First Day School in the wake of Covid-19

In late spring of 2021, my monthly meeting began preparing to return to in-person worship in June. We made the transition to hybrid worship-some folks in the meetinghouse and some on Zoom-pretty easily.

Early in the process, God laid it on my heart that we needed to have in-person first day school (FDS) when we returned to the meetinghouse. One reason was to have childcare for our clerk and other parents to be able to attend worship. Another reason was that in the 15 months when we only had Zoom worship, the children and parents had been clear that the kids did not want to participate in another Zoom activity on Sunday morning. A couple of Friends tried to stay in touch with families during the pandemic, but it wasn't very successful as a religious education program. The best thing they did was organize a fifth Sunday intergenerational online meeting for worship with pets. 

• • •

In deference to the pandemic health restrictions, we decided a few things. First, we would not return to the small classrooms upstairs in the meetinghouse - even though they were freshly painted during the first year of the pandemic. We would hold FDS outside, under a tent that had been erected on the grass by the school attached to our meeting. And second, we would begin with brief lessons and plenty of time to play outside. Third, the lessons part would start with getting to know each other again.

I committed personally to being there most weeks and finding a second adult to join me, or finding two adults to be there on weeks I was not. Some of the Friends who had been teaching before came back, and some had moved on in their commitments. A parent volunteered to follow through on the child safety policy requirements, like background checks, etc. 

We had previously not had much of a tradition of snacks in our First Day School, maybe because we always had a robust offering during 'hospitality' or "coffee hour." Since we would be meeting outside in the Philadelphia summer, I started bringing individual juice pouches - popular and pre-portioned - that could offer some hydration, some blood sugar, without a risk of sharing germs. It wasn't very environmentally sound but it seemed like the best solution under the circumstances.

I bought a set of a dozen clipboards to use to write or draw on, and I brought some oil pastel crayons and colored pencils and a surplus sketchbook from my house to have tools that children from 3-12 could use. We encouraged the kids to bring a blanket or towel to sit on if they wanted.

We changed our tradition to have kids sit with their families for the first 15 minutes of worship so that they could arrange where to sit with social distancing and not have to disrupt where other people were sitting at the end of worship. And so parents didn't have to defend space all through worship in order to have a place for their kids to sit when they came back. This also meant that the FDS program mostly started with everyone together, instead of dribbling in. When families were more than 15 minutes late, the kids just joined us outside - no problem.

Kids came-and they came back. Their parents reported that the kids were looking forward to coming to meeting. So I considered that a success.

By the end of the summer, we settled on a loose rotation of one week of spiritual practices that help us feel closer to God, one week of a Bible or Quaker story, one week on the month's advices & queries about how we live our lives (as 3rd-6th graders), and one week of playing sports or games the whole time.

We were lucky that all the kids over 5 got vaccinated just before the weather got too cold to sit outside. We transitioned to meeting in the dining room where we had good ventilation, and no one was cooking anyway.  We're still wearing masks in the meeting house. And mostly when we're outside too.

I kept inviting more adult Friends to join us - to bring something for the content or just to be the second adult. And I set up a text group for last minute announcements to parents. By now, we have a pretty regular cast of characters. We have a regular rotation of teachers and we are renewing our background checks for continuing and new teachers. We have some kids who come (almost) every week and some who come once a month. We can incorporate new Friends any week, and we have a critical mass of participants to be sure that if you come, there will be a program for children and there will be other children there.

• • •

Every week, we start with "News of the Week" - we pass the clipboard around and each say our name, "reporting from Philadelphia," (like a broadcaster) and then whatever is news from our week. Like "my cousins came to visit" or "we had a half day at school and I played a lot of video games" or "I lost a tooth." Whatever is news for you. [This has been a great way to get to know each other better.]

The first couple of weeks we talked about what was different at the meetinghouse now and drew our family portraits (including pets). Then we spent a few weeks talking about God - what is God? How do we know? Does God hear our prayers?  

In late July, the yearly meeting organized a Sunday morning, in-person activity in conjunction with annual sessions. It was a program with separate groups for elementary, middle and high school kids, at the Historic Fairhill Burial Ground, (now a public park) where Lucretia Mott, among others, is buried. It was actually very close to our meetinghouse, and at one point was under the care of our monthly meeting. So we had one week where we learned a little bit about who Lucretia Mott was and how she was (tangentially) connected to our meeting. The next week we all met at the park, and the kids participated in small, age-appropriate groups run by the yearly meeting staff, and it was fun for everyone. The following week, one of the kids reported on the book about a black abolitionist that his family picked up from the Tiny Library in the park. 

We spent the whole month of August learning about prayer. As in, prayer can take many forms-it's between you and God. It can be in motion--a Friend who is an actor came and led some movement. It can be words that are already written. We read the 23rd Psalm and a friend came and led us in a song that is also a prayer. It can be a personal ritual-a Friend came and shared her personal prayer practices.

In September, we spent a couple of weeks preparing for World Quaker Day (first Sunday in October) by interviewing an older Friend in our meeting using the materials from the Africa QREC and FWCC Section of the Americas. Said older Friend also happens to be a documentary filmmaker so she took the footage home and edited it for us and we watched it together, and then showed it to the rest of the meeting on WQD and then sent it in to the WQD website. 

We started in November using the General Queries of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting on the first of each month that I translated into language appropriate for third graders. The kids have been genuinely interested in answering the questions and we have had some very interesting conversations about how we are living our lives, at home, at school, and at Meeting. 

In December, we started preparing food for the Meeting to share after worship. It's an activity, a snack, and a service project, all rolled into one. We have baked cookies and spread peanut butter on crackers and portioned out baby carrots into paper cups to make serving easy. It's different each month.

[In January, we were back on Zoom-only worship because of the covid-19 surge, so we didn’t have a children’s program for a few weeks. I promoted the yearly meeting’s online programs to anyone who wanted to participate.]

In February, we started, once a month, learning about Quaker distinctives. Why don't Quakers celebrate holidays, or do we? What does plain speech mean? How do we practice it now? What about oaths and music and communion? I have found that our kids didn't know these were part of Quaker tradition but now they are learning more of the depths of our Quaker practice-and talking about what is relevant to them, more than what it was like 200 years ago. I have been pleasantly surprised how engaged they are in the discussion. We just roll with the tangents and the non-sequiturs-everyone has something to say.

