God's manna

This past First Day found me in a very dark time... one of those moods where no spiritual Light could come in; where bad thoughts bred worse thoughts, and where neutral words of greeting from fFriends easily were twisted into evidence of self-worthlessness.

But as on most First Days when I'm in town, I had the opportunity to attend two Meetings for Worship. Even though something within me wanted to keep me home, I heeded the Something Deeper that told me to go and wait on the Lord in worship.

In the morning at the local monthly meeting, there were messages about joy in the midst of strife, and how to acknowledge the strife without minimizing it or becoming depressed because of it. In the afternoon at the worship group, I sank a bit further into the Seed and found myself reflecting on a number of topics:

• What am I seeking right now?
• If I find what I'm seeking, how will I be changed?
• Remember to give up the difficulty to God so that God may see it through.
• What do I need in order to be sustained?

The last question held my attention, and I thought about my ankle.

About five years ago, I started limping because of pain in my right ankle. I went to the doctor, who happened to have a background in sports medicine. All of my best medical treatment for any part of my body that was ailing me was provided by physicians who had a background in sports medicine, and this doctor didn't disappoint!

After a series of short, low-tech muscle tests in the exam room ("Hold your leg up while I push down on it, and resist me"), I was told I have very weak muscles in my hips. Either my hips weren't strong enough to keep my ankles (and presumably knees) in alignment, or vice versa. Whatever it was, after a few weeks of physical therapy and regularly doing key exercises that focused on my ankles, my hips, and my core, my limping was practically gone.

It's four or five years later, and I'm keeping up with my workout routine. Some of the exercises haven't changed, like the calf raises; other exercises have been made a bit more complicated, like crunches that are done on the large stability ball. The net result is that I've been able to maintain my improved ankle, hip, and core strength. And I've also taken more responsibility for exercising on my own, working without a trainer at least once a week.

Last Sunday, in worship, I was thinking of how working one muscle group sustains the alignment in another muscle group, sometimes a half- or whole body away. Working on my core muscles helps my hip alignment; my hip alignment helps my knees; my knees work in coordination with my ankles.

I began thinking of how working one spiritual muscle sustains the alignment in another set of spiritual muscles, seemingly disconnected. My being away from worship for nearly two weeks while I was traveling took me away from my social time with fFriends who knew something of my ongoing journey. It seemed like in turn, being away from fFriends distanced me from the ability to see how Spirit was moving among us as a group, or even among any one of us as an individual.

Not seeing or hearing stories of how the Spirit was moving left a hole in my psyche that I wasn't conscious of, as the road trip and visits among non-Quaker friends continued. By the time I returned to my home, I was feeling the darkness of dejection start to creep in, and I didn't have a plan to interrupt its intrusion.

So it came.

And in worship in the afternoon this past First Day, I was wondering what I was seeking, what I might find, and how one part of my body was supporting and sustaining the health of another part of my body. Might there be a parallel, between how one part of my spiritual life might support and sustain other parts of my spiritual life...?

Worship broke, and a Friend shared the passage from Scripture that he had been reflecting on Luke 11:9-10:

So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. (NIV)

Another Friend reflected on how she relies on God's grace to fall upon her whenever she needs it. A third Friend shared a bit of God's humor as he reconnected with the Spirit during worship.

Listening to these stories began to draw me in, to help me feel reconnected. And the commonality between my inward experience and some of the reflections of my fellow worshipers wasn't lost on me.

We were sustaining one another by sharing our experience of the Presence and of worship as a gathered body. We were able to see and hear and sense how the Spirit was working to bind us together--to one another as well as to God. Frequently, when we've taken the time to share like this out of the silence after worship, we hear similar threads in our experience. It's like we are gathering evidence that Something Happens inwardly and collectively that binds us together in our expectant waiting.

When I spoke after worship of the dark time I had been experiencing, I also acknowledged that that little bit of sharing was already bringing to me a bit of sustenance. Like God's manna, dropped by God's grace to the people traveling in the wilderness, searching for home...

Blessings,
Liz

Dangers of today's implicit Quakerism

This post is an extension of a comment I left on my previous post. My apologies for bouncing readers around...

The discussion around Martin K's low-tech outreach program--invite a newcomer to lunch--has a few of us sharing our own experience of being newcomers at one point and having received that sort of invitation to linger, to join a group for lunch on First Day, to learn more about Quakerism by way of simple gestures of fellowship.

It's easy these days for any of us as individuals to bow out of such opportunities, though, for First Day fellowship because of our responsibilities to children, to partners, to preparation for the upcoming week's grind...

But we are missing the role of the larger community--the Quaker worship community--when we consider ourselves as individuals, disconnected from the larger group:

A healthy, vibrant meeting will have a critical mass of Friends who are available to do the work that not every individual can. It's that critical mass--made up of individual Friends, but with a shared understanding of the whole--that can regularly provide outreach and opportunities to talk about Quakerism with others.

It's that same sort of critical mass that recognizes and acts upon the need for Friends to attend Quaker weddings and memorials that are taken under the care of the meeting, something I have written about previously.

When we as a community stop talking openly among ourselves about the responsibilities of membership (or of long-term attendance-ship!), then those responsibilities become implicit and invisible--which used to be okay when we would spend oodles of time with one another during the rest of the week.

It used to be okay because during our time together away from Meeting, we'd learn that Friends would be making plans to go to committee meetings, or to attend Meeting for Worship for Business, or to check in on a Friend who was going through a particularly painful time, etc etc. We saw and heard about the interweaving of Quakerism through the fabric of the lives of those around us.

But when we see each other and interact with each other only (primarily) on First Days, we lose our direct exposure to how Quakerism impacts our day-to-day lives: how we might pull out the Scriptures to remind ourselves of a story that can help us through difficulty; how we might call on one another to discern this-or-that; how we might quiet ourselves to settle into worship during a spiritually dark time so that the Light may reveal something to us that we need to know and we may submit to it, letting mercy come in...

Our isolated, individualized brand of Quakerism is likely in stark contrast to the religion of our youth--for those of us who grew up in a religious household. That "earlier religion" was probably made explicit to us in all sorts of ways, perhaps many of them as empty forms: references to certain members of the clergy; traditions, ceremonies, and meals that followed a certain calendar of holidays; prayers that were recited on specific occasions; and lessons that were taught so we'd understand the history, struggle, accomplishments, and teachings of our particular faith.

But today, the implicit nature of today's Quakerism is not one that will allow our faith tradition to be passed onto future generations, because we have confused an embodied or "implicit Quakerism" with not knowing how to talk about our faith--or not being willing to do so, out of fear that others will be turned off by our forthrightness.

An active, receptive, participatory silence is expected during our unprogrammed periods of worship. But we fail our Quaker ancestors and our Quaker tradition when we remain silent about our faith away from our meetingroom's doors.

Blessings,
Liz

Root bound?

In the room where the worship group meets, there is a single large pot with five plants that look like miniature palm trees. Sometimes they look thirsting for water, their slender leaves folded down, close to the candle-stick sized trunk.

This past First Day, I couldn't help but wonder if those five trees were root-bound, given that the pot was only about eighteen inches tall, was about a foot in diameter, and has been there, unchanged, since we started worshiping in this location, I think.

That got me thinking:

Our meetings can get root bound, can't they? ...Like when we fall into spiritual ruts of faith and practice, never seeking new opportunities to listen for God's call, or letting those new opportunities slide by, or failing to take a stand publicly for an important social-justice issue because it's too much work to organize and step out into public.

Or when our committees are root-bound, they tend to focus on whatever is on their plate in front of them and seldom take time out to consider rising concerns that might lead the committee and its members onto a new and interesting path, maybe incorporating a longer view or a way to involve more worshipers over time.

Our worship can get root bound, when we stop anticipating the Living Presence to dwell among us and we fall into our own private reveries, or when we stop sharing our experience of God in our lives and substitute such tender sharing with a litany of complaints about our worldly concerns.

Similarly, having too little soil in the pot can leave the roots overly exposed to air pockets and without enough nutrients. There is a necessary Something in the ground that surrounds the roots and fills the pot, and we must be careful to learn when the pot's soil is too dry; when it is too wet; and when the plants themselves need to be transplanted to some new pot for greater freedom for the roots to grow and for the soil's nutrients to be refreshed.

