Showers of Blessings

The way out is through

2010-05-16T16:00:00.000-05:00

Less than a week after I posted the previous essay, I got notice that my job was being terminated as of March 31. I noted this in the comments to the previous post, and three readers have subsequently posted sympathetic, helpful comments.

Since that time, a lot has happened.

Almost immediately after my notice, I sent an email to a large group of friends letting them know that I'd been laid off again and that I was looking for other opportunities for useful work, including referrals to my private practice. A day or two later, a friend referred me to a job he had been recruited for but didn't want. It was a Big Job, a significant stretch in terms of responsibility, substantive work, and compensation, with a large hospital not far from my home.

While I was interviewing for that job (and progressing much farther than I though I would), I got a call from the general counsel from another large health system asking me to meet with her to discuss whether I could give her some help. She is a long-time acquaintance to whom I'd sent an inquiry and resume a few months ago. This was a very attractive opportunity because it would involve working with several former colleagues and with other top-notch people in an well-respected company. It would also give me a chance to practice health law from both a provider's and payor's perspective and make use of both branches of my expertise.

Also during this time -- April -- several private practice clients sought me out and engaged me, so I had quite a lot of work to do apart from my job seeking.

To shorten the story considerably, I was one of two finalists for the Big Job but was not chosen. I accepted the position with the other organization under almost ideal circumstances: four days a week, as an employee with benefits, through at least the end of the year and perhaps a few months past that. (Furthermore, I can ride my bicycle to the office in about an hour, or catch a bus on the corner, make one transfer, and step off a train literally at the office's front door.)

I've been working a week now, and it feels good. Already, I'm being challenged with interesting, complex work that uses my experience and expertise, and in an office with good people I've worked with before. Unfortunately, I've been suffering all week with a serious virus that has attacked my respiratory system, especially at night which interferes with my sleep and makes my waking hours miserable. (When I cough-- which is both too often and not often enough -- I feel pain in my abdominal muscles in my cranium as my brain shakes around in it. It's nasty)

I do find myself wishing this was not a temporary position and that I could count on it going on indefinitely, but if I've learned anything it is that everything is subject to change and that any security that relies on human institutions is illusory. So I'm plowing ahead one day at a time, grateful for what I have, and trying to keep my private practice going in the meantime.

I heard someone say that the only way out is through. I've found this to be one of the wisest, truest adages I know of. It is how it was in difficult passages in the past, and it's no different now. It takes a lot of energy -- it is a lot easier to be on cruise control than to have to be awake all of the time. But I know, as much as I resist it, that being awake is the only way to be.

Life. Vocation. Work. Job.

2010-03-04T10:30:00.001-06:00

This post started as a comment on Emily Rose Neeson's thoughtful post at Barclaypress.com on Christian vocation, but grew too long for that place.

I was laid off my previous job (after six years there) in December 2008. It was part of a reduction in force. I saw it coming for months. I wasn’t bitter about it: I was the guy I would have laid off if I was in my boss’s shoes, so at I didn’t have any feelings of unfairness.

It was a hassle, but it was also a relief. The job was well-paid, clean, safe, and was a mere 15 minute bike ride from home, but I had no passion for it; I had a lot more to offer than the job asked for, and I felt wasted much of the time. I helped others by helping those in the large organization help those who helped others, so the connection between my work and its value was attenuated and often invisible.

So I didn't miss the work, though I missed and do miss my relationships with the people there, many of whom have also since been made redundant. Fortunately, we had saved an amount equivalent to about a year’s worth of expenses (not counting anticipated college tuition), and getting six months of severance pay, followed by unemployment compensation gave us a temporary financial cushion and I didn't feel panic, though the financial crisis and the recession that resulted (and which persists today) did shake my confidence quite a bit.

During 2009 I did a lot of thinking, exploring, relaxing into the question of vocation, and work. I explored a new field (nonprofit leadership), took a course in it at a local university (paid for by the taxpayers), and looked for opportunities in that new field. But times were hard and the market frozen. I did land a part-time opportunity that I was an excellent fit for, but then the work was deferred indefinitely. So I kept thinking, mulling, exploring, dreaming.

It didn’t take me too long to conclude that at the deepest level I did not want to be employed, at least not full-time and not by a large organization. I did want to work, though, and to have that work provide me with the money I needed to live, and also to leave me the time to live.

So I started a home-based business – a law practice, focusing on estate planning (wills, trusts, etc.). I got the idea through some volunteer work and the suggestion of a friend. I found that I enjoyed the work: it was concretely helpful to people; it let me work directly with them rather than through an organization; there was a need for what I did and an underserved market (primarily middle aged, middle class people who haven’t planned for the care of their children and property when they become disabled or die and who can afford to pay a fair fee for basic services but don’t require complicated and expensive tax planning); the field was relatively new and challenging for me and I was in learning-mode which always makes me high; and it had the realistic potential for being sufficiently remunerative to support my family and the rest of my social obligations.

While I felt strongly that this is what I wanted to do, I was aware of the practical challenges and dangers. So I was never able to -- I never let myself -- jump in with both feet. I told others then that I was wading into the ocean of self-employment and that I was, progressively, ankle-, knee-, then chest-deep into it. But I never let the water lift me entirely out of touch with the land and I kept looking for more traditional opportunities. This perhaps was a mistake that displayed a lack of faith and prevented me from giving the business my best energy; but I’m cautious at heart and it’s what I did.

The practice went OK at first with a steady if slow stream of paying clients. I was learning the field and found that learning it was a lot of fun (except for the tax aspect, which in estate planning is like saying you like surgery but for the blood), and I was exercising my right-brain people skills more strenuously and successfully as well as my left-brain analytical skills. I loved being independent and flexible. I made mistakes and learned from them. I found a few colleagues and fellow travelers down the same road. My volunteer work increased. I was exercising more. I felt proud to be producing rather than consuming wealth. It looked positive.

But, alas, time and nerve ran out. The practice stalled in the fall. Having to pay for our health insurance benefits under COBRA, even with the 65% federal subsidy, was unsustainable and became the brick that broke the camel’s back. In addition to that big fact, there were inner misgivings, too. I began to feel self-indulgent, embarrassed that others were subsidizing my project –working people who were paying for two-thirds of my health insurance and unemployment compensation, my children whose hopes of attending college were made uncertain, donors to the college who subsidized my son's attendance there, charities I could no longer support at previous levels, a loving and supportive spouse whose own plans and dreams were in jeopardy because of my lack of income, and so forth.

Eventually, these and other practical considerations, led me back into the world of being employed, in a temp position at first, and, as of January 20, full-time in a “permanent” (the word should always be qualified by quotation marks) position with our state governmenl. It’s a fine job with good people, though it pays 40% of my previous salary, requires 25% more hours in the office, and uses maybe 50% of my talent. If this sounds like whining, I’m not. I’m grateful. I repeat these facts to remind myself that I had it pretty good before and that now I’m simply working like most of the rest of my country works, though even now I enjoy certain benefits and some measure (however fragile) of economic security (i.e., a traditional pension) that many others don’t enjoy. And where is it written that one's work has to be comfortable and fulfilling?

I have never during my years of droneship forgotten that the workplace is part of creation, too, as fallen as the meetinghouse or the courthouse, full of broken and not-so-broken people, and a place for ministry. I do it in my small ways -- being unfailingly polite to high and low alike; providing honest and high quality work, no matter how mundane or unappreciated; cheerfully accepting criticism even from those unqualified to give it; making and strengthening the invisible fabric of social relationships, etc.

But is this new job my vocation? My calling? It is certainly part of it, but it’s obvious to me it isn’t the whole calling, or even pretty close. It isn't what anyone (especially me) would put on my gravestone. The job simply provides me with the basic sustenance to live and continue my volunteer work at meeting and in my community (though the reduction in “free” time and the need to earn extra money in evenings and weekends is making me feel overly stretched at the moment; something is going to have to give, I’m afraid). Even though we’ve had to half our support of some of the nonprofits we love, the job lets me do what we are doing.

Having let go, at least for the moment, of the ideal of being self-employed, I’m reverting back to my old attitude expressed in the title and refrain of a song by Charlie King: "My life is more than my work, and my work is more than my job."

Thinking of Dr King and Jesus

2010-01-18T10:30:00.009-06:00

In meeting yesterday, I realized that Dr King has been gone for 41 years this coming April. He was 39 when he was murdered. He's been gone longer than he was here.

Then, in this morning's Star Tribune, there was a very good op-ed piece by Paul Gaston headlined "He had a dream, but there was more." In it, he reminds us that Dr King was a prophet for radical, biblical economic and political justice as well as a dreamer of love and peace. Dr King's diagnosis of the sickness of American society and the radical nature of the cure was much deeper and more pungent than the vapid "can't we all get along?" caricature of his message that predominates in the mainstream. This emasculation of Dr King's ministry began during his lifetime, such as when he was castigated for opposing the American war against the Vietnamese as "counterproductive" to the civil rights struggle, but it has gotten worse since his death.

Gaston heaps appropriate disgust with people like George Will, Rush Limbaugh, and Newt Gingrich -- people who opposed everything Dr King stood for while he was alive -- who selectively quote Dr King's words in an effort to pervert his ministry.

Gaston's point isn't novel, but it is a welcome reminder.

But what hit me today was how what has happened to Dr King and his ministry is exactly what it looks like was done to Jesus and his gospel in the years following his death. That is, the more we learn about the historical Jesus the more we understand him to be a prophet of radical political and economic reordering of society as well as a self-sacrificing, gentle preacher of love and repentance forgiveness.

The Jesus many of us learned about in Sunday School is a sanitized, feminized Jesus whose spiritual message has been torn from its concrete social milieu, resulting in a message that may comfort the afflicted but does little to afflict the comfortable. (This might have been the developmentally appropriate image of Jesus to teach to children in Sunday School, but it is appallingly inappropriate for adults.) Such an image of Jesus makes his crucifixion into punishment of a religious heretic rather than a political seditionist. He was both.

A core conclusion of the Jesus scholars is that Jesus's followers interpreted and applied his message -- and recorded it in the books of the gospels -- in a way that met the immediate needs of the post-Easter Christian community and cannot necessarily be trusted as a comprehensive record of Jesus's actual life and ministry. I do not accept the Jesus scholar's conclusions uncritically, but after seeing how Dr King's life and message has been selectively remembered, I am more sensitive to how that process might have worked after Jesus's death.

My point isn't so much that the Jesus portrayed in the gospels is wrong or inaccurate as much as it is unbalanced and selective. There is plenty of evidence of Jesus's radical social and economic critique in the record to indicate that that, too, was a central part of his ministry. To be more accurate, then, I should say that the imbalance and selectivity comes from mainstream interpretations of the gospels rather than the documents themselves.

Fortunately, the comprehensive documentary record of Dr King's life is far more likely to be preserved and easily available, but the mainstream interpretation of that record still drives the public mythology to distort Dr King's life and message into something it most certainly was not.

Similarly, those of us who are inspired by Dr King's political and economic message cannot ignore the fact that he came to that message as a minister of the Christian Gospel and a committed disciple of Jesus Christ; his prophetic social, political, and economic words and actions were the direct and necessary results of that primary commitment.

But even if it were not present, I would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ. To me, the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I am speaking against the war. Could it be that they do not know that the Good News was meant for all men -- for communist and capitalist, for their children and ours, for black and for white, for revolutionary and conservative? Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the one who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? What then can I say to the Vietcong or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this one? Can I threaten them with death or must I not share with them my life?

(from "Beyond Vietnam," delivered at Riverside Church, New York, April 4, 1967 -- a year to the day before Dr King's death.)

So just as Christians have to be careful of over-spiritualizing Jesus at the loss of his social critique, Americans must be careful not to secularize Dr King at the loss of his religious core.

(Lest there be any misunderstanding: I am not saying that Dr King was the incarnation of the Living God in the way that I believe Jesus was. I am saying that the message of each -- which requires radical commitment and a willingness to die to this world -- has been hijacked to rationalize and defend a profoundly sick status quo.)

Two typos corrected and images reformatted 1-19-2010

Five rules of the world; or, Show up for your life and don't be ashamed

2009-09-18T15:36:00.004-05:00

I recently got involved with Facebook, for a lot of reasons, which has kept me away from here. One of the reasons is Facebook's encouragement of short, quick pieces. But here's an excerpt from Anne Lamotte's wonderful little book, Operating Instructions that was too long for a status update. The book is essentially a journal of the first year of her life as a mother to her son, Sam. I liked it very much, and it's so typical of Lamotte's wonderful writing. (I've loved hearing her on the radio for years, but have begun to read her only in the last few weeks.)

It's a short chapter dated November 4, and is on page 100:

I had a session over the phone with my therapist today. I have these secret pangs of shame about being single, like I wasn't good enough to get a husband. Rita reminded me of something I'd told her once, about the five rules of the world as arrived at by this Catholic priest named Tm Weston. The first rule, he says, is that you must not have anything wrong with you or different. The second one is that if you do have something wrong with you, you must get over it as soon as possible. The third rule is that if you can't get over it, you must pretend that you have. The fourth rule is that if you can't even pretend that you have, you shouldn't show up. You should stay home, because it's hard for everyone else to have you around. And the fifth rule is that if you are going to insist on showing up, you should at least have the decency to feel ashamed.
So Rita and I decided that the most subversive, revolutionary thing I could do was to show up for my life and not be ashamed.

Peaceniks

2009-08-08T23:09:00.001-05:00

Let the time of joy return

2009-07-05T16:36:00.003-05:00

July 5, 2009. I am near Indianapolis at Lovely Wife’s brother’s family’s home, relaxing on a beautiful screened in back porch amidst green trees and grass and the songs of hundreds of birds and a few stray Fourth of July firecrackers. We arrived last evening from Blacksburg, Virginia and the Friends General Conference Gathering.

At the Gathering, mostly I sung. I co-led an almost-three house workshop, Singing from the Sacred Harp, six mornings (one day was shorter), led an hour of singing from Rise Up Singing immediately afterwards, and coordinated and participated in a two-hour Sacred Harp singing Sunday-Friday afternoons. It was like heaven must be like.

The workshop went extraordinarily well. It is the fifth time I’ve co-led it, the first time with Gerry. We worked well together and are both very satisfied with how it went.

We had high hopes when we got the preliminary roster showing 43 registered participants, half men, half women. A dozen were of high school or college age young Friends (including four from our own meeting), and six other singers who had taken the workshop before. This gave us a solid core of experienced singers to help along the newer singers, always an advantage in a singing school.

There were some additions and subtractions, but on first session on Sunday morning the class pretty closely resembled the preliminary roster. From the very first song, we knew we had a solid group of singers. It turned out that most of the younger Friends were already singers with high school or college choir experience and they picked up the rudiments of shape note singing easily. We could have dispensed with teaching the parts of new songs by the end of the Monday morning, though we continued to sing the parts separately most of the time until Thursday. We kept having new participants drop in throughout the week, which also contributed to the quality of the experience.

The workshop was complemented by a very strong afternoon singing. For the fourth year in a row, we were provided a beautiful place to sing outdoors – under a wide cantilevered overhang of the dining hall. It wasn’t a low-ceilinged pine church, but it was resonant and we didn't have to strain our voices to be heard. We ordered 30 chairs originally but had to add 15 more by Monday afternoon to accommodate everyone who wanted to sing. (When the second group of chairs was delivered, we found all 45 of them set up in one giant hallow square – just as the workers thought they had been instructed.) Thankfully, singing Friends from Madison, Wisconsin and Lancaster, Pennsylvania, brought additional books to share with the ones I brought from the Twin Cities; without those extra books to loan, we would have lost many singers.

Although we missed the high school singers from the workshop during the afternoon singing (they were obliged to be elsewhere), we did draw many of the college age Friends from the workshop, some other adult singers from the workshop, and most importantly other experienced singers who were able to start the week strong and keep the singing at a very high level of quality. I have been very pleased with the growth of the size and quality of the afternoon singings over the past four or five years, and this year was even better. Surprisingly (or perhaps not), a large group also spontaneously showed up to worship and sing during the Wednesday afternoon sabbatical time when no organized activities were permitted. It was a pleasant coincidence.

Then came the extraordinary Thursday. In the workshop in the morning, we held a memorial lesson for Friends who had died or who were sick and shut-in and unable to be with us. This is a Sacred Harp tradition that we adapted to our Quaker setting by adding a lengthy time of silent, settled worship as well as reading the names and singing a song. It was, as it always is, a poignant and moving time.

We repeated this in the afternoon, with other names being said aloud and remembered by loved ones. Many of the names added in the afternoon were of people who had died prematurely, before what we would normally think of their time. I was led to lead the song Morning Sun (#436) which speaks to this tragic phenomenon:

Youth, like the spring, will soon be gone,

By fleeting time or conq'ring death;

Your morning sun may set at noon,

And leave you ever in the dark.

Your sparkling eyes and blooming cheeks

Must wither like the blasted rose;

The coffin earth and winding sheet

Will soon your active limb enclose.

Usually, this song is sung very quickly and energetically, and often with a strong feeling of black humor. But this time I led it very slowly and beat it with four beats to the measure, giving it a more stately feel. I also lead the song Poland (# 86) for the sick and shut-in:

God of my life, look gently down,
Behold the pains I feel,
But I am dumb before Thy throne,
Nor dare dispute Thy will.

I'm but a sojourner below,
As all my fathers were;
May I be well prepared to go
When I the summons hear.

But if my life be spared awhile,
Before my last remove,
Thy praise shall be my bus'ness still
And I'll declare thy love.

When these songs were done, we sat in traditional Quaker silent worship for a few minutes. While we were doing so, we listened to the background noise around us. Construction work across the street. Children squealing and laughing as they played down the walk. The easy laughter of Friends as they walked by, having a conversation. Sirens hurrying to the scene of an emergency.

Later that evening, I attended the Gathering’s third plenary program. The program began with a report from a Friend about a young man attending the Gathering who had fallen from a skateboard earlier that day and suffered a serious blow to his head; we had heard only that during our afternoon memorial lesson, and the speaker gave us his name and an update on his condition, which was guarded. He was not out of the woods and there was a strong sense of hopefulness for his recovery.

The speaker then began her program. It was the only one of the four plenary speakers during the week with whom I did not connect and so was relieved when she sat down at the end of her talk and was ready to leave.

But then a long line of Friends, most of whom I recognized as being part of the senior leadership of FGC and of the Gathering came to the stage and the general secretary stepped to the microphone. He then said words that must be among the most difficult he has or ever will have to say to others. He announced very simply and directly that Bonnie Tinker, a well-known and loved Friends from Portland, Oregon, had died that afternoon after having a collision with a vehicle while she was riding her bicycle.

There was an audible gasp from the assembly of a thousand or more. Then a lengthy time of stunned silence, punctuated by weeping and other sounds of emotion all around the hall. Lovely Wife took my hand and squeezed hard for some time. She had been a friend of Bonnie’s family for many years, and we both had worked briefly with her many years ago on an AFSC program. We knew her to be a remarkable woman of tremendous bravery, integrity, compassion, and promise. Her loss, in this sudden and unexpected way cut right through us.

After a time, additional announcements were made. All evening events cancelled except for a meeting for worship sponsored by Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual and Queer Concerns, a community of which Bonnie was a leading member. Workshops would reconvene in the morning and leaders would decide how to proceed. Persons trained in Compassionate Listening would convene in the front of the hall, etc.

L.W. and I just sat there for ten or fifteen minutes, trying to come to grips with what we had just heard. Then I said to her, “All I can think of is to sing.” So we got a box of books and walked to the place where we did our afternoon singing, joined by a few others who we found on the way. On the way, we learned that the sirens we had heard during the memorial lesson that afternoon were those called to help Bonnie. In the end, there was about a dozen of us, and we began singing (uncharacteristically) quietly, given the circumstances and time of night, which gave the music a whole different quality. We aren’t used to exercising any restraint when we sing, and gradually I believe we came more into full voice. We sang an hour or so before we felt free to stop and go home.

I don’t remember all the songs we sang that night, but I do remember reprising the song Linda had called in the afternoon when I said I wished I had chosen a more hopeful song than Morning Sun. She led Gainsville (#70t), verses 1, 5 and 6, and we sang it again that night.

Lord, we come before Thee now,
At Thy feet we humbly bow;
Oh do not our suit disdain;
Shall we seek Thee, Lord, in vain?

Comfort those who weep and mourn;
Let the time of joy return;
Those who are cast down lift up,
Strong in faith, in love and hope.

Grant that all may seek and find
Thee a God supremely kind;
Heal the sick, the captive free,
Let us all rejoice in Thee.

It is a strange thing in some ways to be so involved with Sacred Harp singing at a Quaker gathering. After all, it is difficult to think of anything that could be more different than traditional Quaker worship. We are not quiet; we are not still; we make noise, joyful and otherwise; we weep without shame and we laugh heartily and often; we probably refer to more biblical stories, verses, and themes in one afternoon than most FGC Friends do in an entire year of weekly worship

But I do not see this as contradictory. When the reality of life and death breaks through to touch me personally, I feel as if I have only two possible responses. The first, and most natural, is silent acceptance and contemplation, letting the reality of it all sink in without the aid or hindrance of words. I seldom feel that there is anything I can say under such circumstances that help me or anyone else. So I respond by simply being there, sitting quietly and attentively.

The other response is to sing. Mark Twain once remarked that “Under certain circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.” I find the same is true of singing. Under urgent, desperate circumstances I find that singing – especially from the Sacred Harp but also from other sources – gives me an emotional relief and connection to others that I do not ordinarily find in silent worship. I certainly felt this last Thursday night under the porch at Deitz Dining Hall.

The next morning, we set aside the first hour of our workshop for open worship after the manner of Friends. One participant shared the conversation she had had with Bonnie at lunchtime a few hours before she was killed. Another shared that it was appropriate that the reason Bonnie had rented a bike to ride during the Gathering was to continue her training for a long ride down the West Coast she was planning to raise awareness and funds for gay and lesbian families. Another asked the young people to sing the song he had heard them singing around the table at breakfast that morning – Mear, (#49b), a versification of Psalm 47’s lamentation. We sang these verses:

Will God forever cast us off?
His wrath forever smoke
Against the people of his love,
His little chosen flock?

And still to heighten our distress,
Thy presence is withdrawn;
Thy wonted signs of pow'r and grace
Thy pow'r and grace are gone.

No prophet speaks to calm our grief,
But all in silence mourn;
Nor know the hour of our relief,
The hour of Thy return.

After about an hour, we took a break and continued on the last day of he workshop, trying to wind things up and get in some last-minute lessons we had not had time to get to during the week.

Near the end, the general secretary came into the room and said that a television news crew was on campus reporting the story of Bonnie’s death and wanted to film a workshop in action as background footage for the story. He asked if we would be willing to be filmed; he said it would be more compelling than showing a bunch of people sitting around a circle talking. We agreed and the TV people came in and did their thing as we sang our final songs. A few minutes later, another crew came by and we again were filmed. You can see one of the stories here. (Thanks to Jeanne for forwarding this link.)

I am grateful to God for so many, many things, but after this week I am thankful for nothing so much as the ability to feel gratitude and for a voice with which to express it.

Palm Sunday meditation

2009-04-08T20:51:00.002-05:00

From ministry given on 4-5-2009, North Meadow Friends Meeting, Indianapolis

Many years ago, I discovered Jesus and welcomed him into my life like a king. He was going to extricate me from a dead-letter childhood religion. He was going to give me ammunition to fight against an oppressive and regressive government and social system.

So I hailed his entry into my life with joy and elation. I carried and read from the little red book, Quotations of Chairman Jesus and quoted them to every overly cautious adult I could find. I even grew a beard and long hair and wore sandels to look like him. I was supported in my commitment by the fact that there were others who shared my point of view. It just made so much sense to me, and I took pleasure in kidnapping Jesus from the establishment that claimed to speak for him.

But after a while, things began to go wrong. As I ushered him into the temple of my heart, instead of reinforcing me in the reasons I asked him in, he began to point out that it -- that is to say, me -- was full of lies and lust. I was not what I pretended it was. And he didn’t just point out the discrepancy he brought out a whip and demanded that either the lies go, or he goes. But the hypocrites he chased out were old friends of mine, and I literally couldn't imagine being without them. So I began to hate him and plot what any Self-respecting person would do.

It did not take me long to neutralize him, as the military would say. It was surprisingly easy, actually. All I had to do was turn him from the powerful, Self-disturbing force I discovered he was into a mere teacher, prophet, philosopher, and a good example. I made him two-dimensional, like a cartoon figure, not a living being. In truth, I basically admitted what I had always thought about him, but without the pretense of his being anything more. So I wrung all the life out of him and buried him in the same stone sepulcher with the rest of them. In a honored place, at first, but what does it matter whose urn is on the upper shelf?

And I went on with my life.

But then something began to happen. Doubts arose. Was I certain he was nothing more than a good teacher or moral example? Was it possible that he was of a unique character? Perhaps even who he said he was? I no longer thought so, but I wasn't as certain as I once was.

Then I heard about a group of people who testified that they had actually found this dead prophet alive again. They reported that as they met together regularly to wait for him, he appeared to them in spirit and in truth -- simply, directly and unmediated by a priest or scholar. And that as they listened to him, they began to align their lives with his. There was something about their witness that was particularly convincing: it was not merely the testimony of their mouth, but of their lives that brought me to believe that they had, in fact, seen a Living Christ, and not the dead Jesus that I had killed so long ago.

And so I began to wait with them, and have been for more than 30 years now. I don't think I realized it at first -- in fact, hardly anyone in the group spoke in such terms at all -- but gradually I discovered that waiting for him -- and then listening to him -- was exactly what they were doing. While I can’t say that I’ve ever had as dramatic experience as the first-generation apostles as described by Luke, over the years I’ve had enough glimpses of the Living Christ’s presence in the midst of the waiting community that I have kept coming to wait with them.

Maybe this land was made for you and me after all

2009-01-19T02:04:00.007-06:00

I have pretty successfully fought off Obama-fever for the past two years. He was my second choice early on, then my first, but I had not felt the thrill running up my leg like Chris Matthews did. Seeing him on television or hearing him on the radio, I found myself saying, "Yes, that's right" and agreeing with most of what he said, but it was more like watching a comedy movie and saying, "That was funny" rather than laughing out loud. Though I approved, I hadn't connected emotionally with him or his campaign, even on election night.

But it got me today. Lovely Wife and I listened to the concert at the Lincoln Memorial on the radio and then drove out to Costco (of all places) because we needed a pallet of pasta, a barrel of olive oil, or a side of beef or something. We enjoyed the music, but some of the readings seemed a little melodramatic and some of the music too show-bizzy for our tastes. Obama's speech was a good one, though, when it ended as we exited I-394 near the store.

Then Bruce Springsteen came on for the closing number and as he was talking we heard one unmistakable twang of a banjo and immediately knew that he was introducing Pete Seeger. (Isn't it funny how some musicians you can recognize after a single note?)

We'd heard Pete was attending the concert, but knowing that his voice is nearly gone we weren't sure he'd be performing. But then Bruce introduced him. (What did he call him? The grandfather? godfather? Father of American folk music?) and Pete rasped, "I'll say the words and you sing 'em" and then started, "As I was walking that ribbon of highway. . . ."

That's when the tears came.

Pete Seeger, 89 years old, who I first heard about when some right-wing Lutherans tried to keep him from singing at a Walther League convention in 1964 or so, who I first heard live at the Capitol in May 1971 singing Last Train to Nuremberg, who was blacklisted from radio and television but who nevertheless taught a generation -- nay, three or four generations -- to sing, song by song, campus by campus, demonstration by demonstration, during times of deep political and social darkness now singing with his grandson and a children's chorus and a half-million people at the inauguration of the President of the United States. We were just stunned with joy.

But what topped it off was that he didn't just sing the familiar four verses of This Land is Your Land that we all learned in grade school. He actually skipped a couple of those but did sing two verses Woody wrote that weren't printed in the school song books because they added a bit of social criticism to his otherwise safely patriotic song:

In the square of the city, in the shadow of the steeple,
Near the relief office, I saw my people.
As they stood there hungry, I stood there whistlin',*
This land was made for you and me.

A great high wall there tried to stop me.
A great big sign there said "Private Property."*
On the other side, it didn't say nothin'.
That side was made for you and me

* As sung. Woody's published lines are a little different.

That's when I really lost it and just sat there and wept. In the Costco parking lot, for heaven's sake. I felt gratitude for Pete Seeger -- and many others like him -- who for years were plugging away, little by little, sometimes with little to show for it, but persevering in spite of it all. God Bless the Grass indeed.

I finally felt, for the first time, really, some measure of hope for this country. Not because Barak Obama is any kind of all-wise and powerful superman who will make everything all right, but because the nation that managed to elect him as its president has some redeeming virtue left in it after all. As he said during the campaign, it wasn't about him, it was about us. I felt like calling to volunteer.

UPDATE: Thanks to Peggy & Songbird and finally figuring how how to embed a You-Tube file, here's Pete and Tao and Bruce and their fellow countrymen.

A faith of power or cheap moralism?

2009-01-09T16:42:00.003-06:00

I just learned that Richard John Neuhaus died through this story in Slate.com by Michael Sean Winters. (NPR reported the story as I am typing this.)

I didn't know Neuhaus well, but followed his career at a distance from when he was a Lutheran pastor in Brooklyn and helped found what was then called Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam in 1966 or '67. An African-American friend of mine from college days adored him and she credited him with making sure that she went to college.

He was not a conventional liberal, however. He was a Christian, first and foremost, and he gradually found a more congenial home on the political right, and eventually in the Roman Catholic Church. His New York Times obituary is here and more comprehensive and much more sympathetic information is here.

What struck me was the following paragraph from the Slate.com story. I think it summaries my concerns about why the radical secularization of much of contemporary liberal Quakerism has weakened the power of our social testimonies. (The emphasis is mine.)

