Spiritual refugees and spiritual safety

I spent some time on First Day reflecting on the concept of being a spiritual refugee. Such a concept was alluded to during Meeting for Worship today, and I realized that in order for one to seek refuge--to be a refugee--one must feel unsafe in existing circumstances and therefore take action to protect oneself, often by fleeing, by heading "anywhere but here."

Those of us who come to Friends are occasionally referred to as spiritual refugees, not religious ones. So what's the difference?

My guess is that there is a difference of degree and of level of systemization. My understanding is that a religious refugee has experienced a great deal of persecution, oppression, and trauma from a religious institution that likely can be identified as intentionally having inflicted harm--physically, emotionally, or psychologically--under the guise of religion.

But what has a spiritual refugee experienced? Perhaps the spiritual refugee has also experienced a degree of suffering or dissatisfaction, but not as severe and not as systemically institutionalized as what is caused by the abuse of religious power in the case of religious persecution.

In my case, the synagogue of my childhood did not intentionally harm me. Nevertheless, as a young adult I was disillusioned by the lack of integrity between prayer and deed, and by the distance between their God Up There and my God Down Here.

The religion and practices of my youth never really spoke to me. My Judaism was hollow; my Quakerism is alive and vibrant. It is not so much that I fled Judaism as much as it was that I sought a different, more integrated experience between the faith and the worshiper.

Another facet of this topic relates to a similar difference between religion and spirituality. Religion is institutionalized, systematized, and impacts a body of worshipers; spirituality is kept more to the individual level and the personal I-Thou relationship. A religious refugee comes out of a systemic experience; a spiritual refugee comes out of a personal one.

Part of what Quakerism offers me, I have found, is a sort of spiritual safety that addresses my personal spiritual concerns. I am talking about something else beyond the initial "I feel as though I am Home" experience. There is something that exists and is experienced after we have come through the doors of our Meetinghouses and have decided to stay awhile.

For me, the open worship of unprogrammed meeting creates a safe space that allows me to connect with the Divine without being told how I might make that inward journey. It is up to me, and at last, I have the space to participate in that journey on my own. It is up to me, and between me and my God, for me to discover what I believe, what I will stand for, and how I will live in integrity.

It is as though the silence commands it.

Having said that, given my experience that the silence is where God lives and can be heard, why wouldn't I want to protect that worshipful space?

Here's another element of how a sense of spiritual safety is created for me during meeting for worship: I find that there is a "leveling" that occurs within the silence of open worship. The silence makes us equal to one another, and equal to God who also sits amongst us.

When I have risen to offer vocal ministry, all I have feared is whether or not I was being faithful to the message I had been given, not how I might be judged or challenged after I sit back down. Somehow the silence embraces me and cradles me, like a loving parent who knows that her or his child has done well, even if nothing comes of it.

Again I ask: Why wouldn't I want to protect that worshipful space, where I feel such unconditional love?

Well, sometimes we are slow to act. We may not know that our spiritual safety has been threatened or encroached upon. I don't think American society understands what spiritual safety is. If that is so, then how can we care for something that we don't have awareness of yet?

On top of that, take that lack of corporate clarity about what creates and maintains a sense of spiritual safety and add to it a practice of "love one another first, confront one another later," and our meetings become ripe for intentional or unintentional spiritual disruption.

A few years ago, when a visitor stood in the middle of one Meeting for Worship and began to pass out flyers about an activity he was wanting us to know about, I expected the spiritual safety of the worship to be protected. It took a while--a few Friends stumbled with how to address this man's insistence on sharing the papers he had brought--but in the end, I felt the meeting responded well.

The spiritual safety of our meetings is precious, and I worry that we spend too little time affirming it and being intentional in how to safeguard it.

To be clear, I personally don't want our meetings to become nothing more than sanctuaries for spiritual refugees. I want the walls of our spiritual river banks to be free of holes and outlets so that we can sink into deep waters... and trust that we are still spiritually safe with one another.

Blessings,
Liz

P.S. For more specific examples of real-life creative, spontaneous solutions to spiritual disruptions in Quaker meetings, there is this pamphlet that focuses on just that: example, solutions, and healing.