Quakers, Moral Injury, and Decolonization

This past week, I participated in the annual conference for the Friends Association for Higher Education (FAHE). It had three things going for it that appealed to me, since I had never participated in FAHE before:

1. It was held in hybrid format.

2. The host site this year was Haverford College, my father's and my alma mater.

3. The theme was Quakers, Colonization, and Decolonization--topics that my monthly and yearly meeting have been coming under the weight of.

After more than 30 years of paying little attention to the college because of their lip service to being a Quaker institution and to addressing racial justice issues, the administration now is actually engaged in meaningful work around equity and racial disparities. And the college's website and brochures seem to refer to its Quaker history rather than wrongly asserting that it's a Quaker college.

A few years ago, I learned about the John P. Chesick Scholars Program, which provides a tremendous amount of support through a variety of measures to first generation college students and to low income students--a population that has heavy overlap with the BIPOC community.

In the past year, my mother and I had an opportunity to learn a great deal about the program. That's a longer story for another time, involving some wealth redistribution and laboring with my mother about how to memorialize my father and what could make a meaningful difference to the students there.

But as a result of our conversations, I also noticed the change in racial makeup of the student body and the faculty, so I knew something at the structural level was going on. The FAHE conference gave me a reason to dip another toe into Haverford's waters, even though I've become wary of highly academic conferences: such conferences unintentionally exclude so many among us who have been undereducated because of racism and classism, if not also because of other oppressions. (One notable exception is the White Privilege Conference.)

Takeaways

A few of my takeaways include:

1. The use of certain words and phrases in everyday discourse about indigenous issues continue to center white colonizer-settlers, which derails harm reduction and perpetuates an unjust narrative. Indigenous presenter tom kunesh explained how saying "America" instead of "the United States" or even "Turtle Island" points to settler-colonizer Americo Vespucci; using the word "Indian" rather than "indigenous people" reinforces colonizer Christopher Columbus' error and alludes to the violence carried out by European colonizer-settlers against the original inhabitants of the land; calling the institutions that forced indgienous children and youth "Native American/Indian boarding schools" erases the horrific reality that these were, in fact and in effect, forced assimilation camps, not schools. These are not my words, though they are now my concern: These are part of the perspective, counsel, and wisdom provided by indigenous peoples who were presenters and ministers during the FAHE conference.

2. Those of us who are descendants of European settler-colonizers--white peole--aren't able to do the deepest work of decolonizing our hearts and minds on our own, even if in a study group or praxis group. We who are white must humble ourselves to accept the guidance and corrections of our indigenous kin, including descendants of BIPOC people who were forced here and who immigrated here. In many cases, these kin and elders embody ways of life that are much closer to the original ways of being. In mixed groups, we who are white must be willing to observe and not take over or assert. It requires a deep practice and discipline of humility.

3. Concepts like "repair and restore" must be broader than #landback. They must include language back, culture back, religion back, way of life back. There are a few communities in the U.S.--across Turtle Island--that have an honor tax or a land tax that white residents can pay voluntarily that go toward restoring or returning land back to indigenous stewards as a way to repair the theft of land by the federal government, whether through broken treaty, massacre, forced removal, or other unjust means, even if deemed "legal" back then. After all, even slavery was a legalized institution at some point. Perhaps these sorts of funds are also being used--or will be, soon--to restore other parts of indigenous ways of being. There are also indigenous-led organizations that focus on language and culture preservation; healing from the multigenerational trauma of forced assimilation camps, etc. 

All of this reminds me that my signing emails with a simple land acknowledgment doesn't change or decolonize any of the larger systems that still oppress or even erase indigenous people. Land acknowledgments might make me feel good briefly, knowing that I at least can name the original inhabitants of where I currently live. But I now have added another statement to my electronic signature at the bottom of my email:

I am living on traditional homelands of the Dakota, and our household makes annual donations to indigenous-led organizations that are engaged in returning land to Native peoples and in preserving/renewing Native language and culture.

An afterthought: Moral injury

In the two weeks leading up to the FAHE conference, the indigenous author-botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer and her book Braiding Sweetgrass appeared in my life a number of times. A fellow worshiper shared a recent essay of Kimmerer's, on harvesting serviceberries; someone in a group I'm in about money and justice mentioned the book shortly after that, as did one or two presenters during the FAHE conference.

Something else was stirring in me, more deeply than I expected. It got agitated during Paula Palmer's remarks, much of which I have heard or seen before. But something was different this time. Maybe it was the intimacy of the group--about 20 people in person and 15 online, with about a third of them being indigenous or of African descent.

Or maybe it was that by being intellectually familiar with some of the facts of these tragic and horrific histories, I could receive the information through emotional, energetic, and spiritual pathways, not solely intellectual ones.

A collective sorrow was welling up within my spirit.

What had we done?! ...What had we white colonizer-settler Quakers done?!

Subconsciously, I was starting to live into that question more fully as the final day of the conference was about to get underway.

That morning, I was reading a news story about doctors in this country who are working within the for-profit healthcare system. They are beginning to come to terms with what some are calling a moral injury: by taking the Hippocratic Oath, they had agreed to work in a profession that commits them to providing beneficial treatments and ethical care while refraining from causing hurt or harm. Yet, at these for-profit medical facilities, they are pressured by "the demands of administrators, hospital executives and insurers [who force] them to stray from the ethical principles that were supposed to govern their profession," ultimately prioritizing profits over patient care when the patients are at their sickest.

At its core, a moral injury has to do with engaging in or being witness to an act that goes against our deepest held beliefs and personal or communal ethics. It seems that if trauma can be secondary--by indirectly experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event--so too moral injury can be secondary: As more white Quakers learn of how our Quaker predecessors promoted and worked in the indigenous boarding school system [forced assimilation camps], brutally stripping indigenous children of their language, culture, hair, clothes, religious, and family, more of us experience deep sorrow, grief, anguish, or even shame. We carry the grief together, learning how just a few generations ago, Quakers participated in activities that would appear to be reprehensible and that would go against our Quaker identity and values of mutual respect. Truthtelling helps begin some healing and offers some accountability but more is needed, as the FAHE conference and its indigenous participants and presenters alluded to.

Tenderly,
Liz

The season of miracles

This past First Day, I was reminded in our pre-meeting discussion that Friends don't keep days or seasons because every day is holy. The discussion was loosely structured as a "brunch," with a metaphorical appetizer or beverage course involving sharing a poem or reading; a main course to allow us time for deeper reflections on spring, renewal, hope, and miracles; and a dessert course to top it off, sharing a favorite recipe for this time of year or what we are looking forward to.

Many of us were aware that the mainstream Christian holiday of Easter, the Jewish holiday of Passover, and the Muslim holiday of Ramadan all overlapped this year. It has nearly always been a sore point for me when a major Christian holiday comes around because I am often left out of those conversations, not having been raised in that tradition. So for us as a meeting to take a beat or two and acknowledge these other holidays and "seasons" warmed my heart.

As the sharing got underway, I was often moved or struck by what we heard from one another. I began taking short notes, jotting down a peculiar phrase that a Friend used, or referencing an image that someone spoke of. By the end of our pre-meeting time, a poem had organically risen from our blessed time together.

IN TALKING ABOUT MIRACLES

the song of the peepers
the sighting of the purple violets and white
among skunk cabbages on the forest floor

planting peas and parsnips
old marigold seeds from years ago awaken in zipper bags
the season of making seeds turn into sprouts amid our miraculous observation

the migration of gray juncos
the thinning of ice on ponds
slivers of open water
welcoming the return of herons

the rhizome alive within us
under the right conditions
with the right Love
the people will bloom
and we unfold and unfurl
and become again

joyous day
wondrous season
season of miracles

Blessings,
Liz

The Quaker corporate community and technology

When I began serving on a large Quaker meeting's Ministry & Counsel Committee (M&C)--the meeting had three Meetings for Worship (MfW) a week--I had an inward sense that it was important to at least visit each of the other two that I had never participated in previously. After all, the committee served the whole meeting and not just the Friends who attended the largest worship. In addition, it seemed odd to me that occasionally during Meetings for Worship for Business, some Friends would speak about what occurred at "the 8:30 worship," at the "midweek worship", or at "the 11:00 worship." Each subgroup of Friends seemed to be experiencing something different, despite being all part of the larger Meeting.

