What Canst Thou Say?

Chief Strategy Officer

2025-01-11T11:04:00.001-05:00

In September, I started a new course at the Wharton School of Business Executive Education program. It’s a Chief Strategy Officer certificate program.

I’m now about half way through the course and I am really enjoying it. Here are four things I have learned so far. I will probably elaborate more on each of them in future posts.

New ways to quantify and use equations to express concepts. Sometimes it is just making an insight sound science-y instead of intuition-based. But sometimes it helps to put a framework on a jumble of ideas in order to weigh them more accurately and to look for what is missing in a data set.
The early part of the course was an opportunity to analyze the strategy work I have done before. It gave me a chance to reflect on my last job and to understand more clearly why some things worked and some things were harder.
How to apply the concepts across different industries, some I know a little about, like health care and finance and construction, and some I knew very little about, like entertainment and business aviation. It is really helpful to be in a course with other experienced professionals and to consult with each other about how the tools we are learning can work in new contexts.
I enjoy this kind of thinking and the people who also want to have these conversations. I like asking “What if?” and “Why not?” And I am enjoying getting to know my classmates, mostly online, but also the one in-person event we organized.

I am really glad I started the course. It was a big investment for me, and the first academic credential I have pursued in a long time. But I can see that it will be helpful for me in my future career goals. If you have any questions about it, please ask! I'd love to talk about it.

Eight things I learned about myself in the pool

2024-11-19T21:49:00.001-05:00

1. Every day that starts with swimming is a better day.

It’s good for both my mental and physical health. I sleep better and I’m just in a better mood all day long.

2. I actually prefer to swim at the end of the afternoon.

Like at 4:00 pm when I wasn't really getting anything done anyway, and then I can go home and make dinner. I just learned this since I left my job in August. I can go at 7:00 am if I have to. But I prefer to do desk work in the morning and physical work in the afternoon.

3. I am externally motivated.

I clean my house because other people are coming. But I can set deadlines that make me identify an external goal for an entirely internal process. Like I’m going to swim for 30 minutes. Or 1,000 meters. Or let’s see how fast I can finish a 400 IM.

4. I am competitive.

That old man in the lane next to me? I think I can beat him. The young woman still wearing her college swim cap who's just barely warming up but still passed me twice? How close can I keep up with her? What if she’s just kicking this lap? Doesn’t matter that they don't know we're racing. It makes me swim faster/harder.

5. I am realistic.

College swimmers can go four lengths of the pool in the time it takes me to do one. 10 year olds can go two in the time it takes me to do one. I am never going to be a fast swimmer, and I don’t care. Very much. But I hope to still be swimming in my 90s. That is a goal I can work towards.

6. I am an athlete.

No one walking down the street sees me and says to themself, she must work out. But all of us here in the pool are swimmers. Moving our bodies. I never used to think of myself as an athlete. But when I think back, I have played a lot of sports. Not terribly well, but I am basically coordinated and flexible and I like to play games. That counts.

7. I am not ashamed.

I have been in lots of public pools. In the locker rooms, there are bodies of all sizes, shapes, colors. And we are all athletes. I think it's good for girls to see that this is how it is in real life. Not parading around naked but just getting on with changing. It is a small counter to the unrealistic images in magazines and movies.

8. Swimming is one of my favorite spiritual practices.

Whether it is back and forth in an indoor pool or floating in the middle of the Adriatic Sea, I love swimming. It is (literally) fully immersive. Our connection with water is holy. And it can either be a meditative time and space to consider a decision or the light falling on water or a chance to not think, except about my stroke, and form, and kick, and let go of my responsibility for anything else, just for a few laps.

Every day that includes swimming is a better day.

Portrait of the Artist as a Middle-Aged Woman

2022-04-19T17:34:00.002-04:00

I received my membership card from the Philadelphia Museum of Art today.

The front of it has an excerpt from a painting by Wassily Kandinsky, Circles in a Circle, 1923. [See the whole painting here]

I am not usually a fan of abstract art. But this little piece spoke to my condition. Any way I hold it, any side up or down. It is still fascinating.

I realized that while I had heard the name before, I knew nothing about Kandinsky, so I googled his name. I read almost the whole Wikipedia article about him (it’s long). He was born in Moscow and grew up in Odesa, Ukraine. He originally studied law and was successful as a professor. He didn't start to draw seriously until his 30s but then he became a painter and a theorist and a teacher and he was part of the Bauhaus and he died in Paris in 1944 at the age of 77.

He was interested in the connections between art and the soul of a human being, and between music and color as abstractions of the soul. He was a theosophist and an Orthodox Christian.

I am captivated by these concepts and theories.

But also by the possibility that one might not discern their true calling in adolescence. There were glimpses - he says he was interested in color as a child. His initial interest in drawing-painting was in figurative," realistic" art. He saw Monet's “Haystacks" series and was initially distressed that he couldn't tell what it was. But it captivated him - it captured his attention. And he continued to explore these connections the rest of his life.

Most of the last month I have spent writing a novel, that began as an idea while driving a carpool a year and a half ago. This morning I had a vision of a series of books featuring my character in order to tell all the stories I was creating for her. Part of this morning's vision was of using a novel to proclaim the Fourth World, integrating another part of my life/self/ambition.

But I have to finish the first one. Not get captivated by the idea of being a novelist and lose the reality of the hard work and penurious life of an artist.

