Staying woke: Confessions of my "No TV" days

NOTE: The following post has a number of hashtags included, noted with the "#" in front of a word or phrase.  A number of social media sites, like Facebook and Twitter, use hashtags as a way to follow a topic. You can do an online search for each hashtag to get more information about that particular topic. Include the # sign in your search.  --Liz

I had a conversation with two white Quakers the other day, after a Ferguson-solidarity event (#MN2Ferguson), about how a number of us Friends pride ourselves in not having a TV anymore, not listening to the news, or only listening to public radio, Democracy Now, etc.

But even those outlets are embedded in unexamined whiteness, unintentionally minimizing or even erasing the lives and the lived experience of people of color. (There's also unexamined classism, and systems embedded in unexamined middle-class norms, so keep that in mind, too.) An active part of my own journey into anti-racism work is the work of undoing my "socialized whiteness," exploring my socialized conditioning of overvaluing my "good intentions," and deepening my commitment to showing up for racial justice and for working for meaningful change.

I admit that it's been part of my white privilege to be able to turn off the news, or to get by without a TV... but that choice--to turn off the TV and simply NOT HEAR about what goes on in communities of color also had cut me off from the realities of what people of color endure Every. Single. Day.

It's a privilege to be able to turn away from deeply disturbing news and then get back to our everyday life. It's a privilege that also marks what some are now calling white fragility.

With the Green Revolution in Iran a few years ago, I learned to turn to Twitter--not to create an account, but rather to do an online search for hashtags back then: #GreenRevolution for example. ...And the news that was coming from Twitter was vastly different from the (lack of) news (initially) coming from the mainstream media.

That was the beginning for me, to learn to use the internet and social media when there were rumblings of things going on. I wasn't turning on the TV so much, but I was turning to Twitter.

Next up for me was to turn to Twitter for tracking and amplifying the work of marriage equality for same-sex couples, especially when the issue came to my state.

During the 18-month period of work to defeat Minnesota's proposed anti-GLBTQ marriage amendment, I began to find my own voice on Twitter, amplifying and repeating what others were sharing (that's called "re-tweeting" or RT for those who are curious).

My life is very different now: thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court, marriage for same-sex couples is now a protected right.  More importantly, I actively choose to "stay woke," as younger people are now saying (the hashtag #staywoke is actually used in social media).  I choose to pay attention and seek out news, rather than avoid it.  I choose to go to news sources that point out systemic oppression and that track fast-breaking news--sources that provide consistent messages of what's happening when there are incidents especially involving racism.

Network television seldom provides the coverage I seek.  Being at #FergusonOctober in 2014 and comparing my own experience there with what the mainstream media was reporting at the time highlighted for me the difference between news provided by mainstream media and what civilians were posting on Twitter.

So now, when I hear or see a news story of significance, especially involving the police or people of color, I use that initial exposure as a reminder for me to check out social media, especially looking for/listening for reports from civilians of color.  And by centering on the reports from people of color, I am beginning to see the world through different eyes:  a different reality that had been hidden from me before, because of the thick veil of privilege I didn't know I was wearing.

It's all too easy for me these days to forget where I started my own journey, exploring white privilege and how I unknowingly, unintentionally used it to keep me comfortable and insulated from horrific news around the world, in my country, or even in my neighborhood.  But then something comes up, like #MikeBrown or #FreddieGray or a conversation here or there, and I remember:

I don't know what I don't know.

I'm socialized to disconnect or shut down when things get tough.

Good intentions sometimes have harmful impacts.

Good intentions don't outweigh harmful impacts.

Rewriting how I was socialized is a never ending journey.

We're all on a journey.

Friends call that journey continuing revelation.  Sometimes it includes turning off the TV; other times it includes using it differently.

Blessings,
Liz

Becoming conscious of protecting my Whiteness

In light of the recent Charleston shooting at a historical AME church, I want to acknowledge that I protect myself from being vulnerable when White folks begin talking about racism, Whiteness, and White privilege. It's not something I've been conscious of until recently. To outsiders and observers, I can come across as listening intently, or as adding to the discussion by sharing "what I've learned as a White person."

