Eight things I learned about myself in the pool

1. Every day that starts with swimming is a better day. 

It’s good for both my mental and physical health. I sleep better and I’m just in a better mood all day long.

2. I actually prefer to swim at the end of the afternoon. 

Like at 4:00 pm when I wasn't really getting anything done anyway, and then I can go home and make dinner. I just learned this since I left my job in August. I can go at 7:00 am if I have to. But I prefer to do desk work in the morning and physical work in the afternoon. 

3. I am externally motivated. 

I clean my house because other people are coming. But I can set deadlines that make me identify an external goal for an entirely internal process. Like I’m going to swim for 30 minutes. Or 1,000 meters. Or let’s see how fast I can finish a 400 IM. 

4. I am competitive. 

That old man in the lane next to me? I think I can beat him. The young woman still wearing her college swim cap who's just barely warming up but still passed me twice? How close can I keep up with her? What if she’s just kicking this lap? Doesn’t matter that they don't know we're racing. It makes me swim faster/harder. 

5. I am realistic.

College swimmers can go four lengths of the pool in the time it takes me to do one. 10 year olds can go two in the time it takes me to do one. I am never going to be a fast swimmer, and I don’t care. Very much. But I hope to still be swimming in my 90s. That is a goal I can work towards.

 6. I am an athlete.

No one walking down the street sees me and says to themself, she must work out. But all of us here in the pool are swimmers. Moving our bodies. I never used to think of myself as an athlete. But when I think back, I have played a lot of sports. Not terribly well, but I am basically coordinated and flexible and I like to play games. That counts. 

7. I am not ashamed. 

I have been in lots of public pools. In the locker rooms, there are bodies of all sizes, shapes, colors. And we are all athletes. I think it's good for girls to see that this is how it is in real life. Not parading around naked but just getting on with changing. It is a small counter to the unrealistic images in magazines and movies.

8. Swimming is one of my favorite spiritual practices.

Whether it is back and forth in an indoor pool or floating in the middle of the Adriatic Sea, I love swimming. It is (literally) fully immersive. Our connection with water is holy. And it can either be a meditative time and space to consider a decision or the light falling on water or a chance to not think, except about my stroke, and form, and kick, and let go of my responsibility for anything else, just for a few laps. 

Every day that includes swimming is a better day. 

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.] 

Holy Week 2021

I didn't intentionally choose this week to begin my sabbatical. A collection of external factors coincided to make this the right time. I only realized this coincidence would be true a couple of days ago.

But it feels good. Around the world, this is a week of holidays for Christians. In some contexts, secular holidays - schools and businesses are closed. In other contexts, the procession from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, with special rituals of remembrance on each day in between.

• • •

Holy Monday was the overturning of the tables in the temple. A challenge to unjust economic systems. For me, this time of rest and creative activity feels like a direct challenge to the economic structures of our day. For me, this ten week period feels like a sabbath season. A time to make right the patterns of my life. 8 hours for work, 8 hours for rest, 8 hours for what we will.

What do I will? And perhaps, not what I will, but what God wills. Not God's agents on Earth, not the church, not the government, but the Holy Creator, Source of All Wisdom, Beauty, Goodness. Not Caesar.

My main plan for this week is to begin by writing every day. To go swimming several days. And to schedule all the appointments that I put off until now. A haircut, a mammogram, new glasses, and more. It may take my whole sabbatical season to get to them all.

I already scheduled two - a deep cleaning for our house and our car. These fall into the category of things I could do for myself. However other people will be more efficient and right now I would rather pay someone to do it well and get it over with and not be exhausted when it is done. It will free me to think about other things instead of fretting about the housework. This goes against all my home training, but for once, I think it will be a good tradeoff.

• • •

Later in the week, Maundy Thursday is a reminder about community and service to others. Will I find ways, during this sabbatical season that overlaps with the Covid19 pandemic, to break bread with others and wash their feet? As a serious extrovert, I need to talk to other people for my own mental health. And as a human being and a Christian, I need to be of service to other people. Also for my own mental health. But I also need to practice some discipline around "custody of the eyes". The main purpose of this break is to bring forth that which is in me - to give to the world that which only I can give. Not to spend the time reading what other people have already written.

But recognizing the enormous privilege of having ten weeks in a row of paid leave, without even a newborn baby to take care of, I want to find some way to be of practical service to the community around me in this time as well.

• • •

Holy Friday and Saturday are about dying to self and waiting in the deep unknown. Am I able to give over my own longing to know or do or be anything and sink down to that seed that God sows in the heart? And to let that seed grow in me and breathe in me and be in me without striving to make myself more? For that seed to increase, I must decrease. In my striving and my desire for control and for fame and fortune and, and, and... everything. Not my will, Lord, but thine.

