Portrait of the Artist as a Middle-Aged Woman

I received my membership card from the Philadelphia Museum of Art today. 

The front of it has an excerpt from a painting by Wassily Kandinsky, Circles in a Circle, 1923. [See the whole painting here]

I am not usually a fan of abstract art. But this little piece spoke to my condition. Any way I hold it, any side up or down. It is still fascinating.

I realized that while I had heard the name before, I knew nothing about Kandinsky, so I googled his name. I read almost the whole Wikipedia article about him (it’s long). He was born in Moscow and grew up in Odesa, Ukraine. He originally studied law and was successful as a professor. He didn't start to draw seriously until his 30s but then he became a painter and a theorist and a teacher and he was part of the Bauhaus and he died in Paris in 1944 at the age of 77.

He was interested in the connections between art and the soul of a human being, and between music and color as abstractions of the soul. He was a theosophist and an Orthodox Christian.

I am captivated by these concepts and theories.

But also by the possibility that one might not discern their true calling in adolescence. There were glimpses - he says he was interested in color as a child. His initial interest in drawing-painting was in figurative," realistic" art. He saw Monet's “Haystacks" series and was initially distressed that he couldn't tell what it was. But it captivated him - it captured his attention. And he continued to explore these connections the rest of his life.

Most of the last month I have spent writing a novel, that began as an idea while driving a carpool a year and a half ago. This morning I had a vision of a series of books featuring my character in order to tell all the stories I was creating for her. Part of this morning's vision was of using a novel to proclaim the Fourth World, integrating another part of my life/self/ambition.

But I have to finish the first one. Not get captivated by the idea of being a novelist and lose the reality of the hard work and penurious life of an artist.

But this was also the first time I actually thought of myself as an artist. Of writing as art. Not just truth. Although art is also truth. 15 years ago, I was considering whether I could call myself a writer or not. I came to accept that as truth about myself. But only now am I seeing my writing as “art.”

One of the Kandinsky quotes on the google search page: "The artist must also cultivate his soul."

I joined the Philadelphia Museum of Art so I could go as often as I want during my sabbatical. Julia Cameron has a concept of an artist’s date, where you go on a date with your muse. 

Last year, I gave copies of Seth Godin’s book The Practice to a few people. A week ago, one of them cited it as being “everything” as she accepted a new job that will require her to step up in a new role. Then she quoted it back at me, when I was being fearful about writing fiction. 

And Samir Selmanovic helped me to think a couple of years ago about what I need to bring forth what is in me that no one else can do. What am I to do with my unique life? My one wild and precious life, to quote that famous Mary Oliver poem. 

So far, my sabbatical has unleashed

Sketching

Poetry

55,000 words of a novel.

Tonight, Chris made a joke and I said that would make a great short story. He said if you want to write it, go ahead. I just might.

One of the best things though, about this sabbatical time, is that there are no expectations, no pressure. I can flit from one to the next, and then dive deep.  Kandinsky again, “There is no must in art because art is free." How am I free? Am I bound by my own expectations? By responsibilities? By other people’s expectations? This freedom is part of what makes it art. But I think it is fascinating that the long wikipedia article has exactly three sentences about his personal life as an adult, and only mentions two of the three women in his life (that I read about on another site). What expectations was he exceeding? What responsibilities was he avoiding?

Dear God,

Help me to see what is mine to do and what to leave undone.

Amen.

[I wrote this a year ago. I'm not sure why I didn't post it then. But a year later, it still speaks to my condition. After I got the card, I have visited the original painting multiple times.] 

New mercies I see

Have you heard the saying that the secret to a long, happy marriage is falling in love over and over again, each time with the same person? I believe this to be true.

I think it is also the secret to a long tenure in the same job, or a long-term practice of the same religion. The cycle of conviction, convincement, and conversion is a staple of Quaker faith and practice.

I feel like the last couple of weeks have brought me to a renewal of my “vows” to my job. (I use quotes here because it’s still a time-limited contract, not a lifetime appointment.) Perhaps it is more a renewed sense of my vocation and the discovery that it is still in line with my paid employment. I think this will come as a relief to my husband and my board of directors, who have watched me wrestle with the questions only I can answer. I know that this season of uncertainty will come again and again. That is just part of the examined life.

One of the factors has been this class I’m taking, on marketing with Seth Godin. I’m using the Traveling Ministry Corps as my case study and it’s been great. I’ve gotten much clearer about how to do that work. But one of the byproducts has been what Godin called, “marketing to the most important student." Which is myself. In the act of thinking about who is this for? and what do they care about?, I find myself articulating more clearly why I think this work is important. Which has the effect of reminding me why I want to do this work. Which makes a lot easier to do it.

Another factor was going to the Stoking the Fire retreat before the FUM  Triennial. It was wonderful to be with about 40 Friends, from high-school age to 80-somethings, who all came to stoke their own fires. And it was wonderful to be taught by women whose character and ways of service I can aspire to. We all need those examples. Imperfect human beings who are sharing their own lessons. I can’t overemphasize how important it was to go to a denominational conference for which I was not the over-burdened staff. I went to worship every day. I was present and vulnerable in worship sharing groups. I snuck out for coffee with old and new friends.

One of the messages from God to me in worship was, “if you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.” Not in the sense that song was written. But if I can’t be with the Meeting I love, I have to love the gathered community of Friends wherever I am. I can’t hold back until I’m home with the people who already know and love me. I have to share my insights, my faith and my doubts with whoever is there, or I’m not going to make it. (There are limits to this, but they are further out than many people think.)

And if I can’t be with the river I love, I can love any bit of water I can find. The Greenville Y of the Feather River and the Connecting Railway Bridge over the Schuylkill River are both spiritually grounding places in my life. But other lands have sunshine too, and clover

In this same couple weeks, I read Diana Butler Bass’s book, Grounded. In it I recognized my own sense of dislocation from my roots and my connection to the imagery of water in my psyche and my spiritual journey. (Mountains and grass are also important images in my spiritual life, but that’s a different story.) The phrase that resonated the most for me, that speaks to me of my whole life’s project, is “sacred cosmopolitanism.” (Bass, p. 270) Bass cites Kwame Anthony Appiah, Mark Mitchell, and John of Patmos as sources. I’m still working this out, but it speaks to me of an urban theology. We need a positive theology for living together in the 21^st century. Cities are not inherently and unrelentingly more corrupt than anywhere else. As a friend said to me twenty-six years ago, “The city is the place of the people animals,” and it has been my place for over 30 years. It is a philosophy beyond nationalistic parochialism, but with room for a “humane localism.” This is a philosophy that can acknowledge that home-grown tomatoes are the best without falling into the trap that only my family’s tomatoes are any good. This speaks to me of the possibility of pluralism and affirming the truth of my own people’s stories. In the midst of the morass, we need the uniquely human spiritual gifts as well: compromise, paradox, balance, contrarianship, translation. None of us is a single story, least of all me.

While I’m at it, I want to acknowledge that all of these good things have coincided with a break in the hormonal crappiness of peri-menopause. Despair is both a spiritual and a chemical condition. I don’t really want to discuss that here, but I think it would be a sin of omission to not recognize that it’s a factor in life, and I am not immune to or above its effects.

Which brings me back to feeling refreshed for the journey and re-committed to my work. I am blessed to have the right and the responsibility to live out my divine calling in my day job.

My main job is connecting Quakers to each other - so that they are freed up to connect with other local people who want to be part of a healthy and functional spiritual community that is committed to peace and justice and following God’s guidance for our lives. From Alaska to Bolivia.

There is always more work to do than hours in the day or days in the week. There is a lot of accounting and administrivia in my job, no fooling. But there is also the opportunity to speak up, to connect people, to see patterns from this particular perspective, to hold the big picture in the Light and to call Friends to live up to the Light that we have been given.