Inside my own skin, though, as someone who is working for racial justice, I know I am not stretching myself by sharing parts of my own anti-racism journey. Sharing my experience is something I do fairly easily. In some respects, I'm putting on what I now see as a show, for the sake of accompanying others who are struggling, and I get praise and encouragement for doing so.

I'm the only one who knows that I could be doing more. I could be making myself more vulnerable, take more risks. The Inward Teacher, along with guidance from friends of color, is in fact giving me such instruction.

I might not feel ready to take on more risk, like participating in direct actions of civil disobedience that could end with my being arrested.  Even as I hesitate, God loves me. And God requires that I do more on behalf of God's Family and its members of color that are not treated kindly.

Blessings,
Liz

Social justice and getting off the Quaker porch

A week ago my spouse Jeanne and I boarded a bus with about 20 Jews and headed into Cedar Rapids, Iowa to stand in solidarity with the immigrant workers whose lives were disrupted in May 2008 when the kosher meat-packing plant, Agriprocessors, was raided in Postville.

It was a 4-1/2 hour bus ride each way, with a 30-minute march and a 90-minute worship service before turning around and heading back home.  On the way down, we watched on the bus' video system the documentary abUSed: The Postville Raid.  Toward the end of the video there were a few minutes of footage that included information of how one Jewish organization from Minnesota got involved and navigated the important work of standing with the immigrant families while also laboring with the rabbis behind Agriprocessors' illegal hiring of immigrants and children.

During the nine hours of travel, there were conversations about additional Jewish involvement with the people and workers of Postville since the raid; the history of Quakerism (with those who were sitting near Jeanne and me); learning about White privilege; talking about oppression based on social class; and sharing stories of our own ancestry, of how our families and European ancestors made their way to the United States and under what conditions.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Since May 2011, my interaction with people of faith beyond my Quaker community has grown rapidly, mostly due to the work to prevent amending the state's constitution to define marriage as only between a man and a woman. I've experienced much joy in the new connections. Seeing humble and active religious people engaged in meaningful, hands-on social justice work makes me realize how much more we as progressive Quakers could be doing.

As Friends, we often tell ourselves--and one another--that we must wait to be led by the Spirit before acting.  But what I'm continuing to awaken to is that the intention to wait for such a leading has a harmful impact on entire communities that are suffering at the hands of oppressive bureaucratic systems--systems that are founded on unexamined privileged based on skin color, social class status, sexual orientation, etc.

More than once I have been reminded by White people engaged in social justice work, by people of color, by working-class people, that it is part of the privilege that White, well-educated, well-off people have, to take time--lots of time--to sit and think, talk about, thresh, plan, discuss, and minute what we believe and what we might do.

We call all of that activity part of our work to witness to equality and justice; I worry that our brothers and sisters of color would call it empty, less than helpful, and an example of a system that favors people like ourselves who have the luxury of time rather than working in solidarity with the communities who have a day-to-day urgency for action.  For all the time that we take to "wait to be led," African Americans are being stopped and frisked without justification, Muslims are being unfairly profiled for terrorism, and young students who are perceived to be gay are being bullied to the point of suicide, with few adults intervening on their behalf.

So it is that recently, I have begun questioning certain elements of our Quaker faith.  Some of our best-known stories are lifted up to demonstrate the importance of waiting to be led. It certainly appears that way when we learn about John Woolman, Lucretia Mott, and Bayard Rustin. But these days, can we know if they were compelled by the Spirit all at once to take a stand against an oppressive system? or were they simply living their lives, taking up the Cross, and acting out of conscience and the promptings of the Inward Teacher on a day-to-day basis?

Perhaps the Way was simply open to them, similar to how it has been for me, to speak up, raise questions, and get involved.  The Way was open and they simply stepped onto the Path and tested each step as they went.

I tell you, Friends, my life has been Opened because of the new connections I have made, because of the stories I have heard from people whose lives are so very different from most of our own.  I no longer view my upbringing as I once did; I no longer view Quakerism as I once did.

