Children in Meeting

My 7-year-old has recently decided to come into worship with me instead of going to First Day school. Last week, his 11-year-old brother (who has occasionally joined us in worship) also sat in worship with us.

My boys are half to a third of the First Day school class. I let the teacher know that they were going to join us in Meeting. I felt a bit bad about taking her students away from her, but I also want my children to experience worship for themselves. Worship, after all, is central to the experience of being a Quaker.

I feel a bit uncomfortable with the idea of First Day school (and also with teen programs that meet during worship). Our culture is always pushing children off to one side instead of letting them participate fully in community life. Children are warehoused in schools and kids' programs with other children their age while the adult world gets on with the business of living.

Throughout most of human history (and, if the behavior of our ape cousins is anything to go by, all of our primate history before that), children have spent most of their time in the mixed-age world of family and community. Only in the last century have children been removed from the larger community and sent to spend most of their time in groups of their age mates.

I don't think this is a good way to raise children. Children need relationships with people of all ages. They need to have contact with babies, with children of different ages, and with adults of all ages. Children can't easily learn the social skills they need from a bunch of children their own age; they need older children and adults to help bring them along.

The flip side of this is that children view the adult world as alien. Having been excluded from most of adult life, they don't apply themselves to learning what adults do. They apply themselves to learning how to get around schools, playgrounds, sport teams, and the other activities they are asked to do.

So, when a Meeting raises its children in First Day schools and teen programs, we're not bringing them into the adult Meeting community. We're preparing a place for children to be while their parents do boring adult stuff.

There's a need for this place, especially for very young children. Forcing children to sit through worship will probably not make kids want to grow up to be adult Quakers. Parents need to know that their children are safe during worship.

There are also other ways for children to connect to the Meeting community. Meeting activities for all ages allow kids to make friends with adults in Meeting. When Friends visit one another's homes, children have the opportunity to connect with people in a deeper way.

Children can also get a taste of worship when their First Day school class joins the adults for the first or last part of worship. First Day school activities and children's programs at Meeting retreats and quarterly and yearly meetings can also help them learn about what the adults do.

Still, I think that we could devote more thought to our children's spiritual development and on how to bring them into our Meetings.

My own inner guidance on this (and, where my children are concerned, my inner guide can be loud and insistent) is to encourage my children in every step that brings them deeper into Meeting. If my 7-year-old wants to sit in worship with me, my inner guide tells me to focus on the opportunity to parent him through Meeting. Yes, my own worship probably won't be as deep if I'm parenting an active boy at the same time. My son, however, will be gaining valuable early experience of worship. He'll start to get a sense of what Friends do in silence, and of the sorts of issues that are important to adult Friends.

It's difficult to both create a separate space for children and still welcome them into adult spaces. In my heart, I hold the truth that our children grow up to be adults, and that they need to explore the adult world as they are ready to do so. The things that adults do are neither so complicated nor so boring that children cannot experience them in small doses.

Listening in Tongues

At worship this morning, an older Christocentric Friend stood to deliver ministry. She spoke about how nontheistic Friends have always puzzled her, and about how she had taken the opportunity to attend a gathering of nontheistic Friends at Quarterly Meeting.

Since this meeting, the Spirit has been moving in her life. She realized that her use of the word "God" had been getting in the way of her spiritual experience. She talked about letting go of belief in God and embracing her own agnosticism. She stressed her continuing faith in Jesus as teacher and her ongoing commitment to living by his commandments. She spoke with puzzlement and amusement about being a born-again agnostic Christocentric Friend.

This Friend's ministry touched many hearts, including mine. Several Friends who rarely speak in Meeting rose to share their own stories about identity and their relationship to the Meeting. They spoke about the challenge of setting aside judgment and listening for that of God in everyone's words, and about how that challenge helps us move more deeply into the Spirit.

Towards the end of Meeting, a Friend rose to observe that today is Pentecost, the day on which the disciples spoke in tongues to the people of Jerusalem. He quoted Acts 2:16-18 In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.

He went on to say that he has often thought that Quakerism is a deeply Pentecostal faith, a faith that puts its trust in the guidance of the Spirit. He then observed that we don't so much speak in tongues as listen in tongues.

I closed Meeting a little late, reluctant to emerge from the communion with my dear Friends. My heart was full and tender, and I felt deeply blessed to be with this extraordinary group of people. I felt awed by the power of the Spirit to work in every heart in the Meeting, humbled by the honest words that Friends had shared about their own spiritual journeys.

What a gift we have been given, the ability to listen in tongues. Each soul in our Meeting gathers to try to listen to the Truth beyond our words. We strive to listen with our hearts, not our minds. We strive to tend that of God in each person, even when we don't understand it.

Namaste, Friends.

Do You Call This a Religion?

At worship this week, we had about a dozen newcomers, several of whom were environmental activists. It was exciting to have so many new folks join us for worship.

One of the customs of our Meeting is to invite newcomers to introduce themselves before the rise of Meeting. When the closer ends the silence, we greet those near us, the children report on what they did in First Day school, we have newcomer introductions, and then various people make announcements.

The closer ends the silence by turning to the person next to hear, shaking hands, and saying, "Good morning." It was months before I realized that the morning greetings were not spontaneous. After several years as an occasional attender, my husband asked me how we all knew that worship was over. He thought (as I had before him) that we were all so spiritually attuned that we knew when to end the silence.

We invite the newcomers to share their names, where they're from, and a little bit about themselves. These newcomers got into the spirit, and many of them shared their previous Quaker experience and/or why they were interesting in Quakers.

Towards the end of introductions, a woman said that she'd always heard about Friends, and that she was interested in exploring our religion. Then she stopped, confused, and said, "Do you call this a religion?"

The Meeting was filled with merry laughter. I love it when we laugh together like this right after worship; no other laughter feels so free or so full of joy as post-worship laughter.

The closer affirmed that we do indeed call this a religion, and we went on to announcements.

It's a good question, though. "Do you call this a religion?" We are the Religious Society of Friends and yet many people seem confused about our status as Christians or even a religion. We don't use the outer forms that other religions use: no minister, no choir, no cross on the altar. Our chairs are arranged in three concentric ovals (we're soft chair Friends; some visiting Friends have intimated that this is sinful while others have threatened to take our chairs back to their home Meetings). How would anyone know that we're a religion instead of a meditation group or a group of people who just happen to like to sit together in (mostly) silence on Sunday mornings? Most of us don't even wear funny hats, and the funny hats we do wear don't match.