I need to not get so bogged down in the accounting and event planning so that I fail to look up and out and do all the things that are risky and engaging and visionary. I try to practice a refreshing honesty, a warm, engaging hospitality and a bracing ministry of encouragement. Sometimes I get to be a bee, pollinating between blossoms in the orchard of Friends. Sometimes I get to be a gardener, preparing fields for planting, or hoeing crops in the ground, and contributing to some harvests I will not live to see. That is a blessing.

Over the last several months, I have wrestled with the fact that I have to choose my battles. I can keep up with my home life, or my work life, or the national/international world. Pick two out of three. And this year, I realize that I am choosing family and Friends. But I believe that if I and the Friends World Committee do our work well, there will be more than enough hands to do all the work that needs doing.

Because these Quakers are the line of people who taught me to be more fully myself, who helped me understand the mysteries of my spiritual life. Because this is the people I have found who are the most committed to peace and justice and following God’s guidance for our lives. Because I think I can make a difference here and now.

Now, because this is the time I have. Now, because these are probably my peak years to combine experience and energy.

Now, because the world desperately needs more Quakers who are committed to peace and justice and following God’s guidance for our lives. And in order for Friends to live up to our highest calling, we need each other to balance and challenge and support each other.

Now, because it’s the most exciting thing I can imagine doing - where I generally feel competent and appreciated - and fully challenged to live up to the Light I have been given.
Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me. … Morning by morning, new mercies I see.

My Three Words for 2017

Slow. Teach. Ask.

Slow, because I want to slow down and pay attention. Not speak too quickly. Not act too quickly. Not judge too quickly. Not fix it too quickly. I want to take the time to be more graceful, more patient. Most of the things I regret (was embarrassed by) in the last year/my whole life are because I spoke without thinking, leapt without looking.

In La Paz, Bolivia several years ago, at that high altitude, I learned that I could get along fine as long as I walked like a dignified Señora, and not if I scurried around like a little girl. If I tried to run up the stairs, I would be out of breath by the first landing. But if I just walked slower, I would get where I was going smoothly and with energy to do whatever I need to do when I got there. I want to remember that lesson as I approach 50 and beyond, even at sea level.


Teach, because it makes me happy. I like explaining things. I like sharing what I have learned. I like inviting people to consider new ideas and facilitating discussions. I want to accept more invitations to speak and to write when they come to me. I will look for ways to do this as part of my job, because it makes a better balance in my life with all the management/accounting stuff, so that I can continue to enjoy my job. And I want teaching to be part of my life at my monthly meeting and in my children’s religious education. For me, this will include taking time to write more articles, maybe even more blogposts! Invitations to teach do come my way every so often, and I want to remember that they are not a distraction from my real work – this is part of the work that God has created me to do, whether I get paid for it or not.

So, to start, I will be leading a discussion at Green Street Monthly Meeting on January 29, 2017 at 9:15 am, about a passage from A Language for the Inner Landscape: Spiritual Wisdom from the Quaker Movement by Brian Drayton and William P. Taber, Jr., pages 92-93, from the chapter on “Community and the Inner Life of the Meeting.” The discussion will focus on “What is the real purpose of our worship together?” And then, I will be writing a lesson for the United Society of Friends Women International 2017-2018 program book, Blueprints, on the same theme. I am grateful to the Friends who extended the invitations to do both of these.


Ask, because I want to be less bossy, less of a know-it-all. To ask first, do you want me to tell you more about this? Or not? Do you want help? May I? How may I help you? How would you like to be involved? How would you like to hear from me? What do you think? To say less often, “You know what, you should _____________!”

This is a life lesson, that maybe I can change and maybe I can’t. This is rooted in being an eldest child, so it’s a long time in the making. I am weighing this desire against the fact that girls with leadership skills are too often called bossy. But I think that I could be more effective in my leadership and my teaching and my interpersonal relationships if I were more thoughtful in my communications. Which makes this connected to my first word, slow, because if I thought for a second before I speak, I would find better ways to teach, better ways to lead, better ways to parent adult children, and be a wife and sister, etc.


I pray for God’s guidance and people’s forbearance as I move in these directions. I am grateful to Chris Brogan for his inspiration to choose three words each year. If you want to read some of my three words from prior years, here are 2016, 2015, 2012, 2010, and here are my prior attempts at new years resolutions from 2009 and 2008. If you write your own, use the hashtag #my3words so that we can find each other.

Why I Really Went to Bible Study This Morning

One time a journalist supposedly asked a bishop, “Do you really believe that prayer changes things?” And the bishop answered, “Well, when I pray, coincidences happen, and when I don't, they don't.”

The painter Picasso supposedly said, “Inspiration comes, but it has to find you working.”

This is a long story.

I went to Bible study at my new meeting for the first time today. That’s two and a half years since I started coming here, for those who are keeping track at home. Over the last 15 years or so, when I might have been interested in going to Bible study, mostly I have said to my husband, “That’s okay, dear, you go. I’ll stay home and bring the children to meeting for worship later.” And really, it was fine. But now I realize we are in a new phase of life – our children could walk themselves to Meeting without us if they had to, and I can go to Bible study if I want to.

So yesterday, Chris and I went to a daylong conference organized by our new yearly meeting for Friends interested in Ministry and Worship. Really, we went as a favor to the organizer. We stepped in at the last minute to lead an afternoon workshop on adult religious education. (We showed a Nooma film with Rob Bell, among other things!) But in the morning, we were talking to another Friend from our new meeting about the Bible study he was planning to lead today and the blueberry coffee cake he was planning to make, and I said, hmm, maybe I should go.

Last night Chris and I talked about the logistics, and it turned out that the boys were willing to go early if they could get a ride and have some blueberry coffee cake, so we decided to all go. Then just before bed, Chris informed me that the group was reading the Gospel of Thomas, and I was skeptical. I haven’t studied the ordinary Bible enough, do I want to start on the Gnostic Gospels too? I decided I was just really tired, and that I ought to go, because it’s my meeting community not because of whichever book they’re reading. So I said, well, I’m not setting my alarm. If I wake up in time to go, that’s great, but if not, I’m going to sleep as long as I need to.

But lo and behold, I was wide awake and ready to leave by 9:30 am. We got to the meetinghouse, got some coffee and a choice between banana-nut or blueberry-orange breads. Yum. Then I had to ask Chris, so where does this group actually meet? He pointed to the room under the stairs at the back of the kitchen. There were five of us for Bible study today, and the reading was interesting and the worship-sharing was interesting, but I think now that’s not really why I was meant to go today.

I had never fully been in that room before. I didn’t know there was a lending library in there. I had only seen the historical books in the library room upstairs. There were a lot of good books in the collection. On the shelves across the room from where I was sitting, I saw a book I’ve been wanting to read for a couple of years now, called Sustaining Our Spirits: Women Leaders Thriving for Today and Tomorrow. It was recommended to me by Mary Ellen McNish, one of the authors. So that was cool.  And when I walked over to look more closely, I found another book that I really need to read right now, called Leading from Within: Poetry that Sustains the Courage to Lead from the Center for Courage and Renewal (Parker Palmer’s outfit). Here’s a poem that I really needed this week:

"Sabbaths"

Whatever is foreseen in joy
Must be lived out from day to day.
Vision held open in the dark
By our ten thousand days of work.
Harvest will fill the barn; for that
The hand must ache, the face must sweat.

And yet no leaf or grain is filled
By work of ours; the field is tilled
And left to grace. That we may reap
Great work is done while we’re asleep.

When we work well, a Sabbath mood
Rests on our day, and finds it good.