Granted, I had enough flexibility in my life to attend more than one MfW a week, and my visits to the "other" meetings helped me know experientially what it meant to be part of one body. My life, committee service, worship, and f/Friendships were enriched unexpectedly, because of all the additional Friends known to me back then who were actively seeking Truth and striving to be faithful to the Guide. They simply did so at different times on First Day and during the week. Had I stayed only at the worship where I was most comfortable and what was most convenient to me individually, I would never have appreciated the other parts of the body that were just as indispensable as the one I had been attending.


UNINTENDED IMPACT OF VIDEO TECHNOLOGY

I raise this story because recently I read several articles and comments within the March 2023 online edition of Friends Journal, focused on the impact of the first 2-3 years of the Covid-19 pandemic. There were expressions of deep loneliness and of gratitude, seemingly caused by the technology that arose out of a need to "keep our meetings" and to stay connected to our social networks when so much else around us was on short- or long-term lockdown. For some of us, the screens brought greater emotional distance; for others of us, they brought us together in unexpected ways.

Many of the writings seem to propose one of two paths forward as the Covid-19 pandemic evolves to becoming endemic, each of the two main proposals being on opposite sides of the coin:

Continuing to use video conferencing technology* helps us, therefore continue the use of online and hybrid meetings

and/or

Continuing to use video conferencing hurts us, therefore discontinue hybrid meetings and restore only in-person meetings.

What we lose sight of, though, in the debates of hybrid worship vs in-person only; to mask or not to mask is that we are still part of one larger body, regardless. It is a form of spiritual violence to hold disdain toward someone who yearns to belong and to be in deep community with others and then to press them to conform, change, or go away. It is a form of spiritual generosity, on the other hand, to express care for someone who yearns to belong and then welcome them into deep community with us. This is one part of acting as if we truly are indispensable to one another:

As a corporate body, gathered by the Shepherd,

we have to become willing

to be willing

to change the culture of our worship community

in order to be wholely inclusive.

But more directly as a result of this particular issue of Friends Journal, I found myself wondering about how earlier technology may have impacted the peculiar people called Friends; and how did Friends stay in community... or did they? I draw on these questions because one principle of Quakerism is that there is Truth based on direct experience, as well as Truth written into sacred texts. Is there something that we can learn and test from other eras of Quakerism?


THE PRINTING PRESS and COMPUTERS

My thoughts quickly turn to the printing press, which made the Bible more widely available to many in Europe, especially to those in the middle class; and Quakers began publishing their thoughts as tracts and pamphlets. In the back of my mind, though, I wondered about illiterate Friends and seekers who might have been attracted to the faith:

If ministry and testimony weren't accessible by the written or printed word, wouldn't worshipers and traveling ministers rely more heavily on recounting what they knew from their own direct experience of the Divine, in addition to what they remembered having heard? Did those early Quakers have conflict about whether the printed word -- being able to read and write -- was supremely valuable in helping Friends feel "nearer to Thee"? Further, did wealthier, better educated Friends like George Fox and Margaret Fell extend any sort of welcome intentionally to illiterate seekers?

It's a wonder I've had for a while. I'm not a historian, so these questions just float in my brain as I seek to connect the dots and learn from the past. And of course I count on other Friends whose gifts and knowledge include sharing Quaker history and related tidbits.


THE AUTOMOBILE

I want to stop and also consider the automobile and its impact on Quakers. I imagine that having mobility among at least some of its members--those who could afford a car as well as its maintenance--may have changed the nature of the worship community. Wouldn't access to a car mean access and opportunity to attend meetings a bit farther than a few hours walk or buggy ride? Did cars begin to fracture meetings as a result? Or did meetings expand because more Friends were able to participate on First Days and even visit among one another during the week?

Did increased convenience interfere with or aid in preparing heart and mind for worship? Did cars intrude on an individual's or household's sense of simplicity, given the need for maintenance and gasoline? For my rural midwestern yearly meeting in the U.S., I imagine that families had much discussion, discernment, and tension around whether to support growing children who might wish to leave the farm for higher education or for better work opportunities, now that they could with relative ease.


WHO DECIDES WHAT IS OR ISN'T INCLUSIVE

I had a dear older Quaker friend who had been asked to co-clerk a large committee in the late 1990s for a North American Quaker organization. She cautiously accepted, making it clear that she had no intention of communicating by email for committee work, despite how convenient and widespread email had become by then. Apparently there was much frustration expressed by others on the committee and by some personnel on staff, but my friend held her ground. The committee got its work done very effectively, as far as I know, with thanks to phone calls, letters, and the occasional face-to-face meeting.

My friend's experience became a lesson for me on how to stay connected, especially when serving our meetings, when not everyone has the same access to or comfort with the technology that is available. I've clerked a handful of committees for my yearly meeting and monthly meeting, as well as other ad hoc groups, being mindful of when a Friend is dyslexic, can't afford a computer, or is neurodivergent. It remains important to me to demonstrate "equal concern for one another," and so I spend a few extra minutes in preparing for a committee meeting with a variety of accessibility needs, like making calls ahead of time in addition to sending emails.

I'm also thinking about vocal ministry that has arisen in my rural yearly meeting, and ministry that I have been witness to from Friends who were raised on farms or who have done manual labor. Some of those messages have centered on metaphors of farming or of the trades, like the importance of measuring a piece of wood based on an initial "master" piece, in order to make other pieces the same length--and needing to go back to the orginal piece, the master piece, from time to time instead of relying on the secondary pieces... being certain we are listening for the Truth and not for some substitute of it.

My yearly meeting's culture is such that these messages ground us in some ways that more abstract messages cannot. And yet, I more often hear messages that allude to the value of college degrees or white collar work, or how our intention of being welcoming or inclusive comes across as being paternalistic rather than out of a reciprocal relationship. I struggle to put my finger on what doesn't sit well with me...

My yearly meeting's culture includes some oral history and personal experiences of how Friends have dreaded the idea of not being in unity when the tension at a Meeting for Worship for Business is terribly thick and palpable. ("dread" is the word I am using). The struggle to keep all of us in the Fold despite different beliefs and differing values seems to touch all of us eventually. And that includes moments when we ourselves may feel that we do belong, as well as moments when we may feel that we don't.


TRUTH IN SCRIPTURE

Although I am not steeped in Scripture, and I don't identify as a Christian Quaker, I have known experimentally the discipline required to live into what Corinthians 12:22-26 requires of us:

...those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment.

But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.

If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

Blessings,
Liz

*My yearly meeting has a practice that we not name specific corporations, businesses, or brands, lest Friends be misunderstood as somehow supporting a particular company.

Witness & Testimony on Gender Expression

Content warning: This post has references to hate, genocide, the Holocaust, queerphobia, and LGBTQ+ issues.

No links are included to news reports nor to other online items that amplify hate and trauma.

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

These days, creating legislation that calls for the suppression or repression of behaviors that don't conform to a person's perceived gender, and calls for the complete eradication of trans people seem to be current ways for some hurt, fearful people in power to be seen as being among the cool kids on the block. Being anti-trans and making threats or bullying anyone who appears to be crossing what used to be considered "normal" gender boundaries is quickly taking hold across the United States.

To say that it's frightening or unsettling would be a severe understatement. This soon-to-be legalized way of oppressing an entire group of people based on who we are and how we show up in the world is dangerous.

Globally, we've been here before--think The Final Solution in Nazi Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe; the calls for removing the "savage" indigenous people in Turtle Island; the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda; and modern-day Uganda, where there are ongoing open calls for death to anyone who is gay or lesbian.

In the U.S., when I was an adolescent in the 1970s, homophobic language was about as ever-present and blatant as today, but without the viral nature of social media. Nevertheless, the homophobic language and explicit fears in mainstream America were frequent enough and widespread enough that they reached me, and I questioned and doubted myself in my own uncertainty:

Was I a lesbian? How would I know? Would that mean I had a mental illness? If I were mentally ill, what would happen to me?