"Do you call this a religion?"

Thinking about this question later, I am reminded that we shall know Christians by their fruits, that people will know we are Christians by our love. In a similar fashion, I think that people will know our Meetings are a religion by the power of the Spirit who joins us in worship. It's part of the strength of our style of worship that people can attend Meeting with very different ideas of the Divine and still gather at the same well to drink from the same cup.

The other thing that makes me think that our Meeting is a religion, and a worthy one at that, is the example set by the older people in the Meeting. They are an extraordinary group of human beings, deep in love and compassion and wisdom. Whatever practices they follow have obviously borne fruit, and I yearn to grow into their kind of Light in what remains of my life.

I don't worry too much about whether others call what we do a religion. What does the name matter? If we earnestly try to turn our hearts to God, to sit together in waiting worship, and to follow the promptings of the Light revealed to us, then it doesn't matter what we're called.

I thought of the many other times and places where I feel the sense of worship: around trees, in meditation, at concerts, in acts of service, walking, dancing, in the presence of the ocean, listening to a child, making love with my husband, experiencing sudden natural beauty, doing mundane chores, knitting, sharing a cup of tea with a friend. I am reminded that it's all sacred, that God is everywhere, and that all I need to do is open my heart and be where I am, right now.

God bless you all, Friends.

My Canvas Bag Ministry

When I go grocery-shopping, I grab several canvas grocery bags from a hook in my kitchen closet. They ride in my shopping cart while I gather my bread and vegetables, and then hop onto the checkout stand to hold my groceries.

The bags are homely: rumpled and stained, their kid-painted designs worn off by years of hard use. Some of my favorites, the canvas bags I first started using back in the mid-80s, have worn-through bottoms and can only handle light loads.

When I first started using canvas bags, most of the grocery clerks thought I was weird. They'd ask me if I wanted paper or plastic, and I'd tell them that I want my groceries in these rumpled cloth bags. I had to encourage them to pack them full, and not to wrap certain items in disposable bags to keep them separate from other items.

I started using canvas bags to save trees, but came to find them more convenient than disposables. They hold more than a conventional grocery bag, stand upright more easily, and have good carrying handles that don't easily rip. I can carry more groceries using them. In the early days, before we had curbside recycling, my grocery bags took bottles back to town for recycling.

So, after more than 20 years of using canvas grocery bags, I asked the clerk at our local, quite hip, organic grocery how many shoppers use reusable bags. She estimated 15%.

I felt discouraged for days after that. I've been singing the praises of reusable bags for 20 years, giving them to friends as gifts, encouraging perfect strangers to give them a try, and yet, even at the most environmentally aware spot in my town, hardly anyone uses them.

Other reusable items that could be used by a lot more people include cloth handkerchiefs instead of paper tissues, cloth rags instead of paper towels, cloth napkins instead of paper napkins, commuter mugs instead of to-go cups, cloth diapers or elimination communication instead of disposable diapers, and reusable food containers instead of disposable ones.

For many years, I've been disappointed when I read articles that promised to show me 10 easy things to do to save energy or help the environment. I was hoping to learn something I didn't know, to hear ideas that haven't been part of my life for decades. Lately, though, I've started getting excited about environmentalism again. After years of seeming-stagnation (and, in the SUV-crazy years, backsliding), I'm starting to hear new ideas and new enthusiasm for old ideas.

This shift is reflected in Meeting, too. Several years ago, we had an active Peace & Social Order committee and a sleepy Friends in Unity with Nature committee. Now the situation is reversed: FUN has picked up and P&SO has dropped off. There's talk about putting solar panels on the roof of the Meetinghouse. The Meeting passed a global warning minute a few months ago, and Friends are actively talking about things we can do as a Meeting to help the environment.

Advices and Queries: Reaching Out

Many of the members of my Meeting believe that the Queries (some would leave out the Advices) are the heart of Quakerism. They say that earnest and consistent attention to the Queries has deepened their faith and caused them to examine the integrity of their practice.

Here are the Advices and Queries my Meeting is considering during the month of May (from Pacific Yearly Meeting's Faith and Practice):

Advices and Queries

Reaching Out

Friends’ fellowship begins and is nurtured within the home and Meeting. It reaches greater fulfillment as we carry our beliefs into the wider community.

Share your Quaker faith. Take time to learn about other people's experiences of the Light and, as you learn, give freely from what you have gained. Respect the experiences and opinions of others, but do not be afraid to say what you value. Welcome the diversity of culture, language, and expressions of faith in your Monthly Meeting, the Yearly Meeting, and the world community of Friends. Encourage discourse with Friends of pastoral and programmed traditions, and with members of other faiths.

Friends have a long history of involvement in public and private education, sharing our values with the world and nurturing future generations. Be mindful of the needs of children in your community and of avenues for deepening understanding between peoples.

• How does my life reflect Friends beliefs and thus encourage others to be interested in the Religious Society of Friends?

• Do I respond openly to inquiries about Quaker experience and belief?

• What does our Meeting do to make others aware of Friends principles and practices?

• What are we doing to help people of various races, cultures, and backgrounds feel at home among us and we among them?

• How do we encourage newcomers to return and participate in activities of the Meeting?

• In what ways do we participate in the life of the interfaith community and in the wider fellowship of Friends?

The Beam in My Eye

Things have been rough around here. Our four children had to adjust to having their mother go back to work fulltime in September, their father find a job again in November, and both parents working outside the home until my contract ran out at the end of March. The children soldiered on with homeschooling and keeping the household running, something that was especially hard on our 14-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son.

In November, my dad was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme, a very aggressive form of brain cancer. My husband's father had been fighting prostate cancer for 6 years, and it had moved into his bones.

My folks have a wonderful support community. They are close with family, and have many friends willing to go the extra mile for them. My mom insisted that I focus on my family and my job, and that I leave the heavy lifting to those bearing lighter burdens.

My father-in-law was a different story. He's spent the last 30 or more years estranged from all of his relatives. He was estranged from my husband for 23 years, and only picked up the relationship because my husband started writing him. My father-in-law lived by himself in his camper in the desert, as far from human beings as he could get. When his cancer grew, he had no one to turn to except my husband.