--Wendell Berry

But the real reason I went to Bible study this morning is because I have to show up for the things that are happening at my meeting. I have to say yes to the long form improv scene that is the life of my spiritual community. Worship this morning was so full for me. Full of new insights and old lessons and bubbling over with ideas. I needed that. I needed Bible study this morning. I needed the workshop yesterday afternoon. I need the community that gathered there, and here. I need to say yes to the leadings of the Holy Spirit, not just no to all the things that feel like distractions from my job and my family life.

Thy will, Lord, not mine.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Rob Bell

I don't know Rob Bell. But I'd like to thank him for his work. Thank you for writing books that I like to read. But thank you even more for writing books that my 15 year old son likes to read and that we can talk about afterwards.

I first heard about Rob Bell in 2006 when he appeared in a series of Nooma films. I arranged to show a series of these short, postmodern films about God at San Francisco Friends Meeting after reading about how Gregg Koskela had shown one at Newberg Friends Church.

The first one of his books that I read was Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith. It's a reminder of all the different ways people have been Christians and how there can be more than one way to follow Jesus just like there is more than one way to paint a picture of Elvis. (Just re-reading pieces of it while writing this blogpost was inspiring all over again.)

Our copy of SexGod: Exploring the Endless Connections between Sexuality and Spirituality has about the most boring cover you could imagine. But it is a beautiful work of thinking and writing on the inside. I hope my sons will read this one too. (For those of you who worry about these things coming from an Evangelical Christian, as far as I can remember, it doesn't talk about same gender relationships. Neither condemning nor affirming. It is clearly heteronormative but fairly progressive about male-female roles in heterosexual relationships. If you can translate from that to your own situation, you might like it.)

Somebody gave us a copy of Drops Like Stars, about creativity and suffering. It's beautiful, but I didn't really get it. But eventually, I figured out that it wasn't written for me. Me who likes to read all the words, the writer, the know-it-all, the girl-who-always-raises-her-hand-in-class. It is designed for people who think like visual artists. You know who you are.

All of this came up because Chris brought home Bell's latest book, What We Talk About When We Talk About God. Chris read it, then I read it, then our 15 year old son read it while in meeting for worship the other week. [For more on teens reading in worship: part 1 and part 2] Bell asks why we still talk about God and how we have to be/get to be open to new ways of talking about God and deal with the both/and nature of much of the discussion. Then Bell explains that he thinks that God is with us, for us and ahead of us, and then why this all matters in this day and age. Right on, brother.

I don't actually agree with everything that Bell writes, but pretty close. And I find his books to be a very engaging and inspiring conversation partner and conversation starter. I asked my son if he thought other young Friends would be interested in reading and discussing it and his eyes got big and he said Yes. So let me encourage other Friends to bring this to the attention of any youth group or any mid-week study group - it's a fine way to get into the discussion about what we actually know or believe about God.

As usual, my timing is off regarding big moments in the blogosphere. I finally read Bell's 2011 book
Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. This caused a huge controversy a couple of years ago in Evangelical circles but I didn't actually read it until I checked it out of the library last week. (I was a little busy in 2011, and did not have the bandwidth to argue much about theology just then.) It has a lot in common with If Grace is True and If God is Love by Phil Gulley and Jim Mulholland. Bell just issued a new version, Love Wins for Teens which I don't quite understand because I think the original is pretty accessible for teens, but maybe the new pink cover will appeal to a different demographic?

So the last thing I want to write about is the rockstar pastor phenomenon. Rob Bell has been one of the biggest of this millenium. Best selling author, 10,000 member church at some point, one of Time's 100 most influential people in 2011, New Yorker profile in 2012. But he left that to move to California, write, surf and maybe make a tv show. I have to hope that he now has more time for his family.

I am grateful that Bell writes about his doubts about being a pastor, a Christian, a worthy human being. And I am happy for him that he was able to take a break, to step away from the push to do more, bigger, faster.

But I wonder about the rockstar Quakers I have known, who have charisma and depth, who aren't actually rockstar famous. Is that a good thing? Or not? This topic is probably another blogpost in itself, but I will just put it out there for you to think about.

What I'm Reading Now: January 2013

I used to write these pretty regularly, but it's been a long time now. I mostly compile this list by walking around the house and writing down the names of the books I've left sitting around. It's not necessarily a recommendation, just a fact.

Books:

The Hobbit, out loud. by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Skin I'm In by Sharon Flake
Wonder by R.J. Palacio
The Wisdom to Know the Difference by Eileen Flanagan
Dirt and the Good Life: Stories from Fern Creek by Lisa and Mark McMinn
Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin (a collection of his essays)
This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Mysterious Benedict Society and The Prisoner's Dilemma by Trenton Lee Stewart
The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen
Jesus Loves Women: a memoir of body and spirit by Tricia Gates Brown
Ungifted by Gordon Kerman

Magazines:

Philadelphia
O
National Geographic
Scientific American
Sports Illustrated for Kids
Time: Person of the Year
Newsweek: Last Print Issue
Friends Journal
Quaker Life
Western Friend
Princeton Alumni Weekly

Dirt and the Good Life

Dirt and the Good Life: Stories from Fern Creek
by Lisa Graham McMinn and Mark R. McMinn 
Published in 2012 by Barclay Press,
cover design by Darryl Brown 

This is a collection of short essays about the life of two college professors who decide to start a farm on five acres of land in western Oregon and to start selling their produce through a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) where people pay an annual price to receive a weekly share of the crops. Some of the stories are about their spiritual journeys, some are about their marriage and family, some are about sustainable living, and some are about their farm.

Things I liked about this book:

1. The cover. I don’t think I ever mentioned the name of the designer in a book review before. But I noticed I liked this one right away, especially compared to a lot of small press book covers, and then I recognized the name. I like a lot of his work, which can be seen on his blog.

2. Their obvious but not blind or cloying love for each other, and their ability to write about it with grace. Two people who have been married for many years, who are honest about the hardships, grateful for the blessings, and are still crazy about each other. Gives me hope, it does.

3. Their humor and willingness to laugh at themselves and each other. This is probably a strong contributor to #2. And it makes the book fun to read.

4. The stories about farming: plants, animals, tools and weather. I am not a farmer, and I never want to work that hard. But I am related to some farmers (some long gone) and I love these stories about the real things in life.

5. The way that their Christian values inform their relationships and their stories without overwhelming everything else. This is hard to do in writing.

6. They’re Quakers and I know their pastor. I always like the feeling that even if I don’t know the author personally, that there’s a chance that I could meet them and that we’re not really that different. And I like it when people make Quakers look good in public.

Things I didn’t like (which are all somewhat ironic):

1. I am not cooking enough to make it worthwhile to join a CSA and this book made me feel sorry for myself.

2. It occasionally comes close to being too sweet – it worked for me, but a snarkier reader might take it badly.

3. I didn’t get to meet Mark and Lisa yet. (One more reason to visit Newberg again. See #6 above.)

One of the chapters/stories is called Downward Mobility. In it, Mark tells about writing a book that flopped and how that financial failure was a nudge towards living a better life. He says that he then gave up on ever writing a best seller. I hope that Dirt and the Good Life proves him wrong. It's that good.

Full disclosure: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher. He didn’t ask me to write anything about it, and I wouldn’t have if I didn’t really like it, but just so you know.

Is It Dangerous to Let Teenagers Read Thomas Kelly?

On Sunday, there wasn’t a First Day School program at our Quaker meeting, so our boys were going to be with us all through meeting for worship. I pulled out the two little books that were in my purse and offered them to my 13 year old son: a very small print King James Bible or Thomas Kelly’s The Eternal Promise. He chose TEP and proceeded to actually read it. At that point it occurred to me to worry, “Am I going to regret this?”

