Holy Week 2021

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

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

• • •

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

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

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

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

• • •

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

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

• • •

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

• • •

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• • •

This is the way.

That would be enough.

Amen.

40 Day Experiment in Truth with Re-Imagine

The workshop was advertised like this:

EXPERIMENTS IN TRUTH:

A laboratory for personal transformation.

Sponsored by ReIMAGINE

The master invites us to rethink or reimagine our whole lives in light of the Maker’s dream of greater wholeness for our world. This workshop explores the physicality of spiritual formation. If I change what I do in my mind and body or emotions, how will it effect my capacity to flow with the creators energy & love? (what I eat? how I spend my time? The media I consume? How I use my money? Who I spend my time with?) This practical workshop seeks to deal with the disparity we often feel between how we want to live and how we actually live. Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness fasting and facing his greatest shadows and temptations. Participants in this workshop will engage in practices aimed at confronting our own shadows and obstacles to the spiritual life through “experiments in truth.”

Wednesdays March 19th through April 30th. 6:30-8:30 p.m.

When I first saw this announced, I emailed right away to say I was interested. Nonetheless, I missed the first meeting of the group. At the last minute, I sent an email saying that while this workshop series was just what I had been looking for last fall, I realized that I had not made enough time in my life to attend this workshop this spring.

I knew that in addition to my ordinarily full life, over the next 40 days I would be traveling away from home for almost two weeks, one at the beginning and one at the end of April, as part of my public ministry. It was not a good time to add more nights away from my family. I knew that I would need to be careful about trying to transform my daily practices too much in a time that was already going to be out of the ordinary. But observing physical practices to sustain my spiritual health and stamina seemed very important. And the idea of participating in this experiment would not let me go. Then I realized that I really wanted to make time

The syllabus looked like this:

March 19: Introduction to spiritual formation and experiments in truth including how Jesus modeled and taught acetic practices and watchfulness.
EXERCISE: Develop and commit to a 40-day “experiment in truth” that addresses 3 key life growth areas with practices of abstinence and engagement.

March 26: Discernment and listening as individual and communal practices.
EXERCISE: Send feedback inventory to 5 trusted friends/ elders.

April 2: Developing your personal growth plan - setting goals for growth in various life dimensions.
EXERCISE: Work through outline for your personal growth plan.

April 9: How to identify and utilize the power of having a spiritual mentor.
EXERCISE: Make initial contact with a potential spiritual mentor or peer mentor.

April 16: Developing your personal rule of life - yearly rhythms, commitments and practices to sustain your spiritual formation.
EXERCISE: Develop a personal rule of life in conjunction with your growth plan.

April 23: Processing the benefits and insights gained through your 40-day “experiments in truth.”
EXERCISE: Complete your personal rule of life in conjunction with your growth plan.

April 30: Final check in and potluck party.

The three areas where I chose to make a difference were:

1. I want to be less anxious about having too many things going on
2. I want to consume fewer unsustainable/unnecessary things
3. I want to be more inclusive in my lovingkindness

In the end, this is what I wrote:

“I commit to:

• Better sleep hygiene when I am at home – to go to bed at 10:00 every evening and to get up at 6:30 every morning. This is one of the things I know would be good for me but I have not been able to stick to it before. I made myself a chart – kind of like I would use for my kids – to record the times I go to bed and get up, so that I can measure my progress.

• Exercise as a stress and weight management tool – to walk at least half an hour every day when I am at home, and as often as possible while traveling. I have done this before and benefited greatly, but I have fallen away from the practice over the last few months. The mental health benefits outweigh the physical, but they are connected.

These two practices are connected to sustaining my physical body in order to live up to the spiritually strenuous month I’m expecting. I expect to have less anxiety and more emotional stability if I am getting more regular sleep and exercise.

• Not buying meat – I wanted to try not eating meat for 30 days, but I’d already bought a ham for Easter dinner, and it seemed a waste not to eat it. We did cook it this weekend, and I froze the rest for later, but if that’s all the meat I eat over the next month, it will still be a step towards more sustainable diet. I also know that I will be a guest in many places over the next month, and I would rather not set this as one of my dietary restrictions on my hosts – although it is common enough among the Quaker circles where I will be traveling. It is also true that my husband is enthusiastic about this practice – he’s been suggesting it for a while now, and is glad I’m considering it.

If I were not traveling, I would like to commit to a new practice – one of seeking out the least attractive visitor to my worship gathering every week and engaging that person in welcoming conversation. One of the things I want to work on over the long term is being more inclusive in my friendships. Over this month, I will just try to lean on the spiritual friends and mentors I already have.”

What did I learn from the experiments? I was right about sleep. Everything in my life is easier, less stressful, and more satisfying when I get enough sleep. My own personal sign that I am not observing a good rhythm is that my alarm clock goes off in the middle of a dream. When I am in a good rhythm, my dream cycle ends naturally when it’s time to get up. The whole day goes better when I wake up more easily.

I was really lax about exercise. I did make an effort to walk a little bit outside every day, even when I was traveling. I think this gave me more balance, a little quiet time to process all the stimulation, and helped me sleep. So I would say that while I didn’t live up to the letter of my goal, I walked more than I would have if I hadn’t made this commitment.