I never met him. Although he twice consented to a visit from my husband, he was not willing to meet me or the children. He was a very unhappy person, probably mentally ill. He cut himself off from family and community every way that he could. He stood alone, allowing no one close except his little poodle.

He cared deeply for this poodle. One of the reasons that he consented to see my husband was that he was afraid of what would happen to his little dog when he died. He wanted to make sure that the dog had a good home, and he trusted my husband to give him one.

When my father-in-law's condition worsened, the little poodle came to live with us. He was truly alone then, and my husband and I worried about how he was managing, alone and ill in his camper.

He was not an easy person to help. He didn't want to accept help, and often balked at arrangements that he had agreed to earlier. He hated being caged up, and would check himself out of hospitals and hospice facilities when he couldn't care for himself.

While this was going on, my job ended and I came back home to be a fulltime mom. All of the unmet needs that my children had been holding for many months suddenly exploded out of them. My youngest was the most extreme in this regard, being extremely demanding and then bursting into long-lived rages.

Since infancy, this child has had a tendency to cut himself off and shoot himself in the foot when he gets angry. Right when my father-in-law was going through his most difficult time, my son was echoing his behavior right here in our house. I became fearful that my son would grow up to be as miserable as his grandfather.

During my working time, we fell into some bad parenting habits. We instituted negative consequences for destructive behavior, and we applied those consequences without trying to get to the root of my son's unhappiness. My son was quite willing to up the ante, and we were having frequent showdowns.

One evening, I got the message that my behavior was part of the problem, and that the older children were also sowing bad behavior in their little brother. I told my son that I was taking the negative consequences away. I wanted him to stop fighting with his siblings and to curb his destructive behavior, but I was going to stop punishing him for it. Instead, I would work with him to help him find constructive ways to handle his anger.

I got an extra snuggle that night at bedtime. Things began to turn around. I started seeing more of my son's sunny, helpful, cheerful, and creative side. His rages became shorter and less intense.

I learned a lesson here that I have learned before, but one that I forget during times of stress. I can't fix other people. No matter how much I criticize, argue, and even threaten them, they won't change unless they choose to. The more I criticize, argue, and threaten, the less likely they are to change.

When I start looking at what I can change in my own attitude and behavior, though, I create the space where other people can change. When I work on getting the beam out of my own eye, people are more willing to get the motes out of theirs. When I look at them with love and appreciation rather than judgment and criticism, they are moved to live up to my expectations instead of down to them.

Whenever I have a problem with my Meeting or with individuals in my Meeting, the best way for me to address it is to work on myself first. I need to examine my own hard judgments, my lack of charity, my impatience, my lack of grounding. I need to admit fault first (even if I think the other person is more at fault than I am).

I am often reluctant to do this, and frequently surprised at how well it works. Even in deeply polarized situations, the shift from judgment and criticism to love and compassion can melt conflict. It's like having a magic wand. Make that shift and zoop! zoop! everyone's back on the same team and working together to resolve the situation.

Jesus told us not to judge one another and to forgive one another when we trespassed against one another. I think that this is one of the more profound truths in Jesus' ministry and one of the most difficult to live. We humans are quick to judge others and slow to forgive.

It's important to remember that this Christian stuff is not just a collection of lofty ideas in a book somewhere. This stuff really works for creating the best possible world here and now, on Earth. It's not just for fancy dress parties and flashy public actions. It works in the lowliest, most mundane, ugliest personal disputes.

It works in our Meetings. It works with the most irritating and least spiritually adept attenders at our Meetings. It works with the folks who natter too much in worship, the people who say the wrong things, the ones who bullheadedly insist on pulling the Meeting in the wrong direction.

Most of all, though, it works in my heart, to make me a better Christian and a better Friend.

My father-in-law died early Monday morning. I feel deep sorrow that he spent his life planting ice and harvesting wind, but I am glad that he is at peace at last. I am grateful for the difficult lessons he taught us, and appreciative of his care for the little dog who now lives at our house.

Oh dear God, forgive us, as we forgive each other. Teach us to forgive and to extend that hand of compassion and friendship 70 times 7 times. If I learn nothing else in my life, may I learn that one lesson well: to love my neighbor as myself.

QuakerQuaker: Challenges and Community

QuakerQuaker.org takes me out of my own comfortable world of Santa Cruz Friends and challenges me with Quaker viewpoints that I don't encounter in my own Meeting. I have a new appreciation for the variety of Quaker faith and practice in the world. These different viewpoints challenge me to examine and deepen my own ideas. You're helping me grow in many ways, Friends, and I thank you for that.

The posts I like the most describe how Friends in other areas do things. I find great value in reading how different Meetings organize themselves, and the many different ways that Friends resolve issues.

I have also discovered a vibrant online community of Friends. I am glad to be among you, and am learning to love and appreciate many of you.

When I first heard of this blog carnival, Chris suggested that I might not feel warmly towards Martin. It's true that I disagree with Martin on many particulars, and that I have not yet connected with him on a level where I can appreciate his gifts. Chris' invitation, however, encouraged me to think again about what it means to be in a Christian community. Jesus did not command us to love those who are easy to love. No, our call to love goes deeper than that. We are called to love those who irritate us, those whom we initially dislike, those with whom we have profound and ongoing disagreements.

This brings me back to the center of what it means to be a Quaker, what it means to be a Christian, what it means to live according to God's will. We are called to love one another, in community, to forgive one another 70 times 7 times, to extend our hands to our brothers and sisters and to labor over our disagreements. QuakerQuaker.org gives us another way to extend our hands to one another and to labor together.

I am profoundly grateful, Martin, that you had the vision to create this gathering of Friends and that you are willing to do the work to sustain this community.

Marriage: a Difficult Witness

Last week, my dad told me that my brother had broken up with his girlfriend of 10 years. I listened to the second-hand story, aching for my brother and his former love. Inside, a little voice was saying, "Couldn't they have worked things out? Couldn't they have at least found a way to separate without so much bitterness?"

As my husband and I got ready for bed that night, I shared the family news. He expressed sympathy and regret that these two people who mean a lot to us have created such suffering for one another.

"When I hear that people are breaking up," I said, "I try not to be judgmental. There's some part of me, though, that wants to stand up and say, 'Can't you work things out? Are you sure this is the best decision you could make?' If there are children involved, it stands up and screams, 'What about your kids?'"