Have you read any Thomas Kelly? (1893-1941) His more famous book is A Testament of Devotion. He writes about Quakerism and the religious life as if he was serious about it. Back in the late 1930’s he had some kind of mystical experience after a professional heartbreak in the middle of his career. Then he wrote several classic essays on religious experience: “The Blessed Community,” “The Gathered Meeting,” “The Simplification of Life,” “Have You Ever Seen A Miracle?”, and “Holy Obedience.”

"I have in mind something deeper than the simplification of our external programs, our absurdly crowded calendars of appointments through which so many pantingly and frantically gasp. These do become simplified in holy obedience, and the poise and peace we have been missing can really be found. But there is a deeper, an internal simplification of the whole of one's personality, stilled, tranquil, in childlike trust listening ever to Eternity's whisper, walking with a smile into the dark."

His lines about a life lived in accordance with a divine center, that takes no time, but yet all our time, are quoted in many Quaker books of Faith & Practice. If you are even a little bit religious, it is wildly inspiring to read Thomas Kelly’s words about the need and desire to give ourselves fully to God, to live a life of uncompromising devotion.

But teenagers don’t have enough knowledge or experience of life to know that Kelly can’t possibly mean it, that nobody really lives like that, that his kind of passion is excessive.

That made me ask myself how much I have let myself think that the world doesn’t really work that way, that nobody really lives like that, that he can’t really mean it.

And then I wondered how much trouble would I be in? How would I be held accountable for the life that I do lead if the young people in my life caught on to that thrilling vision?

Maybe we should encourage more young people to read Thomas Kelly.

This is the day

...So what if I'm not the strongest,
A little weaker than I'd like to be
Even I can do what's right because
I know the King is calling me

To live a life worth looking up to,
Holding on to what matters most
No one said it was going to be easy
But I know I'll never be alone
Because when all hope is gone,
Help will come, come from above

And give me strength to go farther, climb higher
Courage that burns inside like a fire
No turning back; this is the day

I will do what I need to and when I need you
I know your love will come to the rescue
No turning back; this is the day
I do the right thing...
~Mandisa, The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything Soundtrack

I don't know how many other executives are inspired by Veggie Tales movie soundtracks. But when the FWCC Executive Committee hired me, they knew they were getting a different kind of leader.

My family saw the movie when it came out, and I played this disco anthem from the soundtrack at the end of the workshop I led at the FGC Gathering a few years ago, so I've known this song for a long time now. It's taking on new significance now as I prepare for my new position.

In addition, a few weeks ago, my husband added a new quote to our morning meditation space:

Give over thine own willing, give over thine own running, give over thine own desiring to know or be anything, and sink down to the seed which God sows in thy heart and let it be in thee, and grow in thee, and breathe in thee, and act in thee, and thou shalt find by sweet experience that the Lord knows that and loves and owns that, and will bring it to the inheritance of life, which is his portion.
~Isaac Penington

These are both important to me because pretty much everything in the last three months has been hard. It's all working out, but as they say, everything takes longer than you think. Partly I think the lesson has been simply not to get a big head about this exciting new job. I've had to ask myself at least once a week, if not several times a day, "Are you sure you want to do this?" Fortunately, the answer at my core has remained, "Yes." I didn't want to leave my home, my meeting, my kids' school, San Francisco or California. I can admit that honestly. But my sense of being called and equipped for this work to come has not faded.

Going forward, I intend to continue writing about my spiritual journey on this blog even as I step into the new role. I find it helpful to reflect on what I'm learning and to process it on paper. One of the joys of Quaker blogs has been sharing this journey with all the readers and other writers.

Faithful Betrayal

On Sunday morning after Quaker Heritage Day, Wess “brought the message” to worship at Berkeley Friends Church. He told a parable about the master and the perfect disciple. You can read more of it in his article that was in the Jan/Feb 2010 issue of Quaker Life. Essentially, the disciple swears never to deviate from the Master’s teachings, and the Master says that to swear this is already to betray his teaching.

Wess was making a reference to how the Christian Church in postmodern culture has to break with some of the traditions that have been handed down to us. I think the lesson is that in order to be faithful to our highest or greatest calling, to be faithful to God, we may have to break with or betray some of our human teachers.

For Quakers, this may mean several things.

First is that we have to examine the taboos that we have inherited, like we can’t talk about X topic, or with those people (insert your favorite here). Depending on where you came to Quakerism, that may mean we actually have to talk about what we believe, whether that is a more or less orthodox understanding of Christianity, or it may mean we have to admit our doubts or that our interpretation has changed, of the Bible, or George Fox’s Journal, or whatever.

Second is that the way we do business, or worship, or nominations may have to change. Again. None of us is a Quaker in exactly the same way that 17th century Friends were. We may resume some old practices; we may borrow from those other Quakers; we may choose something that fits with our local cultural or generational norms. Here I recommend reading Brent Bill’s Modest Proposal (which is a lot less shocking and a lot more practical than Swift’s essay by the same name).

Third is that the institutions we have been handed may not be the instruments we need to achieve God’s kingdom in our times. Do our meetings need different (or fewer) committees that what we’ve had for the last ten years? Do our churches need to separate into smaller worship groups? Or join into larger congregations? Do we need some form of realignment of our allegiances and associations? (I know that word has history and heavy baggage, but I mean to invoke all of that, or at least some of that heat and light.)

How is God calling us to “be the Quakers” in 2011?

Where are the nudges in your personal life? What courage will it take to speak your understanding of the Truth?

What support do we need from each other to lay down the forms and patterns that no longer serve God’s purposes, no matter how useful they may have been when they were innovations?

And how will we know what is truly faithful in the face of the sense of betrayal that others will feel about our new leadings? How hard is it to tell somebody, “I know you’ve dedicated the last thirty years of your life to that committee, but it doesn’t exist anymore.”?

The fact is that those conversations are going on already. In monthly meetings. In yearly meetings. In international organizations. Some of this work has been hastened by the financial crisis. But most of it is due to the generational shifts, the Great Turning, the Great Emergence, that is happening all around us, whether we like it or not.

To swear never to deviate from the paths of our great teachers is to have betrayed them already.

The Lion, The Mouse and the Dawn Treader

A review of The Lion, The Mouse and The Dawn Treader: Spiritual Lessons from C.S. Lewis's Narnia, by Carl McColman.

I don’t know how old I was when I got my boxed set of The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. Sometime in early elementary school, I’m sure. The cover art is copyright 1975. When I got married, I found that my new husband had the exact same boxed set of paperbacks. We finally (after ten years or so?) agreed to keep only one set, and we decided which one based solely on the fact that his set was not falling apart as badly as mine.

I don’t know how many times I read and reread the books in my childhood. The ones I didn’t like as well, like The Magician’s Nephew and The Last Battle, I probably only read three times. The Horse and His Boy is still my favorite. I’ve read it at least three times in the last five years.

But I certainly didn’t read any of them for religious purposes. I was a freshman in college the first time I heard someone claim they were Christian books and I hotly denied it. I have since re-read them with that lens and I can see how someone could make that mistake come to that conclusion. But I want to firmly testify that it is possible to read and love them without that meaning at all. I’ve heard that C.S. Lewis himself insisted that the Narnia Chronicles were not Christian allegories.

Despite all this disclaimer, Carl McColman has written a wonderful explanation of the religious themes to be found in the Chronicles and particularly in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. McColman says, “VDT directly maps out the contours of the Christian spiritual life.” (Here I just have to quibble for a minute and point out that I suspect most of these lessons are relevant in any mystical tradition. But McColman, and I, are navigating the waters of the Christian tradition and from here on in, I’m just going to accept that framework. Also, McColman always uses masculine language for God but we’re just going to accept that He is McColman’s preferred pronoun.)