As a result of today's increasingly hateful, psychologically harmful, and dangerously inciteful rhetoric, memories of my own self expression as a child, a pre-teen, an adolescent, and a young adult seep into my consciousness. I feel a nudge to bear witness because if anyone comes for my transgender friends--some of whom have lived with me--then they also are coming for me.

MY EARLY GENDER EXPRESSION

Query: Did you ever have a time in your life when you wanted to dress and act the way you wanted, even if it was different from how you were raised or from how your peers were dressing and acting? What was that like for you?

I have a twin brother and a brother two years older than us. Growing up, I knew my body was different from my brothers'; I remember thinking at times how I wanted to be like them. I didn't have words for it back then, but it was more an inward response to the restrictions that I saw my mother and her mother living into: they were the cooks, the cleaners, the homemakers, the stay-at-homebodies. And they didn't express a lot of care for each other, either, just misery and bitterness for the life they weren't living, or so it seemed to me as a child. Why would I want to aspire to that life for myself as a woman?

Growing up with two brothers meant I was exposed to a lot of things that boys typically got to do: play outdoors, be loud, aggressively smash Lego bricks against each other, do some home-based science experiments, go to ballgames with Dad. Thankfully, I was frequently encouraged to "go play with the boys." It was one way my mother could grab some peace and quiet after schooldays and on weekends...

...except when my grandmother, Grandma G, came to visit.

She didn't seem to like how much time I was spending outside, learning baseball, football, and frisbee. She didn't seem to like how many pairs of pants I had and how few dresses, and she let me know it. I still remember the bright afternoon when she and my mother stood at the back door overlooking the backyard where we kids were playing--I must have been about 10--and my grandmother called out, "Liz, come inside and put on a dress!" My heart broke. I don't remember if my mom intervened or if I acquiesced or if I stayed put. I don't know if my brothers heard my grandmother--how could they not?!--or what they made of that command.

Come inside and put on a dress!

My grandmother was a force. She had other commandments, more often expressed as loaded questions:

Why don't you put on makeup? You'd look so much prettier.
Why don't you put your hair up?
Why can't you wear a skirt or a dress more often?

But my grandmother was also generous and often took me shopping -- for clothes. I must have gone with at least one of my brothers each time, because she never steered us into the girls' section; we spent a lot of time in the boys' section (back when the gender binary was on full display). I gravitated toward shirts with broad stripes and durable fabric. Nothing frilly or pink or tailored. Surprisingly, after just a single "Don't you want to look at dresses...?," my grandmother would just let me be and paid for the "boys clothes" I had picked out. To my mom's credit, she never criticized me and never made my grandmother take the clothes back. I was reasonably comfortable; I was me as best as I could be back then.

I was a girl-child who liked playing sports with boys and liked wearing comfortable boy clothes. And in my specific case, I also knew inwardly that I was a girl, not a boy. In school and at home, the word "tomboy" was tossed in my direction, and I never minded. But I want to make this point clear right now:

In my own life, I always intuitively understood that I was a girl; I was female. That congruence was and still is right for me.

Much later on, during my coming out process in my 30s as a bisexual woman, I knew experimentally that who I was wasn't a choice I made; it was a matter of wholeness that I affirmed. Similarly, now as a 60-year-old woman looking back at my childhood experiences, I understand that back then, I was seeking my own form of gender expression, an outward expression of my inward self, through what I wore, what activities I participated in, what norms I valued. And I understand experimentally that being transgender -- or cisgender -- isn't a choice. It's simply about being who and how we each are in our respective wholeness.

GENDER AFFIRMING CARE

Query: In what ways is your sense of wholeness, physical well being, and mental wellness affirmed and cared for? What services, relationships, and activities do you regulary participate in that affirm who you are and how you live?

I want to point out that all my life, I have been receiving gender affirming care. I've had ob-gyn appointments. I've purchased and been given supplies to deal with my monthly cycles. I've had mammograms and related imaging done. I've had a hysterectomy for my own health and general well being. I've had haircuts to my liking and rebuffed efforts to get me to buy and use hair product. I get pedicures; I look for ways to address my facial hair as I age. I wear clothes that make feel comfortable in my body. I cut my nails how I like them and occasionally wear nail polish on my toenails.

All of this is care for myself that affirms how I view myself along the gender spectrum.

To me, the idea of disallowing gender affirming care is repugnant. Why does one group of people believe they can decide what is right or acceptable for another group of people? Colonization, patriarchy, apartheid, white supremacy, misogyny... these are all parts of the dynamic of oppression and

It.
Needs.
To.
Stop.

I share all this because our personal experiences matter. Sharing our stories of who we are help us demystify and humanize the strangers that we don't know yet: our queer neighbors, our gay or lesbian family members, our transgender friends and fellow worshipers.

BEING A PATTERN

Query: Do you know anyone who didn't feel they could be their whole authentic self? Do you know how they felt at the time, or what they thought of themselves?

Testimony is about both how we carry ourself--our "carriage" and letting our life speak--and about the words we use; there should be a consistency between both. Quakers live into the Truth as a way to be a pattern, an example of faithfulness. Living out the wholeness of who we are, what we believe, and whatever our Given measure of Light is a form of embodied preaching that testifies to the Truth of the Divine Principle. George Fox provides a definition of testimony that resonates with me:

Be patterns, be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations wherever you come; that your carriage and life may preach among all sorts of people, and to them...

That is why I share my own experience of how I transgressed--crossed over a line regarding certain gender norms around dress and behaviors as a young person and how I continue to do so as a 60-something aging Friend.

To be clear, I don't actively push against conforming to gendered dress codes or heteronormative roles for the sake of being rebellious or anti-establishment or counter-cultural. I dress as I do and act as I do and pursue justice as I do because it is my expression of wholeness as I know it. When I am in my wholeness, I am happiest. I am able to walk cheerfully over the earth.

CONTINUING REVELATION TO ACCEPT MY TRANSGENDER KIN

My journey to accept myself as I am--my gender as an athletic, boyish girl/woman in a patriarchal society--was more straightforward than my journey to accept my fellow worshipers, neighbors, and friends as transgender. Being trans used to be as unfamiliar a concept to me as a girl wearing pants and boys' tops was to my grandmother. She couldn't wrap her mind or heart around it at first, but she still saw me as her grandchild. She went on loving me as best she could over the years and eventually stopped criticizing me for who and how I was in the world.

This is how I have come to welcome and love my transgender kin. It's the only way I know to grow, weave together, and strengthen the Beloved Community, by getting to know each other by spending time together. Sometimes it requires intentional changes in my own behaviors, like choosing to be more welcoming outwardly in my day to day life. Sometimes it means I have to educate myself about concepts I wasn't aware of before. Other times, it is by Divine Assistance as I feel my way into an openness and acceptance I hadn't known before-a wordless and mystical exercise between my heart and the Inward Teacher that changes me for the better, opening myself to know a greater slice of humanity I didn't understand or acknowledge before.

Building meaningful relationships with people who are different from ourselves helps us demystify the ways of strangers, and our hearts widen so we may know that Love is the first motion--inclusion, not bullying; love, not fear; welcome, not eradication.

Query: Was there a time when you felt you didn't belong, or when you worried if you would be welcomed into someplace new? What and who helped? When in your life were you made to feel truly safe enough to bring more of your whole self forward over time? Are you doing that for other people? If not, what is getting in the way?

Are there other ways that we can be in the world, encouraging the Good to be raised up?

How does the Truth prosper with thee?

I find myself flipping through the few pages of notes I took during Martin Kelley's workshop on Truth, spending the most time rereading those that are related to the age-old Quaker query How does the Truth prosper with thee?

I can count the number of times I've been asked that question on one hand. The rarity of the greeting catches me up short each time. And I feel cared for, valued as a Friend. When I hear it posed to me, I have to slow myself down, take a few breaths, and touch base with the Guide, listening inwardly for the answers to a few related questions:

How has God shown up in my life lately?
Have I been faithful to the nudges and leadings I have been Given?
What do I grapple with and what insight might the Living Principle be bringing to me?