• • •

Then next Sunday, I will be going away. To an undisclosed location. For a week of self-denial of other people and the freedom to just write. A rebirth in some ways, maybe more like extended labor. I don't think it tracks to a resurrection. I'm afraid it's going to feel more like an extended Holy Saturday.

But we'll see. What freedom comes in that emptiness? What new inspirati­on or motivation? What will I be able to produce under those conditions? I have no idea.

Seventeen years ago, I went away for a solo retreat for a weekend. At that point in my life, what I most needed was for no one to touch me for 48 hours. I literally had to wean the baby in order to go away. The writing was just a serendipitous byproduct. But my life has changed ever since. And that baby is 19 years old now.

One of the things people keep telling me is not to have too high of expectations for myself in this sabbatical season. To not feel like I have to fill it with any particular kind of productivity or to set too concrete of a goal. That has been helpful advice.

But I am trying to establish the conditions for creative output to be possible.

I am trying to leave margins of time and energy to do what feels right in the moment.

To seek God's guidance in each day, each moment. And then to follow that guidance wherever or however it may lead.

• • •

This is the way.

That would be enough.

Amen.

Un Salmo de Robin, 25 julio 2020

"Un Salmo de Robin" fue escrito el 25 julio 2020 como un ejercicio durante un retiro contemplativo de escribir nuestro propio salmo, utilizando nuestras oraciones sencillas, oraciones de nuestro corazón. La traducción en ingles esta abajo.

Querido Dios,

Ayúdame a que los dichos de mi boca y la meditación de mi corazón sean los mismos.

Reconozco que en tu creación somos tan minúscula como una montaña y tan magnifico como una brizna de hierba.

Pero en nuestra tierra, el mundo llora.

La justicia atrasada es justicia negada. Aun la pandemia no puede detener el progreso de la justicia. Pero ruego su misericordia con los que estamos vigilando nuestros muertos a solas. La raza humana no fue creada para la vida solitaria, sino una vida solidaria.

AMOR, me has creado para esto? ¿Para un tiempo así? Ayúdame a escuchar el susurro de tu voz y que la dejo guiar mi voluntad y mis pasos.

Mi pueblo adoptivo son los Cuáqueros. Con sus antecedentes heróicos y pecaminosos. No puedo asumir el uno sin el otro. Y me has llamado a servir a través de ellos. ¿Quieres que siga haciendo lo mismo? ¿Que estoy apoyando a los Cuáqueros a conocerse unos a otros? Que estoy creando espacio para los demás líderes a tomar sus puestos? ¿Vale la pena trabajar en la viña del Señor en una época así? En vez de la política de mi país?

Me contestas que sí. Para sostener a los que van a cambiar el mundo. Al socorro de tus labradores. Obedezco.

Ayúdame a construir con mis esfuerzos y nuestros Amigos una rampa de acceso para los que han escuchado tu voz y quieren hacer mejor pero que no saben como empezar ni para cual puerta entrar ni salir.

Ayúdame a recordar que no soy separada de ellos, ni los heridos ni los que hieren a su prójimo.

Ayúdame a crear un espacio para hablar de los verdaderos anhelos de nuestros corazones. Ayúdame a escuchar más que hablar. Que no dejo pasar la oportunidad de hacer lo necesario. De hacer lo justo. AMOR, hasta cuándo?

Aunque sigo agradecida por lo que me has brindado.

Ayúdame a no dejar de ser la mujer de mi marido, la madre de mis hijos, la dueña de mi casa, vestida de sencillez y justicia, mujer hacendosa. Reconozco la enseñanza de mis padres para cuidar de mi casa y enseñar a mis hijos. Agradezco la enseñanza de la universidad que no me libra de limpiar mi propia cocina pero no tengo que limpiar las cocinas de otras. Agradezco que me has proveído un hombre hecho y derecho, mi ayuda idónea, quien merece mi confianza y apoya a mi ministerio. Quien se acerca a mi con cariño y me hace reir. Señor del AMOR, ayuda a tod@s a encontrar la ayuda idónea para ell@s. Ayúdame a no despreciar el ministerio en mi junta local a favor de cualquier ministerio global o de aclamación mundana para no olvidar lo tedioso y lo precioso que es la comunidad cotidiana, que es la placa petri de la vida espiritual.

Ayúdame a hacer lo que está en mis manos por el bien de los días que me han tocado vivir, extirpando el mal en los campos y las calles que conozco, y dejando a los que vendrán después una tierra limpia para la labranza.

Y siempre, que no sea como yo quiero, AMOR, sino como tú quieras.


This was written as part of a contemplative retreat exercise to write our own psalm, using our own simple prayers of the heart.. Here is the translation:

A Psalm of Robin, July 25, 2020

Dear God,

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be the same.

