Finding what you need

I've been trying to get here all week. I'm headed to Canterbury, NH this morning, and it may mean I'm late to arrive at my own meetinghouse for the "work day" that's also necessary. I can't be any good for the rest of the weekend unless I've been here.

This week for me has been all about continuing to learn where I fit in, what I am called to do, and how I can best serve where led. It's often in terms of other people. Today, in a non-selfish way, it must be about me for the morning. The rest of the good work will happen, in the company of others. But first I'm led to just listen......

Listening to leadings.....

I've been very busy trying not to be so busy. In an excellent twist of events, NEYM's feed sent this message to me today:

What a wonder this Divine Presence is..... Am I awake enough to really be aware.... Of the deepness..... Where am I being led?

I think being "awake" has many meanings for us today. I see a morning scramble for the coffee pot in my work life, and my home life as well. Always "on the go", fulfilling the needs, keeping things up and "running".

The kind of "awake" I require now is a calmer one. An awareness preceded by a necessary emptiness. I need to make room to be filled with whatever comes my way of true importance.

I have been often slowed, come to a grinding halt in fact these days. Sometimes a simple comment, a simple moment brings me back into a reality that I was not expecting, or even quite comfortable with. But the connections I see, the community that is forming, the ways in which I interact with others are only able for me to see if I have space in which to let them reside.

"And now I began to have openings, leading to the ministry, and this brought on close exercise and deep travail of spirit. For although I had for some time spoken to business in monthly and preparative meetings, yet the prospect of opening my mouth in public meetings brought me a renewed and close trial. Yet, I endeavoured to keep my mind quiet and resigned to the heavenly call - if it should be made clear to me to be my duty.

Nevertheless, when soon after as I sitting in a meeting in much weightiness of spirit, a prospect opened and a secret, though clear, intimation attended to speak a few words that were then given to me to utter. Fear so prevailed that I did not yield to the motion, for which, I felt close rebuke and judgment seemed for some time to cover my mind.

But, as I humbled myself under his mighty hand, he again lifted up the light of his countenance upon me and enabled me to renew covenant with him, that if he would pass by this my offense, I would in future be faithful if he should again open the way therefor. And it was not long after when I was again moved to express a few words, which I yielded to in great fear and dread.

But O the joy and sweet consolation that my soul experienced as a reward for this act of faithfulness! And as I continued persevering in this duty and this watchfulness, I witnessed an increase in divine knowledge and an enlargement in my gift.

- "The Life, Exercises, and Experience of Elias Hicks"

Community

I've been thinking a lot about community lately. Not always the specifics, but just the communities I find myself in.

I teach now in a small school, certainly a community in itself. I asked one of the older girls in my class this week what it was like to attend such a small school, for nine years. She said it was great to know everyone, and have classed with kids of different ages, and feel like we were all a real family. Years ago, I might have thought exposure to so few people would not be a good method for education - but there is time for that. Learning to live and get along in a community is a rarer task and goal.

Quaker meeting is also a community for me. In fact, ti is the community itself that most appeals to me. I've taken many varied opportunities to serve the meeting this year, and they all have been involved in the members as a community. Taking our food to a shelter, cleaning the meetinghouse - these are all just as important as marching for peace and social issues. The health f our meeting, the spiritual health, is what allows us to do more important work.

I have felt a leading of late - to be of more service in a new way. And of course, way opened for me to serve on a new committee in aid to the meeting. I was nervous at first - such a large task, caring for others, especially when I have not known the members of meeting for long yet. And yet I feel strongly called to service, to be open to new avenues of community, and to retain a sense of wonderment and not fear as I follow these leadings.

A Testament of Devotion

Been doing some rereading of Thomas Kelly's book lately. His tales of spiritual amazement and wonder and all-encompassing joy resonate deeply with me.

Guidance of life by the Light within is not exhausted as is too frequently supposed, in special leadings toward particular tasks. It begins first of all in a mass revision of our total reaction to the world.

I think what I have experienced lately is indeed a "mass revision" of my "reaction to the world". Perhaps that is why Kelly's book speaks to me so clearly. Overwhelming process. I finally chose to share it all with a few Friends, which much to my amazement gave me great comfort. I will have to see where it all leads....

expansion of horizons

I spent the weekend in some new places. Physically, spiritually, emotionally - and I think it was a good idea. How many things do I miss for the sake of feeling "safe" or wanting to stay in a controlled situation?