But I don't say these things. I hold the grieving in my heart and I listen. Marriage can be difficult at times. It takes commitment, hard work, compassion, humor, maturity, and a certain amount of luck. I can't know the challenges that other people face in their marriages. I've had friends who were divorced against their will. I've known women who divorced to escape abusive situations. I have a friend who spent years trying to keep things together with his mentally ill wife before throwing in the towel.

That little voice, however, won't be still. It reminds me that divorce has serious negative consequences, consequences that our popular culture tends to whitewash.

Our culture views divorce lightly. If two people are incompatible, if they aren't happy together, if they aren't in love any more, then divorce will cure what ails them. If one of them falls in love with someone else, then surely the new love will make a better partner. If you discover that your mate has been unfaithful to you, your marriage has been irreparably harmed, and you'd be better off on your own. Children are resilient; they'll recover quickly and be happier in a household where the parents aren't fighting.

In real life, though, divorce is much harder than the image our culture projects. Divorce is hard on everyone emotionally, and it does serious financial damage to both partners. Divorce hits children especially hard, with emotional and financial consequences that continue into middle age.

Due to good fortune and the maturity and common sense of my husband, I haven't been divorced myself. My parents divorced when I was 11. For most of my life, I believed that their divorce was especially acrimonious and that I was overly sensitive to the negative effects. After reading the experiences of other children of divorce, I realized that my parents' divorce and my own reaction to it were typical. It was the cultural narrative that was off.

How can I challenge the cultural narrative without judging those who divorced under its influence?

We hear a lot about the sanctity of marriage from the religious right, and yet they are largely silent on the matter of divorce. Demographically, they are more likely to divorce than any other segment of society. I yearn for Friends to take up the witness, not for the sanctity of marriage, but for the value of marriage.

A well-built marriage provides vital shelter and support for its members. Over time, as partners overcome difficulties together, a marriage can become stronger, more versatile, more stable. Partners provide balance for one another in times of trouble, and our ability to support one another improves with practice.

A marriage, even a fairly unhappy marriage, provides a stable emotional and financial base for children. Children are happier when their parents stay married, even unhappily, and married parents provide much better financial support for their children.

Marriage is tough. There are rocky periods and droughts in every marriage, times when conflict soars and love seems scarce.

What can we do to help people get through such times, to put their marriages on a better footing for handling the difficulties that life dishes out? What kinds of things can we say to encourage people to hang in there, to forgive one another, to admit their failures, and to move forward together with love? When is such an approach futile, and divorce a real solution to irreconcilable differences? How can Meetings serve the marriages under their care?

Church Politics

Note: in the first revision of this post, I referred to "conservative" Friends. By "conservative," I did not mean to refer to members of the Conservative Friends Meetings, but more to the FUM/EFI evangelical side of Quakerism.

A couple of years ago, my daughters and I listened to the excellent Teaching Company course, The History of Christianity in the Reformation Era. The course covered the various movements in Christianity in the 15th and 16th centuries, both in the Catholic church and in the various Protestant groups that sprung out of it. Much of the material was new to us, and we had many discussions about the theological ideas behind the various schisms in the Church.

I was talking about this course with a Jesuit-educated friend of mine. "The Reformation," he said flatly, "was a failure. The reformers wanted to change the One True Church, but they only succeeded in splintering it. Every stream of Christianity already existed in the Catholic church; the Reformation broke up the body of the Church and left Christianity as a whole weaker."

I had never considered the Reformation in that light before. I'd always heard the Protestant point of view on the matter, and the Catholic point of view startled me. I grudgingly admitted that my friend had a point. When the Church schismed, the various streams of Christianity no longer had either the ability or the obligation to labor together to find the truth. Each sect could cling to its little truth and pat itself on the back for being right.

I'm not much for politics, myself. When people start fighting for turf, I slink down in my seat and head for the door. I don't like conflict. I feel much more comfortable in the role of peacemaker than in the role of warrior.

I've read many opinions in the Quaker blogosphere that imply that I oughtn't to call myself a Quaker. Indeed, judging from the crieria proposed, almost no one in either my monthly or yearly meeting would qualify. If we aren't willing to commit ourselves to the 17th-century faith of Fox, we have no right to be part of the Religious Society of Friends.

We're here. We've been accepted into membership in monthly meetings, and we feel that we are continuing the essential work of Friends. We don't always agree what that work ought to be, which is precisely why we meet to try to discern what our corporate direction ought to be. We labor together, as the body of the Church, to determine what God asks of us in the present.

The past can be a guidepost, but it's not meant to be a perfect template. We're not shackled to the revelations of the 17th century; we're meant to discern the living truth for ourselves in the present. Much has changed in the past 350 years, and I am glad that Friends have had the good grace to change to meet the challenges of their own times.

Imagine if John Woolman had accepted the Old Testament view of slavery instead of trusting to the Light that was given him. How much poorer would we be without the courage of those who followed their Light even when it went against the dictates of past generations.

Okay, so it's obvious where I stand in the old argument of Christ-centered versus Light-centered Quakerism. I'm from the Beanite branch of Quakerism, after all, in the very quarterly meeting started by Joel and Hannah after they were cast out by the revivalist Iowa Yearly Meeting. Who, not to put too fine a point on it, believed that they were the ones preserving original Quaker practice.

I want evangelical Friends to know that liberal Friends also think we're right. We have a version of history that indicates that we're the real heirs to George Fox's ministry, and that those who fell sway to the revival movement fell off the Quaker wagon at the same time. If anyone's entitled to the term Quaker, it's us, not you. We're tolerant and we try to be polite, but, deep down, we believe that we're following the path that God has laid out for us.

So we have several groups of Quakers who think that they're right (and that the other groups are wrong). And, collectively, we all think that the rest of Christendom (and probably all other religions) got things at least a little bit wrong.

What are we going to do about it? Are we lining up for another schism, after our tentative coming-together? Are we, one of the historic peace churches, so bad at dealing with conflict that we can't even work things out with other Friends? Are we going to allow the outer forms of language and variations in religious practice keep us from laboring together?

Jesus said something about the beams in our own eyes, and certainly we all have them. He also said some things about forgiveness, and the importance of working things out with your brothers. (Being from a sexist society, as he was, he didn't say anything about working things out with your sisters, but he would have if he'd lived in modern times).