But this was also the first time I actually thought of myself as an artist. Of writing as art. Not just truth. Although art is also truth. 15 years ago, I was considering whether I could call myself a writer or not. I came to accept that as truth about myself. But only now am I seeing my writing as “art.”

One of the Kandinsky quotes on the google search page: "The artist must also cultivate his soul."

I joined the Philadelphia Museum of Art so I could go as often as I want during my sabbatical. Julia Cameron has a concept of an artist’s date, where you go on a date with your muse.

Last year, I gave copies of Seth Godin’s book The Practice to a few people. A week ago, one of them cited it as being “everything” as she accepted a new job that will require her to step up in a new role. Then she quoted it back at me, when I was being fearful about writing fiction.

And Samir Selmanovic helped me to think a couple of years ago about what I need to bring forth what is in me that no one else can do. What am I to do with my unique life? My one wild and precious life, to quote that famous Mary Oliver poem.

So far, my sabbatical has unleashed

Sketching

Poetry

55,000 words of a novel.

Tonight, Chris made a joke and I said that would make a great short story. He said if you want to write it, go ahead. I just might.

One of the best things though, about this sabbatical time, is that there are no expectations, no pressure. I can flit from one to the next, and then dive deep. Kandinsky again, “There is no must in art because art is free." How am I free? Am I bound by my own expectations? By responsibilities? By other people’s expectations? This freedom is part of what makes it art. But I think it is fascinating that the long wikipedia article has exactly three sentences about his personal life as an adult, and only mentions two of the three women in his life (that I read about on another site). What expectations was he exceeding? What responsibilities was he avoiding?

Dear God,

Help me to see what is mine to do and what to leave undone.

Amen.

[I wrote this a year ago. I'm not sure why I didn't post it then. But a year later, it still speaks to my condition. After I got the card, I have visited the original painting multiple times.]

First Day School in the wake of Covid-19

2022-04-04T22:06:00.005-04:00

In late spring of 2021, my monthly meeting began preparing to return to in-person worship in June. We made the transition to hybrid worship-some folks in the meetinghouse and some on Zoom-pretty easily.

Early in the process, God laid it on my heart that we needed to have in-person first day school (FDS) when we returned to the meetinghouse. One reason was to have childcare for our clerk and other parents to be able to attend worship. Another reason was that in the 15 months when we only had Zoom worship, the children and parents had been clear that the kids did not want to participate in another Zoom activity on Sunday morning. A couple of Friends tried to stay in touch with families during the pandemic, but it wasn't very successful as a religious education program. The best thing they did was organize a fifth Sunday intergenerational online meeting for worship with pets.

• • •

In deference to the pandemic health restrictions, we decided a few things. First, we would not return to the small classrooms upstairs in the meetinghouse - even though they were freshly painted during the first year of the pandemic. We would hold FDS outside, under a tent that had been erected on the grass by the school attached to our meeting. And second, we would begin with brief lessons and plenty of time to play outside. Third, the lessons part would start with getting to know each other again.

I committed personally to being there most weeks and finding a second adult to join me, or finding two adults to be there on weeks I was not. Some of the Friends who had been teaching before came back, and some had moved on in their commitments. A parent volunteered to follow through on the child safety policy requirements, like background checks, etc.

We had previously not had much of a tradition of snacks in our First Day School, maybe because we always had a robust offering during 'hospitality' or "coffee hour." Since we would be meeting outside in the Philadelphia summer, I started bringing individual juice pouches - popular and pre-portioned - that could offer some hydration, some blood sugar, without a risk of sharing germs. It wasn't very environmentally sound but it seemed like the best solution under the circumstances.

I bought a set of a dozen clipboards to use to write or draw on, and I brought some oil pastel crayons and colored pencils and a surplus sketchbook from my house to have tools that children from 3-12 could use. We encouraged the kids to bring a blanket or towel to sit on if they wanted.

We changed our tradition to have kids sit with their families for the first 15 minutes of worship so that they could arrange where to sit with social distancing and not have to disrupt where other people were sitting at the end of worship. And so parents didn't have to defend space all through worship in order to have a place for their kids to sit when they came back. This also meant that the FDS program mostly started with everyone together, instead of dribbling in. When families were more than 15 minutes late, the kids just joined us outside - no problem.

Kids came-and they came back. Their parents reported that the kids were looking forward to coming to meeting. So I considered that a success.

By the end of the summer, we settled on a loose rotation of one week of spiritual practices that help us feel closer to God, one week of a Bible or Quaker story, one week on the month's advices & queries about how we live our lives (as 3rd-6th graders), and one week of playing sports or games the whole time.

We were lucky that all the kids over 5 got vaccinated just before the weather got too cold to sit outside. We transitioned to meeting in the dining room where we had good ventilation, and no one was cooking anyway. We're still wearing masks in the meeting house. And mostly when we're outside too.

I kept inviting more adult Friends to join us - to bring something for the content or just to be the second adult. And I set up a text group for last minute announcements to parents. By now, we have a pretty regular cast of characters. We have a regular rotation of teachers and we are renewing our background checks for continuing and new teachers. We have some kids who come (almost) every week and some who come once a month. We can incorporate new Friends any week, and we have a critical mass of participants to be sure that if you come, there will be a program for children and there will be other children there.

• • •

Every week, we start with "News of the Week" - we pass the clipboard around and each say our name, "reporting from Philadelphia," (like a broadcaster) and then whatever is news from our week. Like "my cousins came to visit" or "we had a half day at school and I played a lot of video games" or "I lost a tooth." Whatever is news for you. [This has been a great way to get to know each other better.]