So now the content rotation is: first week: answering the queries, second week: playing games, third week: learning about Quaker faith and practice, fourth week: cooking for the Meeting. When there’s a fifth week, we are supposed to organize something for the whole meeting for intergenerational worship, but we haven’t actually done that yet. 

We have one baby who is regularly attending our Meeting, but still sleeping through worship much of the time, and cuddling with his parents the rest of the time. But we are ready when he is to welcome him to our program space - we have a plan and a brand new rug that is just waiting for someone to spit up on it.

• • •

For me personally, it has been a lot of work in the last year. But as I no longer have children at home, I had some time to give. I think it is important that parents don’t have to teach or supervise the children’s religious education program during worship, unless they really want to. For someone who spends her working days talking about how to build Quaker community, it has been a way to stay connected to my monthly meeting - both the joys and the tedium and the normal conflicts of community life. And it has been a way to channel my creativity and to talk about the spiritual things that matter to me. And I’ve gotten to know the kids (and parents) in my meeting a lot better, which is a blessing in and of itself.

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.

My Three Words for 2016

This is an annual exercise invented by Chris Brogan. You can read more about it at http://chrisbrogan.com/3-words-2016/
 
My three words for 2016 are: Grateful, Deep, Invite.

Grateful
Because I want to remind myself, frequently, to be grateful for the many blessings in my life, instead of resentful. Resentful of what I have and what I don’t have.

I know that in many ways, I have been blessed in this life. From my loving and stable parents, who are both still alive and still married to each other, to my education, my health, the house I live in, the people I live with, and this extraordinary job I have. But sometimes even blessings can be hard work or stressful or conflict with each other. So, even when it’s hard, and into every life some rain does fall, I want to remember to be grateful: to God, to my husband, to all of you who read this blog, etc. My life is better because of you/them. Thank you.

Deep
Because I have been spread too thin over the last year and a lot of my life has been necessarily shallow. So I want to go deeper this year, starting with deeper rest. Last year, I took all my vacation days but really it just meant I was working from home. I didn’t do a good job on my sleep hygiene, so I want to go to bed on time more often. Good sleep makes everything better, and regular hours mean better sleep.

Most of my reading was children’s fiction. I did read one whole grown up book and I loved it. Otherwise, I only read Facebook, poetry, Twitter, snippets of theology, and a lot of online articles about feminism, racism, management, and Adele. I don’t know if I’m willing to change this or not.
In my spiritual life, I think I need a silent retreat. I haven’t done one since 2004. So sometime in 2016, I think it’s time.

At work, because of a variety of circumstances, I have been doing too many different things, none of them as well as I’d like. But circumstances have changed again, and I need to recognize what that will free me up for. Getting deeper rest will make it possible to go deeper in all the rest of the areas of my life. (And how blessed I am that I get to make choices like this, which reminds me to be grateful, see above.) This also brings me to my third word.

Invite
I spent quite a while thinking that my third word was going to be let. As in let go, let God, let other people help. I need to remember that, most of the time, I’m not the only one who can do things. But I also don’t want to shirk my responsibility, or abandon other people to just get on with it.

At work, I want to invite more people into this dance with God, and the Religious Society of Friends, and me. One of the fundraising maxims I live by is, “Invite people into the kitchen.” This comes from a story that Kay Sprinkel Grace (one of my mentors) tells about Berthold Brecht once saying that the reason he chose one place to eat over another was not that the one didn’t have a delectable menu, but that the other invited him into the kitchen. In one place, he was an honored customer; in the other, he was a participant. I know which I prefer.

At home and in my local Quaker meeting, it is part of my role (parent, nominating committee) to organize other people to do the things that need doing. But my kids are old enough to make more of their own decisions, and at meeting everybody has other commitments too. How can I invite them into the work in a way that is encouraging and honoring and effective?

And I want to keep having guests at our house. I love dinner parties. I like introducing people I like to each other. I like cooking elaborate meals and playing board games and talking to people until way too late. (Not every night. See sleep hygiene, above.) This is my idea of deep fun.

So I want to try not to order people around nor guilt them to do things, nor freeze them out, but to invite them into all the fun I’m having in this blessed life of mine - at this amazing job, and my wonderful Quaker meeting and at my dinner table. Maybe even around the dishwasher.

So those are my three words for 2016. It’s funny how my three words for 2015 aren’t wrong now, but they aren’t what I need now, as much as they were a year ago. But when I look at the ones before that, Encourage, Long, Grind for 2014, and here for 2012 and 2010, I start to recognize the patterns of my life. Plus ca change, plus c'est le meme chose.

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.

A ministry of encouragement

I love opportunities to get together informally with Friends – this was the original basis of the convergent Friends dinner parties I organized a few years ago. In the last year, the Quaker Revival and Nursery of Truth had some of the same characteristics of taking advantage of the presence of a visiting minister to gather local Friends for worship and conversation and a shared meal. I think the most important part of these gatherings is the opportunity to share our joys and concerns with other Friends, some familiar and some new faces, and the encouragement we take home from them, knowing we are not alone in walking the Quaker path.

I recently had the opportunity to visit with several small groups of Friends while traveling for work. In each case, the gathering was around 15 people from multiple monthly meetings in a local area. In each case the conversation somewhat naturally turned to the future of the Religious Society of Friends. And the message I was given to share with the group in each case was

“Do not be discouraged.” 

I understand that the state of the Religious Society of Friends and of any particular local group can be discouraging. I think that is par for the course. In life. At least in this lifetime.

So if Quakerism  and Quakers are just going to be discouraging, what are we supposed to do?

The answer is perseverance. Forgiving 70 times 7 times. And coming back, and showing up, and not letting the tedious or the insidious or the pompous get you down so much that you give up and go away and don't come back. That is the Tempter speaking to you: telling you it’s not worth it; these people will never change; there’s a better group out there somewhere.

Just as God and grace frequently become present to us through other people, Evil becomes present to us through other people, sometimes in the most banal ways. C.S. Lewis said that better than I can, but he was right. Evil is not always grandiose. Even the biggest evils, for example, apartheid, are made up of a lot of small pedantries.

