going to be the day before. It wasn't a room at all: it was a loft area over the main part of the Gathering store, and wow, did the conversations in the bookstore below carry! I went into problem-solving mode: when I have too much noise in the background, I have a hard time focusing.

After I got the green light to move the chairs, I took time to rearrange the room about half an hour before the reading was to begin, facing the chairs toward a corner that I hoped would help absorb the voices and noise of the activity below. It did.

The next thing I had to face, like the upward carriage of the noise from below, was the rising of my own ego. I wasn't feeling grounded at all, and I could tell my hubris wanted to insist that I was better than this room arrangement and deserved more attention than what I was getting.

Bleah, how I dislike myself when I feel that sort of entitlement rising within me. I think that's when I made the decision that I'd start the reading with worship and ask for prayer support during my remarks.

Kody and Peterson came in as Jeanne and I were finishing organizing chairs. I was glad to see both of them and felt that familiar unspoken motion of Love pass between us, deeply appreciating their presence as well as the support I had from Jeanne.

A few others came in--maybe a dozen or so Friends--and a few minutes later, FGC's Publications Manager Barbara Mays introduced me, and we were off. I decided not to read anything from the book directly, though I spoke about topics that were in the introduction and where the idea for the Quaker blog reader came from.

Then I opened it up for questions, and at times I turned to my fellow bloggers to respond. That was a relief, to not feel like I had to have The Perfect Answer to a question and instead to allow others to contribute. In some ways, it felt like an online conversation, with Friends chipping in to speak to pieces I had overlooked, or to expand on something that had caught the attention of someone else. Unfortunately, I don't recall the questions that were asked. I think I was working so hard to stay present and to keep low...

By the end of the discussion, the room was filled, if not with people, then with intense curiosity and energized attentiveness from those who had come and who had truly wanted to learn more about the Quaker blogosphere and its part on the sense of renewal that has been rippling throughout our meetings and worship groups.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It's been more than two-and-a-half months since the book made its debut, and a few people have been asking me how sales have been going. In a recent call to QuakerBooks, a staff person there told me that he thought sales were going very well: in addition to the books they had sold to Gathering attenders, they had sold others to people who called in orders or placed orders online, with other copies being sold through booktables at various yearly meeting sessions.

I'll toss out a reminder here that there is a 20% discount available for books that are ordered for use by book study groups, as described on QuakerBook's page on Customer Service.

A few people have written up their own thoughts about the book, including Tania of the Friendly Funnel and Robin from What Canst Thou Say. If others of you have written about Writing Cheerfully on the Web, I hope you'll speak up and point us to your post!

Thanks again to so many of you for your support, encouragement, and involvement in this project, whether it was suggesting a blog post to be included, completing the survey that helped shape the final product, attending one of the interest groups about Convergent Friends that were held at the Gathering, or actually buying a copy of the book for yourself, a friend, or your meeting's library.

It's been absolutely humbling to be able to serve the wider Quaker community in this way.

Blessings,
Liz

FGC Gathering 2009: Shane Claiborne

At the start of my previous post, I make some comparisons between the first two plenary speakers at the 2009 FGC Gathering, Ben Pink Dandelion and Shane Claiborne.

Here I'll repeat some of the opening remarks I noted in the last post:

Both Ben Pink Dandelion and Shane Claiborne called us to greater faithfulness and greater care to looking at what we possess and what we profess.

Below, as in the previous post, are a number of quips, ideas, and stories I jotted down during Shane's plenary. Too much time has passed between having heard it and writing about it now, so I giving myself permission to type things into a list of what I noted, rather than formulating a cohesive blogpost.

Initial thoughts

In the notebook I took with me to his plenary, in the margins of the first page, I have these words:

a sort of caricature
not humble
evangelical
zeal
enthusiasm
revivalist

It's not that Shane was prideful or boastful as much as he was on fire: He believes in what he says. He professes what he possesses.

I short, I think he reflects the George Fox I carry in my mind: How accepted would Shane Claiborne be if he were to start ministering to us 21st Century Quakers out of the silence during a meeting for worship...?

But being a plenary speaker at Gathering provides the speaker with a great deal of advanced forgiveness from the audience of mostly Liberal Quakers. After all, plenary is not a meeting for worship and there must be a reason why FGC and its Gathering Committee invited him in the first place, right?

By the way, FGC will likely have all the plenaries available in CD later in 2009, through its QuakerBooks.

Shane Claiborne

When people ask me what I do, I tell them I'm a preacher. Then they look at me--Shane is a young white man, wears baggy clothes, and has long dreadlocks--and say, "They don't make preachers like they used to." And I say, "Thank God!"