I hope to write a companion post to this one, going into details about how our own practices as Friends might be perpetuating oppression and unknowingly reinforcing White privilege.

Blessings,
Liz

Searching for where to start

I've been reflecting on how easy it is and how hard it is to write a blog post for The Good Raised Up these days.

It's easy because I have had so many rich, Spirit-led experiences as well as heart-wrenching trials since the start of 2011.

It's hard because the experiences I've had between May 2011 and November 2012 have given me a view of American Quakerism that I could not have had until now... of how White we really are... of how invested we unconsciously are as a whole in not examining our own Whiteness... of how powerless and ill-equipped I feel to shine the little glow of Light I may have into some very dark, cobwebby corners...

As a peculiar people in America, we are broken.  We are separated from our brothers and sisters of color in the struggle of their lives.  Maybe not all of us, maybe not each day, but systemically as a people of faith.

So I'm searching for the stories I can share of how I myself have been transformed, of how the Spirit called me to tasks I couldn't have dreamed of--or wanted to do!

In the meantime, the beginning of this TED Talk taps into a reason why, even when we are intently reflecting on the story of the Good Samaritan itself, for example, we can walk right by a person who is in pain.

I have found in the past 20 months that the more humility I practice, the more likely I am to risk moving out of my own comfort zone.  The more I move out of my comfort zone, the more God can use me in unexpected ways.  The more I am used in unexpected ways, the more I learn about the kin(g)dom of God and all who are a part of it.

And that makes me more humble.

Plenary session of Northern Yearly Meeting 2011

Over the years, I'd lost interest in going to yearly meeting sessions, largely because I was enamored instead by the discipline and approach to Meeting for Worship for Business that I had experienced at Iowa Yearly Meeting Conservative.*

This year, Way isn't open for me to attend IYMC sessions, but I would say Way was very open for me to attend Northern Yearly Meeting. The writing was on the wall--and more literally, on the flyer: the theme was "Beyond Othering...To Loving."

Over the years, NYM has had plenaries and workshops dedicated to understanding racism, oppression, and inclusion. And over those same years, there's been a lot of talking and worshiping and listening to one another, but little outward change. As Friends, we sure do know a lot of stuff, but we don't seem to act on it too often--a sentiment recently raised up by another blogger, about how we Quakers engage in a bumper-sticker or banner-at-the-meetinghouse sort of activism.

Bit by bit, I wondered if the presence of so many Friends at the recent White Privilege Conference (WPC), which was held in NYM territory, would somehow lend itself to a different sort of experience this year.

And then I was invited to be part of the plenary that would be offered at NYM, working in collaboration with three others who had also attended the WPC this year. To add to Way opening, in case I had missed the earlier cues, I had a nudge to propose a workshop, Moving Through White Guilt. For the first time in a number of years, it was pretty easy to say Yes to the plenary and Yes to going to the yearly meeting.

During a conference call just a few weeks before the session, the four of us plenary planners/facilitators realized that we didn't have a feel or idea of how to frame the whole-gathering session. We had the theme to work with, and we had the guidance that the plenary not be a panel discussion about the WPC, since "Othering" occurs in many arenas: gay/straight; middle class/working class; able-bodied/disabled, etc.

So during the conference call, unsure what to do, we simply fell into worship... and we began to articulate how we were being led.

In the end, here's how the plenary unfolded:

1. We asked Friends to enter the large room in a worshipful manner, and the room had been arranged in large concentric circles, with a long table in the middle and a big aisle that led from the table to the hallway. We also asked for two visiting Friends to hold in the Light the group, the plenary facilitators, and the process for the evening.

2. On the table were many small pieces of tape and a number of pairs of name tags. Each pair of nametags represented an element of social power or privilege that a person either had or lacked.

For example, one pair was MALE/FEMALE (for the purpose of the plenary, we intentionally used a binary for each pairing); another pair was CHRISTIAN/NON-CHRISTIAN; a third pair was WHITE/PERSON OF COLOR. The items that had social power (in the U.S.) were on one color paper; those without power were on a different color.