This is different from Way Closing. There can be a sense of rightness in something ending. People, and all animals, die. Campaigns end. People change religions. Meetings in a particular place are laid down. This can be rightly ordered. Sometimes it’s hard to know the difference between this and giving up prematurely. That’s advanced discernment, for sure.

In any case, this is not a new phenomenon.

Have we trials and temptations?
Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged*
Take it to the Lord in prayer 

That's an old song, written by Joseph Scriven in 1855. Isaiah 42 was written long before that, and it's a whole chapter on the same theme.

As far as positive advice for Friends who are feeling discouraged, I have two thoughts. One is that we have to encourage each other, in living rooms and at kitchen tables, in meetinghouses, on street corners and in the pickup line at preschool. This is one of my favorite parts of my calling to ministry, which is further enabled by my current employment, but certainly didn't start with getting hired and I doubt will end when the paychecks do. If you know someone who is doing good work, encourage him/her and be encouraged by her/him. It's not actually all that complicated, and it's really important.

I actually think this is my personal answer to what the Religious Society of Friends needs right now. On my better days, I practice a ministry of encouragement. I aspire to humbly and boldly follow in the footsteps of Margaret Fell as a nursing mother of Quakerism. If you have ever felt that you weren’t getting enough encouragement among Friends, consider whether instead God is calling you to encourage others.

Second, and here I'm cheating a little because this is really seven things, read Chuck Fager's article, The Seven Ups, courtesy of Western Friend magazine, and follow his advice:

Show Up.
Read Up.
Speak up.
Ante up.
Smarten Up.
Toughen Up. And
Don’t Hurry Up. 

Amen.

Keep up the good work, all of you.



*I wanted to quote this song in the title of this post, but I found that I had already used the most relevant line as a title of a previous blogpost. Here is a set of other blog posts by me referencing the same song: http://robinmsf.blogspot.com/search?q=take+it+to+the+lord+in+prayer [This was just a simple search, but I think it produced a fascinating cross-section of this blog.]

Cups of Tea and Hammer-strokes

I may be suffering from a lack of ordinariness. Most of my life, I have wished for exciting things to happen to me. And now that they are happening, I miss the simple things that I don’t have time for. Like making jam. Gardening. Sewing. Teaching First Day School. Serving on clearness committees.

Recently, I was at an international committee meeting that was hosted by Friends in a thriving meeting in a small town. I was really touched by the obvious care and concern and interwoven nature of their personal lives and their meeting life. It made me think of two passages on marriage that I love, in Catherine Whitmire’s book, Plain Living,

“We thank God, then, for the pleasures, joys and triumphs of [life together]: for the cups of tea we bring each other, and the seedlings in the garden frame; for the domestic drama of meetings and partings, sickness and recovery; for the grace of occasional extravagance, flowers on birthdays and unexpected presents; for talk at evenings of the events of the day; for the ecstasy of caresses; for gay mockery at each other’s follies; for plans and projects, fun and struggle; praying that we may neither neglect nor undervalue these things, nor be tempted to think of them as self-contained and self-sufficient.”
from London Yearly Meeting, 1960.


And a poem by Ellen Sophia Bosanquet, from 1938:

If truth be told,
It was not priest, who made us one,
Nor finger
circled with gold,
Nor soft delights when day is done
and arms enfold.
These bonds are firm,
but in death-storm
They may not hold--
We were welded man and wife
By hammer-strokes of daily life.

[Bold emphasis mine]

I think these two images, the kind gestures of the cups of tea we bring each other, and the hammer-strokes of daily life, are both key to marriage and to meeting-life.

It takes time and active participation to be part of a meeting, just as marriage takes work and attention. It’s the same drudgery of washing dishes or making a budget work. The important conversations (and cups of tea) at the kitchen table late at night or in clearness committees for marriage or membership. The misunderstandings, getting hot under the collar, practicing forgiveness and receiving forgiveness, year after year. This is what makes a meeting or a marriage.

Any marriage is part of a family made up of marriages, and part of a wider community. This is where we learn that while every marriage is unique, it has a lot in common with other people. Likewise, a meeting needs the family of yearly meeting, and a wider community of Friends, where we sometimes learn other ways of solving our problems and sometimes we learn just to be grateful for what we have, and the problems we don’t have.

I don’t think I could do the job I have now without the grounding of 17 years of being part of San Francisco Monthly Meeting, the support and the hammer-blows of our daily life together. I think I need to be more connected to my new meeting, to stay fluent in Quaker practice, and to be a coherent, spiritual human being, in order to continue to be a blessing to the wider family of Friends.

I know I couldn’t do my job without the ongoing support and dedication of my husband. I have also learned a lot that is useful in this job from being a mother. I am blessed. I am grateful.

My Hopes for First Day School

My new meeting is having one of those recurring conversations about what do we want from First Day School? (FDS = our children's religious education program). I was not able to go to the first meeting because I was leaving town. So rather than expecting my husband to communicate my opinions, which are not always the same as his opinions, I decided to write some notes in advance and send them to the meeting's email group. I think it's important for a wide range of people to share their opinions about this, not just parents. This post is largely based on that email, with further embellishments as I continue to think about it.

My basic hope for FDS is that it will enable our children to know enough about their own spiritual lives and about being Quakers that they will want to and be able to choose to be Quakers.

I've written a few things about this topic before. See What do you want out of First Day School? and Middle School Affirmations from 2010. I didn't have a blog back when I was clerk of the CRE committee of my previous Meeting or there would be posts on the same topic from 2001-2004, mostly dealing with religious education for preschoolers. But you can see one of my earliest forays into the blogging community dealt with this, as a response to Martin Kelley's 2003 post about religious education for children.

In the earliest years, I think it's enough that our children just want to be with other people they know at meeting. When my son went to preschool for the first time at the age of three, I was astounded at what they can learn at that age. Reading books, singing songs, making art, playing games with Friends - all good.

I think it's not developmentally appropriate for children under the age of maybe eight to be expected to sit still and silent for an hour. I wouldn't want them to do it very often in school or in meeting for worship. It can be done, and sometimes my kids did it. But mostly, I think young children need to walk in nature and experiment with different postures for sitting and have prayers spoken out loud for them. Then they can take their experience of the Divine with them into Meeting for Worship.

