Robinopedia: Fourth World

This is not Quaker jargon. It describes people who are excluded from society because of their poverty. The term has roots in the French Revolution. It was taken up by a group of families in France in the late 1950's, along with their priest and some friends, who began to assert their right to exist and to be known.

It is associated with the International Fourth World Movement (ATD Quart Monde).

The Fourth World Movement was founded by Father Joseph Wresinski, (1917-1988) a French priest whose parents had been Spanish and Polish refugees after the first world war. His experience of returning to serve “his people” has inspired three generations already of people from all over the world to leave their people and join the movement in reaching into the world of poverty and accompanying people out of it. My favorite of his books is called Blessed Are You the Poor, an explanation of the Gospels from the point of view of the poor people in it and of the poor people who surrounded Father Joseph all of his life. Among his revolutionary ideas are

• all human beings have a right to enjoy and to create their culture
• families who live in extreme poverty are the real experts in how to fight poverty and that the rest of us must learn from them how to support them in their on-going efforts
• we can and must all reach out to those who are less fortunate and more excluded than ourselves.

Father Joseph gathered together a growing number of people who came to see and then to help. The first volunteers were English, Dutch and French. They were Roman Catholic, Anglican and atheist. Part of their work was to model the possibility that different people could live and work together, and learn from each other. These volunteers eventually formed the basis of the Fourth World Movement permanent volunteer corps

I was a Fourth World volunteer from 1991-1994. I was drawn by the simplicity and commitment of their life together, by the opportunity to learn from people who had been Fourth World Volunteers for 5, 10, 20 years already, by their radical understanding of the life and spirit of the poor. I sometimes think of those three years as my graduate degree in working with the poor.

“Le volontaire, lui, ne monnaye pas son intelligence, ses richesses, son coeur; il ne fait pas payer ses forces physiques. Il les donne en echange de cette communion profonde. …

“Je ne crois pas que nous puissions faire quelque chose contre la misere, si nous n’avons pas le temps, si nous n’acceptons pas le facteur temps. …

“C’est bien d’ascetisme qu’il s’agit, d’une espece de purification de soi par l’abandon de bien des choses. Il s’agit d’une constraint spirituelle pour ceux qui ont la foi, d’une constrainte sentimentale, aussi, pour ceux qui acceptent l’ascetisme en lui donnant une dimension essentiellement humaine – je dirais : merveilleusement humaine. …

“Jesus Christ a ete l’homme de las misere et, a travers les siecles, des hommes ont cherche, eux aussi, a affirmer par une vie de pauvre que c’est seulement dans le depouillement et le don total de soi, dans le respect du temps et la gratuite authentique, que nous pouvons arracher la misere du coeur des hommes. …< “Sachez aussi que, face a la misere, personne n’est jamais temoin, seul. Nous sommes temoins dans une equipe, dans une communaute. Comme tous ceux qui ont cree des communautes pauvres comme un temoignage de pauvrete au milieu de leur monde, pour affirmer que la misere de leurs freres etait un mal inadmissible, vous aussi, vous faites partie d’une communaute, vous en etes, pour un temps, un chainon. …”

I could type in endlessly quotes from Father Joseph that have moved my heart, my feet, my hands, my pocketbook. And continue to entrance me.

Today, February 14, 2008, is the 20^th anniversary of his death.

Inscribed in the Trocadero Plaza near the Eiffel Tower in 1987:

"Là où des hommes sont condamnés à vivre dans la misère, les droits de l'homme sont violés. S'unir pour les faire respecter c'est un devoir sacré."

(Wherever men and women are condemned to live in extreme poverty, human rights are violated. To come together to ensure that these rights be respected is our solemn duty.)

Robinopedia: Plain

“For 350 years Quakers have been living out of a spiritual center in a way of life they call “plain living.”

Catherine Whitmire, in my favorite resource on plainness, Plain Living: A Quaker Path to Simplicity Sorin Books, 2001.

Plain living is not always uncomplicated. It is not just “simplicity” although that is a word more commonly used among Friends today.

“It may surprise some of us to hear that the first generation of Friends did not have a testimony for simplicity. They came upon a faith which cut to the root of the way they saw life, radically reorienting it. They saw that all they did must flow directly from what they experienced as true, and that if it did not, both the knowing and the doing became false. In order to keep the knowledge clear and the doing true, they stripped away anything which seemed to get in the way. They called those things superfluities, and it is this radical process of stripping for clear-seeing which we now term simplicity.”