3. After Friends were seated--there were about 100-120 adults--we asked them to come up to the table and take ONE nametag that represented some social power or privilege that they had in their life; and ONE nametag that represented some power or privileged that they didn't have. We asked them to tape the two tags onto their shirt and sit back down, paying attention to how they felt as they attached the tags while waiting for everyone else to do the same.

4. After everyone had taken their tags and was seated, we then moved the center table out to the hall (hence the large aisle leading to the hallway!). We went over some guidelines for the evening. We were careful not to say that we wanted to create a "safe space" because we made it clear that we wanted Friends to take risks, to "lean into your discomfort, because that's usually where the learning and growth are." Then we asked people to get into pairs and talk with each other briefly about why they picked the tags that they did and what it was like to do so. After just four or five minutes, we gathered back into a large group again for the next piece.

5. The biggest chunk of time for the evening, we explained, was dedicated to having individuals acknowledge, one at a time and in front of the whole group, one of three different experiences. In the large, central empty space in the room, on the right we placed a sign on the floor that said "Experience of having privilege." In the middle we placed "Experience of having less privilege." And on the left was "A request or something learned." We explained that, as in worship sharing, one Friend at a time would speak for a short time and then we'd return to silence before another person was to speak.

In addition, as Friends were ready, when someone wanted to share, she or he would come to the place on the floor (if able) that represented the "position" from which she or he was speaking: If it was to admit a time when she or he misused social power, the person would stand at the right. If it was to acknowledge a time when something was hurtful as a result of being in a place of less or no privilege, the person would stand in the center. And if it was to share something that was learned from either having privilege or from not having privilege; or it if was to make a specific, concrete request, the person would stand on the left: "As a person with a disability, ask me if I want help before you jump to help me..."

And we gave one last bit of guidance: We weren't asking people to share their most horrific moment, or their most shameful experience. After all, this wasn't intended to be a group therapy session or a cathartic experience. So we asked people to find an experience or memory that had a bit of a zing to it, a bit of energy attached to it, so that it wouldn't be an empty experience for them but neither would they be overwhelmed once they started to speak.

Then we waited.

The sharing was deep and rich, insightful and pained. Friends were attentive and moved. Some cried as the person in the central space shared an experience through tears.

It was powerful. And the Living Presence was with us.

6. As we had planned the evening, we had considered how to move from one part of the plenary to the next, especially how to close this particular piece, not knowing how tender the group might be. We had agreed that at each transition, we would insert a song that would be familiar to most Friends there. After all, NYM is the yearly meeting that is known for its fellowship-through-singing group, Nightingales.

Earlier in the plenary we had sung a verse from "Holy Ground," and two verses from "We Are A Gentle Loving People" (We are whole and we are broken...). At this point, we sang "Peace I Ask of Thee O River." It was so sweet, so perfect...

7. We quietly explained that before we'd move into closing worship, we wanted folks to get together with one other person and take a few minutes to talk about the experience: what was surprising, what was new; and to consider how what was shared that night might apply to either the person's own worship community or to the yearly meeting as a whole.

WoW, the room became all abuzz and it was hard to bring us back together! But we had another song in mind to do just that, and it took about three or four times to sing through "Woyaya" before we were ready to join in worship for the last 20-30 minutes.

The whole evening was such a gift... The worship was rich and built on themes and experiences that resonated for many that night.

When we four debriefed with the two Friends who had been holding the space, we each acknowledged how well-used we felt; how we never could have come up with this plenary if we had actually tried to plan it; how open we were to being led and how trusted we each felt as the different pieces emerged and fell into place.

During the four-hour drive home, I found myself wondering if I'd be back in 2012. After all, I'm curious to see if there is any fruit of the Spirit that may have been seeded as a result of that two-hour session.

Blessings,
Liz

*I've written quite a bit about my experiences at IYMC annual sessions. This link takes you to every post that has the tag "IYMC."

