An unexpected opportunity

About two or three weeks ago, I was asked by a Friend to serve on a panel during the Rainbow Families Conference in Minnesota. The topic would be about how to pursue "equal civil marriage" peacefully among people of faith. Two or three weeks ago, I had plans to be out of town during that event, but I said if my plans changed, I'd let the Friend--also serving as the panel's facilitator--know.

Three days before I was to head out of town, my plans changed. They now included an evening get-together in town with a fFriend who had just learned she needed surgery; and a morning birthday party for the two-year-old son of other fFriends.

I called the panel's facilitator and said, "My plans changed." I found out the panel would be in the afternoon--how perfect!--and that the conference was being held in the totally opposite end of town.

Fine, I thought: I'll leave lots of time to catch a bus.

I look at the bus schedule. Basically, there's no way to get from here to there by bus. On a weekend.

I call the Friend, explain the situation, and ask half-heartedly, "Any chance you know of anyone who would be going to the second part of the conference who I could catch a ride from?"

The Friend says, "Actually, one of the other panelists is coming in only for the panel, like you are... And he lives in your part of town. Let me give you his name and number..."

Now that's what I call Way opening!

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

Well, the panel--put together by Minnesota's Faith, Family, Fairness Alliance--is over now, and I've been reflecting a bit about how things went.

The short answer is, I feel as though I was faithful.

The longer, more specific comments I can make are these:

1. I don't recall the last time I was part of a group where we intentionally spoke about our faith and faith tradition, and where I was the only Quaker. So I was "pleasantly uncomfortable" with hearing the panelists introduce themselves as "Reverend" and speaking about the ministry of "their" church, congregation, or program. I am grateful that I was the 4th of five panelists to offer introductions, so I was able to acknowledge the difficulty of how to frame Quakerism and my place in it in a way that paralleled what had already been offered.

2. I was surprised to hear myself speak about John Woolman ("Love is the first motion") and how he labored initially with individuals around the concern of holding slaves. I don't recall what the question was that led me into that sharing, but I do recall that leading up to that particular comment, I had been talking about the importance of being yoked to one another; that we remember that we are brothers and sisters to one another; that we must be willing to stay in relationship with one another as we struggle with our different beliefs, understandings, and experiences.

3. I will say that the language and image of speaking with dignity with and about "our brothers and sisters" who might not agree with us is language that some within Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Concerns have modeled and lifted up for me. So in a very real way, they all were with me yesterday afternoon, too.

4. The most significant question of the afternoon, I think, was the one that came from a young man. Referring back to specific language that another panelist had used to summarize the polarization over the issue of same-sex marriage, he asked:

So if the conversation is basically between "perverts and bigots," how do I even begin to step into the middle of that and start talking to anyone?

Yes indeed: How DO we start talking to one another when such hateful, hurtful judgments precede any sort of real and respectful dialogue?

Blessings,
Liz

An epistle: Come to be known

What follows is the written response to an exercise for a Quaker workshop I am attending. The assignment was to write a statement of my "rock-bottom truths." Maybe it's because of reading Samuel Bownas, or maybe it's because of some excerpts from Fox that I'm reading, but I found myself writing something that felt more like an epistle--sharing the experience as a whole with others--rather than writing a list of This-I-believe's.

The epistle is written in the first person plural rather than the first person singular. I find that both voices work for me, yet each carries a separate energy. Since the words came to me in the "we" form rather than the "I" form, that is how I am presenting this piece to you.

Blessings,
Liz

Epistle, Fourth Month 2006

When we are come to be known by the Living Presence, that which is eternal and lives within us and gives life beyond us, when we are free with our vulnerabilities and with our failings, then shall we be opened even moreso to the Love and Compassionate Power that we seek.

Yet God does not ask us to be weak or timid; God prods us and nudges us into our awakened state so that we may know our measure of Light and we may yield unto it and we may live up unto it, giving ourselves completely to it so that we may be well used, exhausted with our joy of having lived a faithful life.

