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?

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 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.

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.

Faith. Farm. Finish.

So as not to be left out of the blogging meme I like best at the moment, I have chosen not one but three words for 2010. Last year my word was balance. The year before that, it was discipline. I can’t remember anything before that.

This year, my three words are faith, farm and finish.

Faith:

This is to help me remember that I am enough. That we are enough. That God is enough. I believe, Lord, help thou my unbelief. (I've used this phrase before.)

Farm:

This word I stole brazenly from Chris Brogan’s Three Words for 2008, but the concept in my mind is largely from Rob Brezny. My horoscope from December 24, 2009, to be exact. (Aquarius. And occasional others in the past on the same theme.) The point is to keep going at the tedious little tasks that are necessary to any project. Like hoeing on a farm, or filing in an office, or sweeping the kitchen floor, or reminding my kids to use their napkin, not their sleeve. It just has to be done over and over, with little to show for it in the short term, but still essential to long term success.

Finish:

This is probably the most self-evident. The point is to keep at the little and big tasks until projects are actually complete, not just kind of close enough. But really finished. Basically, to wrap things up and not let them fester.

If I can hold onto these three concepts, in each area of my life, it will be a good year. Happy 2010 to all of you.

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!

Life After Oil

This interest group was the Unity with Nature related activity that I enjoyed the most. Topic doesn’t sound like fun to you? Well, I admit I was only mildly interested in the topic but I knew the leader would make it fun.

I think Carl Magruder, the leader of the interest group (formerly referred to here as C.), is one of the shining lights among younger Friends in my yearly meeting. Some Friends think he’s “preachy” (and I do quote). They’re right. He is preaching a gospel of sin and salvation: sin against Gaia Earth and calling people to admit we have sinned, ask forgiveness, and resolve to make radical changes in the way we live that are only possible by the grace of God. [Note: this is my interpretation of his message, not his actual words. He may or may not agree with my interpretation, I don’t know yet.] He combines this with a sharp sense of humor and a gentleness and intelligence that makes it possible to tolerate him.

So here’s what I learned in the session:

What is Peak Oil? It is the point at which we have pumped out half of all the oil reserves that ever existed on Earth. After that point, oil will become a scarcer resource and increasingly more expensive. Estimates point to somewhere between the years 2010 and 2050 as the likely moment.Our increasing demand for oil will just hasten this moment. Some folks think this will be a major turning point for our fossil-fuel-based, capitalist economy.

Why does Peak Oil not really matter (according to Carl)? First, because the shift after that point will be gradual and it will take a while before we really notice any difference. Second, because in many cases we will just shift to other fossil fuels, notably coal, which is plentiful but a dirtier energy source. Third, because other ecological damage will be more noticeable sooner.

What can we do about it? One thing is of course to reduce our personal dependence on oil. Carl said that the U.S. military has already converted its entire operations to diesel motors because they can supplement it with alternative forms of diesel, so as to not be so dependent on petroleum. I haven’t bothered to research any evidence for or against this fact. Another thing is we can always do is educate ourselves, blah, blah, blah. The real answer will be in building communities that sustain themselves. The best ways to lessen our ecological footprint are all about living locally: public transit, buying food directly from farmers, sharing household resources from dining rooms to hedge clippers to swimming pools. [If you have to have one, share it!]

My own example is about car ownership. My husband and I didn’t either of us ever own a car until shortly before our second child came along. We live in a city with pretty good public transit, compared to many places, and for years we both walked to work but I said soon after the first child that “I wasn’t going to be schlepping two kids around on the Muni. I see women doing that, and they’re the ones we all think are bad mothers, yelling at their kids, grabbing them by the arm, etc. That would be me, and I don’t want to go there.”

So we finally got a car, a VW Golf, barely three months before kid #2 arrived, and things were fine. Then about a year later, my husband got a job about 30 miles/two-hours-by-transit away, and soon he was taking the car every day. So where was I? Schlepping two kids and all their stuff on the Muni.

What really made this work was that not long after that, an older Friend from Meeting offered to loan us her car on the days when I needed to take the boys to the dentist, or whatever. She didn’t drive it often during the week and she really made an effort to take public transit, even when it would have been more convenient for her, even though it was her car. On top of that, there were friends and Friends who listened to me bewail my transportation woes and still others who said “yes, I can pick up your child on a day when you need to be in three places at once.” In other words, community.