In our relations with others in our daily work, let us manifest the spirit of justice and understanding and thus give a living witness to the Truth. While trying to make provision for ourselves and our families, let us not be anxious, but in quietness of spirit trust in the goodness of God..... let us think first of the service that we may render. Let us be ready to limit our engagements, to withdraw for a time, or even to retire from a business that we may be free for new service as God appoints it. (Faith and Practice)

This is the first fall that I have made a conscious effort to review the choices I make in how I spend my time. Although I am certainly as busy as in other years, I feel that having most of my focus in a few areas is making things easier for me. Family and evenings at home and family outings have taken center stage, and Quaker meetings and other spiritual endeavors are also up at the top of the list. Teaching, while a great love of mine, seems to not overwhelm me this year as in years past. I thought perhaps this was because of the new job - but really, it's just my attitude that's made the difference.

George's Journal

I've been doing a lot of satisfying reading lately, primarily from the Journal of George Fox. Brought it with me to Meeting for Worship, and although I rarely feel the need to read while there, it was a highly thoughtful and comforting experience for me to be reading the journal while sitting in an actual meeting for worship. Fox's spiritual travels were extensive, his journey hard, and his unwavering faith in what he knew experientially encourages me in my own faith journey.

I'm carrying around a hardcover edition - I am sure to invest in a softcover for my "glove compartment library" soon. An online version of this and many other Quaker texts can be found here: http://www.strecorsoc.org/quaker.html

When all my hopes in them and in all men were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could I tell what to do, then, oh, then, I heard a voice which said, "There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition"; and when I heard it, my heart did leap for joy.

Then the Lord let me see why there was none upon the earth that could speak to my condition, namely, that I might give Him all the glory. For all are concluded under sin, and shut up in unbelief, as I had been; that Jesus Christ might have the pre-eminence who enlightens, and gives grace, and faith, and power. Thus when God doth work, who shall hinder it? and this I knew experimentally.

My desire after the Lord grew stronger, and zeal in the pure knowledge of God, and of Christ alone, without the help of any man, book, or writing. For though I read the Scriptures that spoke of Christ and of God, yet I knew Him not, but by revelation, as He who hath the key did open, and as the Father of Life drew me to His Son by His Spirit. Then the Lord gently led me along, and let me see His love, which was endless and eternal, surpassing all the knowledge that men have in the natural state, or can obtain from history or books; and that love let me see myself, as I was without Him. - George Fox

Whittier Poetry in Amesbury

this Sunday, Aug. 9, at the 11th annual collaborative Reading from the Poetry of John Greenleaf Whittier. Local poets, writers and volunteers devoted to keeping Whittier’s story and work alive for new generations of readers, will share selected poems and passages in the garden of the poet’s Amesbury home.

Link in the Amesbury News

Link to The Whittier Home Association

NEYM - Wednesday (part one)

The blazing discovery which Quakers made, long ago, is rediscovered again and again by individuals and sometimes by groups. The embers flare up, the light becomes glorious. There is no reason why it cannot break out again, today, with blazing power. The world needs it desperately. - Thomas Kelly

I didn't really think the past few days would be glorious at all. A little dim glow would have sufficed. However, I much prefer where I am right now.

There are so many thoughts running through my head, and while I will surely miss my time here, I crave time at home to reflect on what I have learned while back in the context of my own life. I feel spiritually moved, inspired, connected – and yet I am keenly aware that I am in a blissful bubble of sorts, without the outside world pressing upon me. Walking cheerfully comes easily for me here. Too easily? Perhaps. But I suspect I needed to gain a set of spiritual "training wheels" as it were – all this falling into worship with large other groups of like-minded people has helped to deepen my experience easily. I am trying to trust the process for later on when I am not here.

I had a conversation earlier in the week (a continuation of one started months ago) about a seeming division in contemporary Quaker worship - activist or more Christian-grounded, even biblically based. I would expect my leadings to be heavy on the activist side of things. A member of our meeting (who has been at this much longer than me and I am sure knows what he's talking about!) has warned that I must proceed slowly, as not to burn out. Good advice, if I was in this for all the activity...

I am already surrounded by worthy causes. I work in public education, and find myself often serving as an advocate for kids and teachers and creating classrooms of respect and courage and light. Coincidentally, also a Quaker thing. I also have relatives in the mental health system. My own health problems have given me heightened awareness of disability issues of today. I do not have to look far for more good work to do, and there is much to be done.