In the elementary school years, I hope they learn basic techniques to settle their bodies and center their minds and some awareness that there is something transcendent happening in worship and some language/vocabulary to start to talk about it. I hope that they will learn enough Quaker stories and enough Bible stories that they know they are part of a longer history. I hope they will have opportunities to serve the meeting community - like setting up for hospitality after meeting or special events.  I hope the children in my meeting can attend Junior Interim Meeting together. I don't think that children's religious education has to happen at the same time as meeting for worship, but it has to happen some time.

In middle school, I hope they have opportunities to experience longer periods of unprogrammed worship in different settings (like outside on the grass, or while biking in the Wissahickon park, or sitting on pillows upstairs or as a group in the meetingroom), and they learn about worship sharing and Quaker decision-making.  I hope that they learn about other religions and about how to become a member of our meeting. I hope they do service projects in the community, and talk about Quaker responses to current events, and have some time to just do silly fun things together. I hope they can attend the yearly meeting's middle school Friends retreats.

I hope that kids are actively encouraged to apply for membership at around 8th-9th grade, not just by their families, but by the meeting.

In high school, I hope that they attend meeting for worship and adult religious education programs and service projects and both family-based and teen-focused social events. I think it is good for the meeting to expect teens to participate and to prepare for their attendance and participation in meeting-wide events. I think it is good for teens to go to visit other meetings, near and far, for worship and activities with teens at those meetings, and to welcome visiting groups at our meeting.

I used to say that my ulterior motive for organizing children's programs at meeting (and Quarterly, Yearly Meeting, etc) was to be sure there were enough young Friends when my kids grew up that they could marry one. Not that they have to, but I wanted them to have the option. The other reason that good programs are important to me was because I want to go to all these Quaker events, and my kids have to go with me, and it behooves me to be sure that there is something worthwhile for them there. I have lots more to say, but I think this is enough for one blog post.

For more recent writing about children as Quakers, see Kathleen Karhnak-Glasby's article in Friends Journal magazine, Wess Daniel's blog post, and Chris Mohr's blog post.

Conflicting Concerns

As I have said before, my paid work for Quakers at the very broad level and my responsibilities to my family at home are more than enough to fill my every waking minute. I already feel like I’m not keeping up.

But every so often, a concern arises in my heart and mind that doesn’t fit neatly into one of those buckets. Issues at my monthly meeting, in my yearly meeting, in my kids’ school. Things that have been laid upon my heart to care about but that I really don’t have time for.

Except that we all have time for the things that really matter. As Thomas Kelly says, even very busy lovers find time to write long letters to each other, because they care. I used to say, “If I have time to complain about it, I have time to do something about it.”

So we have to make choices. Every minute I spend on one thing is time away from another and this is true for everyone. I prioritize sleep. I make time to go to some but not all of my kids’ athletic games. I am not serving on any committees or teaching First Day School at my monthly meeting. So on the whole I have a reasonable balance.

And then come these special moments. I don’t know whether to call them temptations or distractions or openings. I am specifically not giving examples here because they are too personal and too much involving other people to get into in this space. I guess I can say they variously involve sex, money and God, but not all three at once, for which I am grateful.

So anyway, the point is that I’ve been trying to sort out what is really mine to do, and what I just need to let go of. Like I said last year, courage, serenity, wisdom, and the discipline to make myself stick to a decision and not keep fretting in the middle of the night over things that I decided are not mine to work on.

And the spark for putting this into a blogpost was an insight that came to me in worship this morning. A 100 year old Friend spoke about how grateful she is that 90 years ago, a Sunday school teacher made her memorize certain passages from the Bible. She still remembers the Beatitudes, for example. She was recently reminded of these because a couple of months ago she was temporarily blind after a surgery but she still had these verses, and some poetry she also memorized over the years. She is so grateful now even though at the time she wondered what good it would do.

So my new yardstick, among the others I have been using, is to consider what I’m going to care about 90 years from now. Ok, maybe 50 years is all the horizon I need to worry about. In any case, I need to ask not just what has the most heat and Light in it right now, but what will I care about later? What will I regret? What will my grandchildren care about? What does God care about? What will I be held accountable for in the long run?

This is helping me sort through the recent concerns with more clarity. And I hope that this reminder, like so many things that I’ve heard before but needed to hear again, will help me sleep better in the coming months.

Bivocational Ministry

So have you heard the term "bivocational ministry" before? If you have, there's a good chance that you've been to seminary, or known someone who did, or thought about going, or taught at one, some time in the last ten years. Or at least, I'm finding a strong correlation in the people I'm talking to.

So here's a short version of what I mean when I say "bivocational ministry":

God calls some people to work in ministry while also working either part or full time in secular jobs to supplement their income.  Bivocational ministry is when a person serves in a ministry while also being employed in a secular job, whether or not they get paid for their religious service. There is a growing conversation among those involved in the training and hiring of pastors, inside and outside the Religious Society of Friends/Friends Church (RSoF), about the need for bivocational ministry. Unprogrammed Friends have been talking more about preparing and supporting all the diverse ministers among us, but may be more familiar with the term “released Friend.”

Bivocational ministry was an essential part of the founding vision of Quakerism, when early Friends railed against the abuses of “hireling ministers.” Even where Friends have hired pastoral staff, we have sought to employ those who are called to the ministry by God, rather than relying on credentials or pedigree. We have acknowledged that a calling to a particular ministry may be for an undefined period of time, and yet not a permanent condition. Throughout our history, with variations depending on the region and the century, Friends have shared the burdens and the joys of ministry widely in our communities. As part of our uniquely Quaker spiritual inheritance, it’s a model that we can share with the world.

Bivocational ministry is quintessentially Quaker, but many meetings and churches are struggling today:

• Many meetings can’t find enough volunteers to populate their elaborate committee structures. 
• Even full-time pastors are not equally gifted in all areas of ministry assigned to them by the classic Protestant model. 
• Many Friends have a calling to do more for their meeting or for the wider Friends Church, but can’t afford the loss of income. 
• Many pastors are receiving the equivalent of part-time salaries yet expected to do full-time (plus your spouse) work. 
• Friends from the programmed and unprogrammed traditions are going to seminary to prepare for service to the RSoF, often incurring substantial student debt, but there aren't enough paid jobs in Quakerism to absorb them all.
• Many meetings and churches don't know what to do with strongly gifted Friends.
• Friends feel both guilt-ridden and dismissive of their part-time pastors instead of celebrating this balance. 