The first couple of weeks we talked about what was different at the meetinghouse now and drew our family portraits (including pets). Then we spent a few weeks talking about God - what is God? How do we know? Does God hear our prayers?

In late July, the yearly meeting organized a Sunday morning, in-person activity in conjunction with annual sessions. It was a program with separate groups for elementary, middle and high school kids, at the Historic Fairhill Burial Ground, (now a public park) where Lucretia Mott, among others, is buried. It was actually very close to our meetinghouse, and at one point was under the care of our monthly meeting. So we had one week where we learned a little bit about who Lucretia Mott was and how she was (tangentially) connected to our meeting. The next week we all met at the park, and the kids participated in small, age-appropriate groups run by the yearly meeting staff, and it was fun for everyone. The following week, one of the kids reported on the book about a black abolitionist that his family picked up from the Tiny Library in the park.

We spent the whole month of August learning about prayer. As in, prayer can take many forms-it's between you and God. It can be in motion--a Friend who is an actor came and led some movement. It can be words that are already written. We read the 23rd Psalm and a friend came and led us in a song that is also a prayer. It can be a personal ritual-a Friend came and shared her personal prayer practices.

In September, we spent a couple of weeks preparing for World Quaker Day (first Sunday in October) by interviewing an older Friend in our meeting using the materials from the Africa QREC and FWCC Section of the Americas. Said older Friend also happens to be a documentary filmmaker so she took the footage home and edited it for us and we watched it together, and then showed it to the rest of the meeting on WQD and then sent it in to the WQD website.

We started in November using the General Queries of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting on the first of each month that I translated into language appropriate for third graders. The kids have been genuinely interested in answering the questions and we have had some very interesting conversations about how we are living our lives, at home, at school, and at Meeting.

In December, we started preparing food for the Meeting to share after worship. It's an activity, a snack, and a service project, all rolled into one. We have baked cookies and spread peanut butter on crackers and portioned out baby carrots into paper cups to make serving easy. It's different each month.

[In January, we were back on Zoom-only worship because of the covid-19 surge, so we didn’t have a children’s program for a few weeks. I promoted the yearly meeting’s online programs to anyone who wanted to participate.]

In February, we started, once a month, learning about Quaker distinctives. Why don't Quakers celebrate holidays, or do we? What does plain speech mean? How do we practice it now? What about oaths and music and communion? I have found that our kids didn't know these were part of Quaker tradition but now they are learning more of the depths of our Quaker practice-and talking about what is relevant to them, more than what it was like 200 years ago. I have been pleasantly surprised how engaged they are in the discussion. We just roll with the tangents and the non-sequiturs-everyone has something to say.

So now the content rotation is: first week: answering the queries, second week: playing games, third week: learning about Quaker faith and practice, fourth week: cooking for the Meeting. When there’s a fifth week, we are supposed to organize something for the whole meeting for intergenerational worship, but we haven’t actually done that yet.

We have one baby who is regularly attending our Meeting, but still sleeping through worship much of the time, and cuddling with his parents the rest of the time. But we are ready when he is to welcome him to our program space - we have a plan and a brand new rug that is just waiting for someone to spit up on it.

• • •

For me personally, it has been a lot of work in the last year. But as I no longer have children at home, I had some time to give. I think it is important that parents don’t have to teach or supervise the children’s religious education program during worship, unless they really want to. For someone who spends her working days talking about how to build Quaker community, it has been a way to stay connected to my monthly meeting - both the joys and the tedium and the normal conflicts of community life. And it has been a way to channel my creativity and to talk about the spiritual things that matter to me. And I’ve gotten to know the kids (and parents) in my meeting a lot better, which is a blessing in and of itself.

Holy Week 2021

2021-03-29T12:22:00.001-04:00

I didn't intentionally choose this week to begin my sabbatical. A collection of external factors coincided to make this the right time. I only realized this coincidence would be true a couple of days ago.

But it feels good. Around the world, this is a week of holidays for Christians. In some contexts, secular holidays - schools and businesses are closed. In other contexts, the procession from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, with special rituals of remembrance on each day in between.

• • •

Holy Monday was the overturning of the tables in the temple. A challenge to unjust economic systems. For me, this time of rest and creative activity feels like a direct challenge to the economic structures of our day. For me, this ten week period feels like a sabbath season. A time to make right the patterns of my life. 8 hours for work, 8 hours for rest, 8 hours for what we will.

What do I will? And perhaps, not what I will, but what God wills. Not God's agents on Earth, not the church, not the government, but the Holy Creator, Source of All Wisdom, Beauty, Goodness. Not Caesar.

My main plan for this week is to begin by writing every day. To go swimming several days. And to schedule all the appointments that I put off until now. A haircut, a mammogram, new glasses, and more. It may take my whole sabbatical season to get to them all.

I already scheduled two - a deep cleaning for our house and our car. These fall into the category of things I could do for myself. However other people will be more efficient and right now I would rather pay someone to do it well and get it over with and not be exhausted when it is done. It will free me to think about other things instead of fretting about the housework. This goes against all my home training, but for once, I think it will be a good tradeoff.