The weightiness of prophetic ministry

While reading an essay by Thomas Gates about covenant community and deepening the life of our meetings, I found myself deeply reflecting on two pairs of elements of our meetings that are in creative tension with each other:

the individual worshiper vis a vis the community as a whole 

and  

the community as a whole vis a vis God's leadings and instruction for us.

My reflections deepened while I was considering Tom Gates' paraphrase of something that Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Friend Arthur Larabee said.*

Here's what Tom writes:

I keep going back to Arthur Larabee's question about business meeting: "Why is it that we persist in deciding things in this way?" His answer: not because it is quick or easy or efficient (it is not), but rather because we have found that over the long run, this way of deciding builds and nurtures community. In other words, the point of our business process is not to make decisions, but to build community.

Granted, the context of the essay itself is about addressing conflict among Friends while placing conflict squarely in the wider context of covenant community. And this paraphrase of Arthur's words points to the Quaker practice of giving greater weight to the sense of the meeting rather than to the sense of an individual within the meeting.

Most of the time, I'm down with that; I unite with that.

But . . .

What happens when we "persist in deciding things in this way" to the detriment of the bringing about the kin(g)dom of God? What if we give so much weight to the role of the community and to testing the sense of the meeting that we fail to recognize prophetic ministry that has risen from among us?

What if we allow the sense of the meeting--for the noble purpose of "building and nurturing community"--to outweigh God's Divine Instruction itself?

This is a question that has been looming in my peripheral consciousness as I'm nearing the end of reading Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship. The authors of this massive 2009 book offer example after example of how an individual Friend felt convicted by the Spirit to take action against some form of social injustice--from the earliest enslavement in the late 1600s to the modern race-based and class-based oppression of the American Quaker educational system--how these few persistent and faithful Friends labored with their monthly meetings and their yearly meetings so that they might heed God's Instruction to them...

And time and time again, the weight of the sense of the meeting--not the weight of the individual's prophetic ministry--slowed or prevented the social change that was striving to emerge.

I would say this:

1. Certainly there are times when the need to go more slowly is crucial, to bring the meeting community under the weight of a concern, with hearts and minds clear. But can we not also release the Friend with such a call to do as God bids her or him? Can a letter of introduction or a travel minute from the meeting indicate the labor that the meeting is involved in around the topic, rather than shut the Friend down and close our hearts and ears to that Friend's ministry?

1a. Before anyone jumps down my throat about corporate discernment: of course I acknowledge and recognize the importance of corporate decision-making among Friends! What I am wrestling with and asking questions about has to do with the balance, or the tipping point, between the place of corporate discernment and the place of what may well be prophetic ministry--especially when we, the comfortable, are afflicted by the message a Friend brings us.

2. Too often, our collective privilege gets in the way of our willingness to hear, embrace, and live into true prophetic ministry. As a U.S. faith community, Quakers are predominantly comprised of worshipers of European descent who are also mostly middle-class or wealthier/highly educated. It's hard for those of us with privilege to give up some of our privilege, yet that is what being faithful servants of the Spirit often must do.

"If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, "I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." --Matthew 19:21-24 (NIV)

3. I need the support of my community--my Quaker covenant community--to help me loosen my death-grip on my privilege; to help me see how I act, think, and speak out of a place of privilege; to help me work for the betterment of the wider community around me and not equate my service to God exclusively with the building up and nurturing of my own Quaker meeting.

Blessings,
Liz

*For those readers who don't know Arthur, he's frequently recognized as the "go-to guy" when it comes to clerking and navigating Meetings for Worship with Attention to Business. I personally believe there are other "go-to" people, but they are doing quieter, less visible work.

An impermeable seal

For the past few weeks, I've been reading Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship, a few pages a day.

One of the things that struck me from the first two chapters was that, for the most part, during the time of slavery, American Quakers of European descent were not that different from their non-Quaker American counterparts. Just a handful of individual Quakers, it turns out, were the ones who were taking radical steps to draw attention to the evil and harm of enslaving other human beings. Most Quakers back then had the privilege to "look the other way" or could say they were against slavery but wouldn't necessarily take action that reflected what they professed.