The sad fact is that we don’t live in a system that is set up to work without private transportation, and I finally decided that, compared to the therapy that would be required to restore my sanity if I didn’t have my own vehicle, it would be cheaper to have a second car. So this summer, when my oldest child was seven and my youngest three, we bought a second car. A station wagon with a third seat that folds up or down in the back and can hold up to seven people. It gets 25 miles to the gallon so it’s not the worst option, but still, I see it as a defeat that we have to have two cars. But without our community, we’d have gone that way long ago. And it is only by building strong local communities that we will change this fact of life for many families.

Faithfulness at RFMM

A couple of weeks ago, my Friend Darcy and I were invited to facilitate a Saturday retreat for another meeting in our Quarter. The theme for the retreat was “What Makes Our Spirits Soar?” with an emphasis on spiritual hospitality. The local committee had already established an outline for the day and lined up local Friends to coordinate the food, lead some singing, and handle the registrations. Darcy and I were just asked to speak and answer questions for about an hour, to lead a couple of movement activities, develop worship-sharing queries and some topics for further conversation. Great.

No problem. We did some planning by email, some by phone and one final in-person meeting. We agreed on a question for a round of introductions, then I would speak briefly about the consultation on spiritual hospitality we recently went to in Pittsburgh. Then we figured out three things that I wanted to say, and three main points that Darcy felt called to share, with some understanding of the illustrations we could use. So far so good.

On the Saturday morning, I got there a little early and had time to walk around a bit by myself, drink some tea, sit with Darcy in worship for a few minutes, and go to the bathroom three times before we really got started. The local committee had arranged a mixer activity over coffee, then singing, then worship, then us. Perfect.

Right on time, the local organizer broke worship and welcomed everyone. The introductions went fine. The brief description of the consultation went fine. But then I started in on my first point, about spiritual hospitality as a calling and a gift, but the words didn’t come. I got my notes right in front of me. I gave up and moved on to the second point, about the inward and outward forms of spiritual hospitality but it just fell flat. I paused and prayed for guidance. No luck. I read out the third point, about the connection between our individual and our corporate practice, and then no more words came to me. I stopped and prayed another silent plea. The strong sense I had was that I should stop talking and sit down. The Holy Spirit was not present in what I was trying to do. Okay, not my will, Lord, but thine, now what?

I looked around the room. I explained that one of the things Darcy and I had wanted to share was how we try to pay attention to the leadings of the Holy Spirit. “And right now,” I said, “the nudge I’m getting is to stop.” I looked around again, took a deep breath and continued, “I’m not quite sure what’s happening, but I think that now we’re going to hear from Darcy [panicked glance at Darcy] and then maybe we’ll hear what I’m supposed to say to you.” My final look around the room met some looks of patient sympathy and one man vigorously nodding his head. I sat down and looked at Darcy.

Darcy, bless her heart, smiled at me, took a deep breath, and stood up. “The nudge I’m hearing is that I’m supposed to speak now,” she quipped. The titter of laughter relieved some of the nervous tension in the room. Or at least in my gut.

She went on to speak well about saying yes to Spirit despite living in fear; about the difference between surviving in a comfortable cage versus living life fully (citing Jens Braun quoting Chief Seattle); and about how meeting people living with integrity is a big part of what attracts people to Friends.

I just closed my eyes for a while and prayed. I prayed for Darcy, that she might find the right words for the fifty or so people in the room. I prayed for myself, that I might know what else to do. I was so embarrassed. All these people had come for the day, they’d asked us to come, they’d even paid our way, and here I was, frightened and humiliated. At least I remembered to breathe.

Darcy talked a little longer than perhaps she had planned, but she was on a roll and I had talked much less than we had planned. When she wrapped up, she turned to me and asked if I was ready. I said I thought we should just go ahead with the question and answer period and see where that took us.

Right away the questions were good. Some Friends shared from their experience. Others asked if we could say more about some points we had made. And in those questions came the openings for me to share some of the stories I had meant to tell in the beginning. And even some thoughts I had while I was preparing to come, but which hadn’t seemed to fit with my outline, so I had left it out (I’ll post that story tomorrow). Here it all came out, not all in one prepared speech, but organically, in response to the questions and concerns of the Friends who were present. It felt wonderful.

Afterwards, people were really happy with how the discussion went. The local coordinator was amazed that people “who never participate” spoke. One long time Friend said he was pleased with how Spirit-filled it felt. I think we reached the point that Martin Kelley was talking about here, where it was truly unprogrammed vocal ministry, and not just by the travelling ministers.

I’m glad we left room for the working of the Holy Spirit in our workshop. I also hope I’ve learned a lesson here and I don’t make it a habit of not having anything to say as planned. Please, God, please.