The main thing I learned about abstaining from meat is that it doesn’t matter to me. God is not nudging me to give up meat entirely. I understand the need to eat less and the environmental reasons why average US levels of meat consumption are unsustainable and I know that meat production in the US is fraught with abusive practices, but veganism or vegetarianism is not my calling. What was more interesting was that my scruple about fair trade chocolate grew considerably over the same period. I’m still fallible on that, but I am more and more able to think before I consume chocolate (in all its forms), and to choose some other flavor at the ice cream store, or just go without. What especially works is that more and more I associate the flavor of chocolate with the sweat and fear of slavery. Not nearly so appetizing. What’s hard is when I make that connection half way through something delicious. The next step will be to refuse to buy it for my children.

The second phase of the experiment was to do a personal examen – what is the state of my spiritual journey? This was followed by sending a feedback form to trusted friends to ask them to “affirm my strengths and potential,” “help me become more aware of growth areas,” and “share your wisdom and insight.” I sent the prepared list of questions to seven people and four of them sent it back. One good thing I guess is that they were all generally encouraging and they didn’t point out any glaring faults that I didn’t already know about. And they all basically agreed, which was also confirming/affirming.

The thing they didn’t say, that I secretly fear but am exposing here as an attempt to conquer that fear, is that only people who don’t really know me think I’m good at stuff. That the people who really know me think I’m a flake. Maybe that’s just my family. In many ways, I am gifted but undisciplined. Part of what I have learned over the years is that external structures, even artificial ones like this class or my to-do lists, help me to use what little self-discipline I have to accomplish larger goals.

The third phase was to connect with a potential mentor. I already have a spiritual director, an anchor committee, and some other project-based elders and spiritual friends, so I didn’t seek out anyone new. But I counted my blessings, that’s for sure. I also thought more clearly about the different roles that each of these people plays in my life.

The last exercise, and perhaps the least explained or helpful, was to develop a personal rule of life. We each received a worksheet with a list of points and questions, about “My Lifetime Vision and Purpose”, “Imagination for Making a Life in the Way of Jesus,” with subheadings like obedience/surrender, service & healing, community, simplicity, prayer, creativity, love; “Facing My Personal Shadows,” “Seeking the Maker’s Dream with My Life Energy,” and “My Personal Rule of Life.” I’m tempted to post the whole outline here, but I feel like it’s the proprietary information of Re-Imagine, and I don’t want to just give away what they work so hard to produce. I want to learn how to pose such good questions. Maybe when I finish my plan, I’ll post that.

It was striking how similar the categories, with their associated advices and queries, were to an individual book of Faith and Practice. To what degree do we see our common books of F&P as our rule of life? The core of Re-Imagine is a group that calls itself SEVEN, that has adopted a common rule of life. This is one of the things that attracts me to the group.

Actually, I think this exercise has a lot in common with my Plain manifesto. In fact, I think I should have started by identifying what I already do, rather than starting with “what else do I need to improve?” That is an important question too, but not the right place for me to start. I also wish we had spent more time in the group talking about this and how to do it. I spent quite a bit of time at home (and in the bleachers, on park benches, on my walks) working on this.

One part that was interesting was to think about what are the practices & patterns that I need to keep my momentum at significant life milestones. I had to ask myself, what life milestones do I have left? Here’s what I came up with:

menopause

children leave home

moving to a new home

starting/ending a job

retirement

needing glasses

other disability

children’s marriages

grandchildren born

death in the family/my own

It’s not really a fun list, other than the grandchildren maybe. I wonder, do you have other events that you celebrate/mourn/mark in your spiritual journeys?

In the end, it was a good experiment. I learned a lot about myself, and it was a good opportunity to do some reflection and discernment, even if it wasn’t the best time for me to do that. I met a lot of nice and interesting people, but it was a class, not the formation of a new community. I struggle with how to make time to connect with other groups and people while being so involved with my family and Quaker community already.

I highly recommend any event or class sponsored by Re-Imagine. They do good, thoughtful, fun, and well-organized work. I will write soon about the upcoming Church Basement Roadshow, which is tangentially connected

Gross Domestic Product

I’m sure that when you read the title some of you were afraid this essay would be about poop or leftover oatmeal or something. But no. It’s about economics.

For anyone who’s not clear, and even I had to look it up to be sure, Gross Domestic Product is generally defined as the total of the monetary value of all goods and services produced within a country’s borders.

GDP is often cited as the main economic indicator of the health of the economy. An official definition of a recession (like the news media and politicians keep talking about) is two quarters in a row of decline in GDP. However, there are some drawbacks to using GDP as the sole indicator of economic well-being of a country.

For one thing, GDP does not account for any of the resource costs involved in that production. For example, many economists, professional and amateur, have written about the fact that the environmental degradation required to produce goods and services is not accounted for.

Another major point of discussion is how to account for the “informal” sector. Goods and services that are produced and distributed but not bought or sold through the ordinary retail system. This might include union carpenters who moonlight as handymen or the people who sell televisions by the side of the road.

One of the largest elements of informal labor is housework. From cleaning your toilet to making dinner to knitting Christmas presents – a tremendous amount of labor and materials are consumed but not accounted for. If you work as a maid in a hotel, that is counted as part of GDP. If you change sheets for your grandmother, even if she slips you five dollars for it, that is not counted.

So why the economics lesson? It’s because I am reconsidering my own economic participation. Over the last couple of years, I have not contributed much to the official GDP. I just did our income taxes and I had none last year. But I did a lot of work.