I know that in your creation, we are as miniscule as mountains and as magnificent as a blade of grass.

But in our land, the world cries out.

Justice delayed is justice denied. Even the pandemic cannot stop the progress of justice. But I ask your mercy upon those of us who are mourning alone. The human race was not created for a solitary life, but for solidarity.

LOVE, is this what I was made for? For a time such as this? Help me to hear the whisper of your voice and to let that guide my will and my steps.

You know the Quakers are my adopted people, with both their heroic and their sinful past. I cannot take on one without the other. And you have called me to serve through them. Do you really want me to keep doing the same thing? Supporting Quakers to get to know each other? Creating spaces for other leaders to take their places? Is it really worth laboring in the vineyard of the Lord at a time like this? Instead of the politics of my country?

I hear the answer is yes. I am called to support those who are going to change the world. To succour your laborers. Got it.

Help me to build, with my own efforts and these our Friends, an access ramp for those who have heard your voice and want to do better but who do not know how to start or which door to come in or go out. Help me to remember that I am not separate from the others, neither the wounded nor those who wound their neighbor.

Help me create spaces where we can talk about real things, the true longings of our hearts. Help me to listen more than I talk. May I not miss any opportunity to do what is necessary. To do what is right. LOVE, how long?

Still, I’m grateful for all I have received.

LOVE, may I not fail to be the wife of my husband, the mother of my children, the mistress of my house, dressed in simplicity and righteousness, known as a capable woman. I will remember the lessons from my parents so I can care for my home and teach my children. I will appreciate the university education that doesn't stop me from cleaning my own kitchen but spares me from cleaning other people’s kitchens. I am grateful that you have provided me with a man of integrity, a worthy helpmeet, who merits my trust and supports my ministry, who cares for me with gentleness and makes me laugh. LOVE, may everyone find the worthy and willing helpmeet that is right for them. Help me not to forgo ministry in my local meeting in favor of any global ministry or worldly acclaim so as not to forget how tedious and how precious is our everyday community, which is the petri dish of the spiritual life.

Help me to do what is in me for the succour of those years wherein I am set, uprooting the evil in the fields and the streets that I know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.

And always, not my will, LOVE, but yours.

My 3 Words for 2018

This is still my favorite way to approach New Year’s resolutions and some reflection on the year behind me. This process is from Chris Brogan. You can read about the discernment process and his 3 words for 2018 on his blog. You can search for the hashtag #my3words to see other people’s takes on it. You can read my 3 words for 2017 and find links to the years before that on my blog.

My three words for 2017 were Slow, Teach, Ask. I feel like I made progress in all three areas, so that is something. And I specifically referenced these intentions in my mind throughout the year, to help me choose my words and my commitments and my actions. Which is the point. And it was easy to tell other people my words because they were both simple and cryptic. Most of Brogan’s 3 words choices fit that model. Each single syllable word holds a wealth of meaning and serves as a touchstone for a profound intention.

This year, I’m going to buck that tradition and use the longer words that baldly mean what I mean.

Family, Intellectual, Marketing. 

Family, because this year is going to require more engagement with my extended family than before. My parents are aging and my sister is bearing most of the burden because I live so far away. So I am acknowledging how much positive love and support I have been given by my parents and committing to be more present and more helpful in the coming year.

Intellectual, because I really enjoyed the writing and reading and talking to academic people I did in 2017. I want to push myself to find more opportunities for thinking and writing and talking to people about ideas in the coming year. Most of my non-work reading in the last dozen years has been young adult fantasy and adventure fiction, following my tween and teen kids. (Part of my standing commitment to be able to have conversations with them about the things they are interested in.) But I remember now that I want to read to challenge my brain, not just to comfort or distract myself. And I want to push myself to articulate my ideas clearly and completely. And to write for a wider audience.

Marketing is all about my paid work. This last year, I took an online course with Seth Godin, the first cohort of The Marketing Seminar. It helped me in so many ways. What do you do? Who is it for? What change are you trying to make? How do people who need us learn that we have what they need? How do we delight the people we serve? This coming year, I want to address more straightforwardly the challenges for FWCC, which all have a marketing component. And I don’t want to waste time looking for new words that mean the same things as marketing technical terms but sound spiritual. Plain speaking is still a Quaker value.

As I look at this, these are my personal intentions for improvements in 2018. And as always, I try to remember that what I truly desire to do is not my will, but thine, O Lord.

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.

My 25th Quaker Anniversary

Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

God.

God who?

?

What do mean, God who? Your Creator. The plan for the rest of your life, The Ground of All Being. 

God who?! I tell ya, kids these days...