I am also struck by how there are sufferings in the world today--injustices to GLBTQ people, to people of color, to people who live in poverty--and how few Quakers (and non-Quakers) are taking radical steps to draw attention to these injustices.

And I, a person of privilege because of the color of my skin, my education, and my financial status, also have the privilege to look the other way--because the situation is overwhelming, because the situation is "over there," because because because.

. . . . . . . . .

The other day, Jeanne and I began seam-sealing the new tent we got, since the first new tent we just got leaked during the rain we had while camping recently. I'm amazed by how the seam-sealer works: it creates a rubberized, impermeable seal. It reminds me of the yellow slickers that we had as kids...

I've been thinking that in some ways, having the privilege that I have is like having an impermeable seal around me--so impermeable that it keeps God out too. So today I've been particularly grateful for the worship community I'm a part of because somehow, when I'm with them and we are worshiping, the Light of God seems to be able to sear through that otherwise impermeable coating, and I feel like I can take on a bit of what would likely be for me "inconvenient" radical activity.

O God, how I need your help to burn away the seam sealer.

Blessings,
Liz

Facing White privilege: Small openings lead to larger ones

Back in early April this year, a group of ten Quakers attended the annual White Privilege Conference, along with 1,700 other attenders. I am still integrating and digesting what happened there, what happened to me, and what is still happening within me.

I know that something is happening because in the five weeks or so since that conference ended, I've had a number of race-based challenges and exchanges:

• I sat next to an extroverted, self-proclaimed politically Conservative White male* on a 2-1/2 hour plane ride within a week after the conference, and interrupted his racist rhetoric several times. My main tactics were to tell him that I was offended by what he was saying and to ask him "How many Mexicans/Somali/Hmong people do you know personally by name...?"
• I attended an orientation on my own, about sponsoring refugee families--an orientation that the worship group was able to participate in while I was traveling out of town. This is something I would not have done on my own before the White Privilege Conference.
• I'm asking people of color who are store clerks and have name tags how to pronounce their name if it's clearly not an Anglo Saxon one. I also immediately offer my own name to them.

The list goes on.....

But my intention isn't to pat myself on the back (as a White, owning class, educated person, I inadvertently do plenty of that, truly). Rather, it's that I'm marveling at how much more I am "seeing" these opportunities to interact with my brothers and sisters that probably have always been in front of me.

I'm seeing these opportunities and I'm participating in them.

Quakers often talk and write about how, when we are faithful in following the small nudges we are given, we are being prepared to follow the larger, more burdensome leadings down the road. This feels similar: now that I've stepped through some small opening about facing my White privilege, I'm being given more opportunities, more openings, to continue to do so.

Blessings,
Liz

*I realize not all White men who are politically conservative are racist.

P.S. The 2011 White Privilege Conference is planned to be held in a near-suburb of Minneapolis. w00t w00t!

Excerpt from a letter about racism

Over the past few months, some of my first cousins and I have reconnected over Facebook. We weren't close growing up, maybe because the few times a year when we saw each other, our parents fought bitterly with each other. As a family, connection happened through arguments, raised voices, and mutually inflicted hurt feelings. As a child, to resist the impulse to take on the same behavior was a challenge, and having no other alternative modeled for me, I stayed fairly disconnected from that side of the family.

My maternal grandmother is still alive, at 104. I think it's her anger, bitterness, and resentment that keeps her blood pumping, but she's incredibly lonely...

Last week I returned from the White Privilege Conference, a four-day event where white people and people of color learn about the dynamics of internalized and institutionalized white privilege. And two days after returning, I saw something one of my cousins posted on Facebook, a joke about "rednecks."

If anything was reinforced for me during the Conference, it was that I have been protected too long by my white owning-class privilege.

And because one of the new behaviors I am consciously working on since the Conference is to see all women and men as my sisters and brothers in a world that needs healing, I took a stand.

I sent my cousin a message, letting him know my response to his words.