The major theological lessons I took away from McColman’s interpretation of VDT:

1. We don’t choose our mystical experiences – they come to the willing and the unwilling alike.
2. Mysticism is not a worthy end in itself but it can get your attention to help you focus on true holiness.
3. Three dramatic metaphors for sin: being sold into slavery, being turned into a dragon, and using magic to gain power over others.
4. Both the storms and the doldrums of life get in the way of our journey.
5. Be not afraid. [And isn’t this the big spiritual lesson from Jesus in any case?]

For Quakers, these are all really important lessons. Our worship is a ritual of willingness to have a mystical experience. And sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn’t. For me, it was my experience while I was still unwilling that set me on the path that led to Quakers.

But whether or not we have great visions in meeting for worship, it is the path of holiness, as Carol Spencer writes about it, that we are traveling. (The link is to a post from last year’s Quaker Heritage Day. I’ll have more to write about this year’s QHD by the end of the week.) Quaker testimonies are all about translating the unseen into the seen. The outward expressions of our inward experiences become our efforts at holiness.

Quakers have long held that we can escape the bindings of sin and walk in the Light. But we are always being tempted. No matter how strong or well armed or well trained, we are always in danger through carelessness or weakness of being caught and dragged down in our greed, or desire for power or popularity, or of just giving in to the world’s marketplace of degradation and capitulation.

And in a tradition that doesn’t have a written creed or a liturgical year, we can be shipwrecked either by the storms of our inner spiritual lives or by conflicts in our meetings/churches. Just as easily, we can be grounded on a soft, sandy beach by complacency and letting someone else do the hard work. Whether we pay those people to do the work or we lean on burnt-out volunteers makes no difference.

George Fox was not afraid. Tom Fox was not afraid. Or maybe they were but they did the hard work, said the necessary things anyway. Reepicheep was brave to the point of foolishness. Caspian was brave enough to admit when he was wrong. Eustace discovered his own courage as he walked among people who were doing their own imperfect best. As we listen to our Inward Guide, we find the courage to be faithful.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is a good enough story to hold both page-turning adventure and deep spiritual truths. You gotta love that. I thank Carl McColman for opening my eyes to more in the story.

The book is available in paperback or Kindle from Amazon. I was sent a free review copy by the Viral Bloggers program of The Ooze.

Reading Suggestions for 13 Year Old Quakers?

As I wrote about in my last post, my Meeting is looking at alternative forms of religious education for our young teen Friends. One possibility is to provide a suggested reading list that these Friends could bring with them to meeting for worship.

I think it's really good for teens to be in worship with the adult community. I think that the only way to really learn about Quakerism is to practice it. I also think that teens often lead very busy and full lives and an hour of quiet reflection and prayer can be as helpful to them as to any adult. But I also know, from my own experience, that sometimes it feels like a long time if you're not really in the mood. And at least my kids don't really have a choice about coming or not.

So I'd like to offer some suggestions for things to read in meeting to help with spiritual formation and centering. Ideally, they wouldn't just read all through worship, but if something caught their attention, I wouldn't stop them. However, the latest Percy Jackson novel is not going to make my short list for reading in worship, even if it does touch on questions of divine intervention. So I've started asking Friends in my Meeting for suggestions of books or other reading material that was significant to them when they were teenagers or that they think might be helpful or attractive to young Friends today. Here's what I've got so far:

• Friend by Jane Yolen
• Friends Journal and other Quaker magazines
• The Message translation of the Bible
• Spirit Rising: Young Quaker Voices, edited by Angelina Conti, et al
• Whispers of Faith: Young Friends Share Their Experience of Quakerism edited by Geoffrey Black, Zion Klos, Claire Reddy, Milam Smith, Rachel Stacy
• Run Baby Run by Nicky Cruz
  
• The Cross and the Switchblade by David Wilkerson
  
• Towards a Quaker View of Sex by a few Friends in Britain (one of whom is now a member of my Meeting), published by Friends Home Service in 1964
  
• Pendle Hill Pamphlets

I haven't read all of these so don't take them as a recommendation from me, just a collected list. If you have any opinions about these options, leave a comment. If you have additional suggestions, please leave a comment. If you could ask teens that you know to add some suggestions, that would be awesome!

Help Wanted 2010

There's been a fair amount of buzz in the Quaker blogosphere lately (and over the last five years) about Revitalizing the Message and New Wineskins. This is part of a more general debate about the fate and usefulness of old Quaker institutions. I think it is very important to have these discussions on an ongoing basis. But pontificating on the internet is not enough. What are we going to do about the state of the Religious Society of Friends?

On that note, have you noticed how many of the major Quaker institutions (and a few minor ones) have been or are now, or will be soon, looking for new executive leadership in the course of about two years?

American Friends Service Committee (2010)
Ben Lomond Quaker Center (2011)
Friends Committee on National Legislation (2010)
Friends General Conference (2011)
Friends Journal (2011)
Friends United Meeting (nominated 2010, starting 2012)
Friends World Committee for Consultation (2011)
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (2008)
Quaker House (in Fayetteville, NC) (2012)
Western Friend (2008)

There’s probably more. Which ones have I left out? (Is there a clearinghouse somewhere for announcements and job descriptions?)

***Here's two more:

QUNO Geneva [added thanks to Eden Grace, 10/9]
Earlham College [brought to my attention by Martin Kelley, 12/8]

***And even more, now with dates thanks to Kathy Hyzy, 1/27/11:

Woolman Semester (2008)
Friends Fiduciary Corporation (2011)
Quaker Earthcare Witness (2011)
Quaker United Nations Office/New York (2008)
Northwest Yearly Meeting (2012)

One Friend I know got interviewed for one of these jobs and the first question the committee asked was, “Out of all the Quaker jobs open right now, why do you want this one?”

Why do you think this is all happening at once? Is it just time in the generational cycle? Is it because the financial crisis of the last couple of years has been so hard on executive directors?

This looks like a wider nonprofit trend of long-time executive leaders leaving. About 10 years ago, there was a big fuss in the nonprofit world about a survey that showed that half of all executive directors planned to leave their jobs in the next five years. Then five years ago, another survey showed that the massive shift hadn’t happened but that most EDs still planned to leave in the next five years. I think that we are now seeing that shift starting to happen among the Baby Boomers who founded organizations in the 70s and 80s. It’s complicated by the economic recession, and by the fact that Boomers are living longer in better health and so working longer too. I highly recommend a book by Frances Kunreuther, Helen Kim and Robby Rodriguez, called Working Across Generations: Defining the Future of Nonprofit Leadership.

I don’t know enough about evangelical Friends organizations, but there aren’t any on this list. Why not? Did they already go through a shift or are they just about to enter this phase? Or am I just not in their loop?

I’m wondering how many of these jobs will go to another Baby Boomer. (It’s two out of three for the ones I know of that are already filled.) [Update: Seven out of ten as of February 2011.] What kinds of risks are the hiring committees/boards willing to take on less experienced Friends? Will they just hire another Boomer to stay another 2-5 years? Will we have another generation of 20-30 year tenures at the tops of these of organizations?

Will all these institutions survive this once in a lifetime mass shift in leadership? How many will move in new and vibrant directions? Are there too many openings at one time? Are there enough younger Friends who are ready, willing and able to take on new responsibilities? To take on the hard work and hard choices? To commit?

New wine needs new wineskins with every harvest. But not a whole new winecellar every year, just to continue the metaphor. I don’t want to reinvent the wheel just for the sake of saying “I did it my way,” or “We sure showed them.” Then again, when your winecellar starts to cave in, it may be time to move the whole house.

Organizations help to coordinate the matching of resources with missions. Structure can be helpful. Systems liberate. Creativity flourishes best without complete chaos surrounding it. One lone ranger, or a small, committed group of citizens, can do some things for a short time, but organizing materials, money and manpower takes infrastructure to run smoothly. What would a GenX Quaker institution look like? What about a Millenial Quaker organization?

