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

An impermeable seal

For the past few weeks, I've been reading Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship, a few pages a day.

One of the things that struck me from the first two chapters was that, for the most part, during the time of slavery, American Quakers of European descent were not that different from their non-Quaker American counterparts. Just a handful of individual Quakers, it turns out, were the ones who were taking radical steps to draw attention to the evil and harm of enslaving other human beings. Most Quakers back then had the privilege to "look the other way" or could say they were against slavery but wouldn't necessarily take action that reflected what they professed.

I am also struck by how there are sufferings in the world today--injustices to GLBTQ people, to people of color, to people who live in poverty--and how few Quakers (and non-Quakers) are taking radical steps to draw attention to these injustices.

And I, a person of privilege because of the color of my skin, my education, and my financial status, also have the privilege to look the other way--because the situation is overwhelming, because the situation is "over there," because because because.

. . . . . . . . .

The other day, Jeanne and I began seam-sealing the new tent we got, since the first new tent we just got leaked during the rain we had while camping recently. I'm amazed by how the seam-sealer works: it creates a rubberized, impermeable seal. It reminds me of the yellow slickers that we had as kids...

I've been thinking that in some ways, having the privilege that I have is like having an impermeable seal around me--so impermeable that it keeps God out too. So today I've been particularly grateful for the worship community I'm a part of because somehow, when I'm with them and we are worshiping, the Light of God seems to be able to sear through that otherwise impermeable coating, and I feel like I can take on a bit of what would likely be for me "inconvenient" radical activity.

O God, how I need your help to burn away the seam sealer.

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