Maybe my choice a few years ago to begin worshiping with the worship group was a way to transplant myself into a pot that seemed to have more fertile soil, more nutrient-rich dirt. More than once, though, someone in worship has cautioned us to be wary of becoming "spiritually sleepy," and we have stayed open and alert for an opportunity to participate in a service project, to stretch ourselves beyond our familiar pattern of worship.

This fall, we'll be finishing a formal commitment to help a refugee Somali family resettle in the Twin Citiesl. Also we'll return to our experiment with providing some Quaker adult education for the worship group. We may also consider having a retreat since recently the worship group has added a few people who are new to Quakerism.

And always, always I'll be on the lookout for an opportunity to travel among Friends or to bring a visiting Friend to us: Such opportunities are good reminders for me that no one has to stay rooted in one place; that we often grow from being exposed to new environments and even to some cross-pollination.

We can remain grounded in our tradition, faith, and practice but that doesn't mean that we must restrict our roots from branching out...

Blessings,
Liz

UPDATE: While reading additional Quaker writings on the internet shortly after I posted this piece, I came across this Minute of Exercise from the 2010 annual sessions of New England Yearly Meeting.

Qualities of a Quaker worship community

A short while ago while traveling in southern Oregon, I worshiped with South Mountain Friends in Ashland. A couple of us shared after worship that we each had been reflecting on Thomas Gates' pamphlet Members One of Another.

In addition to thinking on the relationship between the meeting and its members, I was thinking about those who have written about the qualities of the Inward Light, especially Samuel Caldwell.* I then found myself considering what are some of the primary qualities of a healthy and vibrant Quaker worship community, be it a monthly meeting or a worship group.

*I believe I've read at least one other Friend's remarks on the topic but can't come up with who it was or with any link...


Qualities of a Quaker worship community

Provide spiritual nurture and pastoral care for one another. It seems like many meetings provide pastoral care pretty well: when a Friend is in crisis, our meetings rally around the person to help her or him over the hump, providing careful listening and regular support--be it financial, medical, familial, vocational. On the other hand, how regularly do we ask questions of one another about God or the Loving Principle in our lives, or how the Truth prospers, when our lives aren't in turmoil...? Must we wait for workshops or adult education sessions to learn of and share about our spiritual lives? Must spiritual nurture be limited to confidential clearness committees and ad hoc care committees?

Welcome the stranger as one of our own. I sometimes fantasize that as worship breaks, the Friend who closes worship rises and says, "Before we move into announcements and introductions of visitors, please look around the room and if you see someone near you who you don't know, please welcome them and introduce yourself to them..." It seems like a challenge to discipline ourselves so as not to rush across the meetingroom at the rise of meeting in order to talk to a fellow committee member, when what we could do is take the time to welcome the stranger and the visitor to meeting, asking these newcomers why they came that particular day, what their experience of worship was, and what questions they have about Quakerism.

Call out and provide stewardship for each other's spiritual gifts. Especially in large meetings, this task seems to have been relegated to the Nominating Committee. But what about the spiritual gifts that don't apply to "regular" committee service? What about the Friend who has a gift for providing hospitality when people come to visit in her home? or the Friend who can build an intergenerational community through storytelling and games? or the back-bencher who whispers spot-on insights to his neighbor during Meetings for Worship for Business? How do we ourselves feel when someone "finally" affirms a talent, gift, or perspective we have but feel like few others ever notice? I have had the opportunity to witness one Friend in particular who will say, "I wonder if Such-and-so Friend could help us with that particular task, since I see she (or he) has a gift for such-and-so..." It's one way the worship community becomes responsible for the nurture and stewardship of the spiritual gifts among us, since these gifts belong not to the individual but to the community.

cf. Lloyd Lee Wilson has an excellent chapter on "Community Stewardship of our Spiritual Gifts" in his book of essays on Gospel Order.

Guide one another into greater faithfulness, discipline, humility, obedience, and love. In order to offer such guidance, we have to be willing to share our vulnerabilities, our leadings, our struggles, and our overall experience of the Inward Teacher more openly with one another and with the community as a whole. We learn not only by formal study and by informal discussion but also through watching how we conduct our lives both in and outside of the meetingroom. When under stress, do we take time out to pray and to seek God's guidance? During a conflict within our meeting, do we respond to others harshly or with kindness? When a particular activity goes well, are there Friends who insist on grabbing all the credit, or is there gratitude for the Spirit for having led us into such a happy opportunity?

Knit together the corporate body in the Spirit and sustain the corporate nature of the faith's tradition. This is perhaps the least tangible, least visible element of our worship communities. There's a wordless, visceral experience, though, when we are gathered as a corporate body, whether it be during a Meeting for Worship on the occasion of a marriage, or having a special event to celebrate all the young people in the meeting. That said, there are ways to watch and listen for the increeping of individualism in our Quaker community, such as giving weight to personal and individual preferences; the use of the phrase "I think we should..." or "I'd like to see us..."; the (unintended?) attempt to hold a meeting for worship for business hostage by saying "I'm going to stand in the way of that decision" or the more subtle "I'm not in unity with that decision so therefore we don't have sense of the meeting and can't move forward."

How to live into a vibrant and healthy Quaker community

Here are a few specific steps we can take to strengthen and deepen our worship communities as Friends.

Study together: Scripture, Quaker writings. By studying and learning about our faith tradition together, we develop a shared language about Quakerism. We also develop a shared understanding about our earliest roots, about our growth as a "people to be gathered," and about the people and events that continue to shape who we are in modern times.

Worship together. During tragic events; to honor momentous occasions; during times of struggle; and out of a yearning for healing, worship is our touchstone where we come to lay aside our personal agendas and to lift up our hearts, be it in celebration or in sorrow. Contrary to what it looks like to those visitors unaccustomed to Quaker worship, we are not individuals sitting in a dead silence: we are seekers of the Truth who yearn to know God's message for us, to live out God's call in our daily lives, individually and as a body joined in the Spirit.

Cherish one another as family. Bitterness toward our fellow worshiper cannot easily coexist with our desire to cherish one another. We can learn to love one another without condoning irresponsible or disrespectful behavior: it is a discipline for which we need much practice--and much forgiveness when we ourselves fall short. But let us try what Love can do, regardless.

Provide measures of loving accountability. In a healthy, vibrant Quaker community, there is what I call an "appropriate nosiness" for us to engage in with one another. Surprisingly, setting limits and providing accountability--such as testing our leadings with one another and meeting with a care-and-accountability committee--can be a source of support and spiritual nurture. When we understand that such things are part and parcel of Quakerism's practice, we feel cared for when members of our Quaker worship community engage with us around sharing our spiritual gifts and around our steps and missteps on the way to being faithful to God's call.

Labor together... and stay to see the results over time. Sometimes it is easier after a hard, contentious decision has been made to leave the community altogether, especially if things did not go "our" way. As a corporate body, staying despite the pain or disillusionment allows the community to reflect on how things are going afterward, whether or not there are fruits of the Spirit, or how good or poor those fruits actually are. Plus, when we are struggling with one another, those may be the times when God breaks through and reveals a new way to move forward. Laboring together can also mean finding a service project or a hands-on activity in which to participate as a worship community. Sometimes unknown gifts are brought into the Light when we are taken out of our comfort zone and we are forced to draw on resources that we otherwise hadn't known were available to us. New voices among us might be drawn out; previously hidden skills may appear, and we learn anew who we are as a community.

Bear witness together. Similar to laboring with one another, bearing witness together can develop or strengthen a sense of interdependence, a reliance on one another when witnessing to Truth in public or against "the establishment" may feel risky or even dangerous. Bearing witness can also be less visible--not as confrontational--while still carrying weight because the entire worship community has agreed to take action together. When we feel responsible to a group we care for, we are likely to engage in action to which the group as a whole has committed itself.

Point out to one another when individualism is threatening to take hold and then re-engage our corporate practice. When our Quaker worship community and the worshipers within it are surrounded by the distractions and even lusts of the secular world, even Quakerism's corporate nature can be undermined by the wider culture that swirls around us. We need one another to remind us of our Quaker heritage, of the disciplines of corporate worship and corporate discernment, of the practice of waiting on the Lord rather than making decisions out of convenience of time or of money.

Speak openly of our struggles, joys, and successes in following the Inward Teacher. We grow our identity as Friends and sustain our worship communities as Quakers by telling our stories of God in our lives and by remembering the roots of where our peculiar practices, vocabulary, and witness come from. If we gather only for worship, we miss the opportunity to hear about the rest of our lives as we strive to put our faith into action.

