raised in the light

Spiritual Nurture Workshops

2011-01-03T08:11:00.000-08:00

this is the rough outline for a series of stand alone spiritual nurture workshops I have been putting together with Perry City's Ministry and Council. These are what I am planning on doing with Friends from Perry City and Ithaca Meeting, and any other Friends who want to come to Perry City Meeting House next. We haven't done them yet so I can't say how it will go.

If Friends have suggestions for blog posts that would be good for use to read that would be great. Also if any of the author's of the blog posts I've already chosen don't want us to read their posts for whatever reason please let me know.

Conversations Spirit: Workshops on Spiritual Nurture of the Monthly Meeting

These classes are designed to be a conversation about Quakerism by Quakers. This is about how we make plans for changing ourselves and then do it. It isn’t about learning theology or about different kinds of Quakerism, although we might talk about both of these things along the way. This is about discerning what we are doing well and where we could be doing better as a Monthly meeting, a community, and a fellowship. This is not about bemoaning the state we’re in or the things we’d like to see happen but aren’t, (although we might do a very little bit of that every now and then being human and all). This is where we figure out how to make them happen together.

All of the readings for these classes are part of a conversation. These readings are not answers, or how-to guides; in some cases they aren’t even polished works. Instead they are snapshots of conversations Friends are having all over the world. They are other voices adding to the conversations we will be having in the Firstday-school room at Perry City Meeting House. They are stand-ins for the hundreds of Friends who would be sitting with us around the table if they could. The questions we are asking are question being asked by every branch of modern Quakerism and there is no universally ‘right’ way to solve any of these problems.

The only thing to do is to come together and ask “how is God working among us right now?”

That is what this class strives to be.

Meeting For Worship: Deepening the Space

A problem faced by many Monthly Meetings it the quality of worship. Many liberal unprogramed Monthly Meetings report that their Meetings for Worship are quiet, uncomfortable or stagnant.

What makes a vital Meeting for Worship?

How do we center a Meeting?

How do we nurture a space where Spirit led vocal ministry can occur?

Reading: http://robinmsf.blogspot.com/2006/02/new-positions-in-meeting-for-worship.html

http://raisedinthelight.blogspot.com/2007/03/simple-things.html

Fellowship Among Friends: How do We Pray Alone, How Do We Pray Together?

A Meeting should be a Spiritual fellowship of Fiends. Yet a common problem faced by most Meetings is that a member could attend for years without knowing the spiritual stories and experiences of the Friend sitting next to them.

How do we facilitate nurturing conversations about our spiritual lives?

How do we deepen our spiritual lives together?

How do we talk about our differences in a loving way?

Reading: http://unwaveringbandsoflight.blogspot.com/2006/07/missing-jesus-train.html

http://robinmsf.blogspot.com/2009/10/theology-and-covered-dishes.html

Fellowship Among Friends: A Community More then One Hour A Week

Another common obstacle faced by unprogramed Meetings when it comes to fellowship is that many Friends only gather and interact with each other once at week at Meeting and then often in silence.

How do we get to know all the Friends in our Meeting?

How do we nurture a community of Friends that interacts more then once a week?

How do we communicate to other not so active Friends the necessity of them participating fully in the life of the Meeting?

Reading: http://robinmsf.blogspot.com/2009/11/essentials-of-quaker-practice.html

Meeting For Worship With A Concern For Business: Deepening the Space

The Quaker process of doing business can be both a joy and a gift, yet too often in Monthly Meetings is characterized as being slow, boring and a space that fosters conflict.

How can we nurture a space where decisions are made in a spirit led way?

How can we nurture a space that feels nurturing to Friends?

How can we foster a space where business in done on a way that makes it clear that Friends trust, hear, and respect other Fiends?

Reading: http://nancyjthomas.blogspot.com/2010/12/quaker-business-and-silence-of-god.html

Greeting The Stranger: Newcomers and Hospitality

As unprogramed Meetings age and shrink a question they face with more and more urgency is how to get, welcome, and keep new members.

How do we make our Meeting welcoming to all kinds of Friends?

How do we reach out to the wider world?

How do we reach out to spiritual seekers in a way that is both nurturing and truthful?

Reading: http://lambswar.blogspot.com/2010/11/missional-quaker-faith-organic-growth.html

http://thegoodraisedup.blogspot.com/2010/09/invite-visitor-to-lunch-la-martin.html

The Many Parts of the Church: Naming of Gifts and the Work of Friends

Naming of gifts has been used practically by Friends to better understand who has the skills to do what within a community. Yet many Monthly Meetings fear that people will be hurt if everyone is not treated exactly the same.

How do we acknowledge that every Friend is given unique gifts without privileging one gift over another?

How can we raise up and name the gifts within our Meeting?

Howe can we discern and name what our community is called to do?

Reading: http://lambswar.blogspot.com/2010/11/missional-quaker-faith-visionary.html

How High Is Our Hedge? : Our Quaker Community and Our Secular Communities

Quakerism is a faith that calls us to live in a different way then our other secular communities. Yet we are still called to live and work within the world.

How do we live in the secular world as Friends and support each other in doing so?

How do we teach the secular world about what we as Friends hold dear and the changes we need to make?

How do we live in fellowship as Friends in our day-to-day lives not just in the Meetinghouse?

Reading: http://robinmsf.blogspot.com/2010/10/revitalization-of-quaker-message.html

http://raisedinthelight.blogspot.com/2009/03/without-hesitation-or-equivocation.html

That Still Quiet Voice: Nurturing Vocal Ministry

Spirit led vocal ministry and the heart and soul of our religious community. It is the way we understand the continually unfolding will of the Divine. It is one of the most important reasons we come together and worship on Firstdays. Yet many unprogramed Monthly Meetings are reporting becoming more and more quiet, or struggling with inappropriate messages.

How do we remove blocks to vocal ministry in our Meeting?

How do we teach Friends about how to discern an appropriate message?

How do we nurture those with gifts of vocal ministry?

Reading: http://www.quakerquaker.org/profiles/blogs/vocal-ministry-the

Some Quakers Have Pastors: Understanding and Nurturing Community Between Monthly Meetings and Wider Quaker Community

The Quaker community on a global scale is wide and varied. There are many, many ways for Friends to worship in the Spirit. Friends believe many, many different things. Yet we are all called to do the same work, and exist in the same world, sometimes in the same Yearly Meeting. Many liberal unprogramed Meetings report that their Friends have very little contact with Friends from other kinds of meeting or Friends on a Yearly Meeting level. This often fosters, disunity, distrust, and misunderstanding.

How can we nurture fellowship with the other Meeting around us?

How can we nurture fellowship with our Yearly Meeting?

How can we nurture fellowship with other branches of Quakerism?

Reading: http://www.facebook.com/notes/northwest-yearly-meeting-of-friends-church/postmodernism-the-church-brad-tricola-boise/10150265889965162

Some Thoughts on Lesson Planning for Quakerism 101

2010-12-22T17:44:00.000-08:00

Blessing all,

Last fall I started teaching adult religious education at Perry City Monthly Meeting and opened it up to Ithaca Monthly Meeting as well.

A need that had been voiced by Perry City for a Introduction to Quakerism class that would be good for newcomers but would also hold the attention of longtime Friends. Faced with not an easy task I hit the internet and researched FGC's introduction to Quakerism lesson plans as well as others.

The issue I kept running across was the the lesson plans either looked a Quakerism historically or topically: a week or month spent of on each of the Testimonies and so on. Not that I think either way is bad. I am a historian by trade after all, but Friends have a tendency to portray Quakerism as something that happened "back then." We spend a lot of time glorying in the old days of the underground railroad. When it comes right down to it I'm not convinced this is the most important part of Quakerism we can be imparting to new folks. I'm not sold on the Testimonies as being the first things we want to teach new attenders either. After all Testimonies are outward signs of an inward transformation so that transformation should be where we start. So I determined early on that the over arching theme for the class was going to be "what do Quaker's believe and why?"

Considering the theme what I ended up doing was very simple. We read Silence and Witness by Michael Birkel, and Essays on a Quaker Vision of Gospel Order by Lloyd Lee Wilson together. We met for an hour every Firstday morning and read one chapter every week. We started with Michael's book and then after a short break went on to Lloyd Lee's. I felt that Michael's book gave a nice solid foundation on the nuts and bolts of Quakerism while Lloyd Lee offered a more in-depth look at some of the concepts that have been most important to Quaker thought.

Most classes were simply group discussion about the reading which turned out to be very rich for all of us. Friends at Perry City were particularly inspired and challenged by Lloyd Lee's chapter on Meetings for worship with a concern for business. The only times I really had to facilitate and move the class along was during our reading of Essays on a Quaker Vision of Gospel Order where Friends often got upset, bogged down, and confused by the Christian language. However that language is the same I use so the conversation's we had gave us an opportunity to build understanding and community. On average that class had about eight Friends in attendance although who those eight Friends were varied from week to week.

Writing Quaker Lesson Plans

2010-12-22T09:39:00.000-08:00

With Blessings,

I have been largely absent from this blog as I struggle to understand what God wants from me in regards to the Young Friends In Residence Program. Over the last year and a half of being part of the program I have encountered many struggles and blessings.

One of the blessings as been the several religious education classes I have taught. The most recent of these classes has been on Quakerism and Mysticism. Because lesson plans about Quaker issues or theology are hard to come by and because I have been mostly writing my own I thought I would share the schedule and reading assignments and whatnot for this most resent class.

Friends from Perry City Monthly Meeting and Ithaca Monthly Meeting in New York Yearly Meeting just finished taking this class. Everything went fine and we had many wonderful and Spirit led conversations. We met for an hour on Sunday mornings and discussed the week's reading. Sometimes we read the readings out loud together. I tried to keep the conversations from becoming too intellectual because the class has a tendency to intellectualize everything and miss the spiritual message being given.

The required reading for this class was Testament of Devotion by Thomas Kelly and Love Poems From God edited by Daniel Ladinsky

And the Greatest of These is Love:

Thomas Kelly and understanding a mystical experience of God

(Sundays At Perry City Meeting House)

As you read through the passages for each week consider these question:

What does this tell me about the nature of God?

What does this tell me about our relationship with God?

How does these images of God relate to Quakerism as I understand it?

How does it relate to my own understand of /relationship with God?

Week 1:

Getting to know each other.

What is Mysticism?

Quakerism: a pre-enlightenment faith

Modern mysticism: irrational love in a rational world

Week 2:

A Testament of Devotion (TD) pg 3-11

Love Poems From God (LP) pg 31-34, pg 60-63

Drawn Out of the Text:

“In this humanistic age we suppose man is the initiator and God is the responder. But the Living Christ within us is the initiator and we are the responders.” Thomas R. Kelly

“I like when the music happens like this: something in His eye grabs hold of tambourine in me,” Rumi

Week 3:

TD: pg 12-22

LP: pg 180-186

Drawn Out of the Text:

“Here the autonomy of the inner life becomes complete and we are joyfully prayed through by a Seeking Life that flows through us into the world of men” Thomas Kelly

“Divine light entered my heart from His love that did never truly wane.” St. Catherine of Siena

Week 4:

TD: pg 25-34

LP: pg 240-244

Drawn Out of the Text:

“There is a degree of holy and complete obedience and of joyful self-renunciation and of sensitive listening that is breathtaking.” Thomas Kelly

“You should act more responsibly, God, with all that gorgeousness you posses.” Mira

Week 5:

TD: pg 35-47

LP: pg 304-307, 109-113

Drawn Out of the Text:

“The heart is stretched through suffering and enlarged.” Thomas Kelly

“A thorn as entered your foot. That is why you weep at times at night.” St. Catherine of Siena

Week 6:

The Not Real Mid-Term:

Mysticism is an extremely emotional and sometimes abstract relationship between a person or community and God. Understanding or experiencing a mystical relationship with God is completely different from trying to express that relationship to others.

This week try expressing your experiences or understanding of mysticism. You can:

Write a journal entry of your day-to-day relationship with God

Write a mystical poem(s)

Express that experience through art

Music

Or dance

What ever you are led to do!

Week 7:

TD: pg 51-55

LP: pg 68-72, 96-97

Drawn Out of the Text:

“In The Fellowship cultural and educational and national and racial differences are leveled” Thomas Kelly

“A good gauge of spiritual health is to write down three things you most want. If they in any way differ, you are in trouble.” Rumi

Week 8:

TD: pg 56-61

LP: pg 11-12, 40-43

Drawn Out of the Text:

“Can we make all our relations to our fellows relations which pass through Him?” Thomas Kelly

“and we gazed into every heart on this earth and I noticed lingered a bit longer before any face that was weeping.” St. Francis of Assisi

Week 9:

TD: pg 65-75

LP: pg, 302-307

Drawn Out of the Text:

“Between the relinquished past and the untrodden future stands this holy Now, whose bulk has swelled to cosmic size for within the Now is the dwelling place of God Himself.” Thomas Kelly

“I said to God, “what are you?” and He replied “I am what is loved”.” St. John of the Cross

Week 10:

TD: pg 76-85

LP: 114-120

Drawn Out of the Text:

“There is more to the experience of God than that of being plucked out of the world. The fuller experience, I am sure, is of a Love which send us out into the world.” Thomas Kelly

“It is a lie-any talk of God that does not comfort you.” Meister Eckhart

Week 11:

TD: pg 89-95

LP: pg 271 – 276

Drawn Out of the Text:

“But too many of us have heeded the Voice only at times. Only at times he we submitted to His holy guidance.” Thomas Kelly

“No one can near God unless He as prepared a bed for you.” St. Teresa of Avila

Week 12:

TD: pg 96-100

LP: pg 353, 249, 39, 77, 195-197

Drawn Out of the Text:

“It is not we alone who are at work in the world, frantically finishing a work to offered to God.” Thomas Kelly

“How does God keep from fainting looking at Himself all day?” Rumi

The Strength to Go Into the Wilderness

2010-05-15T04:44:00.000-07:00

“I have been asked many times
to take leaps I did not feel ready to do.
But when I’ve done that I’ve been held
And I have been an agent for God
In ways I never could have been
If I didn’t trust and take that leap.”
- Jean-Marie P. Barch 1998.

Who abide in the shadow of the Almighty, will say to God “My refuge and my fortress; my God in whom I trust.” For God will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilences; God will cover you with pinions and under God’s wings you will find refuge. – Psalm 91:1-4.

About two years ago I attended FGC’s FLGBTQCC Mid-Winter Gathering. While there we were asked to consider several queries every day in our small group worship sharing. One of these queries was something along the lines of, “How do we tell the difference between acts of love and acts of fear?” In my worship sharing I felt moved to speak about this query and then again during worship. As the Spirit usually does I started out focusing on the query and then was led to speak to deeper questions. When considering the difference between acts of love and acts of fear I am led to believe that Friends generally have a hard time distinguishing between the two. Maybe not on a personal level, but as a group we tend to see praise as coming from a place of love and criticize more need for change as coming from a place of fear. In my own experience among Friends I have not found this to be the case. Instead, I have often found that we want to hear praise and only praise about our meetings and the Religious Society of Friends because we are afraid of what might happen if we begin to take criticism seriously and move to change the way things are. Often I have found praise alone comes from a place of fear of change, a fear that we will make things worse or break things beyond repair. Whereas often I have found those who offer criticism and ask for change are doing so out of love, love for their faith and a need that that faith should live up to what they know it is capable of being.

I have been moved to think that there is another image and another question behind this concept of acts of love and acts of fear. I am then called to the image of the wilderness as expressed many times in the Bible and the concept of Blessed Community. I believe that if we are truly a Blessed Community under God, guided by the Spirit, then we should have enough trust and love for each other that will allow us to know what cannot break what was not meant to be broken. I believe that when we act with love and faith in God and in each other we can never make things worse, only better. If some things break, or change, we must have faith that this is what God has meant to happen and all things will be made right and whole in the end. We as a community must not be afraid to go out into the wilderness. We must trust in one another, in ourselves that we might wander, and suffer, and it might be hard and our faith might be tested but in the end we will come out a community, whole and faithful. This ability to go out into the wilderness is not just an act of faith in one another but an act of faith in God. We must believe that God loves us enough that we can go into the dark, into the wilderness, to do things that we are afraid of doing, and God will bring us home. I believe that we are never truly lost, and that God will always bring us home, but we as a religious community must also believe this.

I gave this message in Meeting for Worship on Sunday. After Meeting I attended a Bible study session. The Friend who was leading the session told us the story of how she came to choose the passage we were going to read. She said she had written everything out after being told she was going to lead Bible study at the conference, but then one Firstday she had been sitting in Meeting and had gotten a leading for us to read Genesis 16 in Bible study. She said she had no idea why the Spirit was leading her to this passage but she trusted in the Spirit and changed her plans for the Bible study. Genesis 16 is the story of Hagar, who is a slave to Sarai, and conceives a child by Abram. She then looks with contempt on her mistress who cannot conceive, so Sarai deals harshly with her and Hagar runs away into the wilderness. There she sees an Angel of the Lord who tells her she will have a son and what to name him. Hagar then realizes she is talking to the Lord and names him El-roi or literally “God who sees.” She is the only Old Testament figure that I know of to directly name God.