I’m really, really glad that Darcy and I were working together so that I felt more free to listen when the Spirit said “stop talking.” I didn’t feel like I needed to soldier on simply because people were expecting me to speak.

I am reminded of the old stories of travelling ministers who would call a meeting for worship and then just sit there, shut up as they called it, and who said they felt the people were too dependent on the human instrument and not enough dependent on God’s working in their own souls.

Not my will, Lord, but thine. Oh yes. Oh noooooo.

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.

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.] 

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.

My spiritual journey in five minutes or less

Actually, I think this took ten minutes, but this is basically what I shared on Monday night as part of our interest group.

I started going to Quaker meetings almost fifteen years ago, first in Washington, D.C. and for the last eleven years in San Francisco, California. I met my husband, Chris M. at 15th St. Monthly Meeting in New York City.

I came to Quakerism from a mildly Presbyterian home and a Catholic university. In what would have been my junior year in college, I had an earthstopping (for me) mystical experience on a mountainside in Chiapas, Mexico which left me groping, seeking for a way to respond to God, who was talking to me. A year and a half later, by a series of coincidences, someone invited me to a Quaker meeting and I found what I'd been looking for. People who also believed that God communicated with them, who also believed in simplicity and non-violence and the equality of women. What I'd been trying to do all by myself, they'd been doing together for over three hundred years. Wow.

About ten years later, well after I was a member of San Francisco Monthly Meeting, I finally stopped being in such shock that God was talking to me and I started to be able to hear what God was saying. That original mystical opening was about my place in God's creation: how infinitessimally small I am and how incredibly important I am, like mountains, for example, and every blade of grass. Now when I say it like that, I can see that it's an ecological type concept. But I was and still am very resistent to that. I grew up in a small logging town and I didn't want to be one of those environmentalists. But that is what God is calling me to, whether I like it or not.

This seems to be a pattern with me.

Last year I had two other experiences in my spiritual life that I am still somewhat resistent to. However, I think I've learned something in the last fifteen years of Quakerism and it's not taking me quite as long to catch on this time.

First was that my husband sent me an email with a link to the Quaker Ranter. Not very long before this, mind you, I had refused to get my son's school's newsletter online because, I said, "I'd never read something like that on the computer." Oh well. In fact, I was really amazed to find someone else saying a lot of the same things that I'd been saying, but much more articulately and coherently than I could. He was writing about the power of traditional Quakerism and asking why aren't there more young people? He was writing about his experiments with plain dress and plain speaking. He was writing about finding a balance of waiting on God and following God into the peace and justice work of the world. And better yet, he was writing about it in this public forum and other people were writing back. There was this whole movement going on that I didn't know was out there. I knew I wasn't the only one with these concerns - some of the people I was hearing that from are here in this room. But I didn't know it was happening in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. Or New England Yearly Meeting or Northern Yearly Meeting or Northwest Yearly Meeting - that's the EFI meeting, and I'll come back to that in a moment. This was much bigger than I thought. It seems obvious now, but I/we in Pacific Yearly Meeting weren't the only ones reading Lloyd Lee Wilson's book Essays on the Quaker Vision of Gospel Order. And a lot of the other people were relatively young too. It's broadened a bit over the last year but at that point, in the blogging crowd, I felt old, at 37. That's a different experience of Quakerism for me.

So I've given in to the blogosphere. In part inspired by Liz here's example and her ability to model a different voice than I was hearing on the internet, and her ability to pose gentle, thoughtful, respectful and challenging questions. Actually what I found was that I was starting to forward bits and pieces of people's blogs to other Friends, and I started to worry, was that like forwarding chain mail and email jokes? I thought what my friends would rather read is what I have to say about something. Thus the name of my blog is "What Canst Thou Say?" Not what Martin sayeth or Liz sayeth, but what can I say? This has fit in nicely with my own desire to learn to write more, more often and more disciplined, and the blog format has helped. I like discussing things with my readers. Even the ones who don't agree with me. The comments are the fun part. Writing otherwise is always hard.

The other new experience is that God started talking to me about Jesus. I am still resisting what this might mean, but I can't deny it anymore. And as I've looked around, I've found a lot of support for that. In my monthly meeting, there is a solid core of Christian Friends. The Thursday night Quaker study group has been a major influence on me and our Meeting. Over the ten years I've been in San Francisco, more and more of the solid, weighty, committed and inspiring Friends have come to acknowledge the work of Christ Jesus in their lives. Some of them are more comfortable with the name Christ than Jesus, others wouldn't call themselves Christian but they will cop to trying to follow Jesus. Others, like me, are still teetering on the brink, but likely to swallow hard and admit to being Christian if pushed.