But still, after a whole year, it's that peace and light that I experience in meeting each week, here with others at Yearly Meeting, and even in my solitary morning walks on the beach that keeps me returning week after week. I leave this week sure that it's not something you "burn out" from. In fact, it may just be the fuel for all the rest of the burnings.

I felt it long ago, when I was much younger. I wanted it to return, but my religious traditions of the time seemed to drive it away from me just when I needed it most. But that deep silence, that sharing with others which I still cannot quite explain, has been remarkably consistent thus far. I look forward to seeing how it continues to manifest itself as I leave. I will depart tommorrow still apprehensive, but hopeful.

More NEYM

I have read this blog before, but today it is linked through Martin Kelly - and I had no idea this person was a local! This is a great summary of some points of the week thus far:

http://petersontoscano.wordpress.com/



I am home at rest today - last night I had a nice evening with M and her friend (also M) - pizza, crafts, general toddler mayhem. My walk on the beach this morning was certainly refreshing, and everything seemed all new and shiny. A good reminder for me that what I have experienced this week thus far was in ME, and therefore will continue to travel from Smithfield and beyond within me.



More days of discernment, some great messages shared, some hard work being done. I am happy to see that so far I was indeed able to get out of my own perceptions, and can see the value in the people here even if we all are so different in some ways.



I thought for me the theme of Jubilee would translate into "not pursuing new activities/venues/"busyness". What has emerged for me thus far is the theme of letting go - to old values, perceptions, grudges, things that trap me. What will stick with me first and foremost from this week is what spoke to me - "what do I need to let go of?"

* a definition of "smart" that focuses on my accumulation of college credits, not necessarily experience and true wisdom.
* a need to do everything "right now"
* a fear that my health will fail, that causes me to make poor decisions in the current moment
* a concern that I must be the one to "fix" my family

Only the tip of a very large iceberg. But today I feel a new clarity and wisdom, from watching others grapple with what they need to let go of. Perhaps we're all letting go, but it's moved us to hold on to each other, which is indeed an unintended and lovely aspect of Jubilee.

so THAT'S the way to honor an anniversary...

Two days of Quaker mayhem. Some good, some just so-so, any complaints are only due to my ignorance and youth.

Today's meeting-for-worship-for-business rocked the house, however. Tempers flared, everybody was offended, confusion, bitterness, tears, frustration.....

and yet.......

Spirit moved us to somewhere. I don't know where yet, but I am convinced it is as a group, a whole. It was suggested that we might want to continue in small groups, and we firmly resisted, as so much seemed to be gained in our larger full meeting.

There's so much pain around changes that I personally feel we are being led to. Many have spoken of how we must find the blessing in grappling with these challenges. I am struggling to find a blessing within all these seemingly polar opposites, these views, these trenches we have dug down deep into. Can we see above this, to a greater good for all, perhaps even a new way out?

I have spent the past few months looking towards a split in American Quakerism as I have come to believe it stands now. Perhaps that possibility still remains, and perhaps it is meant to be. However, I now have glimpsed for a moment a brief peace, not of resolution, or even of unity, but of a love for us all to come together and work through our differences. There was a true respect tonight, not because we felt it initially, but because we WANTED it to remain with us.

I am leaving tomorrow, but am hoping to return for at least one more day of discernment. It's now officially "one year" of Quakerdom for me - and what a reintroduction today has been!

August The First (or however you say it in Quaker)

Well....

Headed to New England Yearly Meeting. I have been getting regular updates as to the status of registration, etc on facebook - feels a little like we are all going to summer camp. Except that we are adults, and may still behave as such when we get there.

This is quite a day for me. Application was due for Doctoral program today - not sent, still not sure if the program is "right" for me, so now there's a dream deferred. Perhaps.

It is also the one-year anniversary of the first time I walked into a Quaker meeting. The day my whole spiritual life changed - and a year later I am headed to THE New England Quaker meeting. I am spending most of the week in Quaker worship, and of course trying still to figure out exactly what that is!

Yesterday I also spent some time at the Wampatuck School, a mix of heartache and nostalgia for a job that I know is no longer right for me or my family, but a school family that I will sorely miss.

Our commissioned work for Wind Band arrived (published copy) in the mail this week as well - the final chapter to a hugely magnificent project. What next?