I try, I really do try, to read your blogs about the importance of Quakers being more Christian. I try to hear what you're saying, even when you use language that makes me uncomfortable. It would be a whole lot easier if you didn't lead with your judgment about how my sort of Quaker is no sort of Quaker at all. I might not be your sort of Quaker, but my tradition goes back in an unbroken line to Fox, same as yours, even if it's kept different bits of his original ministry than yours has.

We might have something to teach one another.

A Woman and a Friend

A couple of months ago, I sought counsel from a woman Friend who has done extensive hospice work. I wanted guidance on how to help my parents through these last months or years of my father's life. My Friend had much to offer: practical advice, reassurance, and a calm acceptance of death.

As I was thanking her for her generous support, we got to talking about Meeting dynamics. She made a comment about the increased Christian ministry in Meeting and how it seems to speak to many new attenders.

I heard hesitancy in her voice, so I asked, "And does it speak to you?"

She looked me straight in the eye and said, "I'm a woman."

Her words shifted something in me. I thought of my long struggle to make peace with the Christianity in Quakerism. I had even come to identify myself as Christian. I thought of how often someone on the Quaker blogosphere proclaims the need for more Christianity in Quakerism, and how uneasy that makes me feel. I imagine Quakers becoming so evangelical that they declaim homosexuality and insist that I cover my head, muffle my voice, and submit to my husband.

About a week after that, I ran across my copy of Starhawk's The Fifth Sacred Thing. I read Starhawk's inscription to me and remembered our time in jail together after being arrested at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. I thought of all I had laid down in the process of becoming a Quaker. Perhaps it is time to pick it up again.

My thoughts simmered until my women's prayer group. l shared that I was uncomfortable with calls to make Quakerism more Christian, unless being more Christian means that we try to love one another better.

In worship, I can usually hear Friends' messages, whatever the language they use. The language of the Bible, however, does not speak to me directly. The Bible was written by men, from a male perspective. The Bible does not present either a rich or positive view of women and female spirituality. Women can learn to overlook and filter the negative, but we cannot find female voices in a medium in which they don't exist.

At our Meeting retreat, we broke into small groups and did an exercise to identify one another's spiritual gifts. One woman observed that I have a deep connection with the Earth, that I have learned to live in harmony with nature instead of in opposition to it.

Another puzzle piece snapped sharply into place for me. What we need in Quakerism is greater universalism, more connection with the Earth, more connection with the world's peoples, more connection with our bodies, and deeper attention to how we can live in harmony with one another and with the rest of creation. We need to spend more time listening to trees and watching banana slugs. We need to spend more time listening to those with different viewpoints and less time consolidating our own. We need to be more present in our bodies and spend less time abstracting away from our physical existence.

This I know experimentally: the Earth is sacred. The Goddess is immanent in creation. Every living thing on this planet is an embodiment of the Divine. Our salvation is right here, in these bodies, on this planet. How we treat one another matters. How we treat the Earth matters.

If Biblical language moves your soul, I rejoice for you. I just ask that you let the trees get a word in edgewise now and then, that you listen to the thrum of the living Earth, that you sink deep into your body and recognize that you too are an animal in the biosphere.

We are at a crossroads. The future of the Earth and all the living creatures on the Earth may very well depend on how we act in the next few years. Let's not waste our time squabbling about terminology. Let's go deeper, Friends, and do the work we are called to do.

Faith and Practice

Santa Cruz Meeting had its annual retreat at Quaker Center this weekend. It was a good weekend, full of community, deep discussions with Friends, and moments to be held and cherished.

Moments to be cherished:

• The hands of the oldest and the youngest at work together. At my Prayer Shawl Ministry workshop, I asked how many people had never knit. Eight hands went up. I then asked how many people knew how to knit well enough to teach someone else. A half dozen hands went up, including the hands of the three young teenagers attending the workshop. The teenagers taught some of the oldest and weightiest Friends in our Meeting how to hold the yarn and cast on.


• The glowing faces of the teenagers as they carried out the lovingly prepared organic vegetables, lasagna with and without allergens, cabbage salad, fruit salad, and shamrock cookies for Saturday dinner. The teens had planned the meal, done the shopping, and chopped mountains of vegetables for the most delicious meal of the weekend.


• Hiking up to the waterfall with three 7-year-olds, a 5-year-old, another adult, and a stalwart 2.5-year-old who marched the whole way with his boots on the wrong feet.


• Seeing a Pacific Giant Salamander with the children.


• Connecting with other woman Friends over our thirst for feminine aspects of the Divine.


• Listening to Live Oak Preparative Meeting's musical rendition of their State of the Meeting report.


• Walking the labyrinth silently with a group of about 20 Friends, journeying inward to the center and then back out again. Watching their faces as they centered inward, and seeing their unique beauty as they stood in silence after the labyrinth walk.


• Having a long and heartfelt discussion with another member of Worship and Ministry about what the gospel of John did to Christianity and how Christianity might be different if we had the gospel of Thomas instead.

I had a good weekend and a busy weekend, but it was more a working weekend than a spiritual retreat for me.

In the final worship, however, we gathered quickly and the faith of my Friends pulled me down to the deepest worship I had experienced in a good while.

"I'm out of practice," I thought, "Why don't we talk more about the practice part of Faith and Practice? I say that I am a Quaker, but have I been doing my Quaker practice?"

I thought about the seasoned Friends I admire the most, and how their years of Quaker practice have built the spiritual gifts I most admire in them.

I have been under incredible stress these past few months. I've also been impatient with worship, having so much that I need to do and so little time to do any of it. Even when I've sat in worship, I've skimped on good practice. I haven't had energy to tend worship or to clear out my own spiritual detritus so I can be a pure well of Divine Light.

(Before worship, a dear Friend reminded me that I don't always need to be centered, that this is exactly why Quakers gather in community, so that we can help bring one another back to the Light when we stumble.)

During worship, I reflected on the importance of our corporate practice. Meetings, like individuals, learn how to be Quakers by doing our Quaker practices. I closed my eyes and tended my spiritual well, and then I opened my eyes and blessed each of my dear Friends, all the way around the circle.