Critical mass, "togetherness," and being a corporate body

As I was finishing up my list of the qualities of a Quaker worship community, I realized I wanted to address the concept of doing things "together" as it relates to the corporate body.

"Being a corporate body" does not mean having 100% of the body together 100% of the time, but it does mean striving to have 100% of the body engaged in the entire life of the community over time.

By "life of the community," I mean worship; meetings for worship for business; committee service; projects involving the community; intergenerational activities; care and nurture of our youngest and of our eldest community members; and so on.

It's unrealistic to assume that everyone within a Quaker meeting or worship group will be available to participate in a given activity on a given day. But it is realistic to assume--and I would say reasonable to expect--that over time, everyone will be able to participate in a given activity; that no one will completely and forever stay away from worship, or from meeting for worship for business, or from an opportunity to bear witness against injustice.

The element of participating in a corporate body together is more than having critical mass for any single event. Through worship, struggle, witness, service projects, adult education, intergenerational activities, learning about Quakerism, there is a cumulative experience that occurs over time and it is the cumulative experience among Friends that both shapes and is shaped by the worshiping community and all of its participants.

As always, thanks for reading me.

Blessings,
Liz

RELATED POSTS:

Martin Kelley's suggestion that we invite a newcomer to lunch is the Outreachiest Program Ever

my blog post that refers to critical mass of a Quaker meeting in light of weddings and memorials

Notes from the presentation "On Being A Quaker"

At the end of June, I met with Friends and spoke (mostly) out of the silence on the topic On Being A Quaker. Normally for a presentation or workshop, I use a combination of outline and mindmap, but the closer I got to actually opening my mouth for this event, the more strongly I understood that I was supposed to lay aside my handwritten notes and speak out of the silence.


The outward preparation

Originally, I was thinking of what it means to be "a new kind of Quaker" as compared to "an old kind of Quaker." But I kept coming back to the theme of belonging to one another, belonging to Quakerism, and belonging to God.

As I was rereading Thomas Gates' pamphlet Members One of Another, I found myself drawn into considering how his themes of transformation and obedience intersect with the theme of belonging, and so I took some time to clarify what was beginning to take shape in me by creating a chart, which I've included below.


The inward preparation

A few things caught me by surprise.

One was that a few weeks prior to the 2-hour presentation, I became clear that I needed to have a companion in ministry--what used to be called an elder. I hadn't requested that sort of spiritual companionship for a short thing like this but I'm glad I did for this occasion. One person's name rose up for the Friend who was providing all the arrangements--and it was a person I had met literally just three or four week's prior. It all felt rightly ordered.

I also put out a number of prayer requests--again, not something I had done for other presentations. One Friend offered to bring the prayer request to a group of Friends she knew who intentionally prayed for traveling ministers.

And just a few minutes before I was to begin speaking at the event, I sat with my companion in ministry on the back stoop of the meetinghouse, overlooking the Meeting's very old cemetery. I felt myself being called out by the presence of those Friends long buried, and I sensed their affirmation of the need for me to "go deep" and stay deep during my remarks.

The last thing that caught me off-guard was the number of times that I myself was moved to tears as I was speaking! I recall the Power that was expressed, for example, when I spoke about the need for us to make ourselves vulnerable with one another, to be deeply authentic, as a way for us to belong to one another and to understand how it is that the Spirit is moving among us... that we cannot keep the stories of how the Spirit is prospering in our lives out of a secular need confidentiality, for if I, as a new or maturing Friend, never or seldom hear these stories from my Quaker brothers and sisters, from my Quaker parents and grandparents, how am I to know what such movement of the Spirit looks like or feels like or is like? How is a newer Friend supposed to learn these things...?


A synopsis of what I shared

As what sometimes happens when I speak out of the silence during a Meeting for Worship, I don't recall exactly what I said, though I did touch on a number of things I had previously written down for myself, about how we might go about inviting one another to consider how we as Friends belong to one another, to Quakerism, and to God, regardless of how long we have been among Friends--that is, regardless of whether we are a "new kind of Quaker" or an "old kind of Quaker."

And after organizing my notes and my thoughts into a systematic whole--a chart!--I realized that if I had had the opportunity, I may have changed the title of the presentation:

Love and Belonging: Consideration of how we as Friends belong to one another, to Quakerism, and to God, regardless of how long we have been among Friends.

Or maybe I would have called it "Transformation and Obedience," since those are the threads I seemed to return to...

Anyway, below is the main part of the chart I created and referred to during my message. It's not complete by any means, so feel free to shape it and rework it and fill it in or expand it as you feel led.

In particular, I paid attention to the "cautions" and the challenges or "inconveniences" of each of these layers of spiritual development and belonging. I also emphasized the word "belonging" by breaking that word apart:

BE ... LONGING,

as in:

Be longing for one another;

Be longing for Quakerism; and

BE longing for God.

At the very end of the evening, I closed with a number of queries that had arisen for me as I was finishing up my outward preparation, so I share those after the chart.

NOTE: In the chart, I use the notation TG, in brackets, to refer to language used by Tom Gates in his pamphlet.

(UPDATE: If you have trouble viewing the chart below, or to view a more extensive version of this chart, click here.)

TOPIC	Belong to one another	Belong to Quakerism	Belong to God
WELCOME & ACCEPTANCE [TG]	Provide and request care and nurture; be curious about the movement of the Spirit, of Love, in one another's lives
SHARED VALUES [TG]		Act together and reflect together on the Root and fruit of the Testimonies, on indiv and corporate levels; commit to engage in Quaker practices and disciplines	Maintain Love at the center of our life and faith; wait upon the Light in times of difficulty
TRANSFORMATION [TG]	Share our ministries, leadings, and struggles with one another; be vulnerable with each other and bear witness to the transformation of one another	Be willing to seek new Light in difficult times and from difficult people; be willing to labor with others	Be willing to wrestle with God; be willing to grow into our measure of Light
OBEDIENCE [TG]	"Exhort one another daily" to be faithful to how we are called	Test our leadings with one another; provide mutual accountability and mutual encouragement	Engage in faithfulness and a humble obedience; be willing to yield
CAUTION	Feeling accepted does not provide an automatic "in" for membership; feeling accepted does not mean individualism and secularism should replace tending to the Root and minding the Light	Can the Meeting allow itself to grow because of a Friend's ministry/new Light? "what is important is not how far one has traveled, but rather one's commitment to travel this particular path we call Quakerism" [TG, p. 36]	Can the Meeting allow its members to grow beyond the confines of the Meeting; can we avoid pressuring one another to conform to the Meeting's "culture"?
CHALLENGE	Inconvenience ourselves to make time for others	Inconvenience ourselves to uphold Quaker practices and to grow as a Meeting	Inconvenience ourselves to receive God's love, to be broken open, to be obedient to God's call

The queries I shared

What new ministries or new messages are emerging, or are struggling to emerge in the meeting? Who is carrying them? Are the Friends who resist the new Light being held in Love? How ready is the meeting to outgrow its old skin? Can the meeting allow its members to grow beyond the abilities and even the identity or culture of the meeting? What would help?

What ministries have long-time Friends brought into the current life of the meeting? What of their Light and spiritual gifts still needs attention and nurture? Can the meeting live into the tension between supporting the emerging ministries and laying down the ones that may be outliving their usefulness, and can that be done with compassion and care for all involved? Can the meeting embrace both fresh and “institutionalized” perspectives, allowing each to inform the other? Does the meeting grieve together what was, in fair balance with rejoicing what is being birthed?

What would it mean if we saw Quakers as one family? How do we wish to treat our younger and older brothers and sisters? Do we feel like we belong to one another, that we belong to God? What would help?

If your meeting and you heard that Quakerism offers you and the meeting more than what you and the meeting are currently experiencing, would you be interested? Would your meeting be interested? When has God called you to be More than Who You Are, and to what extent were you able to live into that call? Are you willing to let go of “your version” of Quakerism to discover how else the Spirit is moving through Friends?

As always, thanks for reading me.

Blessings,
Liz

On Being A Quaker - an upcoming presentation

Dear Friends,

This coming Friday, I will present a two-hour session to a Fallsington Friends in Pennsylvania. These Friends had had a discussion earlier this spring about some of what was written in a recent Quaker Life magazine, about "old and new kinds of Quakers. That discussion set off a larger conversation--something I learned about when I participated in the QUIP conference last spring.