What next indeed? For someone who does not deal with transition and change very well, I sure am pilin' it on this week!

The theme of this week is "jubilee" - a biblical time for rest and renewal, where one should just take what comes, rather than seek to create new experiences directly. A time of reaction, more than mere action. Ironically, we will also debate (I know Quakers don't "debate" - but I surely don't know what else to call all this) the issue of same-sex marriage that has divided so many meetings as of late. We will ask for guidance in creating new policies, supporting our members, doing what is right (once we figure out what that is).

I'm anticipating learning as much about the Quaker structures as the issues themselves. And it does make me nervous that I am headed for a large group of religious-types. In the past, I have thought that can truly only lead to trouble. Lots of "group think" and the like.

I have brought my own spiritual texts (and a worn copy of "Understanding the Bible" - just in case of more academic inquiry) and have committed to making space for thought, meditation, prayer, whatever necessary. I seem to be preoccupied with many "issues" for myself these days - I am hoping to gain a larger perspective that will help with all of them.

Bringing the computer, hopefully will blog of my take on this. Will be interesting to read for myself later.

Gay Marriage for British Quakers

One of the UK's oldest Christian denominations - the Quakers - looks set to extend marriage services to same-sex couples at their yearly meeting later. The society has already held religious blessings for same-sex couples who have had a civil partnership ceremony. But agreeing to perform gay marriages, which are currently not allowed under civil law, could bring the Quakers into conflict with the government. The issue of active homosexuality has bitterly divided Churches. But the BBC's religious affairs correspondent Robert Pigott said the Quakers had been more prepared than other groups to reinterpret the Bible in the light of contemporary life.

from the BBC

Apparently this BBC news clip was released before Britain Yearly meeting had come to any final conclusions - thus the tense of the article. However, a minute was agreed upon, and the result is that same-sex marriage will be performed in Quaker services. American Quakers are all over the place on this issue - I see us as clearly divided and I often wonder how we will resolve this without a major split. As I head to our own New England Yearly Meeting, I am thrilled with this news of Britain's decision. Hooray!

If Grace is True: Why God Will Save Every Person

by Phillip Gulley and James Mulholland

Traditionally, many Christian denominations have held fast to the belief that those who confess God's saving grace from sin will be rewarded with eternal life while those who reject this grace will be damned to eternal perdition. Such a belief, according to ministers Gulley and Mulholland, fails miserably to acknowledge the real message of Christianity: that God's gracious arms are wide enough to hold every person, regardless of shortcomings or sins. The authors did not always feel this way, and their little meditation on Christian universalism is as much autobiographical confession as theological treatise. Using stories from their own lives and ministries, Gulley and Mulholland devote a chapter to each of the words in the sentence "why God will save every person." In a seamless voice, they tell of people's struggles to accept teachings of the church that keep them from closeness with God. They also recall events in their own lives where they stood in the way of God's grace operating in personal relationships. For example, when one of their ministerial friends declared his homosexuality, they realized that - despite their former judgmental stance on homosexuality - this person deserved God's love and grace as much as any other. Salvation, they argue, is simply being freed of every obstacle to intimacy with God. Gulley and Mulholland's stirring manifesto on the central role of universalism in Christianity will provoke traditionalists and encourage new ways of thinking about the nature and purpose of the Christian faith.

There's also some controversy around this book. I shall blog about that separately. This was, in my opinion, a terrific and tolerant look at Christianity and humans (in all their faulted ways) in a loving, all-encompassing way.

Messages when/where you need them....

or... "Where will you be in five years?" - part two.

Still working out the question. Or... it's really the wrong question. The more appropriate, life-affirming, enlightening, accurate question is:

WHO will I be in five years?

I've got at least a shot a the answer to that one. And quite frankly, isn't that the more important angle? I have little control over there wheres and whys of my future - we all make decisions on where we hope to be, even plan to be, but how often are we there in the ways we planned on? And if we do end up exactly where we want to, is that destination based on limited knowledge? I certainly hope five years from now, I'll want more than I have now. Not more stuff, more achievements, more accolades, more projects - just a general need for a more developed sense of self, based on what I do every day.

This was a STUNNING realization for me. I'm sure it was banging around my brain for awhile, but it all became clear in a sudden moment in meeting on Wednesday. Some Friends in Cambridge, speaking to their hopes and fears of how they will ever get through all they see as necessary and asked of them. Living day-to-day through the burdens of the world. True dilemmas and crises, serious issues - how do we cope with them all?