Today as a Young Friend in Residence intern I think a lot about having faith. Hagar had faith, when she had no reason to, she trusted God when she was in the worst situation a person could be in and God found her important enough to come down and talk to face to face. I think about having the faith to make changes to go out into the wilderness even when it feels like we don’t know where God is leading us. I think about the faith it takes to come home again. To say “yes this is what God wants for us.” If YFIR has taught me nothing it is as friends it isn’t good enough to have faith in just yourself and your relationship with God. You need to have faith in each other and their relationship with God even if it looks nothing like your own. You have to say, “trust that you are Spirit led too, even if you use completely different language from me.” YFIR has taught me to say, “lets take a change and build something that’s never been there before.” Its also taught me to step back and acknowledge that sometimes you can’t invent the wheel twice and there are Friends out there who have done some of this work before.

Friends we need to have faith: faith in God, faith in ourselves, faith in each other. The faith to go our into the wilderness and meet God face to face and the faith to come home

Better Is One Day

2010-05-15T04:40:00.000-07:00

Over the years my daily spiritual practice has been a combination of silent prayer and reading. Sometimes the amount I committed to daily would be different, and over time the reads would change. This combination though has always stayed the same.

This year however seems to have heralded a great deal of change of in my life. Different kind of job, different kind of social community, different part of the country. God has also called me to do things I have never done before and in some cases don’t consider myself particularly skilled at. My daily spiritual practice has also changed. Over the last couple months I have been listening to Christian rock as a spiritual practice. I listen to songs for about a hour or so and see where they lead me spiritually.

I have found it surpriseling fruitful. I have always had a strong connection with music and although I do not sing or play any kind of instrument, I find worship through music extremely moving. Often the Christian rock songs that I listen to are joyful, ecstatic expressions of praise. They help remind me that God is good, even when I feel frustrated and burned out. They are fun to listen to and often move me to a deeper understanding of how God is moving in my life. Some of the songs lyrics I disagree with on a theological level but they express such a strong belief in a Church that is bigger then our individual congregation and denomination it reminds me that the Kingdom is not made simply of theological like-minded individuals.

Most of all I think I am learning how diverse the community of young rock musicians who praise God through their music really is. Increasingly I am believing that it isn’t simply that we are all heading in the same direction but that we are in fact all on the same road heading in the same direction.

Christian Rock Songs I Particularly Like:
Undefeated by Audio Adrenaline
Only Grace by Matthew West
If We Are The Body by Casting Crowns
The Center by Matthew West
Better Is One Day by Kutless
We Could Be Brilliant by All Star United
Take You Back by Jeremy Camp
Stand Up by Fireflight
Next Thing You Know by Matthew West
Pray for Me by Plumb
The End by Matthew West
Everything Glorious by David Crowder Band
Praise You In the Storm by Casting Crowns
Kingdom Comes by Sara Groves
Point of Difference by Hillsong United
You Never Let Go by Matt Redman
Beautiful Stranger by Rebecca St. James

Bring On the Wonder:

2009-10-19T10:29:00.000-07:00

I can’t see the stars anymore living here/let’s go to the hills where the outlines are clear/. . .bring on the wonder, we got it all wrong/we pushed you down in our souls for far too long -Susan Enan

The question of FUM’s hiring policy is something that has weighed on my heart for years. Yesterday I had a chance to read a Minute regarding one monthly Meetings reaction to that hiring policy. I found it deeply troubling.

For so many years I have watched Friends struggle with this policy. I have watched it tare apart more liberal duel-affiliated Yearly Meetings. I have watched it pit Friends against each other: programmed Friends verse, unprogramed Friends, more liberal Friends against more theologically conservative Friends, Friends in the Spirit of Christ against non-Christian Friends, queer Friends against straight Friends. Every time this happens it breaks my heart. It has also put me in a very painful position because I am a more theologically conservative Friend in the Spirit of Christ. It hurts because although I was raised liberal unprogramed I have happily attended programmed and semi-programmed Meetings and found great spiritual power there, also because I am queer. So often when this topic is brought up it is like I am being forced to choose. I understand and sympathize with the anger of liberal Friends but when they throw accusations or wonder how anyone would want to associate with ‘them’ meaning FUM or more conservative Friends it hurts me deeply.

For these reasons I have never advocated setting ourselves, as more liberal Friends, apart from FUM, however I have always advocated taking the hiring policy very seriously and not just sweeping it under the rug. As I have prayed, written, spoken and read about this topic, I have found that I have become more and more uncomfortable with Minutes that come out against the hiring policy. I have come to believe that no matter how carefully worded or how long they have been prayed about they always come out of a place of anger, a place where ‘we’ set ourselves apart from ‘them.’ However I have been unclear in my own heart about what would be a better option. After reading this latest Minute I prayed again on this subject, and finally received a small amount clarity.

So lets not Minute our rejection of and opposition to the FUM hiring policy. Lets instead Minute our love and acceptance of the GLBTQ community. Let us Minute our willingness to help queer couples form marriage bonds. Let’s start discussing - seriously discussing – sexual morality and ethics, and what makes a healthy, loving, respectful relationship according to the values of Friends.

Lets stop asking what is the social justice way to approach this and start asking what is the Godly way to approach this. Let us build something new, instead of simply pushing away what we don’t like.

Let’s stop saying “I reject what you believe and think that it is wrong” and instead say, “this is what I believe and this is why I believe it.”

It’s going to be hard, but I think we all will be better for it.

The Role of Reclaiming in the Coming of the Blessed Community and Why Quakers Should Do It: Some Thoughts.

2009-09-19T05:10:00.000-07:00

As I have been reading into New Monasticism I have been particularly struck by the idea of reclaiming. To reclaim something means that it belonged to someone else who either marked it as unwanted or gave it away. My first exposure to reclaiming was probably the fact that I grew up wearing almost exclusively hand-me-down clothes. While other people, especially young people, would never think of wearing something that wasn’t new I have never thought twice about wearing second-hand
clothes. Even when I have been able to afford new clothes I prefer to wear second hand.

Another experience I have had with reclaiming is with the reclaiming of words, particularly with the word “queer”. Even a generation a good the word queer was a hurtful, hateful word, much as ‘faggot’ still is. Slowly though ‘queer’ has come to be a positive word both politically and academically. While studying in college I studied a lot of queer theory, academic theory that is based on the idea of finding new ways of seeing things, seeing patterns and understanding certain social realities in ways we have not thought of before. Queer theory is about reclaiming, creating, and opening up new space. The word queer is much the same way. I myself feel most comfortable with affixing myself with the label ‘queer’ more then other labels because it is reclaimed to mean something that creates new space and new understanding.

I have never thought about reclaiming space though, or goods per say. However New Monasticism advocates doing just that, and I like that idea. To me reclaiming space, and resources, and ways of living we have been taught to think of as useless or not as good is in line with the teachings of Christ more so then many other forms of political and social activism. Because when we reclaim we do not merely point out where someone is wrong but create an alternative way of seeing, understanding, and acting in the world. We also build communities that way, rather then blindly striking out against the Powers That Be out of anger and hate. It's a harder road but one I do believe Christ taught us to follow. I think Christ taught us to be careful of ways of resisting power structures that are hurtful and hateful and do not build communities. I like the idea of not taking ourselves out of the world and creating our own Utopia off in the forest somewhere, but instead being right there. I like the idea of being right in the middle of things, yet also living a life in God’s image, a life that creates a space for something new. The first mark out of the 12 Marks of New Monasticism talk about reclaiming places of Empire. For me Empire in this context is not referring to a political or social historical reality per-say. Instead it means our fall from Gospel Order, all the things, and systems and oppression in the world that keep us blinded to the Blessed Community. Reclaiming places and in general resources means taking something that the Empire has decided is bad, or just not worth the time and making it into part of the Blessed Community. That can be reusing abandoned houses or building, second hand clothes or furniture, spaces that are considered contaminated, and taking in people who have been cast out. I like reclaiming because it is refusing to play by the rules of Empire. My mother will tell you that I dislike following rules I see as pointless or useless. It’s true I don’t, if a rule is good and helpful and there for a reason I’m totally about following it to the letter, if it’s useless and hurtful though I say why bother? So we rock the boat, we are Quakers and more importantly Christians that’s what we do. I think reclaiming is particularly important for Quakers, especially Liberal Friends because as Liberal Friends we have grown very used to throwing things away. We have gotten rid of beliefs, Church structures, theology and traditions. Yet as Christians and as Friends what we should be doing is reclaiming. Not just in our own religious community, but also out in the world. Reclaiming is a part of God’s politics; it’s a form of protest that creates, and builds something new. We talk a lot in the Liberal Quaker community about acting out of love, and then rely, rant and petition against people like conservatives, Fundamentalist Christians and Republicans. A lot of times I agree, some of what these people do is very wrong and goes against all of the things I believe in as well as how I understand the Church. On the other hand we don’t really try to reclaim anything, and that kind of protest doesn’t build, it doesn’t form communities, it doesn’t make anything new. Brian McLaren calls himself Fundamentalist in A Generous Orthodox, in the Quaker community I am considered very conservative and I would even call myself evangelical. Neither Brian nor I mean these terms in the way they are usually used, but then that’s the point of reclaiming.

I love the idea of reclaiming. I love the idea of taking words, rituals, spaces, things and saying to Empire ‘we aren’t going to play by your rules. You’ve meant these things to be useless, and hurtful, but you don’t have that kind of power over us. We are going to use these things and build a new community with them.’ I think that is what God’s politics is all about, and therefore that is what Quaker politics should be about as well.

Come the New Jerusalem: YAFIR and New Monasticism

2009-09-12T12:22:00.000-07:00

It’s been a week since I moved into the house donated to the YAFIR (Young Adult Friends in Residence) program. The house was in bad shape when we got it but half a dozen F(f)riends have worked very hard for the last three weeks and it now feels more like a home. I am the first intern to move into the house and it feels a little strange just banging around the place waiting for things to get started. It’s given me a little down time though, some time to get used to living in a new place, get my stuff moved in and connect with Friends from Perry City Meeting.

I have been thinking and praying a lot about the community aspect of the program. It has been very clear to me, and the YAFIR committee, that the interns were to build and live in an intentional community however how that would happen and what it would look like has totally been left up to the interns. I have very definite feelings about this. I am not comfortable with the idea of us just being a group of random people living together in the same house. Neither am I at all comfortable with the idea of us living in a community based on the usual model of alternative, secular intentional communities.

I am however very strongly drawn to New Monasticism. When I read 12 Marks of New Monasticism I knew that what it outlined was what I wanted, and more importantly what I needed. It spoke to my condition perfectly. It was a deeply moving spiritual moment for me. Every time I pray about this it only becomes clear to me that I am being called to participate more fully in the Emergent Church movement and New Monasticism as part of that.

On the other hand I and my other interns have not had an opportunity to get together and talk about it. The other two Young Adult Friends involved in the program do not identify as Friends in the Spirit of Christ and I do not know what their feelings will be about participating in or affiliating ourselves with a movement that is undeniably Christian. I must admit the Christian theology and practices New Monasticism embodies is a large part of what draws me to it though. On the other hand those already involved in New Monastic communities are doing much the same work the YAFIR program was designed to do. I think that the connections with other people doing similar work we could make by connecting in some way with this movement would be helpful and nurturing to the YAFIR program as whole. I also think this is a great opportunity for Young Adult Friends to reach out beyond the Quaker community and make connections with other serious religious people involved in similar work. I think Quakers do have a place in the Emergent Church and New Monasticism and I would love to see the YAFIR program take part in finding that place.

The other two interns and I have tried to communicate via e-mail but it hasn’t really worked out up until this point. I hope and pray we will come to a clearer understand of the direction this community will go once at least two of us have the opportunity to talk face to face. I also hope that the other two interns possible leeriness of Christianity will not stop us from building a strong, meaningful community under the guidance of the Spirit.

I will continue to pray for strength and faithfulness for all of us.

All These Words We Use: This Is What They Mean

2009-09-09T08:43:00.000-07:00

Friends In The Spirit of Christ Epistle

2009-09-05T05:34:00.000-07:00

FRIENDS IN THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST

Eighth Month 30, 2009

To Friends everywhere, and to all who seek love, joy, hope, and meaning in life:

We, a group of Friends gathering at Powell House in Old Chatham, NY for a weekend entitled “Following Jesus in Community,” send our loving greetings to you. We’ve come from places ranging from Maine to Virginia and Ohio and from a variety of Quaker traditions. We have shared our personal experiences of the love of the living Jesus Christ and have been buoyed and stirred by Christ’s healing and forgiving presence among us this weekend. We want to invite you into the joy, hope and love we have known here.

We experienced a divine covering that helped to reconcile us all, dissolving many anxieties some of us felt in gathering with strangers whose theological tendencies we did not know. Knowing that language and doctrinal notions have caused unnecessary divisions among people of faith, we have no desire to add to these, but simply to stand with Jesus Christ at an open door, where He offers His light and love. We have found that these are available to everyone. We are eager to share the experiences that have liberated us from so many burdens and sorrows in hopes that you and others may know the same joy.

We intend to meet again within the year, and invite inquiries to: Friends in the Spirit of Christ, c/o Anna Obermayer, 599 Trumbulls Corners Road, Newfield, NY 14867 (anna.e.obermayer@gmail.com).

In love,

Ann Armstrong (NEYM)
Doug Armstrong (NEYM)
Jim Atwell (NYYM)
Susan Bailey (OYM)
Connie Bair-Thompson (NEYM)
Arthur Berk (NYYM, OYM)
Peter Blood-Patterson (NEYM)
Steve Chase (NEYM)
Shayla Cody
Jim Contois (NEYM, NYYM)
Ann Dodd-Collins (NEYM)
Ann Davidson (NYYM)
Roger Dreisbach-Williams (NYYM)
Elizabeth Edminster (NYYM)
John Edminster (NYYM)
Ellen Flanders (NYYM)
Dorothy Garner (NYYM)
David Herendeen (NYYM)
Seth Hinshaw (OYM)
Raye Hodgson (OYM)
Ruth Kinsey (NYYM)
Herb Lape (NYYM)
Rene Lape (Attender, NYYM)
Reb MacKenzie (NEYM, NYYM)
Barbara Meli (NYYM)
Salvatore Meli (NYYM)
Kate Moss (NYYM)
Anna Obermayer (NYYM)
Christopher Sammond (NYYM)
James Schultz (NYYM)
Stella Schultz (NYYM)
Susan Smith (OYM)
Thomas Swain (PYM)
Lillie Wilson (NEYM)

Key to Yearly Meeting Affiliation:
NEYM = New England Yearly Meeting
NYYM = New York Yearly Meeting
OYM = Ohio Yearly Meeting
PYM = Philadelphia Yearly Meeting

In the Hands of the Lord: Becoming A Released Young Adult Friend

2009-08-30T14:02:00.000-07:00

On Sunday NY Yearly Meeting convened to begin our weeklong session. While sitting in Meeting on Sunday at the opening Meeting for worship this message came to me. I was drawn to give special thanks to those who work for NY Yearly Meeting full time and for every other Quaker organization in the country. I am reminded that for me it is a particularly scary concept to dedicate ones entire life and time to God’s calling. I, who am plagued by doubts and questions about what it is God calls me to do within the Religious Society of Friends, have a hard time imagining a calling so strong that one would give up other options of jobs and life styles to dedicate themselves to the workings of our religious society and community. I personally always wonder and worry if I chose a life focused entirely on my religious community my other gifts and my other callings to work in other communities would be lost. On the other hand I sometimes wonder if I hide behind other things I do, as a way of escaping what God is calling me to do, because it scares me.

I thank God that there are people with the strength, wisdom and courage to make that choice to become “full-time Quakers” as it where. Yet I remind myself that God’s callings are often frightening and not easy. Religion especially Quakerism is not easy and often frightening. Too often I think we let ourselves think of Quakerism as an easy safe thing. We sometimes forget that in its demand that we all open ourselves to God and dedicate every facet of our lives to Her grace and glory, Quakerism is the very antithesis of safe and easy.