• • •

Later in the week, Maundy Thursday is a reminder about community and service to others. Will I find ways, during this sabbatical season that overlaps with the Covid19 pandemic, to break bread with others and wash their feet? As a serious extrovert, I need to talk to other people for my own mental health. And as a human being and a Christian, I need to be of service to other people. Also for my own mental health. But I also need to practice some discipline around "custody of the eyes". The main purpose of this break is to bring forth that which is in me - to give to the world that which only I can give. Not to spend the time reading what other people have already written.

But recognizing the enormous privilege of having ten weeks in a row of paid leave, without even a newborn baby to take care of, I want to find some way to be of practical service to the community around me in this time as well.

• • •

Holy Friday and Saturday are about dying to self and waiting in the deep unknown. Am I able to give over my own longing to know or do or be anything and sink down to that seed that God sows in the heart? And to let that seed grow in me and breathe in me and be in me without striving to make myself more? For that seed to increase, I must decrease. In my striving and my desire for control and for fame and fortune and, and, and... everything. Not my will, Lord, but thine.

• • •

Then next Sunday, I will be going away. To an undisclosed location. For a week of self-denial of other people and the freedom to just write. A rebirth in some ways, maybe more like extended labor. I don't think it tracks to a resurrection. I'm afraid it's going to feel more like an extended Holy Saturday.

But we'll see. What freedom comes in that emptiness? What new inspiration or motivation? What will I be able to produce under those conditions? I have no idea.

Seventeen years ago, I went away for a solo retreat for a weekend. At that point in my life, what I most needed was for no one to touch me for 48 hours. I literally had to wean the baby in order to go away. The writing was just a serendipitous byproduct. But my life has changed ever since. And that baby is 19 years old now.

One of the things people keep telling me is not to have too high of expectations for myself in this sabbatical season. To not feel like I have to fill it with any particular kind of productivity or to set too concrete of a goal. That has been helpful advice.

But I am trying to establish the conditions for creative output to be possible.

I am trying to leave margins of time and energy to do what feels right in the moment.

To seek God's guidance in each day, each moment. And then to follow that guidance wherever or however it may lead.

• • •

This is the way.

That would be enough.

Amen.

Un Salmo de Robin, 25 julio 2020

2020-08-04T14:03:00.003-04:00

"Un Salmo de Robin" fue escrito el 25 julio 2020 como un ejercicio durante un retiro contemplativo de escribir nuestro propio salmo, utilizando nuestras oraciones sencillas, oraciones de nuestro corazón. La traducción en ingles esta abajo.

Querido Dios,

Ayúdame a que los dichos de mi boca y la meditación de mi corazón sean los mismos.

Reconozco que en tu creación somos tan minúscula como una montaña y tan magnifico como una brizna de hierba.

Pero en nuestra tierra, el mundo llora.

La justicia atrasada es justicia negada. Aun la pandemia no puede detener el progreso de la justicia. Pero ruego su misericordia con los que estamos vigilando nuestros muertos a solas. La raza humana no fue creada para la vida solitaria, sino una vida solidaria.

AMOR, me has creado para esto? ¿Para un tiempo así? Ayúdame a escuchar el susurro de tu voz y que la dejo guiar mi voluntad y mis pasos.

Mi pueblo adoptivo son los Cuáqueros. Con sus antecedentes heróicos y pecaminosos. No puedo asumir el uno sin el otro. Y me has llamado a servir a través de ellos. ¿Quieres que siga haciendo lo mismo? ¿Que estoy apoyando a los Cuáqueros a conocerse unos a otros? Que estoy creando espacio para los demás líderes a tomar sus puestos? ¿Vale la pena trabajar en la viña del Señor en una época así? En vez de la política de mi país?

Me contestas que sí. Para sostener a los que van a cambiar el mundo. Al socorro de tus labradores. Obedezco.

Ayúdame a construir con mis esfuerzos y nuestros Amigos una rampa de acceso para los que han escuchado tu voz y quieren hacer mejor pero que no saben como empezar ni para cual puerta entrar ni salir.

Ayúdame a recordar que no soy separada de ellos, ni los heridos ni los que hieren a su prójimo.

Ayúdame a crear un espacio para hablar de los verdaderos anhelos de nuestros corazones. Ayúdame a escuchar más que hablar. Que no dejo pasar la oportunidad de hacer lo necesario. De hacer lo justo. AMOR, hasta cuándo?

Aunque sigo agradecida por lo que me has brindado.

Ayúdame a no dejar de ser la mujer de mi marido, la madre de mis hijos, la dueña de mi casa, vestida de sencillez y justicia, mujer hacendosa. Reconozco la enseñanza de mis padres para cuidar de mi casa y enseñar a mis hijos. Agradezco la enseñanza de la universidad que no me libra de limpiar mi propia cocina pero no tengo que limpiar las cocinas de otras. Agradezco que me has proveído un hombre hecho y derecho, mi ayuda idónea, quien merece mi confianza y apoya a mi ministerio. Quien se acerca a mi con cariño y me hace reir. Señor del AMOR, ayuda a tod@s a encontrar la ayuda idónea para ell@s. Ayúdame a no despreciar el ministerio en mi junta local a favor de cualquier ministerio global o de aclamación mundana para no olvidar lo tedioso y lo precioso que es la comunidad cotidiana, que es la placa petri de la vida espiritual.

Ayúdame a hacer lo que está en mis manos por el bien de los días que me han tocado vivir, extirpando el mal en los campos y las calles que conozco, y dejando a los que vendrán después una tierra limpia para la labranza.

Y siempre, que no sea como yo quiero, AMOR, sino como tú quieras.