Have I acted out of malice lately rather than love; am I right with God?

In my experience, a cherished friend doesn't ask the question lightly, and so I want to be sure I give an honest reply. 

TAKING THE QUESTION APART

Since Martin's workshop, I've been teasing out the different parts of the query, starting with --

HOW

Sometimes queries that Quakers use for Friends and our meetings to consider start with the word Do: Do we come to meeting for worship with hearts and mind prepared? Do we cultivate a forgiving spirit...?

Would it make a difference if the old-time query were phrased as "Does the Truth prosper with thee?"? Would it be overly easy to answer "Yes" as easily as so many of us now answer "How are you?" with the single, empty word "Fine"? Would we slow ourselves down before replying, sinking into a deeper place within ourselves to ask "Does the Truth prosper with me or not?" And if we were the questioner, how willing and open would we be to ask a follow-up question regardless of the answer:

"Oh...? the Truth prospers with thee. How so?" and "Oh... the Truth doesn't prosper with thee: what is thy concern? what's going on; what troubles thee?"

Instead, the question starts with the word How, which may take more time and space to consider.


TRUTH

I'm aware that the question isn't "How does your truth prosper with thee?" It's "How does the Truth prosper with thee?" The question doesn't ask what new learnings you have uncovered for yourself--about people, about justice, about living in these Covid times--although these individual truths are a part of the capital T Truth. For me, the question presumes that there is a single Truth, the Truth, that is accessible to all of us, and either we move toward it in our lifetime--sometimes in a nonlinear way--or we move away from it, missing the mark.

Perhaps this question asks us to consider if we are being exercised by some spiritual struggle or by a personal dilemma that might help us see more clearly what God is asking of us. Perhaps the few moments of private inward consideration illuminates or begins to incubate the smallest bit of unexpressed spiritual discontent or persistent nudge that we have been feeling and will ultimately need to act on.

Gosh, do I even know what I am wanting to express here...? My words seem so inadequate...

PROSPER

Perhaps the first word HOW connects with this word, PROSPER. If the Truth can prosper, it means it can also languish, so how does the Truth get cultivated within our hearts, minds, and spirits? Is there something in particular that we can do to be sure the Truth does prosper? 

Similarly: How do we keep the Truth from languishing on our watch and in our lives? Are we doing what God asks of us? Are we lagging behind the Guide; are we consistently outrunning it or ignoring it?  Are we living up to our measure of Light in each moment so that more Light and Truth may be given us? 

PUTTING THE QUESTION BACK TOGETHER

As God sometimes does while we grapple with and reach for clarity, while writing this post I came across these words from a pamphlet written by Bill and Fran Taber on The Witness of Conservative Friends, 2004:

Truth could mean God, or the will of God, or the whole meaning of the gospel, or Christ the Light, the Life. Truth [for early Conservative Friends] was something to be in, to be lived in. To be in the Truth was to be in touch with the Light and to live according to its guidance. To be in the Truth was to be in living communion not only with the Light but also with all those who are guided by the Light. (p. 16)

How does the Truth prosper with thee? How does the Light--the whole kit-and-caboodle of what we strive for in our flawed wholeness--prosper with thee? How does the Inward Teacher or the Loving Principle prosper within thee? How does the movement of Love prosper with thee? 

Blessings,

Liz

Re-entry, Truth, and Being Hounded

In the middle part of Second Month 2023, three different Friends on three different occasions, none knowing one another, said to me that they had known of me through The Good Raised Up before having ever met me.

That got my attention.

Back when I started this blog in 2005, I was writing because I felt my experiences among Friends and my take on Quakerism differed from what many other unprogrammed Friends in North America were writing and talking about. Through what came to be known as the Quaker blogosphere, I found other Friends striving to put into words what didn't sit well with them about our shared faith; what Quaker principles seemed to have become watered down or even to have disappeared. I found blogs by Liberal Friends and Conservative-leaning Friends like myself who wanted a more vibrant Quakerism; by programmed Friends who were reaching for something too; and by Conservative Friends who also felt they were Given something to lift up. To this day I still believe we were ministering to one another through our writings, and the Truth of what we shared with one another shaped me then and perhaps shapes me still.

In addition, I have come to believe that I live my life not in a straight line from birth to death but in a series of small and large circles: from birth to learning; from growth to forgetting; from remembering to prideful living; from brokenness to humility; from deep love and connection to separateness; from despair to faithfulness. On and on, round and round. And always the Loving Principle accompanies me, even when I forget or retreat from the Spirit.

So here I am, returned to the first of what might evolve into more frequent online times of writing, reflecting, re-examining, and writing again. Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, and maybe before that, there have been nudges for me to take up this blog again, putting fingers to keyboard, but Way never seemed to open fully enough, until an Opening came at this time.


Martin Kelley's online retreat on Truth

Perhaps electronic and digital communication have their own large and small circles too. I moved on from blogging and delved into Facebook and Twitter for awhile; my time there seems to have slowed if not run its full course. Through another online platform, though, Martin Kelley and I reconnected at the first part of this month, and in just a couple weeks, I learned he would be facilitating an online event on Truth. I'm not a big fan of online workshops but something about the topic, the person guiding the sessions, and the timing of them all indicated that Way was opening for me to participate.

I thought there would be at least a few dozen of us, given Martin's enormous work over many years in cultivating QuakerQuaker, an online community of Quakers from across the branches of the Religious Society of Friends. I was surprisingly relieved to see fewer than 20 of us online: this was going to be a more intimate experience.

After taking note of the size of the group, I noticed how multiracial it was! Living in the midwestern United States for as long as I have, and worshiping with Quakers here for nearly just as long, has made me forget how much racial diversity there actually is in certain North American cities and in a few Quaker meetings. I also make the assumption that the host organization for the event, the Quaker meetings near it, and Martin have been doing a fair amount of antiracism work, but I may never know how the Spirit led each of us to be with one another on that particular Friday and Saturday.

Anyway, I took some notes and recognized the familiar nudges and yearnings to carve out time to gather my thoughts. I have musings about Truth and its relationship to continuing revelation; who gets to define Truth and how it gets misused in service to oppression and white supremacy; and the relationship between Truth and capital-L Love. I think those topics will wait for another post, along with unpacking the greeting that Martin invited us to use when introducing ourselves: How does the Truth prosper with thee? Just listing these topics here gets me seeking inwardly all over again--the fruit of a worthwhile workshop!


The Hound of Heaven

In the online platform where Martin and I reconnected, and after the workshop-retreat, Martin tagged me, shared a link to a post in The Good Raised Up, and added "...we really should hound her to restart [her blog]." I had to chuckle: another nudge from the community and/or from the Spirit, pointing me to what may be Way opening...? And "hounding" someone sounded familiar, so I looked it up:

The concept of being hounded is one that Thomas Kelly spoke about in Philadelphia in his 1939 William Penn Lecture on Holy Obedience.  In 2005, I too had written about the concept of being hounded, in my post God is a monster with claws. Kelly puts it in the Quaker frame of obedience; I put it in the frame of a brief exchange with a child in my worship community at the time.

Well, it's good to be back online here, for however long or short Way is open. Thanks for reading me once again.

Blessings,
Liz

Open letter to white Friends: Good intentions fail our Friends of color

Friends,

I began writing this open letter to white Friends in the first part of 2018. I began sharing the letter publicly in early Seventh Month (July) 2018. I have a care-and-accountability committee at the meeting that holds my membership; that committee received and reviewed several versions of the letter. I also presented it to my meeting's Ministry and Counsel Committee, to other anti-racist Friends, to a few Friends of color initially, and so on.

The open letter is my best attempt at articulating what has been laid on my heart. It isn't perfect nor complete. While certain events prompted me to begin writing, the letter initially is directed to all of our unprogrammed Quaker worship communities in the U.S. and primarily at the systems within each: the people in decision-making positions; the processes we use; and the practices we adhere to, formally and informally.