One estimate of the fair market value of a housewife’s labor would be $138,000. Which does not include the services I provide as a fundraising and organizational development consultant for a number of Quaker organizations. Or writing this blog. (More on that note in a minute.)

At various points in my career, I have felt more and less concerned about the economic value of my work. Over the years, I have earned between $3.35 and $75.00 an hour. I have complained heartily about being nothing but a wet nurse. I have railed against the injustice of the gaps in my career that are associated with child bearing. I have also been really grateful for times when I haven’t had to feel conflicted about staying home with a sick child.

Right now, I’m pretty happy with the mix of homemaking and ministry in my life. I’m managing to both write and make dinner almost every day. I feel like my contributions to my family, my local Meeting and the wider Quaker world are being recognized as valuable even if I’m not getting paid.

Unfortunately, this happy balance is not to last. In 2008, I will need to bring more cash into our household. Why? Because the financial aid system for our children’s school expects that once all your children are in school, both parents will be employed, for money. They can’t make me go to work, but they will adjust our assistance as if I were earning money. So I’m looking for work.

But if I were working 15-40 hours a week on a paid job, I would have to give up some of the other activities that fill my days. Our house cleaning standards, even such as they are, will probably decline. I will have to step off at least one, maybe all five of the Quaker committees I serve on. I probably won’t have time to be costume mistress for my kids’ school plays. Certainly it will affect my traveling ministry with convergent Friends. And this blog will surely suffer.

But I hope my blog won’t die. It has brought me much joy, many new Friends, and provided a discipline of writing that has served me well.

Part of my efforts to find ways to make writing pay was the addition of the Google ads to my blog. I was hoping it would cover the purchase of new reading material. Well, so far, they’re earning about $1 a month. Which is pretty close to covering my actual costs of writing this blog, since I only use free online services. It would just about keep me in pens and notebook paper for the first drafts of my posts. However, Google only sends you a check when you reach a total of $100. So in about 10 years, I’ll get paid back. Ummm, that’s not actually going to work very well. So I’m looking at other forms of writing for a living.

Suggestions are welcome. Prayers are welcome. Sympathetic ranting about the warped economics of family life in postmodern America is also welcome.

Here’s my current prayer:
May God help me to find the right balance of GDP and domestic harmony.

What does emergent church mean to me?

I try to remember that my blog is called What Canst THOU Say? So I’ve been thinking, what does emergent church mean to me?

I have only heard and read about the emergent church movement on the Internet. I think there are some folks here in San Francisco, but I haven’t had any luck trying to find or contact them. And if it’s a pub culture, then it’s probably not for me (anymore). I have read a lot of blogs about emergent church, but I don’t believe that can really be an accurate portrayal of the on-the-ground communities.

How does the wider emergent church movement relate to my Meeting’s yearning to be more available/relevant/welcoming to young people? Our meeting for worship is pretty grounded usually and ON FIRE sometimes. Half our Ministry and Oversight Committee is under 45, including the clerk. We’re trying to be more welcoming. How can we, who have our Quaker meetinghouse in this hip, urban, transit-accessible neighborhood, not be attracting young people?

Actually, we have noticed that young people come all the time, but they come once, maybe twice, and not again. Some of this is the transience of young people’s lives today, especially the ones who move to SF right after college. Part of our work may just be to fold new people in and let them go – ready to look for a Quaker meeting wherever they are next. (But we can not help it if the next Meeting they go to is not youth-friendly, not LGBTQ friendly or even centered and spiritually alive.)

Is it true, as I’ve heard, that any project for young people has to involve doing something together to build community before we can sit around and talk about our theology? Is our Quaker unprogrammed worship not enough of a doing something? We can’t ask someone to bring the music and someone else to read the scripture, although they are welcome to do that. But in our tradition, God has to ask them. We can ask them to bring the snack or sit at the letter writing table or edit the newsletter or come to the weekly peace vigil or a study group – do we need some kind of direct earth/poverty related action? Maybe. (Maybe we need the excuse of trying to attract young people to get us off our butts and out doing the work of the Gospel…)

Right now I feel like my calling in my Meeting is and has been to help us be deeper Quakers, in a spiritual sense. I suspect that the next phase will be some service projects.

Here’s my fear: I’m not cool enough. I’m 37 years old. I am the mother of two kids, who frequently interrupt my conversations, and for whom I try to be home most nights at their 7:30 bedtime. I frequently drive a station wagon. I don’t live in the very urban/cool neighborhood where the meetinghouse is anymore. I don’t drink alcohol anymore. I’m a little overweight. I started cutting my hair in a chin length bob as part of my search for balance between my plain clothes, my radical politics and my professional ambitions. I wear plain clothes – not modern fashions and not some cool semi-historical statement either.

I look, to the outside world, really boring.

How can I be an instrument of God’s will to reach out to teens and 20-something people? Why do I feel this nudge to do it? Why don’t I just accept that my job is to reach out to other middle-aged moms? (Which I do, it somehow just isn’t quite enough for me.)

Is this connected to Quakers’ (and Americans’) cult of youthfulness? At PYM this year, I made a reference to a woman 10 years older than me with teenaged children as “middle-aged” and she was offended. She asked, “Who are you calling middle-aged?” I answered, “You and me, baby.” Am I just more acculturated than I thought? Do I just want to be cool?