This was written as part of a contemplative retreat exercise to write our own psalm, using our own simple prayers of the heart.. Here is the translation:

A Psalm of Robin, July 25, 2020

Dear God,

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be the same.

I know that in your creation, we are as miniscule as mountains and as magnificent as a blade of grass.

But in our land, the world cries out.

Justice delayed is justice denied. Even the pandemic cannot stop the progress of justice. But I ask your mercy upon those of us who are mourning alone. The human race was not created for a solitary life, but for solidarity.

LOVE, is this what I was made for? For a time such as this? Help me to hear the whisper of your voice and to let that guide my will and my steps.

You know the Quakers are my adopted people, with both their heroic and their sinful past. I cannot take on one without the other. And you have called me to serve through them. Do you really want me to keep doing the same thing? Supporting Quakers to get to know each other? Creating spaces for other leaders to take their places? Is it really worth laboring in the vineyard of the Lord at a time like this? Instead of the politics of my country?

I hear the answer is yes. I am called to support those who are going to change the world. To succour your laborers. Got it.

Help me to build, with my own efforts and these our Friends, an access ramp for those who have heard your voice and want to do better but who do not know how to start or which door to come in or go out. Help me to remember that I am not separate from the others, neither the wounded nor those who wound their neighbor.

Help me create spaces where we can talk about real things, the true longings of our hearts. Help me to listen more than I talk. May I not miss any opportunity to do what is necessary. To do what is right. LOVE, how long?

Still, I’m grateful for all I have received.

LOVE, may I not fail to be the wife of my husband, the mother of my children, the mistress of my house, dressed in simplicity and righteousness, known as a capable woman. I will remember the lessons from my parents so I can care for my home and teach my children. I will appreciate the university education that doesn't stop me from cleaning my own kitchen but spares me from cleaning other people’s kitchens. I am grateful that you have provided me with a man of integrity, a worthy helpmeet, who merits my trust and supports my ministry, who cares for me with gentleness and makes me laugh. LOVE, may everyone find the worthy and willing helpmeet that is right for them. Help me not to forgo ministry in my local meeting in favor of any global ministry or worldly acclaim so as not to forget how tedious and how precious is our everyday community, which is the petri dish of the spiritual life.

Help me to do what is in me for the succour of those years wherein I am set, uprooting the evil in the fields and the streets that I know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.

And always, not my will, LOVE, but yours.

In the presence of God and these our Friends

2019-07-25T17:11:00.000-04:00

I remembered this morning why I come to yearly meeting.

20 years ago, I went to Pacific Yearly Meeting for the first time with my husband and our two year old child. The first day was pretty horrible. It was super hot. Eating and sleeping in a new place was a challenge for our two year old. And his parents. We were all pretty cranky. But then he had a really good time at the children’s program. He woke up the third morning saying, “Mommy? I want to go to schooool.” (The preschool program was in a kindergarten classroom.) So I got him to the program pretty quickly on the third day and I made it to the plenary worship for the first time.

I walked in to a meeting for worship with 400 Friends for the first time in my life. As I sat down and settled into worship, it was like sinking into a pool of cool water. I breathed more deeply. And I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit with me and among us. Over the years, I return to that experience in my mind as an example of why I come to yearly meeting.

This morning, after about 24 hours of being cranky about a range of things, I arrived at plenary worship at Philadelphia Yearly Meeting annual sessions. And I had that same sensation of sinking into cool water. Of being in the presence of God and Friends. And I remembered, this is why I come to yearly meeting.

The actual people who are here are trying. They have their issues. Some Friends aren’t here, that’s their choice. The business needs to get done. Sometimes it goes well and sometimes not. But that is par for the course of life. That doesn’t change my experience of the presence of God among Friends.

This is the most important reason why I come to yearly meeting sessions every year.

My 3 Words for 2018

2018-01-06T12:25:00.001-05:00

This is still my favorite way to approach New Year’s resolutions and some reflection on the year behind me. This process is from Chris Brogan. You can read about the discernment process and his 3 words for 2018 on his blog. You can search for the hashtag #my3words to see other people’s takes on it. You can read my 3 words for 2017 and find links to the years before that on my blog.

My three words for 2017 were Slow, Teach, Ask. I feel like I made progress in all three areas, so that is something. And I specifically referenced these intentions in my mind throughout the year, to help me choose my words and my commitments and my actions. Which is the point. And it was easy to tell other people my words because they were both simple and cryptic. Most of Brogan’s 3 words choices fit that model. Each single syllable word holds a wealth of meaning and serves as a touchstone for a profound intention.

This year, I’m going to buck that tradition and use the longer words that baldly mean what I mean.

Family, Intellectual, Marketing.

Family, because this year is going to require more engagement with my extended family than before. My parents are aging and my sister is bearing most of the burden because I live so far away. So I am acknowledging how much positive love and support I have been given by my parents and committing to be more present and more helpful in the coming year.

Intellectual, because I really enjoyed the writing and reading and talking to academic people I did in 2017. I want to push myself to find more opportunities for thinking and writing and talking to people about ideas in the coming year. Most of my non-work reading in the last dozen years has been young adult fantasy and adventure fiction, following my tween and teen kids. (Part of my standing commitment to be able to have conversations with them about the things they are interested in.) But I remember now that I want to read to challenge my brain, not just to comfort or distract myself. And I want to push myself to articulate my ideas clearly and completely. And to write for a wider audience.