Today is actually the 25th anniversary of my first Quaker meeting. I know it is today because the first time was in 1991, on the weekend of the Michigan-Notre Dame football game, in Ann Arbor.

That’s more than half of my life now. It almost didn’t happen.

Twenty-five years ago, I had just graduated from college. I spent the summer working on campus, awaiting my internship with the Fourth World Movement to begin in October. One day in early September, the head of the department said to me, “You’re interested in the University of Michigan for graduate school, right?” I said yes, maybe, sort of. She offered me her plane ticket for that weekend because she was sick and couldn’t go to some professional meeting in Ann Arbor. Another professor in the department suggested I could stay with her in-laws who lived there. I worked up the courage to call these people and ask and they said yes, I could stay with them for the weekend. I tried calling different departments, and didn’t get any answers, but I decided to go anyway. (This was before the internet was accessible to folks like me.)

On Friday morning, I woke up late because something was wrong with my alarm clock. I nearly gave up, but a housemate suggested I call the airline right then and see if they could reschedule me on a later flight. Turned out, if I left right then, there was a chance I could catch the next flight from DC-Detroit. I got all dressed up and took my briefcase, hoping I could pass as "Dr. Beth Soldo." (This was back in the days when you didn’t usually have to show ID at the airport.)

In Ann Arbor, I finally realized why none of the professors had returned my calls. It was the weekend of the Big Game and students were rioting in the streets. On Saturday morning, I walked into a dress shop and my eyes started watering. The saleslady said it was probably the lingering tear gas that had been used the night before to get the students to go home. The university was closed down and most of the professors were out of town.

On the Saturday night, Mary, the lady I was staying with, asked me if I would like to go with them to Quaker meeting on Sunday morning. She was very nice; I didn’t have any other plans, and I had been on a spiritual search for some time. So I said yes.

On the bedside table in their guest room was a little book, “The Faith and Practice of the Quakers” by somebody I’d never heard of (Rufus Jones). I decided to quickly read a little bit so I would know what I was getting myself into. I was intrigued. The book said that Quakers believed in non-violence, simplicity of life, and the equality of women, including preaching in worship. And their whole central practice was about listening to God. Not just for the radical fringe, but for everyone.

In the morning, Phil (Mary’s husband) said he had decided not to go to meeting that morning because he was getting ready for an audit by the IRS. I said something sympathetic and he said, “It’s okay. It’s happened before.” I was shocked. Audited more than once? That seemed terrible, I hadn’t heard of that before.

So anyway, I went to Quaker meeting, and I had a profound experience in worship and a good time at coffee hour, and I was hooked.

When I got back to DC, I looked for the nearest Quaker meeting and found that I lived within walking distance of the meetinghouse. Which was a good thing because there was no bus that could get me there early enough on a Sunday morning. I had actually been near it many times, but if you’ve ever been to Friends Meeting of Washington, you know it’s on this little side street and you’d never know it was there unless you were looking for it on purpose.

From then on, I discovered that I could get up on Sunday mornings with no problem. And I’ve never really looked back. Other stories have come and gone in my relationship with meeting for worship, but I’m still going, pretty much every week, and sometimes more often than that.

Also, when I got back to DC, I mentioned to my co-worker that I felt badly for her in-laws, what with being audited repeatedly and all that. She laughed and said, “Oh, it happens every year. They are war tax resisters and so they don’t pay their taxes and the IRS comes and takes it from them anyway.” That was the first I had heard of such a thing.

A few months later, I was a regular attender at 15th Street Meeting in New York City, and dating another attender. :-) One day I was in the little library/bookstore at the front of the meetinghouse. I have the idea that I was just standing inside to get out of the cold. But at least I was browsing the shelves while I was standing there. I happened to notice the surname of the couple I had stayed with in Ann Arbor on the back of one of the books. I looked more closely and sure enough, it was the same: Phillips Moulton, the editor of John Woolman’s Journal. My brush with Quaker fame, and I didn’t even know it. Later that year, I wrote them a second thank you note to thank them for taking me to meeting for the first time and changing my life forever. For them, it was just a simple, natural gesture of hospitality. One of many, I am sure.

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.

My three words for 2015

The end/beginning of the year is a great time to find people reflecting on their lives and writing about their commitments. This morning, I was grateful to read Bono’s A-Z reflections on 2014. Most of the buzz is about his bike accident and his broken arm. But I was personally struck by his quote from Nietzsche, that “to do something great requires ‘a long obedience in the same direction’.”

This is probably the big lesson for my life right now.

For five years now, I’ve been inspired by Chris Brogan’s “My Three Words” exercise. I haven’t always written about it on this blog, but some years I have. http://robinmsf.blogspot.com/search?q=my+three+words

This year my three words are: True, Sustainable, Brave

True
I want to be true to my word. More reliable, dependable, consistent. And this means I have to be more honest with myself and others about what I can and can’t do.