Way opened for me to share my own journey around this sort of topic with these Friends. Here's a brief write up of what I'll be focusing on:

On Being A Quaker
Friday evening, June 25, 2010
7:00-9:00 pm.

"Dear Friends, watch over one another in love, and stir up that which is pure in one another, and exhort one another daily." —G. Fox, Epistle 22 [Thanks, Mark!]

Our peculiar faith tradition shifts and morphs over the generations as we listen for God, resist the temptations of secular society, and rediscover the principles of Love, faithfulness, and witness that guided early Friends. This two-hour session will invite us to consider how we as Friends belong to one another and to Quakerism, regardless of how long we have been among Friends.

I'd appreciate prayers for faithful service and staying open to whatever it is that God may give me to share.

Blessings,
Liz

Spiritual loneliness

I was surprised to see it's been three weeks since I last posted something.... but then again, two out of those three weeks I was traveling.

I attended a Quaker wedding out of state--a trip that included a ferry ride across Lake Michigan--and then a week-long camping trip that turned soggy at the start but ended up with fun fellowship in a cabin "up north."

Now I'm back home, briefly, before I head out again to visit family and do a short presentation on "the old and new kinds of Quakers."

But in-between these recent travels, I've had a bit of malaise settle in my heart. Some of it, I sense, has to do with laying down my participation in Facebook: while the choice has given me time to dedicate to reading Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship, as well as to considering other Quaker-related opportunities, the choice has also separated me from the ongoing exchanges among Quaker and non-Quaker friends.

This spiritual loneliness is something that visits me from time to time.

It settles on my shoulders and in the pit of my stomach when I am away for too long from the community that reflects myself back to me. With my recent and upcoming travels, I've been able to attend my local Meeting for Worship only about twice in eight weeks; and for the first time since 1995, I won't be attending the FGC Gathering this summer.

I chalk up this sense of deep loneliness to my being a twin, that without people around me who can mirror myself back to me, I start to feel a bit lost. Maybe this is a phenomenon that others experience as well; maybe it's part of the human condition. In any event, what's a bit different about the feeling at this time, though, is that I am recognizing it and I am conscientiously doing what I can to tend to my connection with God, despite my less frequent face-to-face connections with people in my own community.

....which reminds me: I've got a few phone calls I said I'd make this morning.

Thanks for reading me.

Blessings,
Liz

The core and gestalt of Quakerism

A few weeks ago, a new attender to the worship group was hospitalized and he desperately wanted some of us to bring him some books. I brought him a spare copy I had of Lloyd Lee Wilson's Essays on the Quaker Vision of Gospel Order, in part because he had read on our website that this book was one of the threads that had brought many of us together.

A week or two later, I visited the Friend and he started talking about the book and about the concept of a Quaker gestalt, mentioned in Chapter 2.* When he asked me how I myself would define the Quaker gestalt, I replied something like this:

I think of a gestalt as something that is bigger than the whole and all of its parts. And when I think about Quakerism, I often think of it as a tapestry.

The thing is, for many modern Liberal Friends, we think we can pull out one or even a few of the tapestry's threads and still have the pattern or image of the tapestry intact, especially when looking at it from a distance. What I believe, though, is that the interwoven quality of the tapestry, of the Quaker gestalt, is in fact hurt by pulling out any of its threads, by discarding any of its practices, disciplines, or doctrines.

I also believe that from an outsider's perspective, the tapestry won't look different when a thread is removed. But from the inside, from those long-time Friends who have lived and breathed Quakerism, they have known it deeply and wordlessly as a thing-of-the-whole, and so by changing one thread of the pattern, the whole pattern is changed.

As for the primary threads that make up the Quaker gestalt, I name them as the immediacy and centrality of God in our lives; the place of corporate worship and meetings for worship for business; the covenant community; and the transformative power of the Inner Light on our individual and corporate lives.

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

Now that I've typed this out here, I can add some additional thoughts to the initial answer I offered a few days ago.

For one thing, I don't know that the Quaker gestalt is "hurt" as much as it is changed--for better or for worse--when we start pulling out threads of our Quaker tapestry. Clearly, some early outward forms for many of us Quakers have become empty and we've discarded them or otherwise rely on them much less than our predecessors did, such as convening a meeting of elders or wearing plain dress.

Secondly, I continue to acknowledge fairly openly that I was not raised in the Christian tradition and I don't identify as Christian. Yet I certainly acknowledge that Quakerism's Christian roots are also a vital part of Quakerism's tapestry.

I would say in my earlier days among Friends, I yanked the "Quakerism is a part of Christianity" thread pretty hard, insisting that Quakerism could exist just fine without it being Christian. In hindsight, that was my way of saying I felt I belonged and was accepted by my local Quaker community, and it therefore followed that a belief Jesus didn't have to be a requirement for being Quaker.

Nowadays, as a more mature Friend, others have held my feet to the fire, saying that to be Quaker, I have to at least be willing to wrestle with the faith's Christian roots. And I do.

I wrestle with being Quaker while not identifying as Christian. Sometimes I scratch my head in confusion: How did I end up here?! On my better days, I understand it is not a matter of how we name that Loving Principle: it is how we live by it.

I also recognize that the more time I spend with Quakers--in worship and in fellowship--the deeper I sink into the Seed and the more I learn about how the threads of the tapestry are intertwined. Over the years, I seem to understand more deeply and intuitively that when one thread is changed, the whole pattern of the tapestry is intrinsically changed, even if not noticeably so until years or generations later.

It is a lesson I need to revisit from time to time, and another indication that when I think I understand the wholeness and prophetic ministry of Quakerism, I really have so much more to learn.

Blessings,
Liz

P.S. As I was crafting this post in my mind, I also was reading Marty Grundy's newest pamphlet, Early Friends & Ministry. In some ways, her review of how Friends' travel in the ministry has changed over the centuries speaks to the historical changes of the gestalt of Quakerism. I hope to write about this pamphlet very soon.

*I include a quote from this chapter about the Quaker gestalt in an earlier post.

Facebook, Twitter, and Blogging

My discomfort is growing. So are my questions.

Shall I continue with Facebook?

Shall I drop Twitter, now that I have experimented with it?

If I reclaimed the time from Facebook and Twitter, would I return whole-heartedly to the Quaker blogosphere, both in reading blogs as well as writing for my own?

What about sustaining the relationships that grew out of blogs and are currently much more active on Facebook and Twitter?

Plus I'm wanting to be intentional about continuing the momentum I've got going for self-publishing a book of blog posts relevant to the recent renewal among Friends.

It seems as though I've been spending less time with that new, exciting project and more time keeping up with the electronic Joneses.

That turns my stomach a little bit.

The fact that I am asking myself these questions indicates that something is stirring within me. It's clear that I can't adequately sustain all of these pieces of technology.

It's also clear that I won't give up email: too many people in my immediate life--family, local Quakers--rely more on email than on the other electronic forms of communication.

I wonder if other bloggers wonder about these things.

I wonder if non-bloggers wonder about these things.

I wonder what choices Friends in particular have made about managing their time, about using online social networking tools, about evaluating the benefit or difficulty of these things...?

I can't imagine I'm the only one struggling.

From time to time, I think about the testimony of simplicity and how it relates to my searching. This afternoon I took some time to read a bit and reflect. And yes, I found these through a Google search: I do believe there's a place for the Internet in my life, but it's a question about how to use it and how much to use it.

Outwardly, simplicity is shunning superfluities of dress, speech, behaviour, and possessions, which tend to obscure our vision of reality. Inwardly, simplicity is spiritual detachment from the things of this world... [so as] to love God with all of the heart and mind and strength. The testimony of outward simplicity began as a protest against the extravagance and snobbery which marked English society in the 1600s. In whatever forms this protest is maintained today, it must still be seen as a testimony against involvement with things which tend to dilute our energies and scatter our thoughts....
--Faith and Practice, section on Simplicity, North Carolina Yearly Meeting (Conservative), 1983

Simplicity is essential to our relationship with the Divine. It is the deepest leading of spiritual life in stewarding needs, time, money, possessions and energy for the purpose of our relationship with the Divine... Simplicity can set free richness of spiritual life and joy in living... It can remove barriers to engagement with others. This testimony encourages Friends to consider obstacles in our lives which interfere with this Divine experience... The practice of this testimony changes throughout our lives and requires a constant awareness. We recognize the pressures to conform to the materialism of our society.
--Faith and Practice, Approved chapter on Simplicity, Northern Yearly Meeting

The taproot of simplicity is to be found at that point in the life of a Friend when the realization comes that his or her inner and outer lives are connected, that for the inward life to continue to grow, there must be a response from the outward life.
--Frances Taber, as in Northern Yearly Meeting's chapter on Simplicity, see above

I suppose I have the answer to my own question. Now begins the struggle for me to live into it.