When religion is reduced to ethics, the church is permitted to enter the public square under the guise of a moral authority. But once you sever the link between the central animating dogmas of faith and the moral teachings that flow from there, you invite a cheap moralism, a religion of external conformity to prescribed norms rather than an internal assent of faith. You are a Christian if you believe certain things about events on a hillside in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago. It is that belief that has inspired believers and generated culture. Just last September, Pope Benedict XVI said that Christianity "is not a new philosophy or a new form of morality. We are only Christians if we encounter Christ."

I've long thought that the message that Quakers have been given to proclaim isn't that war is bad or that you should tell the truth no matter what or that you should not live ostentatiously. I think most everyone knows this already, and it is indeed cheap moralism for us to add to the scolding. What people don't know is how to live this way, how to find the courage to accept the suffering that comes from, for example, being conquered by an enemy rather than resisting with violence.

The unique contribution of the Quakers was to show the same God who shows the way to live and how I fall short of that way also offers me the power to follow that more excellent path; I am not inherently doomed to falling short of the goal as was the central premise of the protestant churches in England.

Whether or not Neuhaus was right or wrong about politics in the latter half of his life, I am certain that he was on the right track in insisting that the religious commitment precedes and informs everything else.

Hello babies. Welcome to earth. . .

2009-01-05T19:39:00.014-06:00

It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you have about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of– God damn it, babies, you’ve got to be kind.-- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. in God Bless you Mr. Rosewater or Pearls before Swine.

So here they are, Edward (Teddy) Louis & Quinn John, born Saturday, January 3, 2009, in New York, not too far from where the author of this quote lived in mid-Manhattan. They, and their beloved mother and their worthy-of-her father are doing well, considering. They hope to go home to their fourth-floor walkup (!) in Brooklyn on Wednesday morning. Their uncommonly youthful grandfather will visit them in mid-February after a board meeting in Philadelphia. He can hardly wait

We were visiting Lovely Wife's family in Indianapolis when the word came -- via text message from their dad a lá Obama at 6 am that only Only Son could receive since we're too cheap to accept text messages -- on Saturday when we were leaving to visit daughter #2 in Dearborn, MI. On the way there, we discovered that Dearborn is closer to New York than it is to Minneapolis, and for several exciting hours we considered driving to New York the next day (Sunday) to see the two little lads.

But alas, saner and much less romantic heads prevailed ("What would we do without them?" our clerk asks) and we drove home on Sunday.

On the way home, we almost collided with a van that sped past our car in the early-morning darkness east of Jackson and began to fishtail on the glare ice on the roadway and then spin two or three 360s in front of us before it plunged off the side of the road into a ditch. All I could do was take my foot off the gas and plan for a diversionary maneuver if necessary, which it fortunately wasn't. We were shaken, to say the least, but otherwise undamaged, other than re-running the mental tape repeatedly.

* * * * *

So much more has been happening here than I can say. In October, I was happy to share a dinner and conversation with Brooklyn Quaker while in New York visiting my daughter. The day I returned home, I was notified (not unexpectedly) that my position was going to be eliminated on Dec. 1 and I have been enjoying a paid sabbatical ever since. The paid part will continue for a few months while I try to find new work, for which I am grateful.

I'm working at finding new remunerative employment, but I feel a little like St Augustine who said, "Give me chastity and continence, but not yet." I'm already as chaste and as self-restrained as I care to be, but I would like a little more time before I must abandon sloth . . . . *

* I happily note that none of the seven cardinal virtues -- humility, liberality, brotherly love, meekness, chastity, temperance, and diligence -- necessarily includes anything like toil or ambition. Whew.

Born to Live

2008-11-02T22:00:00.006-06:00

When I was a freshman in college, our 9:05 classes ended at 9:55, and then there was a chapel break after which the next class started at 11. I went to chapel sometimes, but one day I didn’t and went to my dorm room. I turned on the radio, which was tuned to the classical music station I liked to listen to.

But that day, there wasn’t music, but his voice, this rough, gravely voice, full of energy and passion, asking questions. I have no idea who the guest was that day, but it was my introduction to Studs Terkel. It didn’t take long for me to realize he was a gem, and for the twenty years I lived within the signal of WFMT, I was a regular and devoted listener. When I was unable to listen to the show in the morning, I listened to the Sunday evening rebroadcast.

I have three particular memories of Studs’ broadcasts. In 1981, I was unemployed and staying home with the kids and listened to Studs each day. On Monday, he said that his friend, the Chicago author Nelson Algren, had died, and was going to devote the week to him. There were a couple of interviews with Algren and some of his friends, but the bulk of the week was Studs reading from Algren’s works. I was sort of familiar with the Man with the Golden Arm, but nothing else of Algren’s, and now when I read him I hear Stud’s voice.

Algren is an unjustly under appreciated writer – he thought so, at least – but not by Studs. He understood Algren and obviously loved him and his work. (He was a founder of the Nelson Algren Committee that got Algren's work back in print.) I’ve been an Algren fan ever since.

The second memorable broadcast was really a brief excerpt a show, the context of which I can’t remember. Studs was interviewing his friend Mahalia Jackson in the hospital where she was recuperating from something or another, and while he was there Dr. Martin Luther King walked into the room to visit her, too. Studs left the tape recorder on recorded the most beautiful interchange between Mahalia and her friend Martin, absolutely authentic, full of love and humor, with some mild teasing if I’m remembering correctly. It is the only recording I’ve ever heard of Dr. King in a candid, non-public situation.

Finally, there is an one hour show he produced in 1960 entitled “Born to Live.” I think it puts everything about Studs’ life as a radio person and his message to the world. WFMT broadcast it mid-morning each New Year’s Day, and after having obtained a copy of the Folkways-Smithsonian CD, I continue the tradition to this day.

Here is how Studs describes the program:

With Born To Live I had the help - more than the help, the collaboration - of Jim Unrath, who was an announcer at the station. He and I worked together on all the documentaries, and all on his own time. As I told you earlier, I'm inept mechanically. Jimmy gathered all the stuff. He knew the way I was thinking. Born to Live is a collage montage of voices.

How to explain this? There was a contest called the Prix Italia. It's the equivalent of the Nobel Prize, you might say, for radio and TV documentaries and features. And Dennis Mitchell had won it for Morning In The Streets. So Rita Jacobs said, “Let's submit it.” Well, very few American stations ever win. It's won by BBC or Stockholm or wherever.

So I thought of all the interviews that I had, and there's this one that was sponsored by UNESCO as a special interview. It was 1961, I think, that we started doing it. The Cold War was going on pretty hot. And UNESCO says, “Can't there be one program of East/West values to lower the temperature of heated discussion?”

What came into my mind when we decided to enter the contest - with the odds about a thousand to one - was interviewing a hibakisha, one of the Hiroshima maidens, they were called, who survived the August 9th atomic bombing. She was talking through an interpreter. She’d been brought by the wife of a Quaker who ran that ship The Golden Rule, challenging the nuclear stuff. As she talked, I thought, “I’m going to open with that.”

And then I thought of other tapes I’d done. One of a street worker talking to a kid, a tough kid who's got a tattoo that says “Born To Die”. There are tattoos on his fingers: die, death, D-E-A-T-H. The street worker says, "What about the time between you're born and the time you die? What about that?"

“I don't know. What is it?”

And then I say, “Time to live.” See? And then snip. [snaps]

Little thoughts. And music. Pete Seeger doodling on a banjo, but he's doodling the chorale from Beethoven’s Ninth. Then it cuts to someone else - two couples in a suburb talking about their kids: “And so she says to me, ‘Well, might as well live today, tomorrow you're gonna die. I don't know how long I'll live.’” :How old is she?” “Nine.” And in between and interspersed are children's songs, American children's songs and Japanese children's songs. And then finally I say, “Born to live. What about the time between you're born and the time you die?” Then all the voices start. Some dealing with humor and laughter and some dealing with myth and legend, and the voice of Jimmy Baldwin and the voice of Miriam Makeba, the voice of Einstein. And John Ciardi says, “Sometimes you can tell the difference between a large decision and a small decision. Sometimes it's the sound of it. When I was a kid I used to hear Caruso records. I heard them in these Italian households in Providence, Rhode Island, I’d hear these Caruso records. And you think, ‘That’s as far as a human voice can go./ And there he'd go one step further.” Then I slip in the voice of Caruso singing “Oh, paradisio,” as he goes one step higher. And then Charlie saying, “ . . . .tell the difference between a small decision and a giant decision.” Then it cuts to the voice of Sean O’Casey, and Einstein, and Bertrand Russell. And then it cuts to the voice of a child.

In any event, it had everything. But I was influenced by Dennis Mitchell as well as by Norman Corwin. Sounds need not have a narrator. I got that from Mitchell. Just let the ideas flow from one to the other.

You will never spend a better hour than listening to this program.

Studs died last week, at 96. He'd been frail, especially after a recent fall, and practically deaf they say. I last saw him in 2002 at Macalester College in St. Paul. He was on a book tour promoting his book, Will the Circle be Unbroken, an anthology of interviews with people about death and what happens afterwards.

I can't imagine that he had any regrets at the end except possibly one: that he didn't live to see his fellow Chicagoan, Barak Obama, win election as president of the United States. He died knowing it was going to happen, though, like Moses maybe.

As he always signed off his broadcasts, "Take it easy, but take it."

We march in love: Further reflections on the RNC in St Paul

2008-09-02T11:41:00.030-05:00

To continue from the previous post, our friend was not arrested and did not have to seek sanctuary in the meetinghouse except for Saturday night. She did have a frightening conversation with the Ramsey County sheriff who told her that she was indeed "on the list" but had not been arrested -- yet -- because she was perceived as a moderating influence on the young people in the RNC Welcoming Committee. So she is safe for the time being. (You can hear from her, and others on the RNC WC in a lengthy and provocative press conference here.)

It's too much for me to comprehensively update on the situation in St. Paul regarding the Republican National Convention and the protests surrounding it. Suffice it to sat that total arrests exceeded 800 and that many people here are very unhappy with the law enforcement responses. Here are some links that tell much of the story:

Minnesota Public Radio has excellent coverage here and elsewhere on its site
Democracy Now! and here and here and elsewhere.
Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com and here and here
Minnesota Independent and here and here and here and elsewhere on its site

As far as I know, there was no organized, corporate Quaker presence or response to the RNC, but many Quakers were involved in the week's events in different ways. Several dozen of us participated in the largest public protest of the week, a march of 10,000 on Monday afternoon.

Some worked as "field medics" to provide first aid to marchers and other protesters and some worked in a healing center across from a hospital the entire week; others worked all week on the Minnesota Peace Team, yellow-tuniced people trained to keep a buffer between police and protesters. Some helped set up and staffed the American Friends Service Committee's Eyes Wide Open installation on the State Capitol lawn on Tuesday. A few of us were legal observers and volunteered with the National Lawyers Guild or American Civil Liberties Union to represent arrestees at bail hearings and first appearances. Others housed out-of-town protesters. At least one turned his bike into a puppet for the week. And probably other things that I'm forgetting or don't know.

Regarding the Monday march, there was nothing terribly unique or remarkable to report to anyone who has attended similar events. There were the usual wonderful variety of signs, costumes, flags and banners, and theatrics. There were marchers of all colors, nationalities, religions, and ages, including many families with children. The overall mood was confident and purposeful, but not earnest or somber. Some might also say not serious. Perhaps so, but I remarked to someone that there was more life in this crowd than there would be the entire week in the Excel Center where the RNC was being held.

But there was a counterweight to this joyful and life-affirming vibe.

Though I don't have any photos of the shoulder-to-shoulder armored riot police that were at every intersection during the march, the police presence was pervasive and overwhelming. To be fair, the people associated with the RNC Welcoming Committee had threatened to use physical force -- whether that force was "violent" or not is a definitional question I won't wade into for the moment -- to prevent delegates from arriving at the Xcel Center where the convention was being held, and I don't think it was unreasonable for the police to be prepared and to try to thwart their plans.

And, to a certain extent the threats came to pass: a few groups broke off from the main march route, broke a window or two, and generally ran wild. There are also reports that some one threw a rock that broke a window of bus carrying delegates, and that another delegation said they were sprayed with some kind of liquid that burned their eyes and discolored their clothing. (Pioneer Press story here.)

But I was appalled at the disproportionality of the display of force throughout the week. It started with forcible entries to four or five homes Saturday morning to arrest RNC WC members and to execute search warrants. Police reportedly used battering rams to break open unlocked doors and came in with drawn guns, despite there being no reason to suspect that the residents posed any threat of violent resistance. There were also many reports of harassment of journalists prior to and throughout the week.

At the march, hundreds of police were dressed head-to-toe in armor and battle gear, far exceeding any danger they may have reasonably anticipated, especially from the 10,000 peaceful marchers. The display seemed clearly intended to frighten and intimidate others by creating a false aura of danger, creating fear and uncertainty in the public mind. I cannot escape the conclusion that the police let themselves be used as part of a larger propaganda and public relations effort to delegitimize the protesters.

From my perspective, the enormous and costly effort to protect the RNC exposed the falsity of it all. The RNC was so sanitized, scripted, and phony that it amounted to nothing more (or less) than a four-day political advertisement in which the "news" media were nothing more (or less) than extras or cameo celebrities. (The same, of course, is true of the Democratic convention.) It had to take place behind an enormous security barrier -- physical and human -- in order to "protect" it -- not from any real danger, but from having to encounter dissenting opinions.

The following statement from the St. Paul Green Party (largely written by a Green Quaker) pretty much sums up my feelings and position on the whole thing:

ST. PAUL GREENS DEMAND INVESTIGATION OF EFFORTS TO INTIMIDATE PROTESTERS AND SUPPRESS CIVIL LIBERTIES AT RNC.

It is with deep sadness that St. Paul Greens have seen our city become an armed camp during the past week. The presence of the RNC gave St. Paul an opportunity to set a shining example of a community where diversity of opinion and freedom of expression are welcomed and where civil disobedience is handled firmly but with restraint. The result would have been trust and respect for law officers and a long step toward realizing our vision of St. Paul as one of the world’s greenest cities.

Instead we have seen a virtual army of anonymous, heavily armored and armed troopers take control of our streets. We have seen how helpless and compliant our local authorities are in the face of such a quasi-military occupation. And we have experienced a sense of violation as our homes and meeting places have been invaded on the flimsiest of excuses, our roads and bridges closed to traffic without warning, and our jails packed with people who were rounded up brutally and indiscriminately. Some are angry young protesters, some are journalists who were seeking to do their jobs, and some are citizens who simply ventured to ask questions.

We were told it would not be this way. We feel misled and betrayed. We ask that our city council and county commissioners authorize an independent investigation along the lines suggested in Minneapolis by council members Cam Gordon and Gary Schiff./blockquote>

Quakers and the RNC in St. Paul: God is in the midst of the city

2008-08-31T13:44:00.005-05:00

It's been a sleepy August, but the arrival of the Republican National Convention here next week has gotten things jumping.

Beginning on Friday, word was spreading about several police preemptive raids and arrests of protesters intending to demonstrate at the RNC. That night, a "convergence center" that was to serve as a rallying and welcoming spot for out-of-town protesters was raided pursuant to a search warrant and certain materials allegedly intended for use in disrupting the convention were seized. About 50-60 people were cuffed and detained at gunpoint while the search was being conducted.

Saturday morning, several homes in Minneapolis and St. Paul were raided. Again, allegedly dangerous materials (warrant here) were seized, but this time at least five people were arrested on conspiracy to riot warrants. (Story here.) There were also reports of police harassment of alternative media organizations over the past few days -- equipment confiscated, reporters detained briefly but not arrested or charged. (Story here.)

Then last evening (Saturday), I got a call informing me that a well-respected member of our meeting feared that she might be liable to be arrested for her work with the RNC Welcoming Committee, a self-described anarchists /anti-authoritarians organizing committee. She wanted to take sanctuary in our meetinghouse in St. Paul in order to be free to carry out her logistical work in arranging housing, medical care, and legal assistance to visiting demonstrators. But given our lack of strong central executive decision-making capacity it was difficult even for a long-time member like her to know how to ask. So she started calling Friends who she thought were most likely to object, no one said "no" outright, one thing led to another and I got a call too.

I spoke with the clerk of the meeting, and we agreed that when in doubt, we should worship, so at about 6:30 we started getting the word out via telephone and e-mail, and by the time the meeting started about 8 pm we had more than thirty people, and more came in as they got the word. We had a very deep worship, very centered, very present. At 9 or so, our Friend spoke, described her situation, and answered many questions.

We were, of course, a body of uncertain status -- it was (just) a large group of Friends who had gotten together ad hoc on a moment's notice, looking to what God was calling for us to do here and now. By the end of the meeting, we were clear that our Friend (and two colleagues) could spend the night in our meetinghouse and that a few of us would also stay over to provide support and to witness anything that might occur. One family said they'd come back to make breakfast the next morning.

I was one who slept over. After going home to get my stuff, I slept in a First Day School room on the busy Grand Ave. side of the building. While I went to bed believing that it was extremely unlikely that the police would show up and expecting an easy sleep, I found that I was startled by every slamming car door, firecracker, helicopter fly-over, group of male voices (who all turned out to be college students walking home from parties), and other noises that might have signaled a raid; the last time I ran to the window was 3:30 am.

At about 7:30, I was startled with a rap on the door and a voice that I thought said, "Arrest is imminent." So I pulled on my clothes and ran out, only to find that it was breakfast that was imminent. I was relieved, and happy for the good food.

Worship continued at the regular 8:30 time, followed by another discussion that ran right up until the 11 o'clock worship meeting. This discussion was very interesting; a lot of support for our Friend was expressed, as well as concern that that support not be misinterpreted as agreement with or complicity with some of the more forceful tactics the RNC Welcoming Committee had in mind. But there was a pretty clear sense that we needed to support our sister, and we set up a small committee to coordinate and oversee that. She has since left the meetinghouse and may or may not return tonight. If she does, we will be there with her.

Tomorrow, there is a protest march "planned" (the quotes are to indicate that there seems to be a lot of loose ends involved with it), and we Quakers will meet at the Floyd B. Olson statute on the Capitol grounds and are planning to march together. If the 50,000 announced number of people show up, it will be a logistical nightmare to move them through the approved parade route during the three hours that has been allocated -- the route has to double back on itself when it reaches the convention hall to return to the state capitol starting point. No one knows what will happen, but I and many others will be there to witness to it and to help as we can.

I don't mean for this to be a news report so much as a comment on how well our meeting has responded to this crisis (if that's the word). It feels that we have kept our focus on responding to our Friend in need and have mostly resisted using this episode to make larger ideological statements. Even those who have had serious political and moral reservations about the Welcoming Committee's strategy and (more importantly) its tactics were able to differentiate between that opinion and the need to support our Friend. There is a lot of uncertainty remaining, of course, but I am confident that we will take each step as it is shown us.

For my part, I was led to offer two pieces of vocal ministry. This morning, I mediated on the two times (that I remember) Jesus rebuked his disciples during his passion. First was when Peter, James and John could not keep awake with him for an hour while he went off to pray in Gethsemane -- here he was about to die and they couldn't even be with him for an hour? Second was when Jesus told Peter to put his sword away after Peter cut off the ear of the high priest's servant and Jesus says, in effect, "Put away your sword. Do you think I need your help? Or your puny sword's? You're more likely to end up cutting yourself." This tells us something about how Jesus wants us to respond in times of crisis.

I then noted the parallel with our own history in 1661 when the historic declaration from "the harmless and innocent people of God called Quakers" was presented to Charles Stuart, king of England. That document was mainly intended to disassociate Quakers from the revolutionary Fifth Monarchy Men and other secret conspiracies that were (in fact) threatening the King's government. But far from being a call to complicity with the Powers that Were, it stated a revolutionary purpose as well that was far more threatening than a small group of armed men:

We earnestly desire and wait that by the Word of God's power and its effectual operation in the hearts of men, the kingdoms of this world may become the kingdoms of the Lord, and of his Christ, that he may rule and reign in men by his spirit and truth, that thereby all people . . . . And our weapons are spiritual and not carnal, yet mighty through God to the plucking down of the strongholds of Satan, who is author of wars, fighting, murder, and plots.

Thus, they declared, they were neither collaborators with the king, nor his enemy, but were beholden to a more sovereign authority who would in his own time and his own way put the government in its place. This was what made them dangerous, and what should make us no less so.

Last night, because there was a veil of fear and apprehension over our city and our meeting, I was moved to read Psalm 46 (NRSV):

1 God is our refuge and strength,
an very present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change
though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam
though the mountains tremble with their tumult.

4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy habitation of the Most High.
5 God is in the midst of the city, it shall not be moved;
God will help when the morning dawns.
6 Nations are in uproar, the kingdoms totter;
he utters his voice, the earth melts.
7 The LORD of Hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our refuge.

8 Come behold the works of the LORD,
the what desolation he has brought on the earth.
9 He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth;
he breaks the bow and shatters the spear,
he burns the shields with fire.
10 "Be still, and know that I am God;
I am exalted among the nations,
I am exalted in the earth."
11 The LORD Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our refuge.

I was also reminded of a verse from Pete Seeger's song, Old Devil Time:

Old devil fear, you with your icy hands
Old devil fear, you'd like to freeze me cold
When I'm afraid, my lovers gather round
And help me rise to fight you one more time.

More later as it develops.

In the beginning: Genesis on my mind

2008-08-02T21:19:00.006-05:00

Genesis has been on my mind a lot recently.

First, there are at least two excellent discussions of Genesis going on on right now in Quaker-related blogs.

Peter Bishop at Quaker Pagan Reflections has just concluded a 5-part (pt 1, pt 2, pt 3, pt 4, pt 5) series of very thoughtful posts (plus one post-script) on his recent reading of Genesis and has generated many equally thoughtful (and provocative) responses. I especially appreciated Peter's approach, which is, in his words:

I’m not reading the Bible for poetry. I want to know what it says. I think I’m a pretty unusual reader of the Bible in that I find myself reading it as a writer, and what I want most to understand in the Bible is the mindset and the experiences of its writers. I’m not reading it to understand G*d, I’m reading it to understand the writers’ experiences of G*d. That distinction is important, because so many readers of the Bible bring to it a crushing burden of pious preconceptions. Modern Christian (and Jewish) understandings of G*d grew out of traditions that changed and developed over time, and these traditions left Biblical texts like breadcrumbs along the path. But those texts have been interpreted and reinterpreted since, so thoroughly and so often, that it’s very hard for a modern reader even to hear the writers’ original words over the heckling of later critics from St. Paul through Thomas Aquinas and right on up through Jerry Falwell and his ilk.
As a writer, my prejudice is: Let the writers say what they meant to say. Agree with it or disagree, but don’t try to warp it or twist it or rewrite it to your own liking, because that, let me tell you, is the most violent, the most discouraging thing you can do to a writer.
And I’ve got to say, reading Genesis on its own terms, it’s a freaky little book.

Yes it is. (This isn't the only approach, of course. I read Genesis and the rest of the Bible precisely for the purpose of understanding God, or more precisely to understand what God wants to understand about Himself. But Peter's approach is also an honest and productive one, as long as one is willing to be open to the possibility that the Living God does, in fact, speak through the Scriptures, as well as in other ways, and you don't cheat the game by refusing to accept the possibility that you will be changed.)

A less active, but equally interesting, discussion of Genesis is happening over at Kwaker Skripture Study, a group blog with, alas, only two active participants at the moment. (Actually, the Genesis discussion has only begun; I base my evaluation of the quality of the discussion on their previous trips through other books, most recently Revelation.) They've been looking for more Friends to participate more actively on the blog, and I encourage you to do so. I've been impressed with their past discussions in how well they reflect the Quaker way of approaching Scripture.

Though not a Quaker, David Plotz's series Blogging the Bible at Slate.com should be of interest to anyone interested in a fresh and positive look at the Good Book. He blogged the entire Old Testament over the course of a year or so, but his initial eight posts on Genesis can be found here. Among his many virtues, Plotz's posts are as funny as they are informative. (Plotz is also the new editor of Slate.com.)

Then, by serendipity, I read Madeline l'Engle's Genesis Trilogy a few months ago. It is an anthology of her three shorter works: And it was good, A stone for a pillow, and Sold into Egypt. Her work is notable in how she relates her meditations on the texts to her own personal life. Her husband, Hugh, died during the writing of the latter book, and the way in which she works out her grief and finds sympathy in some of the characters in Genesis is beautifully done. I also enjoyed her ability to consider the various fascinating characters in Genesis, especially the women, as full-bodied human beings, imagining their feelings, motives, and conversations as if they were characters in a novel. (I also was surprised [but shouldn't have been] to find the Walter Wink acknowledged Madeline as an inspiration for his book, The Powers that Be.)

And then I myself read Genesis again after my workshop at FGC Gathering ("User's Guide to the Bible"). That re-reading has in turn led me to buy a used copy of the Anchor Bible translation and commentary on e-bay.

I have no idea whether this means anything, but I am aware of the convergence of Genesis in my life recently. I think it's part of a renewed determination to more systematically study the Bible that I've wanted and intended to do for years but never felt I had the proper framework within which to carry it out. I think I now have enough from my workshop, Michael Birkel's Engaging Scripture, Paul Buckley & Stephen Angell's (ed.) The Quaker Bible Reader, and Walter Wink's Transforming Bible Study to get me started more productively.

I'm reminded of an image from Nikos Kazantzakis's masterpiece, The Last Temptation of Christ. In it, he has Jesus at one point express exasperation while reading the Scripture as if the letters on the page were bars on a window keeping the Truth from shining through. That's a power image and one that I know well.

But I also have often felt as if the words on the page of the Bible were the windows through which I could see into another world, windows through which I could slip through if only I kept at it diligently and with the right attitude.

Joy in the morning

2008-07-19T11:13:00.003-05:00

If there's any better way to start a Saturday morning then to hear that you're going to be the grandfather to twins come January, I don't know what it would be.

My face is frozen in a semi-permanent grin, and my brain is famished for words at the moment.

A radiant indifference to words

2008-07-15T18:22:00.004-05:00

From "Personal History: Altered State -- Pennsylvania, blackness, and the art of being foreign" by Andrea Lee in the June 30, 2008 issue of The New Yorker. The author is describing her experience as a fifth-grade student at Lansdowne Friends School when she and her classmates were called on to recite Psalm 19 at Thursday morning meeting for worship to the elders of the meeting and the rest of the school:

For a long time, things go without a hitch, but on the morning of Psalm 19 our class fails. First, the short, deep-voiced boy who is our bellwether stumbles over his verse and, purple-faced, shudders to a halt. And I, with gold ready to pour from my lips*, simply freeze. At Teacher's frenzied prompting, we burst into the chorus, about errors and secret faults.** But the words are a tripwire: somebody's helpless giggle becomes a rout. We double over, choking with uncontrollable laughter.

The beams of the meetinghouse ring with the echo of our debacle, and we wither under the sidelong smirks of the sixth grade. Still, after a minute, a curious transformation occurs. One by one, we are able to look up at the faces of the elders, which are not severe and condemning, nor yet smiling with the kind of amused indulgence with which grownups greet endearing childish mishaps. Nor do they display any desire to make this a character-building experience. Those old faces are simply present: alert; regarding us and the rest of the hall with a boundless, patient comprehension that raises us to their own dignified level. We let the silence flow back. And, gradually, something becomes clear: a kind of radiant indifference to words, mistaken or correct. What the elders, the Friends, pass on to us this morning is an inkling of how strong silence is. Essential; eternal. But common, in the best sense. Always there, if we can only listen for it. Inside or outside meeting.

* v 9-10: The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.

** v 12Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults.

The Joy of Living

2008-07-14T18:58:00.011-05:00

Immediately after the Gathering, our family of four drove to Colorado to join the rest of Lovely Wife's family -- two brothers, sister, spouses, nieces & nephews [except one] and partners: a total of 18 people. This reunion was planned last fall when we all gathered in Minneapolis for Lovely Wife's mother Barbara's memorial meeting at Twin Cities Friends Meeting. We so enjoyed being together that we planned to meet again in the summer, at which time we would attend to distributing Barbara's ashes in the mountains.

Both Barbara and her husband, Bruce, were born in Iowa but fell in love with Colorado and the Rocky Mountains when Bruce performed civilian public service in Denver during the Second World War. Later, after retirement, they bought a house next door to their eldest daughter and her husband, the Inventor, in Gold Hill, Colorado, a little mountain town about 3000 feet and 30 minutes above Boulder. The house was spacious and beautiful, facing east and south overlooking the cities of Boulder and Denver and the plains beyond. There they helped raise Sister Holly's three sons and hosted many family get-togethers.

When Bruce died in 1995, we all met in Gold Hill and buried most of his ashes in the town cemetery where we had a sweet and spontaneous family ceremony at the graveside. It was a beautiful, sunny April morning and we stood in a circle as we said a few words and sang a few songs after which Lovely Wife played her fiddle and led us in a procession down the hill and to the road. We then went to the Boulder Meeting's memorial meeting later that afternoon.

Later that summer, five of us (one son, Sister Holly's husband and two of their teenage sons, and me) took most of the rest of Bruce's ashes to the top of Gannett Peak, the tallest mountain in Wyoming, in the Wind River Range, which Bruce had never made it to the top of despite several attempts.

For Barbara, we originally intended to take her ashes to Mount Audubon, a 13,233 foot mountain that can be walked up in 3-4 hours without technical assistance (ropes, ice axes, etc.). But on Wednesday, the entire group walked up two other nearby 14,000 foot peaks -- Gray's and Torrey's -- and we realized that a 13,000 peak is a challenge to climb, even as a walk-up, especially for us flatlanders who hadn't gotten used to the altitude yet. All but two of the 18 made it to the top of one of either Gray's or Torrey's (one climbed both), but afterwards none of us were sure that we had it in us to climb Audubon just a few days later. (Photo on left is from the top of Gray's.)

