This morning, my two-year-old joined me on the couch at about 7:00 am. We were waking up and chatting when we saw a huge bird fly by the window. We have a fairly large pond in the back (see picture) and two small ponds in the front, so I've seen the blue heron before when I've startled it (accidentally) by bursting out the back door when it was trying to pilfer our goldfish. We used to stock the pond with koi, but that gets rather expensive when feeding a heron! I hadn't seen it go to the front ponds before, and my son hadn't seen it at all.
I wanted to show the heron to my son so I picked him up and tried to approach the window slowly to get a better view. We could see its head and we stopped, it's left eye pointed right at us. Trying to get a better view, I took a couple steps closer, and off swooped the heron. "Oh well," we said, and sat back down on the couch.
As we read a Dr. Seuss book, out of the corner of my eye I saw a large shadow fly in again. "There it is!" we both said, excitedly, and tried to be quieter and calmer approaching the window, but again, the heron flew away before we got a very long look. I tried to pull out my phone to take a picture, which scared it off.
My friend Linda suggested, as part of our work with the Artist's Way, that we try "Cheshbon Hanefesh" (a spiritual accounting). It involves keeping track of the number of times you do something each day. After 80 days, the Sages promise, you will be a new person.
"My friend," the text goes, "you have the power. To start this process of self-discovery, ask yourself intimate questions, then wait for answers."
The Gospel of Luke tells us that a man named Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector, heard Jesus was coming. He wanted to see Jesus but was unable to do so because he was “short in stature” and couldn’t see over the people surrounding Jesus. I can relate to that because I’m about 5’4”. I’m afraid of heights, though, so I haven’t tried climbing into a tree to see someone – but I can relate to the experience of being unable to see Jesus because of a crowd.
Most people that know me know that I grew up Roman Catholic. Most people that know me also know that I’m gay. At age 13, I knew I was different from other boys, and I also knew that there would be problems. My classmates made fun of me. My teachers didn’t know how to support me. The words of priests and bishops all sent me the same message over and over again: I needed to change my identity in order to be part of community. It was something I couldn’t do. This is the experience of countless people who grow up, not just in the Roman Catholic Church, but in all kinds of Christian communities. The church often plays the part of the crowd in this Gospel story; we surround the Savior and make it hard for other people – especially those on the margins – to see or touch Jesus.
I tell people I’ve been trying to be Quaker for about a year. I keep asking how one goes about becoming a Quaker, and people keep telling me that I just declare myself one. I think the lack of real process here has something to do with not recognizing hierarchy. It’s a nice idea, but it’s not very helpful.
I shouldn’t just get to declare myself a Quaker. That’s not how these things go. I feel like I need a long-standing, birthright Quaker to recognize me as a Quaker. Then I’ll know I’ve made it.
I was alone in my bedroom the night I decided to follow Jesus. I was sixteen years old, and I was done with religion. But I couldn't stop thinking about Jesus.
I’d grown up in the Unification Church, and Jesus was barely a part of the cosmic narrative there. Actually, what I knew about Jesus was that – among our very ecumenical pantheon of sages and saints – he was a failure. But there was something about Jesus. His grace. His forgiveness. His sacrifice. Something about Jesus that spoke to my condition. He was absurd. And beautiful.
Jesus had shaken my faith before that night. In my sophomore year of high school, I attended a Mormon ward for six months, hoping that I might meet Jesus there. But I never received the promised "burning of the bosom,” so I gave up.
Later, as I tried to detox from religion and keep my distance from anything “spiritual,” my desire to know Christ kept coming back. I didn't want to be a Christian. I didn't want to have to listen to shitty Christian rock music or vote Republican or reject evolution. And more than anything, I didn't want to be seen as a nutty born-again. But I wanted Jesus.
Wednesdays are my Sabbath days. This is a rhythm that learned from my family, that we would practice together. The day of the week changed with the seasons, and sometimes it was just a half day, or a few hours, but we would set aside time to rest. The guiding principle for this day that my parents passed on to me is this: do what brings life.
Today, Wednesdays are an oasis in the middle of my week. I don’t do any work, and the people in my life know that I spend the day resting. Some weeks I come to Sabbath broken and tired, in need of a good night’s sleep and a day in bed. Other days, I arrive energized and have time and peace to create and process. I try not to make too many rules for myself, and abandon the lie of constant productivity.