This has coincided with a growing friendship in the blogosphere with evangelical Christian Friends. And it has been amazing to me to realize that they too are hungering for more traditional Quakerism. For following the leadings of the Spirit, for Quaker witness around peace and justice, and for proclaiming and practicing the radically inclusive love of Jesus.

Last March, I went to Quaker Heritage Day at Berkeley Friends Church. The speakers were Margery Post Abbott, a former clerk of North Pacific Yearly Meeting, and Peggy Senger Parsons, the pastor of Freedom Friends Church in Salem, Oregon, an intentionally LGBT friendly evangelical church. And through blogs, I was able to invite Peggy and Marge and Max Hansen, the pastor of Berkeley Friends Church, and a young couple who are members of an Evangelical Friends International - Eastern Region church in Ohio but currently living and going to seminary in Los Angeles, to come to dinner at my house.

This to me was a good example of a convergent Friends experience. It wasn't a formal conference; it was a communal meal in my home. It was prefaced by several hours of worship, really, with speakers who were unafraid to use the words Jesus and justice, to talk about politics and the peace that surpasseth understanding, who linked that intimately to our common Quaker heritage and invited us to think boldly about the future of the Religious Society of Friends.

And you know what? It wasn't hard or awkward. It was fun. We found out that we had a lot in common - not the least of which was that we all felt something was missing from the Quakerism we saw practiced around us that was vibrantly present in early Friends.

It was that experience that made me want to have this conversation again and again. Not just online. But in my monthly meeting and my yearly meeting. Here at FGC. Next weekend in Newberg, Oregon, headquarters of Northwest Yearly Meeting. Next month in Los Angeles, right after Pacific Yearly Meeting, at the home of Wess and Emily Daniels - the young EFI couple who came to my house in March. And you're invited. You're invited to join me AND I encourage you to make an effort to find the Friends who live near you who also hunger and thirst for a renewal of Quakerism. Even if they're coming from a very different place and have a different direction to travel.

I think the winds of the Spirit are blowing across all the branches of Friends - blowing us in the same direction. And I think this is the real meaning of convergent Friends.

I Am Thine, O Lord

This morning, in apostate Quaker tradition, my son sang in the choir at Lakeside Presbyterian Church.

I am Thine, O Lord, I have heard Thy voice.
And it told Thy love to me.
But I long to rise in the arms of faith
And be closer drawn to thee.

Draw me nearer, draw me nearer
Draw me near unto Thee.
I am Thine, O Lord, I am Thine, O Lord,
Draw me nearer, Lord, to Thee.

Consecrate me now to Thy service Lord,
By the power of grace divine.
Let my soul look up with a steadfast hope,
And my will be lost in Thine.

Draw me nearer, draw me nearer,
Draw me nearer unto Thee.
I am Thine, O Lord, I am Thine, O Lord,
Draw me nearer, Lord to Thee.

I am Thine, O Lord, I am Thine, O Lord,
Draw me nearer, Lord to Thee

I am Thine, O Lord.

He goes to the choir with a friend from school. The two boys were on the same soccer team in first grade and the other mom was trying to recruit another boy to go to their church choir with her son. Henry was a good candidate.

He likes going to choir practice after school on Wednesdays. I think that he really likes having a little playdate at his friend David's house after school, but he also likes singing. The choir director is good with children, she teaches some music theory and nice variety of songs. They only sing in church about three times a year, and it's free, except for a responsibility to bring snack twice in the year. A very nice combination for an afterschool activity.

This morning, I was, as usual, swelling with pride and love for my son, who knows all the words, sings loud enough to hear him, and is pretty well on pitch. I think this pride is common among parents. But it is even more amazing for me to hear him singing words of faith. Even if it's not Quaker-style vocal ministry, it is good religious education.

After the children sang, the pastor said a few words of welcome and then the opening hymn, Holy, Holy, Holy. I was reduced to tears, barely able to see the words in the hymnal. Silas was totally squirming amuck in the pew next to me, and I couldn't even do anything but sing and cry. I forget how much I like to sing in church, and how it is possible to experience the presence of God in a large community singing together.

Newberg Travelogue, continued

For the story of Saturday, July 8, 2006, read my earlier post A Convergent Travelogue.