My very socially liberal, politically progressive cousin wrote back a longer response, which included a few sentiments all too familiar in our supposedly well-intentioned predominantly white middle-class society:

• You're too sensitive.
• I was just being funny.
• These sorts of comments are out in the world, on TV, on the radio all the time. No one complains about those programs and no one has yanked them off the air.
• All of us are poked fun at...

I took a lot of deep breaths and ended up writing an even longer reply.

But the part of my own reply that I hope he'll respond to with an open heart is this:

As a Quaker, I understand the value of "laboring" with each other. It's different from the sort of arguing that I grew up with in the Oppenheimer/Goldberg households, though.

Laboring involves listening for the truth and authenticity that each person is wanting to express, and being less willing to take an aggressive or defensive position. Through laboring together, each person usually comes away changed a little bit, while also willing to stay engaged in the relationship--in the moment as well as over time.

Arguing was, for me, more about working hard to get my own point across and not caring for whatever point it is that the other person wants to make. Arguing was more saying whatever came to mind, with a willingness to hurt the other person and with less regard for the nurture or even survival of the relationship.

Our grandmother, I think, has argued far more than she has labored.

You and I, I think, are a bit closer to laboring with each other but we're not quite there. Or at least, that's how I see it.

As I reflect on my exchange with my cousin, and while I await his next response, I'm remembering that laboring with one another starts with and is grounded in the motion of love.

Thanks for reading me.

Blessings,
Liz

UPDATE, 26 Fourth Month 2010: My grandmother passed away less than a week after I posted this piece.

Pride and privilege

God is wanting to teach me about the dangers of pride and the downside of privilege.

I'm a slow learner.

I know this because I am getting lessons about pride and privilege nearly every day it seems, from different people, over and over and over again. So it must be important and I need to pay closer attention.

Most recently the lesson came to light as I was reading the proceedings from a recent conference at Guilford College on a "new kind of Quaker" and the Emergent and Convergent movements that are influencing modern American Friends.

I found myself getting angry that Friends--Friends that I don't know personally--were talking about Convergent Quakers. That's when I realized I had unknowingly "bestowed" upon myself and a handful of others the "privilege" and the "right" to talk about Convergent Friends.

Ick.

My ego and pride had become overinvested in my (very ephemeral) place in the online conversation.

I needed to change my thinking about all of this: Many Friends all over the world have begun learning about Convergent Friends, and of course this isn't a new phenomenon at all. It's just a new word.

It took reading about this conference to burst my ballooning ego, and I'm the first to say I needed that particular balloon popped (again). If there is Truth and Life enough in what is going on to help Quakers reclaim and live into our vibrant faith tradition, then that is enough, and that fruit is of the Spirit, not of any single person's efforts or own good thinking.

It's painful to look in the mirror--but it also makes for good blogging fodder.

Pride.

I am thinking once more about being meek and staying low.

Oh, how frequently my pride and vanity get in the way!

So many times I do think I have really good ideas or I do think I know how to navigate through conflict and tense moments or I do think I know how to help convey Quakerism in meaningful ways to new attenders.

One of the dangers of this sort of pride, though, is that if I believe that I'm "so good," that often goes along with a deep and unspoken belief that so many others. . . aren't.

If in fact these are gifts that I carry--creativity, bridge-building, guidance--they are gifts from the Spirit and not of my own making. And these gifts aren't exclusively given only to me.

I will bow and be simple,
I will bow and be free
I will bow and be humble
Yea bow like the willow tree.

I will bow this is the token,
I will wear the easy yoke,
I will bow and be broken,
Yea I'll fall upon the rock.

Thinking that I am really good at a task can make me too quick to act when someone else may have an equally valuable--or even greater!--skill to offer or an important perspective to add. So many times I am reminded that we each have different gifts, different perspectives--and all are needed!

In my humanness, though, my pride often makes me blind and deaf to the gifts that others bring or that others may be developing, and I end up trampling on my comrades rather than "lifting them up."

Pride too can make me think I know what's best, and I become quick to discount or dismiss the opinions and ideas that others wish to contribute.

And then God steps in, or sends a messenger, to remind me...