Blessings,
Liz

RELATED POST:
Simplicity - A Wider View, from Still Life

Other blog posts by non-Quaker bloggers that link to this post:
It's Facebook Week at Mashable
How Do You Communicate

Mt. Toby Meeting and September reflections

I feel as though I've been in a time warp: How did it get to be the third week of September already?!?

Yet, I know it's been a number of weeks since I've been able to do any of my regular blog reading--in case anyone wonders why I haven't appeared in comments, let alone on The Good Raised Up.

Here's a little bit of what I've been up to, as summer has slipped into fall.

Being away

After my return from Iowa Conservative Yearly Meeting sessions, I rested for a short time before Jeanne and I went camping for three days and nights on the north shore of Lake Superior.

I wasn't raised in a camping family--more like a symphony-and-Broadway-theater one--but the campsite we had booked was, by some camping standards, "cushy," with a nice view of Lake Superior, a walking path down to the lake, toilets nearby, and a fresh water spring, practically next door, with a pump that was always flowing. The weather cooperated for the most part, and we had the requisite hotdogs-over-a-campfire and s'mores.

A couple of weeks later, we threw a big barbecue for friends and neighbors. We had nearly 45 people in our backyard... until it started to rain, and then we had 40 people in our living room!

I had thought I'd get back into my blogging routine after that, but not so. I've been dealing with allergies for the first time in my life, ever since coming back from camping. Plus, we've had some house projects going on, including upgrading our overall heating-and-cooling system.

Mount Toby Meeting

Just as things were quieting down again, we packed up once more and headed to visit family and Quaker friends in Massachusetts for a week. We were able to attend Mt. Toby Meeting in Amherst, and I was able, at long last, to meet Cat Chapin-Bishop and Peter Bishop.

(FYI, Cat gives great hugs, if you're ever able to get together with her and are in need of one!)

As a meeting, Mt. Toby is much larger than I expected it to be, with about 50-60 Friends attending worship in a space filled with benches rather than chairs. I saw some familiar faces among the worshipers, including a family from Northern Yearly Meeting territory.

Though the announcements ran for nearly another 20 minutes after worship broke (am I exaggerating...? I can't be sure), Mt. Toby has taken up a practice of inviting worshipers to stay behind and settle back into the silence for some additional worship and worship sharing. That practice intrigues me, though only a handful of Friends actually stayed that particular time.

Another Friend mentioned to me, during fellowship, that the next week would be the week they would permit no announcements at all, so that the meeting might hold worship a while longer and not become so unsettled by all the news of events, etc. It's a shame I wasn't able to worship with them the next First Day (e.g. today).

Now we've landed again and I don't expect to be traveling until mid- or late-October.

Sustaining my Quakerism

Today was my first time in several weeks when I have been in worship at the monthly meeting near my home, and I spent some time reflecting on my own condition. I became aware that I wasn't feeling as easy in worship as I usually do, and that much of my recent time had "disappeared" into watching and reading news about the historic 2008 presidential elections coming up.

I recognized that I had been feeling out of touch with myself a bit, and during worship, I understood that I had been away from my Quaker community for a bit too long this summer. Or was with it too sporadically. Or something.

As I sank a bit more deeply into that awareness, I was reminded again that the point of worship in the manner of Friends isn't to connect in the stillness with one's community--though that certainly may be a happy outcome of the time together.

The purpose of waiting worship is to strip away all that distracts one from knowing the Light directly, from receiving guidance and direction from the Living Presence.

And so I felt a small sting of conviction, that I had gotten too caught up in my travels and in my distractions-of-choice and had not taken the time to quiet myself and remember God.

Though my community reflects my Quakerism back to me--a mirror I very much need from time to time--my relationship with God is what sustains me; and ultimately, I am accountable to God in whether I am faithful or not.

The blessing of that awareness is the reminder that, though my community does not physically travel with me across the country, God always does.

Blessings,
Liz

Beyond (the language of) Quakerism 101

For two or three years now, I've been wondering what a "beyond Quakerism 101" course might look like. What topics would be covered? What readings would be recommended?

But before I address that, I'm acutely aware of the growing attention being given to social class and classism within the Religious Society of Friends.

Even in the past few days, Jeanne again has raised the class issue in relation to how we speak about adult religious education for ourselves. In particular, she asks how the language of college and graduate studies may come across to those among us--or those who might come among us--who perhaps don't value education as a goal for achievement in and of itself.

While Friends continue the Quakers-and-class discussion, I do want to share thoughts about, and seek input for, what "Part 2" of our continued learning about Quakerism might look like, assuming we've already learned about the nature of why and how we worship, why and how we conduct business, the history and sequence of the schisms in our 350 years, and so on.

Endangered practices

I find I keep coming back to what I think of as practices and concepts that I would place on the "endangered" list for modern Liberal Quakers.

I'm aware that some of the topics I've included below might surprise some Friends, but given questions and comments I have heard in recent years as I've visited different meetings, I think there's a place to include them and/or review them...

TOPICS:
The corporate nature of our faith
Sense of the meeting
Testing a leading
Accountability
Eldership
Discipline
Coming under the weight of the Cross
Ministry
Obedience
Transformation
Interrelationship between committees, Meeting for Worship with attention to Business, and the meeting as a whole
Intervisitation
Spiritual development among Friends (e.g. from finding comfort in the silence... to being challenged or "exercised"... to yielding to God's will...?)
Role and place of Scripture*
Role and place of Jesus and/or Christ*
What gave rise to the historic Testimonies
Truth based on experience (as opposed to individual belief or ideas)
Gospel Order
Centrality of Meeting for Worship
Centrality of and qualities of the Inner Light/Inward Christ

What other topics would you add?

What topics would you give the most "air time" for?

Blessings,
Liz

*Added after original post.

Panel discussion: Living Our Leadings

This past Saturday, I participated on a panel of Friends to talk about our experience of living with and receiving support for being faithful to a leading or concern we had come under the weight of.

The evening was described this way:

PURPOSE: To make transparent a Quaker process that is often invisible to the community, as well as to learn a bit of how the Spirit has been moving within and among Friends within the meeting.

Panelists will share their experiences of testing a leading, struggling to stay faithful to God’s call, dealing with their own humanness, and receiving support from an ongoing committee of elders.

With the help of a facilitator, the panel had a chance to share with the wider meeting community the tenderness, vulnerability, intimacy, and challenge of working with an ongoing care-and-accountability committee (a.k.a. "committee of elders" or "anchor committees").

Among us were a young adult Friend who is coming into a ministry of listening to plants, trees, and other parts of Creation; an older Friend who, for about 15 years, has been providing public ministry through workshops and presentations to Friends; a 50-something Friend who has a concern for the Earth and sees himself as a Gaia troubador; another 50-something Friend who has been leading workshops in the meeting about historical Quakers and spiritual formation; and myself, 40-something, carrying a concern for how we convey our faith and sustain our identity as Friends.

We covered a wide range of topics, including:

the struggle to name and be birthed into the leading or concern we were each given;

the process of seeking and receiving support from the meeting to be faithful to God's call;

the gifts and ministries that we are bringing forward are in fact gifts and ministries that belong to the community and not to any individual, per se;

the feeling that those of us on the panel are no different from those who were sitting in front of the panel; and

the experience of being brought low and facing our humanness over the course of working with our committees.

Five or ten minutes before the panel was to get started, there were about 10-12 other Friends already gathered, but by the end of the evening, there were probably 35-40 people who attended, including some of the most senior members of the meeting, some of the newest attenders, and at least one friend-of-Friends who had never been to a meeting for worship.

No one really expected such a good turnout for a Saturday night in late February, and a number of Friends I spoke with afterward told me and other panelists how rich and moving they found the experience.

The idea for such a panel came in what now seems like a momentary eruption of the Spirit, one afternoon when I was meeting with my own care-and-accountability committee late last fall.

I was in a bit of a rant about my own frustration that I knew there were other committees going on within the meeting, and that other Friends were struggling to live into their leadings and be obedient to God's call. But since the meeting as a body never hears reports from these ongoing committees--presumably for the sake of maintaining confidentiality--there is no way for the meeting to know how the Spirit is moving among us, corporately, let alone how our individual lives, concerns, and leadings might be intertwined.