My prayer for myself and NY Yearly Meeting would be that we do not loose sight of the fact that ours is a strong, rich, powerful, living, demanding, frightening, enlightening and beautiful faith. We must not be afraid of doing what is hard or spiritually frightening. God often calls us to move out of the space we feel comfortable and walk a hard and sometimes dangerous road. I hope that we all listen for, discern and except our leadings as God gives them to us, no matter what they might be. Even if they scare us. Let us all be open to the Spirit, to move among us. Make us a vessel of Your light and Your will. We must trust that God loves us, watches over us and will not lead us astray. No matter how huge a jump God seems to be requiring of us, She is always there protecting us and making sure we come down where we need to be. We must trust God knows the path, even if we don’t, and that is the most frightening thing of all, and also the most joyful and beautiful.

I am reminded of a passage from Paul. Paul new what it meant to be called by God to do what he thought he could not do. When God called Paul, God called him to go against everything he had previously believed, everything he had been taught, everything he valued, everything he defined himself as, everything his community and his family defined themselves as. God called Paul to do what he had previously believed would be impossible for him to do. Paul knew the power of the Spirit of God, and knew how it can shape, reshape and set afire your life when you surrender to it. Paul writes in Second Corinthians 3:17 “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Freedom” and I believe that. I believe that.

I wrote this message two years ago during Summer Sessions of New York Yearly Meeting. I find it particularly interesting and moving today, as I face a commitment I have made to live as a released Friend, a full-time Quaker, in fact. Two years ago I could not have imagined setting aside my other gifts and ambitions to dedicated myself fully to God and my religious community. Today the idea still terrifies me, and seems too big, too complicated and too much like something I might need to be a people-person to do.

I first heard about the Young Adult Friends In Residence program when it was first conceived roughly five years ago. At the time I couldn’t imagine it would be anything I was interested in doing. Mostly because when it was first imagined it was imagined to be a program that focused exclusively on youth work, an area I have never been gifted at. Since then Young Adult Friends In Residence has become much more then a youth program, now it also includes spiritual nurture and spiritual growth work as well as a deeper understand about what it means to live in religious community. I applied to it about two to three years ago when no one really knew when or if it could happen.

Even this spring whether or not the program would happen seemed touch and go, but as of this summer it pulled together. Through divine influence we got a dedicated host meet, a house, support of the Yearly Meeting, funding, and three willing interns.

Now suddenly, I am a full-time Quaker, and if all things go according to plan I will be so for the next two years. I did not, nor do I take this decision lightly. I have been discerning God’s will in this decision for almost six months both by myself and with a clearness committee. Through that time I became clear to me that since I have now graduated from college the time had come to dedicated myself fully to my religious community and my own spiritual growth. I will have an Elder, and an anchor committee to work with me through this. Yet I have done what seemed two years ago to be so unimaginably scary. It’s a huge step for me, and I pray for faithfulness everyday. I pray to be as faithful as the other released Friends I have known.

I know that I am doing Christ’s work and Christ’s will in this, and I trust that I will be loved, cared for and that I will not be led astray. “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Freedom”(Second Corinthians 3:17) I still believe that.

Mary

2009-07-22T15:02:00.001-07:00

I am the mystic
To whom belief came slowly.
I doubted because I could not see God
And when I prayed I only knew silence.

My sister knows God in the daily chores
In the baking of the bread
But to me God comes as angels
And Light so bright I could not stand
But fell to my knees
In the courtyard of our house
Right by the fig tree.
Martha scolded me for spilling the water.

When I first heard His words
I wept and wept.
Inconsolable for days
As my world died around me.
Then after the tears
when I awoke
I found God had built me another.

They tell me it is blasphemy
This new teaching.
But I who never loved God
Have learned to love so much and so freely
That I see Him in every drop of water
Every fig
Every lizard
Every voice in the street
Every beggar who stops at our door.
Perhaps it is blasphemy.

When He died
I stood and watched the lights go out.
But the angels stood by me, hands on my shoulders
And in His mother’s voice told me
The morning would come.

They say the Spirit came to the twelve
And they spoke as one.
But I have always known God
Burning like tongues of fire.
And I will not be afraid.

When the day of Pentecost had come: Questions regarding Friends and Pentecost

2009-06-02T08:32:00.000-07:00

“When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent winds, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:1-4)

Lately spending time with other Christians has made me wonder why Pentecost doesn’t hold a greater significance for Friends. After all Pentecost is one of the most important events in Christian tradition and as a denomination that focuses so much on revelation by the Spirit, one would think Pentecost should be particularly reveared by Friends.

I don’t see a lot of talk about Pentecost though. Certainly Friends don’t celebrate it the way other Christians do. When talking with a Friend about it, she pointed out to me that we as Friends did not celebrate Pentecost because we traditionally did not celebrate Holy days, expecting every day to be a Holy day.

But modern Friends celebrate Christmas, and my family at least has always celebrated Easter. I know this is mostly because Christmas and Easter have become more secular events than religious holidays. Yet I draw great emotional and spiritual strength and power from celebrating the birth and resurrection of my Lord Jesus Christ. For me celebrating these Holy days even though I am not strictly following Quaker tradition is an important part of my religious life. I think the same can be said for a lot of Friends.

I am now wondering that if we as Friends, and I know not all Friends do this, break our religious traditions enough to celebrate Christmas, why not celebrate Pentecost? Why not celebrate Lent? Might we as a religious community benefit from the rich traditions and spiritual meaning offered by celebrating all Christian Holy days?

It feels weird to for me to be suggesting actually going against a Quaker tradition, but I feel like this one might be one we might actually benefit from leavi

Reflections On Living One’s Faith: Notes from a Contemplative Friend

2009-04-28T07:33:00.000-07:00

In about a week and a half I will graduate from Earlham College with major in History and a minor in Religion. Last Saturday evening the Bonner Scholarship Program held a reception dinner for the senior Bonner scholars of which I am one. The Bonner Scholarship Program is a national community service based scholarship for low-income students. The director of the program at Earlham’s, Jana, picked a quote she felt most embodied each of us, as Bonner scholars, and our work in the community. For me she picked this quote by Myles Horton,

“If you believe that people are of worth, you can’t treat anybody inhumanly, and that means you not only have to love and respect people, but you have to think in terms of building a society that people can most profit from, and that kind of society has to work on the principle of equality. Otherwise, Somebody’s going to be left out.”

I don’t think of myself as someone who works in the world a lot. Of all the members of my family I am one of the least activist minded among them. I have a “one social justice issue in my life at a time” policy that confuses and sometime annoys other members of my family. Starting last year I totally embargoed the news because of American politics. I refused to listen to it or read about it because, I felt it was too hate-filled with too much emphasis on “use against them” especially due to the election. It paralyzed me, it kept me from seeing the good in people and only pulled me down into anger over the things I couldn’t change. So I stopped having anything to do with politics.

On Facebook a couple weeks ago I took a Facebook-quiz on “what is your ministry” evidently my ministry is working within the world, living my life according to my values and social justice issues. It’s not that that isn’t important to me it’s just in comparison to other people I know it simply doesn’t seem to be my major emphasis. So I shrugged off the quiz, like you do, and moved on.
Last week during our last senior Bonner meeting we all got our applications back so we could see exactly what had caused the selection committee to accept us into the program in the first place. There was a lot of laughing, a lot of reminiscing. It was fun to see what was important to us then and how much has changed. Yet I couldn’t help noticing the desperation that came through in my application. Over and over again on every page of my application I seem to be saying, “please let me serve, I need to be doing community service, I need to be out in the community.” Sometimes I forget how important service is for me, how much I can’t just sit back and do nothing in my life.
For the last month or so I’ve been easing into politics again as well. Mostly through watching The Daily Show. Everyone laughs when I tell them this, but watching Jon Stewart on an almost daily basis is helping me be a better political person. Politics in this country can by so hateful, we can get so wrapped up in the political arguments, making our point, standing for what we believe, that we forget we’re all people, and compassion is key. I am all too aware that I can fall into this, that I can forget to be compassionate, I need humor, not anger, I need to be smiling when I think about these issues, even the serious ones, even the heart breaking ones, especially those.
In some ways it seems right that I am coming to realize and reflect on this part of my spiritual life now. I tend to work through things in a certain methodical order, and one needs a strong personal spiritual foundation before one can reach out into the world. Like everything about spirituality the way you live your faith through our life has to reflect your own personal understanding of God. The last four years of my life seem to have been in large part about me taking a step back and saying, “ok, this is what I believe in, this is who I am, as a religious person.” Now maybe it’s the time for me to start thinking “and this is what it means for me to live that faith.” Or maybe I’ve already started.

Without Hesitation or Equivocation

2009-03-18T12:31:00.000-07:00

For several weeks I have been thinking and praying about what it would mean for me, as a young liberal Friend, to be able to stand up among a group of young Christians and say, “Jesus Christ is my personal Savior.” This is a phrase used by millions of young Christians without embarrassment or hesitation every day all over the country. Yet I was raised and lived for many years with a strong discomfort for this particular phrase. In the world I lived in and among the people I associated with both religious and secular, this particular phrase brought up images of Fundamentalist Christian brainwashing. Even my incredibly religious and Christian mother reacted with discomfort when a more fundamentalist Christian friend of hers asked if I had accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior, I was about ten at the time.

Ten was a little young for me to be making deep spiritual decisions, but now I wonder, what keeps me from using this language? What keeps me from proclaiming my faith in this way? I’m not embarrassed about being a Friend and neither am I embarrassed about being a Christian. As I get older and grow more and more into my faith it is my Christian roots, those roots that for me I cannot separate from being a Friend, that mean so much to me. I love reading the Bible, some parts of the Bible I read literally. I love the symbol of the Cross and how it links me across time to a long and rich history of spirituality and faith, but also links me across denominations to other believers in the word and spirit of Christ. I wear crosses a lot. I own five. Connecting with other Christians especially other Christian youth is extremely important for me. I really treasure the time I spend in fellowships with Methodists, Catholics, Baptists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Brethrens, Mennonites, Pentecostals. Again and again my fellow Christians teach me about faithfulness, and acting righteously within the world. To say “Jesus Christ is my personal Savior” is a link that connects many Christians together by a common belief and a common articulation of that belief.

What would it really mean for me to say, “Jesus Christ is my personal Savior”? Firstly the phrase denotes a belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. This is not a problem for me, I am a Christian, and I do believe that Jesus was God made flesh. This phase also denotes Jesus as Savior. For many years as a liberal I struggled with Jesus’ role as Savior. In my mind, and I’m sure many peoples, when you say ‘savior’ the immediate reaction is a God who saves some and damns others. This is not however necessarily true. Grace can, and I believe is, freely given to all. That does not mean however people cannot live in a state of Hell. In my theology hell is a state of being. To live in hell is to live in pain and unhappiness, to hurt others through our actions, to hurt ourselves, to hurt our world. I’ve been there; I’m assuming most of us have. In Hell the world is against you, and everyone in it out to get you, the world shrinks down to you pain and your unhappiness, and you lash out against it. This is what God saves you from. This is what God is there to save everyone from. In my case I think God saves me over and over again, when I was sixteen, when I was twenty. When God saves you not all your problems magically go away, and you don’t stop being in pain. Instead you are able to take a step back and say “yes I did that, that is my fault, but this is what I’m going to do to trying and make it better, to try and change.” To say Jesus Christ as Savoir also brings up images of the crucifixion. For a long time I rejected the crucifixion outright, it wasn’t important to my personal theology I didn’t want to deal with it, so I didn’t. Since then I have read about and explored several kinds of theology in which the crucifixion is extremely important and in which the crucifixion is depicted in what I find compelling ways. I’m still unsure how I feel about the crucifixion or what it’s meaning for me is, but I cannot at this point reject it outright anymore.

The last theological part that goes into the phrase “Jesus Christ is my personal Savoir” is the personal bit, in all sense. For me it is also the easiest part. Jesus Christ is my personal Savoir. God loves me personally, Jesus touched me, saved me, comforted me. I am worth that in God’s eyes, I am a beloved child or God, and when I am happy, living a good life, taking care of myself, taking care of my world and the people in it, living a righteous life, God is happy, and I know God made life possible.

You might be thinking at this point, that’s great Anna you go ahead and say “Jesus Christ is my personal Savoir”. You might be wondering what the point is. There are several points here. First there is connection, being able to truthfully use a common Christian language allows many Christian with different beliefs, different outlooks and different ways of expressing their faith to come together and have a conversation. More over it allows us to have a conversation that starts from a place of similarities rather then a place of division. This is important to me. It is important to me that we as Friends reach out to other Christians. It is important that I be able to say “look despite our differences there are some things we can agree on.” Being able to say, “Jesus Christ is my personal Savoir” allows me to begin to have a conversation with a young evangelical fundamentalist Christian that starts from a place of mutual understanding instead of mistrust. I want to have those conversations; I think all Friends should want to.

Being able to say Jesus Christ is my personal Savoir is also important on a personal spiritual level. It is a declaration of faith. When you say it, you are declaring your love for God, your faithfulness to God, your love and faithfulness to Christianity and the Christian tradition. This is also very important to me. As a liberal Christian I cannot spend me enter life apologizing for believing in Christ as the Son of God, or believing the Quakerism is a Christian faith. For me being a Christian, being a believer in Christ a Friend to Christ is an act of joy, an act of love, not an act of betrayal. I am always searching for ways to express that joy and that love without denying my Quaker tradition of the rejection of outward signs. There is also another meaning to me saying this particular statement of faith and that is acknowledging to all, openly my personal relationship with God. As a young politically and social liberal person, as a Queer identified person, it caries special weight to stand up and say God loves me personally, God has saved me, Go is in a relationship with me, just like God is in a relationship with you.

Jesus Christ is my personal Savior. I accepted Jesus into my heart for the first time when I was sixteen years old, and all the world seemed to be nothing but fear and pain. God saved me from myself, from myself hatred and self-abuse. I try to live my life in the image of Christ. I am like every other twenty-two year old, devout Christian across America. I read the Bible, I pray everyday, I attend my church, and I seek fellowship with other believers. I wonder how I am going to live a good Christian life in a world that too often does not seem to share my beliefs about what makes a good and just life. I struggle conduct my relationships with integrity. I wonder what God has in store for me. I am also member of the Democratic Party, I believe in a woman’s right to choose, I am against the death penalty, against war or violence of any kind, against discrimination for any reason. I believe in global warming, and evolution. I identify queer, I believe we do not choose our sexuality, I believe the sex we were born with does not have to dictate the way we understand out gender. I am a member of the Religious Society of Friends. I know many, many other Christians believe in all of these things too. I also know many, many other do not. That’s ok though, I know the table is big enough for all of us to sit at.

Quakers and Radical Hospitality

2008-10-09T11:36:00.000-07:00

There is a Methodist church I know that has a sign out front that says all are welcome. More than that anyone who walks off the street will truly be welcomed, and the church makes sure there is always someone there to sit and talk with people who come to them. They also run a soup kitchen, many religious education groups, a daycare program, and the pastor is very active in local activism. This year they hosted the People of Blessings Service an ecumenical service celebrating the local GLBTQ community. Not everyone who belongs to this church is in favor of their stance towards radical inclusiveness but the pastor feels that inclusiveness is her duty as a servant of God. One day she told us all, at one of the book discussion groups that I attend, about a Methodist church she interned at. This church had sunk down to a tiny congregation of elderly churchgoers. When the diocese sent people down to see if they could revive the church they realized that the church stood in the middle of a very impoverished community. So they started a soup kitchen, and a food bank, and a free meal system where on Sunday they would set up tables outside of the church and handout free meals. The whole congregation participated and the church grew. They funded these good works and revival by declaring themselves a mission church and trusting other churches would support their work financially.

Radical Hospitality is, in the words of Saint Benedict, “to invite all into your house as if they where Christ.” In my experience Quakers are real horrifically bad at it. My own meeting can’t be bothered to give food to the local food pantry. While I know of one meeting who keeps their building locked at all times because they are situated in an impoverished community and are
afraid of getting stuff stolen. They also have on going debate about turning people away when they come asking for food. I don’t drive, due to my disabilities. In the town I was staying at for two summers I only got one ride once to meeting and that was after a lot of trouble and very grudgingly offered. Furthermore it took me a solid month to track down someone willing to give me a ride to Meeting this summer. I would have been happy to take the bus but it didn’t run on Sundays. Over all though it’s not surprising that if Friends are this unwilling to go out of their way to welcome a young adult Friend, that they wouldn’t be at all willing to help a non Quaker. I find this strange and very sad because we as Friends are supposed to be bringing about the Kingdom of Heaven. Yet, as far as I can tell, we are phenomenally bad at welcoming people into our midst or reaching out to our communities. In a resent book group I read the chapter on Hospitality, in Christianity for the Rest of Us, about a church that welcomed, ex-convicts, the elderly, gay and lesbian couples, troubled teens, and anyone seeking God into their church and their hearts, taking special time to talk and pray with them and learn their individual needs. I came to the conclusion that Friends aren’t good at hospitality because we don’t want to be.