Frances Irene Taber, 1985, as quoted in Whitmire, p.21.

“Outwardly, simplicity is shunning superfluities of dress, speech, behavior, and possessions, which tend to obscure our vision of reality. Inwardly, simplicity is spiritual detachment from the things of this world as part of the effort to fulfill the first commandment: to love God with all of the heart and mind and strength. The testimony of outward simplicity began as a protest against the extravagance and snobbery which marked English society in the 1600's. In whatever forms this protest is maintained today, it must still be seen as a testimony against involvement with things which tend to dilute our energies and scatter our thoughts, reducing us to lives of triviality and mediocrity. Simplicity does not mean drabness or narrowness but is essentially positive, being the capacity for selectivity in one who holds attention on the goal. Thus simplicity is an appreciation of all that is helpful toward living as children of the Living God.”

North Carolina Yearly Meeting (conservative), 1983,as quoted in Whitmire, p. 23-24.

For me personally, plain dress includes solid colors, solid construction and practical fabrics. It does not preclude any particular colors but it does not include any superfluous details, from jewelry to lapels or patterns. My personal standard of modesty probably owes more to my mother's example than any religious convictions. Plain dress requires fair labor standards and sustainable resources. It is a standard I aspire to, not a goal I have achieved.

Martin Kelley maintains an online list of resources for historical plain dress as does Quaker Jane. I am not called to historical accuracy.

Plain for me includes a gold wedding band – one marriage, one lifelong commitment. Not a multiplicity of romantic entanglements, although I had my share before I was married.

Plain living for me means moderate consumption of food, drink, housing, clothing, medicines, and other resources. It includes healthful and fun recreation.

I have a scruple regarding the consumption of alcoholic beverages, not as a historical relic, but because I find the social use of alcohol to be inconsistent with the kinds of honest, intimate relationships I want to have with my family, my friends, and God.

Plain living precludes wagers, raffles and other forms of gambling.

Plain speech is hard for me, as I tend to entertain myself with hyperbole. Plain speech means truth telling, without obfuscation or evasion.

Plain living means living within our economic means, without debt. Plain living means limiting my volunteer and community service work as well as my paid employment so as to focus on God’s will.

"The simple life is one in which there is always time to remember the divine purpose behind each of our tasks, time to listen for a possible divine amendment to the day’s schedule, and time to be thankful for the divine presence at each moment of the day.”

Lloyd Lee Wilson, Essays on the Quaker Vision of Gospel Order, 1993, as quoted in Whitmire, p. 21.

Plain living requires seeking to share access to this peaceful life with all of humanity and all creation.

As with all robinopedia definitions/explanations, this is subject to change without notice.

Robinopedia: Meeting

In Quakerese, a meeting equals a church does not equal a meetinghouse does not equal a steeplehouse (i.e. a meeting is a group of people, not a building)

A Monthly Meeting is the local decision-making body holding authority for memberships and marriages. As might be expected, this group meets monthly to conduct business in the manner of Friends.

A Yearly Meeting is a grouping of Monthly Meetings, is sometimes divided into Quarterly Meetings, and has varying amounts of power and authority over Monthly Meetings. This authority varies by Yearly Meeting and by the century.

I belong to San Francisco Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. SFMM is part of College Park Quarterly Meeting and Pacific Yearly Meeting.

Robinopedia: PYM

I think I said this very early on my blog, but for folks who didn't happen to catch this last August, on my blog, PYM will refer to Pacfic Yearly Meeting. I know there are some folks who think this abbreviation belongs to Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, but they don't have a copyright on it, and on my blog, that august body will be referred to as PhYM. On other people's blogs, who might have reason to be confused, I will use the term PacYM to refer to my own yearly meeting.

Robinopedia: Lord

I've been wondering why I continue to use the word Lord to refer to God. It's awfully patriarchal. When I think about it, I don't; I say God or Spirit, or the Light within, or several names run together.

Some of it is just tradition, just what I'm used to. It's still in plenty of hymns, prayers, the Bible, historical Quaker writings. It's like when I was first married and I changed my last name. If I was thinking about my name, I would use my married name. But if I was thinking of something else, and tangentially referred to myself by name, I'd naturally use my old last name. I knew that was over forever when I recently looked for myself in my college yearbook, and caught myself looking in the M section. So some of it is just not thinking. But I think there's more to it.