By only attending to what is directly asked of us. I was reminded this week of the words of Thomas R Kelly (written during the build-up to World War II):

Kelly wrote of the “particularization of my responsibility in a world too vast and a lifetime too short for me to carry all responsibilities .... Toward them all we feel kindly, but we are dismissed from active service in most of them .... We cannot die on every cross, nor are we expected to .... The concern oriented life is ordered and organized from within. And we learn to say No as well as Yes by attending to the guidance of inner responsibility.”

Life for me is about choosing "stuff" right now - time with family and help with schooling for Maille, a graduate school path, daily interests and purchases and long-term commitments that are financial and physical. Health issues that are serious and demand my attention. Issues that help me to see the pain of others, and empathize in a way which I am grateful for.

What was I most grateful for this week? A gentle reminder that I have at least, in the last year, discovered a bit more of the emotional space I need, the spiritual guidance that I long to tap into, which surprises me at its effortless appearance when I need it the most. Often, in the expectant waiting of a Quaker meeting. This week, in a meeting of Friends, but not friends. The anonymity made no difference. Their message for me was abundantly clear. Keep calm and steadfast in the struggle to balance those problems of the whole world with the ones that I can address directly. Keep questioning - but not with the heavy heart of great burden, but rather with a lightened curiosity and faith that answers will come when I am ready to hear them.

"...I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer." - Rilke

Thomas Macy

Thomas Macy was a Puritan of Amesbury initially - but he was persecuted for harboring four Quakers, and later was a settler of Nantucket.

He could now live no Longer in peace, and in the enjoyment of religious freedom, among his own nation; he chose therefore to remove his family to a place unsettled by the whites, to take up his abode among savages, where he could safely imitate the example and obey the precepts of our Saviour, and where religious zeal had not yet discovered a crime in hospitality, nor the refinements of civil law, a punishment for its practice. In the fall of 1659, he embarked in an open boat, with his family and such effects as he could conveniently take with him, and, with the assistance of Edward Starbuck, proceeded along the shore to the westward. When they came to Boston bay, they crossed it, passed round Cape Cod, and extended their course by the shore until they were abreast of the island to the northward; thence they crossed the sound, and landed on Nantucket without accident. Thus we see, that the same persecuting spirit, that drove our forefathers from England, drove Thomas Macy from our forefathers; that _bensame undaunted courage, which enabled them to breast the storm, and dare the wave, in search of a free altar and a safe home, prompted him, in search of the same blessings, to meet the same dangers. He sacrificed his property and his home to his religion; he found both in a remote region hitherto hardily known. His religion, we mean not its name, but its spirit, has been transmitted to the present generation, unsullied by the crime of persecution or by the disgrace of Inhospitality.


I live on Macy Street. Two of those four Quakers he gave shelter to were Marmaduke Stephenson and William Robinson, who were later hung for being Quakers on Boston Common.

Quaker history is all over. This is GREAT.

A Testament of Devotion

by Thomas R Kelly

I had read excerpts of this in Faith and Practice. I was drawn to the writings. I am drawn to this book. I often keep it in my car for my morning beach walks. Kelly has a way of looking at life that is peaceful, all-knowing, and wise.

Our Quaker Ancestors : Finding Them in Quaker Records

by Ellen and David Berry

A book written to help amateur genealogists doing Quaker research. A great resource for me in its explanation of how Quaker meetings and record keeping has worked.

Quaker Nantucket: The Religious Community Behind the Whaling Empire

by Robert Leach. From Amazon:

The authors provide detailed information about the rise and fall of Nantucket's Quaker community and its whaling industry. If your Nantucket ancestors include family names like Macy, Starbuck, Coffin, Bunker, etc., you'll gain additional perspective on the interconnections between family, religion, and whaling, the "splintering" of the Quaker community, and some reasons for migration off island.

I live on Macy Street - named after Thomas Macy, who lived in Amesbury and went to Nantucket. Also a great history of the real Starbuck family, of Moby Dick fame. This is a great addition to my Quaker history library!

New England Quaker Meetinghouses, Past and Present

Entries on 138 Meetinghouses, historical facts/locations/pictures. Weeks set out to photograph every meetinghouse in New England. A great resource. I would love to visit some of these places myself this summer, and this will be a good start!