So we changed our plans and decided to release some of Barbara's and some of Bruce's remaining ashes at Loveland Pass, on the Continental Divide that we would pass on our drive to Gold Hill. We arrived at Loveland Pass at about 11 o'clock and walked from the road up about 100 feet to the top of a nearby ridge.

As we had done before, we set the two boxes with ashes on a rock and stood in a circle around them and held what amounted to a brief meeting for worship. Everyone had the opportunity to say some words, and when that was done we each took a handful of the ashes of each and released them to the wind, which was very strong and immediately scattered them in the air along both sides of the Divide. (The family at Loveland Pass is on the right.)

Lovely Wife then led the procession down from the ridge playing "She'll be Coming 'Round the Mountain" on her fiddle. I brought up the rear of the line. As I got to the parking lot, there was a family there sitting on some rocks, and one of the little girls was singing "She'll be coming 'round the mountain" to herself as I walked by.

On Friday, after arriving in Gold Hill, we planned another ceremony in the cemetery. Lovely Wife wanted there to be a bench at the gravesite, which is at the upper end of the hillside cemetery, so that visitors can rest and contemplate after making the climb.

The plan was then made to go out and find a large flat rock plus two smaller ones to make a simple, rustic bench. The Inventor and I scouted for the rocks about 10 miles from town at a place where he had scavenged some flat rocks years ago, and he identified the right one for the seat -- but it weighed upwards of 300 pounds and the two of us couldn't carry it the 200 yards to the road. So we went home and brought back a crew of six or seven men and a wheelbarrow, and together we carried it (and two smaller but heavy granite stones for the upright supports) to the car and brought them to the graveyard.

While we got the stones up the steep hill, we dug and found the box that contained the urn that held Bruce's ashes and pulled it out of the ground. The rest of the family joined us and once again we had a spontaneous ceremony. We poured most of Barbara's remaining ashes into the urn to be mixed with her husband's, and then we poured out tears and words of remembrance, gratitude, and love. After a while, we closed the urn, put it back into the ground, closed the box, and filled in the hole. One again, Lovely Wife played her fiddle as she led everyone down the hill back to the road.

Some of us men then re-climbed the hill and dug the holes and assembled the stone bench. As it happened, one end of the stone has two small, natural depressions exactly the size of the average human buttocks making it amazingly comfortable to sit on. By the end of the day, it was done and was deemed satisfactory by all.

Here's the view from the bench:

There was something very blessed and sweet about these two ceremonies. The pattern was set spontaneously thirteen years ago after Bruce's death, which Lovely Wife found surprising at the time because neither parent talked much about death (each had lost their same-sex parent while teenagers) and they were never "taught" what to do when a loved one dies. But somehow -- mainly through deep and abiding love -- they taught their children just what to do, and how to do it themselves without professional assistance. It was a blessing to be part of it.

Thirteen years ago, I sang a favorite song by Ewan McColl, "The Joy of Living", at Bruce's graveside and at the memorial meeting. Bruce, like Ewan, was a large, hearty man, and the song perfectly matched his spirit. This year, I just sang the fourth and final verse for Barbara on Loveland Pass:

Take me to some high place of heather, rock, and ling,
Scatter my dust and ashes, feed me to the wind.
There where I will be part of all you see,
The air you are breathing.
I'll be part of the curlew's cry and the soaring hawk,
The blue milk-wort and the sundew hung with diamonds.
I'll be riding the gentle breeze as it blows through your hair,
Reminding you how we shared,
In the joy of living.

(Listen to Ewan and Peggy Seeger sing the whole song here. Better get a hanky first.)

Why Quakers' historic testimony against music and other frivolous entertainments does not apply to singing from the Sacred Harp

2008-07-08T08:31:00.005-05:00

While catching up on the blogs while I've been away, I found this one from Martin Kelly discussing Thomas Clarkson's explanation of why early Quakers testified against music.

Martin quotes or paraphrases four reasons cited by Clarkson and correctly comments that the objections are valid concerns:

* People sometimes learn music just so they can show off and make others look talentless.
* Religious music can become a end to itself as people become focused on composition and playing (we've really decontextualized: much of the music played at orchestra halls is Masses; much of the music played at folk festival is church spirituals).
* Music can be a big time waster, both in its learning and its listening.
* Music can take us out into the world and lead to a self-gratification and fashion.

The point is that the early Quakers' concerns with music wasn't based on an ideological or theological construct, but was rather observations on concrete, practical effects of music on the spiritual life of individuals and meetings.

I'd reinforce Martin's observation that these concerns are valid and legitimate and that any Quaker involved in music should take them seriously. I'm therefore happy to report that Sacred Harp singing is not susceptible to these criticisms and may therefore be embraced by Quakers without fear for their souls.

* People sometimes learn music just so they can show off and make others look talentless. One beauty of Sacred Harp singing is that it is entirely group-oriented; there is simply no opportunity to show off as a soloist and a very strong social pressure not to do so even if you could. (There are some singers who succumb to the temptation to show off a bit as a leader, but in my experience this is uncommon.) The entire ethos of Sacred Harp singing is to experience the singing as part of the singing community as a whole. Ego satisfaction is therefore of minimal concern and is actively resisted.

* Religious music can become a end to itself as people become focused on composition and playing. While there are instances of Sacred Harp singing at folk festivals and other venues as a demonstration, and by formal choruses in a commercial setting, by and large Sacred Harp singers consider singing to be a form of worship (non-sectarian to be sure, but worship nonetheless) and is respected as such. This is especially true of conventions and day-long singings but also for many smaller, weekly and monthly singings.

* Music can be a big time waster, both in its learning and its listening. Another of the beauties of Sacred Harp singing is that it does not take a lot of time to learn the rudiments; most people can learn the minimum basic skills with an hour or two of instruction; from then on it's learning by doing. And even less time is spent in "listening" passively to it -- it's meant to be sung, and even singers who may listen to recordings of singings end up singing along. Some singers may be accused of spending more time singing (or writing about singing. . . .) than certain family members may thing they should, but the risk is low and easily remedied.

* Music can take us out into the world and lead to a self-gratification and fashion. Sacred Harp singers take a kind of ironic satisfaction in the unfashionable nature of our singing. Self-gratification may be a little more of a potential problem -- but again it isn't the individual "self" that is being glorified.

Martin also offers this quote from Clarkson:

Music at [the time of early Quakers] was principally in the hands of those, who made a livelihood of the art. Those who followed it as an accomplishment, or a recreation, were few and those followed it with moderation. But since those days, its progress has been immense. . . . Many of the middle classes, in imitation of the higher, have received it. . . . It is learned now, not as a source of occasional recreation, but as a complicated science, where perfection is insisted upon to make it worth of pursuit. p.76.

The early singing school teachers and shape-note tunebook writers would have agreed with this criticism. Their aim was to demystify the professionalization of music and to return it to the masses and therefore is consistent with the concern expressed in this criticism.

I am therefore more confident than ever that Sacred Harp singing has a place in modern Quakerism; in my personal experience, it has not only not led to the dangers cited by Clarkson but has led me back to Christ and a more authentic Quaker world view. Some of you know I've been "working" on an article discussing the many similarities (and some contrasts) between Quakerism and Sacred Harp singing, and when I finish it, I'll have more to say about it here.

Singing at the Gathering

2008-07-07T12:19:00.005-05:00

I started writing this from my dorm cot on the last night of this year’s FGC Gathering, and am finishing it from an apartment in the mountains near Keystone, Colorado. We (Lovely Wife and our two teenage children) drove the 1525 miles or so from Johnstown, PA, to here in one very long and one somewhat less long day. (I had a couple of manic hours where I though I could drive the final 7 hours through the night but a wiser head prevailed and we got a room in Kansas and slept from about 1 to 6 am.) We made it safely and timely, but it was at a cost to my sleep, and I am exhausted. So I've stayed home while the other 18 relatives (of Lovely Wife's family) are out on some kind of hiking adventure and I'm working on some writing projects.

The Gathering on the whole was a very positive and productive experience for me again this year, especially after the first two days when I was also exhausted from a long drive from Minnesota to Pennsylvania. Unlike last year, I did not take the time to post periodically during the week, but I have taken some notes that I hope will help my memory. I’ve decided to make several smaller posts and I’ll start with a report on the singing I did at the Gathering.

The fundamental lesson I learned is that singing is the only remedy for my depression that always works. I have known this for a long time, but haven't acted on it as diligently as I know I need to do. The singing I enjoyed was in three contexts.

For the first time in many years, I participated in the noon-time singing from Rise Up Singing, led this year by one of its co-producers, Annie Patterson. I've gotten a little tired of Rise Up Singing after many years singing from it for so many years, but since it was convenient for me to play with the small group that backed Annie up as she played guitar and led the singing, I gave it a go. The group had persons playing guitar, flute, tin whistle, clarinet, accordion, and violin in addition to my banjo. The instrumentalists were skilled and didn’t overpower the singing as sometimes happens and enhanced the singing experience.

And the singing was good -- high spirited, enthusiastic. The group numbered about a hundred most of the hour each day. For the songs that were easily sung by a group and that lent themselves to harmonies (e.g., This Land is Your Land, There is a Balm in Gilead, Goodnight Irene, Happy Wanderer, etc.) the singing was excellent with energy and joy.

But sometimes someone would select a song that they loved – for example, Thanksgiving Eve by Bob Franke, or Kate Wolf's Give Yourself to Love – that are beautiful songs, but are simply not good for large group singing, and it the energy would fall for a bit. Annie showed great equanimity and skill, however, in leading each one, knowing it was important to the person who chose the song.

The second important singing experience was with the Nightengales (which is how they spell it), a group of Northern and Illinois Yearly Meeting Friends who have been singing together for more than forty years. (I was introduced to them in 1980 and have sung with them often ever since.) We sang one night in a two-story, highly resonant lobby of a building and it was lovely. In recent years, they have sung exclusively a capella (which was not so much the case when I started singing with them), and it worked really well in that room, filling it with harmonies. The only downside was that, in such a large, resonant room, we had to sing slowly which depressed the energy in some of the songs, but overall it was excellent and beautiful. There were lots of tears which, as the Nightingale in Hans Christian Anderson's story tell the Emperor, are "the jewels that rejoice a singer’s heart."

Singing with Nightengales these days always carries a particular poignancy as our older singers become disabled or pass away, and many songs carry a particular memory of them. This year, we were mindful of one Friend in particular who we know is dying of ALS and who was not able to attend either NYM or the Gathering.

But as much as I enjoyed these singings, the afternoon shape note singing was the most satisfying singing at the Gathering this year. We were once again given an space outdoors under an overhang, and while it was adequate, it was not as satisfactory an outdoor venue as in the past two years. One difficulty was that it was outside rooms in which various groups were trying to meet, and it was across a short way from a dormitory where some people tried to nap during our afternoon singings. After being informed (politely, but pointedly) that our music was not as appreciated as we thought it might be, we decamped to a log cabin at the other end of campus where we didn't disturb anyone but the bears, birds and rabbits in the surrounding woods.

Each afternoon, we had five or six singers on each part with a particularly large number of altos. The range of experience was mixed, but there was always enough experienced singers on each part. (It not being a workshop, we weren't prepared to provide more than a bare minimum of instruction to new singers.)

I was touched by the number of singers who first learned to sing Sacred Harp in one of the workshops I’ve co-led over the years who came to each afternoon singing (a few of whom who have attended three of them!). I don’t know why I’m surprised that others have come to love this music as much as I do, but it is satisfying to know that I may have had been able to transmit the depth of love and joy I get from singing from the Sacred Harp to others, especially my Quaker Friends with whom I share a bond even more deeply than I do with other singers.

The quality of the singing was generally good, though it varied. Though there was some excellent singing each day, the last day (Friday July 4) was clearly the strongest. Perhaps because it was the last day, we had a larger than normal group of singers, and that larger number, the improved acoustics, and a week's experience of singing together made for a powerful singing. There were several times where I felt it was truly a covered singing.

During the quiet worship we entered after our last song of the day (and of the week), I spoke to one of the parallels I feel between Sacred Harp singing and Quakerism, and that is that the quality of our experiences vary from time to time, but that if we persist we will always get back to that unity that we have been looking for and which we have been promised.

Some parts of our singings during the week were kind of rough -- we just couldn't find the right pitch or tempo, or hear the other parts, and some songs sounded pretty awful. Maybe we were simply tired, or maybe we bit off a little more than we could chew, but whatever the reason, we went through some pretty rough and unsatisfying spots.

I then noted that this same thing happens in meetings for worship. Often we come to meeting with as open a heart as we can manage, but nothing happens; there's no real unity and we leave without any sense of joy or elevation.

The important thing in both cases is that we return and try again. We go on to the next song, maybe choosing a less-challenging one or take a break, but we keep going and soon we're back in the groove and we're singing beautifully and powerfully again.

And with worship the same thing. We keep at it, coming back week after week, doing what we can as individuals to improve -- paying better attention, preparing more thoroughly, centering more deeply -- the worship experience. After some time, usually not too long, we will experience a genuinely covered meeting that will be felt by all.

The important thing in both contexts is that we keep at it and eventually, as we pay more attention to the true leader of our worship and of our singing, we will be brought back into harmony and unity with each other and be witnesses to the power that is over all.

* * * *

I'm glad I attended Gathering this year; I had originally intended to skip Gathering this year and to attend Camp Fasola in Alabama this year for some advanced instruction and learning in the Sacred Harp. But when I learned that Camp Fasola was going to be aimed at adults for only three days and for youth for the rest of the week (a decision I support but wasn't aware of until later), I decided I didn't want to sacrifice Gathering for such a short time of singing. In retrospect, I did the right thing. There was a lot of enthusiasm expressed for another Singing from the Sacred Harp workshop at next year's Gathering, and I'm going to give that serious consideration over the next few weeks.

The company we keep

2008-05-05T14:03:00.003-05:00

This is from the on-line Slate magazine, writing to answer the question "What Orwell can teach Obama." It quotes George Orwell 's analysis of why so few working people were socialists, despite the fact that "[E]very thinking person knows that Socialism is a way out [of the world wide depression." A little to close to home, perhaps?:

One key to the movement's lack of popularity, Orwell argues, is its supporters. "As with the Christian religion," he writes, "the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents." Then he wheels out the heavy rhetorical artillery. The typical socialist, according to Orwell, "is either a youthful snob-Bolshevik who in five years time will quite probably have made a wealthy marriage and been converted to Roman Catholicism, or, still more typically, a prim little man with a white-collar job, usually a secret teetotaler, and often with vegetarian leanings … with a social position he has no intention of forfeiting. . . . One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words 'Socialism' and 'Communism' draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, 'Nature Cure' quack, pacifist and feminist in England."

A prayer of passwords

2008-04-22T10:20:00.001-05:00

From a list recently found in a drawer:

lovelife
incarnation
jerusalem
focus
innerlight
makepeace
livelove
peacenow
loveoneanother
rememberme
truelove
walkinlight
singforjoy

Meme book tag

2008-02-25T18:54:00.008-06:00

OK, Rich. I will continue the meme -- the first I've ever been tagged with -- but I just can't find it in myself to continue the tagging. Partly because so many of those bloggers I read regularly enough that I would consider tagging have already been tagged, and partly because I don't know how! Do you actually have to leave a comment on their blogs? I never kept chain letters going, either, but I still don't take responsiblity for when the truck ran over grandma and the puppy. . . . But it still seems a little much to me. Tag yourself.

The instructions are:

1. Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. No cheating!
2. Find page 123
3. Find the first 5 sentences
4. Post the next 3 sentences
5. Tag 5 people

Actually, there are two books equidistant from where I sit. Here's the sixth, seventh, and eighth sentences from the first:

Three hundred women and some men came. A Declaration of Principles [sic]* was signed at the end of the meeting by sixty-eight women and thirty-two men. It made use of the language and rhythm of the Declaration of Independence: When it course of human events, it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man to assume among the people of the earth a position different from that they have hitherto occupied . . . .

* The document was actually captioned A Declaration of Sentiments

From, A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn, discussing the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, an event that has an obvious Quaker connection.

Here's the other:

2. Load the paper in the machine. See "Loading Paper" on page 22.
3. Ensure that the proper paper source is selected.

From, Canon Office All-in One Pixma MP830 User's Guide.

My life in six words? Impossible!

2008-02-23T17:09:00.004-06:00

Lovely Wife and I took a walk this morning -- it's her birthday. We stopped in a little gift-bookstore and I fell in love with a little book I found there, Not Quite What I was Planning, published by the on-line magazine Smith. Inspired by (the possibly apocryphal ) Ernest Hemmingway's famous six-word story, "For sale: baby shoes. Never worn," the book is a collection of six-word memoirs submitted by what must have been thousands of readers and writers. They range from the cute to the funny to the poignant. Here are a few of my favorites:

Born, childhood, adolescence, adolescence, adolescence, adolescence.

It's like forever, only much shorter.

Tequila. Amnesia. Coincidence? I think not.

It was embarrassing, so don't ask.

Followed white rabbit. Became black sheep.

Thank God I lived through Vietnam.

I'm ten, and have an attitude.

Never really finished anything, except cake.

Did I miss a deadline again?

Many risky mistakes, very few regrets.

Started small, grew, peaked, shrunk, vanished.

Thank god the suicide attempt failed.

Complacency

2008-02-21T10:24:00.003-06:00

John Punshon writes on page 61 of his Encounter with Silence: "Once adopted, Quaker worship can be dangrous. Its characteristic sin is complacency." I know I've also mused here on the difference between contentedness (which I think is a virtue) and complacency (which is not), but I can't find the link to that post at the moment.

Anyway, I was moved by the wisdom and truth in this monolog in the Arlo & Janis cartoon strip yesterday. (You can see it here.) Arlo is talking over the breakfast table to Janis in four panes:

We really are lucky when you think abou it!

We have food, a nice home, a kid in college! We have each other -- and our health!

Yes sir, we should look at the big picture.

Or would that be the little picture?

It reminds me of another paradoxical dichotomy I may have written about here before. When Paul Wellstone died in October 2002, a lot of us began to wear green buttons that quoted him: "Stand up! Keep fighting!"

I remember worshiping at Morningside Meeting in New York City shortly thereafter. I was wearing the green button and I was moved to say: "I would like another button for my other lapel, a red one, maybe, that reads: "Sit down! Stop fighting!"

The Christian life is in constant tension between being simultaneously prophet and peacemaker, and I need to have both reminders to keep that tension in its proper balance.

Quaker anarchism?

2008-02-18T15:18:00.006-06:00

My Friend Phil Grove posted the following comment on my post the other day:

Glad to see you writing again! About the 1640s -- I'm very curious about the fact that the anarchist Diggers, led by Gerrard Winstanley, arose in England at about the same time as the Quakers, and that Winstanley later became a Quaker. It seems to me that Quakerism has an affinity with certain forms of anarchism, and that anarchism should be discussed more by Quakers. Are there other historical connections between Quakerism and anarchists?

I'm not qualified to give a definitive answer, especially about the Diggers, but I do have some observations and book knowledge of early Quakers that may be helpful.

First, it's best to be very cautious before using a term like "anarchism" which became popular in the 19th century to categorize someone in the 17th century. The Wikipedia entry on anarchism records the first use of the term as being by Royalists during the English Civil War to describe people like the Levellers, Diggers and Quakers who they perceived as fomenting social unrest. (Actually, the Wikipedia entry says "fomenting social disorder", but I would deny that at least for the Quakers: they were not promoting disorder but rather a gospel order that merely seemed disorderly to those vested in the current arrangement.) There is little doubt that these groups (and remember that labels don't denote terribly precise categories and were all given as terms of derision by their opponents) radically opposed the current regime, but that doesn't mean that they were in principal opposed to any human government or outwardly coercive authority.

It is especially hard to tag the anarchist badge on the Quakers. Fox more than once accepted that the biblical understanding that the magistrate had a God-given role to protect the innocent and punish evil doers. See his letter quoted here.

Most of Fox's criticism of the government was that it had perverted its Godly duty: it punished the righteous (like the Quakers) and protected the guilty (like their tormenters). So he wasn't against good government; he was against bad government, and they understood the distinction. Quakers were well-known for their active role in court proceedings and lobbying in Parliament which I take to be a confirmation of the legitimacy of government as an institution, if not an endorsement of its current occupant or policies.

Furthermore, while George Fox and the early Friends might fairly be called anarchists in their critique of the organized churches of their day, Fox and Margaret Fell showed a very practical and realistic understanding of the propensity for even the Children of Light to run beyond their guide and to confuse their ego (or libido) with the will of God. This is why they set up the system of monthly, quarterly, and yearly meetings for discipline that enabled the movement to survive and thrive during the persecutions of 1660-1689. These meetings did not use coercive force or violence, of course, but they did function as an effective church government to maintain unity and peace among its members. Not all Friends approved of this kind of church government and some found it to stifle movings of the Spirit. But it is hard for me to imagine the Quaker movement having survived in any recognizable form without this structure. (Of course, when the structure lost its juice and became calcified, it led to the divisions among Friends in the 19th century, a disaster from which we have not yet recovered.)

Finally, the enthusiasm with which the Quakers joined William Penn in establishing Pennsylvania is hard to square with any kind of principled anarchism inherent to the Quaker experience, at least in the early years. Penn's basic philosophy, which I take to be consistent with Quaker thinking in general, was that "governments depend on men rather than men upon governments, because if the men are good, the government cannot be bad; or if it is, they will cure it; but if men are bad, government will never be good." (See here for more detail on Penn's Holy Experiment.) Penn's Experiment lasted about 75 years -- at least, that's how long Quakers participated in the Assembly. Whether you consider the Experiment a failure or merely a limited success, there is probably a lot of material from that era that would support a more anarchist-leaning critique of the legitimacy government and of Christians ever participating in it.

What I know about the Diggers leads me to think of them as being animated more by a radically egalitarian or communist (to use other anachronistic terms) spirit, not as anarchists opposed to any human government per se. For example, their concerted action in digging up the common lands for food production seems to me to have required a good deal of organization and discipline. (Perhaps their premature dissolution indicates that they didn't have enough of either.)

All that said, I think that Quakers have always carried an anti-authoritarian gene in their DNA -- the affinity you're probably talking about -- and they probably share this gene with others who would characterize themselves as anarchists, or who would be so characterized by their enemies.

I understand that there is likely be a degree of congruence and overlap between Quaker understanding of the liberty afforded them by the gospel and what is generally known as Christian anarchism, taking care not to confuse anarchism with antinominalism (or anarchism with anarchy). A church whose governor is an invisible but living spirit may appear to be anarchic, but to the religious anarchist that's only an illusion. (I would like to concede here that a deeply loving community can live peacefully and responsibly without external coercive based solely upon the reason and strength of its participants and doesn't need the assistance of a Living God to bind it together, but I'm not sure I believe that it's true [not that very many religious communities have done better over the years]).

On an almost completely different note, writing this reminded me of John Sayles' great short story, The Anarchist's Convention, which I believe I may have referred to before in this blog. I first heard it read by Jerry Stiller on NPR's Selected Shorts more than 15 years ago and I'd love to hear it again.

The life in your God

2008-02-18T11:45:00.005-06:00

What follows is my recollection of ministry I delivered yesterday at meeting, but it includes a report on ministry I gave a week earlier.

Last week, I was in Philadelphia on Friends-related business. As I was getting dressed on Saturday morning, I turned on the TV in the hotel because, from past experience, I knew there would be some old black-and-white classic movie of some sort on. Sure enough, there was an old Mae West comedy on. (I since have learned it was I'm no Angel). It was funny and sexy in Mae West's way, and I enjoyed especially the courtroom scene near the end. After the trial, very near the end of the movie, someone asks her, "What is it that keeps you so young? Is the the men in your life?"

Mae answers, "Honey, it isn't the men in your life that matters, it's the life in your men."
Being in a long dry spiritual season, I was grateful for any bit of insight I could find, and at meeting later that morning I shared what I had seen. In the context of the meeting I was in and the query that guided our worship, I went on: What matters isn't really the Quakerism in your life, but the life in your Quakerism."

Almost immediately, I regreted putting it the way I did, and the reason why came up a few minutes later when another Friend, a noted Quaker historian and writer, admitted to sometimes making an idol out his Quakerism instead of worshiping the Living God. I am guilty of this same sin, and I appreciated his shedding light on it for me.

What I now wish I had said last week, and what I say to you today is this: It isn't the amount of God in your life that matters. It's the life in your God.

This way of putting it is particularly meaningful to me at the moment as I find myself more immersed than usual in secondary (and in some cases tertiary) sources about what it was that animated the Quaker movement in the 17th centrury and try to draw lessons on how it can animate us today. The irony, of course, is that everyone I'm reading and listening to is saying, "Don't rely on us; go to the Source yourself."

The groundhog stirs from his den

2008-02-13T10:23:00.005-06:00

Yes, it's been too long. I've missed writing here, but just haven't felt as if I've had anyting to say. A symptom of resurgent depression, I'm sure. But I've just begun co-leading Quakerism 101 again, preparing for which has been reenergizing, and had a surprisingly enjoyable and productive weekend at the Friends Journal board meeting that has lifted me above water a little. It looks nice, and I hope I stay bouyant for a while. Here's a couple of things I've been working on.

Over the New Year holiday, I greatly enjoyed reading David Halberstam's The Children, about the college students in Nashville, Tennessee, who led the civil rights demonstrations in that city and so many of whom became the leadership cadre of SNCC and other parts of the movement. (The book also briefly mentions Marion and the late Nelson Fuson of Nashville Friends Meeting, whose son Dan provided me with the first books of my Quaker library back in 1977.) Halberstam was a reporter for the Nashville Tennesseen during the early 1960s and was a witness to much of what he writes about. The book does a masterful job of introducing the reader to each of the dozen or so young people and the parts they played in the Nashville Movement, followed by a fascinating "where are they now" section reporting on their lives today. I was struck that to a person, each of them say today that their time in Nashville and in the years immediately following were the high points of their lives, despite many accomplishments that have followed.

I am an avid student of the civil rights movement and was familiar with the outline and many of the details of their story, but I had not before found such a detailed sketch of James Lawson, the teacher of those students, whose workshops in creative non-violence taught them so well and gave them the tools to be the leaders they became. He comes across in Halberstam's book as a great, though modest, man whose contribution to history should not be forgotten.

So I was delighted to learn today that James Lawson is going to be the the Sunday night speaker at the FGC Gathering this summer. Here's the description from FGC's website:

James Lawson will speak to the theme courageously faithful, drawing from a lifetime of experience with nonviolent resistance. Lawson’s actions have been informed by deep conviction since before he served prison time as a conscientious objector during the Korean War, unwilling to claim the deferments for which he was eligible. He studied Gandhian theory first as a college student and then again in India in the mid-1950s. He has long been proponent of non-violent resistance to racism and injustice, and has been a mentor to activists throughout the nation. Martin Luther King Jr. called Lawson the “leading theorist and strategist of nonviolence in the world.” For 25 years, Lawson served as pastor of the largest Methodist church in Los Angeles, retiring in 1999. He is currently a Distinguished University Professor at Vanderbilt University. He has extensively studied Quaker theology, and says that every time he teaches about nonviolence, he teaches about Quakerism.

I had hoped not to be able to attend the Gathering because I was going to go to Camp Fasola which meets at the same time, but the format changed this year to include only a two-full day session for adults, the rest of the time being focused on young singers. Good for them, but I'm now thinking that it may not be worth missing the Gathering for only two or three days of camp. . . . And now with the chance to hear James Lawson, that's a pretty good draw, too. So maybe I'll see you there. (No Sacred Harp workshop this year, alas. But I'm keeping my afternoons free.)

While I'm thinking of books, I'm currently devouring Larry Ingle's First Among Friends: George Fox and the Creation of Quakerism. It is the first biography of Fox that I've read -- are there others? -- and I'm captivated. It demystifies Fox on the one hand by painting him as the flesh-and-blood human being he undoubtedly was, but it also reinforces how extraordinary and unique he was -- "no man's copy" I believe Penn said about him. Ingle brings him alive so much that I've been thinking what a wonderful movie could be made about his life: He had a commanding physical and psychic presence that is hard to imagine. (I can imagine Bill Clinton playing him -- he has Fox's physical bulk and engaging charisma, though Fox was shorter. . . and differed in other ways, too.) Fox was constantly on the move (except when he was in prison) that would make lots of wonderfully dramatic scenes: his solitary climb up Pendle Hill and the vision he had there; his barefoot walk through the cold muck to denounce the bloody city of Lichfield; his nights spent in haystacks; his first visit to Swarthmoor Hall; etc. (Judi Dench playing Margaret Fell, perhaps?)

I also am appreciating getting a deeper feel for the religious, social, economic, and political tumult in which England was engulfed in the 17th century. I've often taught in Quakerism 101 that we should think of 17th century England as something like the 1960s in America as a time of tremendous upheaval and reordering of society, but it's becoming clearer to me that for all of what happend in the 1960s, the 1600s were even more dramatic. Perhaps the comparison should be to the entire 20th century. . . . At any rate, I highly recommend Ingle's book. It is readable, detailed, measured, and dramatic.

La Natividad: Year 2

2007-12-21T23:17:00.000-06:00

Last year, I wrote about participating in La Natividad, the Christmas show of In the Heart of the Beast Puppet & Mask Theater. This year, I am reprising my role as the Star of the East. The critics have been generous: "Brilliant!" "A leading role." "A rising star." "If you're wise, you'll go see it, too."

We're doing six shows this year -- all sold out before Dec. 1 -- after so many people were disappointed that they couldn't get into last year's. It is essentially the same show as last year, with the addition of one more stop on the Posada: Just after leaving the theater on our way to St. Paul's, José goes to the door of a neighbor of the theater to ask for shelter as the choir (and audience) sings the Posada song. She comes out and in her best old lady scolding voice says "No! No! I haven't any room" as a choir member sings (in English), "You cannot stay here, this is not an inn. There is no room, your story is thin. You will rob me, then you'll run away. You cannot stay here. Go away, go away, go away!"