And I want to stay true to the vision I have for my life and for the Religious Society of Friends, like carpenters use the word true, like Peggy Senger Morrison’s metaphor of God’s Love as a plumb line.

Sustainable
I have to keep seeking ways to make my life and my work sustainable. Managing my time, my energy, my resources, my happiness, to hold up over the long haul.

Life is not a sprint. Building a family (marriage, kids, aging parents, etc) and homemaking is a long term project. Being a real part of a local meeting is not something I can put off indefinitely. Taking time for health care and mental and physical strength building and stretching are necessary along the way, not just “when this [day, week, month, year, event…] is over.”

My job is not a sprint. Did you know that, at 3 and a half years, this is already the longest I have ever held a single job? And now I’m in the process of making plans for the next five years, not for my departure in the next six months or anything like that. It’s a little scary, and I’ve realized it means I can’t run flat out for the next three years. I’ve been working on this balance for the last eight months or so, but I have a long way to go to figure out how to do the best I can for as long as it takes.

And this word also leads to thinking about the world, and fossil fuels, and social justice, and what is possible in my lifetime and the long-term prospects for life on Earth.

Brave
I want to have the courage of my convictions, to lead confidently when that is my responsibility and opportunity, to do scary things when that’s my job (at home or at work), to finish things and say they’re done for better or worse, instead of letting them wobble on. I want to have the courage to admit my mistakes and correct course, and to say no when the opportunity is not right. And I want to encourage other people to be brave, about following their leadings, about telling me the truth, and encouraging others in their turn.

All of these will require the grace of God, and Jesus as an example to follow and as the Consoler, as I move forward, day by day and moment by moment, this year and for as long as I may live.  

So what are your three words for 2015?

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.

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.

Who's gonna fill their shoes?

George Jones died this last week. Many country music singers said George was the one they admired most. But back in the early 1980s he wrote a song about all the singers he looked up to, called "Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes?"

Who's gonna fill their shoes?
Who's gonna stand up tall?
Who's gonna play the Opry and the Wabash Cannonball?
Who's gonna give their heart and soul to get to me and you?
Lord, I wonder, who's gonna fill their shoes?

Last week I thought a lot about leadership. I found a 35 year old report on leadership in the Religious Society of Friends that could have been written last month. Same issues have been going on for at least that long. Lack of trust, lack of shared vision, need for divine guidance and human accountability, unclear relationships between individuals, monthly meetings/churches and larger institutions...

Some of the solutions the report suggested would still be functional. One of the problems with not having enough leadership is that good solutions don’t get implemented.


I've been thinking about that this week, and about the legacy of Rufus Jones, and about Sheryl Sandberg's new book, Lean In, and the idolatry of heroes, and the right balance of a well-lived life.

So Rufus Jones (1863-1948) is one of my heroes. He did so many things in his lifetime. He helped Friends and others to reconcile modern science and religious faith, to remember that Christian faith requires us to be active in the world, not just pious in a sterile meetinghouse, and he worked for peace and reconciliation within the Religious Society of Friends and in the wider world. That story you've heard about the Quakers who went to Germany to try to convince the Gestapo to let the Jews go? Yeah, Rufus Jones was one of them. And he was a great storyteller.

He also tried to rewrite Quaker history to show a direct connection to the mystical tradition in Europe that was not justified. He spoke every. single. time. and at great length in meeting for worship at Haverford College, for which he was mocked by students. In the last week, I've heard people criticize both his emphasis on mysticism without conversion of life and his emphasis on works over the transcendent. And I've heard he was a terrible driver. A man of giant gifts, giant vision and giant mistakes. That's okay, he is still one of my heroes. I think it's a form of idolatry to expect that our heroes must be perfect in every way. But who could possibly fill his shoes?


When I wrote a post in 2010 about all the imminent turnover in Quaker organizations, I wondered, "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?" And then I responded, "I continue to reflect on these questions and where I might feel called to serve. I think that some of us need to step up to the plate."  As I look around almost three years later, of the 20 or so organizations I can think of that changed leaders, all of them found adequate applicants. About a quarter of them chose people younger than 50, and almost half chose women.  I've met most of them and I have confidence that they are willing to take on hard work and move in new and vibrant directions. But I can tell you that none of those people feels adequate to fill Rufus Jones's shoes.