Or is there something to being a really committed Quaker that is cool? How do we share the amazing, exciting fact that Christ has come to teach His [sic] people Himself? Hey, to quote Caiaphas in Jesus Christ Superstar, “One thing I’ll say for him, Jesus is cool.” How do we reach the young people who will be willing to look past external appearances and see the real me? Who hunger for the chance to be seen for who they are? Who want an authentic and sincere relationship to God and other people?

I hope that any connections to the emergent church movement will connect to my concerns about finding a more authentic way to understand Jesus and to my concerns that my Meeting is not broadly or deeply of service to the Earth or the poor people of the Earth. Actually, I hope that any movement that my Meeting connects with will move us in these directions.


Next up: why I love meeting for worship, and then probably, why I love my Meeting.

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.

Is Convergence Contagious?

The second thing that happened while I was meeting with my clearness committee is that I was invited to participate in leading a workshop on convergent Friends at the Friends World Committee for Consultation Section of the Americas Annual Meeting in Providence, Rhode Island, March 15-18, 2007.

It was kind of roundabout, but it had the unmistakable stamp of God’s workings on it. Two Friends from Ohio Yearly Meeting (Conservative) read Wess and my articles. They got to talking about the plans for the upcoming FWCC meeting and how FWCC is so convergent and yet not quite and how there ought to be a discussion about convergence at the conference. After looking us up on the internet, one of them sent an email to a listserve that Wess had set up. My husband wrote back to her, and she wrote back and asked if we had any suggestions for a workshop at the FWCC conference. I wrote back and said I’d be happy to discuss my experience so far, in fact I had been thinking about trying to go to the annual meeting, but not sure at all that it would be possible. Fortunately, my clearness committee was meeting that week, and I had a chance to consider with them whether I was called to go to Rhode Island in March. Several further back and forths by email with FWCC folks and Wess and my new Sister-in-Christ. There was some kerfuffle over whether this was really happening or not, and I’m still not sure quite how this is going to work out. But the current workshop title (I didn’t make this up, but I love it) is “Am I a convergent Friend? And is it contagious?”

I feel clear now that I need to go, and I’m clear that Wess needs to go, and I am making arrangements. I have asked for support from my meeting and my yearly meeting and we’re doing a little fundraising among Friends for the rest of the money for the two of us. Convergence requires us to work together. I still think that the interest group I led at PYM last summer fell flat because I tried to do it by myself. And some of us, because we work in this in-between space, will fall in the cracks between Quaker institutions, and need more help than others.

Newsflash: Convergence is not about me. The winds of the Holy Spirit blow where they will. This is an important reminder. I did not invent the various phenomena it describes and I do not own the word. Sometimes I have to remind myself of this. I have to accept that somewhere, sometime, there will be a discussion or gathering or workshop about convergent Friends and I will not be there. And that’s good: I hope the renewal of classic Quakerism will be much bigger than I am.

At the same time, I want to be free to go where God leads me. This is part of my reason for asking for clearness and support from my meeting so that my Friends in real life can help me hear what God is asking me to do and figure out how to do it. I already have little nudges in my heart and some written invitations to go to Greensboro, North Carolina one day, but not right now. I’m feeling pretty full up for this spring. There may be more destinations on my spiritual itinerary. I don’t know yet; that’s okay. And if I am faithful in this work, I expect that the next steps will be shown to me.

The Tangible Kingdom

The Tangible Kingdom: Creating Incarnational Community:
The Posture and Practices of Ancient Church Now
by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay.
A Leadership Network Publication by Jossey-Bass, 2008.

This is my third review of a book that was sent to me by the good folks at The Ooze.

I’m going to start with the good news. I think this is the most practical book about forming and living in Christian community that I’ve ever read. (Outside of maybe the Benedictine Rule.) It’s funny, engaging, and easy to read. It’s really well-organized, with helpful diagrams and reflection suggestions/queries at the end of each chapter.

The authors are leaders of Adullam, a congregational network of incarnational communities in Denver, Colorado, and of Missio, a global network of missional leaders and church planters, which is part of Church Resource Ministries.

The first half of the book has a great analysis of what's going on in Christianity today - what works and what's not working and how long it's been that way and why. The second half is about how the authors are doing and being church.

The authors explain that they see three main elements to incarnational community: Mission, Communion, and Community, and they give examples from early Christian stories and from their current lives. [I think equivalent examples could be pulled from early Quaker stories as well.] They also outline three main barriers to incarnational communities.

By Community, they mean connecting to each other: sharing friends, food and life. The main barrier to community is individualism, which looks like not having enough time for the community, and can be overcome by discipling togetherness, gentle confrontation, and not allowing people to remain invisible.

By Communion, they mean connecting to God, through sharing scripture, sabbath gatherings, and other spiritual practices. The main barrier to communion is consumerism, the sense that others should produce spiritual experiences for me to consume. This is overcome by discipling participation rather than passivity, and sharing our gifts widely.

By Mission, they mean connecting to new people, through benevolent action, spontaneous blessing, sacrificial giving, and sending of leaders. The main barrier to mission is materialism, which manifests as not having enough money to share, especially for people who have gone into debt in order to have more stuff. This can be overcome by discipling charitable giving, especially helping one another in times of extra need.

