tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737238.post2354958600305216501..comments2024-03-22T03:10:08.766-05:00Comments on The Good Raised Up: Membership and identityUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737238.post-29810484399407416622007-09-23T22:34:00.000-05:002007-09-23T22:34:00.000-05:00Yvonne - Thanks for visiting and for leaving a com...<B>Yvonne</B> - <BR/><BR/>Thanks for visiting and for leaving a comment. I see you've commented elsewhere on <I>The Good Raised Up,</I> so I have some catching up to do! <BR/><BR/>Blessings,<BR/>LizLiz Opphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09802348848085930901noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737238.post-63650244897993366742007-09-22T05:42:00.000-05:002007-09-22T05:42:00.000-05:00This discussion of membership and identity has bee...This discussion of membership and identity has been very interesting for me (started reading the discussion at QuakerPagan Reflections and then came here) as I am currently moving beyond labels but also wanting to find a group that I can be a member of with integrity - though I agree with Marshall that part of the purpose of a group is mutual accommodation. Thanks!Yewtreehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02028699564003381058noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737238.post-26397467656078469072007-04-18T21:02:00.000-05:002007-04-18T21:02:00.000-05:00Um, no, Liz, I wasn't being humorous in my opening...Um, no, Liz, I wasn't being humorous in my opening comment. You often write outstanding essays, but I thought <I>in all seriousness</I> that this one was marvelous even for you.<BR/><BR/>And I'm glad to hear you're transcending the "triggers". That's a difficult attainment. I've had to struggle to do something similar with the straight-laced Calvinism I was brought in. Amazing how deeply our childhoods imprint us.<BR/><BR/>The Velveteen Rabbi (great name) is generally too technical for a poor non-Jew like me. But I can certainly appreciate great rabbis when they're willing to take the time to teach me at a level I can understand. I met Arthur Waskow once, years and years ago, and had a chance to chat with him for twenty minutes or so. He corresponded with me by e-mail for a while after that, too. (We had Biblical environmentalism in common, you see.) It was quite a treat for me.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737238.post-9625831990779422022007-04-18T19:10:00.000-05:002007-04-18T19:10:00.000-05:00Robin - Thanks so much for dropping by. I know li...<B>Robin</B> - <BR/><BR/>Thanks so much for dropping by. I know life is BUSY for you these days. ...Like you, I find that my own beliefs and understandings are being stretched and/or transformed by being among Friends, far beyond how I thought they could be. I don't feel like I'm about to break, though. Instead, I feel like I could be called out even further somehow, if that makes sense.<BR/><BR/><B>Marshall</B> -<BR/><BR/>I take it your opening comment--"a marvelous essay, even for you"--includes a healthy dose of humor...? If it doesn't, you can tell me so privately by email! smile<BR/><BR/>You raise the question that I have had to face, over and over again: Given that [early] Christianity is grounded in Judaism, <I>"I see no special reason why Quakerism should be held to be in conflict with a Jewish identity."</I><BR/><BR/>The thing is, as a Jew, I was raised with [read: indoctrinated with] the message that Jews do not believe in Jesus; Jews do not accept Christ. Period. So the logic that you present and that I have since considered, as I have grown in my understanding of Jesus'/Yeshua's relationship to Judaism, <B><I>just doesn't count.</I></B> Not for me, anyway. That's the power of indoctrination, I guess. <BR/><BR/>But what's so cool about where I am now in my understanding, is that when a dear fFriend recently said to another Friend when the three of us were together that she has known Christ's love in me, I could <B><I>hear</I></B> that and not get "triggered."<BR/><BR/>I also appreciate the description that you offer about Conservative Quakerism, that it is "more conscious" than other faiths. I hadn't thought of it that way, but there is resonance in that statement for me.<BR/><BR/>Also, your hope is well met, that my own Quakerism <B><I>doesn't</I></B> "shut any doors" against the Judaism I grew up with--though it certainly cautions against empty rituals and forms. In fact, my grounding in Quakerism has made me less afraid to revisit and learn more about Judaism, as though I have a clearer view of that faith tradition because I am further from it. I still visit the <A HREF="http://velveteenrabbi.blogs.com" REL="nofollow">Velveteen Rabbi</A> from time to time.<BR/><BR/>I also appreciate the distinctions you raise, beyond what I have offered, between membership and identity/self-identification. I differ a bit with you, though, about the statement that <I>"membership in a local Quaker community involves a certain measure of loss of one's own separate identity."</I> <BR/><BR/>I see the "loss of one's separate identity" on a continuum, with Liberal Friends preserving a greater sense of individualism than I have experienced among Conservative Friends. <BR/><BR/>If you have other thoughts in response to this post and related comments, more than your initial "immediate" ones, I trust you'll offer them here. <BR/><BR/><B>Kenneth</B> - <BR/><BR/>I appreciate the "in-between place" where you find yourself. Much of my letting go of my Judaism, before I came to Friends, was filled with the same questions you are currently facing about identity.<BR/><BR/>Personally, I find nothing wrong with answering truthfully when asked, "Well, if you're not a UU, what are you?" Can you not reply truthfully, "I am in-between faiths right now and am living into that answer"? <BR/><BR/>...But my guess is, you are searching for just how to put words to where it is exactly that you find yourself, so I don't wish to put words in your mouth. It's like when I don't want to answer the question, "How are you?" with the expected answer, "Fine," when that's not at all the truth of how I am, in the moment. Like you say, it's uncomfortable and disconcerting.