The most touching part for me happens at St. Paul's when, through a nice bit of stagecraft, the masked José y Maria are replaced with a flesh-and-blood couple holding a real baby. The switcheroo can't be seen by the audience until the right moment when the adoring animals and wise men part, and when they realize what's happened and see the living actors and baby there's a spontaneous "ohhhh" that fills the church. I tear up every time. I realized tonight that this is what happens whenever we are able to break through the masquerade of religion and illusion and encounter the Living God on the other side.

We have one more show tomorrow (Dec. 22), and then we're done. I've gotten to know some of the other performers better, having so many more times to hang around together.

There are some very nice photos here. (This is to the Star Tribune's site and I don't know how long this link will work.)

I hope everyone reading this will have a happy Christmas.

His own soft hand shall wipe the tears. . . .

2007-12-18T23:21:00.000-06:00

On Oct. 17, Lovely Wife's mother, Barbara, died in her bed, here in our home, shortly before sunrise. She was a few days past her 86 1/2 birthday.

Her death was not unexpected, but we didn't expect it that Wednesday morning. This once vibrant, energetic, astute, intelligent woman had been in a steady state of physical and mental decline for perhaps 15 years, being confined to a wheelchair and bed for more than half that time. Although early on it looked as if she had Alzheimer's disease, her doctor eventually diagnosed her with Lewy's Body Disease, which has similar symptoms. The main difference, in her case, was that she never got the zombie-like, nobody's-at-home consciousness that most Alzheimer's patients develop. Right up to the end she was able to communicate fluently with her eyes, expressing delight, distress, humor, and other emotions, which made living with her and her disability much less burdensome than it might have otherwise been.

She had lived with us since Christmas 1999, meaning for most of our children's lives. They each had a special and loving relationship with here that was a blessing to everyone.

While Lovely Wife took on the main caregiving responsibilities, her sister visited several times a year to let us go to Yearly Meeting or FGC Gathering, professional conferences, and occasional weekends away. Her two brothers were also generous in their help. This, plus a thousand small favors from friends and neighbors over the years helped us feel connected and supported.

While Barbara's health had been in long slow decline for years, she was remarkably durable. She must have had a sturdy constitution, but we also think that her steady diet of applesauce and Spirutein (at least five bowls a day) had a lot to do with it. So did the social engagement she had to endure as we schlepped her to meeting, card games, concerts and plays, school events, and other parts of our busy social lives. Whatever it was, she just kept on kicking, though always in a long, slow slide.

Earlier this year, she did develop a pressure sore that was life-threatening, and in July began to get help from a hospice program. Having this extra help in our home was very welcome, but as these things go her supposedly un-healable and fatal sore began to get better, resulting in her being removed from hospice a week or so before her death.

I need to say that, for all of my sometimes petulant criticism of modern-day Quakers, our Meeting sure came through with what we needed, and we feel deeply grateful. One dear Friend, Elizabeth, happened by our home the morning Barbara died to pick up a book, and she stayed a while and was wonderfully helpful in practical ways. Always a steady presence, Elizabeth reminded us we needn't hurry to notify the police of the death and encouraged us to just sit for a while. So we did. And we sang a little, watching the sun shine on her face through the window and reflect off the blue blanket that covered her body. (Blue was always Barbara's color.) As we did, we noticed that Barbara's wrinkles seemed to smooth out and she became more beautiful and at peace. Elizabeth also helped me do a little electrical task in the basement before leaving. After she left, a neighbor brought over meat-and-cheese sandwiches and apple pie. Never underestimate the power of simple, practical help.

Once we set a date for the memorial meeting (a month out due to one brother being in Australia and needing time to make travel arrangements) a representative of Ministry and Counsel came over and helped us with planning details. It is amazing how many small decisions and things need to be done even for a very simple and straightforward Quaker memorial meeting, and it was helpful to be guided through them efficiently and without pressure.

The memorial meeting was held on a Saturday morning, and it couldn't have been more powerful. We were so grateful that such a large number of Friends from the meeting came to it -- about 70 -- considering that except for one Friend who knew here from the 1980s in Ann Arbor, my parents, and her immediate family, no one in the Meeting knew Barbara as a fully functioning person, but only as a disabled, non-verbal old woman. But the presence of so many Friends confirmed for us visibly the feeling we had had over the years that Barbara had, indeed, connected with others, that her beauty and light and grace shone through her diminishment and touched others in a deep place. We also understood and felt the love of those who recognized and honored Lovely Wife's extraordinary caregiving. The vocal ministry, which included messages from each of her four children and one grandchild, was rooted and strong.

It was also exciting to have a house full of relatives for a long weekend -- fourteen of us in all, in a house not built for that many. But it was cozy and informal and lively and exactly like Barbara would have wanted it to be. It seemed very quiet after everyone left.

Although Barbara usually loved music, and especially when Lovely Wife and I would sing to her, she was never very fond of Sacred Harp music. I could tell. Nevertheless, we invited 14 Quaker Sacred Harp singers over two nights after her death to sing, and it was wonderfully healing, to me at least. One of my favorite songs is Northfield (155), which is a simple but powerful fuging tune. The Cooper revision of the Sacred Harp has a verse (from Revelation 21:4) that I always like to sing to Northfield which is not in the Denson revision:

His own soft hand shall wipe the tears from every weeping eye,
And pains and groans and griefs and fears,
And Death itself shall die; and Death itself shall die.

I was also reminded of the wisdom of the line from Odem 340:

Give me the roses while I live,
Something to cheer me on,
Useless the flowers you may give,
After the soul is gone.

Help nominate Pete Seeger for the Nobel Peace Prize

2007-12-12T15:22:00.001-06:00

Go here and sign the petition.

I am so angry.

2007-09-13T10:34:00.000-05:00

First, read this.

Then read this.

PSALM 5—A Paraphrase

HEAR MY PROTEST

Hear my words, Oh Lord, give ear to my groanings.
Listen to my protest.
For you are not a God who is friendly with oppressors,
nor do you support their devious ways,
nor are you influenced by their propaganda,
nor are you a cohort with gangsters.

One cannot believe anything they say,
nor have any confidence in their official pronouncements.
They talk of peace while they increase their production of arms.
They make gestures toward understanding at the Peace Conferences,
but in secret they prepare for war.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Punish them, Oh God,
bring to naught their machinations.

—Ernesto Cardenal (Managua)

. . . in whom I am well pleased.

2007-08-18T14:44:00.000-05:00

Fooling around this morning with the new iPhoto application (on the new computer. . . ) I was finally able to do things with the wedding pictures from May. This one is my favorite.

Bring out those lazy, crazy, hazy days of summer

2007-08-08T19:54:00.000-05:00

I've been in a slump for a couple of weeks now, coincident with if not caused by the persistent heat and drought of this summer. I was pretty high during and after FGC Gathering, and then the excitement with Lovely Wife's return from Europe and her mother's return and changed condition kept thing exciting. (Mother-in-law is doing fine, by the way; she's getting good care and is not in any immediate danger or unusual discomfort.) And three trips to the country -- two to northern Minnesota and one to Wisconsin -- were welcomed and unburdensome.

But now I'm drooping, like the tomatoes and coneflowers, and the Minnesota Twins. And I'm dry, with little energy to do anything.

Last wekend, when I was up north at friends' cabin on Birch Lake, near Babbitt, Minnesota, I picked up and began to re-read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

What a delight.

I've read Tom Sawyer probably a dozen or more times in my life since the first time at age 11 -- at least four times aloud, to each of the children -- but I've managed Huck Finn only three times as I can remember, and have never attempted to read it aloud.

For one thing, the dialect is more pervasive and difficult than in Tom Sawyer, and it cannot be scanned -- you miss most of the jokes and half of the story if you don't read carefully, for one thing. For another, despite the author's Notice warning "Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot," Huck Finn is a more obviously piece of social criticism and moral philosophy than its companion, and as such it begs to be read for more than the outward story.

But a fast read or not, I'm greatly enjoying it. I'd forgotten many of the details, and most of the jokes, and when I run across a new one it feels like a discovered treasure. I also think that just reading about floating down the river on a raft, mostly at night, fits with my energy level at the moment.

Huck himself is an amazing character, a true stranger in a strange land, someone who has not and simply cannot seem to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick world. His famous battle with his conscience has helped me understand better the distinction Quakers make between the infallible guidance of the pure Inward Light (which is represented by Huck's pure and innocent nature) and the potentially erroneous guidance of conscience which is susceptible to social conditioning. The most famous scene occurs when Huck falsely tells two slave chasers that the man he has on his raft is white, and that he has the small pox, effectively deterring them from checking for themselves and implicating him once and for all in Jim's flight.

I knowed very well I had done wrong, and I see it warn't no use for me to try to learn to do right; a body that don't get started right when he's little, ain't got no show -- when the pinch comes there ain't nothing to back him up and keep him to his work, and so he gets beat. Then I thought a minute, and says to myself, hold on -- spose you'd done right and give Jim up; would you felt better than what you do now? No, says I. I'd feel bad -- I'd feel just the same way I do now. Well then, says I, what's the use of you learning to do right, when it's troublesome to do right and ain't no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same? I was stuck. I couldn't answer that.

* * * *

Although it isn't keeping me out of this lazy funk, I am enjoying participating in a show called Hill of Zion. It is part of something called Manna Fest, which itself is a descendent of something called the Spiritual Fringe Festival, which was once part of the Minneapolis Fringe Festival, a 10-day long festival of dozens of small plays and shows held in several multiple venues around town. Fringe plays run the gamut in quality and subject matter and can be great fun or tremendous bore-fests, depending.

Manna Fest shows are all being held at Augsburg College, just a few blocks from here, and are all plays on religious or spiritual themes, serious and not. One, for example, is entitled Martin Luther -- The Musical; another, by my friend Elizabeth, is called Witnessing to a Murder, about her experience witnessing a woman be murdered years ago; another is entiteld Jesus at Guantanamo.

Hill of Zion has a narrator, two actors, and a square of about nine or ten Sacred Harp singers. The story line, if you can call it that, has a travelling spatula and kitchenware salesman stumbling drunkenly into the annual Hill of Zion singing in a chapel near a cemetary somewhere in Iowa. There, he meets an interrent singing teacher, and they engage in a dialog that is broken up every few minutes by the group singing a Sacred Harp song that has some bearing on the conversation. (For example, after the salesman tells the teacher that the caterwailing of the Sacred Harp singers is as good as a strong cup of black coffee in sobering him up, we sing Soar Away, with its lyrics, "I want a sober mind, and all-discerning eye. . . .) It is surprisingly coherent and subtle, given that the playwright is an amateur, but he got most of it just right, as do the actors.

There was some disagreement among some local singers as to whether it was OK to put on a performance like this, but enough of us agreed that it was a good way to expose others to the singing and possibly recruit new singers that it was OK. We have yet to have an audience that has equalled the number of performers, but we're having great fun, and I am enjoying seeing the two amateur actor-singers get into their roles, and in getting to know some singers better.

* * * *

Adding to the funk is the fact that the display in our 5 year-old iMac computer has gone out, and we are struggling to figure out whether to spend more than $600 to replace it, get a cheaper minotor to hook up to the otherwise servicable computer, or to get a new computer altogether. With today's announcement of the new iMac, there is considerable multi-generational lobbying for a new computer. Resistance is nominal with no visible cracks in the facade, but probably futile. We shall see.

We're OK

2007-08-02T09:25:00.000-05:00

Perhaps this is as good a way as any to let you all know that we are all OK and weren't hurt by the collapse of the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi last evening. (The last person in my office who we knew might have been on it just called; he passed over it five minutes before it fell.) We live less than two miles from the bridge, though, and often bike or drive under it on the River Road, especially when we go to Twins' games, so it is not an entirely remote or abstract thing to us. But last night we were eating dinner at 6:05 with some friends and learned about the collapse about an hour later when a friend of Youngest Daughter called. We were just a little startled because three of us are planning to drive to northern Minnesota today and would have been crossing the bridge this evening almost exactly 24 hours after it collapsed.

Almost certainly, the death toll will rise from the seven confirmed (five, says the newspaper) as divers are able to get under the collapsed roadway sitting in the river. The Mississippi has been very low because of the terrible drought -- barely at the nine foot minimum necessary for barge traffic -- and it is likely that the roadway deck that looks like it's floating on the river is in fact resting on the river-bottom on its trusses, and there are probably some cars trapped under there. The real miracle is that there weren't more deaths or serious injuries, considering how some people fell 40 or more feet.

The mood in the city is one of shock, as far as I can tell. A woman on the radio last night said she went immediatly in to "do"-mode and I think that captures it. Everyone just seemed to take up whatever task at hand needed to be done, from swimming out to help people out of their cars to redirecting traffic away from the rush hour snarl. I was most impressed at how many people, many of them U of M students, came out and helped people get out of their cars, out of the water. Eventually, the number of volunteers (supplemented by curious gawkers, I suppose) became a problem, interfering with the professional ambulance and other first responder work. We resisted the temptation to bike down because of this.

Thanks to those of you who have already written or called asking; it's nice to know that there is a web of friends around the world who think of each other at times like this.

Photos from StarTribune

3d Annual Pearson Homestead Singing

2007-07-30T20:09:00.000-05:00

On Friday, four of us drove to our friends' homestead near Ogema, Wisconsin (about 180 miles east of here) for the 3d Annual Pearson Homestead Singing weekend.

I wrote about last year's singing here , and the first year's here. I'm glad I checked the previous years' reports, because I was about to begin this one with "What a weekend!" just as I did last year's. And reading about the beauty of the place, the joy of singing in the outdoor screened building, the mountains of delicious food, and the deep and interesting conversations driving there and back (and stopping for ice cream on the way home) tells me that I really may not have much left to say that would be new.

This year, we had 16 or 17 singers in all, a little fewer than past years. Most of them Quakers from the Twin Cities and Eastern Wisconsin, with a handful of singers from the Twin Cities and Madison singing groups to boot. Only one singer was entirely new to Sacred Harp, but she is an experienced and well-trained musician who understood perfectly how to read the shapes and how to sing, and so the singing school didn't last even a full hour and she was ready. We stopped singing separate parts shortly after lunch on Saturday.

We were showered with a blessing of basses [did I just coin a new aggregation term? In addition to a blessing of basses, may there be a treasure of trebles? an aggravation of altos? a trophy of tenors?]: six of the 16 were natural basses, and if we had each stayed in the bass section we would have blasted out all of the other parts. So, just like last year, I spent most of Saturday singing as the second alto, and just like last year I found it exhausting learning a new part, even to familiar songs. Later in the day when a versatile Twin Cities singer (herself normally a tenor) arrived and was able to replace me in the alto section, I went home to sing bass. That made five of us singing out of our regular sections in order to balance out the group -- two natural basses sang tenor; a tenor sang treble; and another tenor and I sang alto

Even with so many of us singing off part, the quality of the singing was extraordinary. The parts were balanced. The acoustics were amazing -- even though the walls are screened, the wood roof and floor provided enough resonance to make it easy to sing and be heard without straining. Once again, we roused an echo off the surrounding hills with David's Lamentation (#268), much to the delight of LeVerne. But we got it from other songs too, particularly later on Saturday.

After she retired from singing on Saturday evening, Elizabeth came back to the singers and urged us to go outside and walk around the hill behind the screened room to the camping area and listen to the singing from there. I did, the next morning, and was as stunned as she was. I don't know if it was the filtering effect of the trees between the hill and the singing, or the effect of the sound off the water of the lake, or what, but from this distance (which might have been 100 yards or so) the music was extraordinarily clear and beautiful. The edges were smoothed just a little to make the blend particularly pleasing. With the smaller number of Sunday morning singers (about 8 at the time) the articulation of the words was especially sharp and I could hear each word clearly. It was easy to imagine being on a ramble in the woods and hearing this sound come from who-knows-where and stopping dead in my tracks. You would have gotten no argument from me if you said it was an angel choir. Is this heaven? No, it's Sacred Harp singing

God also gave us three of those spectacular midwestern summer days he is so famous for. Radiantly warm -- mid-80's, I'd say -- but low humidity. Just warm enough to be happy to be in the shaded screened building, but comfortable enough to be happy sitting around the dinner table outdoors, or on the porch. Swimming was also just the right thing for later in the afternoon. Bright blue sky; puffy white clouds. An almost-full moon rising early in the evening. A night cool enough to appreciate having brought the sleeping bag.

On Saturday, especially in the afternoon and evening, we sang more challenging songs -- challenging to me who was unfamiliar with many of them (even after having returned home to the bass section), at least, and songs that don't get sung so often. We sang a whole string of Christmas songs and then Easter Anthem (#236). We sang Sawyer's Exit (#338) [to the tune of Rosin the Beau], Plenary (#162) [to the tune of Auld Lang Syne], the temperance hymn Oh, Come Away (#334) ["Heav'n's blessing on your plans, we pray! Ye come our sinking friends to save, And rescue from a drunkard's grave; We welcome you here!"], and two songs with words in them that don't come up in everyday conversation, The Last Words of Copernicus (#112) ["And thou refulgent orb of day in brighter flames arrayed. . ."] and Kingwood (#266) ("Unthinking man, remember this, Though fond of sublunary bliss, That you must groan and die"]. On Sunday we struggled through the sublime Rose of Sharon (#254) -- twice! (Though we didn't do it a lot, one of the nice things about an unofficial singing like this is that we can decide to sing a song over again, or work on a difficult part, if we want to without anyone getting all huffy about it. I understand and accept why we don't do this as a matter of course, but it is nice to have places where we can

Also on Saturday, Carol led a song in memory of our friend Minja Lausevic, a delightful woman and singer who died two weeks ago at the age of 41. It made me remember that it was two years ago that we remembered the similarly premature death of Elizabeth's partner, Lou Ann, and last year of Hibbard Thatcher.

On Sunday, we sang for an hour, then had meeting for worship, and then sang some more. We stopped at noon, and then ate our last dinner together. There was still lots of good food, and apparently lots of good conversation left, too, because we just sat around and talked and talked, with some nice long moments of silence, too. It was so peaceful and relaxing. I'd been reading the final Harry Potter book, and at one point I said, "I feel that, if I had a wand, I'd just wave it and have all these dishes wash themselves and put the food away. But wait! I have ten of them," and so began to finish up our time together.

I also greatly enjoyed the conversation I had on the way home with my friend, Frank. We've known each other for years, but only recently have had the opportunity to talk at length. (I had a similar pleasure driving his wife to yearly meeting in May.) We have a lot of common interests, and viewpoints as it turns out, and it made the long drive home seem effortless.

Of course, it was effortless for me -- Gerry did all the driving in his 25-year old VW Vanagon. Despite his giving us all of the necessary disclaimers befitting a vehicle of that age and era, the old thing drove flawlessly. (The four of us in the bus were in our 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s, respectively; I don't know why, but I found that interesting.)

Now, back on the front porch with the full moon high over head, it is warm and the crickets are cricketing. It's time for bed. "I lay my body down to sleep, peace is the pillow for my head, while well-appointed angels keep a watchful station round my head." (Hebron, #566)

To be stuck inside of Amsterdam with the Minnesota blues again. . . .

2007-07-17T12:47:00.000-05:00

Lovely Wife was supposed to be home Monday afternoon from her conference followed by Quaker study course on European government in Brussels, where she's been for two weeks. Then came the e-mail that her flight turned around over England and returned to Amsterdam because of mechanical problems. She'll be home Tuesday afternoon.

Then the e-mail on Tuesday (today) that, no, she won't be able to be on that flight either, but to expect her around noon on Wednesday, to be followed later by her luggage (which is on a plane headed first to Detroit. . .).

This has been particularly hard for her, being away two additional days (so far) knowing that her mother has begun to receive hospice care in anticipation of the life-ending illness I wrote about earlier, but it has given her some alone time in what sounds like a very nice airport hotel (if that isn't an oxymoron) to do some writing and thinking about her mother and father, all at the expense of Northwestern and KLM airlines. And it sounds like the food is pretty good, too.

I do hope she's home tomorrow.

When forgiveness makes a headline

2007-07-17T07:33:00.000-05:00

Thank you to Peggy Senger Parsons for finding another example of the Gospel in action (post date: 7-15-07) , and for the most brilliant nutty proposal for a new national holiday, Scooter Libby Annual Pardon Day. A sign of a prophet is the ability to read the signs of the times and relate them to the Big Story.

Introduction to a Quaker wedding

2007-07-13T12:21:00.000-05:00

A couple in our meeting is getting married tomorrow morning. The woman attends our meeting with great regularity and takes an active part in it, though she has not applied for membership. The man also attends, with her, but more regularly worships at an ELCA Lutheran congregation near here. The wedding will be held in that that congregation's building, and it will includesome very Lutheran elements, including organ music, two hymns, an invocation and scripture reading by the pastor. I was asked to welcome the attenders and introduce the Quaker elements of the wedding.

Here is what I plan to say:

I've been asked to say a few words about a Quaker wedding because it is likely to be unfamiliar to many of you. Just as with all true worship, the aim of a Quaker meeting for worship is to experience the presence of God among the assembly of believers, to offer prayer, praise and thanksgiving, and to be taught.

Our Quaker forebears discovered and practiced a radically simple formof worship consisting of regularly meeting together in quiet contemplation without human direction or pre-arranged programming, confident that God is indeed present wherever two or three believers are and will teach them what they need to learn directly and inwardly, often without words at all. We continue to worship in the same way today.

Often, God’s spirit will move one or more of us to minister to the meeting; this ministry, at its best, comes from God, but through the Friend who is called to speak. Ministry may take the form of a vocal prayer, sharing of a personal experience or spiritual insight, a song, a reading of scripture or recital of poetry, or other form of expression. Our conviction and experience is that any worshiper may be called to minister. A message is usually brief. It is not expected to be polished or conventionally eloquent, but should be sincere and intended for the entire meeting.

Today’s wedding will take place in the midst of an otherwise ordinary meeting for worship after the manner of Friends, though with the special purpose of witnessing K and A make their marriage covenant with each other before God. After these opening words, a hymn, and an invocation by pastor B of this congregation, we will settle into a reverent silence. Each of us will then, in our own way, call the Living God to be among us, to witness the promises K and A will make, and to pray that they be given the strength necessary to keep them. When they feel the time is right, they will stand, take each other by the hand, and make their promises aloud in the presence of God and these their family and friends.

They will then sign the certificate of marriage, certifying in writing the promises they have just made. They will return to their seats, and the certificate will be read aloud to the meeting. You are invited to sign it as witnesses to these promises, after the meeting is over. This document is often displayed in a Quaker home as a daily reminder of this happy day and the promises that were made.

We will then continue in free, open worship. During this time, if any of you are moved to offer a message to K and A and the rest of the meeting, please stand if your are able (or raise your hand if you are not) and wait for a microphone to be brought to you so that you can be heard. Please try to leave adequate space after the message of a previous speaker before rising so that we have time to fully appreciate what was said.

When the time seems right, I will signal the transition to the final stage of the wedding by shaking the hand of a person next to me, and you are invited to do the same. We will then conclude with a hymn, after which K and A will leave the room with their families to form a receiving line over yonder. You are then invited to meet them and proceed for refreshments, signing the certificate before doing so.

At the doctor's

2007-07-11T20:08:00.000-05:00

We took my mother-in-law to see the doctor this morning, "we" being Lovely Wife's Elder Sister, and Elder Brother who flew in this morning on his way to a business meeting in Houston. The visit was to get advice and information about a pressure sore on Barbara's buttock that has gotten much larger and deeper.

The doctor wasn't Barbara's regular doctor, but his wife, and she was familiar with with our situation. She listened very attentively as we explained about Barbara's recent visit to Washington and her return last night and our concern with how the sore was getting worse.

Before doing anything else, God bless her, the doctor said, "The first thing you need to know is that this is is not your fault. It is what happens when you are elderly, immobile and incontinent, and it cannot be helped. It is not the result of bad care giving. The fact that this hasn't happened much sooner is because of the exceptionally good care you have given. I want you to understand that." She said this with such sincerity, and dare I say love, that it put us at ease and made us feel we were all in good hands.

She then examined the wound by very gently pulling back the dressing. She talked constantly to Barbara, apologizing for any pain caused by removing the dressing, noting a wince pressure was applied to a particular place. She quietly pointed out something or another to the pre-medical student who accompanied her, estimated the size of the wound, and then covered it up again.

She then explained the difficult truth. This sore is not going to heal. It will become infected, and that will be a "life-ending event" (the only euphemism used during the visit). It may not happen for some time, but it will happen. We cannot fix the wound, she said, but we can and will provide care to keep her comfortable and free from pain. We will get help in our home from a wound team in dressing the wound and keeping it clean, and from the hospice team who will visit and provide other services.

All of this was delivered in a perfectly sincere, respectful, sympathetic manner. she looked us in the eye. There was no question that she understood the import and gravity of the information she was giving us, or that she felt for us.

This confirmed what the hospice nurse in Washington had told us, and it now feels as if we've moved into some new stage of our lives, where the end isn't just theoretical any more but within sight, and approaching. It feels right somehow to be here, now. There is a kind of holiness about it.

****

We are now sitting on the front porch, the three of us, in the cool and dark of the evening. The birds have mostly stopped singing, and it’s either too cool or too early for crickets (maybe both). Barbara is sleeping in her chair, and there is a glass of good red wine nearby. The leaves of the trees are whispering in the breeze. Somewhere to the north a dog is barking, and to the south a train is crossing the bridge over the Mississippi. I feel so incredibly in love at the moment, not in love with something or someone, but simply in love. As one of my favorite Sacred Harp songs, Aiken, goes,

Within thy circling power I stand,
On every side I feel thy hand.
Awake, asleep, at home, abroad,
I am surrounded still with God.

Blow that whistle, tell the truth

2007-07-11T16:34:00.000-05:00

Here is one courageous man.

Safe at home

2007-07-07T21:00:00.000-05:00

We got our tents and gear packed up and all got home at about 2 pm. It was a blessing that we lived so closely. I'm not as seriously tired as Only Son, but I would not have looked forward to a long drive home. The house was quiet, with Lovely Wife in Brussels. Her sister and mother are coming here on Tuesday, with a visit to the doctor set for Wednesday; we may learn more then.

Our Singing from the Sacred Harp workshop concluded on Friday morning. It was a sweet and tender time as it usually is. Participants were very generous in their gratitude, and Carol and I were genuinely pleased. This was the most successful of the four times I've led this workshop in terms of the strength of the singing, which started strong and got stronger each day. No one seemed to be frustrated or left behind, mainly because we listened to the two or three participants last year who felt we moved too fast and we kept things at a very steady but slower pace. We taught each part separately, for example, all the way to the end, until I led Northfield (#155), which is relatively easy and a lot of fun to sing, and which the class sang without review of the individual parts. Otherwise, we were happy to teach each part, and as the week went on it got better and better.

We ended the workshop by singing Parting Hand (#62). This is often used to close a convention, but is difficult because the practice is, after the notes are sung, to set down your book and walk around the square shaking hands with the singers as you sing the first verse or two. It's awkward to carry your book with you, glancing into it as you are supposed to be looking into the eyes and shaking the hand of your friends at the same time. So we taught the song earlier in the week, and for the closing sang the notes and first verse, and then la-la-la'd the music as we walked around shaking hands, after which we returned to our books to sing the second verse.

It worked well. The melody is a dance tune with a kind of lilt to it that leaves one with a different, perhaps happier feeling than the closer I usually use, Raymond Hamrick's incomparable Christian's Farewell (#347) which always brings the tears.

The afternoon shape note singing also had its best session on Friday. A few experienced singers who hadn't been with us earlier joined the group, and those who were learning were far enough along to make a strong class. Good choices in songs were made, mostly ones that we had done earlier in the week so newer singers weren't starting each song from scratch.

And the intonation was extraordinary. It is a funny thing about Sacred Harp singing that I've never understood that some singings are consistently out of tune and others involving the same singers seem to hit it right on. Among the variables I've noticed is pitching and the nature of the room. A pitcher who consistently pitches too high or too low invites singers to bend the pitch to a more natural key, which is usually done inconsistently and results in a muddy sound. An insufficiently resonate room also makes singers over-sing in order to be heard, and this tends to make them go flat. Since we were singing in the same outdoor space as we had each of the other afternoons, the pitchers much have been more accurate. Whatever the reason, the singing was very strong and I was proud to be there.

The evening plenary with George Watson was also an extraordinary experience.

Prior to the program proper, the Nightingales led the Gathering in singing. There were a number of details with how this would happen -- would we sit or stand? on the stage or on the floor? what songs? what verses? -- some of which weren't resolved until we were ready to begin. One detail that I am so happy did get worked out was to delay singing our closing song, There are Angels Hovering 'Round, until after the pre-speech business of introducing next year's Gathering clerks and an FGC Development Committee skit. Angels is a lovely song that also creates a kind of tender feeling that would have been lost if we hadn't waited. My thanks to Jeanne B for noticing the problem and solving it.

At any rate, after the first songs, the introductions, the skit, and Angels, Bruce Birchard introduced George Watson. George is a 92-year old Quaker elder who is best known, besides his own considerable work as an able administrator and clerk, as the husband of Elizabeth Watson. The two of them formed a team for seventy years, speaking, writing, traveling, and otherwise working with and among Friends. They are exemplars of the kind of liberal Protestant point of view that has characterized our branch of Quakerism for the last century or so, and they are the kind of people that gave it a good name.

George, who is nearly blind, spoke for two hours. His daughter, Carol, who accompanied him on the stage and throughout the week said he arrived on campus with four hours worth of material.