This conversation touches on many difficult issues for Friends: money, leadership, theology, qualifications for ministry, membership numbers, culture and religious language, to name a few. It is related to a broader economic shift in the world around us, involving both changes in employment and ecological concerns around sustainability. Our society values and rewards single focus dedication, not a balanced life, no matter how many self-help books try to say the opposite.

Many yearly meetings have approached the training and support for bivocational ministers in various ways: weekend workshops, spiritual formation cohorts, pastors’ conferences, support for continuing education. Some local churches and meetings have developed innovative approaches to calling, supporting and releasing ministers. However, most of the best practices among Friends are not well known outside of their immediate geographic area or branch of Friends. The divided branches of the RSoF have a lot to offer one another in tackling the problems and celebrating the strengths of bivocational ministry. Their different perspectives complement each other.

As just one example, an unprogrammed meeting in an unaffiliated yearly meeting that I know had burned out two clerks of their Ministry and Oversight Committee in a row. Several contributing factors were identified, but both of the individuals in question said, “I don’t even want to come to worship on Sundays. It’s not like worship for me any more, it’s just a time when people come to tell me all their problems.” It occurred to a member of their M&O committee that this was a situation that people who are pastors deal with for their whole careers, not just a 1-3 year term on a committee. By inquiring with personal friends who were pastors in evangelical Friends churches, she heard some of their strategies for coping. One said his approach was two-fold. First was to accept that Sunday mornings were his time of service to the community, not his time of communion with the Holy Spirit. Sometimes that happened too, but changing his expectations helped him not to be annoyed when people just wanted to ask him, “where is the big coffee pot?” And second, he had to seek out other times for deep contemplation of the Divine, and he found that in a midweek gathering with other pastors for what was essentially unprogrammed Quaker worship. And so an evangelical Friend had learned from unprogrammed Friends, and a liberal Friend learned from an evangelical Friend. But too few of us know each other to be able to benefit from this learning.

How could Friends address this in a way that would be useful to the whole Religious Society of Friends/Friends Church? To the local meetings and churches that are struggling? For all the people who are struggling to find a way to use their gifts and live into their leadings?

How can meetings and churches have an honest and  conversation with each other and with the individual Friends who are called to serve the RSoF about how to make the best match between gifts and needs?

How can we amplify the work and learning that has already been done about calling, training and supporting ministry, by individual Friends and Quaker institutions, to benefit Friends more widely?

Frankly, I think the survival of the Religious Society of Friends/Friends Church in this century depends on us figuring this out better.

Full disclosure: I am, for the first time in my life, blessed and honored to be paid a full-time living wage for Quaker work. But I know, from 20 years of experience, what it is like for that not to be true. Also, this post reflects my personal leading and not that of my employer.

You Can't Have It All

Psalm 90

Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.
For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.
Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up.
In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.
For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled.
Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.
For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told.
The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath.
So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
Return, O LORD, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants.
O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil.
Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children.
And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.

There are only 24 hours in each day and we don’t know how many of those we’re going to get.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the choices we make in life. Particularly because of reading Ann Marie Slaughter’s article in The Atlantic magazine, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All.” She wrote about how she had to choose between a very high level government job and being a good mother because of the insane hours required by her workplace. Positions of power come with a price to pay in terms of everything else in your life.

And then Tony Jones just wrote a brief blogpost about how he realized that he can’t read everything he thinks he ought to and also write everything he thinks he ought to. In fact, I think he probably could, but then he couldn’t also be a little league coach or a police chaplain or a decent father and husband, all of which he has done at some point. The ivory tower also has a price.

There are only 24 hours in each day and we don’t know how many of those we’re going to get. In my own life, I’m praying a lot lately about how to discern God’s calling in my life. Would it be better to dedicate myself to one thing, to the exclusion of all others? Is it better to balance two or three? Would it be better to do a little bit of many?

I think my husband is afraid when I talk about this that I’m going to leave him and the boys to follow God. I’m not. I’m just grateful that when Jesus said to me, drop your nets and follow me, that my husband and sons were willing to come to Philadelphia too.

I don’t think I’m designed for a single focus. I don’t think it’s quite Attention Deficit Disorder but I am interested in too many different things to be able to do just one. I think my variety of experiences has made me a better servant for God’s work. A better employee and supervisor in my office. A more interesting human being.

On the other hand, I really want to do well at my new job. I understand I have been given a great responsibility. I want to live up to my own and other people’s hopes and expectations. This morning, when I spoke about this in meeting for worship, someone else rose and said we don’t all have to aspire to greatness, or to be world leaders, it’s enough for the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts to be merely acceptable. Which is true. But some of us do aspire to more.

Like everyone else, I have to make choices. I have to balance the demands of my job with the responsibility of family life, but I don’t have to be a room parent or a baseball coach or teach first day school. I still sweep our floors and scrub our bathtubs but I have let go of making my own jam or sewing my own clothes or doing any gardening beyond watering my houseplants.

I work until 7 pm once or twice a week because it’s generally more productive to stay at the office than to try to take work home. However, I left work at 4:00 pm once or twice a week this spring to drive my younger son to baseball practice. I won’t attend any yearly meetings this summer besides my own locally because we’re moving house this month. But I expect to be away from home most weekends this fall.

Will it be enough? There are a thousand more things that I would like to do for work than there are hours in the day. How do we know what God requires of us more specifically than loving mercy and doing justice and walking humbly? And is it worth getting caught up in all this work and anxiety when our lives are so short in the grand scheme of things?

There are only 24 hours in each day and we don’t know how many of those we’re going to get. But as in the Psalm, “And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.”

Not my will, Lord, but thine.

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.

A New Mission for the Church?

Another post on Quaker Heritage Day 2011. For more, see my earlier posts. For my inspiration, all credit goes to God, C. Wess Daniels, and the awesome Friends who were part of the discussion.

Wess's first topic of the day (after his introduction) was a redefinition of the word mission. I feel like it was an opportunity to reclaim the word, much like Carol Spencer inspired me to reclaim the word holiness last year. He started by asking us what associations we had with the word and these ranged all over, from the saving of souls to military campaigns. I personally think of the haunting movie with Jeremy Irons & Robert DeNiro, The Mission.