I have always gotten the feeling that when Friends talked about the Kingdom they were really talking about a time when everyone on the planet would be just like them. As I reflect more though, I think I have come to the conclusion that the Kingdom won’t be so much like your average Quaker meeting and more like a city bus. On, say a down town bus you will have, white collar commuters, shoppers, college students, elderly woman and men, the mentally ill community, the disabled community, punks and Goths, high school kids, hippies, children, troubled teens, people just out of prison or rehab, there are homeless people who are paying the last money the have in bus fare, there are blue collar workers, housewives, college professors, grad students, and perhaps the one young transgendered woman I knew who has been routinely kicked out of all
the homeless shelters in town for being transgendered. Some of these people come and are welcomed into our Meetings, but not all. Many Friends have pointed out that these people do not come to meeting, which is why they are not
there. Yet I would wonder why don’t our meeting look more like city buses? Why are ninety-nine present of all Friends I know white, middle classed and middle aged? There are many, many churches that are made up of members of other communities and groups so why are Quaker meetings not serving as a spiritual home to a more diverse population. Even if we are not attracting people into our meeting why are we not reaching out to our communities? Why do meeting not run soup kitchens,food pantries, and homeless shelters? Why are there no Quaker inner city mission churches? Why are there no Quaker mission churches in America at all? These are not impossible feats. Many other churches of many other denominations do this work. Some churches have dedicated themselves to doing this work. Large numbers of Christians affirm that this work, reaching out to those in need all around us, is God’s work. If this is God’s work then why isn’t it work Friends are doing? Money is not a question when facing God’s work. Friends go to Africa and South America with nothing and do good works. Many other churches raise money to help fund their works. Some churches reach out to other churches to help supply them with funds. I know from experience that community non-profits raise enough money to survive all the time. Perhaps it is fear that holds Friends back from radical hospitality. Perhaps it is spiritual apathy. I only know that until we listen to that of Christ within our hearts and reach out to the communities we are a part of we will move no further in the building of the Kingdom towards which we strive.

When God comes to Pot-Lucks

2008-10-06T09:54:00.000-07:00

Ok so I'm sure I am not the only liberal religious person who has had to both balance a plate of food on my knees and explain my beliefs to a group of skeptics. Whether it's in bookstores, pot-lucks, coffee shops or other activist rallies often we as people of faith are expected to be able to give good and convincing answers to the nitty-gritty theological questions.
So I'm wondering what are the questions about faith you are called on to answer the most? How do you answer them?

For me it would be:

-but you're not Christian right? (after I say that I'm Quaker)

-as a Christian what is your views on homosexuality?

-how can you talk about your religious experience without making people feel like your trying to convert them?

-but you're not evangelical right?

-do you believe the Bible is the word of God?

-what about all the horrible things people do and have done in the name of God?

-how can you be both Universalist and Christian?

What are the questions about faith you get asked the most?

When God Goes to Starbucks?

2008-10-02T14:51:00.000-07:00

When I first saw the title in my local library the first think that popped into my head was ‘what is God doing in some place as chain-store oriented and big business as Starbucks; known for totally destroying locally owned businesses.’ My second thought was to chide my self for falling into the old trap of assuming God is somehow politically motivated, and one side or another ‘gets’ God on their team. God no doubt spends a lot of time in Starbucks and where ever else God is needed. I picked the book up and flipped through it while spending time studying and writing my most recent paper. When God Goes to Starbucks by Paul Copan is supposed to be a easy to read little book about good, Christian-grounded answers to the kind of questions most believers get every day: Do people really believe in miracles? is it ok to lie if your lying to a Nazi? doesn’t the Bible condone holy war? what about the Bible and homosexuality? and on. All of these questions are good question and they are questions I have found I have to answer quite often as I move in cycles of young people where being Christian is akin to having a disfiguring disease. The book is also well thought out and easy to read, light in tone and engaging. However I found as I began to read it, for me, a huge glaring problem that ultimately made me have to put the book down.

The problem was simply that the author assumed when he said Christian he was talking about a group of people who believed pretty much the same thing. Yet what he called Christian and what I believe to be Christianity was not even remotely the same thing. His God was not my God (although they may both buy coffee at the same play on occasion). Paul Copan is an extremely gifted writer, a man who holds multiple degrees including a professorship, yet he assumes that he speaks for all Christians when really he only speaks for some, mostly more fundamentalist leaning, conservatively minded, Christians.

I have tried to keep a good sense of humor throughout writing this, ultimately I didn’t walk away from When God Goes to Starbucks feeling angry that Paul and I didn’t see eye to eye on our Christian beliefs. I did walk way feeling sad though; sad because I know of no equally engaging little book that forthrightly examines the hard Christian questions for Christians like me. I know we exist, there are other liberal and/or ecstatic Christians out there, I have met so many and look forward to meeting many more. Yet when we look at the book shelves in our libraries and Barns and Nobles (God might hangout there too) we see books that assume there is only one kind of Christianity. Books that assume these Christians can speak for all Christians, although I know there are many of us where that’s not true. Yet we still let them. For many years I have been trying to understand why. Why do we stand quiet when other more fundamentalist Christians don’t? I have come to think that we are all, on some level, afraid and ashamed. Afraid to unwittingly hurt others and ashamed that we are Christians in a society where to be liberal often means to be against Christianity. I know I always pause before telling someone about my faith, especially if they know my sexual orientation or the kind of social activism I do, inwardly bracing myself for the onslaught of questions. Well I think it’s time, overdue actually to knuckle down. That kind of fear is not going to cut it, we can’t write books that way.

Copan points out that there are many important theological conversation taking place at Starbucks and his book might help many having those conversation, but there are some of us who will be giving different answers.

In God's Hands

2008-08-18T07:41:00.000-07:00

I have a lot of anxieties. In fact I’m a rather anxious person by nature. I worry about just about everything. So pretty much as soon as I when through clearness a little under a year ago for a call to ministry through writing I began to worry. My worries weren’t really founded in anything in particular, but they did cause me to pretty much freeze up inside. For a few months I totally spiritually froze refusing to open up to God at all in anyway without realizing that was what I was doing. I was like a small child curled up in bed under the covers in terror; terror of my calling and terror of the fact that I had publicly acknowledged that calling. Slowly though, through prayer and the ministry of other Friends I began to uncurl. Still my writing remained difficult and rare. Where as before my clearness committee my writing flowed through me much as vocal ministry in meeting did, after my clearness committee writing became slow and painful with me second-guessing myself at every step. What I should have done was seek out other Friends to help guide and elder me through my fears, but even the prospect of that was frightening. So I decided this fear of my own gifts and callings was going to have to be between myself and God. If God wanted my to minister in that way then God would have to see me through my fear so I could do it. I still attended Quaker functions, I still participate in Quaker life, I still spoke in Meeting, I still conversed with Friends but part of me, the part of me that my writing had come out of seemed to be listening instead of speaking. Slowly, over time my fear lessened. I began to write. At first the writing took the form of poetry, my first love. Over time though I began to write more like I had before I went through clearness. At Baltimore Yearly meeting I wrote three articles and edited an earlier piece within a twenty-four hour period. The writing I did then was incredibly easy, flowing through me almost faster then I could write it down. I was also filled with the overwhelming sense that what I was writing was Truth as I experienced it. At the end of writing one piece I sat back and realized I had no anxiety about what I had written. I did not feel the need to second-guess myself, or worry about how others would perceive my message; I had been faithful that was all that mattered. To me writing is serving God and if we trust serving God is our greatest

Stewards of Christ

2008-08-07T08:16:00.000-07:00

“But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves”(James 1:22)

I am attending Baltimore Yearly Meeting and once more I am reminded of the message I received throughout the young adult Friends conference in Richmond IN. There has been such an emphasis in these yearly meeting sessions on work taking place over seas, including long discussions in business meeting and interest groups. I had several long discussions with Friends regarding African Friends, and have thought more and more about the nature of the mission work carried out by FUM and Evangelical Friends. Yet the more I think and talk about this work the more a message comes to me. The same message that came to me in Richmond IN. The work we need to do is here. Right now, right here in our monthly, quarterly and yearly meeting.

I remember from the Richmond conference one young adult Friend recounted her struggle to acknowledge that her calling was still real and Spirit led even though it would entail work here in America instead of traveling to work abroad as all her other Quaker friends where doing. As much as I think the work we do aboard is wonderful, needful, and truly Spirit led, I wonder how much work within our own American communities both Quaker and otherwise goes undone. I feel we spend so much time concentrating our attention and energy else where that it does not leave us much of either to tackle problems closer to home. I am not advocating us ending our services all over the globe. I just feel a mounting unease. All I ever here of is work friends are doing else where when I personally witness the suffering and need here in America everyday.

In a list of services Friends where engaged in one Friend mentioned services in America then hastily explained that he was speaking of prison ministry. We are all truly blessed by every Friend who feels and heeds the call to prison ministries, but I wonder about our lack of commitment to other areas of suffering in America. I think it is some times easier for us to pretend, subconsciously, that the only poverty, hunger, death, homelessness, discrimination, and inhuman violence is taking place in other countries not our own. However as we all intellectually know this is not the truth. Yet as we struggle to build the kingdom of God we must reach out to all people at home and abroad. Nor do I think one group more needful then the other.

There is also the issue of the state of the Religious Society of Friends. I find it uncomfortable to watch Friends spending so much time worrying and discussing Friends in African or South America when we have our own troubles and needs here in America. I think dialog between us and Africans Friends is both needful and a blessing but I worry when a whole discussion on FUM only ever focuses the African Friends when there are plenty of FUM Friends here in America. I also feel uncomfortable when Friends spend all there time discussing work abroad and money to be sent abroad while real problems and needs exist within their own Yearly Meeting I feel for the sake of all Friends, the spiritual health of the Religious Society of Friends should be addressed first. I feel it is hard for us to aid others when we are in desperate need of spiritual aid ourselves.

When I was in Richmond IN I received a simple message over and over again. The message was that the real work of the Religious Society of Friends needed to happen at the month, quarterly and yearly meeting levels. That the spiritual well being of the society as a whole could only be preserved by working from these levels, by healing and renewing on a more intimate community level. I also received the very strong message that Friends needed to spend more time working in their own communities at large. We as Friends I believe tend to struggle with the ideals of radical Christian hospitality, and I would like to see more of an emphasis paid to that within our meeting bodies. We acts with such loving, nurturing kindness, and grace towards those in need throughout the world. I would dearly love, and truly wish to see the same grace offered other Friends here in our home meetings and the communities these meeting are located in. May the Spirit of Christ guide us abroad, at home and within our hearts.

Water to Wine

2008-07-15T10:57:00.000-07:00

This is the first straight out piece of poetry I have ever posted hear. That's kind of hard to believe. This piece came to me after seeing an article by the same name on a GLBTQ Christian website. I also reflected on a religious education group I attend at my local Methodist church back in NY, and how much other Christians have to teach us Friends about being gracious.

Water To Wine
The miracle of water into wine is an image of change that has never really spoken to me until now. I thank and dedicate this piece to every liberal Christian I know, of all denominations. You are not afraid to have faith.

There is a billboard close to where I lived that shows water being pored, changing into wine in the glass. Come see a miracle it says, advertising a church I have never been to.

Such a powerful image; water into wine.

I am a generation born of a generation of spiritual refugees. A generation who left the church, or where thrown out, fleeing hate, prejudice, fear, and a God without mercy. Like all refugees they brought with them, memories more painful then they could bare, hidden scars and fear of the dark. I was born into a world without the Bible, without God, without grace. I was raised into a religion that had almost forgotten how to pray. There were rules unspoken here; you do not go the church if you are a woman, you do not go to church if you are a liberal, you do not go to church if you are queer. They will only turn you away.

Come see a miracle.

But God does not rest, or take heed to human politics, and God found me when I was seventeen and afraid. I am a child of a generation of refugees, but this war is ending and times are changing. We are coming back to the Church. Welcomed or not, this space is ours, this grace freely given to us, and God speaks to us too. One by one we are listening. See me, liberal, queer woman that I am, I have faith, and this is my church too. The Church is changing.

Water to wine, come see a miracle.

It is raining grace a GLBTQ Christian blogger wrote when California legalized same-sex unions.

It is raining grace.

We are no longer refugees. We are coming home now.

From water into wine.

It is time to take communion again, and this time we are offering the chalice.

Me, The Bible, and the Question of Sexuality: The Really Short Version

2008-07-11T06:18:00.000-07:00

I sometimes find myself in rather an interesting position. I am young, very politically liberal, queer identified woman. I am also very much a Christian, and rather theologically conservative especially for a Quaker. I do a lot of talking with and traveling among other Christian denominations. I am also a dedicated scholar of the Bible. Often therefore I am called to talk about my feeling about the Bible and homosexuality. This is the very short version of the answer I usually give Christians who ask:

First off I am a queer woman. Secondly I am very, very much a Christian. I love the church, I love God and I really, really love the Bible. I love reading it for personal strength and understand of God and also studying it academically.
The first think I notice when I approach the subject of homosexuality and the Bible is it’s really not talked a lot about, given the enter length of the Bible. Secondly at least one of the passages usually pointed to as speaking about homosexuality I believe actually doesn’t. It’s been read that way by the church but taken out of theological context I really don’t see how that’s what it’s talking about. There are some parts of the Bible that are however unequivocally condemning homosexuality. I have no answer for this, no more then I have an answer for the parts of the Bible, about war, murder, blood sacrifice and genocide or God’s rather. I don’t believe any of these things are part of God’s Plan but they are in the Bible.
There is something I do know about the Bible though, and that is that its talks about love a lot. All the time in fact, over and over again, Old Testament and New. The Bible talks about love almost constantly, about love for ourselves, for each other and for God. That I know to be Truth, God’s Truth given to us through the Bible. Love, real love, is wonderful, and beautiful. It heals us, builds us up, helps us to be stronger and better then we thought we could be, it sustains us, and lets us do the work that God meant us to do. That love is God and the Spirit with us every day. That love, I believe, doesn’t worry about sexuality. When love is healthy, consensual and nurturing to us, others and God, it doesn’t matter what gender our partner is. Love is a gift from God and I don’t question the gifts God gives me.
Sin is when we turn away form God and Truth and act in ways that are harmful, unloving and ungracious towards others and ourselves. Anyone can act without grace, no matter what their sexuality. In turn though love that healthy and brings us closer to God is not confined by one sexuality, one kind of experience. I believe that is o.k., with me, and with God.

When We cannot Turn Away

2008-06-23T07:57:00.000-07:00

He said, “I'm moved to tenderness by what we cannot bare
Humbled by what we can and do and learn to share . . .”
~Carrie Newcomer

I don’t talk about Friends’ call to service and social action very much. Usually when I write or speak it’s on more inward solitary matters of the Spirit. Yet recently I have felt a need to reflect and consider on Friends’ religious call to act within the world. The work I do is not particularly trendy work for the up and coming liberal activists of my generation. I work in law; human rights investigation and legal aid. I wear a dress-suit to work. I work at a desk, in an office. Not really as glamorous as taking to the streets or traveling to South America, but it is a calling, and it is work that needs to be done. The people I serve come from impoverished communities; they are disadvantaged and discriminated against. I have no doubt in my mind that the work I do is helping to build the Kingdom here on earth. Like any direct service though it can be emotionally, physically, and spiritually challenging.
About a week and a half ago I moved to Virginia and started my summer internship with a legal aid non-profit. About a week or so into it, I was starting to get tired. Change isn’t something I deal well with, and I was adjusting to a new house, new housemates, a new city and a new job. I was getting that; I’d rather be anywhere else, feeling. Then around Thursday I was reminded of why I do the job I do and why although it seems tempting sometimes to quit and do something else, I know I wont.
The actual events that led to this renewal were unimportant and rather mundane. I was typing up forms for people seeking disability benefits under Social Security when I came to the one for “mental retardation.” It occurred to me that the term was no longer politically correct (PC) and probably shouldn’t be used. I then asked myself why the term was no longer appropriate and the answer was because it has been used in a derogatory fashion so often it has become a bad word in our society. Then I got mad. I never have and never will understand why our society judges people’s worth based on things they can’t help, things they where born with. It seems so horrible to me that we could judge people’s worth as less simply because they have a lower than average IQ. Yet we, as a society, do and to the point where the mere comparison of another person to a person with a lower IQ is considered a hurtful insult. Sitting in my office I suddenly had to fight the urge not to burst into tears at the horrible unfairness of a society that accepts, even condones such judgment. In New York State where I am from the state government pulled all services to disabled children who are being home schooled. Often children with sever disability will be taught at home because the school can not provide for there needs or because physically being in the school building would be a major health risk. I to this day cannot understand how my state government justified to themselves and to the media taking advantage of severely disabled children in the name of budget cuts. It makes me angry, it makes me sad, and I do believe that is the appropriate response. It breaks my heart, and not in the way our society uses the term.
There are many reactions people have to injustice, they can ignore it, they can get angry and rant about it, or they can work hard to fix but end up getting burnt out when the problem doesn’t go away. All these responses though, are short term superficial ones. Yet there is another response, a response I believe comes from the Spirit working within us. I believe that when you are confronted with something that truly breaks your heart, you cannot turn away, you can not ignore it and you most certainly can not go back to living you’re life the way it was before that moment. God does this; it is God who opens you up to that moment, to that realization. When I am opened like that I cannot, refuse to act, I could not live with myself if I did not do that work. That is your work, the work God wants you to do and it’s almost physically impossible not to. Your life as been transformed, you have been transformed. Sometimes we all feel burnt out and sometimes we all need rest but when you are faced with work that you are called to do, when God breaks your heart open, you won’t just get burnt out and drop it. God will sustain you better then that.
I have watched a lot of other people my own age attempted to do the job I do. I have watched them get discouraged by the larger picture, by how much still needs to be done and just stop trying. That doesn’t happen to me. Because when I feel tired, when I feel burnt out by what still needs to be done, I ask my if I’ve helped at least one person in one way, and if I can say that I have, if at least one person’s life is a little better because I tried, because I cared, than that will be good enough. I do this work because I could not walk way from it, no matter how hard it is, no matter how much I will have to work to do it. I am a disabled student considering law school I have not illusions about how hard it will be. I also know though, that when my work is done if even one person’s life is better because of the work I have done, than it will have been worth it. Good enough for me, and good enough for God.

"Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you..for I was hungry and you gave me food. I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me. I was sick and you looked after me. I was in prison and you came to visit me...Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me" (Matthew 25:43)

Interest Group: The Contemplative Path?

2008-06-16T07:42:00.000-07:00

I lead an interest group for the Young Adult Friends conference in Richmond IN. I have decided to put the description and queries on here. Friends might find it interesting or helpful.
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Interest Group: The Contemplative Path?
There are many visible forms of ministry within the Religious Society of Friends. Friends can be called to travel among meetings, organize youth programs, work for Quaker organizations and live in intentional communities. While these are all wonderful forms of ministry others are called to more scholarly or contemplative paths. Some Friends feel called to ministry through writing, theology, history, biblical study, and other more academic ministries. Is there a place within the Religious Society of Friends for such callings? If so what is the role of the Young Adult Friends who are called to such a path?

Interest Group Queries
"And thou, faithful babe, though thou stutter and stammer forth a few words in the dread of the Lord, they are accepted." ~ William Dewsbury 1660

1. Quaker tradition teaches us that we are all ministers in the Religious Society of Friends. What ministry do you feel called to?

2. Most other religious faiths have traditions of scholars, contemplatives, historians, and theologians. Does the Religious Society of Friends also have such a tradition? If not can we see a need for people called to such ministry?

3. Traditionally Friends have shied away from systematic theology. Is there becoming an need for such a theology in today’s Quakerism?

4. What kind of oversight or support do those of us called to a more contemplative path need? Is it provided? If not how could it be provided?

5. How might your gifts as scholars and thinkers fit into and enrich the larger structure of the Religious Society of Friends?

This Matter Which Weighs Upon My Heart

2008-05-08T12:16:00.000-07:00

Friends, I labor. I struggle within myself and within my Yearly Meeting with the issue of FUM. I come from New York Yearly Meeting, and we are duel affiliated with FGC and FUM. Right now there is a lot of anger within New York Yearly Meeting towards FUM because of some homophobic statements that have been made. Much of this anger comes out of misinformation and miscommunication; much of it also comes out of a legitimate sense of anger and pain. Pain that GLBTQ Friends that we love and hold dear are being hurt. I too take these concerns very seriously, I am both a Christian Friend and a queer identified Friend and this is an issue very close to my heart. However I don’t feel like we can walk away from FUM or this pain. As Quakers we are called to love and cherish all people, not matter who they are or what they’ve done in there lives and other Friends, Friends who might not hold the same beliefs as we dos, should be no different. I feel strongly that if we as a Yearly Meeting walk away from FUM we clearly state that we cannot love, cannot connect, and labor with, Friends who do choose to be affiliated with FUM. I know that this not our intention, but I fear that will be the out come. I also feel that anger and pain is not a place from which good healthy decisions are made. Anger is good, it can lead to passion, which can in turn and in time lead to compassion and love, but we cannot act directly from anger. We cannot go with our first reaction to distance ourselves from things we don’t agree with. That would not and does not do justice to us as people, any of us. We are FUM, we can not say they are some ‘other’ doing and saying things we find hurtful because we are a FUM Yearly Meeting. They are us, we are them, and I would grieve deeply if that were to change. I also fear that by leaving FUM we set ourselves up, as a Yearly Meeting, on a moral high ground I don’t believe we actually stand on. Can we, in all honesty and with our heart open to God, say that we are so loving and open we can point fingers elsewhere and accuse others? I am a young queer Friend in New York Yearly Meeting and I do not see any Yearly Meeting Minute affirming our love and commitment to our GLBTQ Friends. I do see any Yearly Meeting Marriage Minute guaranteeing I will be able if I choose, to be married under any New York Yearly Meeting. As my brother, who is an agnostic liberal young Friend said to me, he (and I ) can think of no better message to other FUM meeting about our pain towards homophobic comments made then for New York Yearly Meeting to come out with an affirming Minute on our love for our GLBTQ Friends, made as a FUM meeting. We have work we need to do and we cannot do it from outside of FUM, we must labor with them and with each other on these issues.
I am at a crossroads, Friends. For over a year I have brought my need to continue this dialog with ourselves and with other FUM meetings to every meeting and gathering of Friends I have attended. Still I feel as if New York Yearly Meeting is moving toward a place where we will act out of pain and fear and leave FUM. I also feel as if none of us quite know what to do, on either side. We are stuck, hurt and divided, and I’m not sure were to go or what to do. I am part of a task group on our involvement with FUM but still that task group seems to be at loss about how best to serve New York Yearly Meeting in this. Friends I labor, with my own pain, with my own love, and I do not know what to do. Only that we must listen to God in this matter, and that seems to be the hardest course of all.

Standing on the Path

2008-04-05T16:40:00.000-07:00

While reading over the notes on the last meeting of New York Yearly Meeting’s Task Group on FUM I was struck by a seemingly simple, yet vastly important question. In the notes it was stated that a Friend asked the question, what is FUM doing for us? as in New York Yearly Meeting. I found myself drawn to that question and like a massages coming in Meeting an answer came upon me and I found myself writing it.
If FUM has not given us anything else it has brought us to this place and this point. It has moved us as a Yearly Meeting to the point here we sit here, having this conversation, discussing these issues, asking these questions. I know, we all know, that is it one thing to say we all have a place at the table, we all come as servants to the feet of Christ, we are all equal in the eyes of God and the movements of the Spirit. Yet it is so much harder to live this, truly believe this. As Friends though we have to Know this, we have to know that when we say there is a place for you at the table of God, we do not then raise our hands and push some away. We are members of the Kingdom of Heaven we must know that when we say we are all equal in the eyes of God what we say is Truth and not just pretty words. I know that there will be a time when we can say God is with our Friends who struggle in Kenya, with our Friends who worship in Indiana, with our Friends all across New York, with our LGBTQ Friends. Yet I believe we are not there yet, I am not there yet, but we are on that path and we are moving forward. Through our relationship with FUM we have come to this place where we as a body tern our hearts and eyes to God and say now the time has come, for us to listen, for us to speak, for us to change. And that, I feel, is a gift indeed.

The Strength to Go Into the Wilderness

2008-02-26T18:55:00.000-08:00

“I have been asked many times
to take leaps I did not feel ready to do.
But when I’ve done that I’ve been held
And I have been an agent for God
In ways I never could have been
If I didn’t trust and take that leap.”
- Jean-Marie P. Barch 1998.

Who abide in the shadow of the Almighty, will say to God “My refuge and my fortress; my God in whom I trust.” For God will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilences; God will cover you with pinions and under God’s wings you will find refuge. – Psalm 91:1-4.

About a week ago I attended FGC’s FLGBTQC Mid-Winter Gathering. While there we were asked to consider several queries every day in our small group worship sharing. One of these queries was something along the lines of, “How do we tell the difference between acts of love and acts of fear?” In my worship sharing I felt moved to speak about this query and then again during worship. As the Spirit usually does I started out focusing on the query and then was led to speak to deeper questions. When considering the difference between acts of love and acts of fear I am led to believe that Friends generally have a hard time distinguishing between the two. Maybe not on a personal level, but as a group we tend to see praise as coming from a place of love and criticize more need for change as coming from a place of fear. In my own experience among Friends I have not found this to be the case. Instead, I have often found that we want to hear praise and only praise about our meetings and the Religious Society of Friends because we are afraid of what might happen if we begin to take criticism seriously and move to change the way things are. Often I have found praise alone comes from a place of fear of change, a fear that we will make things worse or break things beyond repair. Whereas often I have found those who offer criticism and ask for change are doing so out of love, love for their faith and a need that that faith should live up to what they know it is capable of being.
I have been moved to think that there is another image and another question behind this concept of acts of love and acts of fear. I am then called to the image of the wilderness as expressed many times in the Bible and the concept of Blessed Community. I believe that if we are truly a Blessed Community under God, guided by the Spirit, then we should have enough trust and love for each other that will allow us to know what cannot break what was not meant to be broken. I believe that when we act with love and faith in God and in each other we can never make things worse, only better. If some things break, or change, we must have faith that this is what God has meant to happen and all things will be made right and whole in the end. We as a community must not be afraid to go out into the wilderness. We must trust in one another, in ourselves that we might wander, and suffer, and it might be hard and our faith might be tested but in the end we will come out a community, whole and faithful. This ability to go out into the wilderness is not just an act of faith in one another but an act of faith in God. We must believe that God loves us enough that we can go into the dark, into the wilderness, to do things that we are afraid of doing, and God will bring us home. I believe that we are never truly lost, and that God will always bring us home, but we as a religious community must also believe this.
I gave this message in Meeting for Worship on Sunday. After Meeting I attended a Bible study session. The Friend who was leading the session told us the story of how she came to choose the passage we were going to read. She said she had written everything out after being told she was going to lead Bible study at the conference, but then one Firstday she had been sitting in Meeting and had gotten a leading for us to read Genesis 16 in Bible study. She said she had no idea why the Spirit was leading her to this passage but she trusted in the Spirit and changed her plans for the Bible study. Genesis 16 is the story of Hagar, who is a slave to Sarai, and conceives a child by Abram. She then looks with contempt on her mistress who cannot conceive, so Sarai deals harshly with her and Hagar runs away into the wilderness. There she sees an Angel of the Lord who tells her she will have a son and what to name him. Hagar then realizes she is talking to the Lord and names him El-roi or literally “God who sees.” She is the only Old Testament figure that I know of to directly name God. The fact that we were called to read a passage about a slave girl gone into the wilderness who sees and names God, after the messages I was called to give, I do not see as a coincidence. Neither do I see the fact that both of these messages were given at Mid-Winter Gathering as a coincidence. To me the Lord is clearly trying to tell the LGBTQ Friends community something, and I now struggle to discern for myself what it is. What wilderness we are being called to travel into? Are we as a community being called to see and be seen by God, name and be named? As of now I do not have answers that satisfy me, but I trust that in time God will lead us to the Truth.

God Constantly Waiting

2008-01-31T05:50:00.000-08:00

“Knock and the door will be opened for you” (Matthew 7:7)
Several months ago I went through clearness for a call to ministry through writing. I had felt strongly for several months before this that the writing I was doing on different subjects within Quakerism was Spirit led. However after going through clearness I stopped writing. I could and did sit in front of my computer while no words came. Part of my mind was concerned by this, but other parts brushed it aside, I was and still am looking for an Elder to help me with discernment about my writing. I was also overwhelmingly busy with school and work and so it was easy for me just to let my writing or lack of it slide to the back of my life. However last weekend I attended the FGC traveling ministries consultation in Pittsburg PA. While in meeting for worship on Friday night I received a strong sensation of a voice speaking to me. It said, “I have given you words but know it is time for you to listen.” Almost immediately afterwards a Friend rose and spoke of the things in our life we use as excuses for not following through with what God is leading us to do. Then another Friend spoke saying that we as gospel ministers need to not be afraid of taking risks and being wrong, trusting that our community will catch us when we fell. Later that weekend another Friend spoke of how it can feel as if God gives you a feeling that there is something She wants you to do then leaves you waiting for directions and how frustrating that can be. As she spoke I through that yes, this reminded me a lot of what had happened to me about my writing, as I thought this I had the physical sensation of turning around and there was a door held open.
I realized that God had not abandoned me and my writing, but I had been so set on expecting it to proceed in a certain way I had been blinded to God’s actual plan. I had been looking for the Spirit in all the wrong places. I have come to believe that God never simply leaves us just hanging as it were. Instead God is always there waiting just not always in the places we expect. Often we become so set in an idea that we will find God by doing this or in this place that we actually stop listening to all the hints and messages God is sending us. I know in my life sometimes it takes a while of fumbling around and missed opportunities on my part before I finial in my human imperfection realizing what it is I am being asked to do. It is also so easy for us to procrastinate to let other things eat up our time and take away our energy. What I always try to remember though is that God is always there, holding the door open patiently waiting for us to turn around.

Out of the Silence There is a Voice Calling

2007-12-03T17:08:00.000-08:00

“We have a long, long way to go. So let us hasten along the road, the roads of human tenderness and generosity. Groping, we may find one another’s hands in the dark.” (Emily Greene Balch, 1955)

I can’t remember the first time I came into contact with the controversy surrounding FUM and the Yearly Meetings who are duel affiliated with FUM and FGC. I do come from one of those Meeting, New York Yearly Meeting, and my monthly meeting, although unprogramed, has close personal ties to Farmington Meeting one of the programmed meeting under NY Yearly Meeting. I also go to Earlham College, in Richmond IN, and although I attend an unprogramed worship group, I am surrounded by FUM affiliated meetings and Friends.
I know I must have thought about it, even written about it, but I did not really sit with it until attending New York Yearly Meeting sessions this summer. There I heard people speak from many different perspectives on the question of our duel affiliation with FUM and FGC. I did not at that time feel called to speak on the subject although I did talk with Friends about it, and prayed intensely on the subject. I have sat with these issues for months now and spoken with even more Friends on the subject. I do believe that we are all one in the body of Christ and the body of the Church under God. I also believe that God is calling us to address these issues raised by our relationship with FUM now. Over and over again I have felt that we are called to address our differences among Friends both within our own monthly meetings and Yearly Meetings and between FGC and FUM. I do believe that instead of drawing away from each other, such as the question of NYYM breaking it’s affiliation with FUM, we are called to move closer, to engage in prayer and dialogue with one another. I also believe we need to move forward in our work within our Yearly Meetings on issues of inter-dialogue and inclusiveness.
During New York Yearly Meeting sessions and the conversations I have had with Friends, I have heard mainly two different opinions on the subject of NY Yearly Meetings and other dual affiliated Yearly Meetings. First I have heard many people speak out against our continued relationship with FUM. This opinion is often based on FUM’s policies and stances on the LGBTQ community, on the literal interpretation of the Bible, and on their over all Christ centered theology and worship. I am myself a Christ centered Friend, however I do not believe in the literal truth of the Bible. I am also a Queer identifying Friend and FUM’s attitude towards the LGBTQ community does concern and sadden me. Yet I feel that often the opinions that have been expressed to me about the need to cut our connection with FUM have come from a place of anger, grief and pain. Although I too feel, understand, and struggle with this anger, grief and pain as well I feel very strongly that we cannot act from such a place. Not only is it not a place of Spirit, but also it is a place that too often blinds us to what is good about our relationships with others not like ourselves, and also blinds us to the areas where we as Yearly Meetings are lacking and need to grow.
Another attitude I have encountered, is that we must not break our duel affiliation with FUM at any cost. I am not sure about the extent to which these Friends mean that we should go to retain our affiliation but I personally am just as uncomfortable with this stance as I am saying we must have nothing to do with FUM. I wish us to think deeply, guided always by the Spirit, about us, in dual affiliated meetings, relationship with FUM. I feel we should delve deeply in to what the Spirit is calling us to do within our own Yearly Meeting as well. I feel that we in NYYM are far from answering the questions surrounding our affiliation with FUM, and in the end I hope the Spirit leads us to see our way to remaining part of this organization. However I want our relationship with FUM to be meaningful and fruitful one, with us all united within the body of Christ. I do not wish us to remain affiliated simply because we have been in the past or simply for the sake of being so, but because the relationship is fruitful and nurturing for all of us. I know we as a Yearly Meeting body are beginning to grapple with these issues in all faithfulness under God and with the leading of the Spirit. This issue I feel is something we all must pray on and grapple within every Monthly Meeting, and Quarterly Meeting for this is an issue which concerns us all. I pray we all act in love and faithfulness.
During meeting for worship I spoke on the topic of the Church as a body and how I felt the body of the Religious Society of Friends was a broken or jumbled body, but that Christ was coming moving among us to heal us. I spoke that soon would come a time when God would tell us “you are healed, stand up and walk” and we as a body will stand whole and healed anew. The time Friends is coming for us to stand and walk.