For example, in the years leading up to this event, I had been puzzled, confused, and even angry to find out through channels other than the meeting about one Friend in particular who travels one or more times a year across the country as a sought-after workshop leader and speaker.

Though the travel itself and the sharing of gifts in this way is something I am easy with, it is the lack of corporate process and corporate accountability that concerns me: the Friend's name is attached to the monthly meeting while traveling (e.g. in flyers, brochures, etc.), yet the monthly meeting hasn't received endorsed letters of travel, reports from the Friend's committee of elders, etc.

My own belief is that if the meeting were to hear reports of how this Friend is being used and transformed by the Spirit through his encounters with other Friends, perhaps the meeting itself would invite Friends from beyond our own meeting to share their experience with us and grow into other areas that cannot be foreseen when we "keep to ourselves."

(I have spoken directly with this Friend about all of this, by the way.)

Anyway, during my rant with my own committee about all this, I think I probably blurted out something like, "I know I'm not the only one who has this sort of committee going on, and I think it robs the meeting of a chance to learn how the Spirit might be working through us! Can't we set up something like an event where there'd be a panel of Friends who have been doing this for some time... and let them share their experience?"

And what did my committee say...?

Great idea! Do it!

It nearly was as simple as that, and so the faciliator and panelists were identified and the announcements went out and the people came.

Back to the panel:

One of the things that struck me was how varied our experience had been about getting involved with an ongoing committee. For a couple of us, it was because an individual had spoken up and had said, "You need to ask M&C for a committee."

For another one of us, it was because one or two Friends had offered simply to begin meeting with the person, and only later were those monthly get-togethers recognized as a committee of elders.

For myself, it was because a few years earlier, in a meeting I was visiting, I had been invited to sit in on and observe another fFriends' care-and-accountability committee, and that experience planted a seed in me that such support was possible. Shortly after that, I sought a clearness committee from my own meeting to help me test the veracity of a concern was carrying, which in turn led to being appointed an ongoing committee of my own.

I don't remember the questions we were asked, but I do remember that the whole evening was conducted in a worshipful frame, with pauses between speakers and between questions.

I remember how most of us touched on the theme of our lives becoming turned upside down in order to accommodate the leading, especially if the leading seemed to be a red herring, with Friends and family wondering how they could have felt so clearly led and have things seemingly go so terribly wrong.

When a Friend asked how any of us have "matured" as a result of having an ongoing committee to help us in this part of the journey, I remember speaking to the fact that in my experience, there is a different sort of joy that comes from being well-used in service to the Spirit. There is a joy that comes from being faithful and obedient, despite the difficulty of doing so at times.

I added that I feel I also have grown in my capacity to be obedient, in that I believe we are given small and frequent opportunities to be faithful to how God directs us, like when we're driving home from somewhere and we have a nudge to go to the grocery store. It's easy to ignore those nudges--after all, weren't we planning to go to the store in another day or two, why go now? But it may also be that as we are faithful to yielding to the small nudges, we are being prepared to receive and yield to the larger ones.

God knows that we humans need lots of practice!

In closing, I want to acknowledge that the seed of the idea to have this panel has to do with the Quaker Heritage Day that Robin and others have written about. In some ways, having a format that didn't fit into a predictable one allowed the plan for the evening to be developed outside of the meeting's committee structure--which at times can simply talk or "discern" a good thing to death.

I heard a few folks say they are hopeful that something else like this panel can be provided in the future. My sense is that the panel was well received because this sort of event speaks to a yearning that long-time attenders and dedicated members have, about their knowing there is more to Quakerism than meets the eye... and somehow Quakerism 101 and hour-long adult education programs don't address that yearning adequately.

Now that the panel is behind me, I'll be awaiting any new nudges--or rants--that might make themselves known to me!

Blessings,
Liz

You can't stop Christmas (or elders) from coming

Every Who down in Whoville
The tall and the small
Was singing without any presents at all!
He hadn't stopped Christmas from coming.
It came!
Somehow or other it came just the same.

And the Grinch with his Grinch feet, ice-cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling:
"How could it be so?
It came without ribbons!
It came without tags!
It came without packages, boxes, or bags!"

--from How the Grinch Stole Christmas

I had a rather obvious-in-hindsight thought the other day, while talking with a Friend about my experience at a recent Quaker event.

Despite the fact that many meetings have stopped using the practice to name, record, or otherwise formally acknowledge Friends who have gifts of ministry and eldership, these gifts still exist among us.

The Spirit moves within our meetings, speaks to our condition, and calls forth from us those gifts that the body of the meeting needs. Such gifts might be to provide a nurturing presence to young children; to maintain accurate financial records; to be available to coordinate visits to Friends who are ill; or to have the temperament and time to work in the kitchen during a busy potluck.

None of these gifts get the flack or attention that gifts of ministry and eldership seem to get from meetings. Then again, many of these other gifts seem to go unacknowledged or are taken for granted, which could be seen as a different sort of flack--the flack of unintended neglect.

Yet the gifts of ministry and eldership, like the gifts of caring for our children and coordinating potlucks, still exist within our meetings--even if we as a body never name them or acknowledge them; even if there is no meeting of ministers and elders to be convened or if a meeting doesn't craft a letter of introduction for a Friend who travels beyond the meeting in service to the Spirit.

A number of Liberal Friends meetings and others have done away with recording of elders, ministers, and overseers. Yet Friends with vocal gifts, gifts of counsel, and gifts of expressing care for one another, coupled with the yearning to be obedient to how the God calls us, will strive to be faithful to the leadings of the Spirit, not to how meetings do or don't affirm one another.

And yes, all gifts are equal in terms of importance to bringing about the Kin(g)dom of God, but all gifts are not identical. So it is that each gift requires a different sort of support, a different sort of care and accountability, in order to ensure that the gifts are being put to right use.

Even without formal acknowledgment, the support of care-and-accountability committees*, or informal appreciation, all the gifts of First Day School teachers, pastoral caregivers, childcare providers, treasurers, elders, ministers, and cooks will still come into service to the meeting community and to the Living God:

We will come without ribbons
We will come without tags
We will come without packages, boxes or bags!

Blessings,
Liz

*FGC calls these committees anchor committees.

Worship and visits among early Friends

For whatever reason, the last few weeks in Meeting for Worship I have found my mind resting on how our participation in meetings and in worship perhaps has changed since the first few generations of Friends:

Without cars or mass transit, would people have traveled more than 10-15 miles on any given First Day to attend worship? Or would people naturally have gathered as a local meeting or worship group, making it easier for more Friends to attend a meeting for worship that was held in closer proximity to where they lived?

Would there have been many more meetings and worship groups across the land as a result of needing to rely on our own feet or maybe a horse?

Would it have been that much more important, then, to make the effort to attend the monthly meeting's Meeting for Worship with attention to Business, knowing that the Spirit was moving amongst so many small groups in a region? Would it have been refreshing to hear those experiences from other Friends, in the next town over?

And would such proximity have lent itself to a local, more sustainable faith community, relying on one another for mutual support and accountability; and helping one another get to know each another "in that which is Eternal"?

If a traveling minister or other traveling Friend had arrived in town, would a good many more Friends attend Meeting and social or public events in order to listen to and worship with the visitor(s), knowing that such visits required an additional measure of spiritual faithfulness and physical endurance?

Without the huge media network that we have today, would worshipers be more likely to listen inwardly to that still, small voice, rather than mull over what they heard that morning on public radio or read in the newspaper?

Without the tremendous number of books available to them on psycho-spiritual matters, other faith traditions, or Quakers who had lived before them, did early Friends at the time gain inspiration from the Scriptures and from the living ministers among them?

I wonder sometimes if I have become a bit lazy in my Quakerism. I use the internet to search for another Quaker's words about a concept with which I am wrestling--but should I be carving out more time to listen inwardly or wait patiently in the Light for understanding and revelation to come to me?

I underline the pages of the pamphlets and books that I read, grateful that someone is able to speak to my condition--but should I be allowing myself more time to sink into the Seed more deeply and allow the Spirit to speak directly to me?

Blessings,
Liz

The Gathering's workshop selection process

"The purpose of the FGC Gathering is to help Friends know and deepen their relationship with the Spirit and with each other; to strengthen their identification as Friends among other Friends; and to testify to the continued presence of unprogrammed Friends as a vital and unique faith community."