As I see it now, the word "mission" for a postmodern church or meeting means something combining the secular nonprofit organizational meaning of a purpose for being, as in a mission statement, and the Quaker meaning of a leading, or a God-directed purpose. It means the work that a particular church or meeting is called to do and be, and Divinely fitted to do, and needed to do. I think it could be related to Walter Wink's concept of the angel of an institution, but I don't really feel qualified to address that connection.

So then Wess proposed a very interesting idea, that the mission of the church, broadly speaking, is to be a midwife to the spiritual life, of an individual or a community. Here are some of the interesting points that were generated:
(some come from Wess and some from the audience, they built on each other)

• the midwife brings experience and training
• the midwife trusts the mother to be competent
• the midwife is not in charge or control of the labor
• the midwife is not the baby or the impregnator of the mother, nor the one doing the labor, nor the one who will keep the baby
• the midwife serves a particular area; she is mobile but not homeless
• the midwife doesn't show up where she's not wanted or just on game day
• the midwife is committed to the whole process, for better or worse, regardless of outcomes

Now substitute "minister" or "the church" for the "midwife" and read the list out loud to yourself.

The church trains and prepares and brings faith that a person or community can have, already has, a spiritual life. The church/minister has the role of accompanying the person who's developing their spiritual life - not in charge of creating it or saying where it will go, although they may have some experience of seeing how things often progress, and can be reassuring along the way. The church has to be flexible but not unmoored. A minister serves a community as a whole and people as individuals. The church has to be in it for the long haul.

I know I want to spend more time contemplating and discussing this image. Does it speak to you? Would your meeting or church be open to thinking about its purpose this way?

Worship with My Eyes Open

Sunday was the latest in SF Monthly Meeting’s series of 5th Sunday extended meetings for worship. Every time there’s a fifth Sunday in the month, so a few times a year, we start worship at 9:30 am and then continue until our usual closing time at noon. I’ve written before about how wonderful it is to really sink into the silence and move through the phases of unprogrammed worship more fully.

This time, my family arrived at 9:32, so while Chris went in to the meetingroom, I took our kids upstairs to check in with the child care worker and then came back down after a few minutes. Our usual systems for greeting people at the door don’t start until about 10:40, so when I came down, one Friend had seated himself inside the room but facing the door. He saw me come down the stairs, fuss with my jacket and nametag, etc. and then look to see if it was okay to come in. He smiled at me and I pushed the door open and walked in, across to my usual seat next to Chris, on the far side of the room, also facing the door.

My initial sense of the meeting was one of delight. Of joy at being here in worship. Of love for the members of my meeting community, even if only a handful of them were already here before 10:00. I was inspired to read the Song of Solomon, looking for words to express my delight in this early period of worship which is semi-reserved for Scripture reading. I didn’t feel moved to speak, but I was happy just being there.

After some time, the Friend sitting by the door rose and read the 9th chapter of John, and sat down again. I think he must have closed his eyes and sunk deeper into worship after that, because a few minutes later when another newish but regular attender arrived, I could see him stop outside the door and wait to be welcomed in. After a few minutes of hoping I could catch the attender’s eye through the window, I became too agitated watching him wait to sit still anymore. I stood up and walked back to the door, which of course startled the Friend inside, but I opened the door and whispered, “please come in.” I walked out the door and sat in the chair in the lobby usually occupied by the welcomer. I made eye contact with the Friend who had been welcoming people to let him know that I intended to stay out there, to take the next shift, so to speak. He turned his chair back around and rejoined worship in the usual way.

But I didn’t feel that I had left worship. I still had my Bible in my hand, and was still feeling the love for my meeting and the ways we take care of one another. I felt that love extending to everyone who came in. I prayed for each person who walked by, whether they knew I was there or not. It’s a major street in SF, and we get a lot of foot traffic every day of the week. I saw one man stop to read the excerpt from Faith and Practice in one window and others just checking their hair in their reflections.

I don’t think I’ve ever been the official welcomer at my meeting before. I used to arrive late too often to think I’d be good at it, and for the last few years, while we’ve been much more on time since Chris has been clerk, I haven’t volunteered for any jobs during worship since I’ve been the designated child wrangler in our family so Chris can fulfill his responsibilities.

But I kind of liked it. It was another form of worship with my eyes open, like teaching religious education. Instead of practicing custody of the eyes, I practiced generosity and hospitality with my eyes and my voice. I’m afraid I wasn’t looking as welcoming as I would have liked, since I had left my jacket in the meetingroom and it was cold in the lobby so I had my arms wrapped around my body most of the time. But I stood up when people did come in and I made a point of explaining to all the people who came in early what was going on.

When the regularly scheduled welcomer arrived, I gave her a little update on where we were, she took her kids upstairs and then took over the position. I went in at 11 with the crowd that had assembled in the previous fifteen minutes and enjoyed the last hour of worship. It is a blessing to come into a room where people are already deep in worship, not with the sense of being late, but just as a normal part of the process.

I love my meeting.

Non-violent Street Smarts

Continuing my consideration of the spiritual needs of middle school students, I came to the juncture with the practical needs of middle school kids. One of the topics that I think has been seriously missing from my meeting’s religious education program is how to carry your faith out into the world. This could include issues like how to respond when someone asks you if you’ve been saved. Chuck Fager wrote a little book about that recently. But I live in San Francisco, and that’s really not a problem for the kids I know.

What is an issue here, and particularly for the young people that I know, is how to be safe in an urban environment that involves walking through neighborhoods that regularly have violence and other crimes on the street. Some of our families live in neighborhoods like that; some kids go to school in neighborhoods like that; our meetinghouse is located in a neighborhood like that. So it’s not just an abstract idea or an occasional need, it’s a day to day concern.

I was further inspired by the article in this month’s Friends Journal about teaching peace in a culture of violence and by George Lakey’s article in last month’s Western Friend where he tells about using techniques he learned from John Wesley about getting out of a dangerous situation.

I personally grew up in a small town in a very rural area. There was violence, but it was more likely to be between family members and friends than from strangers. This is still true in the big city, but the likelihood that you’ll have to pass through someone else’s personal drama on the sidewalk or on the bus is higher in the city. And I think the chance of random robbery is higher here. Definitely, the open sale of drugs and prostitution is higher here than in my home town.