Rufus Jones wrote something like 57 books and gave thousands of speeches all over the world. [Including these two that I love: The Vital Cell, 1941, and What Will Get Us Ready? 1944] I can barely write a blogpost once a month. But before I get too caught up in comparing myself to him, I have to remind myself that he had a wife, and a housekeeper, and a driver, and probably a series of typists to help him out. He wasn't cleaning his own bathroom. He probably never changed a diaper. Times have changed and there are limits to how much he can serve as a role model for me

Still, this brings me to considering how I am stepping up to the plate in my world. If you haven't heard one of Sheryl Sandberg's talks or read her book, you can go to her new website, www.LeanIn.org. She is encouraging women to take professional risks, to push for a seat at the table at work and for equality at home, to not give up on their careers just because it's so damn hard when your kids are little. It's controversial, as important conversations are. For me, it helps to articulate it that I have leaned in hard this last couple of years. And I have been supported at home, and in my meetings, and by many Friends. But is it enough? Am I doing enough? Or doing it well enough?

I like to think that I am not aiming to be as famous or influential as Rufus Jones, but I am working on being as faithful to the calling I have, to live up to the Light that I have been given. Leaning in hard can still look undramatic and unheroic. I suspect that Rufus Jones did aim to be dramatic and heroic and that's one of the things that annoyed people. How is that different from singers giving their heart and soul to get to me and you?

Is it wrong to have ambition to be faithful on a large scale?

Well, at meeting on Sunday, I asked God that question. (One of the things I forever appreciate about unprogrammed Quaker meetings is the opportunity to bring my inarticulate mess to God in prayer. I don't have it all figured out, and that's okay. I can just hold my swirling questions in the Light. And sometimes there's an answer. Not a booming voice from beyond the ceiling, but a quiet knowing of something new.) And the answer went like this, "So what are you doing for those who will come after you?" Huh? I'm the one who is looking for role models, and instead I'm being asked to be one. Not by any actual younger people, mind you, just by God. Darn. Now what?

Rufus Jones, for all his foibles, was strongly committed to encouraging and supporting younger generations, and they loved him for it. The two speeches I cited above were both given to Young Adult Friends, at their invitation, when he was about 80 years old. Perhaps I can aspire to be like him in this regard and let go of the temptation to try to be like him in other ways.

I can still give my heart and soul for the Religious Society of Friends. Thy will, Lord, not mine.

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.

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.

Vision

Without vision, the people perish. Mostly because they get eaten by tigers they didn't see coming.
Isn't that a joke from Calvin & Hobbes?

I've been thinking a lot about vision lately. Mostly because I just got glasses. I have developed astigmatism and nearsightedness in my mid-forties. I was prepared at this point in life to go to the drugstore and get a pair of reading glasses. Instead I need prescription corrective lenses to be able to read the clock from across my kitchen.

So I've spent a lot of the last two months taking them off and putting them on again, testing my vision. Looking at things under and over and around my glasses, as I become aware of what they do better and where they don't work in my range of vision. Pretty soon I'm going to need bifocals to be able to adjust, because now that the astigmatism is fixed, I'm noticing that I do have to hold my paper at arm's length to be able to see what I'm writing more clearly. The doctor warned me that as my eyes stop straining so hard to focus all the time it would seem like my vision was getting worse. Really, it's just that my eyes aren't trying as hard to make up for their defects. So I don't see as well but I'm not making my brain as tired as it would have been either. And these days, my brain is getting plenty tired working on the other kind of vision anyway.

Part of my job as the new Executive Secretary of the Friends World Committee for Consultation - Section of the Americas is to articulate a new and compelling vision of the purpose and function of FWCC. One of the first set of tasks was to establish more clarity around our financial situation. Another set of tasks is preparing for the World Conference, including envisioning what will come out of the 6WC and how can we at FWCC be supportive of the movement of the Holy Spirit among Friends in the coming year?

I'm reminded of the place in Paul's letter to the Corinthians where he says, now we see as in a mirror, dimly, but then [in God's kingdom] we will see clearly. And if you think about the quality of mirrors in Paul's day, which were just polished metal, you'll better understand how dim he thinks we are.

Some days, I too feel like I'm surrounded by fog and molasses. Can't see far, can't move fast. John Woolman has a story about being in a swamp and having to stand still until he can find the next stepping stone. I know that feeling.

But it's not always like that. Sometimes, I have flashes of clarity and insight and farsightedness and I know where I'm going and how to get there. Those are the stepping stones I cling to and my sense of God's guidance is palpable. I believe God sends the vision, and it's my job to use my practical gifts (like math and planning and listening skills) to move along the path.

I'm realizing that when I see clearly, in a prophetic sense, not just with my glasses on, I am already in the Kingdom. It's not just for after we die. The Kingdom is among us. Some people see more clearly, more often, already. All of us see that clearly sometimes. Quakers everywhere need to pay attention to those moments of clear seeing and use them to inform our plain speaking.