What I love about Jesus is his imagination, like having the idea to turn water into wine, to keep the party going. Or healing a blind man by spitting on dirt. Jesus brings redemption in unexpected ways.

The gospels spread best not through force but through fascination. Jesus doesn't insist on who he is or isn't. When people asked Jesus, "Are you the Messiah?" he would answer "Tell me what you see, what you hear."

These are the current day perceptions of Christians by people who are outside the Church:

Anti-gay
Judgemental
Hypocrites.

The Church must do something in order for Christians to be seen by others as being connected with:

Grace
Love
Justice and peace.

After telling a story about how he bought an ice cream cone for a child in a very poor village, Shane describes how the child called around all of his friends--and the child passes the ice cream cone to each one so each child may have a lick of it. Then Shane says:

Here is the secret of Jesus: Give away the best things in life to others.

Another tidbit from Shane: Mother Teresa would wear the worst of all the pairs of donated shoes so that she would know no one would have a worse pair than she.

Christians have so much to say with our mouths and so little to show with our lives.

How can we worship a homeless man on Sunday and ignore a homeless man on Monday?

The reputation of Christianity and the reputation of America are closely linked, especially outside of America. People are seeing things done in the name of Jesus that didn't look like the love of Jesus.

American didn't invent Christianity. It only domesticated it.

An idea for a T-shirt: Everyone wants a revolution but no one wants to do the dishes.

My own afterthoughts

Less of Shane's plenary spoke to my condition than did Ben's. Some of it may have to do with the fact that I wasn't raised in the Christian faith tradition and Shane isn't Quaker. Many of Shane's stories referred to his own Christian practice and belief, not specifically Quakerism. Ben's stories and remarks, on the other hand, were more directly connected to Quakerism.

I also think social class differences between Shane and me impacted my ability to listen deeply to what he was saying. A number of his stories come from his background having grown up in the poorer parts of the South [in the States] and of his life on a farm or of experiences that his farming family and friends had.

All the words in the world can't adequately convey the experiences that we internalize in our youth, and Shane's storytelling, outrageous humor, and personal decisions about his path simply don't correspond to my own. I left the plenary wondering if Shane's voice is authentic, or if it is a ministry or gift he has to be able to share the voice of so many others through his stories?

I won't know the answer but he made me laugh. And he made me wonder about the judgments that I have about "evangelists" and whether I would have been turned off by George Fox or if the Light would have still reached me, despite the words it was cloaked in...

Blessings,
Liz

FGC Gathering 2009: Ben Pink Dandelion

I suppose I'm not ready to write about the workshop I took, Quakers & Social Class, because I'm still integrating the experience to a significant degree. That is, I'm wrestling with doing so.

Opening night at the Gathering provides the traditional welcome to the 1,500 participants, and more often than not, I've been skipping that first night, since it's usually a preview of the week, a massive "roll call" of affiliated yearly and monthly meetings, and other things that I'm less interested in.

But this year, I was especially curious to hear two of the plenary speakers: British Friend Ben Pink Dandelion and American Methodist-born preacher-author Shane Claiborne, just because their names have been around the block and then some.

Ben Pink Dandelion spoke the second night; Shane Claiborne the next. Their styles and presentations were quite different.

Ben wore a dress shirt and slacks and spoke with a thick, upper-class British accent, Enunciating Every Consonant And Every Word Completely And Clearly. Shane wore baggy pants and a loose fitting shirt--maybe an undershirt or plain white cotton T-shirt, like what I might wear for doing housework, and his vernacular was clearly "from the South," as we Yankees in the States say. He strung sentences together in a flurry and laughed easily and raised his voice regularly to make his points.

Ben had his humorous moments, to be sure, but it was an "acceptable" humor that White, middle-class, and upper-class Americans could appreciate. Shane's humor was more visceral, more graphic, more let's-get-real, this-is-how-it-is girls-and-boys. I needed to take more deep breaths when I was listening to Shane than to Ben. Chalk it up to differences in social class. (See? It's everywhere.)

Both men called us to greater faithfulness and greater care to looking at what we possess and what we profess.

Below and (hopefully) in the next post are a number of quips, ideas, and stories I jotted down during the two plenaries. Too much time has passed between having heard each one and writing about it now, so I giving myself permission to type things into a list of what I noted, rather than formulating a cohesive blogpost.

By the way, FGC will likely have all the plenaries available in CD later in 2009, through its QuakerBooks. And some of what Ben covered is in this teeny tiny pamphlet of his, Celebrating the Quaker Way, as well as in his 2003 presentation, Convinced Quakerism.