Marketing is all about my paid work. This last year, I took an online course with Seth Godin, the first cohort of The Marketing Seminar. It helped me in so many ways. What do you do? Who is it for? What change are you trying to make? How do people who need us learn that we have what they need? How do we delight the people we serve? This coming year, I want to address more straightforwardly the challenges for FWCC, which all have a marketing component. And I don’t want to waste time looking for new words that mean the same things as marketing technical terms but sound spiritual. Plain speaking is still a Quaker value.

As I look at this, these are my personal intentions for improvements in 2018. And as always, I try to remember that what I truly desire to do is not my will, but thine, O Lord.

New mercies I see

2017-07-23T18:19:00.000-04:00

Have you heard the saying that the secret to a long, happy marriage is falling in love over and over again, each time with the same person? I believe this to be true.

I think it is also the secret to a long tenure in the same job, or a long-term practice of the same religion. The cycle of conviction, convincement, and conversion is a staple of Quaker faith and practice.

I feel like the last couple of weeks have brought me to a renewal of my “vows” to my job. (I use quotes here because it’s still a time-limited contract, not a lifetime appointment.) Perhaps it is more a renewed sense of my vocation and the discovery that it is still in line with my paid employment. I think this will come as a relief to my husband and my board of directors, who have watched me wrestle with the questions only I can answer. I know that this season of uncertainty will come again and again. That is just part of the examined life.

One of the factors has been this class I’m taking, on marketing with Seth Godin. I’m using the Traveling Ministry Corps as my case study and it’s been great. I’ve gotten much clearer about how to do that work. But one of the byproducts has been what Godin called, “marketing to the most important student." Which is myself. In the act of thinking about who is this for? and what do they care about?, I find myself articulating more clearly why I think this work is important. Which has the effect of reminding me why I want to do this work. Which makes a lot easier to do it.

Another factor was going to the Stoking the Fire retreat before the FUM Triennial. It was wonderful to be with about 40 Friends, from high-school age to 80-somethings, who all came to stoke their own fires. And it was wonderful to be taught by women whose character and ways of service I can aspire to. We all need those examples. Imperfect human beings who are sharing their own lessons. I can’t overemphasize how important it was to go to a denominational conference for which I was not the over-burdened staff. I went to worship every day. I was present and vulnerable in worship sharing groups. I snuck out for coffee with old and new friends.

One of the messages from God to me in worship was, “if you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.” Not in the sense that song was written. But if I can’t be with the Meeting I love, I have to love the gathered community of Friends wherever I am. I can’t hold back until I’m home with the people who already know and love me. I have to share my insights, my faith and my doubts with whoever is there, or I’m not going to make it. (There are limits to this, but they are further out than many people think.)

And if I can’t be with the river I love, I can love any bit of water I can find. The Greenville Y of the Feather River and the Connecting Railway Bridge over the Schuylkill River are both spiritually grounding places in my life. But other lands have sunshine too, and clover

In this same couple weeks, I read Diana Butler Bass’s book, Grounded. In it I recognized my own sense of dislocation from my roots and my connection to the imagery of water in my psyche and my spiritual journey. (Mountains and grass are also important images in my spiritual life, but that’s a different story.) The phrase that resonated the most for me, that speaks to me of my whole life’s project, is “sacred cosmopolitanism.” (Bass, p. 270) Bass cites Kwame Anthony Appiah, Mark Mitchell, and John of Patmos as sources. I’m still working this out, but it speaks to me of an urban theology. We need a positive theology for living together in the 21^st century. Cities are not inherently and unrelentingly more corrupt than anywhere else. As a friend said to me twenty-six years ago, “The city is the place of the people animals,” and it has been my place for over 30 years. It is a philosophy beyond nationalistic parochialism, but with room for a “humane localism.” This is a philosophy that can acknowledge that home-grown tomatoes are the best without falling into the trap that only my family’s tomatoes are any good. This speaks to me of the possibility of pluralism and affirming the truth of my own people’s stories. In the midst of the morass, we need the uniquely human spiritual gifts as well: compromise, paradox, balance, contrarianship, translation. None of us is a single story, least of all me.

While I’m at it, I want to acknowledge that all of these good things have coincided with a break in the hormonal crappiness of peri-menopause. Despair is both a spiritual and a chemical condition. I don’t really want to discuss that here, but I think it would be a sin of omission to not recognize that it’s a factor in life, and I am not immune to or above its effects.

Which brings me back to feeling refreshed for the journey and re-committed to my work. I am blessed to have the right and the responsibility to live out my divine calling in my day job.

My main job is connecting Quakers to each other - so that they are freed up to connect with other local people who want to be part of a healthy and functional spiritual community that is committed to peace and justice and following God’s guidance for our lives. From Alaska to Bolivia.

There is always more work to do than hours in the day or days in the week. There is a lot of accounting and administrivia in my job, no fooling. But there is also the opportunity to speak up, to connect people, to see patterns from this particular perspective, to hold the big picture in the Light and to call Friends to live up to the Light that we have been given.

I need to not get so bogged down in the accounting and event planning so that I fail to look up and out and do all the things that are risky and engaging and visionary. I try to practice a refreshing honesty, a warm, engaging hospitality and a bracing ministry of encouragement. Sometimes I get to be a bee, pollinating between blossoms in the orchard of Friends. Sometimes I get to be a gardener, preparing fields for planting, or hoeing crops in the ground, and contributing to some harvests I will not live to see. That is a blessing.