In the Hands of the Lord: A Message from the first days of NY Yearly Meeting

2007-10-31T07:06:00.000-07:00

standing by for the spirit

2007-07-31T10:38:00.000-07:00

Hopefully I will post something soon. I have been gone to NY Yearly Meeting for the last week. Also between my experience at Yearly Meeting and going through Clearness I am grappling with some things about my writing and the nature of my writing. Therefore I probably won’t post until I have reached some clearness about some things. I also will not be posting as often on this blog in the future. However I hope for my posts to be more Spirit led if not as frequent.

Peace and Joy,
Anna.

A Liberal Christian Young Adult Friend

2007-07-11T11:16:00.000-07:00

For the last two years I have divided my time between Indiana and New York State. I attend four different Meetings all with very different and unique qualities. Yet I cannot help noticing the overall difference between being a young adult Friend in Richmond, Indiana and being a young adult Friend in New York. In some ways I am very much like most young Friends in New York Yearly Meeting. I attend college. I am politically very liberal and socially live an alternative life style. I identify as a queer woman, am against the war in Iraq, and care about the environment. However, unlike most young adult Friends in New York Yearly Meeting I also consider myself a Christian.
When I am in Indiana, Christian Quakerism is the norm. While worshiping with students from Earlham School of Religion, I have grown comfortable in assuming that every Friend there is, like me, Christian and deeply religious. Therefore our conversations can move on to tackle the hard questions of specific pieces of theology and Quaker practice. When I am in NY however the truth is, conversations with young Friends will probably never get past the fact that I am Christian. Even more unfortunately I have found young and young adult Friends to be openly hostile towards me because I am Christian. I have been told over and over again by young adult Friends that Quakers are not Christian, that we have moved beyond such backwards ways, that all Christians are closed-minded, that it makes them uncomfortable to be around Christians. Over and over again I have been asked to explain why I could possibly want to be Christian? How I
could possibly be both Christian and Quaker, Christian and queer, or liberal and Christian?
More uncomfortably for me, many young Friends just assume that there is no
such thing as a liberal Christian Friend, and therefore feel free to make fun of other Christian denominations while in a group of Friends, to tell insulting jokes about Jesus and other Christian figures, or to complain about how horrible Evangelical Friends are, largely because they are Christian. The assumption has been made over and over again that the only reason I could possibly be Christian is because I was raised that way. This is in fact untrue because although I was raised a Friend, I was neither particularly religious, nor Christian for many years, considering myself first atheist then agnostic. In fact it
has only been within the last three years that I have considered myself Christian. Yet in the last three years I have been nothing but happy with my decision and the faith that I have found.
There are many days when I feel out of place in the liberal branch of Quakerism. I realize that, what are vital and exciting questions of Quaker practice and theology for me, would be found confusing, uninteresting and in some case even insulting to many liberal Friends. Over and over again I have thought that my philosophy and outlook on Quakerism much more reflected the Conservative rather then the Liberal branch. Yet no matter how hard I want to run to a Conservative Yearly Meeting and have done with Liberal Quakerism, I stay. Partly because I was raised a Liberal Friend, more importantly however is the fact that I am a Liberal Friend. Liberal Quakerism prides its self upon being open and accepting. It stresses learning about and from others. Therefore, I
challenge it to do just that. As many times as people tell me I'm not really a Liberal Friend or Liberal Quakerism is not really Christian I challenge then to think that maybe I can be right, or maybe the liberal branch is not as open and welcoming as it seem.
Furthermore although I truly believe that Liberal Quakerism has much to offer, the time has come for change. Liberal Quakerism is losing its vitality and strength. It needs to be revitalized, to re-embrace practices and traditions it has left behind. We need to change and rediscover ways of being Quaker that might frighten and challenge many Liberal Friends.

Reading the Bible: a personal story of scripture

2007-06-20T11:17:00.000-07:00

The last entery in my New Testament Journal:
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“This is the repeated discovery of generations of Bible readers. “I meet that in Scripture,” said Coleridge “which finds me”. (Henry Cadbury, 1959)

“I don’t read Scripture to learn doctrine.
I don’t read it to find answers to every question.
I read it to find God.” (Carole Spencer 1999)

I read the Bible both as a scholar and as a person of faith. As a historian I have
found it impossible to look at anything without looking at it through the lenses of a scholar. However as a person of faith I am also constantly searching for my own faith throughout the Bible. When I come right down to it, I feel that I am examine the Bible both from the perspective of understanding it historically as an ancient text and all of the things that go with this and as the holy scripture of my faith. Does this work, is the question many Biblical scholars ask them selves and some like Ehrman, would say no.
However I believe that it can and must be done. Christians who’s faith is weak enough that it will crumble by discovering the historical truths behind the Bible and carefully reading scripture, should already be seriously questioning what it is that their faith in built on. I personally only find my faith strengthened from studying the Bible from a historical perspective, it not only adds layers of meaning I had not thought of previously, but also gives me answers to parts of the Bible I would other wise find troubling or confusing. I also study the Bible as a person of faith. According to my faith I do not believe that the Bible is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I believe it is a sacred text that reflects my personal faith beliefs and experiences. While having a discussion with some of my (F)friends about New Testament classes at Earlham College and Earlham School of Religion I mentioned Ehrman’s particular tendency to be as my friend put it “evangelically atheist”. We talked about some of the examples I feel Ehrman uses for no academic reason except to shock Christian readers. My friend pointed out that most main stream Protestants probably would be shocked by studying the Bible historically. I responded that no matter what I found out about historical Bible study or the historical Jesus my faith would stay in tact because that was not what my faith was based on.
In the end after all it comes down to this, really, my faith is based on my personal experience of God. Therefore when I experience God through scripture that is a blessing when I don’t, I don’t, that is all. Through reading the Bible I have found parts that frustrate me, and parts so beautiful they move me to tears, in this way reading the Bible is like experiencing God.
“May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers and sisters. Amen.” ( Galatians 6:18)

God is in the Grayness

2007-06-07T17:18:00.000-07:00

"... What would happen if every time we did something we disapproved of, we opened our heart to heaven?” (by Alan Lew)

“You never know who will be your witness. You never know who grants forgiveness. Look to heaven or sit with us.” (Betty’s Diner by Carrie Newcomer)

“Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.” (Henry James)

Forest of A Quaker Watering Hole posted this quote by Alan Lew as a writing starter for us Quaker bloggers. After reading it I felt called to write in response.
"... What would happen if every time we did something we disapproved of, we opened our heart to heaven? What would happen if every time we felt an impulse we didn't like, we acknowledged its divine origin?...  "Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not suggesting that it's all right to keep on being mean to people. I am saying that if you keep beating yourself up for being mean, your meanness is just going to keep striking back, getting stronger and more vicious with each blow. If on the other hand you were to fill up your meanness with attention and presence, it might just begin to cool down...  "When we experience ourselves exactly as we are, we sense our oneness with everything and we realize there is no such thing as a mistake. When we pay attention, everything enlightens us, even the things we think of as mistakes."
I grew up, and in many ways continue to live, in a black and white moral world. Throughout my life there has always been, right and wrong, the right way to live and wrong ways to live, good things to spend your money/time/energy on and a waste of time, money and energy. There have been good life style choices and bad life style choices, the right things to believe and stupid ways to behave. In my family of strong-minded women, our way always had to be the right way and everyone else had to be, pretty much, wrong. Guilt is an emotion I am well acquainted with. Furthermore, I have carried this black and white attitude into my work, there are things worth fighting for, and things that are just a waste of time. Yet recently I have begun to examine my tendency to see the world in a moral pattern of black and white. When a friend of mine asked me what I thought constituted a “good and righteous life” I struggled with the question. I fought my instinct to tern to strict moral definitions of what made a good and righteous life, realizing that these moral frameworks were in many ways static and unbending. I instead tried to base my answer on the good and righteous people I know and had known, the people I feel do live good lives. I finally came up with an answer that was not based on traditional black and white moral values. "A good and righteous life," I told my friend, "was one where people dared to push themselves to their personal limits to become the most they could possibly be." I realized that my definition was based largely on the illiterate, disabled and mentally ill communities I have worked with. These people do not live good lives in many peoples eyes, some had made bad choices, others lived in incredibly poverty, but over and over again I have encountered the willingness and the strength to put their lives back together and push themselves to be the most they could possibly be as people.
The other day I picked up a bottle of Honest Tea and read a quote from Henry James on the inside of the lid “Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.” This quote stuck with me, so much so that it is now one of my new signature lines for my e-mail. I am drawn to the message that the most important thing we can to with our lives is to be kind. The more I think about these two incidences the more I am sure that they are intrinsically connected. I am being drawn away from judging everything by a strict moral code. To see the world in black and white is to lose the ability to see the grayness. To see the places where the people unlike us are good and kind. Where people who make mistakes are still capable of good and great things. It draws me away from truly seeing God in everyone because I am so worried about weather they fit into my narrow definitions of right and wrong. Most of all however it stops me from seeing God in myself.
If I am constantly plagued by guilt because of badly spend money there, time that should have been spent studying here, then I begin the slow process of losing sight of the fact that I am a child of God. The more I beat up on myself for being human, the more I forget that God made me that way and loves me just the same. The more I stop loving myself because I can not be perfect, more I lose sight of God’s love. When I became a Quaker and a Christian, I did it under a belief that changed my life. The belief that God loved me and wanted only for me to love myself just as unconditionally. The day in Meeting when I was faced by this realization I made a promise to God that I would try to love myself and care for myself with the same reverence that She showed to me. I must never lose sight of that promise. Every time I make a mistake I must open my heart to God instead of beating myself around the head with my own guilt. Only through this quiet surrender can I come to understand the beauty and fullness of God’s plan for my life.

Blog Writing as Ministry: My Personal Journey Thus Far.

2007-06-01T10:51:00.000-07:00

I have been told that whether or not Quaker blogging is considered ministry, is a hot topic in the Quaker online world. I have also been told most Friend do not consider blog writing as ministry. Instead they tie it more closely to journaling. This however, is not my experience. For over two years I had been feeling a strong call to write about Quakerism in general and the state of The Religious Society of Friends in particular. However because of college and other distractions I did not start writing until the end of last year. Immediately I knew that I had to publish , in some form, my work. I was not merely being called to write, but called to write things that other Friend could and would read. About six months ago I started Raised in the Light. As I have written my blog and been requested to write for several other forms of publication, my sense of a calling has only increased. Last week I finally requested from my Meeting a clearness committee to help me discern the shape and nature of by calling.
I do not know what the outcome of this discernment process will be, but I do know that I feel called to ministry through writing, and am ready and willing to take on such a calling. Yet I am also scared, I have taken the first steps towards committing myself to my writing not just as a form of spiritual journaling for myself, but as ministry for the entire Quaker community. I know that if I reach the decision that I am in deed called to ministry, my whole life will change, and I will be called on to take responsibilities within the Quaker community as a whole. Further more my disabilities will make writing for the general public particularly challenging.
Yet for all me fears, worries and trepidations, I feel I have done the right things. The Spirit is with me, and I have set my course.

Quakerism and the issue of Queerness

2007-05-11T05:19:00.000-07:00

For the first time I am addressing the question of Quakerism and homosexuality. In some ways I find this post has been a long time in coming. On one hand I feel it would only have been natural for me to write on this subject. After all the topic of Quakerism and homosexual community is one of great concern for many young and young adult Friends. On the other hand I have never seen it as making it on to the list of issues in Quakerism that I feel called to address. However I am addressing it now because it has only continued to be an escalating and divisive issue for Friends. That said, it is important to understand that I usually identify as lesbian although sometime prefer to use the term queer, and therefore I have a very personal stake in this particular issue. I find it interesting that the divide between FGC and FUM was brought up as much as it was, at the young adult conference in New Jersey I attended earlier this year. As FUM met, reviewed and reaffirmed their hiring guidelines which states that an unmarried employee of FUM must be celibate until marriage, which effectively and at this point intentionally discriminates against the gay and lesbian community as well as unmarried couples, the controversy between the two Quaker communities has only grown. It is commonly held that all FGC Friends feel FUM Friend are conservative, Bible thumpers, blatantly discriminating against minority groups. While many FUM Friends have stereotyped FGC Quakers as liberal hippies, trying to tell everyone what to do, and too quick to pass judgment. I myself am from New York Yearly meeting, which holds double memberships with FUM and FGC, but leans much closer to FGC’s general beliefs and policies. Although I agree with the decision to open up more dialogue between FUM and FGC Friends, which the New Jersey conference came to, I have serious problems with FUM’s continued adherence to discriminatory policies. I personally feel my anger at being discriminated against by my own religious group is justified. Further more I do not address this issue as just one more topic in my politically liberal agenda but as a legitimate theological problem for all Friends to deal with. At this point the question of equality for the queer community is not just the difference between liberals and conservatives, as everyone seems to assume. I wonder if I have to remind Friends that equality is the eyes of God and community is one of the core theological tenants of our faith. I would ask FUM Friends whether they seriously feel that a person's ability to give spoken ministry depends on their sexual orientation? I am well aware that not all FUM members by far, support such policies, however I would prefer that instead of becoming defensive about it, some Friends would understand and respect my problems with a Quaker organization that openly, knowingly and blatantly discriminates against me. FUM is not the only Quaker organization that falls victim to homophobia since NY Yearly Meeting has no over arching policy on marriage for homosexual Friends. Because there is that of God within me and because I strive to live my life within the love and grace of Jesus Christ, I sincerely hope
that I will be able to be married within the Quaker community and my ability to speak God’s truth will not be denied based on my sexual orientation.

Even in the Dark (draft)

2007-04-19T09:28:00.000-07:00

“We never know what might blow through the door like silent prayer, and how many of us entertain angles unaware” (Angles Unaware by Carrie Newcomer)

“The truth is not that it is going to be alright,
The truth is, it already is.” (Fredric Evans 1994)

Mostly when my life goes down hill I turn to my faith. For me, my faith and the worships I often turn to when in need is a very personal, individual kind of faith. I have had a hard time relying on my friends to help me through hard patches and it had never occurred to me to think of relying on others as a form of spirituality. For some reason however with my last bout of troubles I have been indeed turning to friends for guidance and support. Through this I have begun to learn how support from those who are close to you can be it a faith experience.
It is strange; the core of my belief, the most important fact in my faith journey has been the simple promise, and incredible leap that God is love. That, to know God one knows love and where love is that is God, is the very bases for my theology on so many levels. Yet accepting love and the caring that comes out of love, finding that an important and indispensable part of who I am and of my faith has been extremely hard for me. Partly I think this is because I don’t except help or the fact that I might need help easily and because I still find it hard, in this cynical world, to expect people to give help and act in love. So certainly when people do act in love and kindness I find this a blessing, but as incredible as this might sound I never quite made the mental connection that when people act in kindness toward me this is God, and we are experiencing a touching of personal faiths. I have long thought it extremely necessary on my faith journey to show kindness and love for others. However I am beginning to see that for my own theology and faith to bloom, I must also receive kindness and love from others. I can not only experience God through loving others and being kind to others, although this is certainly a powerful and necessary way of experiencing the divine, but I also must experience God be finding those who will also act with love towards me. To know God, then, I must love and be loved, both by people and the divine. I have already taken the leap of accepting and assuming Gods love, now I must take the leap of accepting and assuming the love of my friends, partner, and family. This I believe will bring me closer to God. As I write this, a small rose bush sits next to my compute. It was bought for me for no other reason then I was feeling down and love flowers. Someone was kind, and this is a blessing, this is God.

little thoughts

2007-04-14T20:51:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine has posted the first prayer on her facebook. I thought it was beautiful. One of these quotes I got from my sister the others I found.
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"O God! refresh and gladden my spirit. purify my heart. illumine my powers. i lay all my affairs in Thy hand. Thou art my Guide and my Refuge. i will no longer be sorrowful and grieved; i will be a happy and joyful being. O God! i will no longer be full of anxiety, nor will i let trouble harass me. i will not dwell on the unpleasant things of life. O God! Thou art more friend to me than i am to myself. i dedicate myself to Thee, O Lord." ~ Abdul-Baha

"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and do it. Because what the world needs is people who come alive." -Howard Thurman

Like the deer that pants
for the flowing stream,
so we thirst
for the living Spring
~ Richard J. Foster

I don't read Scripture to learn doctrine.
I don't read it to find answers to every question.
I read it to find God.
~ Carole Spencer

A Short Rant on versions of the Bible

2007-04-10T10:22:00.000-07:00

I have always used The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version. I prefer this Bible over all others that I’ve read. While the King James Bible is beautifully written the translation is so dated and poor I find it only usefully except within it’s own historical context. While other Bibles like the New Standard Version International Bible that they supply in my meetinghouse just makes me mad and frustrated. There are no footnotes, no notes about how or why the translators translated a word or verse the way they did, no alternatives in Greek or Arabic, so I can see the translating choices that were made. Plus all of the sections in these Bibles have captions before each chapter, things like Jesus Heals a Leper, or On Marriage, or Jesus tells about the end-times captions like these annoy me because they distract me from my reading of the actual Bible. The captions also make me feel as if I’m reading Cliff-Notes version of the Bible, and I feel as if I am being told what exactly I should be getting out of each section of the Bible. As if the translators feel like they have to tell me the punch line to everyone of Jesus’ messages, and it also bothers me because some times what I think is the most important part of a Bible passage is not what is commonly thought to be the important part. I hate having how I should pray and what I should think about God dictated to me in any way, from a minister or other wise, and particularly don’t like it coming from the version of the Bible I read. In summery I like The New Oxford Annotated Bible because it allows me, as a scholar, to make my own decisions about how I will read the Bible and how I will fully and scholarly study each passage and their meanings.