Most recently, we hired Pete (not his real name) in the neighborhood for some fall yard clean-up. The leaves were many and were still somewhat wet from the recent rain. More rain was called for overnight, just before our morning pick-up for yard waste. I was glad that Pete was available and he filled up three-and-a-half of those extra-large paper sacks with the leaves from just our front yard.

In fact, Pete had filled the bags so full that there was no extra bag to fold over to keep out the upcoming rain.

I began to say something to him, like "Could you leave a bit of room at the top so the bag could be folded over...?" and he replied, "It'll be fine." A few days later, Pete told me he wouldn't do any more work for me, that I was too nit-picky.

Ouch.

I am wondering if there were other interactions that Pete and I have had in recent years that led to his perception that I was nit-picky, but the main thing is, my ego was bruised. My pride was hurt and I wanted to get angry at Pete for... for calling me names....?

I had thought I had been treating Pete well and with respect, but his comment to me has forced me to look at myself through his eyes. Am I too nit-picky? Do I insist too frequently that things be done my way?

Am I too prideful in thinking I have the right to interject what I think about any given situation?

Privilege.

Privilege pairs with pride for that reason, I think. Because I have privilege, I have access to any number of things--or at least I assume I do--and I internalize the message lived out by others of privilege:

The world at large and its institutions revolve around, and keep in power, those with privilege.

Privilege extends a number of assumed "rights" to those who have it and prevents access to those same rights to those who don't have "enough" privilege or the "right kind" of privilege.

The right to speak my mind--not only to interject my point of view but also to impose my worldview unwittingly onto others--without fear of retaliation, ridicule, harassment, or violence is among the rights that I seem to abuse the most.

When I stay awake to that abuse--entitling myself to have more power than I do, to take advantage of the access to more power than others have, to give myself more decision-making opportunities than others have--I am humbled.

I will bow and be broken Yea I fall upon the rock.

But staying awake, remembering that privilege begets privilege, is very hard in a society that whispers into my unconscious,

"There's nothing wrong, there's nothing wrong. You don't have to give anything up. Just help others to get a little bit more." You don't have to change because there's nothing wrong, nothing wrong..."

My worldview is formed by the unearned privileges with which I grew up, namely being white, being born into wealth, and being raised in an area that had families that looked and acted a lot like my own family.

I have to work hard to remember that racial privilege and social class privilege can only exist where there is racism and classism.

Where there is oppression, there is privilege. Where there is disenfranchisement, there is entitlement.

And because I am a person of privilege, I must resist the tendency to become defensive when I am pointed to as acting entitled or as being part of the systemic, societal oppression.

This particular sentence from Peggy McIntosh's essay White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack haunts me, as I continue to become aware of my deeply embedded classism as well as continued racism:

Describing white privilege makes one newly accountable. As we in women's studies work to reveal male privilege and ask men to give up some of their power, so one who writes about having white privilege must ask, "having described it, what will I do to lessen or end it?"

The phrase "what will I do to lessen or end it?" has a resonance in me the way I imagine Samuel Bownas' inward cry--"...Lord, what shall I do to help it?"--was called forth in response to the minister who chided him.

These are deep and difficult issues, tangled in my subconscious and in my heart. More and more these days, I work to untangle them.

Here's a piece from my journal, when I was taking a hard look at my unearned privilege as a white, well-educated, owning class American:

Privilege puts ME at the center.

MY needs.
MY wants.
MY preferences.
MY communication style.
MY comfort.
MY lifestyle.
MY feelings.
MY worldview.
MY advancement.

But my "needs" aren't necessarily needs at all.

And as I let go of any individual privilege, I go against the unspoken American Middle Class Norm--to be better, to have more, to keep more, to expect more, to be given more.

Once I have a privilege--earned or unearned--it's hard to choose to let it go for the sake of standing in solidarity with my brothers and sisters who have less.

The Light pierces my heart and reveals to me my ego's tight grasp on pride and privilege.

Ahh, break me Lord, if you must. But I pray it be gentle and that I be willing to yield, to bow like the willow tree.

Blessings,
Liz