On Sunday, July 9, 2006, we finally did what we set out to do: We worshipped with Friends in Newberg. We actually went to two meetings for worship, as I will persist in calling them. Here is a picture of us in front of their steeplehouse. (Silas is hiding behind the sign.)

It was definitely a programmed meeting, with a printed program, including all the words to all the songs. But compared to other Protestant or Roman Catholic services I’ve been to, it was quite simple.

There were a few songs – low key, contemporary Christian music. I will say I don’t think I’ve ever seen an accordion in a “worship band” before, but then I don’t get out much and it sounded good with the piano, guitar and vocalists. (We also have a fine accordion player in our home Meeting who plays at our Meeting retreat and other occasions, so I wasn’t too shocked.)

I thought it was interesting that they passed the collection plate pretty close to the beginning. No big drama, just got it out of the way. A message from the pastor (which you can read here on his blog), a couple more songs, 15 minutes of open worship and a final song. I think anyone from my Meeting could have gone and felt reasonably comfortable. Yes, there’s a basic assumption that everyone present is interested in what God and Jesus might have to say on the subject, but not in a harsh, pushy or loud way.

NFC has been reading the book of Micah together this month, and considering it both in Sunday worship and their small groups. Lucky for us, the text for today’s sermon was Micah 6:8, “What does the Lord require of you?” It’s popular, it’s fun – it allowed Gregg to speak about holding the strands of Quakerism together – doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God. We sat up in the balcony with Aj and Jason and Kathy in our first meeting for worship (NFC’s second service of the day). We could see Marta and her husband down below. Marta came up and introduced herself afterwards – I was so glad!

In the first meeting that we went to, Silas and Henry sat with us. At some point, Silas wanted to go out and I kept stalling him to try to finish hearing the sermon. When I couldn’t take it anymore and tried to rush him out, he balked and refused to go with me; instead going to sit on Daddy’s lap. For a few minutes, I just sat on the stairs and prayed that I might feel more loving mercy toward my children. After a while, Chris took Silas out and I moved back to sit next to Henry who was having a fine time doing the puzzles in the children’s activity sheets. (I think they have the same ones at the Presbyterian church by our house.)

Before our second meeting for worship (NFC’s third service of the morning), Kathy took us down to the children’s area where the teacher kindly made an exception to the rules of their Godly Play class and let both our boys stay together. (Silas was technically too young, but I think he did okay.) Afterwards, we heard from the teacher that she told the parable of the mustard seed. Silas showed us his clay thing that he made in the response time. Henry showed us his pictures of heaven and hell, in significant detail. The teacher said gently she didn’t really see the connection but that was what he decided to draw. Just goes to show you. It’s the kid who comes from the liberal unprogrammed meeting who wants to draw graphic depictions of heaven and hell, God and angels on one side, Satan and demons on the other side. I think the teacher wanted us to know that wasn’t what she had been teaching our kids. Still, she thanked Henry for coming and for his creative contributions. I will have to ask Henry what inspired him to draw the pictures. Other than our guys, the class was mostly older girls. Thank goodness the teacher was a good sport.

After the second meeting, we went up to thank Gregg for his hospitality and his ministry. He was very busy that day, and I’m sure it’s difficult to preach faithfully three times in a row on the same topic.

As we were walking away, I had a crazy moment and I told Chris that I was very conscious that we hadn’t met anyone who wouldn’t be so happy to meet us. But we didn’t really know who that might be. I also didn't want to put the people who had been so gracious to us in any kind of awkward position.

We picked up our children and met Kathy outside to make a plan for lunch. We went to a nice Mexican restaurant with a couple of other families and their teenaged children. Dan McCracken even joined us for a short while. Kathy, Dan and I had a brief period of discussing blogging as a writing discipline and the QuakerQuaker.org site as an easy portal to great Quaker blogging. Again – another day of putting faces and voices to names and words. So cool.

Also at lunch, I remembered to offer people a small gift that I had brought: buttons that simply say “Another Quaker for Peace.” My good Friend John had brought lots of them to the FGC Gathering and I asked if I could have some to take to Newberg, so he gave me a whole bag. I had given some to Gregg, Aj and Johan (and families) the day before. Today, I was pleased that the teenagers at the table, and their parents, were happy to have them. A small sign of something else that Friends have in common.

For more explanations of programmed Friends worship, read the comments on Rob’s recent post or this link to Freedom Friends Church or my post about my visit to Berkeley Friends Church last January.

For more about my personal experience in Newberg, check back for my next post, “What Does the Lord Require of You?”