A Living Faith (draft)

2007-04-02T07:23:00.000-07:00

Unlike most of the posts I make to this blog, this post is not, I feel, complete. I have been working on it on and off for a while but feel I have a lot more to say on the subject. However as my life as gotten crazy again I don't know when I will be able to work on it. So I'm posting it now in it's draft form. both of the quotes are taken from songs by two of my very favoret artists.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“The hardest thing I ever tried to do was stay in one place and just try to come through. I love me some, now I want to love you too, and spend some time in the garden.” (Maya by Ferron)

“Centered down and moving outward sometimes almost too sweet to bear. There are endless ways to reach home, just keep walking and I’ll meet you there” (All Saints’ Day by Carrie Newcomer)

Several days ago I began reading my new devotional “A Year with Thomas Merton: daily meditations from his journals”. The first entry I read for March 27th was entitled “a preference for the chant of frogs”, the entry recounts Merton’s decision to remain at his hermitage and not go on a lecturing circuit as he was being pressed to do by other religious leaders and scholars. He writes about how one must know and do what will be most spiritually beneficial to them and what will not distract them from God. This too has been a question I have striven to answer for myself, what is it that I am called to do with my life that is both spiritually beneficial and does not distract from my nearness to God? I have come to realize that for me one of the most important things in my life will be to do what brings me spiritual wholeness and a sense of God’s love. I have also come to realize this may mean giving up things that I might be good at or enjoy. Looking towards my future as I reach the half-way point in my college education, I have begun to ask myself what I can I do that will spiritually center and fulfill me, even if that means turning from paths that I might derive pleasure from or be good at. Not that God’s work should be joyless or I am turning way from things that I enjoy and am talented at simply because I enjoy them or am good at them, but rather it is about redirecting my priorities and not automatically choosing the path of least resistance.

"Out of our brokenness make us a blessing"

2007-03-19T16:49:00.000-07:00

“Out of our brokenness make us a blessing. . .”(Judith L. Brutz, 1990)
“Rise radiant in the sacrament of pain” (Thomas Kelly 1939)
I have been thinking and praying on the idea of brokenness lately. When I was at the Young Adult Friends Conference in New Jersey a Friend spoke in meeting, and said that the Religious Society of Friends was broken and it was we who had broken it. Later several Friends encouraged me to view the idea of brokenness not merely as negative, something is broken and we must work to fix it, but as a more positive sensitizing and opening to God. The idea of hearing God and being opened to the Spirit only after one has known great suffering and pain is an idea with very Biblical roots. After much prayer I have come to see brokenness as being broken open to God, having one’s inner walls torn down to experience God’s love and grace, and to be torn from the roots to find freedom in the Lord. As I was praying on brokenness in meeting this Sunday, two things kept coming to me. The first thing was a variation on a line from the prayer I had just written; “let us know suffering so we might find your strength Oh God and ours”. I also continuously kept returning to the image of fire and burning as representing the Holy Spirit. I was reminded of such images as the Holy Spirit as tongues of fire in Acts, the idea of being baptized in fire as representing the Holy Spirit and the line from Thomas “Jesus said ‘I have cast fire upon the world’” (Thomas Saying 10), as well as Paul when he said “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17). Also during meeting I was reminded of a story another Friend at the YAF Conference had told about a group of early Friends who gathered one Sunday only to discover that their Meeting House had been burnt to the ground during the night by people hostile towards Quakers. Instead of going home these Friends chose to worship standing on top of the burnt rubble of what had once been their Meeting House. I am drawn once more to the question of what does it mean that the Religious Society of Friends is broken and it is we who have broken it. I now believe that we have broken ourselves open to the power and grace of the Lord. That we have struggled and suffered and cried out for guidance and have been torn open to Her divine will. We have lit ourselves afire with the power of the Spirit and we are made free. I believe that when the smoke clears we will find ourselves standing among the rubble of that burning, made new in the simplicity of what we truly are a group of people bound together by the expectant waiting and witness of the Lord. And we will know our strength. And we will know God’s.

Prayer

2007-03-13T08:57:00.000-07:00

today I was moved to sit down and try to write a prayer. It's the first prayer I've ever written, so bare with me.

Let us pray
that we remember God’s grace.
Even on the good days
when the sun shines and life seems good.
That we give praise for all that we have
on the days when we are stricken
by grief, or anger, or frustration
and all things seems against us.

God let us remember
those that love us.
Who will never leave
and forgive even our
greatest faults and most annoying habits.
And Lord let us remember
those who are not loved.
Who live in fear, and
have nowhere to turn.

Lord give us patients
with those who act in anger
and those who turn way from help we try to give
let us see that we all have faults
and we all turn away sometimes.

God gives us strength
to face our days,
and to perform
your work with grace.
Let us know laughter
and bring laughter to those we love.
And let us know grief
so we can find our strength and yours
Oh Lord
when we are lost
bring us home.

In Christ’s name I pray

Simple Things

2007-03-12T15:53:00.000-07:00

The last week or so has been hard for me, I’ve been stressed out by work and other commitments seem to have come pilling up on me just now. But this Sunday I took the time to worship with Friends from Earlham School of Religion over on ESR campus. The room we worshiped in Quigg I found very beautiful and settled. I was reminded of the first time I had worship at Earlham when I was a freshman. I had been worshiping with Clear Creek Meeting then, but because there was construction being done on their meetinghouse they had met in Quigg. I had been struck then by the simple beauty and tranquility of the room. I found myself feeling very blessed to being worshiping there again. Every time I lapse in attendence of meeting (something I find all too easy to do while I’m at school and spend my weekends studying and catching up on work) I end up forgetting how much I enjoy and need Quaker worship. This Sunday although I came to meeting stressed and anxious I felt myself relaxing while I sat in the silence. Meeting for me has always been one of the few places I can successfully leave my work at the door and concentrate on other things. A Friend spoke during meeting reading allowed a Psalm that particularly spoke to me that day, and by the time the rise of meeting was called I was happier then I had been in a long time.

Taking the Time: Praying and letting ideas and calls settle

2007-02-28T16:09:00.000-08:00

I am not a patient person. This is interesting because those times in my life when I have been forced or forced myself to be patient the outcome as proven to be well worth the irritation I experience. Next to my bed I keep a small stone slab on which the word “patience” is inscribed to remind me to try to be patient with myself and others, throughout my day. When I get an idea I want to act on it immediately, the very day sometimes the very minute, I think of it. However looking back over the course of time that I have been slowly called to ministry through writing I realize that sometimes it is good to let an idea age slightly. I first was drawn to communicate with other Friends through writing the summer before I came to college. However I was working that summer and packing to move from New York to Indiana, so instead of writing I contented myself with having long and heated talks with my mother and sister about issues of theology and Quakerism. Later that year again I was drawn to writing but my schoolwork always seemed to get in the way. Finally a year and a half year after I initially became interested in writing about Quakerism, I attended a Powell House workshop on writing, that weekend I started writing an article about Quakerism and the idea of Blessed Community, and I haven’t stopped since. My point is however I seriously doubt I would have had the power or strength of calling in my work if I had started writing my senior year. First because I would have had to interrupt my writing to transition into college life, but more importantly because at that time I had just become a full member of my meeting and my personal journey through faith was still in an experimental stage. Looking back now I see how critical it was for me to have debates with other about Quakerism, to read as may Friends Journals as I could find, to re-look at some of the Christian and Quaker theology and mysticism I hadn’t studied for a while, and to spend the summer of my freshman year reading and re-reading the Bible and coming to personal understandings about parts of it. When I first was called to write I was not spiritually certain enough to do so, however my strong calling forced me to take my own spiritual and theological beliefs seriously and learn to articulate them to others I am by no means done this work of personally discovery and probably never will be but when I did start writing I was at a place where that was spiritually possible for me. When I am called next to take action within the Religious Society of Friends I will endeavor to take a step back and give the calling a little prayer and time to mature. After all, all time is God’s and we must trust she will lead us to where we need to be in the end.

Crossing the Line: Meeting of generations in the Religious Society of Friends

2007-02-24T07:57:00.000-08:00

Too often in our society I’ve discovered generations, build up walls against each other. Often it is too easy to fall into a pattern of assuming that one generation will not care or be interested in what the other generation values and visa versa. The Religious Society of Friends can and does fall pray to this lack of communication among the generations all too often. It seems to easy for the older generation of Friends to assume that younger generations have no interest in ministry, or sitting on committees or even going to business meeting. Like wise it is all too easy for the younger generation to take the easy out and not to step up to bat, not offer their gifts and services. All too often we choose to take a back seat and a passive role in the workings of Friends. But I feel this is changing slowly but surely. The Young Adult Friends Conference in New Jersey confirmed my belief that things between the generations are starting to change. I have to admit when I went to the conference I expected or hoped to encounter a lot of frustration among young adult Friends about the state of the Religious Society of Friends and their own lack of activeness. I also expected, but did not hope to encounter a lot of negative energy directed at older members of the community. First for allowing the Religious Society to move in ways Young Adult Friends were disagreeing with, to become less radically active in witness, less spiritually centered, less religiously minded, less bound to tradition, less involved with theology and Quaker history. I expected to encounter hostility towards the older generation for also failing to include the younger members of their Meeting or Yearly Meeting in the decision making process and work of the Meeting. However I was surprised, the attenders of the conference were mad at themselves more then anyone. More then blaming the older generation for not letting them get involved most YAFs were blaming themselves for not demanding to be included, not offering their services, and not taking a firmer stand to follow up on their callings. Not once, that I can remember, was a negative word said about the older members of the community in particular.
I, myself know that the things I find wrong with the Religious Society of Friends are not just the older generations fault but all of ours. After all we are all Friends, we do all contribute to the negative just as we all contribute to the positive, just as we all can and should work to move The Religious Society of Friends toward a better more Spirit-filled place. While sitting in Meeting on Sunday morning at the YAFs Conference I received a strong calling, to start putting together an inter-generational workshop in my Yearly Meeting about the writings and ministries of early Friends to help us better understand our own calls to ministry. I want the workshop to first bring together generations of Friends. Second get the idea of ministry as being something all generations of Friends have in common out there. Finally I want it to bring multiple perspectives of how to make ourselves stronger through re-understanding the examples of early Friends. The last objective is one I feel is extremely important for the Religious Society of Friends to do, but I also feel it is work that must be done by all generations not just by the younger or the older generations of Friends. The time is coming when we as Friends will be called to redefine the meaning of Quakerism and I truly believe that this is work which can only been done by all generations of Friends. The call is coming even louder then before and we must learn, to work, grow, and worship together.

Reporting Live from Young Adult Friends Gathering

2007-02-17T11:45:00.000-08:00

I pace back and forth across the balcony of the Burlington New Jersey Friends meetinghouse, one of the most beautiful meetinghouses I have ever been in, but right now I barely notice. I am so over whelmed with what has been going own, the conversations I have been hearing, and the changes taking place within me. This is the first full day of the first ever Young Adult Friends (YAF) Gathering, right before lunch. We, gathered here, have just finished responding to the questions: what direction do we think the Religious Society of Friends needs to go in? And what do we thing young adult friends can contribute to the Religious Society of Friends? The answers and emotions in response to those questions had been intense and varied. Yet as I stand before one of the windows high up in the balcony of the meetinghouse what goes through my head is that everyone has, had the same concerns I have. Thinking about this I realized it’s not true. No one had expressed the exact same needs and desires I had, what had been there in each and every one of us was our deep, almost palpable intensity and need that we took to Quakerism. Everyone who spoke and many others who didn’t, expressed the same sentiment; they loved Quakerism, loved the religion, loved the people, loved the work, loved being Friends, yet each and everyone of us where expressing a feeling of unfulfillment. Ever single one of us where saying, “we know that Quakerism can be, should be, more then what we are experiencing now, and we want, need, demand, and work for Quakerism to grow. We where all asking Quakerism, both in our own meeting and in general, to become more meaningful, more spiritual, more active, more radical, more intense. There was anger and frustration in some of the massages and concerns raised, but not as much as I had expect, for the most part the young adult Friends there where saying “yes there are problems, things need to change, we are no longer contented with the way things are, but we see the problems, we acknowledge the problems, and now we are ready to act to change them”. There was no blaming, no finger pointing, and most surprisingly no feeling of helplessness.
I realize now as I write this, it has been one of the most hope-filled experiences I have ever had with Friends. There was no sense that because we where all Quaker we should not have been criticizing Quakerism, no unfounded or false sense of Quaker solidarity, no brushing differences of goals and opinions under the rug, as one young Friend said as he rose to speak “I agree with a lot of what you said but some of what I have to say contradicts it too”, we each spoke truly, however critically, of Quakerism, of our own Meetings, of the Religious Society of Friends as a whole, of our selves. Yet there was hope, lots of it. There was no sense that the changes we where saying needed to happen wouldn’t happen, no sense that the cause was hopeless, no sense that their was nothing that we could do. Every Friend there was, I felt, filled with the Spirit and ready, willing and able to become the next generation of the writers, ministers, elders, and leaders of the Religious Society of Friends. The things I will take away at the end of YAF Gathering will be that there will be change within the Religious Society of Friends, intense, long lasting change, and that we will only grow stronger for it The next generation of Friends are alive and hungry for what God has to offer us, and the Spirit does move among us.

“Search and you will find”: eldering, ministry and our responsibility as teachers within the Religious Society of Friends

2007-02-05T15:52:00.000-08:00

Matthew 7:7 says, “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; nock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who if your child asks for bread, will give a stone?” This passage is the ultimate response to those who seek spiritually. God’s promise to all of us searching for a spiritual home and that one day we will find it. However God is not the only one in charge of caring for and maintaining a spiritual community. As Friends we function as a religious community through each of us taking on spiritual responsibilities for the business, care and ministry in our individual meeting and the wider religious community. Ministry is the calling most Friends find they are called to do most often within their meetings, even if it is simply speaking in their monthly meeting every few months. I am however concerned that we as community are loosing track of what it means when we are called, as we often are on Sunday to stand before out meeting and speak our messages. I would ask that we all take a minute to reflect on some points to the position and responsibility we take on when we speak in meeting. First it main not occur to us that when we speak in meeting we are taking on the role a minister holds in other churches. We have become a direct line to God and her grace, therefore we have a responsibility to speak only what we truly believe is God’s words not our own, and that we are doing God’s work. Therefore from the first time we give spoke ministry we have been called to be one of God’s chosen ministers, and have certain responsibilities toward our religious community because of this. By becoming ministers we have also agreed to become teachers and guidance towards those in our community who seek it. Therefore by taking on the responsibility to give ministry we are also taken on the responsibility to study theology and religious questions, to deeply question our own callings, believes and religious feelings, to constantly ask ourselves does this calling come from the Spirit or from our own thoughts. Importantly however, give guidance to seekers and the youth of the meeting if either should wish it. Although to some Friends this might seem like a lot to ask, I would like to point out that these are roles held by ministers under other religious denominations and I don’t really believe that Friends should be excluded from these responsibilities, if anything this should only mean that more of us must take on these callings.
Teaching of others is known as eldering although any age group can be so called. Eldering is an essential part of Quakerism that has fallen out of use among many meeting. Eldering is when a more spiritually centered Friend who has taken on the calling to ministry helps a seeker or less spiritually certain Friend to better understand Quakerism and their own relationship with God. Traditionally eldering is a one on one relationship between a religious seeker and a more spiritually stable Friend. I would argue however that eldering can also take the form of organizing and participating in Bible study, or Religious education for children and/or adults, in discussions on spiritual matters between generations within meetings, or organizing committees to address issues in the larger Quaker world on a monthly meeting level. Many Friends might feel that they are called to speak in meeting but do not have to time to dedicates to eldering, to them I would ask; are you really ready to take on ministry in the religious community? After all Jesus does ask his religious community, with regard to religious seekers, “Is there anyone among you who if your child asks for bread, will give a stone?” All of us who take on the responsibility of ministry but refuse to elder, or turn down a chance to talk to a seeker about Quakerism, or don’t take the time to answer question regarding the spirit, are like those who would give children stones.