I'm working on paying more attention when I'm seeing clearly and then being more bold in speaking my truth, in claiming the force of my vision, in inviting people to see things my way. The head of another Quaker organization put it this way: when you are the executive director, you have been given the opportunity to see things from a different perspective, in all directions.  The key is learning how to communicate to others how, if they were in your seat, they'd see these things and that would help them understand why you're suggesting this action.

I'm still learning how to balance my vision with committee process. That's probably a lifetime's work, and I won't pretend that I've got it right yet. But I also worry whether Quakers are ready for leaders with vision. Will we continue to cut them down, like Tall Poppies? Is there room for someone like me to make mistakes without failing completely?

I would love to hear a) any stories of Quaker leaders & committees/organizations that have functioned well together past or present or b) advice on how you or someone you know have successfully navigated this pathway and what tools (spiritual or practical) you think are useful.

Because the world is hungry for what Friends have to offer. All the Friends, together. At our best, we live and work out of a dynamic tension, a paradox of faith and practice, of contemplation and action, of usefulness today and for the future, and I want to be part of bringing that forth, being the best we can be and giving the world what it needs. That is what FWCC is for. I am honored to be part of it. It needs the best I can give it. I need all the help I can get.

[In the comments, I don't really want to hear all the stories of how badly leaders have been treated in the past or currently, thank you very much. I know enough of those already. I will delete whiny comments, at my sole discretion and with no apologies.]

Wisdom for 2012

Since the mid 90's I’ve tried to choose one word for the year: whatever virtue or practice I felt I needed to work on. One year it was “patience;” one year it was "breathe," another year it was “balance.” Some years I even had a whole set of resolutions: 2009 2008

Then I discovered the Chris Brogan Three Words of the Year meme:  In 2010 my three words were Faith, Farm, and Finish.

But 2011 was so chaotic there was no way to have a clear intention for the year. It was all I could do not to drown in the waves of change. At the beginning of the year, I didn’t know what I wanted to be true at the end of the year. At the end, the waves of change continue to roll in, but now I feel like I’m better able to keep my head above water as they come.

For 2012, I have chosen four words. Wisdom, serenity, courage, discipline. In that order. And the most important is discipline.

I think I always need to pray for wisdom. To see the truth, to know the right thing to do. That takes all the help I can get.

Second is to accept and let go of the things that are not in my bailiwick, not in my job description, not in my sphere of influence. To not spend time fretting over the things I can not change, at least not right now.

Third is to be bold. To claim my path and strike out for the change I want to see in the world. To have faith that help will come.

But fourth is discipline. To follow through, even when it's boring. To act when I know the right thing to do, even when it's scary. Which is a lot of the time in my life. I am grateful to know I am not the first to not do the thing I most want to, or to do that which I do not want. From Paul of Tarsus to Howard Thurman, I am in good company.Or bad company, as the case may be. But I can do better than I have done. I can set up the structures that help me practice. And this is one of those practices that never ends, like physical exercise.

Here's to a faithful 2012!

So what do you actually do?

New acquaintance: So what do you actually do in your job?
Me: That's a good question. 

It's funny. I think it's a good sign that I've gotten better at explaining who/what FWCC is without overloading people so that they're not afraid to ask another question. The first question is usually more like this:

New acquaintance: What is the, um, Friends World Committee for Consultation-Section of the Americas?
Me: We are the association of Quaker meetings and churches from Alaska to Bolivia. 

That's my soundbite version. I can say it all in one breath and people understand all the words, even if they don't know anything else about Quakers or what that involves.

Lately, I am inspired by the name of one of our projects that I think encapsulates what we do. Our new website with information about the various branches of Friends and short writings by Quakers on a variety of topics is called Voices of Friends. From my perspective, FWCC is all about helping Friends to listen to one another's voices, helping the outside world to hear the voices of Friends, and helping each of us to hear the voice of God in our own hearts and in the words and actions of other people (and the rest of God's creation). I want to use this imagery more in describing our work.

I'm curious whether this makes sense to other Friends, and whether this connects to what you thought FWCC was/is or not?

So what do I actually do there? My new short answer is that my job is part minister and part manager. A lot of religious education, a little pastoral counseling, some office management, the fundraising and accounting to sustain it all, some P.R. work and some institutional politics, and mostly volunteer organizing (in more religious terms, I call this helping to connect people with their own ministries).

I am considering Brent Bill's suggestion of using released minister as a descriptive title. He was suggesting it for the paid pastoral staff of a local Quaker congregation. Wess Daniels wrote about his adoption of the term in that context. I wonder if it's just as useful in my situation as well. I'm not actually suggesting that we change the title on my business card, which is Executive Secretary, and generally makes people think I'm the admin assistant to the CEO. That would require a different process that I don't have time for right now.