--FGC Long Range Conference Planning Committee, 2002

Being behind the scenes for a massive project like helping pull off the annual summer Gathering for Friends General Conference is an eye-opening experience.

The phrase "Ignorance is bliss" comes to mind.

Many readers know that I served as clerk of the Workshops Committee for the 2007 Gathering Committee. Now that preparation for the 2008 Gathering is underway, this is a good time to put a call out to readers to encourage one another to submit a workshop proposal.

The deadline is October 29, 2007!*

This is also as good a time as any to explain a bit about the workshop selection process, even though the selection process probably differs slightly from year to year. Making the process more transparent might help us understand how to navigate the system, especially as we come into new leadings and openings, corporately and individually.

What guides the work?

First of all, as future Gathering Committees and their subcommittees consider the approved statement about the Purpose of the Gathering (above), more committees will be able to connect their own piece of the work to the overall work and vision of FGC as it relates to the Gathering.

Beyond that, and until FGC's Long Term Plan becomes more visible to FGC-affiliated meetings, there doesn't appear to be any tried-and-true way to sort through the proposals. The recent introduction of a handbook to be passed along from year to year might help Workshops Committees engage in their selection process, though.

Some of what we did for the 2007 Gathering included having the committee discern out of the silence a list of items or attributes that would be given weight when considering workshop proposals. The list included things like a workshop's sense of ministry and the capacity to transform participants and/or Quakerism in general. Lifting up that list ahead of time seemed to help us stay grounded when narrowing the selections got dicey.

Other factors might be popularity and past success of the workshop leader; interweaving of the Gathering theme, plenary speakers' focus, and workshop activities; or a workshop that seems to fill a gap in some way--whether it's about our faith, current events, or a potentially marginalized subset of Friends.

How big is the workshop pool?

Towards the start of my service as clerk of the Workshops Committee, I found out that in a typical year, there are usually not many more proposals turned in than there are actual slots for workshops to be offered.

(The exception is when Gathering was held in Tacoma, Washington: there were twice as many proposals as there were slots.)

That fact alone has helped me understand how it is that such a wide variety of offerings (e.g. from the seemingly recreational to the scholarly), and a high number of "repeat" workshops, occur during the Gathering.

How might the workshop offerings change?

Here are some of the questions I have been holding now that I've gone through this process as part of the Gathering Committee:

Would the nature of proposals change if Friends knew more widely what the purpose of FGC's Gathering is?

Would the nature of proposals change if experienced Gathering workshop leaders stepped back and provided eldering to less experienced Friends who clearly have a ministry to share?

Would the submissions and workshop offerings change if the Nominating Committees and Committees of Ministry & Counsel from all FGC-affiliated monthly meetings--and other monthly meeting "cousins"--received a request that THEY identify 1-4 Friends from their meeting who may have a ministry that should be brought forward through the Gathering? Certainly the Workshops Committee would see some fresh names and new topics reach their notebooks as a result.

What might be next?

I'm sure there are other ways to increase the pool of workshop proposals and shift the overall direction or scope of what the workshops, as a whole, would present.

I'm also sure that a large number of Friends who are accustomed to seeing a wide variety of workshop topics would rebel and be upset to see that scope and variety narrowed, especially if that variety were narrowed too quickly.

What I'm less sure about is if a more focused scope of workshops (i.e. more workshops that are explicitly Quaker) would appeal to a different set of Friends who have been staying away, because they perhaps have been feeling as though the Gathering hasn't been "strengthening their identification as Friends," or "helping them know and deepen their relationship with the Spirit."

So, blog readers and blog writers:

If you know of someone who has been given a ministry from which other Friends might benefit in a setting like FGC's Gathering, I hope you'll encourage them to test if Way is open for them to submit a proposal by the end of the month.

Or, if you feel that push or pull yourself, please consider submitting a proposal.

Our faith remains vibrant and sustainable as long as we live into and bring forward the new Life we ourselves are experiencing.

Blessings,
Liz

*The link to the proposal form will likely be invalid after that deadline, fyi.

Spiritual intimacy, Part II

When I was working on a previous post on this topic, the original version of it included additional thoughts and reflections about the nature of spiritual intimacy. What follows below is Part Two of that original post and expands on some of those concepts. --Liz

One way I have heard others explain intimacy is to think about intimacy like this:

Intimacy means INTO ME SEE, see into me.

Just like I can't see into--or out of--a house if the blinds are always drawn, no matter how brightly lit the interior is, so it is that if we are going to nurture spiritual intimacy with one another, to know one another in that which is Eternal, we are going to have to lift up the shades and even--gasp!--open the front door and invite people in.

We're also going to have to knock on other people's doors and accept their invitation to stay for a while and visit, too.

If we're going to strengthen our sense of spiritual community and deepen our spiritual intimacy with one another, we'll have to hone and cultivate our gifts of spiritual hospitality, both as individuals and as a corporate body.

Spiritual intimacy and spiritual hospitality go hand in hand. As newcomers, we're received and welcomed with a friendly handshake and a gentle question or two. It's only after we have observed a commitment from others who make the time to hear and absorb our answers that we will hang around awhile: we feel a sense of warmth and care as a result of their attention and presence to us. And when the friendly handshakes, gentle questions, and gift of time extend beyond a first and second visit, we are likely to start sharing, bit by bit, more of our lives, our concerns, and--horrors!--our vulnerabilities.

We have to be diligent and intentional, though, to maintain this practice of spiritual hospitality to those Friends who have been among us for years, not just days. And our meetings will have to come under the weight of valuing spiritual intimacy if we wish to know one another deeply as a community.

It's taken me nearly a dozen years among Friends to understand what spiritual hospitality means, and how it connects to spiritual intimacy.

Imagine that you are traveling to visit two sets of relatives. One set of relatives hurry you into the house, squeeze your suitcase into a cluttered bedroom, ask the kids to take their video games and CDs off of the bed where you'll sleep, and tell you all about how busy their lives are, what the kids are doing after school, and what sort of errands need to be accomplished before they see you off in a few days.

The other set of relatives that you visit hold the door open for you when you come in. They give you a chance to catch your breath. Then they might ask if you'd like to get settled in your room or have something to drink first. When you get to your room, you see the bed is made with fresh linens; clean towels are put out; and there's even space in the closet for you to hang a few things. When you rejoin the group for some conversation, they ask you what you've been up to, why are you traveling just then, and what else is capturing your attention these days.

Similarly, our verbal greeting and initial conversation is a doorway through which others step into our spiritual home. The same can be said about our nonverbal space and our nonverbal welcome: if we ignore our visitors, or if we greet them only after we have said hello to the fFriends whom we know, that sends a message too about whether or not we wish to get to know more about them.

The triad: Spiritual welcome, spiritual intimacy, and spiritual hospitality

Spiritual welcome, spiritual hospitality, and spiritual intimacy are interconnected: each one plays a part with the remaining two.

We might be gifted in welcoming newcomers (spiritual welcome) and in providing charming, restful overnight accommodations to traveling Friends (spiritual hospitality), but we may fail to engage in the tender sharing of what lives and beats in our hearts from week to week, from Friend to Friend (spiritual intimacy).

We might be gifted in nurturing emerging ministries (spiritual hospitality) and in sharing our struggles and triumphs (spiritual intimacy), but we may be cool or lukewarm to welcoming visitors who find their way to meeting (spiritual welcome).

Or we might make a special effort to greet visitors (welcome) and do well to provide structures for learning of our spiritual journeys (intimacy), but we may fail to call out Friends to bring forward their full measure of Light (hospitality).

And yes, each of these three parts of the triad sometimes is very close to one or both of the other parts. My examples may be missing the mark, but I hope my intention comes through.

The me-and-you, give-and-receive of spiritual intimacy

There are at least four parts to nurturing the sort of spiritual intimacy and spiritual fabric to which I'm referring:

1. Be willing to express your own vulnerabilities and struggles;

2. Be willing to express your own experiences of being drawn close to the Divine;

3. Be present to others' expression of their vulnerabilities and struggles;

4. Be present to others' expression of their being drawn close to the Divine.

Sometimes what gets in our way of engaging in any of these four opportunities for spiritual intimacy is our own discomfort--either in sharing such delicate experiences or in witnessing what someone else is sharing.

Other times, what gets in our way is a lack of feeling emotionally or spiritually safe: Do we know how to listen compassionately to one another, without judgment and without giving advice?

More than that,

Do we know how to listen to one another in such a way that we feel "called out" and met with loving tenderness?