Maybe it has to do with the idea that only God is Lord. No person, no man, not my father, not my husband, not my president, is my Lord. I am a free and independent adult human being, endowed by God, my Creator, with certain inalienable rights, as they say.

One of the interesting things I've been learning about the Bible is that Jesus had all this stuff to say about the king-dom of God - as opposed to the very real human kingdom where he and the folks he was preaching to lived. He said that it was human kings and lords that caused oppression, and that when and where God was king, things would be different. And that God's kingdom starts here and now if we believe in it and follow it.

Maybe this also has to do with the Quaker sense of discerning and submitting to God's will - to the orders of my only Lord.

I'm still not really comfortable with it, but I think I'll have to live with it a while longer.

Robinopedia: Convergent Friends

This is still my favorite phrase (so far) to describe the coming together of several strands of Quakerism. It describes Friends who are seeking a deeper understanding of our Quaker heritage and a more authentic life in the kingdom of God on Earth, radically inclusive of all who seek to live this life.

It includes, among others, Friends from the politically liberal end of the evangelical branch, the Christian end of the unprogrammed branch, and the more outgoing end of the Conservative branch. It includes folks who aren’t sure what they believe about Jesus and Christ, but who aren’t afraid to wrestle with this question. It includes people who think that a lot of Quaker anachronisms are silly but who are willing to experiment to see which are spiritual disciplines that still hold life and power to transform and improve us.

Metaphorically, it suggests that Friends are moving closer together towards some common point on the horizon. Put otherwise, I would say that the winds of the Spirit are blowing across all the branches of Friends, blowing us in the same direction. The convergence of Friends is a fuzzy, changing concept, not an example of pure mathematics or philosophy.

Linguistically, it alludes to an affinity for both Conservative Friends and the Emergent Church.

Many of these Friends owe a great deal to the work of Lloyd Lee Wilson and especially his book, Essays on the Quaker Vision of Gospel Order. I believe our Quaker history offers us the common ground we need to walk on now, in order to all reach a point of greater spiritual depth and commitment to social justice.

When I first suggested this term, it was just an experiment, an attempt to more efficiently name a trend that was happening around me. Since then, many more Friends have begun to consider what the term “convergent Friend” might mean to them. Some of them are communicating across vast distances of geography or institutional theology. Some of them are communicating across dinner tables, while consuming take-out pizza and home-made chocolate chip cookies.

Welcome to the conversation!


This definition was updated 03/28/07.

The original definition follows:

This is my favorite phrase (so far) to describe the coming together of several strands of Quakerism. It describes Friends who are seeking a deeper understanding of our Quaker heritage and a more authentic life in the kingdom of God on Earth, radically inclusive of all who seek to live this life. It includes, among others, Friends from the politically liberal end of the evangelical branch and from the Christian end of the unprogrammed branch.

Metaphorically, it suggests that Friends are moving closer together towards some common point on the horizon. Put otherwise, I would say that the winds of the Spirit are blowing across all the branches of Friends - blowing us in the same direction.

Linguistically, it alludes to an affinity for both Conservative Friends and the Emergent Church.

Many of these Friends owe a great deal to the work of Lloyd Lee Wilson and especially his book, Essays on the Quaker Vision of Gospel Order.

At the same time, this is really only my idea and I can not say that any other Friends that I would call by this name would accept this label. In keeping with the intention of the Robinopedia, I reserve the right to edit the definition at any time, without prior notice.

Robinopedia: marriage

For me, marriage means a monogamous, lifetime covenant between 2 people.

I believe that this is only possible by the grace of God.

I do not think the gender of the people involved really matters to God. I believe that the issues around same gender marriage are really a problem of the entanglement of church and state. I am proud to be a member of a religious body that has supported the right of gay and lesbian couples to be married amongst us since 1972.

My marriage vow: In the presence of God and these our friends, I Robin Elizabeth take thee Christopher Richard to be my husband, promising, with divine assistance, to be unto thee a loving and faithful wife as long as we both shall live.

Robinopedia

An occasional series of posts to define what I personally mean by certain terms, to which I may link in the future, so I don't have to use quite so many lengthy parenthetical phrases.

Like my own personal encyclopedia or wikipedia, I reserve the right to edit any of these posts at any time.