I'm more considering how it feels like I have been released to do the work I really want to do, and that my work is to minister to the whole Religious Society of Friends. The job description isn't very well defined, but essentially I am paid enough to concentrate on the RSoF at the international, inter-branch level, which is always, of course, also at the inter-personal level.  (For anyone who cares, I'm not actually paid enough to support a family without my spouse also working, but it's about average for a non-profit organization with our budget size.)

Part of the reason that the job is hard to define, as any minister or pastor or executive director knows, is that the work shifts and flows over time and space and needs and opportunities and expands to fill all the time and energy you can give it, plus some. The real reason I do it isn't the money, it's the joy and love and excitement I feel at being part of the infrastructure of the RSoF, part of holding it all together and equipping other people to be the Quakers we need in today's world. I would do this work for free, except that if I wasn't getting paid to do this, I'd have to find another job to support my family and then I wouldn't have time to do this work. (See half my blogposts from the last three years if you want to know how well that went. Especially here and here.)

So I am very grateful to have this opportunity to focus on this work. And to do it from a vantage point with systems already in place to implement the work that needs to be done. We don't need more organizations. We need the ones we have to do the work that God is calling us to do, even if that includes a faithful betrayal of the people who came before us.

In the Christian tradition, we are supposedly all released to follow this calling. I think this is part of salvation and being born again. At this point, I'm hearing Bob Dylan in my head, are you? Any day now...

More soon about balancing motherhood and ministry. But that's another blogpost.

Making Choices

Ain’t that always the kicker? So many choices, so little time. And yet God only asks us to do our part, not everything under the sun. Everything is in God’s job description, not mine. So which part is mine? That’s the hardest to start with.

On my list of balancing acts, there’s:

• Family time and work time
• Writing time and talking time (and which category does Facebook fall in?)
• Travel time (and money) and office/home time
• Internal work processes and external relationships
• Clearing out old stuff and getting started on new stuff
• Raising money and doing program work
• About twelve different current work projects
• About six new projects I’d like to be doing

I want to be involved in my children’s lives while they are growing up. I want to still be married in 30 years, not just in name but in love. I want to be a woman who still cleans her own bathroom, or at least takes her turn emptying the dishwasher and running the laundry. It is important to me not to get so caught up in the academic and political aspects of my job that I fail to be connected to the real life of people on Earth.

I see more clearly the practical organizational development tasks that need to be done in my office. Not exciting, most of the time, but necessary to build the strong foundation for the organization to thrive. Nothing at crisis level, but they still take more time than you think.

I see the changes taking place in the Religious Society of Friends and I want to ride off in six directions at once. The renewed life of the Spirit among South American Friends. The continuing outpouring of energy and ministry among young adult Friends in many places at once. The re-shuffling of the deck of Midwestern Quaker meetings. The new crop of heads of Quaker organizations.

I want to be up-to-date and informed, I want to have a broad and historical perspective, I want to be involved, I want to be helpful, and darnit, I can’t do everything and be everywhere. Not all at once, even though it feels like everything is happening at once.

I’m praying a lot about this, but at some point I just have to make my own decisions. I believe that God is with me, comforting and guiding and hoping for the best from me, but I don’t really expect the wet fleece/dry fleece kind of signs about any of my decisions. Maybe that’s just a lack of faith on my part? No, I think it’s more to do with God’s faith in me to do the right thing.

So what is helping?

Making lists. Seeing that I can fit all the options I’m considering onto one page, even if I have to write small, helps.

Knowing that I can’t do everything at once. Accepting that choices will be made, consciously or sub-consciously, and that it’s better to make them upfront rather than recognize and rue them after the fact, makes it easier to say no sooner.

Taking time out to walk, swim, sleep, laugh and read juvenile fiction are all helpful. I probably haven’t done enough of these in the last month and I’m starting to feel the ill effects of that.

Hearing myself talk helps. Sometimes telling someone else about the options helps me to hear which way I’m leaning.

Asking for advice and input. Many of the choices in my life are not just mine to make. My family has their own opinions. My co-workers have a lot of valuable experience and insight. The huge network of representatives and committee members and friends of FWCC all have a role to play in our priority setting process.

Asking for help, not just because I need the help, but because other people are yearning to be of service, to carry out the ministry and use the gifts that God has given them. Whether that’s a gift of display making, or accounting, or translation, or money to give away, or committee clerking, the RSoF is richly blessed with people who want to help. A big part of my job will be helping to connect people with their ministries.

So, what do you do when faced with new choices to make and new resources to direct?

How are we, as the Religious Society of Friends, in all our diverse glory and painful divisions, going to make the choices that will affect our future?

Which Bible stories do you find to be the most relevant to all the choices I’m facing? I really need help with that, so if you have suggestions, please leave a comment or contact me one way or another.