To a disinterested observer, George essentially reminisced about his life with Elizabeth. I can imagine that some found it tedious. But to me and many hundreds of others, it was fascinating to hear how these two people worked as a team to serve the Society of Friends and beyond during perhaps its most vibrant times during the last two-thirds of the 20th Century. The audience listened with a lot of love as he told the story, long though it was.

He was reminded to dismiss those who had to care for children or others who had to leave at 8:45, and then continued a full 45 minutes before he finished. And then, after two hours of essentially historical and personal information, he concluded something to this effect: I have something to thank Marcus Borg for besides speaking as the Elizabeth Watson memorial lecturer. At the age of 92, and having read as much as I have, I seldom find anything new in my reading. But I did find something new in one of Borg's book, The Heart of Christianity, the idea of the "thin place" where the border between the spiritual and material worlds is thin. Jesus represented a thin place, as did Mohandas K Gandhi. I now realize that I was privileged to live my entire adult life in a thin place as the husband of Elizabeth Watson.

He stopped with that. Bruce came to the stage and stood quietly behind the podium. Given the time, it seemed certain that he would not entertain Q&A, but it also seemed that he didn't know quite what to do. The room sat in rapt silence. And then a woman started to sing in a thin voice, "There are angels hov'ring 'round. . ." and the entire crowd arose and joined her, singing strong and in harmony. It was amazing. A good friend was in tears afterwards after seeing the many elders standing there who will soon be hovering around us, unseen.

I was stunned. I had worried that George's talk would be exactly what it was, a mere reminiscence without challenge to the Gathering or relate to our theme (". . . but who is my neighbor?"). But what I hadn't reckoned was how inspiring it was to hear it. As a friend who knows the Watsons well told me, "I love the Watsons, but I am not a Watson worshiper; I know their flaws all too well. But what well-spent lives."

****
I realize that these have been lengthy posts, and yet they convey only a sliver of all the things that happend at the Gathering this year. They're only a sliver of the things that I experienced at the Gathering. But I wanted for my own reasons to write as much as I could remember contemporaneously, without post-hoc perspective and before the tricks that memory plays on me. All I can say now is that I am very happy to have had a part in organizing it and to have attended it.

Marcus Borg

2007-07-06T14:28:00.000-05:00

July 6
FGC Gathering, River Fall, Wisconsin

Marcus Borg was the plenary speaker last night. I have mixed feelings about the event, so I'll start with the positive.

He is a very engaging human being -- friendly, funny, gracious, generous. He seemed genuinely happy to be here among us, even though he has achieved a kind of rock star status in certain circles and makes a lot of talks to groups like ours. And his talk was lucid, well organized, logical, and a joy to hear. He took questions gracefully and answered them directly. And he wore bright red socks, which endears him to me.

And he has a message to deliver. I won't try to summarize his work as a biblical scholar other than to note that the is one of great renown, and that the is a leading light of the Jesus Seminar. Of course, among the liberal Quakers at this Gathering, his scholarship and authority is accepted fairly uncritically. (A participant in the historic Jesus workshop said that the leader noted that Borg and the Jesus Seminar scholars' scholarship is not universally accepted as accurate, but didn't go deeply into the nature of the controversy. Something of that controversy can be found here. (Thank to Marshall Massey for this lead, which he gave in comment elsewhere.)

But here are some concerns I have. First, I'm disappointed that the largest audience at a plenary, by far, was for an address by a non-Quaker. Even discounting the fact that part of the crown were non-Gathering people from the nearby community who were invited to attend, the number of Quakers attending far exceeded that for the first two evenings where we had Quaker speakers. Perhaps there is something about a prophet being without honor in his own land that makes an outsider look more attractive, but we do have thinkers and writers and dare I say theologians within our own family that have something to say to us.

(Borg's address was the second Elizabeth Watson lecture, paid for by the Quaker Universalists group from a legacy for that purpose. John Shelby Spong was the first speaker in the series two years ago. It appears that this group thinks it's somehow important to have liberal Protestants address us.)

Second, I am not sure I could cite chapter and verse to support this statement, but what I heard Borg say sounded to me an awful like early Quakerism, starting with Barclay. Examples include his interpretation of the doctrine of original sin (this refers to the fact that all human beings sin, not a statement about their inherent nature), salvation (it's a liberation from sin, not an insurance policy to some kind of afterlife), and the meaning of the resurrection (it has meaning only if Jesus lives in you, regardless of his historicity). I kept looking for some new insight, something I didn't already know from my study of and experience in Quakerism, and I'm not sure I found very much. It was much more coherently presented in modern language than is often the case, but I'm not sure what of the content was new.

[Gathering moment: A man who is sharing my table just brought a cup of coffee to the table. He must have seen me looking at it with desire -- maybe I look as weary as I feel -- and he offered to give it to me, which I accepted. What a lovely man.]

Except for this, which I liked: He ended his talk by saying that, when asked by an evangelical Christian whether Jesus is his personal savior, Borg says, "Yes, I can say that, but only if I can also say that Jesus is my political savior, too." By this, he means recognizing Jesus as Lord in its political sense, not only as an savior of me as an individual. This seemed to me to also be a perfectly orthodox Quaker statement. Again, I can't cite to a source as I sit here in the cafetria, but I remember statements of George Fox to the extent that the king of England is subject to the Soverign God, and that the king's authority is legitimate only to the extent to which he acts in accord with God's will, and that the Day of the Lord consisted in large part of when earthly rules exercised their power in accord with God's design and abandoned their own selfish aggrandizement.

***

Well, I've finished my coffee and need to get to the final Sacred Harp singing at 3:15. The workshop ended this morning with good feeling and gratitude. More later, I hope.

4th of July at the Gathering

2007-07-05T07:08:00.000-05:00

July 4, 11:15 pm, in the tent.

Let’s see far how much I can report before I drop.

Tuesday was the first day of rain in these parts in several weeks. It came around three o’clock in the afternoon, a little before the afternoon Sacred Harp singing was to take place, outdoors, under a large overhang of a building. It was dark, and though it wasn’t raining particularly hard, it looked threatening. We sang only one or two songs when a siren went on. We all assumed that that meant a tornado warning – meaning one had been sited – and everyone dutifully went indoors, except for Robin, Jerry and me who like watching storms and are probably irresponsible. It didn’t seem to us that it was likely that anything was going to happen immediately, so we stayed outside and sang tenor-treble-bass trios for a few minutes. The rest of the group, went to an interior bathroom as instructed, and started singing there, wowed by the resonance.

It turned out the siren was merely a severe weather alert, not a tornado warning, and the rain and storm passed within 15 or 20 minutes, and we resumed singing. The group was a bit smaller – maybe 25 average at any one time – but it was plenty strong. We are still having trouble getting everything out of the altos that we need -- they're all singing the right notes, in tune, but they're holding back. (The morning class did better after Carol gave them the "alto talk".)

****

Tuesday evening has interest groups, which are two hour sessions on a wide variety of topics. I hadn’t taken time to carefully read the impressively long list in advance, so when I did, I of course was drawn to more than one, but I eventually chose to go to one because (in part) I knew where the room was. The announced topic was “Intrafaith work among the various branches of Quakerism.” It was led by Andrew Esser-Haines and Erin McDougall, two young Friends currently studying at Earlham College and Earlham School of Religion, respectively. They are visiting yearly meetings and conferences of Quakers in various branches to hold similar conversations. Each comes from a FGC background but have gained appreciation for the other branches and their Quaker bona fides in recent years.

I was fascinated by them and their plans and wished they had said a lot more. Instead, they had us do various exercises on the topic. There were only about fifteen who attended, and it seemed that nearly half of them were there in a support role for Andres and Erin. The remaining adults, with the exception of a young mother and her baby, were my age (53) or older, I think. Some were members of yearly or monthly meetings that are affiliated with Friends United Meeting or one of its constituent yearly meetings, and they have a vital interest in fostering better communication with FUM Friends.

While I would have loved to hear more about what they are planning to do this summer, I didn’t feel that I connected very well in my small group and left a little disappointed. But I did learn one great conversation ice-breaker: Name three dead Quakers you’d like to invite dinner, and why. (My answer: Bayard Rustin, Lewis Benson, and Margaret Fell. I didn’t have much of a “why” to it.)

****

We had our Wednesday morning rebellion in the workshop, but it was of the good kind. Carol had gone a little past the 10 o’clock break time and was in the middle of teaching a song, Parting Friends (#267) when she noticed it. She finished teaching each of the four parts, and then announced the break without singing the words. Ixnay on the ake-bray, said the class, emphatically. They wanted to finish the lesson and sing the song, which they did beautifully. (Carol taught the song using the Dorian mode, with the raised sixth step in the minor scale, and did it beautifully. I’d never sung it in that mode before – or never heard it if we did, since only the tenor part has the raised sixth.)

Tomorrow we’ll hold a memorial lesson for our worship sharing. Among others, we will remember the step-mother of one of our participants who died earlier today. He has left the Gathering and won't be with us.

****
The evening plenary this year was a performance prepared and produced by children and adults in the Junior Gathering with the assistance of two artists from In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater. On Wednesday night, the Gathering has an intergenerational event, usually professional performing artist perform, people like John McCutcheon, Si Kahn, Pete Seeger, Troutfishing in America, Robin and Linda Williams, etc. This year, though, we decided that there was enough talent within the Gathering community that we could produce, rather than merely consume, an entertaining and educational intergenerational event. So we asked HOTB to do a residency with the Junior Gathering, mainly 5-6 graders with some assistance with 7-8 graders, and adult volunteers.

Starting on Sunday, the HOBT artists helped the children develop a play, design and paint props and cardboard puppet characters. The story they came up with was a visit to a town on the Mississippi River by an unusual woman. The river fell in love with her, and though she was unusual, the elder of the town counseled treating her with respect, but the other townspeople didn’t agree, and eventually drove her from town. But the children intervened and brought her back. Or something like that – I was part of the shape note singing group that provided incidental music for it and couldn’t see the whole thing. But it had all of the elements of a HOBT production: an assortment of colorful fish, animals, and insects, the sun (played brilliantly by my friend Jeanne), and a river. The children seemed happy and delighted and were delightful. The audience also seemed to love it and were amazed at how much could be done in such a short period of time. Liz Opp predicted this might be the sleeper event of the Gathering, and she may be right.

Afterwards, I had a good conservation with Chris M and his friend John Harting about membership in a Quaker meeting. It was more interesting and complex and subtle than I can relate here, but I wanted to note it because I haven’t had very many such conversations here, mainly because of the various work I have to do. I enjoyed this one very much.

****
I enjoyed eating dinner with some of the Quaker bloggers who are here. It was especially nice that some non-bloggers were there who wanted to learn more about blogs and blogging. But it was hard for me to have a very satisfying conversation around a big table in a noisy dining room.

****
I finally got to go contra dancing tonight. I only stayed for two dances because I needed a shower before the locker room closed, but I got to dance with the one woman who is not Lovely Wife who I always try to make a point of dancing with. She is an old friend who I met years ago at Illinois Yearly Meeting and with whom I have special affection. Her daughter is one of the six (!) who are having a sleepover in the big tent next to mine with Younger Daughter in honor of he 4th of July.

****
July 5
I got a nice, long e-mail from Lovely Wife this morning from Brussels. It was wonderful to hear from her and to think of her in this lovely old city. Hi, sweetie!

Blogging from the Gathering: Kody Hersh & Joanna Hoyt

2007-07-03T12:10:00.000-05:00

Monday night,

I attended the Bible half-hour led by my friend Christopher Sammond. He’s using the book of Esther – the only book in the Bible in which the name of God is not mentioned – and tying it into the theme of the Gathering, “. . . . but who is my neighbor?” He’s taking a big risk, in my opinion, by having it be interactive where he asks questions & gets answers from the attenders, but it worked fine; I think he got his points across. It will be interesting to see how he develops the theme during the week.

Our Singing from the Sacred Harp workshop went very well this morning. Carol taught the first hour, warming up our voices and bodies by stretching, worked a bit with intervals and the scales, and then taught Old Hundred. I led the second hour, and then she led a very productive worship sharing. Of the many wonderful things that were said, the one that sticks with me now at the end of the day (I’m writing this at 10:30 pm from my tent) was the woman who said she had learned to let go of her need to understand it all before singing and to let those from the past who are singing over her shoulder to help her learn. I’ve had that same experience myself. Carol then did a very good thing by reviewing and leading again each of the songs we learned that day.

Our impression of the class is that it is exceptionally good. The altos need to sing more confidently and strongly – which shouldn’t be hard because they seem to be getting the notes right. Carol will have the “alto talk” with them tomorrow, I think.

I didn’t have to attend the Gathering Oversight Committee meeting this afternoon since my fellow co-clerk was going, but I had left my water bottle there and went to the room to retrieve it. As soon as I came in the door, someone opened the circle and added a chair for me, so how could I leave? It was remarkable that the rest of the hour was filled with the most mundane, almost trivial matters; things are going so smoothly and happily that there wasn’t much to do.

Besides my water bottle, I had misplaced a file with the lyrics of the hymns I’m leading on Thursday night, and of a “statement” written by the Nightengales about how they want people to sing on Friday. I was in a near panic; I’d looked everywhere in the tent, the car, my pack, and my book bag, and nothing. I was certain I’d brought it, but I was now doubting. I called Lovely Wife and asked her to look on the dining room table, the only other place it might be, and no luck. I was almost resigned to the tedious job of retyping it all after lunch (during the time of the Oversight Committee meeting) when I looked for a place to put my backpack before entering the lunchroom. To my annoyance, every cubby already had pack in it, as did the top of each cabinet. So I had to look for a cubby that wasn’t completely filled, and found one with a very small purse/pack like thing in it. I moved it to one side so I could put my pack in it, and there was my file, stuck in the back, right where I’d left it at an earlier meal. Whenever this happens, I’m reminded of the parables of the lost coin and lost sheep and the joy and relief at finding that which has been lost.

I got to spend just a few minutes at the Lemonade Art Gallery opening and saw a number of paintings and other pieces that I liked a lot. I was especially taken with some self-portraits by one friend who essentially sketched herself while looking in a mirror – and not on the paper – and then did oil paintings based on the sketches. Each one had a bizarre distortion of her otherwise recognizable face – elongated lips in one, a funny looking nose in another, and so on. Liz Opp also displayed a very fine ink drawing of a northern woods scene she did for her partner a few years ago.

The afternoon Sacred Harp singing was amazing. I counted fifty singers at one point, and we averaged about 30 – 35 consistently all afternoon (well, 3:15 – 4:45). Leaders started with good warm up songs and we built up to more complicated ones. Especially later in the afternoon, we had an awesome bass section of ten that was very, very strong. We’re singing outside again, and one of my delights is to watch the reactions of others as they pass by. Some smile and keep going; others seem to be stopped dead in their tracks, and then they smile. Several people joined the group just out of curiosity. The 14 loaner books I brought were not enough. I’m going to encourage more people to buy their own at the bookstore.

After the singing, I had a wonderful conversation with Christopher M of Tables, Chairs, and Oaken Chests, about a lot of things, actually. I appreciated his reaching out and asking about the state of my meeting and of the conversation that followed. (I just noticed that he, too, is blogging from here, and he has put together a good list of other Quaker bloggers present on campus. Hi, Chris!)

But after all of the wonderful things of the day, the highlight was the evening plenary address by two young Friends, Joanna Hoyt and Kody Hersh. They had asked for, and we had helped prepare, that the entire program be considered worship, with people entering silently and refraining from conversation before the speakers began. The volunteer ushers who showed up did a wonderful job of conveying that message to Friends as they entered the room, and except for perhaps some conversation in the lobby that bothered some it was a very quiet, reverent atmosphere.

Zachary Moon, a member of our evening program committee who had agreed to invite and help support young Friends to address the Gathering, introduced them. Although I wished at times during the past year that he would have been a more communicative with the rest of the committee who had to take it on faith that he was doing what we had asked him to do, he lived up to his reputation as a man with a ministry and did everything we wanted and more.

The two young people were . . . . I can’t think of adequate adjectives: amazing; articulate; intelligent; funny; grounded; prophetic; observant; humble; earnest. Perhaps the word “faithful to the Truth” is the most all-encompassing. As one Friend testified in the worship that followed the talks, parents try to raise their children the right way, to show them the way to live, and then one day, their children call to them and show them the way to live.

I did take some notes during their talks, but won’t try to summarize what they said in detail – the program was recorded and should be available from FGC soon, and I urge everyone reading this to listen. I suspect, and hope, that some form of their address will also be published in Friends Journal. It felt at the moment like it might be a watershed moment of some sort; time will tell about that.

I will say only that they spoke to the need for radical authenticity, for letting go of all of the things we accrue to protect us from authentic living and relationship, and not just material things, but the more precious social and psychological defenses and protection we use to insulate us from Truth.

Joanna spoke of needing to reunite the false dichotomy between the love of righteousness (the love of God) and the love of fellowship (the love of our neighbor). She pointed out how too many Friends – and others – seem to practice the latter with too little attention to the former.

Kody, began by singing beautifully the first verse of Sidney Carter’s “Were you there?” (“When I needed a neighbor, were you? And the creed and the color and the name doesn’t matter, were you there?”).He observed that what the parable of the Good Samaritan does is transform the question from, “What am I obliged to do” to a more fundamental question, “Who is in need?”

The vocal ministry that followed was uncommonly rich and pertinent, and the fellowship time afterwards, where the speakers had a conversation with a smaller group of Friends was also affirming. Those who were there will never forget it. Whether any of us live up to the challenges they posed is another question.

I called Lovely Wife tonight after the program and told her how well it is all going. She reminded me that I was not at all sure how strong the evening plenary sessions would be this year; I know that the process by which we came up with it was spirit led and that we did not take certain easy ways out of some problems we had, but as we approached I was not sure that I – or others – would see the fruit of that labor turn out as well as we’d hoped. But so far, so good.

L.W. leaves for a professional conference in Brussels tomorrow morning, and then is participating in a Quaker study program on European government immediately afterwards. I will miss her as I always do when she’s gone, but this is a long trip in both distance and time, and I suppose it will be a little harder than other shorter trips. For now, though, I’m happy and ready for a good night’s sleep, which can begin as soon as Youngest Daughter and her friends come back from the dance, which should be in a few minutes.

Blogging from the Gathering: Cecile Nyramana

2007-07-02T06:42:00.000-05:00

Cecile's Nyrimana's address was beautiful and powerful.

There was some concern when she arrived on campus that a combination of long-distance travel and family concerns may have left her exhausted and depressed. But when she met Ellen, a woman who acted as her translator and companion when she visited Northern YM in 2005 and who is playing a similar role this year, Cecile perked right up and seemed at home.

Her talk was preceded by drumming by about a dozen Friends. That, too, was remarkable and beautiful. The drummers covered a range of ages, from high school to 60-something adults, and they created a gentle, complex, and persistent beat. One drummer had a metal drum, resembling a hand-held steel drum, that sounded subtle musical notes underneath the drumming. We took a little risk, I think, in having something so unusual as the preplenary welcoming activity, but it worked.

Cecile spoke in English this year, it being her third language (the others being French and her native Rwandan language whose name I can't recall). She had a straightforward speaking style. She began with a historical and geographic background of Rwanda, then discussed the facts around the 1994 genocide, and then what she and others in Rwanda YM are doing to reconcile Tutsi and Hutu survivors. Cecile is Tutsi, and her husband is Hutu; she survived because he had found another Hutu family who permitted her to hide underneath a bed for several months -- when she was pregnant with her first child.

What struck me was how Cecile related her story of taking an Alternatives to Violence (AVP) workshop with Hutu women and how this developed into several program or reconciliation sponsored by Rwanda YM. (She directs the women's section of the YM and is now its assistant clerk.) She told this story in such a plain, straightforward way, free of rhetorical ornament save for repeating the question, "But who is my neighbor?"

Her talk was relatively short and ended about 45 minutes before we had to be dismissed. It was followed by about 10 minutes of silence. Of course, a couple of Friends felt compelled to stand up and ask in one way or another, "What can we do?" to which no answer was given. Then the plenary was dismissed, and Cecile took some questions from those who remained. Once again, at least one Friend seemed to be unable to connect with what she said except on a political level, but nearly all of the other Friends asked genuine, human questions, and it appeared as if the experience was good for her as well as the others.

2007-07-01T12:50:00.001-05:00

The All-Gathering meeting for worship this morning was hard for me. The new man that the hot shower had created an hour or two earlier had reverted to the sleepy, irritable man he was when he woke up. The ministry was pertinent, but not inspiring, to me, at least. But it was measured and not popcornish, which was a relief.

Then the moment of truth. I had been carrying some anxiety, too, about the fact that there were no chairs in the room where our workshop was to take place. I checked out the workshop room -- we were given the stage of the performing arts auditorium -- at 8 o'clock in the morning, and there were no chairs. I did some checking, and was assured they'd be there, and by golly they were, all arranged, too.

The first workshop session went well. Lots of familiar faces and voices, and some new ones. As we introduced ourselves the one high school student in the class said, "I took this workshop last year, and it's the first time I ever had any fun in one."

Now, later in the day: The first Gathering oversight committee meeting after it opened was held this afternoon, and it was remarkable for how little there was to say. People have been non-complaining, self-helping and problem-solving, and generally finding their way without complaint. Of course, no one has been here long enough to have real problems develop yet, but it was a good sign.

The afternoon Sacred Harp singing, outdoors again, under a shaded projection of a building, went very well. Again, the chairs showed up in abundance and on time. And so did the singers. It was a strong group with some new singers from the morning workshop and a lot of returning singers from past ones. We sang steady for about 90 minutes when one of us called it a day, which was about the right time.

I'm about to go to the plenary session to hear Cecile Nariyama of Rwanda Yearly Meeting at the first plenary. She spoke at Northern YM two years ago, and was profoundly moving. She is a delightful, strong woman. We're having twenty minutes of drumming immediately prior to her talk, and I'd better get there to hear it.

A sleepless night

2007-07-01T12:40:00.000-05:00

The welcoming evening plenary is over. I had two very small bits in it, singing and playing my banjo. I did the first OK; blew the second, but it wasn’t too bad. I felt a lot of anxiety about it before hand because it hadn’t seemed well prepared; the parts were more-or-less ready, but how it fit together seemed ragged and uncertain as we went into it, especially after the rehearsal. I realize now that I kept a lot of tension in my trying to steer a program that was totally out of my control and for which I had no responsibility. As it turned out, it was lovely. Funny, friendly, low-key. The Prairie Home Companion parody was fun and more-or-less held it together. My very favorite act was Frank Wood and the Earth Quakers singing"My Quaker Lover" parody of the "The Frozen Logger." Frank had great presence and absolutely brilliant timing. The only problem was that it went on too long, which backed up some 9 o’clock activities (mainly Junior Gathering & High School parent meetings) but not too seriously.

I was also nervous about the workshop. Carol, my co-leader, and I wanted to start teaching a song other than Old Hundred (49 on the top), partly because we were a little tired of it and partly because we wanted a more traditional (read: Southern) sounding song to begin. We’d agreed on one (Primrose, 47t), and then later that evening she said she really wanted to start a new one (Devotion 48t), to which I agreed. But when I went to look at it, I realized that I didn’t know Devotion well enough to teach it (the alto and treble parts, that is), and even though it had more hopeful and positive poetry.

So for these and perhaps other reasons, I didn’t sleep well, even though Lovely Wife was there for the night. I finally got up at 5:45 and went hunting for a shower. I found a dorm but the doors were locked, not to open until 7. With my agitated state of mind, this was a blow. But soon someone came out and let me in, and I learned a great lesson. There is hardly any bad attitude that can’t be made better by a powerful, hot shower. (One reason I didn’t sleep well was that I hadn’t had one for a couple of days.) I felt like a new man.

Then to breakfast and meeting for worship, and then the first workshop session.

The best laid plans

2007-07-01T12:35:00.001-05:00

Saturday afternoon, about 3:30

I had it all planned. I’d meet Lovely Wife and the children at the high school registration table at about 15 minutes before it opened at 2 pm. I’d already registered Youngest Daughter & her friend and all I needed to do was get Only Son signed in; the High School group doesn’t let anyone register early, or in abstentia. So I planned to be as early in the H.S. line as possible.

The first part worked; we were there before 2, and there weren’t more than a handful in line when it officially opened. But then, for reasons inexplicable to me even in hindsight, the line moved slooowly. Like molasses in the other part of the year. It took 40 minutes before we were done. The request to fill out a form that I had already filled out but had gotten lost was only a minute or two of that time. Otherwise, I can’t explain the rest of it, unless it was the one-person-one-job organization of the tasks.

All of which is of no great consequence, other than to take a half hour out of my afternoon to spend time with Lovely Wife and the other children before I had to get to the 3:15 workshop leader meeting, where I am now.

The clerk just did a very fine thing by reading the Purpose of FGC’s Gathering, a very nice statement approved by the Long Range Conference Planning Committee. As it reads from the chart on the wall:

The purpose of the Gathering is to help Friends

Know and deepen their relationship with the Spirit and with each other;
Strengthen their identification as Friends a among other Friends; and
Testify to the presence of unprogrammed Friends as a vital and unique faith community.

I like this. I wish it were more prominently publicized; it would put a lot of the things we do here in perspective.

Strangers in the Night

2007-06-30T09:36:00.000-05:00

11:45 pm 6-29-2007

In my tent, reading the Gathering information. This is my tenth or eleventh Gathering (my first was 1983, Slippery Rock), so I know the routine pretty well. And I am on the planning (and now oversight) committee, so I felt pretty well-informed about what is going to happen this week. But then something strange happened.

Usually, as I remember, there are three afternoon periods of activities, usually 75 minutes long with 15 minutes pass time in between. Usually something like 1-2:15, 2:2:30 – 3:45, and 4 – 5:15. I remember this because last year we asked for and got two afternoon slots for shape note singing, and that was part of the success. We sang from 2:30 til 5 or 5:15, and that was a good long time to draw in enough people to give it critical mass. It was awesome, actually.

But this year it changed. There are activities scheduled at 1:30, and the next at 3:15, and the next at 4:30. One very long session and then two short ones. And shape note singing is scheduled at 3:15. This is odd and I don’t understand. We can certainly continue to sing past 4:30, I presume, but there’s no indication when the third session is supposed to end, and supper starts at 5. . . . It looks to me as if we’re losing an hour of afternoon singing, but we’ll have to see. Remember the poem about Sacred Harp singers from the music clerk at past Gatherings:

Shape Note/Sacred Harp.
They need to stand in a square and have good live sound.
They like a space with lots of resonance, not drapes and carpet,
where they can be loud.
If they don't like where you put them, they'll find their own space
and leave you a note.
They are very self sufficient.
They do not need a piano.
*****

Note to self: Do not pitch your tent near a campground bathhouse that keeps its lights on all night. I thought it’d be nice, especially for the two thirteen year old girls who will be joining me tomorrow, to be near the bathroom. And it is, of course. Except I didn’t remember that it is kept illuminated all night. So there’s a nice yellow glow at the head-end of my tent and it’s 11 pm.

A few minutes ago, I was dozing off and heard voices. “Is this it?” “It looks a little small.” “There’s the REI logo.” “Is there anyone in it?” “Should we ask?”

“Excuse me, is there anyone in this tent?”

“Yes.”

“Are you Paul?”

“Yes.”

“Are waiting for a wife?”

I thought a moment. “Yes.”

“Well, she’s looking for you.”

I was obviously confused. Or some one was.

“I don’t understand.”

“There’s a woman here whose husband, Paul, pitched their tent and she can’t find him. She says it has an REI log on it.”

“Oh. Well, I don’t think she’s looking for me; my wife isn’t coming until tomorrow.”

“OK. Sorry to disturb you.”

Then they left. Not long afterwards, though, I felt someone’s eyes looking in through the little triangular window in the rain tarp. I opened my eyes, and even without my glasses on I could recognize a face peering in at me.

“Yes?” I said.

“Oh hi. Is this Paul?”

A subtle pattern emerges. “Yes. Who is this?”

“This is Becky.” Finally, a recognizable fact. A Friend from my Yearly Meeting. “Oh, hi, Becky. This is Paul L.”

“Hi, Paul. I’m looking for my husband. He set up the tent and my meeting went on longer than I thought and now I can’t find him.”

“Sorry.” Then I added, “The other tent is empty; it’s for my daughter and her friend who will arrive tomorrow. You’re welcome to stay there if you can’t find your Paul.”

“That’s OK. I have a blanket in the car and I can stay there. Sweet dreams.”

Sure. So that’s why I’m sitting up in my tent, typing on my iBook, instead of sleeping.

Here at the Gathering

2007-06-29T17:31:00.000-05:00

I drove here to River Falls with a Friend early this afternoon. I pitched two tents for me, Youngest Daughter and her friend, got registered, and am getting settled. One treat was seeing fellow-bloggers Chris and Robin M and Linda waiting outside the registration hall. And then other old Friends, too. It felt a little like a gathering of wizards in a Harry Potter story.

I've been itching to get here for several days. I've done all the preparation I can do for my workshop and for the evening plenary sessions (I'm co-clerk of the evening program committee) and now I want to do it. Getting the tents pitched was big. We're in almost exactly the same spot we camped in 1998 when, after arriving a day early in the expectation of getting settled in before the Big Day, a tremendous storm hit, 4 or 5 inches of rain in as many hours, with thunder, lightening, and wind all night long, the four of us huddled in our large but tight L.L. Bean tent and our three friends next to us. The next morning, we were dry, if tired, but the people who were camping where they were supposed to be (we'd squatted where we were used to camping at Northern YM instead of going to the official FGC campsites) were under 3 inches of water. Our cars were flooded to the floorboards, the south branch of the Kinnikinick River having swollen from romantic creek to raging river through the parking lot. It was a wonderful adventure, but tonight I'd be happy with a quiet, boring sleep.