[Update 7/21/06: I added the link to the pastor's message in the text above and also here.]

Skills you can’t put on your resume

#1 Ability to change a diaper with one hand (this skill is disappearing rapidly)

#2 Ability to detangle nearly any knot

#3 Knowing all the words to two or three or four verses of most common Christmas carols

Well, at least these don’t fit on my usual professional resume. What skills do you have that don’t really fit on your resume?

I grew up singing Christmas carols with my mother. She has been in lots of choirs, especially church choirs, over her life time. She has a pretty voice and is not snobby about singing. When our family went on long car trips, we would always sing together. One December night, probably in 1984, the two of us were driving home in a snowstorm through a windy canyon. We tried to stop at an inn, but there was no room. Seriously. We drove very slowly and sang all the Christmas carols we knew very loudly. Good thing we know a lot of them. Her more than me even. Eventually we caught up to a snow plow and followed it into town safely.

This last Sunday before meeting for worship, I joined a few other Friends for singing Christmas carols. Our meeting has regular hymn singing before meeting for worship on second and fourth Sundays, but in December, we sing every week, focusing on Christmas songs. This year, I have been working on learning to sing the alto line on hymns, which is more suited to my voice, but since my mother is a soprano, I only learned the melodies as a child. So far, I can do it if I have another alto to listen to and if I already know the words.

At one point the pianist, my Friend Elizabeth, told us briefly about the Christmas she spent in Iraq in 2001. I recalled the year when the U.S. invaded Panama on December 20, 1989. I was living in Mexico at the time. On the main street of Oaxaca there was a public notice board. The week after Christmas the board was filled with an editorial statement asking for prayers for the people of Panama “quienes pasaron la Noche Buena velando sus muertos en vez del nacimiento del Niño Santo.” (who stayed up all night on Christmas Eve mourning their dead instead of celebrating the birth of the Holy Child.) Elizabeth turned to this hymn, reminding us that we are all, each of us, “captive Israel.”

O Come, O Come Emmanuel!

O come, O come, Emmanuel!
Redeem thy captive Israel,
That into exile drear is gone
Far from the face of God’s dear Son.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, thou Branch of Jesse! Draw
The quarry from the lion’s claw;
From the dread caverns of the grave,
From nether hell, thy people save.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, O come, thou Dayspring bright!
Pour on our souls thy healing light;
Dispel the long night’s lingering gloom,
And pierce the shadows of the tomb.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, thou Lord of David’s Key!
The royal door fling wide and free;
Safe guard for us the heav’nward road,
And bar the way to death’s abode.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, O come, Adonai,
Who in thy glorious majesty
From that high mountain clothed with awe
Gavest thy folk the elder law.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

I didn’t learn this one at home, but the melody of it is haunting me still today.


UPDATE: After I posted this it occurred to me that perhaps it was not as obvious to everyone as it seemed to me why this is such an important hymn for Quakers.

Emmanuel is another name for Jesus, implying the element of God within each of us.

If each of us is “captive Israel”, that means that each of us is captive to the Empire, whether that be ancient Egypt or Caesar or the modern United States of America, or metaphorically the Empire of sin and death, of materialism and violence. This hymn reminds to rejoice because God will come to live with us, the Christ within shall free us from our captivity. It is an Advent hymn in the cycle of the Christian Church because it reminds us that we are still awaiting the birth of the Christ Child. We are still waiting to live fully in the kingdom of God. As Quakers we know experimentally that Christ has come and yet we know that we have not found Christ. Not really, not quite, not yet.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

Another post which contributed to my thinking on this topic from Heather Kirk-Davidoff.

How To Comment

This is for all the folks who are new to blogs. If you've used the comment function before, you can skip the rest of this.

So the first thing is to read the whole post (that means my essay). Do you have a reaction? Do you think it's right on? Do you want to quibble? Do you think it's dead wrong? Excellent. You have a comment to make.

At the bottom of each post, and there may be more than one post on any given Monday on my blog, there will be a line that says how many comments there are already. If you click on those words, you will see the comments. If there aren't any yet, when you click on "comments" it might say "Post a Comment." Click on that. Then you will see a box where you can write your comment.

Just write your comment, reflection, question, whatever into that box in plain English. Or Spanish or really easy French. You get kudos for humor, for thoughtfulness, for respectfulness, and for clarity and brevity. Not that I am a master of any of these, but still, I appreciate them all.

You do NOT have to register or have a blogger account or anything like that to comment. There are three circles under the comment box. If you were a blogger, you could click on that circle. If you are not, you can choose either of the other ones.