I'm left thinking that I need to practice Quakerism much as the children need to practice the piano. I need to run through my Quaker scales, to exercise my Quaker faculties, and to gather with my Meeting for our corporate practices. Only then will I become the Quaker I can be, and the Quaker that my Meeting needs me to be. Without the practice, I'm a Quaker in name only, the outer shell of a Quaker without the inner Quakerness.

Simple Gifts

Some years ago, I threw a barebones party for my younger daughter: park, children, string cheeses, orange wedges, juice, and cupcakes. A Quaker friend of mine turned to me and said, "This is a really simple birthday party."

I didn't know enough about Quakerism then to know that she was paying me a high compliment. Yes, it was a simple birthday party. I had three young children, including a baby, and I was also homeschooling and working 30 hours a week. Simple was all that I could manage.

Over the past 6 months, I have come to realize that simplicity is probably my major contribution to my Meeting. I find this somewhat surprising and somewhat ironic. I never imagined that I would become known for my habit of paring down plans for Quaker events to make them more manageable. Indeed, I might prefer not to have to continually look for ways to simplify my life.

The Great Woodworker has other ideas, and I look back to see how this "gift" for simplicity has been trained in me. I am an engineer by profession, and there's nothing like working with things that can break to convince a person of the value of clean, simple, elegant designs. I have four children, and there's nothing like mothering to force a person to focus on the essential rather than the merely necessary.

Simplicity, though. I've never been completely comfortable with the simplicity testimony. Life is complex, life is diverse, life is downright messy. For every complex problem, there exists a solution that is simple, elegant, and wrong. I've always been a person who delights in seeing the whole spectrum rather than neatly dividing experience into black and white boxes. I love color and variety: birds, flowers, trees, clouds, spices, people. Simplicity seems so stark and comfortless, a white cell scrubbed clean with only the merest of necessities.

I can only wrap my mind around simplicity when I shift my focus to the essential. When I fix my mind and heart on the essence of my faith, I can see that simplicity allows me to clear away the clutter to highlight the essential. It lets me cut through the dross to the heart of the matter, to cleave to the substance and not the form.

It's a continual challenge: to focus on the essential and not to get pulled off my path by all the distractions eager to absorb my time and attention. To turn away from the computer and give my attention to my youngest child. To stop in the rush to get to work and take the time to breathe and pray. To interrupt the flow of shopping lists and appointment reminders and really connect with my husband. To take the time to appreciate the young woman who carries out my groceries. To sit in silence and stillness waiting on the will of God.

Some years ago, I explored the meaning of negative space in art and in my life. I became convinced then that less is often more, that by creating emptiness, we clear space for new creation. I thought of this in terms of housework, in terms of free time for my children, and in terms of creating various spaces in my own life.

This then is my gift: nothing. I can give you an emptiness that you can fill. I can see where we can take things away to create more space. I can make dirty dishes clean and sweep debris from the floor. I'm a sort of spiritual cleaning lady.

A Beacon in the Night

There's an old man in my Meeting who shines with Light. He has gotten very frail in the past year, but he attends Meeting regularly. The past month or so, he rises to speak every First Day.

His words don't usually sound like ministry, but his face glows with the ministry he lives. He doesn't talk about God. He talks about children and war and beauty and music and senseless death. His heart is full of love for the Meeting. Sometimes, I get the sense that he rises because he cannot contain his joy at being among Friends.

He stands in the larger world, too. He stands every week on a street corner as a witness against war. Sometimes he carries a sign with information about children who have died in war. Sometimes he carries a sign with photos of all the American servicemen killed in Iraq.

When he struggled to his feet this morning, I thought about the kind of Quaker that this Friend is. He doesn't quote the Bible or talk about God. He doesn't debate the finer points of Quakerism or argue about the color of the carpet. He speaks simply and with great love even when he is telling us things we'd rather not hear.

He is not, perhaps, the sort of Quaker that some people want in their Meetinghouse, but I am very glad that he is in ours. In his simple, straightforward way, he shows me more about the teachings of Jesus than any dozen Biblical or Quaker scholars. His heart is big enough to contain the joy of a child's smile and the pain of global conflict.

Every time this Friend rises, I am filled with joy and sorrow. I feel fortunate to see his life bear witness to the great beauty and the great evil in the world.

Growing in the Light

Today, my 18-year-old daughter (who will probably also blog about this) was welcomed into membership in Santa Cruz Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends.

In recent months, I have been grateful for the presence of Friends in her life. Her membership clearness committee has agreed to act as a vocational clearness committee for her as she grapples with her future. It eases my mind to know that she has such wise and supportive counsel to help her discover her path in life.

The members of the Meeting welcomed her with great joy (and a beautiful chocolate cake). At one point, I looked around the fellowship hall and saw each of my four children deep in conversation with an adult Friend. I thought how fortunate they are to be nurtured by the richness of our Quaker community, and how the support of adult Friends is helping them all grow into the Light.



In December, my 11-year-old son told me that most people don't know why we celebrate Christmas.

"And why do you think we celebrate Christmas?" I asked him.

"It's because of the life and the teachings of the man whose birth we celebrate," he said.

I thought about that for a while. I was struck by the word "teachings," and what that indicates about my son's understanding of Christianity. I was also struck by the fact that my son thought that he was sharing a bit of esoteric knowledge with me. He didn't see a connection between the secular celebration of Christmas and the life and teachings of Jesus. He imagined that most people don't realize that Christmas has anything to do with Christ.



When we were at the grocery store recently, my 7-year-old noticed that there were macaroni in the shape of peace signs and asked to try them. When he was unloading the groceries at the check-out stand, he told the checker, "In case you were wondering, I'm a Quaker."

Our Meetinghouse sports a peace sign. My son figured that the peace sign is a religious symbol like a cross or a star of David. He interprets every peace sign he sees as an emblem of Quakerism. For a brief second, I saw through his eyes and I was dazzled.

Stone Soup for the Soul

or: On the Role of Leadership in a Friends Meeting

Pacific Yearly Meeting has given its monthly meetings the charge to consider the Jubilee Year and what it might mean to Friends. Initially, this led to great confusion in our Meeting as we tried to figure out what connection the Old Testament Jubilee could possibly have to our modern lives. Our society is so very different from that of the Israelites, and the scope of the Society of Friends is quite limited economically.

Our Meeting has taken some small and not-so-small steps to try to review what we are doing in light of the Jubilee Year. Are we as a corporate body acting from the center? Are our structures and institutions alive and in congruence with our needs and values? What can we do to center down corporately and make our Meeting a living embodiment of the Light?