Over the last several months, I have wrestled with the fact that I have to choose my battles. I can keep up with my home life, or my work life, or the national/international world. Pick two out of three. And this year, I realize that I am choosing family and Friends. But I believe that if I and the Friends World Committee do our work well, there will be more than enough hands to do all the work that needs doing.

Because these Quakers are the line of people who taught me to be more fully myself, who helped me understand the mysteries of my spiritual life. Because this is the people I have found who are the most committed to peace and justice and following God’s guidance for our lives. Because I think I can make a difference here and now.

Now, because this is the time I have. Now, because these are probably my peak years to combine experience and energy.

Now, because the world desperately needs more Quakers who are committed to peace and justice and following God’s guidance for our lives. And in order for Friends to live up to our highest calling, we need each other to balance and challenge and support each other.

Now, because it’s the most exciting thing I can imagine doing - where I generally feel competent and appreciated - and fully challenged to live up to the Light I have been given.
Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me. … Morning by morning, new mercies I see.

My Three Words for 2017

2017-01-01T14:03:00.000-05:00

Slow. Teach. Ask.

Slow, because I want to slow down and pay attention. Not speak too quickly. Not act too quickly. Not judge too quickly. Not fix it too quickly. I want to take the time to be more graceful, more patient. Most of the things I regret (was embarrassed by) in the last year/my whole life are because I spoke without thinking, leapt without looking.

In La Paz, Bolivia several years ago, at that high altitude, I learned that I could get along fine as long as I walked like a dignified Señora, and not if I scurried around like a little girl. If I tried to run up the stairs, I would be out of breath by the first landing. But if I just walked slower, I would get where I was going smoothly and with energy to do whatever I need to do when I got there. I want to remember that lesson as I approach 50 and beyond, even at sea level.

Teach, because it makes me happy. I like explaining things. I like sharing what I have learned. I like inviting people to consider new ideas and facilitating discussions. I want to accept more invitations to speak and to write when they come to me. I will look for ways to do this as part of my job, because it makes a better balance in my life with all the management/accounting stuff, so that I can continue to enjoy my job. And I want teaching to be part of my life at my monthly meeting and in my children’s religious education. For me, this will include taking time to write more articles, maybe even more blogposts! Invitations to teach do come my way every so often, and I want to remember that they are not a distraction from my real work – this is part of the work that God has created me to do, whether I get paid for it or not.

So, to start, I will be leading a discussion at Green Street Monthly Meeting on January 29, 2017 at 9:15 am, about a passage from A Language for the Inner Landscape: Spiritual Wisdom from the Quaker Movement by Brian Drayton and William P. Taber, Jr., pages 92-93, from the chapter on “Community and the Inner Life of the Meeting.” The discussion will focus on “What is the real purpose of our worship together?” And then, I will be writing a lesson for the United Society of Friends Women International 2017-2018 program book, Blueprints, on the same theme. I am grateful to the Friends who extended the invitations to do both of these.

Ask, because I want to be less bossy, less of a know-it-all. To ask first, do you want me to tell you more about this? Or not? Do you want help? May I? How may I help you? How would you like to be involved? How would you like to hear from me? What do you think? To say less often, “You know what, you should _____________!”

This is a life lesson, that maybe I can change and maybe I can’t. This is rooted in being an eldest child, so it’s a long time in the making. I am weighing this desire against the fact that girls with leadership skills are too often called bossy. But I think that I could be more effective in my leadership and my teaching and my interpersonal relationships if I were more thoughtful in my communications. Which makes this connected to my first word, slow, because if I thought for a second before I speak, I would find better ways to teach, better ways to lead, better ways to parent adult children, and be a wife and sister, etc.

I pray for God’s guidance and people’s forbearance as I move in these directions. I am grateful to Chris Brogan for his inspiration to choose three words each year. If you want to read some of my three words from prior years, here are 2016, 2015, 2012, 2010, and here are my prior attempts at new years resolutions from 2009 and 2008. If you write your own, use the hashtag #my3words so that we can find each other.

My 25th Quaker Anniversary

2016-09-18T03:00:00.000-04:00

Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

God.

God who?

What do mean, God who? Your Creator. The plan for the rest of your life, The Ground of All Being.

God who?! I tell ya, kids these days...

Today is actually the 25th anniversary of my first Quaker meeting. I know it is today because the first time was in 1991, on the weekend of the Michigan-Notre Dame football game, in Ann Arbor.

That’s more than half of my life now. It almost didn’t happen.

Twenty-five years ago, I had just graduated from college. I spent the summer working on campus, awaiting my internship with the Fourth World Movement to begin in October. One day in early September, the head of the department said to me, “You’re interested in the University of Michigan for graduate school, right?” I said yes, maybe, sort of. She offered me her plane ticket for that weekend because she was sick and couldn’t go to some professional meeting in Ann Arbor. Another professor in the department suggested I could stay with her in-laws who lived there. I worked up the courage to call these people and ask and they said yes, I could stay with them for the weekend. I tried calling different departments, and didn’t get any answers, but I decided to go anyway. (This was before the internet was accessible to folks like me.)

On Friday morning, I woke up late because something was wrong with my alarm clock. I nearly gave up, but a housemate suggested I call the airline right then and see if they could reschedule me on a later flight. Turned out, if I left right then, there was a chance I could catch the next flight from DC-Detroit. I got all dressed up and took my briefcase, hoping I could pass as "Dr. Beth Soldo." (This was back in the days when you didn’t usually have to show ID at the airport.)