Each Friend, each meeting, each yearly meeting will have its own labor to take up as you/they/it considers the open letter.

Below is the text of the open letter. A number of Friends have asked for permission to share it; the answer is Yes.

More important to me than receiving and sharing the open letter, though, is knowing that it has opened something new in you or for your worship community. Maybe you (they) have taken up new antiracism work or had a discussion that shed new Light on the problematic systems in your meeting or something else entirely. I hope so.

Blessings,
Liz

P.S. Because of the nature of blogging, I am taking extra time to include links to related material in this post that are not present in the original letter. I realize that over time, a number of links won't be valid.

_________________

Open letter to my fellow white Friends:
Our good intentions fail our Friends of color.

Mind the light, that all may be refreshed one in another, and all in one.  – George Fox

Firstly it is a timely reminder of the Advice to ‘listen for the spirit, even if it is expressed in ways unfamiliar to you’. Secondly it is a reiteration of the insight that every person ‘has a measure of the light’ with a recognition that then as now, our interpretation of the spirit can be distorted by privilege and hierarchy…  — Tim Gee, Peckham Meeting (UK), on the minute from North London Area Meeting, acclaiming that abolitionist Benjamin Lay was now in good standing.  November 2017 (as posted at Abington Meeting's website)

With a heavy heart, I begin this letter to white Quakers (aka Friends of European descent) after having been in conversation with two African American Friends during much of 2017. One had been read out of her meeting due to a racialized conflict; the other had traveled on different occasions to support the first. Both followed the Truth of their experience rather than conform to the unspoken expectation of yielding to the dominant white-influenced way of what constitutes Quaker conduct.

Woven throughout the half-dozen accounts that I heard over the year—most from white Friends—the thick presence of unexamined whiteness seems to have impeded or overridden the inbreaking of Spirit. I grieve for the missed opportunities to hear and believe the Truth as expressed by Friends of color. I grieve for the spiritual separations and for the emotional rifts that arise when Friends in the relevant quarter and in the yearly meeting, pressed by myself and others to intervene, ultimately resigned themselves to profess merely “The authority rests with the monthly meetings.”

This erroneous profession from where our corporate spiritual authority comes breaks my heart. Is there nothing more we can reach for than the written word? What does that say about our spiritual discipline if Friends “come not to the Spirit” that gave forth our books of Faith and Practice?  What we speak, is it inwardly from God?

What follows below is the Light I have been given during the first half of 2018. I pray that my grief and my compassionate challenge come through my own written words. I grieve because too often I learn how our good intentions fail our Friends of color.  I challenge because others before me have challenged me and have accompanied me through the difficulty and I am better for it.

My intention has been to await formal approval from certain small bodies of Friends, as is our custom, before sending this out more widely. Then after several weeks of waiting, one morning I felt myself released from the waiting, perhaps because the season of yearly meeting approaches. Then Way opened and this letter goes out initially to the Friends with whom I worship and to the meeting that holds my membership. Too numerous are the false reasons for waiting much further.

Socialized whiteness among us tells me to keep waiting. In matters of addressing racism and quelling white supremacy, however, I am learning to recognize this voice as more often that of the Adversary and not of the Shepherd.

……………………

We are cautioned in the letter from the elders of Balby that “these things [which we have shared with you] we do not lay upon you as a rule or form to walk by, but that all with the measure of light which is pure and holy may be guided … and fulfilled in the Spirit, —not from the letter, for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.” (Emphasis added)

Our current books of discipline, our yearly meetings’ books of faith and practice were conceived of and written largely by white Friends with limited or no direct experience, or analysis, of the cumulative harms of racism, white supremacy, and implicit bias. Year after year, generation after generation, although our good intentions as white Friends have carried our predominantly white worship communities through racial tensions, we have failed our Friends of color, whether they worship with us on First Days or not. We must begin to consider the possibility that our Faith and Practice may be flawed or that we have begun to rely too much on guidance from the printed word, rather than on the Spirit that brought them forth. The words and advices contained therein may reinforce patterns, behaviors, and worldviews grounded in unexamined whiteness, unknowingly cultivating attitudes that favor compliance or conformity to worldly norms rather than encouraging unity with the Living Spirit.

The result may be and has been that we dismiss or downgrade the concerns of Friends of color, and we insensitively or unknowingly default to the unexamined whiteness of our Quaker norms and practices. Testing the sense of the meeting is one such example: by default, the sense of the meeting emerges from our predominantly white membership… and all of our multigenerational collective implicit bias. Therefore, if we do not thoroughly examine and transform implicit bias, and if we do not directly address interpersonal, systemic, and structural racism, we as white Friends are likely to perpetuate and re-create it.

Some Friends may ask, “But if we aren’t to turn to and adhere to the guidance in our Faith and Practice, what are we to do?” In addition to seeking Light and guidance from the words of the scriptures, Friends also raised questions of one another, including “Christ and the apostles saith this but what canst thou say?” and “How does the Truth prosper with thee?”

We can acknowledge that our books of Faith and Practice represent a faithfulness that our yearly meetings once affirmed. It was the measure of Light Friends had at the time. But we mustn’t stop there.  God’s Truth and continuing revelation requires us to keep Listening, to mind the Light, to return to a unity in the Spirit and not a simple conformity to how we have “always” done things. Openings don’t stop once our books of Faith and Practice and our minutes on racism are published.

We have mistakenly professed that individual equality--that there is that of God in each of us--somehow equates to systemic fairness.

In fact, our policies, socialized norms, and decision-making practices among Friends all tilt toward an unexamined white, professional, urban, middle-class bias:

• We often avoid loud or persistent conflict, or otherwise deny or escape from it.
• We tamp down effusive expression of emotion, be it anger or joy.
• We erase or ignore or pass over the wider context of historical trauma, including our own religious society’s active involvement in the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
• We address a direct, concrete question in an indirect, abstract way.
• We insist that our “good intentions” override the resulting pain experienced by our Friends of color and indigenous Friends, including hurt from microaggressions.
• We abide by the prevailing Quaker practice to allow monthly meetings the final say in a situation that looks like it was either explicitly racially motivated, or was the result of racial bias, examined or unexamined.

As white Friends, ours is the responsibility to parse out the practices and norms into which we have been socialized without our consent--and shed those that regularly or systematically create barriers and inequities, especially those that Friends of color, indigenous Friends, and non-Friends from those communities critique. When possible, ours is the responsibility to work with and listen for the guidance of indigenous Friends and Friends of color in these matters—being mindful of the additional emotional and spiritual labor involved for those who have experienced racism.

We may unknowingly or unintentionally be tempted to give privileged authority and power to individual white Friends who insist that even including the words “racism” or “white supremacy” in our written record are inappropriate. And if we white Friends are tempted to say “Our meeting isn’t racist,” might we reflect on why communities of color and actively anti-racist groups frequently lift up their experiences among us, but our minutes, records, books of Faith and Practice, and other documents seemingly have little or no direct reference to them? What do these omissions tell us of our legacy and responsibility of being Publishers of the Truth?

We toss aside and pretend not to see or name in particular the 400-year historical context of erasing or zeroing out the lived experiences of Native Americans and African Americans—more recently, Asian Americans.  Like many of our white peers outside of our Quaker walls, we say that this country’s history of stolen land, stolen labor, and stolen lives isn’t our fault or isn’t relevant to the current (in)action that points to and exacerbates a stolen or distorted spirituality.

This erasure must end.

We must no longer turn from the Loving Presence that emerges from the hearts of our friends and spiritual family of color. Their Light is a measure of God’s Light, is it not? Their Light answers to our own Inward Teacher and searches us, compels us to bear witness to how our current practice of relying on waiting, as well as the over-reliance on the white-tainted authority of the monthly meeting, have strayed too far from the Shepherd that guides our feet and that helps us keep to the path not only of faithful living, but also of moving into a just form of deep communal living.

We must believe what our sisters and brothers of color and of indigenous heritage are telling us.  We must look for the patterns of injustice in our practices and meeting’s policies and remove them.  We must learn to recognize and uproot the seeds of implicit bias that undermine our ability to be faithful not to the words in our books of Faith and Practice, but to the Spirit that transcends those words and that illuminates the Light we live by.