Anyway, my point is that I didn’t learn very much about how to be safe in the city from my family. I was given explicit instructions by a co-worker in New York City when I was 24 years old. We were working with kids in very poor neighborhoods, and as we visited their homes, my co-worker taught me a lot about being aware of other people, how to conduct myself to not look like a target, and how and when to avoid trouble. But now I live in a city where my kids need to learn this stuff by age 12, not 24. And I’m not really sure how to teach it.

The self-defense classes I hear about for young people are mostly run by martial arts schools. And I know that a lot of the curriculum in these places is how to avoid having to use violence. But I’d really like my kids to get that part followed by some non-violent conflict defusing techniques and then what to do after violence happens to you or around you. I think this could be an ideal topic for a yearly meeting middle school program where we’d have a critical mass of kids.

I know that there are Quakers with enormous experience in conflict resolution. I know Friends who have personally faced angry mobs, who have taught non-violent resistance around the world, and who are highly skilled in defusing dangerous situations. But as far as I can tell, they’re not teaching our young people how to do the same. At least, not here in SF.

So I have started asking the people I know for help. One Friend, who is an expert in early childhood education, but also has experience working with older kids, recommended a book called The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker. It’s mostly encouraging people to trust their intuition about other people and situations. Another friend, who is very wise in the ways of adolescents and an experienced urban educator, said that the best defense is confidence – not making kids afraid of their environment, and she cautioned me about the developmental capacity of 11 and 12 year olds to use any strategies, however valuable, to resist predators. Her concern was to not make kids feel guilty for being victims.

So my current thinking is that a workshop would cover five topics:

• Be aware
• Avoid trouble
• Defuse conflict
• Help others at risk
• Get help when violence happens

Some of it would be basic things like how to carry your valuables, where to sit on the bus, and planning your route.

Some of it would be learning to pay attention to who else is around you and what they are doing, how and when to mind your own business, evaluating your risks, and going around a visible trouble spot.

Some of it would be what to do when trouble happens to you – thinking about who you could ask for help in different places, how to reduce the chances of getting hurt, who do you tell afterwards.

The trickiest part is to know how and when you can help someone else, when you are a bystander. Obviously, this part changes dramatically depending on the environment, the other people involved, and your own physical and emotional capabilities. (Just as an example, I might expect more if a 12 year old sees another kid picking on a kindergartener at school than if she sees a grown-up getting robbed at the back of the bus.)

And I’d like this to all be done in a spirit of love and trust and compassion. With the assumption that there is that of God in every person and that we can speak to that spark of goodness. And the full knowledge that not every one will act with that goodness.

I don’t want to teach my children how to fight back with their fists. (I’d be no help with that either.) But it’s not enough to just say “turn the other cheek” without giving some practical suggestions for when nonresistence is unproductive.

Do you have any experience with this kind of work? What do you think would be the most important things for Quaker kids to learn? If you know of specific people or meetings who are already doing this well, please leave a comment or email me directly. Thanks!

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!

Middle School Affirmations

Over the last four months, I've been coordinating a middle school religious education program at my Meeting. We have three boys in 6^th & 7^th grades (one is my son) who make up the class, and three teachers who were willing to take turns preparing & leading the lessons. It’s been a delight for me.

A few months ago, I wrote about what I want our kids to get out of First Day School. I really think we made progress this fall. At the end of August, all six of us met to set goals, discuss our expectations, and suggest ways to make the program work for all of us.
Here is the list of what the adults want for kids in FDS:

• To know what Quakers do
• To know about the Bible
• To know what you believe
• To know some Quaker history
• To make friends
• To develop good, strong values
• To want to come to FDS
• To feel part of the meeting community

Here is the list of what the kids want out of FDS:

• Good snacks
• To want to/to be excited to come
• To be able to read what you want
• To know who/where God is
• Fun stuff – games, clay, trust games
• Be more active
• Drawing
• Make things for meeting

If you look closely, there’s some overlap in those lists, but at the very least they are not mutually exclusive. You can have good snacks and learn Quaker history in one day, trust me.

We had a monthly service project, serving brunch at the Martin de Porres Hospitality House on the fourth Sunday of each month.

On the day of SF Meeting’s fifth Sunday Extended Meeting for Worship, we held a Meeting for Worship with a Concern for Bicycling. We rode along the Bay Trail and stopped for worship near Coyote Point. It was a gorgeous day and just being outside felt holy to me. One highlight was the brief discussion afterwards where we talked about why riding our bikes felt more worshipful than being on one of the loud electric scooters that went by us.

We had a section on George Fox. Starting during worship-on-the-grounds at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, we read Friend by Jane Yolen. The next couple of weeks we talked about the origins of Quakerism, the role of Quaker journals, and the spread of Quakerism through the world – all tangents that rose up out of our discussion of Fox. And one week we unpacked the George Fox Song and talked about what each line means and why each section is an important truth about Quakerism.

We had another section on what to do in meeting for worship. One week we discussed the effects of meditation on the brain. One week we learned about Lectio Divina as another way of looking at reading in meeting. That week we also had visitors from the 6th & 7th grade class at the local Unitarian Church, and we talked about the differences and similarities of our two groups.

We had a series of discussions about current events – the flap over “the mosque at Ground Zero” was big right when we were starting, so we talked about religious persecution and tolerance, and one of our teachers went to Jordan for a Habitat for Humanity build during this fall and she talked about her trip, and then last week they wrote letters to the President about the war in Afghanistan.

This morning we held an evaluation session. We looked at which of our goals we had achieved and how we might improve the curriculum for another time. The kids said you really couldn’t make it better without it just becoming like camp where you don't learn anything. But they would like to do more trust games and to learn more about modern Quakers. They would like to read something about Quakers that was written by someone who didn’t like the Quakers – what would they say about Quakers? (I think this would be very interesting – if you know of anything like this that’s readily accessible, let me know.)

The thing they liked best was the snacks. It is my personal opinion that middle school religious education is already overcoming enough barriers – a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. These particular kids eat very healthy diets the rest of the week.

However, today was the last day of our group because two thirds of the kids and one of the teachers are moving to South Africa next month. Hence today’s evaluation. We also wrote affirmations for all the members of our group. Here are the affirmations I received:

• Thank you for being willing to teach so we don’t need to go to meeting.
• Thank you for always having a enjoyable lesson planned.
• Thank you for teaching and the donuts.