That’s the problem with the way Christians talk about sin and the cross. We focus our attention on our unworthiness. My sins hurt God.
Why do we talk that way?
I have never met anyone who needed to be reminded that they’d failed. That they’re a failure. That they just aren’t enough. We know. We already know.
Here’s how this works in real life: I’m an engineering student. At the start of the semester, I don’t visit my professors during office hours because I want to show them that I’m not going to waste their time unless I have a really good question. I can work through my own problems. Then I screw up an assignment. I fail.
In the summer of 2000 I made my first trip to West Hollywood to go to a LGBT bookstore called A Different Light. (Those were the days before Amazon.) I was just starting to read coming-out stories and wanted to follow up on certain gay authors whom I found to be accessible. Barnes & Noble bookstore had a dismal gay and lesbian selection, so like a good cross-cultural missionary, I decided I would go out of my comfort zone to gain access to points of view different from what I was used to. I just wanted to understand.
My bike led me home. Physically. Spiritually. Emotionally. It was Sunday, September 4, 2011. The forecast called for rain.
I pedaled north from my house just outside of Indianapolis. Subdivisions gave way to scattered homes, woods, fields. About 12 miles into my ride, the rain started.
I approached a small white church on a knoll, a spot I’d ridden by hundreds of times before and since – Hinkle Creek Friends Church. A little porch with an overhang offered escape from the downpour. I sat on the steps and listened. Just the other side of the door, a man played an acoustic guitar and sang a folk song. His soothing music blended with the sound of raindrops hitting the trees. He had no idea I was his audience. An unexpected sense of peace and comfort – what I could best describe as a nearness to God – swept over me. I felt tears, and I knew I needed to share this experience.
Truth-telling. It’s hard to say for Quakers today if it matters the way it once did.
That first generation of Friends were honest. Brutally honest. About the crookedness of Church-as-Empire, about the empty strength of the empire itself. Those Quakers were shameless. They preached a God of justice and peace. A God who didn’t. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t tolerate a religion for show nor the vanity of power-schemers. They surrendered their lives to God, and in sweet surrender found themselves dynamically demonstrating the power of God’s Kingdom. On earth as it is in heaven. The early Friends prophesied, subverted society. Convicted by Love, they followed in her footsteps. She shook them, made them quake. And sometimes they danced. Polite society couldn’t understand and didn’t approve. That’s why so many Quakers ended up imprisoned, tortured – or dead.
How much hope is enough? I understand and experience hope to be “leaning into better.” Hope is trusting that as things change, good will come. When we are hopeful, we lean into things getting better, not worse.
Is hope a precious natural resource? Is there a limited amount of hope in the world that we need to carefully monitor? Or is hope a renewable energy, like the wind?
What if hope is sourced from a divine energy, limitless and eternal? Hope never runs out. The supply is unlimited.
We live in a time of a “scarcity culture” says social scientist Brene Brown. A culture of scarcity is where we live in fear of not having enough. If she’s right, then this mentality of scarcity is impacting our national supply of hope. We feel as if we are running low on hope. And too many of us are flat running out of it. Our hope gauge is on empty.
Just over a year ago, I came out as bisexual to those who know and love me. But for the sake of Christian connection, I put myself back in the closet in order to avoid hard conversations, criticism, isolation and the potential loss of relationship. It hurt. I started to lose myself. I became judgmental, defensive, angry, and isolated. All the things I’d been afraid of.
Friends and family tried to reach out to me, to be close with me. They called, texted, and emailed regularly. I shut them out. I kept telling myself, “They won’t understand” because I knew they couldn’t accept me—at least not the real me. What I was forgetting is that many of these people already love and accept me. Always have. Always will. What’s more, many of them suspected I was struggling with something bigger than my anxiety.
I know the statistics. Patterns of discrimination and oppression. Inequalities in education, employment, housing, law enforcement, criminal justice. But this year those data points came to life. For two months I volunteered in the emergency department at the Los Angeles County and USC Medical Center, and the facts I’d read about became a lot more than facts.
Every day at the hospital I met people of color who had been failed by social structures and support systems that I take for granted. Young men who were victims of gang violence. Families denied housing, who used the emergency department as a haven from the streets. People whose lack of access to primary care created preventable health emergencies.