Descended from distant European ancestors, too many of us as white Friends have assimilated into American whiteness without critical examination or analysis. Denouncing racism and declaring ourselves “not racist” isn’t enough. As white Friends, we must become anti-racist. We must look at our Quakerism with an explicit racial justice lens. We must be active in countering our implicit bias; in learning about socialization into whiteness; and in undoing systems, practices, and policies that replicate or perpetuate unintended racism. Our good intentions must align with even better anti-racist practices, ones that are are tested beyond our white membership.

When we white Friends believe the shared concerns of indigenous Friends and Friends of color; when we discover the unjust or inequitable practices and policies carried out by our meetings; when we do these things, we may become low and humble in our service, in our renewed dedication to restore broken trust and to make amends for our wrongdoings. By and by, we may also know experientially a living wholeness of Divine Family, a circle unbroken, a renewal of right and just relationship with all of God’s children.

Elizabeth (Liz) Oppenheimer
Sixth Month 2018

Thoughts on activism

A long Facebook thread started by a friend of mine focuses on people’s jusgement and (mis)understanding of activism. This post is based on my reply.

When I’m asked what I do, I often answer “I help motivate and inspire Quakers to get involved in justice work.” That’s my way of avoiding people’s judgment about “activists,” as well as their lack of understanding about being a “community organizer.” I have been hurt so many times by Quakers who say to me, “But I’m not an activist like you are.”

One person shared their perception that it seems like people who are activists must have privilege. In fact, among liberal groups, it’s often the least privileged/most oppressed groups who are the most activist.  Look up CTUL, a group of predominantly poor/working class custodians of color... Standing Rock and indigenous rights is another example. And of course there’s the whole Black Lives Mattee movement.  The media might sway our view of who the activists are by what protests they cover and who gets air time, etc.

I want to address protests.  I’ll say upfront: protests and marches and rallies are only one tool among many types of actions that bring people into justice work. It’s among the most visible because of how it grabs media attention; it’s among the easist to get involved in because it’s low risk, hard to be singled out as an individual, and seldom if ever requires a long-term commitment.

Other traditional actions for activists: phone banking, door-knocking, petitions, letter writing, and visits with elected officials. If you’ve ever done any of these, I would say that what separates you from activists is that maybe you don’t have a long-standing concern that you are tracking and doing regular work on. I do: racial justice, racism, and whiteness, especially among Quakers.

Another missing piece from many conversations about what activism is or isn’t: grassroots and building capacity for meaningful change. Writing letters and signing petitions seldom build capacity of a community. That’s because these activities seldom create new relationships and instead keep us isolated from one another. And if we’re isolated, then I won’t show up for your issue and you won’t show up for my issue because we don’t know each other well enough. My faith community turned out for over a year to push against the proposed marriage amendment because they personally knew most of the GLBTQ folks among us who were targeted. Yes, find a single cause (at first) that matters to you and then get involved *in an organization* that addresses it and take note of the relationships that are created.

I’m feeling some kind of way as I write this.  But I’m glad that here’s a space where I can say “I’m an activist. I’m a community organizer, with some training and some experience. Ask me questions.”

Or read about community organizing, like Rinku Sen’s book Stir It Up or Adrienne Marie Brown’s book Emergent Strategy.

Most important, perhaps: when you find yourself dissing activism, consider that maybe you are supporting the status quo unintentionally. And if that makes you uncomfortable, I hope you’ll sit in that discomfort and see if it teaches you anything.

Blessings,
Liz

You say you aren't a racist but...

I am finding a way to respond to white people who tell me, "I'm not a racist but..."  I am preparing myself to ask them, "Oh? How are you engaging in anti-racism work then?"

Even the most sincere racial justice workers among us who are white realize that we have an unhealed dose of racially implicit bias that we need to address.

I've started thinking about what a true commitment to being anti-racist and doing racial justice work would look like.  In some ways, this list and its general sequence of items reflects my own journey--where I started and what challenges I was invited into.

Ideally, this list wouldn't be a list at all.  It would be an image of a central circle with many spokes coming off of it, like a bike wheel.* Each item on each spoke would have as much weight or importance as every other one.  At least, in theory.  In my own journey, though, what I give weight to has changed, depending on my growing edge, where I fail the most often, etc.

• It must be everyday. Every day. 
• It must be a conscious choice.
• It must be more than belief, attitude, words, or self-education.
• It must be demonstrated and made visible to others at some point. It is at times public--outer work--as well as private, inner work.
• It often occurs in connection with others who are also working for racial justice. 
• It will demonstrate a consistency of involvement with a variety of people of color and indigenous people over time.
• It will likely build on previous anti-racist actions. If we only go to vigils and marches, or only write letters to elected officials, or only study the history of racism; and if we aren't building new relationships or developing new skills or taking additional risks, we may have become complacent in our anti-racism work. 
• It must decenter white comfort and decenter white-led groups. It must center the lived experiences of indigenous people and people of color; it must center groups led by indigenous people and people of color.
• It must align with the wishes of a community, group, or organization that has a majority of indigenous people and/or people of color in its leadership.
• It will likely challenge the norms and explicitly stated values of white-led or white-majority groups that we are participating in, especially if the group is committed to engaging in anti-racism work. 

Blessings,

Liz

*The image is from an online slideshow.

RESOURCES and EVENTS:

1. Film I Am Not A Racist, Am I? (I haven't seen it yet.)
2. White supremacist culture (a PDF)
3. Annual White Privilege Conference
4. Facing Race conference (every other year)
5. Materials from World Trust

Advice and Query on Education

Elsewhere on The Good Raised Up, I've mentioned the Advices and Queries from Iowa Yearly Meeting Conservative (IYMC).  Recently, Bear Creek Meeting--which holds my membership--asked its members and attenders to consider the Advice and Query on education.

For a number of years, Bear Creek Meeting has had a practice of including its distant members in the corporate practice of responding to queries by using email. Distant members reply to the query in writing and then the meeting reads those responses at the time it considers the query face-to-face.  What's unusual is that in general, IYMC resists the temptation to conduct business via electronic communication.  I'm not sure of the history, but it seems as though these Friends considered what would be lost by excluding a long-time member who had moved out of state had they not experimented with the use of email when that technology became common.  And now that I'm a member of Bear Creek, living 5 hours from the meeting, I participate in their query process by email as well. 

Below is the original advice and query on education; and then my submitted response to that query.

ADVICE

"Friends seek an education which integrates our intellectual, emotional and spiritual dimensions and enables us to face difficult moral issues with courage.  Friends promote learning throughout life and encourage freedom of thought and inquiry in all educational pursuits. Our complex and changing world demands that we learn to think and act creatively to meet its challenges.

"We learn from our direct experience of situations that surprise us and on which we later reflect; often from interacting with people from backgrounds that are quite different from our own; and from turning to nontraditional literature, media, and other sources of information. The Light shows us parts of humanity that we normally cannot see or seldom consider.

"Friends should be mindful that we rely a great deal on implicit education. Our children and others learn from the examples of how we live our lives, and hearing what we say during meeting for worship and meeting for business.  It would be helpful to newcomers if we were more explicit about our faith and practice with them. 

"While the religious education of our children is primarily the concern of parents, everyone benefits when the entire meeting is concerned with nurturing them. If a spirit of common concern is present, children will gain a sense of belonging to the larger community, and, knowing they are loved and respected, will be able to face the mysteries of life with trust. We encourage the participation of children in the life and work of the meeting."

QUERY

• How can we most effectively foster a spirit of inquiry and a loving and understanding attitude toward life? 

• In what ways can we encourage an educational process that is consistent with the values Friends cherish? How do gender, race and class based expectations affect the goals we set and the way we learn? 

• In learning about diverse communities, do we look for material that they themselves have written, filmed, or otherwise created and distributed? Do we stretch ourselves to break away from white-centered resources that may unknowingly, or intentionally, reinforce racial or middle-class bias?