This summer, some of our beloved Friends (who also held strong leadership roles in the community) moved far away. The Meeting (and I myself) was in a kerfluffle before they left but, to my surprise, the Meeting did not falter once they were gone. Their departure, instead of being a crisis, was an opportunity for the Meeting to go deeper, to develop new strengths, and to rejoice in the members who remain.

In past years, some of our Meeting traditions have grown heavy for those who are trying to carry them. It has become abundantly clear that we cannot continue to do these things as they have been done. We have chosen to lay some of them aside and to continue others in a simpler form.

Which leads us to Christmas Eve.

It is the custom of our Meeting to have a programmed celebratory family worship on Christmas Eve in the evening. I woke with a start the Saturday after Thanksgiving to realize that Worship & Ministry had done nothing to plan for this annual event. The Christmas Eve service is a cherished oasis of sanity and connection in my own holiday celebration. It has also traditionally been a fair amount of work for either a member of Worship & Ministry or a planning committee.

I started thinking about how we could have a wonderful Christmas Eve worship that would include everyone and not strain Worship & Ministry's slender resources. Since Christmas Eve came on a Sunday, we'd already have unprogrammed worship in the morning so perhaps we could make the evening worship a bit less programmed than it usually is.

As I mulled it over, I got the idea that the whole worship could be musical, with the music provided by members of the Meeting. All that Worship & Ministry (which was starting to look more and more like me) would need to do would be to get the ball rolling.

And so it came to pass. The committee approved the idea and sent me and another member of the committee off with their blessings. We talked to the musical members of the community and they started organizing themselves to prepare numbers, lead carols, and copy song sheets. A few Friends volunteered to help with the set-up.

We had a lovely musical evening with instrumental music, a sing-along, and sacred circle dancing followed by a bountiful potluck. I worked steadily and joyfully, without undue stress or exhaustion.

I left the Christmas Eve worship feeling blessed by my community and also with a sense that this is how Friends are meant to organize. Historically, unprogrammed Friends have deliberately eschewed professional leaders and ministers. We are a religion of clergy, and that means that each person brings her gifts to the community.

I and the other Christmas Eve facilitator went back to Worship and Ministry with new enthusiasm for stone soup events. Our business for the evening was to plan our spring Meeting retreat (an event that has historically burnt out the clerk of Worship and Ministry), and the committee explored ways to share responsibility more widely in the community.

One of our possible themes for our retreat is "What would our Meeting do if we were truly Spirit-led?" At one point, the clerk of the Meeting suggested that we might make the weekend an experiential potluck, with individual Friends bringing activities and gifts to share as their potluck dishes.

Turning to Thee

In a recent discussion with friends, the subject of the Quaker thee came up. We traced its linguistic development and speculated on why Quakers clung to the second person familiar while others replaced it with the second person formal and plural. More mysterious was the Quaker clinging to the objective "thee" instead of the nominative "thou" and the practice of conjugating "thee" as if it were third person singular (i.e. "thee does" instead of "thou dost").

I have long regretted the loss of the tender and personal "thou" in English speech. I am now regretting the loss of the religious and personal "thee" in Quaker speech. "Thou" served to set apart speech with an intimate from impersonal or commercial speech. "Thee," it seems to me, is a direct appeal from that of God in me to that of God in thee.

I am wondering about introducing "thee" into my own speech with Friends. For me, it would function as a reminder to speak from the heart and the Spirit, a reminder that Friends are connected at a deep and personal level.

In God's Time

About once a month, I am responsible for closing Meeting. This means that I need to provide the flowers for the center table, discern when Meeting is over, welcome folks to Meeting, and facilitate introductions and announcements. I find this a challenging duty for many reasons, but it also gives me delight.

I don't ordinarily wear a watch. I gave watches up years ago because I decided that they interfered with my ability to move according to my children's needs and not according to the clock. For many years, my watch sat in a drawer, its battery getting deader and deader.

Our Meetinghouse has no clock in the main room, and so I have had to be creative in order to end Meeting on time. I have borrowed watches from sympathetic Friends. I have sat near individuals who wear watches with large dials.

I recently got new batteries for my watch just so I could wear it to Meeting on closing days. Naturally, in the rush to get four children, myself, and the flowers ready for Meeting, I forgot to put on my watch. Moreover, I forgot completely about the need to monitor the time until I was deep in worship.

Glancing around, I could find no close Friend wearing a watch. "Very well," I thought, "this morning I will just have to close Meeting on God's time instead of clock time."

I gave the closing of Meeting completely over to God and settled back to deep worship. After some time (although it was difficult to say how much because I was in a timeless space), I was prompted to end Meeting and welcome afterthoughts.

"It's too early," I thought, but I opened my eyes and closed Meeting. At 11:30 on the dot. I had my usual difficulty finding words after deep worship, but I managed to fulfill my duties well enough.

My focus during worship these last several months has been on radical faith and surrendering control of more and more of my life to God. That morning, I had especially been thinking about how we as a Meeting can act more on living faith and less on custom and tradition. Are we, as a corporate body, allowing the Spirit a big enough space to act through us or are we relying too much on past directions and past decisions?

On a more personal note, should I even try to wear a watch when I close Meeting? Or should I instead put my faith in God to prompt me to close Meeting when I should? Would my Friends be as tolerant of faith-led closing if I closed Meeting 1o minutes early or 15 minutes late?

And Kristina, if you happen to be looking in on this post, I felt your presence strongly at our worship that morning. I could almost see you sitting there, encouraging me to forget about clocks and pay attention to Spirit instead.

Setting a Place for the Spirit

Some years ago, I was taking a walk along our road. I intended it to be a long, vigorous walk.

After a short distance, I ran into a friend I hadn't seen in some time. We started chatting, and, after a few minutes, I was suddenly prompted to go back home. I left my friend abruptly and headed home at a trot.

When I rounded the next corner, I saw a naked toddler standing in the middle of the road.

"Hi honey," I said, reaching out for her hand, "Where's your mommy?" She led me to her house, where her grateful dad gathered her for a big hug.

When the Spirit speaks loudly enough, I have no trouble hearing. In that case, I didn't even stop to think. I simply obeyed.