Honestly, I don’t know or even have a fixed opinion on what should happen. These organizations vary widely in size, complexity and mission. Some are on firmer financial and spiritual footings than others. But all will depend on, contribute to, and have to face either the diminishment or the revitalization of the Religious Society of Friends.

In an era of reduced budgets and growing unrest, what does the future hold for the Religious Society of Friends?

Where do you see yourself?

Worship on the Grounds: Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival 2010

The fourth annual (unofficial) meeting for worship on the grounds of the free Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate Park will be Sunday, October 3, 2010, at 10:00 am in front of the main stage, which in previous years was called the Banjo Stage. (If you’re standing there looking at the stage, there’s a little hill to the left. We’ll be near the top of that, and as close to the stage as I can get when I arrive.)

We’ll have an hour of unprogrammed worship. I’ll bring my blanket, my picnic basket and a bucket of Legos. If you don't know me, look for my dark blue SF Friends School sweatshirt. If you bring your blankets, we can stake out more room for the rest of the day. It will be elbow to elbow people by noon. Food is available at the festival.

EDITED 9/28/10:
The exact lineup for Sunday has just been announced, and the Banjo Stage will feature Hazel Dickens, Emmylou Harris, the Del McCoury band, Earl Scruggs and Doc Watson. More details about the festival at http://www.strictlybluegrass.com/.

You can read all about the previous meetings on the grounds on my blog.

Eat Pray Love: Three Variations on a Theme

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
Take This Bread by Sara Miles
Jesus Freak, also by Sara Miles

These are three of the books I’ve read in the month of August. They all have to do with God, food and love.

Eat, Pray, Love is one of the biggest cultural references to religion in America today, and now a major motion picture starring Julia Roberts. Have you read it yet? I finally did, when my mother offered to loan it to me. People have been asking me about it ever since it came out, but I’ve been resisting. Why, you ask? What’s not to like?

Well, it’s because I used to know Liz Gilbert. Not very well, to be honest, and it was a long time ago, back when she was first dating the guy she got the horrible divorce from at the beginning of the book. She was a charismatic young bartender back then. Somehow the articles on EPL never mention her time at the Coyote Ugly Saloon. As I have mentioned before, the bar was not as crazy then as it is in the movie, but the plot is basically a fictionalized version of an earlier chapter of the Liz Gilbert story.

So anyway, it felt like a bad omen to read the story of the bitter divorce of a woman who got engaged on the same day as me. But when my mother said she was done reading it, it felt like the time had come.

Other people, I’m sure, have written more about the Eat and Love parts of the book. I was more interested in the Pray part. In fact, I really liked it. It reminded me a fair amount of Mary Rose O’Reilley’s account of her time at Plum Village (Thich Nhat Hanh’s monastery in France) in her book, The Barn at the End of the World: The Apprenticeship of a Quaker, Buddhist Shepherd. Very similar struggles with the ascetic life in a foreign culture. Both are funny and profound, sometimes within the same sentence. And they both do a decent job of trying to explain the attraction of a stint in the monastic life.

Liz Gilbert’s accounts of her mystical experiences ring true for me. I don’t know how I would have reacted to hers if I hadn’t had my own. Mostly I just nodded as I went along. It is so hard to take something so intense and effervescent at the same time and make it come out in words. I’ve never been able to write about my most profound mystical experiences in anything like a coherent manner. Liz does a good job AND I’m sure that the words are inadequate. God is like that.

I haven’t seen the movie, and I’m not sure I will. Probably I will, eventually. I’m curious about how the religious aspects of the book come across in a Hollywood movie. But I heard that Julia Roberts converted to Hinduism after her experience. That sounds intense. If you’ve seen the movie, feel free to comment here with your opinion. At this point, there’s not point in worrying about spoilers.

I wanted to read Take This Bread a couple of years ago when it first came out, but for some reason I didn’t until Chris checked it out of the library last week. (Thank you, sweetheart.)

It’s the story of how this radical, leftist, political, lesbian journalist ate Jesus, became a Christian and started the food pantry at an artsy Episcopal church maybe a mile from the SF Meetinghouse. (For the story of how SF Meeting started our own, much smaller food pantry, on the model established by St. Gregory of Nyssa and the SF Food Bank, read Chris’s blog.)

One of the funny coincidences is that Miles went to Friends World College, an experiment in education, in the early 70s. She says that mostly what she knew about Quakers at the time was that they were mostly old and they had opposed the Vietnam war. Which is pretty much what she thought about communists then too. Along the way, she developed a fierce need to experience things for herself and then help others to understand them. Which basically explains this book.

She starts with how eating Jesus in the form of good homemade bread in the Eucharist was the central element in her conversion. Nothing about it made sense, but she couldn’t stop. And then she wanted to feed others. So she started the food pantry right in the sanctuary of the church. She quotes the inscription on the altar at St. Gregory’s,

“Did not the Lord dine with publicans and harlots? Therefore, make no distinction between worthy and unworthy: all must be equal in your eyes to love and to serve.”

She writes about finding God in real food and in real people. How being a Christian means loving and forgiving everyone, including fussy middle-aged men who are overly concerned about doing things the right way, and little kids who spill rice everywhere, and really big guys who’ve done time in the army and in prison, and pushy little old Chinese ladies, and all the perfectly ordinary looking people who seem fine now but will probably be annoying any minute now. The ones at the food pantry on Friday and the ones at the 10:00 service on Sunday.

The two things that struck me were 1) you can’t control where God will show up, and 2) when you truly encounter God, you have to do something about it. Amen.

Jesus Freak is the book I’ve been waiting for. The book that explains why following Jesus is important, in language that doesn’t take for granted that you think being a Christian is a good thing. The quotes on the back are like the pantheon of religious writers I’d most like to meet: Anne Lamott, Rob Bell, Diana Butler Bass, Tony Campolo, Phyllis Tickle and Brian McLaren. Like Gilbert (and O’Reilly and Lamott), Miles is laugh-out-loud funny and made-you-cry profound. It has great exegesis of Biblical stories and everyday stories from Miles’s life. Maybe the right word for this is midrash.

I will quote here the end of the Introduction, pp. 19-20:

“Everything Jesus has revealed, through stories and parables, bossy directives and patient touch, remains available to his disciples. He’s shown that we have the power not just to feed and heal, forgive and cleanse, but to do these things in new ways that reflect God’s nature and give us life.

It doesn’t take a special kind of person – the selfish and obtuse are welcome, too. It doesn’t take a lot of equipment, or training – little kids can lead. Jesus is still with us, which means we can say yes to God’s call, without knowing what the outcome will be. We can jump right in, instead of waiting for a committee to authorize our work. We can come and see what God is doing, all over the place, instead of worrying that we’re not good enough. We can get over our fear of strangers, free ourselves from superstition, and find sweet streams of mercy in the middle of the world’s driest places. We’re not alone.”

I am deeply moved by Sara Miles’s ability to articulate the kind of Christian I want to be. And I’m grateful that I was able to read her books while cooking, because she inspires me in that sense too. The peach pie I made for our Friendly 8’s potluck last weekend, with vanilla ice cream and fresh raspberries on the side, I wouldn’t have been ashamed to serve it to anyone.

What I'm Reading Now - Sixth Month 2010

Sojourners, July 2010
The Networked Nonprofit: Connecting with Social Media to Drive Change by Beth Kanter and Allison H. Fine
Challenge at Second Base by Matt Christopher
Western Friend, June 2010
To Be Broken and Tender: A Quaker Theology for Today by Margery Post Abbott
The Hockey Machine by Matt Christopher
The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan
Via, July-August 2010
Alive and Loose in the Ordinary: Stories of the Incarnation by Martha Sterne
Spirit Rising: Young Quaker Voices by Angelina Conti, et al.
Kindling a Life of Concern: Spirit-led Quaker Action by Jack Kirk
Opening Doors to Quaker Religious Education by Mary Snyder
The Secret Agent on Flight 101 by Franklin W. Dixon
Boomtown by Nowen N. Particular

It's been a while since I wrote one of these posts. As you might guess, some of these books are really short, and some I haven't finished yet. I'm also learning that my sons have different literary tastes. Surprise, surprise.

