Spiritual Nurture Workshops

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

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

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

“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

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:

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.

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

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

Friends In The Spirit of Christ Epistle

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

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

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

“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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

“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.