Here’s one of the basic nuggets: Whatever you give leadership to will grow. This may sound like a cliché to some of you. For most church leaders, they are pointing out that if you put all your best time and people and energy into creating more engaging worship, then it’s likely that more people will come to your worship gatherings. But that doesn’t mean that they will actually be doing the hard work of transformation the other 167 hours of the week. For a liberal, unprogrammed meeting, this might translate as, if you put your best time and people and energy into making newcomers feel welcome, then it’s likely that more people will come, and come back. But again, that doesn’t mean they will actually be having a transformative experience.

So among the lessons I learned are:

#1 Be good news [present, loving, an advocate] to your family. (People will notice.)
#2 Be good news to the people around you (neighbors, coworkers, your softball team, the Starbucks baristas, etc.)
#3 Invite people to join you in your regular life activities
#4 When people see that you are a present and loving advocate for the important things in life, they will start to talk to you about important things. Talk to them honestly.
#5 Be willing to give credit where credit is due: God and your faith community

This doesn’t sound so difficult, does it?

I think the main point is that living incarnationally will show. I liked the line on p. 42: “In our Adullam Network, we specifically ask people not to try to be ‘evangelistic.’ We suggest to them that if people aren’t asking about their lives, then we haven’t postured [read: embodied] our faith well enough or long enough.”

I liked the general prescription for new church groups getting started. Once a month, just have a party together that you can invite all your friends to. Once a month, do some kind of service together. And a couple times a month, do some kind of scripture reading, prayer or something that connects you to God. Which works out to basically meeting once a week, but not necessarily every week on Sunday mornings at 11. And it offers a whole lot of different ways to connect to each other, to the community and to the Divine.

The new bee in my bonnet is this word “incarnational.” I think another way to say this is to be the change you wish to see in the world. One of the things that worked well in my workshop at FGC was the invitation to people to try on some new/old Quaker practices to see if they had Light & Power in them: to live them out. Halter and Smay are giving me theory and evidence for some things I (and others) have intuited.

In my own life, in this intersection between my leading in ministry and my family’s practical needs, I believe God is calling me to a new phase of incarnational life. To the opportunity to live my faith and leading while working full time and still homemaking. It’s not just a life for people with nothing else to do but be holy.

Among other changes, it will offer my husband and me a chance to return to a more equal distribution of labor, both in paying the bills and in housekeeping.

More to the point, I have to learn to live as my increasingly religious fanatic self in a more secular environment. Even my paid jobs over the last ten years were in religious institutions. I have to learn to talk like normal people again.

And who knows where this will lead? I have some suspicions, but they are still very fragile and weak. In any case, I am learning some lessons that may be fruitful. And maybe this is all preparation for something else that I can’t even imagine yet. That has happened before.

So that’s the good news. Back to the book.

The first negative thing I have to say about this book is not its fault. It’s one more book that assumes the reader is escaping fundamentalist evangelical Christian culture. Which I’m not. I’m still waiting for the book written for other people interested in the emerging church. I’m open to suggestions, any day now.

The second thing is to complain about the completely gratuitous swipe at Quakers and the Amish on p. 160. The authors seem to have confused their stereotypes of us with my stereotypes of fundamentalist Christians as the people who are not allowed to have fun. But as a mark of Christian charity, I forgive them.

Now for my real quandary about this book. What do reviewers usually do when they read a book that has really good content wrapped in some less relevant stuff that is mildly offensive? I’m not talking about the cussing in Oh Shit! It’s Jesus! I’m talking about a less than equally respectful and inclusive attitude towards women and LGBTQ folks. It’s not overtly, intentionally, offensive. It’s mixed in with some good language about not judging others and about treating all of God’s children with love. But it is implicit in their examples of talking to young men about how they are spiritually leading their girlfriends, fiancees, or wives without any sense that this is a mutual exchange. It’s evident in the lack of examples of female leadership. Or describing one of the trends in the folks they train as, “They think the homosexuals’ fight for sexual clarity isn’t that much different in God’s sight than the heterosexuals’ struggle against pornography.” Umm, that’s a step up from utter damnation, but, well, that’s not quite good enough for me. But does that negate all the good stuff in this book?

Everybody has a weak point. Everybody fails to live up to Jesus’s example in some ways. Does that nullify their good points? The ways in which they’ve got it right? Sometimes I suppose it makes it too hard to hear what a person has to say, even when he or she is right. But in this case, I’d say it’s worth sifting through.

And while I’m at it, I think it’s a good exercise for all of us. How can we listen beyond our disagreements that we know are in the way in order to hear the Truth coming out of our brothers’ and sisters’ mouths?

Lord, help us all.

New mercies I see

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FWCC 2008 Report: better late than never

At the beginning of April, I went to Indiana for the first time since I drove through the southern tip with my husband on our move to California in 1994. I have already written a little bit about the trip, but I am finally getting around to writing about the official reason for the trip:

The Friends World Committee for Consultation Section of the Americas Annual Meeting.

This was not my first time at an FWCC gathering, and I hope it will not be the last. Actually, this was my first year as an official representative of PYM, and my term lasts three years, so the chances are good that I’ll be there again. Next year, the Section of the Americas will meet in the Pacific Northwest, apparently near Portland, OR. I’m looking forward to that. Then the Section plans to meet in Honduras in 2010. I’ll have to finally get my passport renewed!