Two May workshops at Pendle Hill

More stuff I wish I was going to, but I’m not. Just because I live in California and I have a full time job and a family to take care of, and not an unlimited supply of money or frequent flyer miles or vacation days.

But you. If you can make it to either or both of these, let me know. I could offer you a guest posting gig right here on this blog. Inquiring minds want to know how it goes.

First, New Monastics and Convergent Friends, May 14-16, with Martin Kelley and Wess Daniels. Martin and Wess I count as personal friends as well as public Friends. They are two of the most innovative thinkers about Quakerism that I know and I’d love to spend the weekend hanging out and talking Quaker stuff with them, no matter what the specific topic. Plus I co-led a workshop with the two of them last year and it was fun.

Second, The Practice of Simplicity, May 28-30, with Erin Rooney Doland. She’s a member of Herndon Meeting in Virginia and the Editor-in-Chief of Unclutterer.com, an awesome blog about how to deal with stuff. I don’t follow many non-religious blogs, but this one is on my frequent reading list. And she reads my blog, at least sometimes.

Erin says that “the theme behind the weekend is ‘Making room for Light.’ We practice simple living (and I mean practice in the same sense you might practice a sport or practice the piano) because we want God to have room in our lives. When we fill our schedules, homes, offices, lives with stuff, Stuff, STUFF, the Light gets pushed aside. Through this weekend retreat, my hope is that people can take time to reflect, pray, and listen in the silence to help them reconnect with the Light and make room for it to grow in their lives.”

She also has a new book out, How to Unclutter Your Life in One Week, so if you can’t go to the workshop, there’s another possibility. But I think the weekend will have more spiritual content than the book, which is more on the very practical end of things. In my experience, you can get rid of a lot of physical stuff, but if you don’t sort out your spiritual and emotional life, the physical stuff will just pile up again.

There's more information about both workshops including registration and scholarships on the Pendle Hill website.

Holiness: The Soul of Quakerism

A review and further reflections on Holiness: The Soul of Quakerism by Carole Dale Spencer

I’m trying to remember where I first heard of this book, and I can’t recall. I do know that I asked for it for Christmas in 2008, and thanks to my beloved Chris M., it’s been sitting on my shelf ever since, waiting for me to finish it.

I finally did it, because Spencer is coming to Quaker Heritage Day in Berkeley next week. It’s a tough read, if you’re not used to the academic style, but it gets easier near the end. And I’m really, really glad I read it.

A lot of the book is Spencer running through a series of individuals through Quaker history and showing how they are or are not exemplars of Quaker holiness. There’s more than 20 of them over 350 years, so if you want to know who they all are, read the book. Some of the history doesn’t agree with what I’ve learned – but then I only know what others have said about most of them. I agree with her interpretations of the ones I’ve read first hand: Hannah Whitall Smith and Richard Foster and Thomas Kelly. Elias Hicks, Joseph John Gurney and John Wilbur, these are three I’d like to read more of. (I’ve got the new version of Hicks’ Journal, which I understand addresses some of her criticisms.) I wouldn’t call myself a Beanite Friend, partly because I think that sounds silly, partly because I don’t think of myself as a follower of a particular Quaker ancestor, and partly because I don’t know enough of Joel Bean’s actual work to have a valid opinion. More and more I think I should read his work myself.

But I’m less interested in the historical aspects than in my own affinity for the key elements of Quaker holiness. I think this could be a key to what holds convergent Friends together in my mind. Or maybe it’s just the key to my own spiritual journey.

I think it’s important to separate the current iteration of non-Quaker holiness movements from what Spencer and I are talking about. Apparently, Quakers have always had a slightly different definition of holiness from the religious mainstream. Meaning we don’t have to equate holiness with American rightwing politics and religious fundamentalists. Actually quite the opposite, in some cases.

Spencer teases out eight separate elements of traditional Quaker holiness. I’ll list them here, because I’m copying them from the book: Scripture, Eschatology, Conversion, Evangelism, Charisma, Suffering, Mysticism, Perfection.

Spencer also explains how these elements relate to evangelical concepts like justification and sanctification, but I can’t keep them straight. Frankly, I think that Conversion and Evangelism are two parts of the same thing, and that Suffering and Perfection are another inseparable pair. And if you’ve got an hour or two, I’d be happy to sit down and explain why I think so and discuss it with you. I could use the help in working it all out in my own head. But for the purposes of this book review, let me just encourage you to read Spencer’s explanations of what each means.

Personally, I can only manage to keep three aspects in my head, in part because I think they are all inter-related and they all cycle around to each other.

1) Perfection, meaning holy obedience, spiritual growth, acting like Jesus, living up to the Light we’ve been given, actually doing what we know is right
2) Mysticism – listening to God, hearing Christ Jesus speak to my condition, cultivating and holding close to the intimate relationship with God
3) Witness, which in my mind includes spreading the word, sharing the Good News, working to improve the world, teaching and healing like Jesus.

The desire for holy perfection and faithful witness, the understanding of their meaning, and the strength to accomplish them come from our mystical relationship with God. I think that when Friends have kept close to that guide, then we have avoided falling into the rigid and rulebound forms of religion. I think that scripture is a tool to be used with our mystical interpretation. The Bible may not be perfect, but it’s the best description of Jesus’s teaching and actions that we’ve got.

I have three examples of how perfection and witness are related, but none of them comes from Spencer’s book so don’t blame her if they don’t speak to you. One is that we know that having a low flow showerhead isn’t going to save the world, but it helps to have your own house in order before you try to change farmers’ wasteful irrigation practices. Second, you can’t effectively protest factory working conditions while wearing clothes made in sweatshops. Third, people are more likely to listen to you tell them how Jesus is a blessing in your life if you are a blessing to your family and friends.

Now I know that these aren’t strict rules, and it’s not true that we can’t say anything about the wrongs of the world until we’re free from all our sins. But we have to be actively examining our own lives for the seeds of war and continually doing something about our own lives as we go along. And then we can speak with Truth and Power. Part of this is the confidence that comes with not feeling like a hypocrite and the recognition from one’s opponent that one is walking the walk. But I truly think there is something divinely inspired that makes a person a better advocate who has removed the beam from her own eye without getting bogged down in that process. Jesus offers us some good examples of looking at rules, and acting with love, even if, on occasion, that contradicts a generally useful rule. (Like healing on the Sabbath, for example.)

I think Spencer is right that our various forms of worship are culturally and temporally specific, not divinely mandated. What’s important is that our worship enables us to achieve communion with God – to hear God speaking to us. Hours and hours of silence seem intensely important to me, and absolutely fruitless to others. I’m willing to accept that other people experience God in other ways. (I don’t believe this is divided along lines of race, class or geography, but I know that what we’re used to makes a big difference.)

What is missing from this book is the growing holiness movement among unprogrammed Friends in the last ten to twenty years. That’s probably because we don’t call it that usually. But I think that Lloyd Lee Wilson’s book, Essays on a Quaker Vision of Gospel Order, fits all of Spencer’s criteria for Quaker holiness. I think some (not all) of our Quaker environmentalists are actually part of a holiness movement. In my local world, I think that the reason that Chris Moore-Backman’s and Carl Magruder’s ministries are so attractive to some and so off-putting to others is because they are actually preaching Quaker holiness. They’re just not using that word.