White supremacy is the foundational organizing principle of American public life, and for centuries has held the distinction of being the most consistent animating force in our national history. This reality affects every social institution, certainly including our most visible Christian gatherings. In the Christian tradition, we see this problem in both "multiethnic churches” and in more progressive Emergent circles to the point where people of color are actually emotionally hesitant to participate in these communities, or are sidelined when they do. Although the structural racism embedded in these spaces—whiteness—is an enormous stumbling block, relatively simple changes can be put into motion to make it less lethal at your progressive Christian gathering.
"We do not want you to copy or imitate us. We want to be like a ship that has crossed the ocean, leaving a wake of foam which soon fades away. We want you to follow the Spirit, which we have sought to follow, but which must be sought anew in every generation." —Extracts from the Writings of Friends, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Faith & Practice
A phrase that keeps coming to mind is "a new Quakerism," and oddly enough, I've been hearing other Friends unknowingly echo this phrase back to me. It seems to me that many Friends, even those who consider themselves "convinced," are hungry for more than what the Society has to offer. We keep coming back to the same point: we desperately need to re-imagine Quakerism.
Hi. My name is Megan and I’m a recovering addict. It’s been a little over two months since I quit church. Worshiping at a Quaker meeting, attending a Baptist school, participating in nondenominational youth group, leading interdenominational summer camps and campus ministry, and hanging out with friends of various Christian creeds, church was a constant presence throughout my life. But familiarity bred carelessness. I never anticipated church becoming a problem.
After college my career didn’t pick up like I thought it should and I had to move back into my childhood bedroom. Depression soon took over and I turned to church to take the edge off. Leadership was my drug of choice. I threw myself into teaching Sunday school classes and volunteering for service projects. Each lesson, each board offering more responsibility, each charitable endeavor gave me a hit of control. Everything else in my life was crumbling, but I could perform well in God’s house. Nobody seemed the wiser or, if they were, seemed to care about my circumstances outside the sanctuary so long as kids got taught and committees got manned. It went on like that for another year and a half.
Sunday morning services serve as space-less places. We fill them up with songs and sermons and passings of the offering plate (with background music, of course). What we really need is silence—space to listen. Why are we afraid?
Maybe it is because the openness of unprogrammed worship—in paring away the outside noise—leaves us no choice but to face the noise within: hypocrisy, phoniness, the false self we project (a fragile image).
It has been six months since the Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) World Plenary conference in Peru with the theme “Living the Transformation.” I have experienced that transformation.
I have learned that transformation surprises us. It happens when we are still.
The fruits of the spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control—all of which can be experienced during transformation.
To be transformed, one must go through a process of change.
Charismatic movements throughout Church history have identified water-baptism as a charismatic experience, an awakening or activating experience that stirs up the gift of God within and enables a believer to walk in the power of Christ’s ministry.
Quakerism has never practiced water-baptism. From the beginning, baptism was seen as an inward work of God. Water-baptism was seen as empty ritualism that gave a false sense of spiritual security to those in the corrupt established churches. But even though Friends do not practice water-baptism, the Friends view of baptism shares some dimensions with that of Charismatics.
Isaac Penington wrote, “The promise of receiving the Spirit is upon believing, and it extendeth to every one that believeth. ‘He that believeth on me,’ as the scripture hath said, ‘out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water;’ but this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive…but every one received so much of the Spirit as to make him a son, and to cry Abba, Father, and to wash him.
Not listening lies at the root of spiritual abuse.
So, fittingly, I think listening lies at the root of spiritual abuse recovery.
It starts with telling one person — a counselor, minister, mentor, or trusted friend. Eventually, some people benefit from wider audiences, perhaps sharing their stories in creative ways.
COUNSEL: “I’m Listening”
Michael Nichols’ The Lost Art of Listening says that effective, restorative listening boils down to taking the speaker seriously, not interrupting, and not judging.
Sometimes religious people are the worst at taking people seriously, not interrupting, and not judging. Unfortunately, religious people might not take people seriously if the speaker is a woman or if they’re young (to which I would say Galatians 3:28 and 1 Timothy 4:12 and plenty-more-where-that-came-from). They might interrupt because, well, they’re human and we all interrupt too much…but also if they think the story they’re hearing is getting uncomfortable and they’d rather dish out a nice scoop of Bible verses with a prayer on top.