• What are people of color, especially women of color, saying about the way forward? Do we give them as much weight as we do older Friends, white Friends, or long-time Friends?

• Do we take an active and supportive interest in schools, libraries and other educational resources in our communities and elsewhere? 

• How do we prepare ourselves and our children to play active roles in a changing world?  What are younger people saying about their educational needs and desires?

• What effort are we making to become better acquainted with the Bible, the teachings of Jesus, our Judeo‑Christian heritage, the history and principles of Friends, and the contributions of other religions and philosophies to our spiritual heritage? 

MY SUBMITTED RESPONSE

My experience among Friends in general and IYMC Friends in particular is that a large part of our education actually doesn’t come from book learning, libraries, and other conventional educational resources.

Rather, we learn from our direct experience of situations that surprise us and on which we later reflect; from interacting with people from backgrounds that are quite different from our own; and from turning to nontraditional literature, media, and other sources of information. The Light shows us parts of humanity that we normally cannot see or seldom consider.

For example, when I think about questions that would draw me out around what I have learned from the movement for Black lives; the nonviolent protests at Standing Rock; the solidarity work in support of undocumented immigrants… Well, this query doesn’t invite that sort of reflection.

Without personal, direct relationship with people who participated in these significant historic actions, my “education“ would be limited to whatever the mainstream media might convey. But my friends of color, and my contacts within the indigenous community, teach me and educate me not just about what happened but also what a just, inclusive community could be like.

A more useful query for myself has been, “What *non-white* sources of information am I drawing on regarding racial tension, social class oppression, etc.? When I worry about an entire group of people’s circumstances, do I look for material that they themselves have written, filmed, or otherwise created and distributed? Do I stretch myself to break away from white-centered resources that may unknowingly (or intentionally!) reinforce racial or middle-class bias? What are younger people saying about the situation? What are people of color, especially women of color, saying about the way forward? Do I give them as much weight as I do older Friends, white Friends, or long-time Friends?”

These questions are not what first comes to my mind! They rise up when people of color insist that their lives matter, their experiences are valid, and we should believe them and support them and learn from them.

Blessings,
Liz

Requiring membership dues?! and a minute on racism and white supremacy

NOTE: This post is based on something I put in a Facebook group in Eleventh Month 2017. 

For weeks, I have been shaking my head in sadness and disbelief at the fact that at least two monthly meetings in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting have insensitively sent letters to low-income Friends, asking (telling?) them that they owe membership dues of several hundred dollars or more. How is this in keeping with the practice of not requiring tithes?

Then I went looking for the "dues" of Abington Meeting, since that is one meeting where I've heard of these letters going out. (I don't know if these fees are called "dues" or something else.)

Before I found what I was looking for on the meeting's website, I had to click on the link about Benjamin Lay. I was so glad to see an excerpt from an approved minute from Quakers in North London in the U.K., naming racism and white supremacy! Such minutes are a start.

Once we name an injustice, we can see the injustice--and vice versa. Once we name and see an injustice, we can begin to respond to it. Once we respond to an injustice, we can begin to work to prevent it. Once we prevent an injustice, we can work toward healing. As we work toward healing, we can build the treasured multiracial community we yearn for.

• See injustice --> Name it
• Name the injustice --> Respond to it
• Respond to injustice --> Work to prevent similar injustice
• Prevent similar injustice --> Work toward healing 
• See, name, and build on the healing --> Build multiracial community

But if we are conditioned by our Quaker communities and by the wider society to ignore or make invisible an injustice, let alone never name it and to stay silent around it, we will have lost a bit of our shared humanity.

Here's the language of the minute from North London Area Quakers.

"In the UK, the North London Area Meeting minute, Agreed on 18 November 2017 reads as follows:

Quakers are proud of the times in history we have been ahead of our time on progressive social issues – but preceding those moments, there have often been long periods when we have not walked the path we would later understand to be the just one. At a time when racism seems as present and ugly as ever – both globally and nationally – and the structures of white supremacy are being defended and strengthened by powerful forces in our societies, this seems a timely moment for North London Area Meeting to reflect on its involvement in the struggle for racial justice.

"North London Area Meeting recognises Benjamin Lay’s dedication to equality – and his willingness to repeatedly speak his messages of Truth. We also recognise Benjamin Lay as being a Friend of the Truth – and as being in unity with the spirit of our Area Meeting. We ask our Clerking team to write to Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Abington Monthly Meeting and Southern East Anglia Area Meeting (successor to Colchester; Coggeshall Monthly Meeting) to clarify that Lay is in good standing with North London Area Meeting (successor to Devonshire House Monthly Meeting).”

---------------------------------------------------

A little more digging turns up the "Basic guidelines for giving" at Abington Meeting. That said, this is such a clear case of good intention ("for the upkeep and continued vitality" of the meeting) and harmful impact (lower income Friends feeling either pressured to give beyond their means or feeling/believing that if they cannot contribute at the "suggested" level, their membership could be revoked--if already a member--or blocked/slowed if they wish to pursue membership in the future.)

It is not lost on me that one meeting within Philadelphia Yearly Meeting listed as an excuse that they terminated its only Friend of Color's membership in part because the Friend didn't contribute financially to the meeting. That sounds to me like requiring a form of tithes, which Friends have eschewed; it goes against the Quakerism I have practiced in the midwestern United States; and it goes against the oft-quoted Scripture about how we are all of one body, and all that we bring to the community are gifts of the Spirit.

The more I see and name injustices, such as implying that members of our meetings "ought" to contribute financially at a certain level, the more I see how Friends carry out injustice in a manner that is not so very different from what occurs outside of our Quaker communities.

Blessings,
Liz

Queries that help me dig deeper

A few weeks ago, I posted about the queries that Iowa Yearly Meeting (Conservative) uses.  That post was prompted by some writing that my Quaker friend Jeff Kisling has done, especially about the possibility of updating the regional body's treasured queries. On Facebook, as part of a go-around that a few of us were doing to put words to queries that might be more appropriate to today, I replied with this:

When God and I query myself during times of struggle or of spiritual desert, many times the query is 

“Have I experienced something like this before? If so, what helped and what hindered? Am I able to do more of what worked and avoid what didn’t?” 

Another go-to query for me, especially around justice work, has been 

“If I am not clear on the Way forward and yet there is a clear injustice being committed [including inaction/absence of witness], where is the Way open that I might act or address the injustice?” 

One Conservative-leaning Quaker friend of mine often lifts that sort of query up as “What is mine (or ours) to do?”

I also want to be explicit that these personal queries I’ve written here seldom appear/occur/are Given to me in this manner. More often, they are Given to me as a singular piece, in my heart, wordless, until I sit long enough and they exercise me and convict me inwardly.

Along those lines, another query that rises in me from time to time is 

“Where do I understand that my good intentions have had harmful impacts, across race, social class, gender, ability, age, and the like? What is required of me to repair the harm and to help me avoid such behavior and transform such attitudes going forward?”

I’m also aware that queries that work for me and are Given to me may not speak to the condition of anyone else. I think that may go without saying.

So many important, life-giving considerations to hold, reflect on, and act upon, as Way opens...

Blessings,

Liz

Sexual harassment, Al Franken, and a Quaker view

Amidst revelations about sexual assault by one of our Minnesota senators, I stand with Al Franken. Here’s my first go at explaining why.*

In my life, Native Americans ask us white people to return the stolen land to them, to safeguard it from the Black Snake, and to honor the treaties. More and more of us white people are acknowledging our complicity in widespread oppression of indigenous people and are working to do as the Native community asks, as part of our penance and reconciliation. We don’t do it perfectly or immediately or all at once. We begin and keep going.

In my life, Black Americans ask us white people to turn up when there’s police brutality and another Black person is murdered by cops; to work to end mass incarceration and predatory lending, to address systemic disparities in education, employment, and home ownership. More and more of us white people are acknowledging our complicity in widespread oppression and are working to do as the Black community asks as part of our penance and reconciliation. We don’t do it perfectly or immediately or all at once. We begin and keep going.

As a Quaker, in my faith tradition, we believe in continuing revelation—the ability to understand more and more of how we are intended to lead our lives and are able to see more and more of God’s Truth as time goes by. We begin and keep going.