My heart has a new heaviness that is coloring my mood. Lovely Wife's mother, who has lived with us since 1999 has been on Lummi Island in Washington with L.W.'s sister since mid-May. A call came last night reporting that it appears that she is developing what may be a fatal infection. Lovely Wife and sister Holly have been on the phone, discussing travel arrangements, which are complicated by three of us being at FGC and L.W. going to Brussels, Belgium, for a conference for two weeks and another brother and his family on their way to Australia in a few days for six months. . . .

But all that is uncertain for now. At the moment, I'm watching Quakers trickle into the student center with that first-night bewildered look they'll have until they're oriented and situated. I love them all.

I'll let you know how it goes.

It's been a longer, stranger trip that we may have realized

2007-06-22T13:07:00.000-05:00

The Friend to whom I gave a ride to Northern Yearly Meeting mentioned to me that the recent edition of Quaker History had two articles she thought would interest me. One, by Mitchell Santine Gould, was entitled "Walt Whitman's Quaker paradox" and discussed Whitman's closeness to, but non-membership in, Quakers. The short of it is that, in Whitman's own words, "I was never made to live inside a fence."

The article discussed four aspects of Quakerism, of the Hicksite flavor especially, that Whitman shared:

1. Like Whitman, many radical reformers were culturally recognized as "Quaker" without being members. This trend reflects a general diffusion and secularization of Quaker testimonies in society.
2. Like Whitman, Quakers could sometimes be sexual liberals.
3. Like Whitman, Quakers based their liberality upon "liberty of conscience."
4. Like Whitman, the Hicksite schism itself defended the sanctity of human "passions or propensities."

Though there was little new or surprising in the article, it does tie things together and make connections that I hadn't made before, and I enjoyed it.

But the article that really caught my eye was by Mary K. Matossian and entitled, "Why the Quakers Quaked: The Influence of Climatic Change on Quaker Health, 1647-1659." Not what I'd call a snappy, engaging title, but the topic was fascinating.

In sum, the author conjectures that much of the quaking and other unusual mental, physical, and behavioral states exhibited by Quakers in the mid-17th Century were symptoms of a central nervous system disease called ergotism, a form of fungal poisoning from a fungus that grows on rye grain and flour. Because of generally cooler winters and warmer summers and adequate rainfall during this time period (caused in part by reforestation and a decline in population), rye flour was particularly susceptible to ergot, and this being the primary grain in the areas of England and classes from which Quakers were drawn, the author's hypothesis is that many of these early Quakers were affected by ergotism and thus exhibited the strange behavior often observed during that time.

When I first heard of the article, a whole series of light bulbs went off in my head. I had often thought that many of the descriptions of early Friends meetings sounded to me an awful like LSD and mescaline experiences I have had, and how much the massive social (and political and religious) upheaval in Britan 1650s and '60s reminded me in general of the 1960s in the US and elsewhere. And here's the explanation that puts the two together: The Early Quakes were on low-level doses of LSD (which, of course, is derived from rye ergot) and this enabled them to break through the prevailing paradigm to a radically different quality of life and experience, just as it did for millions of my generation in the 1960s.

The article doesn't fit my hypothesis precisely; the author focuses more on the quaking, epileptic-type symptoms of ergotism than on the integrative, peaceful, insightful ones experienced with psychedelics. But there is enough data here to persuade me to keep my mind open at least that there may have been a psycho-chemical aspect to the Quaker movement that explains not only their radical vision but also their gradual (though incomplete) assimilation into the fabric of English Protestantism.

Show your talent

2007-06-19T22:07:00.000-05:00

I went to a marvelous 40th birthday party for a Friend on Saturday evening. She hosted a benefit talent show at the meetinghouse for her birthday party that was simply a gas.

She started it off, singing One Hundred Easy Ways to Lose a Man from Wonderful Town, and then Make our Garden Grow from Candide. G. has a wonderfully strong voice, Mermanesque in its purity and power but sweeter, and was perfect for singing Bernstein. (She also has a mellow, sexy voice suitable to a Minnesota Public Radio classical music announcer and host, which she also is.)

Lovely Wife was sitting elsewhere in the meeting room, and I didn't have to turn around to know that she was tearing up during Make our Garden Grow. I knew this not only because of the raw beauty of how G was singing the song, but also because I know that LW was thinking what I was thinking, which was that our first formal date was to Candide at the Indiana University Opera in 1987, and that that opera and that song have had special meaning to us ever since.

G. was followed by T., a 9-or-so year old girl who played a half dozen traditional American fiddle tunes on her half-sized violin. Her teacher uses the Suzuki method but is teaching fiddle and dance tunes instead of the more classical oriented tunes used by most Suzuki teachers. Little T ended each of her tunes with the familiar shave-and-a-haircut. . .two-bits tag. She did beautifully and had great poise and presence.

I followed by reading Billy Collins' poem Forgetfulness and then singing Mike Cross's The Scotsman, a kind of a novelty, jokey song that immediately came to my head when G asked me to participate, and which I couldn't shake.

Then came M who played a beautiful piece for flute by Claude Debussy on her alto saxophone.

Finally was the most novel and entertaining act I've ever seen that didn't involve a chainsaw or lighter fluid: A man played a Sousaphone and tap danced. At the same time. (When I saw him come to front of the room, I was reminded of the George Booth cartoon in The New Yorker showing a one-man band -- a fellow with a bass drum, cymbals, washboard, kazoo, etc. -- standing in a library, looking at a book. One librarian is saying to another one, "Well, so far his behavior has been exemplary.)

He then played Bach's Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring (which he said he thought should have been either "Gee-su joy. . ." or "Yay-su yoy . . ."), playing the base line on the tuba while simultaneously humming or singing the tune to the soprano line. It had the effect not unlike the throat singing Tibetan monks who sing two notes at once. He ended his part with a similarly wonderfully funny version of Stars and Stripes Forever with the tuba doing the oom-pah and his voice approximating the piccolo part. Amazing.

Following the performances, we heard from another Friend who gave a brief presentation about Rainbow Rumpus, an on-line magazine she founded "For Kids with GLBT parents." I've been reading Rainbow Rumpus with infrequent frequency over the past year and have been impressed at its range and quality. I hope you'll check it out, and refer your friends to it.

G said her idea for this kind of a party came from one I did for my 48th birthday a few years back, which was in turn based on Robert Pinsky's Favorite Poem Community Readings project when he was poet laureate of the US. Another Friend is hosting a similar event this coming Saturday for his 80th birthday. This is a very simple kind of event to organize, people love them, and it builds community and stories for years to come.

Larry Miller

2007-06-19T21:20:00.000-05:00

It was a blow to get the e-mail yesterday telling that Larry Miller had suffered a massive, probably fatal stroke on Sunday, and again to learn that he had died earlier today.

I know Larry through serving with him on the Friends Journal board for he past four years. Larry had first joined the board of the Friends Publishing Corporation in 1955 shortly after The Friend and The Friends Intelligencer, the publications of the Orthodox and Hicksite traditions respectively, merged, contemporaneously with the reunification of the two Philadelphia Yearly Meetings and has served several stints over the next fifty years. He also frequently had articles and letters published in the Journal.

I loved Larry, as did everyone on the board. He had a youthful, almost child-like energy and spirit that belied his age. My picture of him is with his head cocked slightly (favoring a good ear, perhaps), stooping a bit to look me in the eye and listening intently, with genuine interest, to whatever answer I was giving to his question. He was the one who could be counted on always to ask the most pertinent (and occasionally impertinent) question during the publisher's report, and often to give words of praise or encouragement.

Every time I saw Larry, he delighted in telling me about his latest project, often involving historical research and writing. He also was one of the funniest persons I've ever known, in part because he was able and willing to laugh at his own foibles. I am grateful to have gotten to know him even a little bit, and that he lived a life so full of love and vitality.

Here is Larry's brief biography from the Friends Journal web site.

Larry Miller, a convinced Friend, lives in New Britain, Pa., with his wife, Carol. A graduate of Antioch College and Chicago Theological Seminary, he was a conscientious objector in civilian public service camps during World War II. He served as the general secretary of Friends General Conference for 17 years. In later years, he served the American Friends Service Committee in India, on the Middle East and Asia desks, and as chairperson of the Quaker United Nations Program. He chaired the Christian and Interfaith Relations Committee of FGC and was the only FGC delegate to the Fifth Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Nairobi, Kenya. He has published a biography of Clarence E. Pickett, Witness for Humanity.

2007-06-13T09:57:00.000-05:00

He'd plead not guilty, that's what. And then g.t.f. out of Iraq, for another.

Thanks to goingjesus.com for the tip. Check out her hilarious kitsch kollections on the left side of her page.

Not guilty

2007-06-12T16:04:00.001-05:00

One of my favorite Willie 'n Ethel cartoons has Ethel asking wistfully, "Willy, what are the three most beautiful words in the English language?" and Willie answers, "If. Maybe, and Tomorrow."

Today, I'd add two new ones: Not guilty!

About six weeks ago, my car was ticketed and towed from the front of our house. Ostensibly, temporary no-parking signs had gone up the morning of May 1 notifying everyone that the street would be swept on May 2 and to move our cars or else.

Lovely Wife and I do not remember seeing the signs. We took a walk in the afternoon of May 1 (ironically, the 15th anniversary of my admission to the Minnesota bar) and noticed how odd it was that there were signs on all the surrounding streets but not on ours; or at least that what we remember thinking. In any event, we didn't move the car that evening.

I went to work on May 2d, taking the bus, and walked out the front door onto the street where the care was parked, and again didn't see, or was oblivious to, the signs that were ostensibly posted there. Later that afternoon came the call from home that the car had been towed and that I had to take my first trip to the impound lot.

It cost about $145 to get the car out of the city impound lot, and then there was a $34 parking ticket from the county. The impound people said that if I got the ticket dismissed I could file a claim to have the towing and impound fee refunded. So a few days later I went to the courthouse, met with a traffic hearing officer who offered to drop the fine. This was nice, but not good enough to get the towing fees refunded. So I rejected the deal and was told to come back to court in three weeks to make a plea. Just to be sure that it wouldn't be easy, I was told to be in court by 9 sharp and to count on at least two hours before being called.

I did so, only had to wait 90 minutes, pled not guilty, and had a trial date set.

My case was going to be that I hadn't been given notice of the temporary no-parking, and while I was unable to say for certain that the signs were not posted on time, I was doubtful enough that I was willing to put the state to its proof.

The trial was today. At first, my heart sank when I saw a uniformed, middle-aged woman already sitting in the courtroom. My best hope was that the city wouldn't bother to send an officer to testify and the charge would be dismissed without a trial. It was now clear that it wasn't going to be that easy.

The prosecutor was the next to arrive. She was an intelligent-looking, friendly, attractive young woman who is an associate in a large (the largest) Minneapolis law firm which donates its trial associates through thee-month stints as assistant city attorneys to help them get courtroom experience. This, too, was not good news; I'd worked with these "rotators" many years ago and they were uniformly smart, able lawyers over whose eyes no wool was going to be pulled. Not that I was going to pull wool, but still a sign that I was going to have to work for it.

The city attorney spoke with the parking officer, and then came over to talk with me. She showed me a copy of the log kept by the street department recording when it posted its no-parking signs, and upon which the parking officer relied in tagging vehicles. The log showed that the signs had been posted on our block between 9:46 and 9:52 am on May 1, more than 24 hours before the ticket was issued.

But this was my ray of hope: I knew that the street department's log was not admissible unless the "custodian of the record" would testify that the log was kept in the regular course of business, and that the parking officer was not able to lay that foundation. If I could keep the street department log out of evidence, they wouldn't be able to prove that the signs were posted 24-hours in advance and I should win.

I mentioned this to the city attorney who saw the trouble she was in. She did what any good lawyer does in that situation: she began looking for loopholes, and found one. She printed out a copy of the parking ordinance and discovered that there's nothing in the ordinance that requires 24-hours notice of a temporary no-parking zone; the 24-hour notice requirement was a city administrative policy, not an element of the offense itself. Now I saw I might be in trouble. If the ordinance doesn't require 24-hours notice, then the street department log wasn't relevant; it was enough that the parking officer would swear that the signs were posted when she showed up, I was sunk. I thought.

The city attorney saw my disappointment and offered to go "halfsies" with me -- I could get off with a $17 fine instead of $34. I was tempted. I was beginning to see the hubris in my thinking that I could out clever them and that maybe I should cut my losses and accept the invertible. It's what I did in 1972 when I pled guilty to trespassing in someone's swimming pool that I hadn't trespassed in because I didn't want to come back to Cleveland from college to contest what was going to be a small fine, and in 1971 when I didn't file my application as a conscientious objector because I had a high lottery number and didn't need it. I accepted both those decisions as the rational ones, but I always felt badly about them, that I was somehow dirty for taking the easier road.

But this time I said no. I don't think the signs were up, despite the evidence, and I will put you to your proof. "You're going to trial over a parking ticket?" the city attorney said incredulously. "Unless you dismiss the charge," I said.

So she called for a judge. This surprised me. I had a trial date and I expected there to be a judge immediately available. But no, it was so unusual to need one for a parking ticket that they just called around to find a judge with the time to hear a short trial. We waited, and then the call came. "Judge Z has time to hear your case if you can come to his courtroom," the clerk said.

More good news. Judge Z was previously the general counsel for the local office of the Equal Economic Opportunity Commission with whom I had had some small dealings about seven years ago. He was a gentle soul with a reputation as a friend of the downtrodden, and as a mensch. If there was a judge anywhere in the courthouse that might give a sucker an even break, it was Judge Z.

We went to his courtroom, and after a couple of short waits where Judge Z showed himself to be the very model of a modern judge -- he's there not to "judge" but to "help" -- the case was called.

I was pretty nervous, actually. I hadn't been in a courtroom for almost eight years, and my skills were rusty; I wasn't as familiar with the rules as I once was, and I was a little afraid of embarrassing myself. And I still wasn't sure what I was going to do with the lack of notice requirements in the ordinance. But I knew to object when the city attorney tried to introduce the street department log, and the word "sustained" was like music to my ears. I tried not to overplay my hand in cross examining the parking officer, since I knew the judge would take her side if I did, so I kept it simple to establish only that she had no personal knowledge as to when the sign was actually posted. That's all I had, and all I needed.

The city attorney rested here case, and I didn't put on any evidence of my own since I didn't think I needed any: the city simply hadn't proven its case, if some notice was required.

Then I made my argument. I know that the ordinance doesn't require notice, but think of it: if no notice was required the city could go around and hang temporary no-parking signs on the trees and immediately ticket any cars parked there. That isn't what happened here, maybe, but it could if the ordinance isn't read to require some notice. It's a matter of due process, and it would be unconstitutional to read the ordinance as not requiring any notice at all. And since the city hasn't proven that the signs were posted more than a moment before the officer arrived, it hasn't proven beyond a reasonable doubt that I had the constitutionally required reasonable notice of the temporary no-parking zone and therefore could not be convicted.

Then the moment of truth. The judge began reciting the undisputed facts. The car was parked. The signs were there. The ordinance doesn't require 24-hour notice. Uh oh, I thought.

But then: Though the ordinance doesn't require any notice, it does say that it is unlawful "to park" in a place that is marked with a temporary no-parking sign, not "to be parked" in such a place. There was no evidence that I "parked" my car in a place that was marked with a sign.Therefore, the city hadn't proven beyond a reasonable doubt that I'd parked illegally, I was not guilty, and the ticket was dismissed. (This was true, but I didn't think to raise it: the car hadn't been driven in several days, and there was no sign when I parked it.)

Yahoo. I was a free man. My towing fee should be refunded promptly. It was worth it.

Then Judge Z went back from being a judge to being a helper again: He assured the city attorney and the parking officer that the verdict didn't reflect badly on them, they did a terrific job and were honest public servants whose service he honored and appreciated, etc.

This time, instead of rolling my eyes, I just grinned. It felt good.

This was an important lesson for me. Too many years as a government lawyer myself (1992-99) had hardened my heart in some ways. I have become too presumptuous and conclusion-jumping with the justice claims of others when the rules seemed to be so heart-breakingly clear. Even today, my instinctive reaction was to say, "No, that can't be right; you can't ask the city to permit cars to stay parked during street sweeping time by simply not moving them; when you park on a city street you know that you will sometimes have to move it even if the no-parking signs are posted after you park." But while that may in fact be the objectively correct answer from a legal and public point of view, that wasn't the answer I wanted to hear as an individual citizen who felt treated unfairly.

I also got a renewed lesson on how privileged I am to be able to contest this ticket. I could afford to take two half-days off work because I have a flexible situation and enough working capital to be able to afford some unpaid time off. I was of the right age, demeanor, and color to be taken seriously. I have the legal training to respond to this relatively simple situation without having to spend a large amount of money on attorney fees. Etc.

I also learned not to assume anything. When I called the city to inquire how to get my towing fee refunded, I was told that that required a separate claim and investigation and that having my ticket dismissed wasn't necessarily going to get me my money back. So I still have work to do.

Finally, I learned a little more about what the presumption of innocence means. I was reminded of a Texas defense lawyer who I heard speak at a death penalty defense seminar who explained the presumption like this: Whenever he questions a juror, he asks the juror to stand up and look the defendant in the eye and say, "I think you're innocent, and they're going to have to prove it to me." He said that a juror who could say this was a juror who understood the presumption and the burden of proof.

I won't likely be not guilty for long, but I'm enjoying it while I can.

* * * * *
Tomorrow is Only Son's 16th birthday. I've gotten him a good electric razor. It seems like yesterday I was getting him Legos.

Up visiting friends

2007-06-12T01:04:00.000-05:00

This is one of those nights I haven't had too many of lately, where sleep won't come. So, being between good books, I've been off visiting friends I've met through blogging.

One in particular I've grown very fond of was an early commentator here. She is a much more diligent blogger than I am, writing nearly every day. For that I'm grateful, for she has exposed a hundred points in her life with which I feel a connection, and which make me feel less lonely. I now realize that this is one reason why she's a pastor, and such a good one, even to a long-distance lurker in the back of her electronic congregation.

Here is her story that I read tonight that touches me in some odd way I don't understand; I've never felt the kind of disappointment she's describing as far as I can remember, but hearing her tell it somehow makes me feel as if I could, if necessary.

New Bible bloggers?

2007-06-07T15:09:00.000-05:00

David Plotz at slate.com has completed his blogging of the Hebrew Bible and is taking a break. He writes:

That said, this is only a temporary stop. I'm writing a book based on Blogging the Bible—distilling it to its best parts and adding lots of new material. That will be published next year. And I'm also searching for a wry Christian writer who can blog the New Testament for Slate. (Nominations accepted at plotzd@slate.com!)

I look forward to Plotz's book. I think it might prove an excellent resource for biblically illiterate Quakers to find their way through the Good Book in a way that is intelligent, humorous, and meaningful.

I'd sure love to see a qualfied Quaker Bible-reader/writer apply for this position. The crew at Friendly Skripture Study may be a good place to start.

Ten reasons why baseball is God's game

2007-05-31T13:13:00.000-05:00

I couldn't say it better myself.

Prayer

2007-05-28T21:16:00.000-05:00

I'm just back from Northern Yearly Meeting. For a lot of reasons, I wasn't looking forward to going, but like a lot of things I do despite initial misgivings, I'm glad I did. We met, as we have for the last five or six years, at a beautiful Lions Club camp in east-central Wisconsin with a lake, boats of various kinds, a magnificent array of birds, lots of green space, camping and accessible cabins, and (this year) about 300 Friends.

One of the highlights for me was a workshop I took with Traci Hjelt Sullivan, FGC Gathering Coordinator, who was FGC's official representative. I forget the exact title she used, but it was something like "Prayer after the Lord's Prayer." She used a booklet by Judy Brutz where Judy, using various biblical texts, composed prayers following the basic petitionary pattern of the Lord's Prayer. (Paul Buckley has published a pamphlet with a similar exercise based on his article in Friends Journal a year or two ago.) After explaining the workshop and reading a couple of Judy's examples, we had 20 minutes to write our own prayers, after which we read them to each other aloud twice.

I am not a regular practitioner of petitionary prayer, but I've been so impressed by my friends who are and what it seems to do for them that I am trying to find a way to get it into my life. Using the framework of the Lord's Prayer was very helpful to me. (Not everyone used it, and that was explicitly OK.) This prayer was an authentic statement of the state of my soul at the moment, and I felt better afterwards. (While I'm tempted to fiddle with it, to "improve" it, to keep its imperfect, spontaneous flavor I have only very lightly edited here from the original.)

OK. Let’s talk; or, let me talk now, and
you listen this time.
Listen: I know you can hear me, wherever you are
wherever I am.

You are the one for me. I’ve forsaken all others.
(Some have forsaken me).
Yours is the name I answer to now.

That said:

When will you keep your promises to me?
I wait and wait for your kingdom to appear –
which is embarrassing when I live in a democracy –
but I can’t see may signs of it,
except in your promises and in my dreams.

Please. Help me see your kingdom coming soon
so I don’t sink deeper into despair,
Like the last time.

I say this knowing that you-are-who-you-are
and that what you say goes,
here in Minnesota as much as in the world to come.

But still.

Thank you for everything you give to keep me alive, every day:
The air, the food, and water.
Help me to remember:
I always have enough. I don’t need more.
Even when I say otherwise.

I confess I’ve let you down. Once again.
Please forgive me – like you promised –
and I will forgive those who have let me down –
like I promised.

Above all, protect me from the Adversary.
He is more treacherous now than the day you took me away from him.
And more subtle: He now has learned to speak in your voice,
and sometimes I turn to him, thinking it was you.
Help me to recognize the difference before it is too late.

It’s all yours. It’s all yours. This I know.
But please: Help me remember.

Sigh. I started this intending to give you hell for leaving me alone, once again.
But like always, I feel your own soft hand
dry the tears from my weeping eyes,
and I melt.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Let it be so.

So it goes.

2007-04-12T00:55:00.000-05:00

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
11-11-1922 to 4-11-2007
Prophet and Writer

Image from Salon.com

"I have experienced what happens when I die, and so have you. We call it sleeping. . . . When somebody dies, it's usually unsurprising and so it goes. What could be more ordinary?"

From Studs Terkel, Will the Circle be Unbroken: Reflections on Death, Rebirth and Hunger for a Faith (2001) at 222, 227.

Image from Salon.com

Offering hospitality to the active life of the living God

2007-04-08T15:16:00.000-05:00

Robin M over at What Canst Thou Say has a guest post from Brian Drayton, following up on a talk Brian made to Quaker Heritage Day at Berkeley Friends Church a few weeks ago. It is a beautiful post, in the style of an old-fashioned epistle. The title of my post comes from this sentence in the second paragraph:

Our mission, our calling, is to offer hospitality to the active life of the living God, and so all ministry is given to help each other in this great task.

The remainder of Brian's epistle talks about "place of stillness, when the many voices calling and commanding us from self, society, and culture can be set into the background, and for a while, to our surprise, lose their command over our attention."

But I want to play a bit more with the hospitality angle. Brian's use of the term "hospitality" reminded me of Henri Nouwan for whom hospitality was central. In his book, Reaching Out, he lists characteristics of authentic hospitality (paraphrased here):

1. Free and friendly space - creating physical, emotional, and spiritual space for the newcomer to join us.

2. Stranger becomes a guest - in that atmosphere of hospitality, the stranger is treated like a guest and potential friend.

3. Guest protected - hospitality requires that we offer protection or "sanctuary" to the guest.

4. Host gives gifts - the host welcomes the guest by providing the best gifts possible.

5. Guest gives gifts - in that environment of hospitality, the guest often reciprocates and gives gifts to the host, too.

6. Poverty of heart and mind - in order for us as hosts to receive the "gifts" that our guests bring, we need an attitude which Nouwen calls "poverty of heart and mind" - in other words, we have to believe that we don 't know it all and have not experienced it all, but we are receptive to learn from newcomers.

7. All guests are important, gifted - in the environment of hospitality, we discover that all guests are important and gifts, even those we might least suspect.

8. Acceptance, not hostility - Nouwen reminds us that hospitality is based upon acceptance, not hostility, especially the kinds of subtle hostility which makes fun of newcomers or puts the newcomer into embarrassing situations.

9. Compassion - hospitality is basically a sense of compassion, a realization that we are more alike than we are different.

10. Confrontation, honesty - hospitality is not being a doormat to the guest, it includes confronting one another in honesty, as well as with compassion.

11. God as the ultimate Host - hospitality reminds us that we are all guests of God who is the ultimate Host who welcomes us.

Nouwen is speaking in concrete, ethical terms, of how to offer hospitality to other people in ordinary day-to-day life, which is certainly one way of understanding what the "active work of the living God" is all about. But what if we would turn point 11 around and begin to think of God as the ultimate Guest for whom we have the honor to offer hospitality? Could the image of Quaker meetings being engaged in offering hospitality to God be a useful organizing concept?

I am not sure it would be quite accurate to characterize God as a "stranger" to our meetings. (He certainly had a strongly felt presence at ours this morning.) But I think it's safe to say that he doesn't visit as often as we would like. Can we do things to make him feel more welcome?

What can we do to make our meetings for worship and business as free and friendly places where we provide space for God to visit and do his work?

How can we provide God sanctuary and protection from the unfriendly and doubting world that denies his very existence and in which his active life is not welcome? Is it possible to keep at least some of the world at bay in the physical and spiritual space of our meetings?

Can we practice true poverty of heart and mind so that we are able to receive the gifts our Guest wishes to give us? Are we willing to give up our preconceptions?

Do we have the courage to engage in honest confrontation with God, where we are able to not only follow the way he leads us on, but to also engage honestly, as Jesus did when he asked that the bitter cup he was about to face be removed? Are we willing to argue with God when we don't understand?

I realize the limitations of this metaphor. We are the ones who have become estranged from God, not he from us. There is a certain presumptiousness to even think that we have anything to offer God in the form of a gift. Nevertheless, making a place in my life where God would feel welcome, where I'd clear away the clutter and chatter of my own active life to give him my undivided attention sounds like a good idea.

I swear, I'm really loving this book.

2007-04-07T23:57:00.000-05:00

What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done;
there is nothing new under the sun. (Eccl. 1:9)

This proverb has been resounding in my head for the past couple of weeks as I continue to read William Braithwaite’s The Beginnings of Quakerism and (now) The Second Period of Quakerism. I had the same feeling last year when I read the Acts of the Apostles. These histories of the early days of the church cover practically all of the topics we’ve been talking about in our Quaker blogs and meetings. Questions of religious identity; the relationship of tradition and the present; the tension between prophetic witness to and peaceful coexistence with the world; how newcomers are integrated into the existing community.

This past week, I have read and reread chapter VII and what Braithwaite calls “the tedious tale of the Affirmation.” The tale is of how Quakers dealt with oaths in the years immediately following the Glorious Revolution that sent the popish James Stuart II to France and brought in Protestant William of Orange and Mary from Holland to be King and Queen.

The issue arose in 1689 after nearly 30 years of unrelenting and unspeakably cruel persecution of Friends after the restoration of Charles Stuart II to the throne in 1660. Charles, like Cromwell, was well-disposed towards Friends; but his political base, the Cavailers – losers in the English Civil War of the 1640s – had returned to England with a determination to force England into domestic religious and political peace by forcing the dissenting sects that had sprouted and gained strength during the Commonwealth time into explicit loyalty to the King and strict conformity to the Church of England. They enacted and enforced a series of laws that were repugnant to all the Dissenters, but especially the Quakers.

Among these were laws requiring oaths of allegiance to the King and of fidelity to the Church of England. If a person was asked to take one of these oaths, and the proffer was declined, the person face the penalty of praemunire, which was to be placed out of the King’s protection (i.e., an outlaw), have one’s estate forfeited to the King, and indefinite imprisonment. Thousands of Quakers were imprisoned, deported, and impoverished by the application of these (and other) laws. The Friends’ steady, persistent though nonviolent resistance to even the slightest intrusion onto their consciences is one of the most remarkable and admirable examples of prophetic witness we have ever seen.

By 1689 – 29 years after the Restoration and the ouster of the last of the Stuart kings – William and Mary and their Parliament realized that England could achieve domestic tranquility (and political unity needed to fight the French) by moving the fences out a bit and enacted the Act of Toleration to put an end to the worst of the divisive suppression of the Quakers and other Dissenters. It wasn’t perfect – it didn’t protect Catholics or Unitarians; tithes and punishment for not paying them were retained, and Dissenters were still barred from public office – but by and large most of the most onerous and oppressive measures were either repealed or made inactive.

But the problems of oaths remained thorny to both sides. Oaths of allegiance to William and Mary and belief in the Trinity and against Transubstantiation (i.e., that one was not a Unitarian or Catholic) were required for political and what we would call “national security” purposes to prevent the very real threat of a Jacobean Catholic coup, as were the ordinary truth-telling oaths required to sue or defend and give testimony in court, or to have a will probated, or property transactions registered.

Recognizing that to require Quakers to take the political and religious oaths would not bring the domestic peace that they were seeking, William and Mary and Parliament, made an exception for Friends (and others who had scruples against oaths) by permitting them to make the following Declarations:

I, A.B. do sincerely promise and solemnly declare before God and the world that I will be true and faithful to King William and Queen Mary. And I do solemnly profess and declare that I do from my heart abhor . . . that damnable doctrine and position, that Princes excommunicated or deprived by the Pope . . . may be deposed or murdered by their subjects or any other whatsoever. And I do declare that no Foreign Prince, Person, Prelate, State or Potentate, has or ought to have any Power, . . . ecclesiastical or spiritual, within the realm.

And

I, A.B., profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ, His eternal Son, the true God, and in the Holy Spirit, one God blessed for evermore: and do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by Divine Inspiration.

(The final form of these Declarations was agreed to by Parliament that had made several concessions to the Quakers, for example, by replacing “the revealed Will and Word of God” with “given by Divine Inspiration”).