I said to a few people afterwards that the annual meeting wasn’t as amazing as last year. It didn’t feel like a mountaintop or peak experience. It was more like business, more work-like. It was good work, work that I feel called to, and life-giving, but not breath-taking.

I have organized this by topic rather than any attempt at a chronological report.

Regional gathering- We’re thinking of having a Southwest Regional gathering in late 2008 or spring 2009. This would be for members of Pacific Yearly Meeting, Intermountain Yearly Meeting and Evangelical Friends Church Southwest. Current speculation sounds like it might be held in Arizona, but it’s too soon to tell.

Wider Quaker Fellowship – I am now on the committee for the WQF. This topic deserves its own post, but I’ll say that I think this will be interesting work, and that it is a chance to rethink the vision of the program and to help bring the FWCC into the 21^st century.

Rachel Stacy gave the keynote address. She gave a powerful speech about her own spiritual journey and the support she needs and receives (or not) from Friends. She spoke about her experience growing up in a monthly meeting and organizing the 2005 World Gathering of Young Friends. She spoke about her work as a new public high school math and chemistry teacher and her participation in an emerging church group in Baltimore. There was a lot of tears and laughter and prayer in the audience. Rachel was a good choice for the annual meeting.

Young (and older) mothers – it was good to connect again with my generation of mothers who are also ministers, and to get to know some older women better as well.

Intervisitation interest group – this topic is dear to my heart, because it has been so important in my spiritual journey over the last few years. One of the key points I took away from the interest group was hearing adult Friends talk about how important it had been to have visitors in their home when they were children – how they still treasure those memories. I hope my children will eventually have that same feeling. I think that now they mostly treasure the pie we often have for dessert when we have company, but maybe they will remember some day that we had Vanessa Julye over for dinner one time or that Melissa L.-A. spent the night here when she was in town. In any case, it is important to me to be a hostess as well as a guest sometimes.

Convergent Friends interest group: Shawna Roberts and I were asked to lead an interest group to follow up on the workshop we co-led last year with David Male and Wess Daniels. It was small, only about six people, but it was good to work with Shawna again. (We were also cabinmates and had some good time with our other cabinmates Rachel and Ann.)

Worship sharing in Spanish was a stretch for me. I can speak superficial Spanish pretty well, but I don’t know a lot of the Quaker jargon. It was hard to go deep in my soul and to express it well in Spanish. There are cultural differences, and there are personal differences in expectations of worship sharing. But it was good practice to be on the minority side this time.

History skit – the local arrangements committee put together a funny skit about the Quaker history of the midwest. It was cute to see all the yearly meetings, each represented by a person with a sash/label, popping up, splitting, dying, snubbing each other. I didn’t catch all the dates, but I sure remember more than I would have if it had just been a lecture on the history.

Budget Realism – like many Quaker organizations, FWCC is facing a different financial future. It was good to see an organization facing its financial crisis a couple of years before the reserve funds all run out. Taking the hard steps of cutting programs and staff in order to live within their means, but phasing them out rather than waiting until the last minute and then declaring bankruptcy and in the process ruining 70 years of good will and good works.

Kenya in 2012 – part of the tradeoff of financial and environmental changes is balancing the need to meet face to face with the costs of doing so. FWCC has decided not to hold a triennial world gathering in 2010 but instead to meet in five years in Kenya. I think they’re still considering sites, after the terrible violence and destruction recently. I would look forward to this opportunity, should my Yearly Meeting choose to send me…

What I learned about me.

Right before I went, I had a meeting with my spiritual director. These insights came out of that session:

Advices:

My gift of enthusiasm is best used when tempered by calm at the center.

It’s not about me.
I am not in control.
I am not alone.

Queries:

How am I letting my light shine?

How is my life a testimony to the power of God and the teachings of Jesus?

I wrote those down, but I’m still learning the lessons.
I always think I’m going to do better next time, but then I don’t.

I am not in charge

That has been the number one lesson of the last few months. It's been an exciting time, full of new possibilities and new challenges. It has also been a time of very intense and fretful waiting. A lot of decisions have been made, some of which I agreed with and some of which I didn't, and many of which were not mine to make. Oh, right. I am not in charge.

I am going to have a new job. I am excited to inform anyone who hasn't heard that the Friends World Committee for Consultation, Section of the Americas, has chosen me to be their next Executive Secretary. I will attend some meetings at the end of April and then start full time in June.

Yes, my family is moving to Philadelphia. We are all very sad to leave San Francisco Monthly Meeting, the San Francisco Friends School, College Park Quarterly Meeting and Pacific Yearly Meeting. All of these groups of people have been important in my spiritual journey and my every day life. If I could somehow close the gap between San Francisco and Philadelphia, I would. But I am not in charge of geographical miracles.

I especially would have liked the announcement of this new appointment to have been more orderly. I would have liked to tell a few more people, including my mother, before they heard about it on Facebook. But I was not in charge of the communications plan.

There are huge changes taking place in the wider Quaker world. Lots of turnover in the executive roles in major Quaker institutions and many smaller ones. Huge generational shifts in leadership and communications and expectations and membership at all levels. The sheer volume of change is both an enormous window of opportunity and, honestly, frightening to anyone who's really paying attention. I will soon have a lot more responsibility for leading Friends through these changes but I know I am not in charge of anyone else's response, whether fear or fascination.