We also believe that it is the Loving Principle that brings a person into redemption, and that we are required to “answer that of God” in anyone we come in contact with who is falling short, has “missed the mark.”

I stand with Al Franken because his actions today—admitting his sexual misconduct; asking for an ethics probe; and working on a bill to address rape—indicate to me that as a man, he is working to repair the lives of women harmed by his and others’ sexual misconduct, rather than remain complicit in male supremacy.

Personally, I believe that we women want men to be sharing the burden of addressing and challenging sexism, don't we?

Could Al Franken have done more? or done better sooner? Yes.

So could I, in my anti-racism and anti-classism work.

I seem to be in a different place around Al Franken than many other Minnesotans. As I see it, we are all on our journey of accepting, rejecting, or delaying redemption, reconciliation, and repair for the harm we’ve caused.

I can be mad at and disappointed in Al Franken, and at the same time, I can hold him accountable and press him to do more, to do better, to keep going.

Blessings,
Liz

*This post is based heavily on my own post on Facebook about this topic. 

Renewed justice work (Fall 2017)

There are two justice-related issues I am dedicating some time and energy to currently.

One is related to what a queer Black UU [BLUU] organizer is calling "returning stolen wealth," in this case to African American organizers and activists who are carrying crushing student loan debt. (My spouse and I are also participating in other, less organized activities for reparations related to stolen land and the indigenous community.)

The other is exploring role Quakers could play, if any, in ending the practice of corrupted and inhumane solitary confinement--since solitary confinement--and penitentiaries themselves--are cruel distortions of what they were originally intended for. I heard that a Jewish group to which I'm connected in the Twin Cities might begin to tackle this issue, and this might be an important opportunity for local Friends to engage and partner in as well.

Thanks to Friend Marshall Massey for sharing with me his knowledge of some of the early history of Friends with prison reform and solitary confinement. Much of his remarks to me in an email are mirrored in the story about solitary confinement, from 2006, linked above.

I'm hoping my energy keeps going, though with our government's extreme dysfunction the way it is, I'm in and out of slogging my way through the days and weeks, staying connected mostly through social media and a few face-to-face visits with justice-oriented F/friends.

Blessings,
Liz

Guest post: Quakers, anti-racism work, and accountability partners

In 2015, Friends General Conference (FGC) began an anti-racist experiment during its large, week-long annual summer Gathering, which is mostly geared for "unprogrammed Quakers"--Quakers who worship without any paid or appointed clergy (because we're all clergy and we're all laypeople, both) and without any planned liturgy, hymn singing, or other elements that are typical in a mainstream religious worship service.  The experiment was to hold daily afternoon sessions that were for white (European American) Friends who wanted to address racism or who already were doing that work.

I was on the team of facilitators for the first two years, 2015 in North Carolina and 2016 in Minnesota. We did a lot of experimenting with format and activities. We covered everything from microaggressions to white fragility; from talking in pairs to identifying useful resources; from discussing topics in one large group to identifying how systemic racism shows up in our Quaker communities.

It seemed like the Spirit was quickening, and that perhaps a critical mass of Friends was developing a greater sense of what an anti-racist Quaker could be; how we could enact anti-racist principles in our faith communities; and how we could hold ourselves accountable more reliably while building on the work that had already begun when Friends of Color first lifted up their concerns to the staff and governing body of FGC and the Friends they serve.

This past summer, I didn't attend the Gathering, which was held in New York. I did, however, have some contact with this year's team of facilitators, both before and afterward.  Earlier this week, I received an email from a white Friend who participated this year.  She's given me permission to share excerpts from her email.

I just wanted to thank [the co-facilitators] for the most excellent idea of having an accountability partner [AP] for doing my work around understanding and eliminating racism.  You had suggested it that Friday afternoon at FGC Annual Gathering as one of the items to put on our list of 32 things to do.* (Which, technically, I haven't really finished yet because I am constantly adding to it and I don't do them in any particular order.  Plus, that particular page has gotten quite messy, which I guess is actually fitting, since this work is messy, isn't it?)

I just finished my weekly phone call with my accountability partner, and we are both so richly blessed by sharing this together.  I am fairly certain that, if I was just going at this alone, I'd be berating myself all the time about how I didn't cross off the correct number of items from the list this week.  She has helped me to see that it's not about crossing items off a to-do list, but about the extent to which I am engaging in the work. Sometimes I read an article, and then I keep tying it in with other things for the next three weeks, and then I am talking to somebody else about it, and it enters my prayer life as well.  Does this only count as one item from the to do list?  Maybe, but look at how rich it has been.  I have learned so much.  My accountability partner says, "Growth is not linear!" and "Check whether you are allowing the Inner Teacher enough space to work."  I am able to make progress that I never would have without this partnership.

I find myself energized and drawn in as Baltimore Yearly Meeting engages more broadly and more deeply about what it means to be anti-racist, and how to be so.  I have been going to the Working Group on Racism [WGR] meetings for about a year, but in June began to get more serious about it. On Sunday, I sat in on a Growing Diverse Leadership Committee meeting, and offered to help prepare for a workshop and called Interim Meeting that will take place this Saturday, which features this work.  It feels like the balance that I get from my AP's wisdom, and checking in weekly, enables me to move forward faithfully with less effort and stress than I used to.  You so understated how powerful this can be!!!  Thank you--thank you--thank you for suggesting this.

I think that you'd actually given out your email address so that we could ask you to send links to resources.  I would happily take those.  I can also send you what I have... [New England Yearly Meeting] has a fabulous collection, with an index. [Here's one I found on the NEYM website. --Liz]  At WGR we are always sharing what we have read or discovered, like 1960's housewives trading recipes.  You can be added to the list if that would help you.

...Thank you for spending your afternoons the whole week of Gathering making space for working on this.  May you be blessed for your faithfulness.

In the Light,
Donna Kolaetis, Menallen Meeting

Blessings,
Liz

*One of the facilitators in 2016 brought to the group an activity where you number a page from 1 to 32, and on each line, you write one anti-racist activity that you'll do that day. (The initial prompt, as I recall, was to answer the question "What will I do today to end white supremacy?") The facilitator explained that he had learned a new behavior is more likely to stick if we carry it out for 32 consecutive days.

The push and pull of a query on justice work

As I consider returning to the practice of “slow writing” on The Good Raised Up, I affirm my growing intention to focus on the intersection of well-intended Quakerism and the systemic oppression within this faith tradition. 

Here’s one item I want to explore more deeply already, thanks to my friend and fellow justice-seeker Jeff Kisling. He and I are part of the same yearly meeting; we struggle with similar musings of how to inspire more white, middle class, “comfortable” Quakers to get involved in the business of bringing the Kin-dom of God here, on this dying planet.

Recently, Jeff wrote about the yearly meeting’s queries, which in turn inspired me to do so. Now he’s written a second post, referencing a helpful metaphor from fellow Conservative Friend and former blogger Marshall Massey, who wrote about queries that “push” and have a note of obligation or presumed right answer, or “pull” with an intention of exercising our spirit into greater listening for the Inward Teacher. 

Jeff includes this statement in his recent writing:

I can see the query I suggested [in my my recent piece], “Do we spend time in a diversity of communities, especially those experiencing injustice?” is pushing, and would be better if phrased in a pulling way. Pushing tends to keep people from even considering the intended idea.

For me, though, I believe Jeff’s draft query does have a “pull” quality and the query ought to be built upon, especially when coupled with the relevant Advice, such as on social change, economic and racial justice. I say this because I resonate with the lived experience he and I have had: having close and regular interaction with members of a community different from our own has given us a tiny, temporary bit of access to another worldview, and that in turn has shown us—or at least me—how this faith tradition has got some parts of justice work wrong. 

“Do we spend time in a diversity of communities, especially those experiencing injustice? How do we build connections with people whose life experiences differ from our own? How do we know when we are taking their concerns seriously? Why might it be important to lay aside or decenter our own shared or individual preferences in times of urgent need?”


Blessings,
Liz