Despite the government’s intent, it appears that most Friends would not say the Declarations because they appeared to be in the form of an oath, invoking the Deity as a “magical” witness to guarantee truthful testimony. It wasn’t because they didn’t believe in the substance of what was being declared – they were obedient and non-resistant to the civil authorities, anti-Catholic as a matter of religious principal, believed in God and the divine origins of scripture (though a few doubted the latter, even at that early date.)

Efforts were then made to find some way that Friends could affirm the truth of what they were saying that satisfied the public’s need for recognition of the solemnity of certain speech and the Quaker’s desire to let their Aye be Aye and their Nay Nay, as Jesus has instructed.

As early as 1662, Quakers had differentiated between an “affirmation” that they were telling the truth – which was acceptable – and an “oath,” which was not. The difference was a subtle one that makes up much of the “tedious tale” Braithwaite tells.

To get its full flavor, you have to read the book. But the short of it is that the Affirmation Act permitted Friends to replace an oath with the affirmation: “I do declare in the presence of Almighty God, the Witness of the truth of what I say.” One party of Friends – known as the “Satisfieds” -- was willing to accept what the Affirmation on the basis that God was indeed omnipresent and omniscient and that declaring the obvious did not constitute an oath (which typically requires some explicit or implicit tempting of punishment if it is broken, such as “may God strike me dead” or “cross my heart and hope to die”). Another party – the “Dissatisfieds” -- believed that Christians were called to a single standard of truth at all times and that use of any “extrinsic medium” to evoke truth-telling was sinful and superstitious.

The controversy took place in many forms and fora we would recognize today. Before the Act was enacted, London Yearly Meeting “debated” (Braithwaite’s word) for “several days” and finally agreed – though not without dissent – that phrases such as “before God”, “in the sight of God”, “in the presence of God, or “in the fear of God” were acceptable. There was then controversy whether Friends who were punished for refusing the Affirmation should be recorded in the official book of Sufferings when, as a body, the Yearly Meeting had given them liberty to use it.

Braithwaite quotes Thomas Gwin’s account of the Yearly Meeting in 1712 when the question of whether to support the extension of the Affirmation Act was discussed. Have you ever attended a business meeting like this?

[T]here were so many Friends and such different apprehensions in respect of the Affirmation that it appeared in public preaching; so I was silent that day. The week following we were daily at Yearly Meeting, where we wanted not contests. The first dispute was in relation to entering the sufferings of such as refused to affirm on their entries of leather which was refused by some, but, after a day’s and a half’s contention, was agreed to be entered. . . . After many days’ debate, in which we came to no end, it [the question of the Affirmation] was committed to eight Friends, four of each party . . . who agreed on the following Minute: That the dissatisfied should proceed to solicit [lobby Parliament to make the affirmation more acceptable] next session, and, in case they obtained not, no endeavours should be used to destroy the present Affirmation, and the satisfieds to concur in such solicitations. This took, they being wearied with disputes; and so it was quieted for the present.

During all this controversy, I was as a fool or a child; I said almost nothing of either side, being altogether unwilling to promote faction . . . though those quarrels struck deep on my spirit, and I went in a bowed-down sense from day to day . . . . Other matters were soon finished; but this dispute made it hold eleven days, that might otherwise end in less than half the time. The parting meeting was not attended with usual freshness; and at least they seemed to strive who should have the last word. . . . [At the meetings for worship] the dissatisfied seemed to be the most living ministers, yet I still wanted what I found formerly in those meetings, that I mourned in secret and was ready to wish myself at home.

The Second Period of Quakerism pp 192-93.

In addition to long and contentious and indecisive Yearly Meeting sessions, the two sides of the Affirmation controversy used the Internet of its day – pamphleteering – to vigorously press their cases. The lawyer in me was impressed by the ingenious and persuasive arguments made by each side and their citation of the Bible, tradition, and pragmatism as supports. And it wasn’t as if either side was trying to “win”; each thought it was right and wanted the others to understand why.

It was also interesting to read how the divisions somewhat followed economic class (the better off urban Friends were satisfied with the Affirmation while the rural and Irish Friends with less to lose were more adamant in resisting it) and political lines (Tory-leaning Friends [who had generally seen the King as a better protector of religious liberty than Parliament] tended to be among the Dissatisfieds while the Satisfied Friends favored the limited-government Whigs and were loathe to undermine them politically by making a fuss that might bring Torys back to power).

Eventually, by 1722, the question was settled when Parliament amended the Affirmation to read, “I do solemnly, sincerely, and truly declare and affirm . . . .” Whether by principle or exhaustion, both factions of Friends approved this form and continue to to this day.

Braithwaite concludes with this balanced assessment:

Beneath the placid exterior of Georgian Quakerism there were divergences of temperament and conviction no less difficult of reconciliation than those which have threatened the unity of the Church in later days. Political principles, then as now, played their part in the formation of a man’s conscientious convictions, not always without an admixture of prejudice, which confused the moral issue, and caused a biased judgment upon the action of others. The world, with its benumbing prosperity, was leading many to forsake the way of the cross. The tradition of the fathers and the strength of the Society’s central organization were at times used to overbear the scruples of tender consciences. In the other party [i.e., the Satisfieds] there had been much bitterness of judgment and over-refinement of argument, and on both sides the beginnings of a dividing spirit. We see forces at work which bear a close resemblance to those that perplex the solution of our modern problems.

But we see also much to admire, especially the long patience which allowed the question to remain open through the years of heated feeling until it could be settled with a cool and united judgment in a way easy to all. The dissatisfied could have denounced as swearers and apostates those who secured and used the old form of affirmation, and the satisfied have reviled as atheists the Friends who scrupled all reference to the Name of God. But there was very little of this willful misreading of motives. This is the more remarkable, as the restraint of speech which is common to-day is one of the consequences of the self-controlled freedom that we enjoy, and was not the character of Englishmen two hundred years ago.

Id. at 204-05.

Like I said at the beginning, reading this episode of our history is a lot like looking in a mirror. Knowing some of what follows, it is even more valuable as a way of understanding who we are, and how we got that way.

Anyone can not hit first. It takes something else to not hit back.

2007-04-02T12:01:00.000-05:00

I spent most of the first half of March with John Howard Yoder's The Politics of Jesus, (summarized here) and the balance with William C. Braithwaite's The Beginnings of Quakerism, so my mind was prepared for a deeper understanding of this observation by Kim Fabricius Faith and Theology:

It is characteristic for the risen Christ to greet his disciples with the word shalom: “Peace be with you!” He calms their fear – of retribution, perhaps? After all, these were the men who, despite their protestations of loyalty, had abandoned their master to his fate. Perhaps now it was payback time for their betrayal? And what of Caiaphas and Pilate and all who had connived in the murder of Jesus – might we not expect a risen Terminator: “I’ll be back – and this time it’s personal”? Christian pacifists are often accused of arguing their case from the Crucified who refuses the way of violence. But the power of pacifism equally comes from the Risen One who refuses the way of vengeance. “Jesus is judge because he is victim; and that very fact means that he is a judge who will not condemn” (Rowan Williams).

P.S. If anyone can help me understand why the
line-spacing always scrunches up after I use Blogger's Block Quote tool, and how to fix it, I'd appreciate it. (Readers might, too.)
LATER: Problem understood and solved. Thanks Gerry!

That was Zen; this is Tao

2007-03-26T15:39:00.000-05:00

David Plotz at his Blogging the Bible series at Slate.com has a good post today. He's always funny in a gentle way, but today he supplies a pun that will live in infamy. I will rebuke him not, however. Writing on the Book of Proverbs, ch 30:

Solomon wraps up his proverbial duties after 29 chapters and hands the pen off to someone named Agur. Solomon writes in a straightforward, didactic style, but Agur is elusive, preferring riddles. For example: "Four are among the tiniest on earth, yet they are the wisest of the wise; Ants are a folk without power, yet they prepare food for themselves in summer; The badger is a folk without strength, yet it makes its home in the rock; The locusts have no king, yet they all march forth in formation; You can catch a lizard in your hand, yet it is found in royal palaces." (This is less a proverb than a Zen koan. Or perhaps, since this is the Hebrew Bible we are talking about, a Zen Cohen.)

Judge Fell: Quaker liberal?

2007-03-20T19:51:00.000-05:00

I've resumed my journey through The Beginnings of Quakerism by Willam Braithwaite that I started before the Quakerism 101 class but had laid aside for a couple of months.

Today, I was taken with this passage concerning Margaret Fell's husband, after a paragraph that noted that he would often sit in his "justice-room" with the door ajar at Swarthmore Hall to hear Quaker preaching:

Thomas Fell protected the new [Quaker] movement, but he never identified himself with it. He showed many kindnesses to Friends, and shielded them from persecution: his wife says that during his last illness he became more than usually loving to them, having been always a merciful man to God's people. But the same breadth of judgment which enabled him to appreciate the deep spirituality of Quakerism would also give him unity with true-hearted men outside the Quaker pale, and he no doubt preserved to the last the catholicity which had thrown Swarthmore open to ministers and religious people of all kinds.

The Beginnings of Quakerism at 104.

If this is accurate, then I think we can identify Judge Fell as perhaps the first Quaker liberal. As we're told, he never accepted the label of Quaker, but this brief description paints a picture of a kind of person we all know from our meetings. He is kind and protective, a minister of justice. He permitted his home to be a sanctuary to the dissenters of his day with a wide front door. He obviously had a sentimental fondness for Quakers, especially at the end of his life. We might say he shared their values, if not their identity, and was the quintessential friend of Friends. He may well have live a sanctified life.

I know I would have loved him and enjoyed his company; he's the kind of man I've always been attracted to. I would also admire his cool reserve and his "unity with true-hearted men" and "catholicity" -- he was a universalist of the best sort, accepting, non-exclusive. But more than this, I love his honesty: despite his obvious sympathy with the Quakers and other dissenters, he did not "join" the movement, but served and supported it from a different position.

Today, I imagine he'd be like one of those long-time attenders of the meeting and surprises everyone when they learn he isn't a member. His insights and wisdom would be sought out and followed. He is probably a quiet and significant financial contributer to the meeting, and perhaps has made significant witness -- perhaps a war tax resister? -- with a kind of steady, solid depth that makes him "the kind of Friend I'd like to be" to most members of the meeting. Every meeting needs men and women like this in its midst.

Nevertheless, he would be clear in his own mind he was not himself a Quaker. Perhaps he was a skeptic by temperament, constitutionally incapable of commitment. But more likely he was simply fastidious and could not in good conscience "join" the Quakers without having experienced the convicting conversion experience that was at its core. He perhaps felt like Groucho Marx who didn't want to join any club that would accept somebody like him as a member.

Today, I think we have a lot of members of our meetings who are like Judge Fell in the strength of their character and their high-mindedness, except that they do not share his scruples against claiming membership in the Quaker movement. My sense is that a great many of the beloved elders of our Society came to Friends during the pre- and post-World War II era, the cream of the progressive religious and political traditions (the New Deal and the Social Gospel) -- especially in the college-town Beanite meetings -- who were attracted to Quakerism by its "values" and by their experiences in Quaker-run projects (e.g., CPS and AFSC work camps), but who never accepted the necessity of the conviction and conversion that was the heart of the Quaker experience, though many of them were deeply "spiritual" in their own ways. They lived the lives of saints and prophets.

Initially, these newer, convinced Friends were familiar from their childhood with the biblical narrative and the Christian ethos that was common to traditional Quakers. This common religious vocabulary helped the newer and older Friends to talk with each other in meaningful ways, but for these Friends Quaker Christianity was accepted as an historical artifact rather than a defining characteristic or commitment, something incidental rather than essential to the movement. Instead of drawing their identity and role models from Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, Peter, Paul, or even Fox, Fell, Barclay, Penn, Pennington, Woolman, etc., they think of themselves more as heirs to the abolitionists, womens suffrigists, labor union organizers, civil rights martyrs, and peace protesters -- Quaker and non-Quaker alike.

In due time, acceptance the Bible as an important source of religious truth and authority (second only the authority of the Living God who continues to teach and instruct within our hearts) degraded into no authority and familarity with this heritage weakened. The Bible and its story and images is no longer the common tongue among liberal US Friends; it is, at best, one of many sources of sacred texts. (This is an opinion I expect Judge Fell might hold if he were among us today.)

The difference, of course, is that today, the meeting might encourage a man or woman like Judge Fell to become a formal member of the Quaker movement, despite his inability to commit to or identify with (what once was) its central tenets. It's not enough, somehow, to remain a friend and protecter and supporter of Friends because of an insignificant difference of religious opinion -- such as faith in a living God -- if it doesn't bother us, why should it bother you?

All of which creates the situation I faced recently where I was asked to preface statements I make about God to the 4-year olds I teach in First Day School (e.g., "Jesus is our great teacher" "God lives within you") with "I believe. . . " lest I indoctrinate them and thwart their individual spiritual development. When I protested that this qualification was unnecessary because "we" believe in God, I was told, "I'm a Quaker and I don't believe in God", and therefore my statement was disrespectful as well as untrue.

I don't think I would have had this problem with Judge Fell; or he with me.

Welcome back

2007-03-01T20:19:00.000-06:00

I've learned from experience never to begin a presentation by apologizing, but for some reason I've begun a lot of my recent posts apologizing for not writing recently. So I won't, even though I've just missed the first calendar month (Feb. 2007) since I began this blog (June 2005). Here are two of the things that have kept me busy away from the blog.

Lovely Wife and I had a wonderful four-day vacation to New York in late January. Eldest Daughter and Dan-her-Man were out of town and let us stay in their beautiful apartment at 1 Main Street, Brooklyn, which is in the DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) neighborhood, right between the Brooklyn & Manhattan Bridges on the East River.

We did a lot of the typical New York tourist stuff: museums (the Cloisters, MOMA, Natural History, American Indian); a Broadway show (The Apple Tree); Times Square at night; ate in gems of restaurants; enjoyed subway musicians, like this man playing his Chinese banjo with a snake-skin head; walked the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, etc. Our poor calves were as tight as the bridges' suspension cables from so much walking, but we loved every minute of it. (Thanks to Sister Holly for coming to care for Mother Holly and Children.)

We especially enjoyed visiting the meetinghouses of New York Yearly and 15th Street Monthly Meetings on 15th Street and Rutherford Place in Manhattan, across from Stuyvesant Park. We first went there on Friday evening to be sure we knew how to get there, and then again on Sunday morning for worship.

It was a good meeting with powerful ministry about witnessing to what we have ourselves seen, based on I John 1 ("For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness. . . ). I especially appreciated the ministry of the Friend who reminded us that we were witnessing for our Lord (which made me wish I could remember how to sing "Who'll be a witness for my Lord? My soul'll be a witness for my lord!" [click on Play Sample]).

Afterwards, I enjoyed meeting Rich the Brooklyn Quaker (on the right) and Lorcan and learning some of the history of the meetinghouse, including how it once sheltered free blacks in its coal room during the New York draft riots of 1863 (but not, Lorcan says, as part of the pre-war Underground Railroad).

Lorcan then helpfully directed us to the former Orthodox meetinghouse that is now a synagogue on Gramercy Park. (The Orthodox meetinghouse -- of quite a different architectural style -- was sold when the two meetings merged in the 1960s.) I have now visited Morningside, Brooklyn, and 15th St meetings in New York City and have enjoyed each one.

* * * * *

Quakerism 101. Upon returning home, I started leading a 7-week Quakerism 101 class. (Session 7 was to be last night, but we cancelled it because of the snowstorm that is still blizzarding as I type.) It was the third time in as many years that I've led it, but this year I did almost all of the teaching (my co-leader acted as my support person, like an elder) and, because I chose almost all new readings than those in the Philadelphia YM course we've used before, I had a lot more preparation to do. It was time consuming, but it was a labor of love.

More so than in previous years, I presented Quakerism from more explicitly Christian perspective, emphasizing the less well understood spiritual foundation of Quakerism somewhat more than the more familiar outward signs (e.g., "silent" worship, testimonies). I told the class on the first day of my bias and that there are other perspectives on Quaker theology and history and that they were under no obligation to take my word for any of it, so I felt more free to teach it from my viewpoint without distracting qualifications or disclaimers.

There were about 30 participants, some of whom are long-time Quakers (only one of whom, though, was raised in a Quaker family, and in our meeting), others who have begun to attend more recently, a couple of teachers from Friends School, and a handful who have never attended meeting who came on the recommendation of a spouse or friend. (Several were from other meetings in town.) This range of diverse experience was a challenge, but I was pleased that attendance held up and that the large and small group discussions consistently seemed engaged and energetic.

Here's the reading list I used:
Books:
Silence and Witness: The Quaker Tradition by Michael L Birkel
Quakers in America by Thomas Hamm
Encounter with Silence by John Punshon
Essays on the Quaker Vision of Gospel Order by Lloyd Lee Wilson

Pamphlets:
Creeds and Quakers: What's Belief Got To Do With It? by Robert Griswold (Pendle Hill Pamphlet 377)
Living in Virtue, Declaring Against War: The Spiritual Roots of the Peace Testimony by Steve Smith (Pendle Hill Pamphlet 378)
Members One of Another by Thomas Gates (Pendle Hill Pamphlet 371)
The Inward Light: How Quakerism Unites Universalism And Christianity by Samuel Caldwell
George Fox's Message is Relevant for Today by Lewis Benson (New Foundation -- Publication 2) (I couldn't find a source to buy this on-line except an e-bay auction asking $30 to buy-it-now for a 12 page pamphlet [but in new condition!].)

(Thanks to Martin Kelly for suggesting Silence and Witness and to the publisher for finally putting out a more affordable paperbound edition of Quakers in America ($25 vs. $40 for the hard-bound edition.) Even though we only read excerpts from the books, this was a pretty hefty reading list and it may have been a bit much. Nevertheless, most people seemed to have read most of the readings each week.

(If I lead this course again, I would like to use Marshall Massey's remarkable essay-in-progress on doctrines, dogma, and confession of faith if it is available in print.)

I guess my bias shows in my reading list, too. I didn't realize until after I had completed it that each book (except the Benson pamphlet) was written by a contemporary, living Quaker. While this wasn't by design, it did give me an unexpected source of hope for the survival of the Gospel during these troubled times.

But what I really want to say about my experience leading this class is that there is among Friends -- longtime and new attenders alike -- a hunger for information and a systematic way to learn about and study the phenomenon of Quakerism within a framework of familiar categories so it can be compared and contrasted to other religious communities and traditions they may be familiar with. It seems that almost everyone who comes to our meeting understands pretty well how Quakerism is similar to other religious traditions, but they also want to know what makes Quakers unique and worthy of their commitment. Books can help do this, of course, but learning together, interactively, is what it feels like people want and need.

We've now had more than a hundred people in three years participate in Quakerism 101 in our meeting. Many were relatively new to the meeting, and almost all of them have continued to attend meeting regularly and have increased their commitment to it. If I may generalize from our meeting's experience to other largish FGC-affiliated meetings, the fact that so many are willing to make such a commitment to learn about what Quakerism is tells me that there is pent up demand (as economists would say) for teaching ministry in our meetings.

This is a different hunger than that which my Friend Tom is feeding with the multi-week workshops he's been leading in our meeting that have more of a spiritual formation or devotional focus, e.g. how to praying without ceasing, vocal ministry, epistles of George Fox, readings from Pennington and Barclay, etc. Those workshops are also very well attended and received and have deepended the participants' spiritual lives and commitment to the meeting. They are, I believe, ultimately more valuable than the generic Q-101 course. But both are necessary if Quakerism is to have any kind of self-identity, it seems to me.

A glimmer of gold in the night

2007-01-11T01:11:00.000-06:00

Up late. Mind racing. Plumbing and carpentry projects. Committee meetings that need to be called. A sudden influx of work at the office. A suprising and hopeful upcoming trip to New York. Beginning of Quakerism 101 next week. My beloved's snoring. Everything but sleep.

I turn on the light and pick up the Stringfellow anthology on the nightstand I've been dipping into now and then (mostly then, recently), open it up at random, and find the following:

The Christian faith is distingished, diametrically, from mere religion in that religion begins with the proposition that some god exists; Christianity, meanwhile, is rejoicing in God's manifest presence among us. Religion describes human beings, mind you, usually sincere and honorable and intelligent ones, searching for God or, more characteristically, searching for some substitute for God -- that is, some idea of what God may be like -- or would be like -- and then worshiping that idea and surrounding that subsitution with dogma and discipline. But the gospel tells us when and how and why and where God has sought us and found us and offered to take us into God's life. . . .

In short, religion supposes that God is yet to be discovered; Christianity knows that God has already come among us. Religious speculation suspects there is God, somewhere, sometime; the gospel reports God's presence and action in this world even in those circumstances of which we are unaware. Religion suppresses the truth because the truth obviates religion.

From: William Stringfellow, Private and Public Faith, 1962, pp 14-17, reprinted in A Keeper of the Word: Selected Writings of William Stringfellow, ed. Bill Wylie Kellermann, Erdmans, 1994, pp 120-21.

Telling the stories and singing the songs

2006-12-25T22:51:00.000-06:00

As I write this, Only Son and I are listening to a rebroadcast of Game 7 of the 1991 World Series between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves. The Twins are changing radio broadcasters this year, and the new station has been airing back-to-back all 14 games of the 1987 and 1991 World Series (with 30-second commercial breaks between innings instead of the usual 2 minutes). We've resisted listening round-the-clock (it is Christmas, after all), but we've been listening to this game from the first pitch.

Any of you who are real baseball fans will remember this game, and the series -- many believe it was the best game of the best World Series ever. The score was 0-0 through ten innings. Each team had opportunities to score but couldn't, sometimes because of spectacular fielding plays, once by an inexplicable base-running mistake. Twice late in the game each team had bases loaded with one out but hit into a double play. It was close and it was exciting.

Even though I know how the game "turned out," I'm on pins and needles. Many details I'd forgotten are coming back anew, brought out by the real-time radio announcers describing the game and the sound of the roaring crowd's surge and gasps. The fact that I know who won isn't taking away the experience of the game at all, and it really isn't the point.

Listening together with Only Son makes a difference. He was only five months old when the game was played, asleep in his mother's arms for most of it, except for being startled every couple of innings at some exciting play or another. We've reminisced about the game before, and have heard highlights of it, but this time we're listening to it together, pitch by pitch, inning by inning.

But the point of this post isn't about baseball, it's about Christmas. I know how that story turns out, too, but I never tire of retelling it, or of hearing it told. It always is alive for me, always fresh, always teaching something new, something deeper, something hidden that I'd missed before.

It's like this for all the important stories. It isn't how the story "turns out" that matters. The importance is in the telling, especially the retelling together in community where all listen together.

Here's one new insight I picked up this year. As the children get older, I've been reading more of the prophets during our Advent Sunday evenings in addition to the Matthew and Luke pasages. This year, I reached a few verses back from the Peaceable Kingdom passage of Isaiah 11 and it was like unwrapping a gift. Here's how that chapter starts:

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
A branch shall grow out of his roots.
And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,
The spirit of wisdom and understanding,
The spirit of counsel and might,
The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.

He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
or decide by what his ears hear;
but with righteousness he shall judge the poor
and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.;
and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth
and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked.

Righteousness shall be the girdle of his waist,
and faithfulness the girdle of his loins.

I love the spirits that rest upon the branch of Jesse, and the promise to "decide with equity for the meek of the earth." To a lawyer, this is a striking passage. The coming Messiah will not necessarily be even-handed in his application of the Law, deciding for the little guy only when the Law is on his side; the text says that he will decide for the meek, which either means that the Law is always on the side of the meek, or that the Law isn't a neutral set of principles after all but is a tool or weapon for righteousness.

And what is this about smiting the earth with the rod and slaying the wicked with his mouth and breath of his lips? And the girdles? These are amazing images, to me, and helps me understand "the fear of the Lord" in a new way.

I don't intend to meditate on the passage just now, but just to mention how telling the same story again can open new doors of understanding.

(As I was typing the last sentence, Gene Larkin hit in the winning run and the Twins won 1-0.)

* * * * *

This was a very good Christmas for singing. We sang carols during the adult education hour before meeting yesterday, and then after the Christmas Eve evening meeting for worship, this afternoon at a Catholic Charities shelter, and then again at a gathering of friends at a friend's house. The singing was vigorous and enthusiastic (even though it wasn't shape note). There is nothing that makes me feel better than singing.

* * * * *

Speaking of singing, we just watched the movie Joyeux Noel twice over the past few days, and I recommend it highly. It tells the story of Christmas Eve 1914 when German, Scot, and French soldiers met in no-man's-land and, well, fraternized (i.e., acted like brothers). The film is very nicely done with only a few over-the-top moments.

I had first heard of the incident from John McCutcheon's song Christmas in the Trenches, and again in an NPR interview with one of the last survivors of the events. (Apparently, in real life this happened at more than one place along the front. Also, a certain corporal Hitler was disgusted when he learned what happened and refused to participate.) The thing that Joyeux Noel and Christmas in the Trenches have most in common was that it was the soldiers' singing that started everything.

This does not surprise me. Singing the old songs again is a lot like retelling the old stories. It keeps alive a common memory over time, like passing a bit of genetic material from generation to generation. If singing could encourage soldiers to lay their arms down once, it can do so again.

God jul

2006-12-23T22:55:00.000-06:00

The Christian life is jazz.

2006-12-19T11:32:00.000-06:00

I probably have Quakersauer over at Friendly Skripture Study to thank for pointing me towards, Faith and Theology , a self-described Barthian blog. It's a bit -- no, a lot -- more academic in orientation than I am able to comprehend; most of the references are unknown to me.

Nevertheless, my recent immersion in the life and writings of William Stringfellow -- who, as a young lay theologian during Karl Barth's 1962 tour of the U.S. was singled out by Barth as one of the few who really got what he was saying -- gives me appreciation for at least some of what I read there.

Today, there's a particularly interesting essay entitled Ten Thoughts on the Literal and the Literary that that addresses much more powerfully the point I tried to make in my last post about how art can convey Truth better than most intellectual discourse. There is a particulary interesting though brief thought on something called "virtue ethics" that struck home, and about which I'd like to learn more.

The whole essay is worth reading, but here are a few tantalizing excerpts:

The more literal, the less literary a person is likely to be – and vice versa. . . . To plagiarise Paul, the literal crucifies, the literary resurrects: meaning walks through closed doors. “Tell all the Truth but tell it slant” Emily Dickinson).
* * *
Fundamentalist ethics are rule-based, and the answers to moral problems are found, decontextualised, at the back of the (good) book. Jesus’preferred method of ethical instruction, however, is the parable, “subversive speech” (William R. Herzog II). Indeed Richard B. Hays argues that a “symbolic world as context for moral discernment” is fundamental to the entire New Testament. “The kingdom of God is like this.” Enter the story, work it out – then act it out!
* * *
Rules are not excluded, but they function heuristically, as “perspicuous descriptive summaries of good judgments” (Martha Nussbaum), to inculcate habits appropriate to the development of Christ-like character. Moral theology works best when it tells the stories of the saints. Virtue ethics is narrative ethics,where the script is unfinished and improvisation is essential. The Christian life is jazz.
* * *
One of the great filmic send-ups of biblical literalism: the opening scene of Monty Python’s Life of Brian. The camera pans to Jesus preaching the Sermon on the Mount, and then to a group at a distance where our Lord’s voice doesn’t quite carry. “Blessed are the cheese makers,” one character hears. “What’s so special about the cheese makers?” asks a woman. “Obviously it is not to be taken literally,” her husband replies; “it refers to any manufacturer of dairy products.”
* * *
If we are ignorant of science we lapse into Idiocy 101-102: Creationism; or Imbecility 201-202: Intelligent Design. But if we are ignorant of literature, mere ignorance becomes downright dangerous – witness the nonsensical interpretations of biblical apocalypse by the religious right and its pernicious influence on American foreign policy in the Middle East.

I like this. It changes the question from "What do you think?" to "What's your story?"

La Natividad

2006-12-16T09:12:00.000-06:00

It's been uncommonly warm and dry in Minneapolis and I've had some trouble getting into the Christmas Spirit. Baking cookies for St. Nicholas Day helped a bit (it was cold that week, actually), but not so much. But I'm gradually getting there.

First was a couple of Sunday afternoon singings -- one from the Sacred Harp, the other of Christmas carols from Worship in Song. These got the right juices flowing a bit.

On Tuesday, our men's group went to the home of one of our members who is recovering from surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy for esophogeal cancer. We had arranged with his wife that our coming was OK, and we entered the unlocked door singing, of course, God rest ye, merry gentlemen. We were warned that John tired easily and that 15 to 20 minutes might be all he could take. But we ended up staying two hours, alternately visiting and singing and had to pull ourselves away at 11. There were four of us singing, and each of the others knew his harmony part, so I could sing melody and it sounded wonderful.

Then came last night.

Two weeks ago last Friday, I was at In the Heart of the Beast Puppet & Mask Theater for a meeting concerning next summer's FGC Gathering. When the meeting was over, I went upstairs to buy tickets to HOBT's Christmas program, La Natividad. I happened to remark that I was disappointed that the leaflet seeking volunteers arrived at my home arrived two weeks after rehearsals started - I had wanted to sing in the show's choir. Not to worry, someone said, we still need volunteers, and what do you know?: I was made the star of the show.

That is, I was given the job of carrying the Star of Bethlehem, a swirling 4-foot wide four-armed star (think swastika with the arms spiraling inward) painted brilliant white and lashed to the end of a 15-foot wooden pole, lately a trunk or branch of a tree. It isn't quite as easy as it sounds -- the whole contraption weighs 15 to 20 pounds, with the bulk of the weight on the top end where the wind adds the weight of its own opinion -- but all in all it doesn't tax my dramatic talent very much.

The show is beautiful, as usual for anything HOBT does. It follows the Nativity story as told by Matthew and Luke, and is based on the Mexican Posada tradition. It begins in El Mercado Central on Lake Street with the Annunciation to Maria and José, after which the audience is herded across the street for the census which strongly resembles an immigration port of entry with all the associated indignities.