<BR/><BR/>Still, I have always appreciated the care with which you have approached tender circumstances, and I trust you are finding your way, even when you feel lost for a while.<BR/><BR/>You are in my thoughts.<BR/><BR/>Blessings,<BR/>LizLiz Opphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09802348848085930901noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737238.post-85204543627520247632007-04-18T06:21:00.000-05:002007-04-18T06:21:00.000-05:00Hi Liz,Thank you for this post. I've been dealing ...Hi Liz,<BR/><BR/>Thank you for this post. I've been dealing with questions of membership and identity especially since resigning my membership. Having much the same concern as Marshall, I do not feel I can in good faith call myself a Quaker, being neither a member nor an active participation in a meeting.<BR/><BR/>Over the course of twenty years, "Quaker" became a core part of my identity, and now I am faced with the questions "What am I? Who am I?" The situation is made more pointed by my work: as a religious employee, I often have conversations that go like this:<BR/><BR/>"I work for the Unitarian Universalists."<BR/><BR/>"That's cool. I've thought about going to AB Church. Which church do you belong to?"<BR/><BR/>"I'm not a UU."<BR/><BR/>"What are you?"<BR/><BR/>And I find I no longer have a ready answer. <BR/><BR/>It's disconcerting, and uncomfortable, not to have a ready answer, but I think it is inherent in the questioning and, I hope, growing time in which I've found myself.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737238.post-59910102378680384132007-04-18T05:55:00.000-05:002007-04-18T05:55:00.000-05:00Dear Liz, I thought this was a marvelous essay, ev...Dear Liz, I thought this was a marvelous essay, even for you. I much appreciated it!<BR/><BR/>I have had a few immediate thoughts:<BR/><BR/>1) Because of the unusual way that Quakerism is grounded in Christianity, and through Christianity in Judaism -- a way which is quite unlike the way Catholic and Protestant Orthodoxy are grounded in the two -- I see no special reason why Quakerism should be held to be in conflict with a Jewish identity. Yes, Quakerism challenges Jewish rituals just as it challenges Christian rituals; but modern Quakerism does not forbid them. And yes, Conservative Quakerism in particular calls us to a discipleship under Christ, but Conservative Quakerism is a whole lot more conscious than Catholic and Protestant Orthodoxy are of the fact that Christ was endeavoring to bring his followers back to the religion of the ancient Jewish prophets.<BR/><BR/>Quakerism certainly does not deny any of the ancient Jewish truths, or the importance of the special Jewish identity. And it certainly shuts no doors against Jewishness, the way so much "christian" prejudice does.<BR/><BR/>I would hope, then, that your own Quakerism never seems to shut any doors in your life against the community you have come from.<BR/><BR/>2) There are a couple of (to my way of thinking) very important difference between membership in a group, and self-identification with a tradition, that you do not seem to speak about.<BR/><BR/>One of these differences is that membership in a group gives the group permission to make demands of you, and even make changes in you, whereas self-identification with a tradition leaves the reins of your life in your own hands. Thus membership is communitarian, while identification is individualistic.<BR/><BR/>And the other, related difference is that membership in a local Quaker community involves a certain measure of loss of one's own separate identity, as one comes to live and breathe as a part of the group. You forget that you are separate -- just as you do in a close friendship or a good marriage. Self-identification may do that, too, but it does not <I>necessarily</I> do that. Membership in a local Quaker community <I>necessarily</I> does that.<BR/><BR/>You know, when I hear people claim that they are Quaker because they identify themselves as Quaker, regardless of their lack of formal membership, what distresses me above all else is the fact that they are claiming the power and right to alter what this community that they're attracted to is by the simple fact of their own presence, while granting the community no answering power and right to alter <I>them</I>. This is a power play on these individuals' part, even though they don't see it as such. In the places where it has been permitted to proceed, I think it has visibly hurt Quakerism.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737238.post-80899075899440333662007-04-17T22:10:00.000-05:002007-04-17T22:10:00.000-05:00I know that I self-identified as a Quaker for a co...I know that I self-identified as a Quaker for a couple of years before I was settled enough to become a member of a specific meeting. In fact, it was the dissonance of wanting to publicly identify myself as a Friend but not feeling free to do so that nudged me to formally apply for membership. <BR/><BR/>My identity as a Friend has shifted several times in my fifteen years of attending meetings. Starting from the instant sense of finding a religious tradition that reinforced the things I believed and didn't require assent to beliefs I didn't hold. Passing to a sense that Quaker practices call(ed) me and enable me to be more the person God created me to be. And now I am being opened to consider that some of my earlier beliefs were not completely true, or not the whole truth anyway. Quaker practices and particular Friends are both pushing me and supporting me and comforting me as I walk farther out on this ledge. I am both afraid and confident that I will fly when I come to the edge of what I know, rather than fall into a pit. My membership now represents a bind on my meeting as much as on me to stay with me through this next stage of my identity as a Quaker.Robin M.https://www.blogger.com/profile/10336915224193704866noreply@blogger.com