And then there’s me. Not that I am such a stellar example of Christian perfection. But I want to affirm that I’m really trying, on all these points. I’m just now understanding that this Quaker holiness is what calls to me in the Friends that I would call convergent. Do you feel the same way?

In all the branches of Friends, in all eras, there have been examples of Quaker holiness, real people who have touched the lives of the people around them, even if they didn’t publish any books or start any new movements bearing their names. Think about who you know that you admire as a Quaker. In what ways do they exemplify Quaker holiness? In what ways do they contradict my theory? You don’t have to name them here on this blog, but I’m really curious whether this idea resonates with other Friends or not.

If the Church Were Christian

A Book Review of If the Church Were Christian: Rediscovering the Values of Jesus by Philip Gulley.

This title reminds me a little of the ironic saying I like to use when I hear about people in charge of something making a bad choice: “When they make me Queen of the Universe, things will be different...”

It certainly raises questions for me – What if? What if my Meeting was Christian? What if I were really a Christian? What would be different?

This book and its theories have lots of similarities to Brian McLaren’s A New Kind of Christianity. But really, it’s an old kind of Christianity. It’s been there in every age, just not in everyone who calls himself a Christian. Like Jesus, who didn’t so much bring a new revelation, but called people to live up to the Light they had been given by the prophets. Like George Fox who called people to live up to the Light that Christ spoke in their hearts. Like Marcus Borg, the emerging church, and any number of gracious Friends. Like Shane Claiborne who said this book is about people taking their Christ seriously. But Gulley is a better storyteller than most, with vivid details and getting right to the point. (I want to write like this. In person when I tell stories, I tend to ramble and forget why I was telling them. In writing, I could edit myself better.) Gulley may be the first to admit that he himself is not a perfect Christian. But by articulating a sensible and loving theology, he helps us lay out the possibilities we can more realistically aspire to.

My three favorite chapters are #1, #7 and #10.

Chapter 1 is …Jesus Would Be a Model for Living, Not an Object for Worship.

This is one of the issues that has gotten Gulley in trouble in Western Yearly Meeting. (To be fair, he doesn’t name his yearly meeting in the book, but I don’t think it’s a secret where he lives and pastors today.) Anyway, it was Gulley’s admission in an interview in 2005 that he didn’t care so much about the divinity of Jesus. Thank you, Phil. This is the place where I am, so I’m glad to read an articulate and consistent expression of this. My personal position is that “I don’t know” about most of the miracles ascribed to Jesus and his mother, but really they don’t matter to me.

He illustrates the rarity and importance of Jesus being an example to us. I resonate with Gulley’s point that being an example is really hard. And it wouldn’t detract from my relationship with Jesus to find out that he was occasionally lazy or rude to his parents (Don’t we see examples of that in the Bible already? But because it’s Jesus, now it’s not rudeness, it’s doctrine.) My respect for Jesus isn’t based on his perfection in all ways. It’s enough for me that he had such a transformative effect on people and still does, including me and apparently Phil Gulley. Gulley’s use of the phrase “that of God in every person” reminded me of Liz Opp’s idea of the Christ in everyone, perhaps more fully realized in Jesus.

Chapter 7 is …Meeting Needs Would Be More Important Than Maintaining Institutions. Since my meeting just went though a long process of discernment around starting a weekly food pantry in our meetinghouse, Gulley’s story of the stingy food pantry spoke to my condition in two ways.

One is that we have to share what we have been given. We have resources so that we can do more good in the world now, not just to save for some potential good in the future. If we give it away, more will be given to us. (In part because if people see that we’re doing good things with their money, they will give us more of it. But only if we keep increasing the good we do and not our balance sheet.)

The second point is that we have to be brave enough to speak up when something is going wrong in the meeting. Martin Kelley has written before about what happens when people let bad behavior persist. Johan Maurer also wrote about this in the latest issue of Quaker Life.

Chapter 10 is …This Life Would Be More Important Than the Afterlife.
Part of me thinks this is so self-evident that I shouldn’t have to explain it. But if that were true, Gulley wouldn’t have had to write this book. This chapter has a beautiful story about Ben and Dorotha, two Friends very like some you probably know, who live lives of great simplicity and charity, but who are uninterested in discussions of theology. It also has a brief story about Roland Kreager and Right Sharing of World Resources. This chapter asks “What if saving the earth were more important than saving our souls?” Imagine.

I liked how Gulley wove the Quaker stuff into the book. You don’t have to know about Quakers to appreciate his examples, but you could get to like them. And he’s honest about our failings, unlike the woman he quotes who claimed never to have seen Friends do the wrong thing. Gulley likens this to parents who claim that their child would never say a bad word.

Did you know that Philip Gulley will be speaking at the FGC Summer Gathering in July? If you have been thinking about going to the Gathering, this may be a good year to try it out. I think this is a good sign for cooperation between branches of Friends.

So get this book. Get a copy for your meeting library. Request it at the public library and your local bookstore. Read it. Think about it. Organize a small group to read it together – there’s prewritten discussion questions in the back. As Barbara Brown Taylor says on the back, the chapter titles alone are worth the price of the book.

What would it be like if Quakers were (really) Christians?

If you and I were really Christians?

Things would be different.

Strength in Weakness

It has been nearly a year since I first read Strength in Weakness, a collection of writings by nine Quaker women from the 18th century: Grace Hall Chamber, Lydia Rawlinson Lancaster, Ruth Alcock Follows, Catherine Payton Phillips, Sarah Tuke Grubb, Priscilla Hannah Gurney, Mary Alexander, Ann Crowley. Some of the pieces were published in their own time, mostly upon the death of the author; others are letters from one Friend to another. The spelling and punctuation have been modernized somewhat for a more readable text.

The editor is Gil Skidmore, who also writes the occasional blog, Stumbling Blocks to Stepping Stones. She has written a brief profile of each writer and a short introduction to the work. I really like the last paragraph of that, so I hope she will forgive me if I quote it here in its entirety:

“Many of the questions posed by these writings still speak to Quakers and to others engaged in a spiritual quest. How do we live without worrying too much about what the future holds, trusting to the Light within to direct us day by day? How do we find a balance between inward and outward, between the inner life and action in the world? How do we discern what it is we are called to do and how do we know whether we are qualified to do it? How do we gain a spiritual as well as, or instead of, an intellectual qualification? What should we commit ourselves to? Are we only following the motions of the faith we were born and brought up in, or can we find far more than just the form, and live in the power which our predecessors found for themselves?”(p.20-21)

It is a blessing to me to read that other women have struggled with the same questions I have today. They have answered these questions in different ways, and these are also good examples of the variety of faithful service that is possible. In re-reading portions of it now as I am writing this, I am reminded of how I will likely continue to read this at other times in my life, when I feel discouraged about my calling and my ability.

I want to particularly mention one section from Sarah Tuke Grubb (1756-1790), “Some observations on Christian discipline as it respects the education of youth” (pp.97-102). I think this ought to be required reading for everyone who undertakes the education of children, either as a parent or teacher in a school or First Day School. It is mostly about the Christian discipline of the teachers, the importance of being good models, of relying on the strength of the Holy Spirit, and being careful about the use of power. The grammar is convoluted and the sentences are very long, making it hard to quote from without reproducing the whole thing.

But here is one point that struck me. “If in our passage through life, we are often brought to acknowledge, that of ourselves, without divine assistance, we can do nothing, is it not abundantly obvious in the work of bestowing a religious education on youth?”(p.98) I think this has been made clearest to me in the context of trying to raise and educate children.

At the end there are brief biographies of many of the people who are mentioned in the writings, men and women, and this is another treasure of the book.

Strength in Weakness is available via Quaker Books. It would be a real gift for your own or a Quaker library near you.