And even as we fall spiritually asleep in our daytime lives of busyness and city errands, yet the Spirit travels with us and does not abandon us. Like a parent who is at a loss for how to care for a daughter or son who has strayed from the family’s values and manner, into a world of material temptation, God frets with loving concern over our drifting away from the holy values and manner of love, spiritual obedience, and communal generosity.

God waits up for us into the quiet hours of dawn, sneaks up the stairs with us, catching the secret smells of the world’s pressures in our clothes and on our breath. This is how close God is to us, ourselves unknowing and skeptical. We go through our despairing days and our frenetic lives, never seeing that God has slipped into our back-pocket, like a spare twenty.

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

The Great Comforter presents itself most clearly when we stop pursuing material goals, when we lay down our reaching for trophies that set ourselves one against another, when we give up insisting that our personal rights must be preserved regardless of the brokenness and care of others.

We are all in this together. We are yoked together with God.

There is no law greater than the Single Law to love one another, to nurture the Seed in one another through preserving dignity, offering respect, and demonstrating authentic humility. This Law does not go away in times of duress or struggle. In fact its need is greatest at the worst of these times, and we are bridled to this work...

And so: how ought we to prepare ourselves for God’s compassion? The preparation is in the practice and discipline of receiving.

To say Thank You when one offers a compliment. To yield into an embrace when one is offered. To meet the tender gaze of another’s eyes without turning away in discomfort.

God says Thank You and Bless You and I Am With You more often than we can know. God embraces us secretly and openly in each moment of our days. God gazes softly at us in wonder and in tenderness. All this and more does God bring to us, and we must be careful not to shirk it off, turn our heads, cool our hearts, fill our days, and wait for God to strike us down with lightning, or whack us smartly on the head so that we may know for certain that God is paying attention.

Instead, we must discipline ourselves to be with the discomfort of welcoming and receiving God’s love, grace, and blessing. We must discipline ourselves to be with the discomfort of being good enough, of being seen, of being known. Somehow we are taught to believe that if we are truly known, we will be abandoned. But I say, when we are truly known, we shall be embraced and uplifted, we shall go out with joy and be met with laughter, we shall shine like the sun and we shall spill our measure of Light onto the sidewalks, and the hearts of those around us shall catch the fire of the Spirit, and their rough edges will be made smooth and the good in them will be raised up.

Another great read from Thomas Gates

I just finished reading the "Bible half-hours" that were offered by Tom Gates as FGC's 2005 Gathering. Since I consider myself Scripturally illiterate, I was hesistant about buying and cracking open this small, humble pamphlet that FGC put out after that Gathering... But then it showed up at an FGC event I attended recently and, well, Opening the Scriptures came home with me.

Just as in his earlier pamphlet Members One of Another, Tom Gates gives voice to dynamics and concepts that many Friends are slow to articulate or even explore.

Rather than rewrite and paraphrase this Friend, I include a few direct quotes here and add the page numbers from the pamphlet, Opening the Scriptures.

On the difficulty of using what he calls "religious language"

I can't help seeing a contrast between the rich spiritual language of early Friends and our modern spiritual reticence, a poverty of language, a reluctance to put into words that which is most important in our lives... Our modern dilemma in a nutshell: unable to find the perfect word, we lapse into silence. (pp. 14, 15)

and

[There] is a very stark realization, that we do not always know how to talk about God, or at least how to talk about God together, as a community. We often seem to be speaking different languages, or just as as commonly, no language at all.... As a consequence, we say less and less, and our shared language is reduced to platitudes...(p. 18)

Gates also writes very clearly about Fox's understanding of the Light, its properties and its functions; and the Seed as metaphor.

For me personally, though, the other gem that is in this pamphlet, in addition to his remarks about religious language, is what Tom Gates writes about "the yoke of our tradition" as Friends.