The easiest thing is probably to choose ANONYMOUS and then sign your name inside the comment box. Think of it as if you were writing me a letter. On my blog it is strongly recommened that you write your real name, or some portion of it, and use the same name every time.

If you click on OTHER, it will ask you for your name and website. If you had a website, you would probably not need these instructions, but if you have one, you can type it in. Otherwise, you can leave that box blank. It says it's optional, and it's true. I've tried it myself.

Another key feature is that if you click on PREVIEW, you can read over what you've written and see what it will look like to other folks. This can be very helpful, for correcting spelling (big points taken off for bad spelling on my blog) or an infelicitous turn of phrase. Or in case you realize you don't really want to say publicly whatever you just wrote.

And last, back at the bottom of each post, there is a little envelope icon with an arrow on it. If you click on that, you can forward a link to my blog to a friend of yours. This is okay with me, the more the merrier, I always say.

Thanks for coming to my blog and I hope to see you participating in the discussions very soon.

A Thinking Blogger

I am honored to be tagged for this designation by one of the people who inspired me to read Quaker blogs more seriously and to begin writing my own. Liz Opp’s thoughtful tone of voice, so rare on the internet, and her gentle AND challenging questions/comments shaped the way I read and write online. She always makes me think. And an awful lot of the time, I agree with her, so I really like to read her blog. But because it’s a blog that makes me think, sometimes I don’t leave all the comments I’d like to, because I’m always waiting for a day with enough time to read, digest and respond in the manner which it deserves.

I had a hard time choosing five blogs to tag. I wouldn’t read a blog if it didn’t make me think. Even the ones that are mostly parenting foibles are food for thought. Probably some of the people I would tag have already been tagged. Also Liz encouraged me to move beyond the Quaker world, but I didn’t go far. But by now, this meme has gone around enough that I don’t care if I break the rules. So here are eight, more or less:

Can you believe? by Johan Maurer Johan was one of the earliest Quaker bloggers, that I know of, and certainly one of the best known outside of the blogosphere. He consistently writes thoughtful Christian critiques of American and global politics, in addition to well-reasoned commentary on Quaker denominational politics. Plus he regularly includes some of the best blues olips from Youtube – proving once again that it’s not always the youngest bloggers that make the best use of technology. I met Johan in person last summer, in Newberg, Oregon.

The Paris Project by Jenell Paris I don’t remember any more how I found Jenell’s blog. Probably as a link from a link from a link. She is an anthropology professor, with a specialty in racial and gender issues, at a small Christian college. She is a member of Solomon’s Porch, one of the best known emerging church congregations in America. She is married and the mother of three little boys. She writes about religion, family life, academia and social values with wit, depth and honesty. I only wish I knew Jenell in person.

Living on Both Ends: An exploration of best and worst by Anj Anj is a relatively new Quaker and a mother of three teenaged sons. She writes about her own struggles with religion,family life, chronic illness, history of domestic abuse, and becoming a spiritual nurturer. She takes my breath away with her honesty and clarity of writing.

Quaker Oat Live by Cherice Cherice is a theology student at Princeton Seminary, a pastoral intern in Oregon, an evangelical Friend from a family of several generations of Friends, and a new mom. She writes mostly about things she's been reading and thinking about.

Bitch, Ph.D. by herself She writes anonymously but frankly about feminism, sexuality, family life, and American politics. She is funny, freely uses four letter words, and has the widest readership of any of the blogs I’m listing here.

Limping Toward Justice by AJ [not to be confused with Aj Schwanz, who also makes me think] LTJ is about her accompaniment work with a peace community in Colombia, which is dear to my heart, not only because I was an exchange student in Colombia 20 years ago, but because a member of my Meeting was also an international observer in this same community about five years ago

Gathering in Light by C. Wess Daniels Wess is also a seminary student, specializing in a post-modern approach to Quakerism. His blog is a combination of young adult life musings and spillover from his academic studies. I first met Wess and his wife Emily at Quaker Heritage Day in 2006. We led a workshop together about convergent Friends at FWCC in 2007.

Here are the rules in the original post from The Thinking Blog:

If you’ve been tagged, here’s how you play:
1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think;
2. Link to this post at The Thinking Blog so that people can find the exact origin of the meme;
3. Optional: Display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award.’


P.S. This tag is for blogs that make me think. It doesn’t mean I agree with everything each blogger writes. Okay? Thanks.