Ben Pink Dandelion

After making a few opening remarks about his background and his name, Ben launched into sharing some of his own spiritual journey, traveling from a life of hedonism to one of faithfulness.

At one point early on in his remarks, he spoke about his sense of having lived "an accompanied life," a sentiment I can often relate to, that there is a Spirit, a Principle that accompanies me...

He spoke about how the desire for a faithful life leads to a more serious life, which in turn leads to a more joyful life, and one with more laughter.

Ben described what he sees as the six stages of convincement, much of which he's also delineated in Convinced Quakerism, pp. 11-12:

1. The breaking-in of God in our lives, allowing us direct and immediate access to the Divine.

2. The Light showing us how things really are, being "convicted of our sin."

3. Our understanding that there is a choice and a possibility for change.

4. Being given the power to live that life, to be transformed.

5. The pulling together of others (Friends) into a community.

6. Sharing with one another and with others what we have found.

Since I am a "process queen"--I love how we develop and move through stages of understanding, of personal and spiritual growth--I was eager to hear more from Ben about these six stages. Sadly, as Ben went spinning into historical quotations by Fox, Penington, and others, I no longer could track which quote was related to what stage. Perhaps I'll take a closer look at his pamphlet...

Some other things Ben spoke to:

The more we surrender, the more we are given.

Fox's experience was inward, not outward and not "inner." Fox's was an interiorized experience.

Early Friends had an intimate relationship with God. We seek a sort of replacement of our old self with God's power, coming through us...

Fox believed in original sin and that all of us can be saved. That is what is meant by "perfectability."

Formal membership in the Religious Society of Friends began in the 1730s as a way to record which Quaker meetings would offer up "poor relief" to Friends who were suffering because of their convictions.

Quakers historically refused to engage in the manners of the world in order to further God's purposes on Earth (plain dress, plain speech; no hat honor, no tithes, no pagan-named months and days; keeping fixed prices... "No eBay!" declared Ben).

Today, many of us and many of our meetings are in fact caught up in the manners of the world, without accountability to our monthly meetings about what is or isn't Quaker.

These days, modern Friends "opt in and out" of certain testimonies, such as saying, "I support the testimony of simplicity but I have trouble with the peace testimony." But in the early days, Friends' Books of Discipline pointed to life as Testimony.

Once convinced, the sense of transformation continued day after day, and every day and every place was seen as sacred.

At one point, Ben spoke directly to us:

At this Gathering, we look like a luxuried people.

Ben offered a few queries, related to pulling us into community as part of the convincement experience:

How is community realized for us? How do we take the mountaintop experience into our life? How do we transcend the individualism of society?

Why are we always learning to "go elsewhere" and always going away via technology? Why talk about being a 21st Century Friend? Why separate ourselves from the past and the future?

Again, he spoke to us:

We're not Friends because we're good. We need each other to help us along in our faithfulness and activism.

Defining Liberal Friends... and our creedal ways

Ben draws on John Wilhelm Rowntree and Rufus Jones to look at the characteristics of Liberal Quakers, and these are also explained in Convinced Quakerism, p. 3:

1. Experience as primary, not Scripture.
2. Faith is relevant to the age we are in.
3. Friends are open to new Light.
4. We know more of God in each age, therefore the new Light we are given has more authority than what came before.

Today as Liberal Friends, we're cautious about what place belief has in Quakerism.

We know we don't have a creed, but we have a credal attitude toward what we believe and how we are.

It is a powerful source of our identity, to have a doctrine of seeking. The tTruth is personal, or it is somehow apportioned to individuals.

Today's Quaker message [from Liberal Friends] is that we are certain that we are a little uncertain of our belief. An "absolute perhaps," if you will.

Total "finders" will be in tension with a group of Liberal Friends. Those Friends who have been eldered [sic: admonished] for certain ministry may in fact have been [admonished] for their certainty.

It may be the "absolute perhaps" that will allow us to transcend the schisms among Friends.

What binds us together

1. Direct encounter of the Spirit.
2. Meeting for Worship for Business.
3. The priesthood of all believers.
4. Our Testimony [I'm not sure if he meant our life as testimony or "the" testimonies, or something else].

A Young Adult Friend during another presentation or discussion elsewhere pointed out that there are a few other, less pleasant things that also bind us together as a religious society:

1. Self-righteousness and pride.
2. Superficial witness in the world.
3. Ungrounded worship.

A few closing thoughts by Ben

Be careful: Quakerism is the vehicle of our life, not the object of our worship.