There are far-reaching changes going on in our society and all of Planet Earth. I highly recommend Joanna Macy's work on the Great Turning and Phyllis Tickle's book, The Great Emergence, to help us all to understand how we are part of a larger changing whole. FWCC has some helpful queries for examining our own response to the economic, ecological, social, political and spiritual changes in our world. Here especially, I am not in charge of anything but my own response and my children's education. I hope that, with Divine assistance, modeling awareness instead of avoidance, and integrity/consistency between my beliefs and my actions in my own life will be helpful to others, but I am not in charge.

So who is in charge of all this? I don't think God planned it all this way. I believe we do have free will and we have to live with the consequences of our decisions. And we have to live with the consequences of thousands of years of other people's decisions, for good and bad. I believe that the will of God is for us to do and be better. I believe that God sends us strength and encouragement and understanding. God gives us the ability to find meaning in what is and what happens, hope for a better future, and love. Love for ourselves, for the people we know, and for the people, plants, rocks, animals, etc. that we don't really know. Love is that of God. Hope is that of God. And this love and hope give me faith and courage. I think my theme song for this year is Leaning on the Everlasting Arms. I recommend the Iris DeMent version from Lifeline, but the words are in the public domain:

What a fellowship, what a joy divine,
Leaning on the everlasting arms;
What a blessedness, what a peace is mine,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.

Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarms;
Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms.

O how sweet to walk in this pilgrim way,
Leaning on the everlasting arms;
O how bright the path grows from day to day,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.

What have I to dread, what have I to fear,
Leaning on the everlasting arms;
I have blessed peace with my Lord so near,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.

I am so grateful to the FWCC Search Committee and the Executive Committee for putting their faith in me. I am indebted to many, many Friends for sharing their spiritual journeys with me, in the Quaker blogosphere, in their homes, in small and large gatherings and through FWCC. Thank you. I trust that we will continue to learn how to be the Quakers together. I will write more about my hopes and dreams for FWCC in the coming months. If you have suggestions, advice or questions about FWCC, please send them to me in a comment here, to my email address in the sidebar profile, on Facebook or Twitter, or in a letter or phonecall or whenever I see you.

I believe that Quakers need the Friends World Committee on Consultation and FWCC needs you.

Conflicting Concerns

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Un Salmo de Robin, 25 julio 2020

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

Querido Dios,

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

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

Pero en nuestra tierra, el mundo llora.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Aunque sigo agradecida por lo que me has brindado.

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

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

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


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

A Psalm of Robin, July 25, 2020

Dear God,

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

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

But in our land, the world cries out.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jubilee!

On Friday, fifth day of the 59th annual sessions of Pacific Yearly Meeting (PYM), after some people left to attend an observance of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, and the rest of us considered our own experience of religious education as children and held a discussion of the PYM response to the discriminatory hiring practices of Friends United Meeting, our Ministry and Oversight committee (M&O) made, in my opinion, a brilliant proposal.

They proposed that starting now, the M&O committee will convene a series of Right Holding of PYM discussions. All Friends and especially all PYM committees will take this year as a planning period for a sabbath year, a year of jubilee starting with next year’s annual sessions.

The clerk of M&O referred to a Friends Journal article from February 2004 relating the experiences of Central Philadelphia, 57th Street and Beacon Hill Monthly Meetings and New York Yearly Meeting in having their own jubilee or sabbath years.

The original concept of a sabbath or jubilee year is from the Bible, Leviticus 25:1-55. The idea is that every seventh year, as a sabbath, the land will be allowed to lie fallow, and the people and all their animals will eat just what the land produces by itself. After 7 cycles, or every 50 years, a jubilee would be declared and all the people would return to their home and family. Slaves would be released from service, debts will be forgiven, leases of land and other property will expire. This is to acknowledge that humans are ultimately free except in their duty to God, and that land belongs only to God thus we hold it as tenants.

M&O offered these models of a sabbath year for our yearly meeting:

1. No work, just community building and re-creation activities
2. Deep spiritual formation, study groups, etc.
3. Threshing large community issues (race, money, children’s education)
4. Restructuring work and committee models

The reality of my week is that I had to leave to pick up my children from their programs after the first response, but I heard later that Friends went on and on. And at least one member of M&O was surprised at the degree of opposition to the idea. I suspect there were four main themes of opposition:

1. “But we already started planning for next year! Friday morning is too late to start this.”
2. Related to that is the concern that this was a coup, a power grab by M&O
3. I didn’t actuallly hear this but I expect it was said: “We’re already not doing enough and now we’re going to do less?”
4. Objections are also related to people who have staked their identity on the current structure: “What will happen to people who worked hard to get to be Clerk of a committee that may not exist next year?” No one will actually say this out loud, but I believe it is a strong factor.

It was clear to me that this was a proposal for consideration by the yearly meeting. That it is the intention of M&O to have a different kind of annual session next year, but they are not planning to dictate just how it will be, hence the year of discussions and planning.

This project appeals to me on two levels.

First, PYM needs a new vision of itself.
We were reminded at some point that Pacific Yearly Meeting started out with Anna Brinton’s vision of a Pacific Rim association of Friends, including the western United States and Canada, Latin America, China, Japan, Korea, etc. At one time, PYM included meetings in all of these places. But the communication has proved unwieldy over such a wide area, and now there are at least five yearly meetings in that area. (I’m not sure of the actual number) There are even hints that PYM might split again into North and South, basically along the lines of the two Quarterly Meetings. In any case, it is high time we acknowledged that we have changed.

