A koan by any other name...?

I haven't posted for a while because of a long trip I was on... which unfortunately involved a fairly significant illness and a long recovery process. Not for me: I was the caregiver.

An unexpected bonus, if you could call it that, was spending 12 days at my parents' place... and having a visit from my brother and his girlfriend. The two of them had changed their New Year's plans to be in New Hampshire and instead came into New Jersey to provide support to us wayward travelers.

Another unexpected result was an opportunity, with fellow blogger Anj, who happened to read my earlier post, went to Summit-Chatham Meeting that First Day, heard an announcement about what I was dealing with, and called me with an offer of support.

I took her up on her offer and we ended up getting together for about an hour--a very much needed break and bit of fellowship for me. She and I stayed in touch by phone as time went on: I'd say another friendship has been born, thanks to the Quaker blogosphere! (Hi, Anj!)

Thanks, too, to Claire and Kay from Summit-Chatham Meeting: they bouyed me with their kindness and listening presence early on in the process.

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

During the first seven days since I've been home, I received two pieces of communication from two different long-time Friends that referenced what in Buddhism is known as a koan: a paradoxical question or statement that aids in meditation or reflection (my paraphrase).

The first case was a Friend who was reflecting on her reaction to an address given by a Rwandan Friend about the genocide there. She explained, as I recall, that she was aware of the desire to want to fix the situation and take away the hurt, while also being aware of the need to feel her feelings and live into the discomfort of knowing far more about Rwanda than she had before.

The second case was another Friend who serves on a planning committee for an upcoming committee retreat. The committee lifted up a paradox about the condition of the monthly meeting that might serve as a focus point for the retreat, and the Friend suggested that the committee consider the situation as a koan--that is, something to consider rather than to fix.

Both these Friends have a long tenure among Friends... and yet they looked to a tradition outside of Quakerism for a phrase or a practice that spoke to what they wanted to articulate. What concerns me, though, is that Quakerism does have phrases and practices that parallel those within Buddhism:

living into the Cross;
standing still in and submitting ourselves to the Light;
being exercised by the Spirit.

What does it say about the condition of our meetings and of our Religious Society when we ourselves don't know enough about our own tradition that we go reaching into another faith tradition...?

Such lack of knowledge brings to mind for me what I see as the underlying, unstated reasons for introducing and promoting a "Quaker sweatlodge":

We Quaker adults have lost the ability to convey our faith, our beliefs, and our practices in meaningful ways to our Quaker youth.

And religion, like nature, abhors a vacuum. We'll fill the gaps of our knowledge with whatever else in within our grasp, with the best of intentions.

To be fair, I myself was guilty of this for a number of years before I began reading the writings of even a few early Friends.

Here is what I affirm today:

Quakerism is not lacking; our understanding of it is.

Blessings,
Liz

Dualities and paradoxes

I find that the more experience I have among Friends and as a committee clerk, the more I must face a sort of push-pull phenomenon around various facets within Quakerism that seem to oppose one another. I have learned by watching and listening to gifted clerks and recording clerks that unity among Friends at a business session can often be achieved by acknowledging the conflicts with which we labor.

It's been said that one of the most stressful psychological tasks in our lifetime is to be in limbo—to live in the space between trapezes, between the trapeze from which we have just let go and the one for which we grab. [For related reading, here's an article online about dealing with ambiguity in families.]

In my Quaker reading and reflection, I am now beginning to believe that the ability of an individual—or of a corporate body—to be in limbo, to live with the stress of ambiguity, to hold the tension and accept the duality of a situation are signs of a certain developing maturity.

In preparation for the upcoming workshop on Quaker identity, I have created a handout about the dualities, paradoxes, and tensions that occur within Quakerism. Many of these conflicts and dualities are described or alluded to in a variety of sources. Below is the list I've compiled, and feel free to add your own. I use the following combination of characters <--> to represent a double-sided arrow between the opposing (complementary?) elements of Quakerism:

Authentic individuality <--> Communal faith, beliefs, practices

Individual leading <--> Corporate discernment, weight

Local independence of monthly meetings <-->
Group cohesion of the yearly meeting

Private, inward (prayer and worship) <-->
Public, outward (ministry and witness)

Prayer in solitude <--> Worship in community

Meeting as a place of welcome and acceptance <-->
Meeting as a place of support for transformation

Tolerance of differing views <-->
Creation of boundaries for sustaining identity

No doctrine or creed <-->
Set of shared beliefs, collective experiences, shared values

Journey of seeking <--> Discovery of finding

Non-verbal, inward experience <-->
Explicit language and articulation of the experience

Prophetic, open to new truth <--> Conserving tradition and practice

Word of God is Scripture <--> Word of God still speaking to us

Mystical, contemplative <--> Practical, active

Warm, nurturing, encompassing Light <--> Piercing, insistent Light

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

The more I understand the interplay between these dualities, the more I can articulate the difficulty I might be experiencing, like when I am feeling pulled in two directions simultaneously. And naming what is going on is a key part of the process to reconciling the duality, as Way opens.

Blessings,
Liz

P.S. Some of the sources where I came upon certain dualities are:
Living the Way: Quaker Spirituality and Community
Searching the Depths
Deepening the Spiritual Life of the Meeting

P.P.S.
UPDATE: I forgot to add the reference for the specific example of
"Meeting as a place of welcome and acceptance <-->
Meeting as a place of support for transformation."
This duality refers to concepts used from Thomas Gates' Members One of Another. Also, Beppeblog has a series of posts about Gates' pamphlet, the first of which is here, followed by two others.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Martin Kelley, commenting below as the webmaster for Friends General Conference, adds this additional information:

"I think these are some version of the pieces from Bill and Fran Taber that you all are remembering:

The Unity of Paradoxical Quaker Extremes, by Bill Taber

Paradoxical Understandings to Hold in Creative Tension, by Frances Irene Taber

Both are online as part of FGC's Fostering Meetings resources."

Thanks, Martin!