The light of the world: Matthew and John and the meaning of faith

2007-02-05T08:00:00.000-08:00

One passage in Matthew jumped out at me while I was reading. Matthew 5:14 reads “You are the light of the world.” A very simple phrase but it instantly reminded me of John 8:12 “Again Jesus spoke to them saying, ‘I am the light of the world’.” To me the comparison of the two sentences in very interesting. Both are supposedly spoken by Jesus to his followers, both are the same except for two words, yet these two sentences hold very different religious meaning. To say that some one is the light of the world, I tend to believe means that they are so full of God’s presence and grace that they stand as an undeniable example of God’s work in the world. They are a living example of God’s grace. Thus to have Jesus tell those that followed his teachings that they were living examples of God love is very very different from a Jesus who proclaims that he is the leaving example of God’s love and only through him can people truly experience God. The sentence that comes after 4:12 is “A city on a hill can not be hid” while the next sentence in John is “Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life”. While Matthew seems to be urging Christians to be living examples of God’s love so that all might see them and be moved, John seems to be saying that only Jesus contains God’s light and only though belief in his divinity can one find God.
However I guess both passages are really speaking to faithfulness. What does it mean to be faithful to Matthew or to John? I think the two quotes illustrate what faithfulness means in these two gospels perfectly. For Matthew to be faithful is to fulfill God’s law, to become as it were like God in striving for a superhuman level of moral perfection. Matthew’s Jesus wants us to go beyond the law, and become the new law, one that channels God’s grace directly and allows it to affect every aspect of ones life. Matthew’s Christ is not interested in exact, obsessive adherence to the law as it is written only obsessive adherence to its spirit and the spirit of God’s divine love and grace. John on the other hand is involved in a completely different theological question, is Jesus Christ God come to Earth and if so how should we respond to him? Therefore to John being faithful is believing totally and utterly in Jesus’ divinity and trusting in him that he will save those who truly believe. For John then faithfulness is this complete trust in Jesus’ and a willingness to give one’s life for him.

an empty tomb, and a human God: the gospel of Mark

2007-01-30T17:12:00.000-08:00

Who is Jesus according to the gospel of Mark?
According to the gospel of Mark, Jesus is a mysterious character. He comes into the story fully grown almost out of nowhere since the gospel starts with his baptism by John. He is a figure of secrets, some things he reveals, some things he tells only in parables and then only explains there meaning to certain people. He performs miracles as one of his main function in this gospel. He heals the sick and casts out demons, he prophecies and walks on water, calms storms. Although he claims to come to men as a servant, not a political leader or warrior, there seems to be very little warmth to Mark’s Jesus. When they comes to arrest him he is calm and in control of the situation. On the cross in dying he seems to be at his most human, as he doubts God. The gospel ends with the women find an empty tomb.
In some ways I don’t think I like Mark’s Jesus very much. He seems too mysterious and distant, I also don’t agree with the idea of Jesus hiding knowledge from some but giving it to others. The fig tree is something I cannot understand and find rather silly. Yet there are some parts of Mark I like, I like the ending with the empty tomb, I find it preferable to the endings of the other gospels. I like the fact that Jesus as he dies doubts, the supreme mark of humanness, to question our God in the hour of our greatest suffering. I personally believe that Jesus and through him God can be both completely human and completely divine, why after all should we believe God is in any way limited, and while Jesus’ teaching, life and miracles prove him to be more then human, the fact that he doubts in death marks him more then anything else truly human. Also the fact that even Jesus in his moment of supreme humanness doubts proves that doubt does not keep one from attaining God’s grace, and should be nothing that we are ashamed of or that holds us back. We doubt because we are human, Jesus doubted because he too was human. But in the end of Mark the women find an empty tomb, because Jesus was also truly divine. The empty tomb also for me represent a promise, of God’s love, and ability to over come everything even great suffering, doubt and agonizing death. Jesus himself was God’s promise of love and grace to us, a promise to all of us.

another post from my New Testament journal

2007-01-23T16:48:00.000-08:00

Reflections on the Gospel Q:
The Gospel Q is the over lapping parts of Matthew, Luke, and Thomas. Some of my favorite parts of Matthew and Thomas make it into Gospel Q but not all. Many of the Beatitudes make it into the Gospel Q, which is interesting. As does one of my very favorite parts of Matthew and Thomas, “ But on being asked when the kingdom of God is coming, he answered them and said: The kingdom of God is not coming visibly. Nor will not say: Look here! Or: There! For, Look, the kingdom of God is within you!” (Matthew 24:23, Thomas 3:1-3) Also part of one of my favorite verses Matthew 10:40. On the other hand some verses that I particularly don’t agree with also made it into the Gospel Q. For instance the verse on divorce is in the Gospel Q as is one extremely disturbing verse about those who will not be allowed into the kingdom of heaven Q 13:24-27. I find it interesting that the Gospel of Thomas is included in the Saying of the Gospel Q but not the Gospel of John. I can see the reasons for this Thomas over laps much more with Matthew and Luke then John does. On the other hand Thomas is considered a Gnostic text while John is part of the canon body. However I do enjoy and see relevance in many points in the Gospel of Thomas and am troubled by many points in the Gospel of John.

Christ, the Lamb of God: Christianity and Sacrifice

2007-01-17T12:52:00.000-08:00

The Theological Question of the class: What does sacrifice say about God, about our relationship to God?

The idea of sacrifice might seem rather pagan to most Christians. After all sacrifice usually mean and has usually meant animal, or human sacrifice to a God or Gods. Yet the Judaism that Christianity derives from practice animal sacrifice. Christianity also believes in sacrifice, after all to most Christians Christ is the Lamb of God who takes way the Sins of the World. Christ died for our sins, is a phrase heard often in Christian churches. Therefore Christians, if there faith is based on the concept that Christ sacrificed his life to save us from hell, not only believe in sacrifice but also in human sacrifice by torture.
As a Christian and an intellectual I am less interested in weather Christians believe in human sacrifice and more interested in what the idea of sacrifice means about the nature of God and our relationship to God. The whole idea of sacrifice assumes that God needs something from us, or is demanding that we suffer in some way to prove something to her. It also means that we fear God, that we fear some sort of wrath or punishment from God if we do not satisfy her in some way. I cannot in good faith believe in a God that needs something physical from us, besides from our love. I cannot believe in a God that demands us to suffer simply for the sack of suffering, and I cannot in any way believe in a relationship of fear between God and humans. Jesus preached, love, caring and compassion. Again and again he emphasized that helping others and living a good life was what God wanted from us. Jesus taught of a loving God. I therefore feel I cannot be Christian and believe in sacrifice with its relationship of fear and pettiness.
My God is loving not wrathful. Therefore I cannot believe that Jesus was sacrificed to God for our sins or for any other reason. I cannot imagine my God wanting or condoning the sacrifice of a human life especially one as beloved as Jesus. Jesus died because certain parts of the powers of his time where not open minded enough to understand his message, and like so many other good people died for political and social reasons not because God wanted him tortured to death.

The Bible as I read it

2007-01-14T12:04:00.000-08:00

Since I am a college student and the semester has started I have been taking a theology class on the study of the New Testament. One of the assignments for this class is to journal as we read the Bible and grapple with theological question in and out of class. I thought I would post of the entries I make in my journal:

The Theological Question of the class: How do we reconcile the historical qualities of the Bible and our personal faith?
Originally when I came to the Bible I was not a person of faith. Early in high school I studied the Bible, reading most of it on two different occasions. I studied both the old and new testaments as historical works, and viewed them strictly as examples of how oral history changes as it is set down in writing. Only later did I come to the New Testament as a person who believed that Jesus was in fact Christ, and the essences of God made human. Therefore I have always looked at the Bible has being a very historical, very human, text. I interact with it is from a scholarly perspective. The question posed to me therefore is, how do I know what is divinely inspired and actually God’s plan, and how to I distinguish this from what a Jewish scribe two thousand years ago thought? My answer to this question is simply faith. Some parts of the New Testament feel so right and so full of God’s love and grace that I must believe them to be her divine will, although I have no scholarly grounds to base this on. On the other hand some parts of the New Testament, Revelations for instance, I cannot see divine inspiration in because it does not reflect what I have personally experienced God to be. Finally, as a member of the Religious Society of Friends my faith is not Bible based, Instead I rely on a personal understanding of God. Therefore it does not really matter to me weather large parts of the Bible do not reflect Gods plan. I know one day the Bible will be forgotten, but God will always be there.

words God speaks

2007-01-11T16:46:00.000-08:00

I was looking through an old creative writing note book and found this poem writen in the inside of the cover. It was shared with me by my sister Margaret who is also active in the Quaker community as a traveling young adult minister. She found it on one of her travels:

When we speak
words come out.
When God speaks
birds come out.
You are a word
that God spoke too
what do you think
God means by you?
- Polly Berends

reading the gospel of Thomas

2007-01-09T11:21:00.000-08:00

Jesus said, "Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will reign over all.”
I’ve been reading several translation of the Gospel of Thomas over the last week or so. The Gospel of Thomas has many passages I agree with and many that intrigue me. As I read I’ve been pondering the question of weather what I see as the central truths of Thomas are also unique to this Gospel or weather they are also found in other Gospels within the Bible. I have so fare come to the conclusion that many of the parts of Thomas I find meaningful; the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven, that of God in every person, the need for a personal relationship with God, and what good you do with more important that revering religious creed, is also discussed in other Gospels if not in the same way. I am, however by no means done with studying this very interesting text.

Blessed Community and Gospel Order: Or we as Friends must have the strength not only to act but also to believe

2007-01-03T10:19:00.000-08:00

It is one thing to want to bring about a Blessed Community, but how as Friends do we do this? Quakers especially in the early years of the Religious Society of Friends spoke of something called gospel order. Gospel order is what Friends believed was the way God designed the world to be and the way it will be when we have succeeded in making a heaven on earth, where everything will exist in a state of God’s grace. However as we are human we have strayed from the right order of things. Friend originally practiced living with the testimonies and following callings in an attempt to rediscover that gospel order and place it once more in their lives. As Lloyd Lee Wilson writes “ for early Friends to admonish one another to keep to the gospel order, therefore, was to remind themselves that they were citizens of the Kingdom of God, not a worldly government, and should act accordingly.” However, in recent years the term gospel order has become almost unused by Friends, especially among the liberal unprogramed tradition of which I am a part. To these meeting I would pose several questions. Do Friends still work in the spirit of gospel order? Do Friends still work in the light of the Spirit? Do we as Friends know the answers to these questions and most importantly do we, as a community, have the strength to ask them? It is one thing to say that “I work for change in the world because I feel it is a good and righteous thing to do”, but it is very different to say “I work for change in the world because I feel called by the light of God to do so, for she wishes us to create a good and righteous world in her name.” I would argue that there are two differences between these two statements, first one makes you a good person and the other makes you a Quaker, and second it is comparatively easy to say one while the other would, I can imagine, be extremely difficult for most liberal Friends to admit. To live in gospel order, however, we must admit that we are in fact living in gospel order. What will become of Friends if we cannot admit acting in the name and will of God even to ourselves personally and one another, as a community. Most Friends are worried that admitting to the religious aspect of our religion will discriminate against those who do not believe in God yet attend meetings, that if we even personally admit to a deeper more spirit-led understanding of Quakerism we will lose the openness and respect for diversity we cherish. The question I would ask is, do we really lose our respect for diversity when we admit we live in the grace of a loving God? And what are we giving up by denying everything religious. If we deny the fact that as Quakers we are led by God then we can not believe in gospel order which is the reason why we strive, as Quakers, for Blessed Community in the first place. Do we as Friends truly believe we become bad people when we teach our children the Bible, or mention God’s Grace or the spirit of Christ in our messages? How timid we’ve become. Isn’t it time to ask what would George Fox do?
I do not charge Friends with not holding to Quaker principals, or not sincerely wanting to change the world and make it a better place. I am concerned, however, by a spiritual dullness I have sensed in many meeting. I am equally concerned by Friends inability to educate the children of the meeting and seekers about Quakerism as a religion and a faith rather then a philosophy or a nice way to live one's life. Quakerism is and has always been so much richer, so much more then a philosophy, we are not just a community, but a spiritual community of believers. I worry we have forgotten this. Early Friends believed that God had called on them to return gospel order to the world. I am afraid and saddened by the thought that modern Friends have lost the passion and fire that came to those early Friends. I know that thinking about, and most importantly standing up and saying, that we are called by God to create the Blessed Community can seem intimidating and overwhelming some times. I will admit to any one who asks that I am routinely intimidated and overwhelmed. After all I am only one young college student what can I possibly do to make a heaven on earth? In is part of my faith journey however, I must simply trust in God, I will live my life in grace as best I can, and understand that some time I will make mistakes and I will not always live up to the gospel order of things, however I know that step by step we will get there. However, I also know we will never get there until we know how to step forward. We as Friends must learn to let go of our fear, and let the spirit guide us.

"Who God possess in nothing is wanting"

2007-01-02T18:15:00.000-08:00

While reading through The World's Wisdom: sacred texts of the world's religions, by Philip Novak, I found a poem in the grace notes for Christianity. It was written by Teresa of Avila a Spanish mystic in the sixteenth century. I had underlined it the last time I had read the book several years ago.

Lines Written In Her Breviary

Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you;
All things are passing;
God never changes;
Patient endurance
Obtains all things;
Who God possess
In nothing is wanting;
God alone suffices.

Blessed Community: a vision among Friends

2007-01-02T13:42:00.000-08:00

For a long time I have pondered the question of the Blessed Community. New York Yearly Meeting met in 2006 on the topic of Blessed Community. The idea of my yearly meeting questioning the place of Blessed Community in the life of the Religious Society of Friends is interesting to me. My own understanding of Quaker thought and practice is based on the idea of Blessed Community. I truly think this concept must be central to the way Friends think and act. Many Friends find it difficult to reconcile the many faces of Quakerism, the practice of worship, the calling to social justice, living ones life by the testimonies, and understand Quakerism as a religion and as a faith with theology, and beliefs even if most Friends do not agree on what these beliefs are. When I think of the idea of Blessed Community, I see in this idea a coming together of these beliefs, practices, and testimonies.
The puritans when they came to America spoke of building The City on a Hill. Once I told a f(F)riend that Quakers were the same as puritans only Quakers had lasted longer. To which my f(F)riend replied jokingly, “I hope there are more differences then that”. Of course there are many differences between the puritans’ beliefs and those of Friends but the idea of building The City on a Hill is one that drove both groups in their early years, and I hope still drives us. The City on the Hill is a phrase that is found in Matthew 5:14 “ You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid.” Most groups have interpreted the City on a Hill as another way of stating the idea behind the Blessed Community. The idea of the blessed community is well documented in the founding principles of early Quakerism. The Blessed Community is heaven on earth and in that single idea Quakerism in its essence exists. First it is important to understand that I see Quakerism as Protestant Christian denomination. This does not mean that non Christian Friends are not good Friends or do not follow Quaker practice, but I believe that it is important to understand that Quakerism was originally a Christian denomination and many of its ideas are necessarily rooted in the Christian faith.
To me Quakerism and being Quaker is to believe that there will be no second coming, no day of judgment, no rapture, no amidogen. Instead I believe that Christ has already come again and that Gods essence in all of us is in fact the tangible proof of his coming. This then changes what we are on earth to do. Many Christian denominations focus their whole beliefs on the idea that believers will go to heaven and one day Jesus will come again, therefore alleviating any need to make real lasting changes in the way the world is now, this is where I think Friends are different. Friends base their beliefs on the Blessed Community, City on a Hill, a Heaven on Earth, or put simply bringing God’s love, grace, and joy to the world now. If we are not waiting for Jesus to one day magically show up and solve all our problems for us, but instead realize that if he is in all of us, then it is our job to make our world in God’s image and according to her will ourselves. In my personal belief God is present now, in our lives and the world. It is her grace and love in each of us that if we listen to, and act on, can and will bring about the Blessed Community.