When the Spirit speaks more softly, however, I'm not sure that I always hear. How many times have I missed the Spirit's whispers? How many times have I heard the gentle prompting and convinced myself to continue on my own wilful way?

I spent First Day with the children this last week, but I did get one very clear message during the ten minutes that we joined the main worship:

There is no issue too large for God's guidance. There is no issue too small for Spirit.

I think I am being asked to remain open to the Spirit at all times. Even if I think that God doesn't care what vegetable I serve for supper, I should leave the door open for Spirit to prompt me otherwise.

In some areas, such as parenting, I am quick to seek guidance. In others, such as work, I rarely do. I think I am being asked to expand God's scope in my life, to open more of my actions to guidance from the Spirit.

Faith in the Abyss

A week ago Monday, I was having difficulty focusing on my work. My dad was scheduled for brain surgery on Thursday, and I was staring into a great emotional and spiritual abyss.

I wanted to distract myself from this great sucking void. I was tempted to try to fill the void with all earthly things: food, tea, exercise, knitting, sexual fantasies, the Internet, even the work that I needed to do do meet my deadline. Each time I started to paper over the abyss, a little voice inside me said, "No, that won't work."

I tried to pray. I tried to sit in silence, but I was too restless to remain still. I couldn't call on God to fill that void. God would fill it, I was certain, but he'd do so in God's time, not in mine. I wanted relief, right then, salvation from the path of grief and pain laid out before my feet.

In the end, between bouts of work, I decided to face the abyss, to sit with it and accept its presence in my life. I did this reluctantly, bitterly, with only a few tiny scraps of faith to guide me. The impulses to distraction continued, but I managed to ignore them. The voice was guiding me down a grim path, and I had just enough faith to listen to it.

My faith did not grow that day. I had a Worship and Ministry meeting that evening, and I felt inadequate to the task. I shared my current spiritual poverty with my Friends, and they gave me the gift of sitting with me exactly where I was. During the Meeting, I felt buoyed by their faith and was able to apply myself to our work under the guidance of the Spirit.

My faith recovered somewhat after that, and I was able to do my work and support my mother during the surgery. When I saw my dad in the recovery room, he was confused and wondered what all the fuss was about. My uncle was talking about how well the surgery had gone, but I could tell my dad wasn't taking it in.

When my uncle left, I looked into my dad's eyes, so beautiful and untroubled, and let him say what was on his mind. He talked a little bit about what had been going on in the recovery room, and then looked at me beseechingly.

"Do you know what's going on here?" I asked him. He said that he didn't, and so I explained about the surgery and the tumor.

I felt blessed in that moment because I was able to be with him in the present. My practice of sitting with the void on Monday had given me what I needed to be able to be present with him while he faced the abyss. I didn't need to paper over his experience with too much talk or try to escape from it. I could just be with him and accept whatever he was experiencing.

The prognosis for glioblastoma multiforme is grim: a 50% 1-year survival rate and a 3% 5-year survival rate. My dad faces radiation and chemotherapy and the almost-certain loss of vision, memory, cognitive function, and his life.

My dad faces his future philosophically. He wants to spend time with family, with his children and grandchildren, and to enjoy the lucid time he has remaining to him.

I pray, with more faith than I had at first, for strength and guidance to support him and my mother through the hard times ahead. I think wryly that my Quaker faith will enable to me sit by the abyss with them and listen for the prompting to do what I can. And, when I can do nothing, I will have the faith to sit there anyway.

The Geography of Belief

Due to a recent discussion with Marshall, I was thinking about George Fox and how his witness relates to my life. Fox lived in a very different world than I do,and he was shaped by it as I have been shaped by my world.

As I thought about this, one of the things that struck me was that Fox lived in an almost exclusively Christian world. He might never have met a Jewish person, let alone someone who practices a non-Abrahamic faith. I, on the other hand, grew up in one of the more multi-cultural corners of the United States. As a child, I was exposed not only to many different flavors of Christianity, but also to Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, and Hinduism. My friends practiced these faiths, and I was taught to respect diversity.

I was also taught to be humble about my own religion and cultural practices. Christian practices were not better or more right than Jewish or Buddhist practices; they were just different. Indeed, the assumption that Christianity was right and Judaism (or Islam) wrong had caused a whole lot of suffering and evil in the world.

I was raised Universalist, in the same way I was raised to be sensitive to social and economic injustice. Growing up in a racially and culturally diverse city was one of the more precious gifts I have received in life.

Fox received his messages in a Christian frame. An exclusively Christian frame, however, seems too small to me. When I read the writings of the early Quakers, I re-frame them in more Universalist terms. With my life experience, anything that excludes human beings of other faiths won't work. God would not be so short-sighted and cruel as to leave out Buddhists and Hindus. I cannot believe in a God who would play favorites that way; slipping the truth to children born in Christian households and denying it to children born in other households.

If I had grown up in another sort of community, in a lily-white town where everyone was Christian, I don't think I would have the same feelings about the exclusivity of Christianity. I wouldn't know Jewish and Moslem and Hindu and Buddhist people as friends and individuals. I wouldn't have learned how to sing "Happy Birthday" in Farsi (a much better and livelier song than our English "Happy Birthday"); I wouldn't have contemplated the meaning of Rosh Hashonah; I wouldn't have learned about the great Ramayana myth cycle; I wouldn't have thought of working a Ramadan-like fast into our celebration of Thanksgiving. I think I would be more sure that the way I and my friends and neighbors do things was the Right Way, and that people who do things differently are just plain wrong.

Continuing revelation is both a tremendous opportunity and a great challenge. We are asked to listen continually for revisions to the expression to the truth. What past expressions of the truth are still true and which ones were part of the fabric of time and place? I wonder whether there are things that are true for this time in Marshall's place but not true for this time in my place.

I am shaped and called to be a Universalist. Christianity is part of that Universalism, but not all of it. I am called to recognize truth wherever I see it, by whatever name it is called. I can accept that other people are called in other ways; they might be called to go deeply into Christianity or Islam or Judaism or Hinduism or Buddhism or Paganism. I think it's important to stay in fellowship with all of them, to recognize that truth goes far deeper than words and symbols.

Mostly, though, I think that what God really cares about is how we treat one another. "Love your neighbor as yourself" is a recipe for the kingdom of God here on Earth. Our greatest challenge as human beings is to learn how to live in harmony with one another.