I really appreciated the honesty and curiosity and imagination that these boys brought to our time together. I will really miss the class. In the future, the one kid who is staying has chosen to go to meeting for worship every week rather than join the little kids or have a separate class all by himself. I support that decision and we’re looking at other ways of continuing his religious education.

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?

The Revitalization of the Quaker Message

Several people have posted recently about what needs to change now in order to make Quakerism more accessible and relevant. Chief among these is Brent Bill, who has a whole series of excellent posts in the last two weeks on his blog, Holy Ordinary. Eileen Flanagan wrote an excellent response to it as well. Martin Kelley and Liz Oppenheimer are promoting the Invite a Visitor to Lunch method of Church Growth. All of these are very good and important suggestions. But they are all dependent on people actually coming to our meetings to find out about us.

What I think we need to do is to tell more people that Quakerism is wonderful and powerful. That God is speaking to them right now. That if they want, they can listen and do better. That they are created for more than shopping and eating and scraping for their boss. That they can live up to the Light that has been given to them.

We need to start now. We don’t have to wait for the mass media marketing campaign to kick in. We have to start with the people we know. We have to start with the people we meet – on the bus, at the store, at the movies, on Facebook, at our kids’ schools, in our college classes.

The point is not to convert people who are already happy with their faith life or lack of one. It is to reach all the people who are unhappy at the mall, at the gym, at home in front of their computers. It is to be sure that people who are looking for something just like the Quakers, even if they don’t know what that word means, can find us. There is real suffering out there and we can help.

Now it may be that many of you who are reading this are already out of the Quaker closet. That’s great. Some of you are already inviting friends and new acquaintances to come to meeting with you. Some of you are already posting videos on YouTube. Super. Leave a comment here and tell us how you did it. But most of you are not. Because if you were, there wouldn’t be so many people who said, “I didn’t know there were any Quakers around here.”

So here’s my suggestion for the revitalization of the Quaker message in the United States. Take this pledge:

“This week, I will find a way to work the fact that I’m a Quaker and I’m happier for it into a conversation with a non-Quaker.”

Can we do it? Would you do it?

What Are Queries For Anyway?

A Friend of mine was wondering where the concept of Quaker Queries came from and what they are used for. He sent the question to a few people. Here is my answer, slightly edited for public distribution:

I think the queries were originally provided by the yearly meetings for their monthly and quarterly meetings to report back to them. The closest thing to that in Pacific YM today is the State of the Meeting report, which each monthly meeting completes annually and sends to the quarterly and yearly meeting Ministry and Oversight committees. But I don't know of any meeting in PYM which uses the queries to structure their report, even though I have suggested it before. Just wait 'til I'm clerk...

But really, the queries in our current PYM book of Faith and Practice weren't written with that in mind. They are read out loud, one section a month, on the first Sunday of the month in our meeting for worship, and at the beginning of our monthly meeting for business. Sometimes individuals respond to them in worship, but mostly we just consider them in silence. If you asked most PYM folks, this is what they would say the F&P Queries are for. (which is not much, IMHO)

The Advices and Queries in PYM F&P are the closest we come to a statement of our faith and practice, and they always go together in the book. The A&Q were written by a committee that labored for a long time to come to unity on the right language and the right topics and the right number of sets of A&Q. That committee is called the Discipline Committee, and they wrote the whole F&P, the last version took 10 years or so from the time they started until they finished in 2001.

When we have opportunities for worship sharing, at PYM gatherings or quarterly meetings for example, there is usually a new set of queries developed for the occasion - on the theme of the gathering, or something like that. They are usually developed shortly before the meeting by one or two people from the M&O committee. One SF Friend says that it doesn't matter what the queries are in worship sharing, it always comes down to "How is the Spirit moving in your life?"

In my monthly meeting, we have had a couple of series of worship sharing opportunities, after meeting for worship, or in the evening, to respond specifically to the queries in our F&P. Sometimes, these have been rich opportunities for spiritual formation and sometimes they have ended up being just a gathering for the most lonely or conflict-desiring people in the meeting. But that's true for any series of events in our meeting.

In your experience, how are queries used? Are they useful?

What do you want out of First Day School?

This month I’m going off the News committee (newsletter, website, asstd. other outreach activities) for my Meeting and back onto the Children’s Religious Education committee. I think it’s been six years since I last served on our Meeting’s CRE committee.

In the last round, my big project was to start a more intentional curriculum for preschoolers. Now my main concern is to build a more intentional program for middle schoolers. Funny how our interests change over time, huh? Especially as my children age into and out of these groups.

The program that the committee set up nine years ago is still officially the plan, although it’s not fully functioning anymore. Each month, the theme corresponds to the topic of the PYM Advices and Queries for the month. There is a four week rotation of teachers so that each month, the teachers will each take a turn addressing the topic. We have a great collection of curricula that we bought from the FGC bookstore over the years.

What’s been missing for a while now is an organizing force. Someone to plan ahead, to check in with teachers, to organize teacher training, etc. But I think that our new committee Clerk (not me) has that ambition for the committee so I’m not so worried about that.

The other thing we did, back in the olden days when I was clerk, sonny, was to have a series of discussions, on the committee and in the meeting for business, about what were the goals or purpose of First Day School. We asked a broad range of Friends, “What do you want our children to get out of our FDS program?” There were a lot of different answers, of course, but I think we were able to identify some common elements and to keep them in mind as we prepared our curricula for each year. That really helped us make choices and provide some cohesion to our program.

So I’ve been thinking again, now that I have more experience as a parent and as my older son reaches the end of his FDS time, what do I want my children (or all children) to get out of First Day School?

I want them to learn how to be a Quaker.

What do Quakers do in meeting for worship and why do they do it that way?

How do Quakers make decisions, as a community and in their personal lives: about the work that they do, how they spend their time, how they treat other people, what they consume or not?

By the end of eighth grade, I’d like them to have covered what they need to know to become a member of our meeting. Starting in 9th grade, or age 14 more or less, I’d expect my children to come to meeting for worship like an adult and seek religious education in other ways.

And I want them to be able to explain it. This is the range of Quaker belief on such & such a topic, and I fall ___________ (wherever they are) on that subject.

If our FDS made it that far, we’d be amazing.

What do you want our children to get out of their religious education program?