Do we observe exchanges between experienced Friends that model for ourselves what spiritual intimacy of such give-and-receive looks like? Or do we more often observe exchanges where one Friend or another feels shut down, closed off, or... diminished in some fashion?

Creating and sustaining spiritual intimacy is slow and tender work. There are generational, gender-based, personal, societal, cultural, and other influences that interfere with our ability to move into a more spiritually intimate frame together. Some Friends must overcome the message that "we don't air our dirty laundry." Other Friends must work against the negative self-talk that they are "not good enough." And still other Friends will have to counter the message that "what's in the past should stay in the past."

In addition, what helps one Friend feel welcome and safe will not be the same thing that helps the next Friend feel welcome and safe. And while some Friends are able to articulate what helps them feel safe enough to share their vulnerabilities, other Friends may feel manipulated by such open acknowledgement of what helps them.

Yet I have to wonder if, in our first wondrous experiences of waiting worship, if we had unknowingly felt a Hospitality, a Welcome, and an Intimacy that spoke to our conditions deeply... that beckoned us to return... that still beckons us to "dwell deep," to seek to know God, and to strive to know and call out the Light that is within each of us.

I wonder if we, in our meetings, can open that Door for one another and step inside.

Blessings,
Liz

OTHER POSTS in the series on spiritual intimacy
The previous post (Part I)
The next post (Part III)

RELATED POST - Richard M's call to share our stories of "the center"

Popcorn in the Q-blogosphere?

In a comment I made recently to a post by Richard M on his new blog A Place to Stand, I start off by explaining:

The Quaker blogosphere didn't used to be so big! When it was smaller, it was easier to go more deeply into (electronic) dialogue with one another... I feel like I got to see the hearts and spirits of my fellow bloggers more easily because many of us commented regularly on each other's writing.

Much like when a small worship group balloons into a sizeable meeting, I fear the cyber-intimacy of our blogs has been somewhat hurt, as we strive to keep up, to keep our tired fingers on the multiple pulses that are out there.

And, as in a growing meeting, when visitors become attenders and attenders become members, the norms of the collective may change over time. Or the entire system needs to be reworked.

In recent weeks, I've noticed the presence of a number of new blogs like Richard's. It also seems like there has been an increase in the number of posts, comments, and cross-references from one to the other, but maybe this perceived increase is the result of the summer season of yearly meetings.

And of course, the more Quaker bloggers there are, the more comments and posts are going to appear. And when you add to that, the publication of a front-page article about Friends in a major newspaper, well, it all contributes to a slightly hyperactive blogosphere, I suppose.

Sadly, it's been easy for me to get sucked into the desire to keep up, to read as many of the posts and comments as I can. I often say that the Fear of Missing Something is nearly as powerful as the leading of God. Admittedly for me, it's that Fear of Missing Something that pushes me to catch up on my blog-reading when I've returned from lengthy trips.

As a result of my playing catch-up, of the increase in new blogs, of the cross-referencing between posts, I find I am not reading blog posts and comments as thoroughly as I used to. I skim them or read comments selectively. Which in and of itself doesn't help knit the online tapestry together.

From there, it's easy to imagine that my own comments are not as well seasoned as they once were. I also feel as though I have less spiritual and emotional "space" to hear my own thinking and consider my own inner promptings about a post that is struggling to emerge, because I am so full-up on having read other Friends' writing.

This reminds me of being in a popcorn Meeting for Worship: I want time, space, and stillness for me--for us!--to re-center and re-settle. I need time, space, and stillness to absorb what has already been shared, and I need time, space, and stillness to release it so I can again make room to listen for God.

I once read somewhere that among the questions and advices to consider before offering a piece of vocal ministry is something like:

Will what I say deepen the silence? If not, don't say it.

"We can't listen if we are always talking" is another way to look at it. And the same holds true that I can't listen if I'm always reading or writing.

I miss the quieter, slower times of the Quaker blogosphere. It was easier to breathe between messages, to take a few days to reflect, to consider a reply, compose it, season it, revise it, and then post it. And it was easier to remember where I had commented, so I could return to the post and see how that specific online dialogue was going.

I wasn't worried about keeping up with the online Joneses; there were so few of us. I was more focused on building authentic connections and following the threads that were bringing us into a new sort of cyber-communion.

What used to be a shared, unspoken, easy rhythm is now shaken up and has become for me a fragmented and furied staccato. At first I was excited by it. Now I find I am spiritually tiring from it. I may need to engage in this expanded blogosphere in a new way soon; find a new rhythm that suits me.

The Quaker blogosphere has grown but our structures to keep us in cyber-harmony with one another have not. I don't mean a harmony in the form of clearness or getting along with one another or even being aligned with the will of the Spirit; but rather a harmony in the form of having a sense of each other's rhythms, concerns, and struggles.

I've been aware of the individualistic nature of the internet in general and of blogs in particular. But the Quaker blogosphere I stumbled upon only eighteen months ago seemed to transcend that somehow: we seemed to share and practice a discipline both on- and off-line that helped me get to know fellow bloggers in a way that was very rich and spiritually nourishing for me.

We seemed to come to know something of one another that was known only through an intentional, cumulative experience of reading one another's words with a curiosity of spirit, an openness of heart, and a gentleness of character. And there seemed to be more space, more time, more stillness to do that, "back in the day."

I can't help thinking of the similarities between the evolution of a small worship group becoming a large monthly meeting and that of a quiet blogosphere of Friends transitioning into a large and active network of Quaker bloggers. How do we stay close? How do we nurture and maintain a spiritual and emotional safety that allows us to open ourselves to one another and to the Light? How do we convey our faith--and our (blogging) practice--to one another and help sustain one another in who we are as Friends?

But surely I can still tap into that same curiosity, openness, and gentleness that I've used all along as I read new blogs and a long string of comments, right? What gives?

"What gives" will have to be either the number of blogs I follow on a regular basis or the quality of how I respond to the blogs that I do read. Like so many other things among Friends, a balance will have to be struck, I suppose. Struck and discerned through further listening.

Thanks for reading me.

Blessings,
Liz

UPDATE: For a related post, see Martin's thoughts on "munching on the wheat."

UPDATE, Ninth Month 2006: Robin directed me to a recent post by Velveteen Rabbi that has amazing parallels to the presence of Quaker blogs... or what the Velveteen Rabbi might refer to as Q-blogs.

Lost traditions?

At a recent party where nearly all the guests were Friends--and friends or acquaintances of one another--the conversation of course had to ultimately turn to Quakerism.

Among us were twentysomethings, thirtysomethings, and one fortysomething; lifelong Friends, convinced Friends, and relatively new to Friends; Friends who had drifted away from the monthly meeting and Friends who are still very much engaged.

What most struck me were the questions that were raised. Some questions were made outright; others were implied or inferred.

Here's a partial list of what I compiled when I returned home that night:

How do we learn to support each other in our Quakerism when there is no training manual?

How do we hold one another accountable, and just what does that mean exactly?

When Friends seem to value being able to "disappear" or be anonymous in a large meeting, how do we help a meeting (or individual Friends) become okay with "being Known" so we can better care for one another and better tend to the life of the s/Spirit within one another?

How do we teach (or learn) the concept of listening for Truth in what others say?

How do we teach (or learn) the concept that resistance may be an indication of needing to hold a thing tenderly and prayerfully, allowing for the possibility that we ourselves, and our version of "the truth," can be transformed?

How do we teach (or learn) the value and belief that inward transformation is possible; that "giving up" to That Which Is Within Us And Beyond Us is a Quaker discipline which needs to be modeled, practiced, and openly talked about if it is to be retained?

(What do we do if our meetings don't value transformation and yielding to our Inward Teacher?!)

Among unprogrammed Friends, does affirming equality mean not "seeing" difference, including not acknowledging or calling out the gifts or measure of Light that individual Friends may have?

Among unprogrammed Friends, does having no clergy really mean having no ministers?

When I was done writing my questions, I thought about the lost traditions or weakened disciplines that could have addressed these concerns, had they been practiced, modeled, integrated, and talked about over the course of the life of the meeting:

Eldership.

Accountability.

Care and nurture of emerging gifts.

Intervisitation.

I feel as though these questions are already starting to haunt me. And I feel as though there is a deep, deep hunger that is driving these questions, too. One of the younger, newer Friends said, "I get a lot out of meeting, but I also want more."

One final question: Now what?

Blessings,
Liz