Then to the theater a half-block away where snoring and scratching shepherds on the stage are awakened by a couple of dozen of star children in blue and little white stars on sticks (can you say "cute"?) -- and the angel choir. After they leave for Bethlehem, the Star (ahem) rises slowly and settles stage left and the three Magi enter. They -- and the star -- are seen by a buffoonish but dangerously insecure Herod who defines the situation as one of insecure borders and poor intelligence, with "them" coming in "by land; by sea; by wooooman" he sneers. The Angel Choir sing the Magi's part, informing him that they seek the Holy Child, the King of Kings, the Prince of Peace, etc. Herod is understandably worried since he is the Decider around here thank you. He sends the big blue Kings off with the false request that they tell him where they find the Holy Child so he, too, can worship him. Ha. He fools no one.

The Star then leads the entire throng -- Magi, angels, star children, shepherds, audience, and masked oversized Maria y José riding their donkey -- north on 15th Avenue (lined on both sides with luminaria) towards St. Paul Lutheran Church three blocks away. The choir and brass band leads everyone in singing “En el nombre del cielo pedimos posada. . .” (In the name of heaven, we ask for a place to stay.) Over and over. And over. (I guess, if you're going to get a tune stuck in your head, you couldn't ask for a more lovely one.)

But there's trouble ahead. As we approach the bridge over the old railroad right-of-way that is now a bicycle greenway, we see a sinister border fence with Herod stands on a raised platform with a megaphone. He bars the way: You have no papers, no money, turn back. The scene is lit with spotlights and looks truly frightening. The procession stops just short of the fence. José three times steps forward and asks in the name of Heaven for shelter via large banners in English and Spanish; finally, he says "We come in peace" but Herod will have none of it.

While this confrontation is going on, from the far side of the fence -- from St. Paul church to the north -- comes Neighbors (led by the pastors of St. Paul) with star-torches and a giant banner saying "Bienviendos." They first appear as twinking lights but we recognize them as people as they gradually come closer and the tension at the border rises.

As they approach the fence, the Neighbors hold up signs saying "Tio" and "Tia", "Uncle" and "Aunt" and "Cousin" and "Hermana y Hermano" etc. recognizing the homeless couple as their relatives and welcoming them, despite the fence. Eventually, they hang the signs around the necks of Herod's henchmen (who are holding up the crossed fence poles) who realize that they are keeping their own relatives out in the cold. They slowly carry the poles over to Herod and gradually bury him creating an opening.

The procession is then welcomed by the Neighbors from St. Paul and everyone continues through the breach, following the Bienvenidos banner to the church. (The building is a beautiful old Swedish Lutheran church with Bible verses in Svensk on the stained glass windows; it is now predominately Hispanic.) The audience goes in, and then the Star leads in the Angels, Maria y Jose (now masked life-size figures) and the rest into the sanctuary. Maria y José take their place on a raised platform in front of the altar (and the Star). The choir sings a beautiful Mexican lullaby.

Then come the animals: a giant white crane; sheep; white deer or antelopes; mice; chipmunks; two blue-and-green timberwolves on all fours (with old Herod being the adult wolf -- we say he does wicked well); a Bison; etc. They and the Magi and the Star Children form a kind of screen around the creche, whereupon the masked Maria y José slip out and the living ones -- who we last saw at the Annunciation -- take their places along with their real live (5 week old) baby boy in arms. The adorers then part, and the congregation sees the living Holy Family and gives the most amazing sigh and gasp, and then applause. (That's when I started crying.)

Narrators then recite -- in English and Spanish -- portions of the Peaceable Kingdom prophecy from Isaiah 11 about the little child leading them, and the pastors invite everyone to a Fiesta in the church hall adjacent to the sanctuary and the band and choir start singing sprightly dancing songs and the entire congregation and performers join in.

I was pleased that my brother, his wife, and three of their four children came to the performance with us. I worried a bit initially that the political references might turn them off, but my friend Greg (one of the wisest of the wise men) talked to me at a rehearsal about the importance of the Living Word, of the Word manifesting and incarnating itself anew all the time, addressing the concrete circumstances of real people, not storybook characters. That reassured me and I stopped worrying about it.

It is so much fun being part of a production like this, but fun doesn't begin to describe it. I am so grateful for the opportunity to have a small part in giving a gift like this to our community, helping the dark streets shine with an everlasting light. I am more and more convinced that the Truth is conveyed more fully in the "arts" broadly defined -- story and literature, theater, song and music, poetry, all of them -- than in all the theological or philosophical disourse in the world, and I am so happy that In the Heart of the Beast gives me and hundreds like me the chance to participate.

A great teacher

2006-12-08T21:30:00.000-06:00

Today I learned of the death of a a man who made a difference, not only in my life, but in hundreds of others.

The phrase "bigger than life" is such a cliche that it's insulting to use it about Walt Reiner, but I can't think of anything better. The obituary below just hints at it.

I can't even begin to describe how he influenced my life. I met him at Valparaiso University shortly before I went on the Urban Studies semester that he founded and was on the staff of. Upon returning to campus, I worked some with the organization that he helped to found that had helped the first black families move to Valparaiso, and gradually learned from him about how a committed Christian (though I was neither) engaged in the world. He was very political -- at least he talked a lot about politics -- but unconventionally, and radically. He never talked about elections or candidates or policies. He talked about "principalities" and "powers" and "technology" how they had lives of their own, independent of the people who worked for them, and that it was foolish to think they could be brought under control. They were to be contested and resisted even though resistance is futile. He said it was OK to be vegetarian, as long as we didn't think we were changing the world.

He was a friend and disciple of Jacques Ellul and I participated in several groups he led that read and discussed Ellul. To be honest, at the time I couldn't understand hardly anything that either Walt or Ellul said, except that I knew it was true and powerful and important and pointed to the way I wanted to go. I have only recently, through my growing acquaintance with the life and writings of William Stringfellow begun to be able to articulate what it was that Walt (and Jacques) were trying to say and understand why I always found it so powerful, even if it was mysterious.

But it wasn't just what he said, it was how he lived. He was a man of action. He was a builder, of a new house so a neighbor could move there from Chicago, or an addition to his own house so his mother-in-law could live there. I don't think he was very scrupulous about getting permits or anything like that; he didn't need Nike to tell him to just do it.

I remember when, on Urban Studies, there was a Very Important Discussion one morning about how unfair it was that everyone got the same number of CTA bus tokens when those of us who lived in Lincoln Park could walk to most of the class meetings but the folks from Uptown had to take the el and a bus each way. Someone stood up and proposed that everyone in the Lincoln Park group give X% of their tokens to the Uptown contingent, except for the ones who had a car who would get half the number etc. Walt stood up and said, don't make a program out of it, don't make a rule about it, just do it. Give up some of your tokens to your fellow students, but as friends helping each other, not as penance for some imagined injustice.

There was another telling thing about Walt: In the 1970 Valpo yearbook in the faculty section, many professors were shown lecturing in their classrooms, or maybe a couple riding their bicycles to class. But in the middle of that section there was a photo of a mass of people -- almost all of them black -- at some sort of a demonstration in a park in Chicago. I must have looked at that picture a hundred times before I noticed that, in the middle of it all, and looking in the opposite direction as most of the people, was Walt. There he was, in the midst of where it was happening, like he always was.

There was one very personal thing that I will never forget and for which I am eternally grateful. When I was 23, my girlfriend got pregnant. We didn't know what to do, so we did what was natural for any of us who had studied with Walt, we walked down to see him and Lois. We told them the news, and Walt's and Lois's response confirmed for us that this was in fact good news, the evidence not withstanding. We left saying, "The machine is not going to get this baby." It is not very much of an exaggeration to say that a beautiful 29-year old woman owes her life in large part to him.

Oh, this is so inadequate, but I like to think that I have continued however hesitently or indirectly down the path he steered me towards, and for that I am grateful for his life. Here's what the newspaper had to say:

Walt Reiner Valparaiso, IN. On December 5, 2006, Walt Reiner, who described himself as a "community resource redistributor" died surrounded by family and friends. Walt, 82, was born on December 29, 1923, in Tampa, Flordia, the youngest of three sons, to Otto and Frances (Mugge) Reiner.

Growing up during the days of the Great Depression, Walter helped support his family from a very young age, eventually enlisting in the U.S. Navy during World War II where he participated in the first wave of attacks on Omaha and Normandy beaches, and subsequently served tours in North Africa and East Asia.

Following the War, Walter attended Springfield College in Springfield, MA, and, upon graduation, accepted a football coaching position at Valparaiso University. During his tenure as "Coach" Walter led the Crusaders to its only bowl game in VU's history, coaching such legends as Fred "Fuzzy" Thurston (Green Bay Packers) and earning hall-of-fame status in 2001. Walter was given leave from his coaching duties to serve his country during the Korean War.

In 1952, he returned to VU and married the love of his life, his partner, his "Schatz" (treasure), and wife of 54 years, Lois (Bertram Dau) Reiner.

In the early 1960's, Walt was asked by former VU President, O.P. Kretzmann, to begin the Youth Leadership Training Program, which sought to connect young people to programs serving the broader community and world. In 1965, Walt moved his family to Chicago where he served as Director of Prince of Peace Volunteers, guiding 34 teams of volunteers in U.S. inner cities and overseas, whose work was captured in the documentary film "I Believe" which aired on NBC in 1966.

During the 1960's, Walt supported Vietnam War Conscientious Objectors and became a civil rights activist in his own right. His leadership activities and commitment to human rights sustained him through a heresy trial before the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod in 1967. From 1960 through 1968, Walt served as Director of Camp Concordia, a Lutheran camp in Gowen, Michigan. During the late sixties, Walt was a founder of the Association of the Colleges of the Midwest's Urban Studies Program in Chicago, offering students at Valparaiso University as well as a consortium of liberal arts colleges, the opportunity to truly experience the diversity of the city and to connect with those who were creatively addressing issues of racism, poverty, violence and other issues faced by thousands of people on a daily basis.

What Sacred Harp singers look like to others

2006-11-21T19:12:00.000-06:00

I was tickled by this report of the music committee for a past FGC Gathering. It is meant as a suggestion to future music committees and follows descriptions of other singing opportunities at the Gathering. It is as accurate and succinct description of Sacred Harp singers as I've ever read. (The line breaks were in the original; it reads to me like a poem.)

Shape Note/Sacred Harp.
They need to stand in a square and have good live sound.
They like a space with lots of resonance, not drapes and carpet,
where they can be loud.
If they don't like where you put them, they'll find their own space
and leave you a note.
They are very self sufficient.
They do not need a piano.

Blogging the Bible

2006-11-02T14:49:00.000-06:00

I haven't been writing much lately, for a lot of reasons, but think it's time to share how much I've been enjoying a series by David Plotz called Blogging the Bible at Slate.com. I've been reading it from time to time, but not consistenly, for several months.

I love that he takes the story seriously as an ordinary reader in the 21st century, without a lot (hardly any, actually) academic commentary or textual criticism or modern know-it-allism. He just retells the story as he reads it and comments on it in thoughtful, and frequently funny, ways. It doesn't replace friendly skripture study, of course, but it is a little easier to take in small doses.

I especially liked the way Plotz treated the long slogs through Deuteronomy and Numbers and makes them interesting. I guess I'm writing this now because I loved his re-telling of First Samuel, particularly the Saul-David relationship.

Here's small part of today's entry:

The Book of 2 Samuel

Chapter 1

Did Saul really kill himself? The final chapter of 1 Samuel made a big deal out of Saul's suicide. But the first chapter of 2 Samuel rebuts that story. An Amalekite messenger brings the news of Saul's death to David. When questioned, he says that he knows the king is dead because he killed Saul himself. The wounded king begged the Amalekite to finish him off, so he delivered the blow. You just know it's not going to end well for this regicidal Amalekite. Even though it was a mercy killing, David has the Amalekite executed. No matter what the reason, you're not allowed to murder the Lord's anointed. David is very savvy about protecting his own interest.
Always a good weeper, David cries again for Saul and Jonathan. He feels genuine and profound sorrow. David, let's remember, never touched a hair on Saul's head, even when Saul was trying to kill him. David sings a gorgeous lament about the deaths. (Hey, language mavens! This song is the source of the phrase: "How the mighty are fallen.") David reserves his deepest sorrow for Jonathan, of course: "Your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women." More speculation.
P.S. You can get to the entire series of Blogging the Bible here.

Keeping our eyes on the prize

2006-10-11T22:49:00.000-05:00

As requested, I'm posting here a lightly revised comment I made at The Good Raised Up the other day and mentioned in my previous post. It was written in response to Liz's discussion of the FGC Long Term Plan, and may make more sense if your read her post first. (But then you wouldn't need to read my comment here. . . .)

I'm just back from a Friends Journal board meeting where we did some soul-searching -- Who are we? What is our job? What would happen if we didn't exist? What should we look like in ten years? Etc.

This led to questions about whether the market for what we had to offer was inherently small (i.e., Quakers) -- which implies certain business and financial realities (i.e., Friends Journal will always depend on financial contributions over and above the cost of subscriptions and advertising revenue) -- or is it potentially very large (i.e., those who are hungry to hear the Everlasting Gospel) for which another business model is possible?
I was reminded of the chestnut about the janitor at NASA who was asked, "What do you do for a living?" And he answered, "I'm helping to put a man on the moon."*

I think the problem with Quaker organizations -- from the smallest worship group to the largest yearly meeting and all of the alphabet organizations -- is that they tend to act as if they're sweeping floors instead of putting men on the moon. (This is true for all religious organizations, of course.) Sweeping floors is honorable work and needs to be done, but it is not the end in itself. I see FGC's long-range plan as intimating some sense of its place in God's larger plan, but it isn't as explicit as it might be. It doesn't do much good to help people find Quakers if Quaker meetings are Lifeless and impotent.

If a Quaker Organization sees its primary mission as serving its own constituents, as FGC appears to have done (for perfectly understandable reasons) that implies a certain approach. But if its primary purpose is to bring about the Kingdom of God on Earth (or however you would state the mission of the Church), it will think of itself and go about its work in a different way.

In other words, is FGC seeking to serve the Society of Friends (or a certain branch of it) and do what those Friends want? Or is FGC's primary mission is to serve God and the church and God is telling FGC at the moment to help strengthen monthly and yearly meetings in all the ways its strategic plan says? These are very different questions and eventually produce different fruit.

The same questions could be asked of our monthly and yearly meetings.

I suspect that our Friend Martin Kelly's critique of FGC in particular and of the RSoF as a whole is that they (we) see our mission as sweeping floors: publishing curriculum and books, increasing intervisitation, creating a presence on the web, increasing our size and racial diversity, holding potluck suppers, making sure everybody feels comfortable, etc. -- instead of manifesting the Kingdom promised by the Gospel by these particular means. One reason is that we can't seem to agree on what the larger purpose is, and to avoid resolving that question we work on the best methods of keeping the kitchen floor clean.

I largely share that critique, though I see evidence that FGC is getting it right in some ways and that it's not a lost cause by any means. But neither is it inevitable. Watch and pray.

* I realize that the janitor's answer might just as well have been, "I'm helping to maintain and preserve U.S. hegemony over the world", but that wouldn't have made quite the same point, would it?

Some catching up to do

2006-10-10T13:10:00.000-05:00

I've been too busy to write anything recently, but here are a few things I've been reading and found to be valuable.

Marshall Massey has a very good post on how to read the Bible -- as an insider reading a family album.

Liz Opp has generated a lot of thoughtful comments with her discussion of the FGC Long Range Plan and whether it suggests that FGC is part of the convergent Friends movement. (I have a longish comment there that probably should have been posted here.)

I've just finished Taylor Branch's At Canaan's Edge, the third of his massive and masterful history of America in the King years. This one covers 1965-68. As any of you know who've read the earlier books, Branch is a magnificent storyteller, full of detail that makes reading the book like chewing a sandwich made with 7-grain bread -- you feel like you've accomplished something when you're done with it.

One of Branch's best points is how he weaves strands of different stories together to create a vivid picture of the time he's writing about, making connections that you hadn't seen before. In Canaan's Edge, for example, he weaves the rise of the Vietnam war with the ultimate demise of the Civil Rights Movement per se in such a way that made sense of a time that seemed nothing less than chaotic -- obviously important and historic but chaotic nonetheless -- during the time I was 10-14 years old and watching all this stuff on TV. For example, I knew in my memory that Dr. King was murdered only five days after LBJ abdicated running for a second full term, but I had forgotten how it felt to have the world fall apart all around me like that. Branch's book reminded me again. I can't recommend the book highly enough.

This past weekend, I picked up and am carefully reading Catholic Quakerism by Lewis Benson. (Although I bought the book at the FGC bookstore in person, it doesn't show up in its on-line catalog, for some reason. So the link is to New Foundation Fellowship.) I must have read it before because parts of it seem so familiar, but I couldn't have told you before rereading it much detail.

I love reading Benson, though his intensity and the challenge he poses usually scares me. It is as if I would like to believe as he does, but I haven't yet found the courage to do so. He, more than any other Quaker writer I've read other than ole George himself seems to be describing an alternate universe that exists and to which I have access if only I am willing to go there. In doing so, he explains the unique power of the Quaker message and gives us a reason to be. I'm especially impressed by his discussion of Quakerism's place in the ecumenical movement and how powerfully he argues that we are not merely a branch of liberal Protestantism -- or, at least, we need not settle for that weak soup.

On the plane to and from Philadelphia this weekend I read most of this month's issue of Friends Journal, which is a special issue on "What are Friends Called to Today?" (I was going to and from the Journal's board meeting.) Bloggers Robin Mohr and Martin Kelly have articles in it that I hope will lead many readers to their and other blogs to learn more about what this convergent Friends stuff is all about.

I also enjoyed fellow Northern Yearly Meeting member Kat Griffith's article "Conversations from the Heartland" about her experience talking politics with fellow home-schooling mothers who hold dramatically different political and religious views than she does. Or do they? I always enjoy Kat's writing which I find courageous and strong.

The entire issue is worth reading, and I hope that others find it useful in sparking something in their meetings.

I'm beginning to prepare to give a talk on how Quakers approach the Bible as part of an interfaith dialog sponsored by the St. Paul Council of Churches. There is a five or six week series where two or three speakers a night from the Abrahamic tradition -- Jews, Muslims, Christians -- discuss their respective approaches to the Book. I'm on with a B'hai and a Unitarian, which tells you something about how the rest of the Christian world places us. This is one reason why Marshal Massey's post mentioned above was so welcome. I am also interested to see how this experience influences how I teach Quakerism 101 again after the first of the year.

And there's lots more going on, actually, at home, at work, and in the meeting that is making me feel quite busy and just this side of frantic. I could use a long nap. But in the end I count it all a blessing to be so engaged. I just wish I had the time to do them all as well as I would like.

Where is thy sting?

2006-09-24T23:25:00.000-05:00

The Minnesota State Sacred Harp Convention was held this past weekend. Attendance was less than some past years, but the quality of the singing was excellent, as usual. There was a good number of first-time singers at the singing school conducted by Bruce Rye on Friday evening. I'm afraid, though, that he left many of them overwhelmed since he jumped into singing almost right away, with too little instruction. But his energy and passion was infectious. I was impressed by how he taught without a book in his hand -- he simply called out the tunes he wanted by number and sang them -- including shapes -- by heart. (And a good thing since the book he was carrying was the 1936 edition, not the 1991 revision we use.)

In addition to the reliable visitors from Chicago and St. Louis, there were several visitors from the United Kingdom -- mostly from Derby, as far as I could tell -- who we were very happy to have with us.

I had been asked a couple of weeks ago to give the memorial lesson, a time before dinner on Sunday when we remember singers who have died since the last convention or who are sick or shut-in. The custom is for a singer to say a few words, read the names, and lead a song in their memory. I put quite a lot of thought into what to say, mainly because brevity is encouraged and because I wanted to avoid being overly sentimental, which sometimes happens. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be, and ended up with two entirely different texts and not sure which one to use.

But then, on the Monday morning before the convention, the 93-year old mother-in-law of a favorite local singer died. She had welcomed us to sing in her home several times, and some local singers sang at her funeral. (I was unable to attend.) Then, we learned that the family emergency for which a singer from Portland, Oregon, had had to leave on Saturday afternoon was the impending death of her infant niece. So much of what I had prepared seemed inadequate all of a sudden, and I had to let go of my prepared remarks and let the spirit lead me.

As the morning progressed, every one of the seven songs that I had chosen to sing for the lesson had been used. (I'm not sure whether the rule against singing the same song twice in he same day applies generally to the memorial lesson, but I was advised not to use a song that had been taken.) During the break immediately before the lesson, the co-chair asked me if I had noticed how so many sad songs had been led that morning. It was as if all of us were being moved by the same thoughts.

When the time came, I spoke from the heart. Here's a rough idea of what I ended up saying (or think I remember saying) :

When Christine asked me to prepare the memorial lesson for today, a phrase came to me: There is no such thing as “Sacred Harp singing.” There is only people who sing Sacred Harp.

But that seemed a pretty thin reed to support a memorial lesson, so I began to think about how Sacred Harp singing, especially at a convention like this, is a kind of Brigadoon experience, a reality that exists for a short time every once in a while, largely invisible to non-participants, during which we singers experience life in a different, deeper way than usual, after which we return to our mundane lives until the next time.

I was going to talk about what we experience when we sing is a reality that transcends time and space during which we are present spiritually with those who have gone before and will come after, as it is and will be in heaven.

But on last Monday morning, Death made a personal visit to our community of singers here in Minnesota and took our sister, Helen Stevens, mother-in-law of our chairwoman Christine. And yesterday, our friend from Portland had to leave early for a family emergency, which was the impending death of her infant niece.

While I believe with all my heart that Sacred Harp singing creates the experience of life eternal in the company of all who sing, have sung, or will sing this music, I realized that talking like that can sound an awful lot like cheap grace, as if we’re wishing death away too easily without counting its cost. We need to remember that our brother Death is here with us at every singing we have, ready to take any one of us.

But we don’t shrink. We give Death his seat, but refuse to cower. We recognize his existence, but we deny his sovereignty. We will each die, but that is all we will do for Death; we are not on his payroll, as Edna St. Vincent Millay put it.

And so I returned to the first inspiration I had for this lesson: There is no such thing as Sacred Harp singing. There is only people who sing Sacred Harp. It is the people who matter. We aren’t here because of the shape of the notes, the structure of the melodies and harmonies, the poetry of the texts, or even dinner on the grounds. Those things are important in their own way, but are incidental. What is essential is the actual men and women – past, present, and future – whom God calls together to sing this music.

And so we take this time to remember those men and women who are now singing from the benches in back of us, invisible to our eyes. Each of them was loved by someone in this room, and their passing has brought the grief of love as we sang earlier.

As I read the names of singers and those loved by singers who have died since we last met, please say a silent prayer of gratitude for the love they gave us and for the comfort and solace of those who loved them who grieve their passing.

I then read the names, a little more slowly and deliberatly than is usually done, putting just a moment or two of silence between each one. It felt very reverent and real.

We then sang 566, Hebron:

Thus far the Lord hath led me on,
Thus far His pow'r prolonged my days;
And ev'ry ev'ning shall make known
Some fresh memorials of His grace.

Much of my time has run to waste,
And I, perhaps, am near my home.
But He forgives my follies past,
And gives me strength for days to come.

I lay my body down to sleep,
Peace is the pillow for my head;
While well-appointed angels keep
Their watchful stations 'round my bed.

2006 Minnesota State Convention
Town Hall, Historic Murphy's Landing
Shakopee, Minnesota
9-24-2006

And now, for someting completely different, from the Department of Invincibility

2006-09-07T12:47:00.000-05:00

[W]e were not created to be safe. We were created to be invincible.

Awake my Soul

2006-09-01T08:57:00.000-05:00

The much-talked about documentary Awake my Soul arrived yesteday, and it is beautiful. Anyone who is interested in what this Sacred Harp stuff is all about could hardly find a better introduction. Experienced singers will enjoy seeing old friends (including the magnificently whiskered brother of a favorite Quaker blogger friend of ours).

I was especially taken with the interviews with Raymond Hamrick, who I've not met but whose compositions I love to sing. (Especially this one, which came to him in a dream that he describes in the film.) He had presence and dignity, and a gentle accent, that reminded me of Pete Seeger.

The DVD is 75 minutes long, giving it enough time to introduce many aspects of the tradition: origins and history, musical theory, interviews with contemporary singers, dinner on the grounds, and lots of well-recorded singing. I recommend it without reservation.

More Crossan: Universal v Particular

2006-08-31T10:28:00.000-05:00

Here is another fascinating -- and to me enlightening -- quote from Crossan memoir. It comes near the end of chapter 4.

In context, he is explaining his idea that the Christian Trinity -- Father, Son, Holy Spirit -- correlates to comparative religion understanding of the "structure" of the Holy which includes the categories of metaphoric (God, or the Holy, can be comprehended only through metaphor -- God as Father is a metaphor), Locality (the Son places the Holy here on Earth, in history, among the People), and Particularity (the fact that the metaphor and locale are recognized by believers, but not by non-believers). He then writes:

That mystery of particularity closes the Trinitarian loop, and here the best analogy to divine faith is human love. You must experience faith or love as if it could not be otherwise. Imagine this. I wake up tomorrow morning next to my wife and say, "If I had not met you, fallen in love with you, and married you, I would probably have met someone else, fallen in love with her, married, her, an be waking up next to her this morning." That would be a very imprudent way to start my day, yet it is probably true. It is also unspeakably crude in its denial of human particularity. Or imagine this. A young couple have just lost their firstborn child and I tell them, "Don't worry. You can always have another one." That, too, is unspeakably cruel in its denial of human particularity. So also, then, with your religion: you must experience it as if no alternative were even possible. But at the back of your mind, you must also recognize that alternatives are always present. Particularity is not relativity, not the belief that anything goes or that everything is the same, but the acceptance that our humanity, at its deepest moments and profoundest depths, is individual and specific.
For individuals, groups, and communities this metaphoric and that locality, this seeing-as and that seeing-where, seem absolutely true, and all other possibilities seem but heresy, apostasy, infidelity -- mistake at best and treason at worst. Whether through genetic or ethnic occasions, personal or cultural drives, psychological or social forces, this metaphoric and this locality are experienced as choosing us rather than our choosing them. I do not say (although I know it is true): "I might have been a Muslim or a Hindu, but I was born in Ireland and so I'm a Roman Catholic Christian." Particularity, too, is part of the structure of the Holy, and it is only through it that metaphoric and locality act upon us.

pp 105-06

I've long had the sense that the relationship of a person to his or her church community is analogous to one's relationship with a spouse or partner, but haven't been able to put it into words as well as he has.

What fascinates me about this is the notion that "this metaphoric and this locality are experienced as [my emphasis] choosing us rather than our choosing them," as if it could not be otherwise, even while knowing at a different level that it might have been.

This certainly is what it feels like to me -- Christianity (or was it Christ?) chose me at birth through being born to my particular parents. (Would anyone say it was my "choice" of parents??) Though I experimented some with other religions while a youth, in my deepest soul I have always known that I belonged to the Christian (but not necessarily the Lutheran) community -- over time and space -- and so eventually stopped denying the alternative possibility and have since tried to learn how to be most useful and faithful to that community.

To the extent that I can say that I chose to be a Quaker kind of Christian (or a liberal member of that family), I can give lots of reasons, but in reality -- to me, in other words -- it feels that I was drawn inexorably to it, no more my "choice" than a fish "chooses" the bait that reels it from one world to another.

If this is true (and I think it is), then it seems impossible to be "religious" in a general sense (though one may have a predisposition to think about religious things), any more than one can be a "lover" in a general sense (though you may have an amorous temperament). You need a religious community --this one, not just any one -- just as you need a lover -- this one, not just any one.

The implication seems to be a variation on the "think globally, act locally" idea. If we believe it is worthwhile being Quakers, we must preach the Gospel as understood it as Friends -- with our words as well as our lives -- without apologizing for our evangelism. But at the same time we must remember that we are one of many ways, some of which may be equally authentic and effectual. (I'm not willing to say they all are, or even most.) We show that we know this latter to be true by the way in which we do the former, avoiding the twin traps of fundamentalism and pseudo-universalism.

(There's more in the Crossan book which I'm finding strangely captivating, including a discussion that I may summarize later of the distinction between "universal or functional" and "patronal or influential" societies.)

Reading John Dominac Crossan's memior

2006-08-29T16:38:00.000-05:00

A Friend lent me her copy of John Dominic Crossan's memior, It's a Long Way from Tipperary thinking I might like it. I read some of his writing about the Holocaust many years ago but I haven't been very interested in the Jesus Seminar stuff, so I wasn't sure whether I'd like the book. But I am enjoying it quite a lot.

Here are two quotes that made me go "Aha!"

When I read, in the New Testament, that Jesus called God "Father" or when I hear, in a seminar, that my colleague can believe in God only as "Father," I recognize that my own early experiences filter that title into a very different consciousness. It is not, on the one hand, just a general distaste for patriarchal hierarchy and the delusion that God must be, literally or metaphorically, male rather than female, father rather than mother. If, in fact, you want a parent metaphor for God, I think father is much more appropriate than mother. It is the mother who is publicaly knowable, visibly provable, and legally certifiable. You do not need faith to know a mother. You need faith to know a father, because he is known only on the mother's word and sometimes not even that (at least in the days before DNA testing).

p. 37

Writing about his younger years studying for the priesthood and being taught that the vow meant "no personal possessions and that all things were held in common. What you were given was for your use (ad usum) and not for your possession":

The vow of poverty is not about poverty, but about community. It does not mean personal destitution, but communal possession. It is, actually, a subdivision of the vow of obedience.

p. 63