If necessary, use words

I am finally writing about a book that came out over a month ago that has three of my blogposts in it, along with a wealth of selections from 31 other bloggers. It’s called Writing Cheerfully on the Web: A Quaker Blog Reader, edited by my Friend Liz Opp, with help from my husband, Chris M. (full disclosure here) and a preface by Brent Bill.

There are sections on “Worship & Ministry,” “Reclaiming & Re-examining Our Traditions,” “Convergent Friends,” “A Friendly Look at Christianity, Jesus & the Bible,” “Openings & Personal Stories,” and more. Each has posts from Friends across the branches of Friends, across the United States, and across theological differences. The first was written in 2003, the most recent in 2009. Together they offer a snapshot of the Religious Society of Friends in the early 21st century, but it is not a comprehensive guide to Quakerism today. As Liz says in the introduction, “Ultimately the volume you hold in your hands is an indicator of how a particular cohort of Quakers have gone about the business of grappling with and exploring the Quaker faith tradition, including investing in it and embracing it as our own. These writings, and the conversations they inspire, reflect the extent to which we are ready to engage in a rigorous and vibrant Quakerism.”

I like the selections a lot. Then again, I read most of them when they first appeared online. As I read it, I realized I’ve met most of the authors in person over the years. Some of them before they were blogging and some only because of their blogs. Some of them, even besides my husband, have changed my life through their writing and their friendship. So I’m probably not the best judge of whether these selections will speak to the book’s intended audience of people who don’t read blogs, but I suspect they will.

It would make a great addition to a Meeting or Church library or a thoughtful gift for a Friend who says, “I’m interested in what you’re talking about, but I don’t want to spend (any/more) time online."

It's for sale at QuakerBooks.org.

What does the Lord require of you?

At the beginning of meeting for worship, Gregg Koskela, Senior Pastor of Newberg Friends Church, reminded us that the question in the sixth chapter of Micah, verse six, is “how shall I come before the Lord?” or “what shall I bring when I come before the Lord, when I bow before God on high?”(Micah 6:6 in the Revised English Bible, REB) He asked us to think about how often we ask “what am I going to get out of this worship? Is this worship service going to work for me? Am I going to like it? Will it speak to my condition?” What would it be like if instead we asked, “How am I prepared for worship? In what condition am I bringing myself to worship? What can I bring to the gathered community?” I was strongly reminded of the famous JFK quote, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what can you do for your country,” but Gregg didn’t say that.

The heart of the sermon was Micah 6:8, the famous quote about what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God. Which is the prophet Micah’s answer of the proper sacrifices to bring before the Lord. Gregg spoke about how so often we think we can pull these strands apart, but yet God wants us to remember and practice all three together. He spoke about how too often Quakers divide ourselves into those who do justice on this side and those who walk with God over here. He reminded us that we all need to practice lovingkindness if we are to be faithful to God, and how we all need to walk humbly with God and with each other.

By the end of the sermon, it seemed like Gregg was winding up and I felt the Spirit move among us, or at least in me. He invited us to move into open worship and I was mildly irritated that we still had to sing two songs before things quieted down. I had an almost instant leading to read the passage, “Lord, I believe. Help thou mine unbelief.” It seems like an apt description of my spiritual state these days.

It took me a while to find it (Mark 9:24), although I did know enough to dig out my little King James pocket bible, since the words are slightly different in Chris’s Oxford Study Bible (REB). I read the verse over and over a few times. I waited in hopes that it would just go away. I listened further and felt called to read the whole passage (Mark 9:14-30), about how the disciples tried to cast out the demon but only Jesus could – and he said this kind can only be cast out by prayer and fasting. I stopped to listen to the vocal ministry from two women and waited for a moment of silence to pass after the second woman read from the Psalms.

As I re-read the passage one more time and felt my blood pounding and the buzzing in my whole body that, for me, goes with a true leading to speak in meeting for worship, the singer stood up and asked, “Friends, are all hearts clear?”

I looked up in shock and in that moment I wondered if I should just stand up and read it anyway. I really think I could have. It wasn’t just an empty question.

However, in the same instant I was given to understand that the part of the sermon that was meant for me was about walking humbly with God. That this message that I had been given was indeed a message from God but that God was asking me not to give it. Especially not to stand up and make a dramatic statement and call a lot of attention to myself. Even though I really, really wanted to.

What I resist, God asks me to do. What I want to do, God asks me not to. What good is that?

“The Lord has told you mortals what is good, and what it is that the Lord requires of you: only to act justly, to love loyalty, to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8, REB)

Eat Pray Love: Three Variations on a Theme

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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