We need incarnational spirituality: Are we living in the Power, or are we just saying we are?

We need to be possessing while we are professing.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

In case that isn't enough to chew on, I hope to be sharing some of Shane's comments in the subsequent post.

As always, thanks for reading me.

Blessings,
Liz

Some initial reflections about FGC Gathering 2009

I'm intending to write separately about my experience in the Quakers & Social Class workshop that George Lakey led at Gathering. Before that, though, here are some less complex events and experiences I had while I was away from home.

A visit to Ploughshares Farm

One of the first people we saw on our 3-day car ride from Minnesota to FGC's Gathering in Virginia was Brent Bill and his wife Nancy--who he sometimes called Liz... very confusing to this Liz!

Brent was someone Jeanne had "met" via good ol' Facebook, though I was somewhat familiar with his blog, Holy Ordinary. I loved telling my parents that we were spending a night with "someone we met through the internet" ...and then waiting half a beat before explaining he was also a Quaker author and the writer of the preface to Writing Cheerfully on the Web.

Brent and Nancy's hospitality would be on the nature of the AAA four- or five-diamond rating. Y'know, when I hear "farm," I think of highly rustic, bugs crawling onto everything, no air conditioning, and a shared bathroom for whoever is there that night and the following morning.

But no: Ploughshares Farm is more like an immaculate Bed & Breakfast, with beautiful gardens, thanks to Nancy, and witty conversation, thanks to Brent. We also got a bit of a driving tour through nearby Plainfield, Indiana and saw where Western Yearly Meeting holds its annual sessions, as well as a former meetinghouse used by Conservative Friends.

We heard many stories about Quakers in central Indiana, which perhaps prompted me to ask Nancy and Brent how long they had been among Friends. I don't know that we ever heard Brent's answer because Nancy answered first:

"Oh, I'm a young Quaker. My family has been Quaker only for four generations."

What?!? I had to make sure she wasn't joking, which she wasn't. Brent went on to explain that Quakers in Indiana--and especially in central Indiana--had settled that area a long, long time ago, so four generations wasn't all that old as far as Indiana Quakers go.

We also heard about the struggles the two of them face regarding their monthly and yearly meeting, and how they began the Friends In Fellowship worship group just over two years ago. We had hoped to pass through Plougshares Farm again on the way back from Virginia in order to worship with these Friends on 5 Seventh Month, but Way was not open for that to happen.

If you ever have a chance to meet Brent or Nancy, or if you have an opportunity to stay with them at the Farm, do take advantage of the occasion!

FGC's Traveling Ministries Program

As I was preparing for the Gathering, I had a sense that I would not be spending my time doing the usual activities I've participated in so many times before. I felt little attraction to attending the worship that was convened daily by Friends for LGBTQ Concerns, even though it's usually quite settled and tender, despite having more than 70 Liberal Friends in the room. So I took things a day at a time.

On First Day afternoon, I attended a session that was offered by the Traveling Ministries Program of FGC (TMP). It was a time for worship and consideration of a few queries. Queries can sometimes be rather dull for me, but these queries seemed to indicate that the TMP is beginning to consider the bigger picture of Friends who travel in the ministry and their relationship to a vibrant Quakerism.

Here are the queries we considered:

What is the Quaker message for today's hurting world?

Can we begin to articulate a vision of our corporate experience and message? or is this not appropriate?

Do we have a sense of what God may be asking of us? or are we each given a different message and task?

We divided into small groups to consider these queries and then reported back to the larger group. From there, the convener summarized the main threads she had heard, which went something like this:

We are called to continue living into a radical Love and our radical faith. The origin of this radical love is deep and ineffable, and we yearn to grow into it.

We also need to nurture its roots and there is work to do. There is work to do in ourselves, in our meetings, in our Religious Society, and in the world.

A number of groups used the metaphor of a tree: being a tree that stands firm as a presence to others; paying attention to the roots and the fruits of our faith and how we are in the world.

We are called to listen well to others and to model to others the Truth we seek to live.

We are also called to share the whole of our stories--not just the pleasant parts--so others can share the fullness of their stories.

We sense that there is a Message, even though we don't know what that Message is. We sense it may have something to do with how we are all part of the same Body; we are all small streams that flow into the same Stream...

Mostly, I was pleased to be worshiping for a short time among Friends, many of whom I treasure.