For years, PYM has prided itself on being an Independent Yearly Meeting, and many (some?) have cherished the idea that by being unaffiliated with any of the larger bodies of Friends (FGC, FUM, EFI) we might serve as a bridge between branches of Friends. Ha! On any number of issues, we are so far from being a bridge, we might even be the far extreme among yearly meetings. So many of our Friends are already involved in the work of FGC, it is time for PYM to acknowledge this relationship. We’re like a long time attender that hasn’t come to clearness on membership, for a whole variety of reasons, none of which are valid anymore.

We need to consider what relationship the Yearly Meeting should have with its constituent Monthly Meetings. Does PYM provide any service to the monthly meetings in exchange for their assessments? Does PYM have any authority over the monthly meetings? Does PYM carry out the greater will of the monthly meetings?

We need to take the idea of forgiveness of debts and restructuring of resources seriously. I’d throw out the whole committee structure until we have some better sense of what work we are called to do. Then we could figure out what needs to have a committee and what resources would they need. I was VERY inspired by Johan Maurer’s proposal of an ideal yearly meeting, available here.

Secondly, this concept speaks to me on a very personal level.

At this point in my life, I am ready for a serious vision process. From a traditional standpoint, I have achieved the expected milestones: happy marriage, two cute kids, meaningful and well remunerated work. This is a good point for me to take stock of my life. What do I want to achieve in my life? What work is God calling me to? How do I avoid uber-Quaker burnout (to quote Evan Welkin and beppeblog)? It is good for me to remember that this process might take two years, which would conveniently overlap with the two years to go before my youngest child is in kindergarten.

It is important for me to remember that this process was not conceived and will not be designed specifically with me in mind. It will not meet all my needs, and I should not be too disappointed when it doesn’t. (Darn.)

Anyhow, my deep gratitude and admiration for the Ministry and Oversight Committee that both perceived this need in the yearly meeting and had the courage to lead the way out of it.

I wonder if any readers of this new blog have any experience with a Meeting Sabbath or Jubilee year? Would you like to?

On My Way

I am on my way today to my first duties as the next Executive Secretary for FWCC Section of the Americas. I don't really start until mid-June, but this week I will meet with the outgoing E.S. and then travel to the FWCC Europe & Middle East Section annual meeting followed by the world Central Executive Committee annual meeting and then the International Planning Committee for the World Conference of Friends that will be held next April in Kenya.

So on Wednesday night, I'm actually headed to Zurich for two weeks. Which still sounds unbelievable and little pretentious, to me anyway, every time I say it. I've never been to Switzerland before, although I have been to France, almost 20 years ago, as part of my work with the international anti-poverty group, ATD Quart Monde, known as the Fourth World Movement in the US.

I don't have a specific role at the international meetings. I'm just going as an observer and a chance to meet in person some of the people I'll be working with in the future. I'll probably come away with plenty of responsibilities for next year, but I don't know what they are yet.

Just in the last few days I've started to deal with the practical aspects of international travel. Like, I need to change some money, and my cell phone won't work in Europe, and I need a special plug adapter for my computer. The last time I went to Europe, the most advanced technology I took was a hairdryer that converted to 110 or 220 current. This time I don't need that but I do want to be able to communicate with my family. We'll use Skype some, but I'm taking recommendations for a global cell phone and an international calling plan that works great in Latin America. Leave me a comment or send me an email if you have suggestions or cautions.

This will be the longest time I've ever been away from my kids. And the longest I've been away from my husband since we got married 17 years ago. Fortunately, my kids are old enough now to be a lot easier to take care of. But there was still grocery shopping and scheduling playdates and team practices, etc.

I finished my work at my old job last week. It was a mixed experience, as so many jobs are, but I learned a lot. About myself, about organizational politics, about succession planning, about social media and the new technology of fundraising.

I'm still thinking about the possibility of starting a new blog for just my FWCC work, but I'm not sure if it's a good idea of not. Will I have time to post regularly in two places? That's a big question. Do I have enough to say to be worth two blogs? And is it really possible to separate my personal life from my public/professional life? Do I want to? I don't really think that people pay attention to the disclaimers like the one at the bottom of this page, that says I don't speak for any organization. I think this is one of the lessons of integrity in the post-Facebook world. I have one life and I have to conduct myself in all parts of it as if all the other parts are watching.

I started this blog for two reasons. First, I wanted to share with my friends what I was reading on other Quaker blogs and what I was thinking about all that. Second, I had all these essays composing themselves in my head and I needed an outlet for them. I used to picture them as lectures in a college classroom. But then I found that a blog was about the right length and frequency for my writing, and came with more feedback/instant gratification than writing magazine articles and made me less likely to harangue my personal friends with my soapbox speeches. Both of those reasons are still true, so don't think I won't keep at least one blog going. Have you had experience writing more than one blog? Does it ever work?

In any case, today is the first day of the rest of my life, as the saying goes. I'm doing the best I can. Deep breath. Everything is going to be all right. I am not in charge. I am not alone. It's not about me. Please, God. Thank you.

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.

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.