Understanding the yoke of our tradition

In our time, we... find the image of a yoke difficult to swallow because it implies some kind of limit on our freedom, and deep down we are heirs to the enlightenment idea that there can be no legitimate limits to human freedom.... But perhaps unlimited freedom is not our highest purpose.... Perhaps there is a certain amount of irreducible suffering that every person must bear, and if that is true, something to help us bear that burden might be a good thing. A yoke is exactly that: something that helps us bear a burden.... [In Matthew 11:28-30], we might see this yoke as something which Jesus imposes upon us, but I prefer to see it as the yoke which Jesus himself wears, and which he offers to share with us. A young and inexperienced work horse is trained by first being yoked together wtih a more experienced animal. (pp. 54-55)

In this way, as we delve more deeply into the early tradition of Friends, not only might we come to understand how we are yoked to God but we might also come to understand how we can grow in the Spirit by allowing ourselves to be yoked to one another, so we might learn what it means to be faithful, what it means to nurture the Seed within us, what it means to be made low and wait humbly on the Lord, to know the Light.

I know for me, in my experience, it is only when I stop wrestling with God, when I yield, give over my stubbornness, and receive the burden--that is, take up the yoke that God is presenting to me--it is only then that I feel a weight lifted from me. The weight is not entirely removed, but it is somehow made lighter, and I can breathe and move forward again.

Blessings,
Liz

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Related posts*

Beppe on Gates' other pamphlet
My own post on opening myself to scripture
Another, more recent post of mine that has a reference to the concept of being yoked together

*This is certainly a partial list--I know I've missed quite a few posts that exist in the archives of the Quaker blogosphere. For example, I know Kwakersaur recently raised a question about Friends' infrequent mention of Scripture as part of vocal ministry, but I couldn't find it!

I hope readers will use the comments section to refer us to other posts that reflect these themes. Thanks. -Liz

After Barbara Greenler's memorial

I am still so very tender. Her life spoke; her life preached.

I pull back from the world to listen to her fill my heart once more. Here are some memories, some lessons, some great one-liners I have heard about this remarkable meek woman.

"If you want to see Quakers mad, just draw a line somewhere."

Back in the 1950s, when Barbara was in her 20s, she was arrested in Washington, D.C. for walking down the street, singing with an interracial group. The charge was disturbing the peace. The song? Jacob's Ladder. When she was brought to the jail, she and the other white woman involved refused to go to the segregated cell. They stayed where they were and spent the night in jail, singing.

"We're all in this together."

Barbara had a collection of prairie insects that she helped put together for the Riveredge Nature Center.

Barbara had six grandchildren. She seemed to put aside time to spend with each one, separately. Sometimes it was for a chat, sometimes it was for an overnight. But when Barbara was with you, she was entirely and devotedly with you.

There were about 300 people at her memorial. The memorial lasted about two hours and included a number of songs. These are the ones that Barbara had requested:

O God of All Creation, #18 in the Friends Hymnal.
I Celebrate the Inward Light, #149 in the Friends Hymnal.
Song of Peace
Old Man River, with words slightly modified. Barbara had asked Dave French to sing this as a solo.

At the potluck following the meeting for worship for memorial, about 150 people showed up. Towards the end, we began to sing in the manner of Nightingales, the Quaker group for fellowship-and-singing that Barbara helped found a few decades ago. All of us sitting in a circle. No books to sing from. Singing to each other, love and tears in our eyes. Children on laps. Arms around shoulders.

Swing Low Sweet Chariot
Mary Ellen Carter
All God's Critters
Climb, Climb Up Sunshine Mountain
Music in My Mother's House
Whispering Hope.

I miss her. Her love made the rough edges smooth for so many of us. Barbara lived by the Law of Love.

At Meeting for Worship the next day, which was First Day, an old and dear friend of Barbara's rose:

I was thinking: When I die, I want a memorial like Barbara's. But if I want a memorial like that, then I have to live like that.

Blessings,
Liz