The tragic death of Bonnie Tinker

Later in the week, on Thursday, word reached the Gathering community that an attender had been struck and killed while riding on her bike. That night, the announcement was made that the cyclist was Bonnie Tinker--a person that MANY at the Gathering knew personally. She had been a plenary speaker back in the late 1990s at Gathering (I remembered I had interpreted into sign language her plenary address); she was very involved in Friends for LGBTQ Concerns; and she was a well known... personality... in the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere in the country and around the world.

Bonnie was someone who advocated for oppressed and disenfranchised individuals, broke the rules in order to draw attention to the issue of the day, and worked tirelessly to change our society for the sake of equality and human dignity.

Though I didn't know Bonnie well, I attended a handful of Gatherings and smaller Midwinter events where she was also involved.

The night the announcement was made, all post-plenary events were cancelled and instead Friends were invited to a special Meeting for Worship, under the care of FLGBTQC. Most of us clearly were still stunned by the news and were in shock. But the convener of the called worship opened the time by explaining that in the 1980s, when so many of our loved ones were dying from the AIDS epidemic, FLGBTQC changed its form of worship and would do so again for that night:

Next to the convener was an empty chair. If someone wanted to express her or his grief--or other emotion, presumably--the worshiper was welcome to sit in the chair and speak from there. After sharing, the convener would then ask if the Friend was open to having a laying on of hands--a symbol that she or he was not alone and that she or he could stay connected with the community during such a tender time.

Some Friends spoke about when they first met Bonnie, or when they had last spoken with her. There were requests to hold Bonnie's family in the Light, some of whom had already been attending the Gathering and others of whom were traveling there because of the accident. One Friend reminded us to pray for the driver of the truck, too.

A few Friends did in fact move to the chair, but the corporal and cathartic release that some maybe were anticipating didn't emerge. It took time to digest the news and understand the implications that in fact Bonnie was gone.

The next day, Friday, during the daily afternoon worship--also under the care of FLGBTQC--Bonnie's sisters attended. Maybe Bonnie's partner Sara was also there, though no one made mention of her presence. It was at this worship when there were many more tears and sobs of grief.

And we sang.

Swing Low Sweet Chariot. Softly and Tenderly. Other hymns I didn't know.

And the news went out by phone, email, and Facebook. From local news broadcasts to articles in the Oregon newspaper and blog posts with additional details and personal reflections. I still come across news bits about the accident, though it's unsatisfying.

Nothing will bring Bonnie Tinker back to us. And there are a good many people who still need care, including the young adult Friend who apparently witnessed the accident, called 911, rushed to Bonnie's side, and held her hand as she died.

As I was finishing this blog post, I saw this open letter from the general secretary of FGC, Bruce Birchard. He writes about the events at the Gathering...

Looking ahead to 2010

Next year's Gathering is scheduled to be held in Bowling Green, Ohio--a new site for FGC, and there'll be a new paradigm for the week. Here is an excerpt of what was printed in the daily bulletin that was distributed toward the end of this year's Gathering:

Beginning in 2010, the FGC Gathering will run from Sunday to Saturday, effectively shortening the entire Gathering by one day. There are two major advantages to this:

- Lower fees for Gathering attenders (we are estimating by approximately 8%).
- More time on the first weekend to travel to the Gathering.

Having the Gathering begin on Sunday will alleviate the need for many Friends to take off work the preceding Friday in order to begin their travel to the Gathering site, and thereby reduce further the total effective cost of attending for those in this situation. We will continue to schedule the Gathering for the week including 4th of July, so that employed Friends need use only 4 vacation days, rather than 5. If reduced fees and a reduced need to use vacation to attend the Gathering result in increased attendance, it may be possible to reduce fees even further since our substantial fixed costs will be spread over more attenders...

FGC experimented with a shortened Gathering in 2006 when the Gathering was held in Tacoma, Washington. At that time, there were significant schedule conflicts between the activities of the Friends of Color Center and those of Friends for LGBTQ Concerns, so hopefully those conflicts will be avoided in upcoming years.

As for me, I'm currently planning to skip next year's Gathering, the first one I will have missed since I started attending in 1995. The Gathering has become a bit predictable for me and I feel my growth in the Spirit has stagnated considerably.

Also, since my partner and I continue to cut back on travels--for financial and earthcare reasons--we are planning to attend the White Privilege Conference next year, which will be held in western Wisconsin.

We also are toying with dipping our toes into the QuakerSpring meet-up that has emerged in the past few years, but we have more to consider about the where, when, how far, and how much sort of questions before committing to adding that particular event to our calendar.

Then again, God might call me elsewhere entirely.

In the meantime, I'll keep writing about my experience at Gathering. More posts to come.

Blessings,
Liz