In Ann Arbor, I finally realized why none of the professors had returned my calls. It was the weekend of the Big Game and students were rioting in the streets. On Saturday morning, I walked into a dress shop and my eyes started watering. The saleslady said it was probably the lingering tear gas that had been used the night before to get the students to go home. The university was closed down and most of the professors were out of town.

On the Saturday night, Mary, the lady I was staying with, asked me if I would like to go with them to Quaker meeting on Sunday morning. She was very nice; I didn’t have any other plans, and I had been on a spiritual search for some time. So I said yes.

On the bedside table in their guest room was a little book, “The Faith and Practice of the Quakers” by somebody I’d never heard of (Rufus Jones). I decided to quickly read a little bit so I would know what I was getting myself into. I was intrigued. The book said that Quakers believed in non-violence, simplicity of life, and the equality of women, including preaching in worship. And their whole central practice was about listening to God. Not just for the radical fringe, but for everyone.

In the morning, Phil (Mary’s husband) said he had decided not to go to meeting that morning because he was getting ready for an audit by the IRS. I said something sympathetic and he said, “It’s okay. It’s happened before.” I was shocked. Audited more than once? That seemed terrible, I hadn’t heard of that before.

So anyway, I went to Quaker meeting, and I had a profound experience in worship and a good time at coffee hour, and I was hooked.

When I got back to DC, I looked for the nearest Quaker meeting and found that I lived within walking distance of the meetinghouse. Which was a good thing because there was no bus that could get me there early enough on a Sunday morning. I had actually been near it many times, but if you’ve ever been to Friends Meeting of Washington, you know it’s on this little side street and you’d never know it was there unless you were looking for it on purpose.

From then on, I discovered that I could get up on Sunday mornings with no problem. And I’ve never really looked back. Other stories have come and gone in my relationship with meeting for worship, but I’m still going, pretty much every week, and sometimes more often than that.

Also, when I got back to DC, I mentioned to my co-worker that I felt badly for her in-laws, what with being audited repeatedly and all that. She laughed and said, “Oh, it happens every year. They are war tax resisters and so they don’t pay their taxes and the IRS comes and takes it from them anyway.” That was the first I had heard of such a thing.

A few months later, I was a regular attender at 15th Street Meeting in New York City, and dating another attender. :-) One day I was in the little library/bookstore at the front of the meetinghouse. I have the idea that I was just standing inside to get out of the cold. But at least I was browsing the shelves while I was standing there. I happened to notice the surname of the couple I had stayed with in Ann Arbor on the back of one of the books. I looked more closely and sure enough, it was the same: Phillips Moulton, the editor of John Woolman’s Journal. My brush with Quaker fame, and I didn’t even know it. Later that year, I wrote them a second thank you note to thank them for taking me to meeting for the first time and changing my life forever. For them, it was just a simple, natural gesture of hospitality. One of many, I am sure.

My Three Words for 2016

2016-01-04T21:04:00.000-05:00

This is an annual exercise invented by Chris Brogan. You can read more about it at http://chrisbrogan.com/3-words-2016/

My three words for 2016 are: Grateful, Deep, Invite.

Grateful
Because I want to remind myself, frequently, to be grateful for the many blessings in my life, instead of resentful. Resentful of what I have and what I don’t have.

I know that in many ways, I have been blessed in this life. From my loving and stable parents, who are both still alive and still married to each other, to my education, my health, the house I live in, the people I live with, and this extraordinary job I have. But sometimes even blessings can be hard work or stressful or conflict with each other. So, even when it’s hard, and into every life some rain does fall, I want to remember to be grateful: to God, to my husband, to all of you who read this blog, etc. My life is better because of you/them. Thank you.

Deep
Because I have been spread too thin over the last year and a lot of my life has been necessarily shallow. So I want to go deeper this year, starting with deeper rest. Last year, I took all my vacation days but really it just meant I was working from home. I didn’t do a good job on my sleep hygiene, so I want to go to bed on time more often. Good sleep makes everything better, and regular hours mean better sleep.

Most of my reading was children’s fiction. I did read one whole grown up book and I loved it. Otherwise, I only read Facebook, poetry, Twitter, snippets of theology, and a lot of online articles about feminism, racism, management, and Adele. I don’t know if I’m willing to change this or not.
In my spiritual life, I think I need a silent retreat. I haven’t done one since 2004. So sometime in 2016, I think it’s time.

At work, because of a variety of circumstances, I have been doing too many different things, none of them as well as I’d like. But circumstances have changed again, and I need to recognize what that will free me up for. Getting deeper rest will make it possible to go deeper in all the rest of the areas of my life. (And how blessed I am that I get to make choices like this, which reminds me to be grateful, see above.) This also brings me to my third word.

Invite
I spent quite a while thinking that my third word was going to be let. As in let go, let God, let other people help. I need to remember that, most of the time, I’m not the only one who can do things. But I also don’t want to shirk my responsibility, or abandon other people to just get on with it.

At work, I want to invite more people into this dance with God, and the Religious Society of Friends, and me. One of the fundraising maxims I live by is, “Invite people into the kitchen.” This comes from a story that Kay Sprinkel Grace (one of my mentors) tells about Berthold Brecht once saying that the reason he chose one place to eat over another was not that the one didn’t have a delectable menu, but that the other invited him into the kitchen. In one place, he was an honored customer; in the other, he was a participant. I know which I prefer.

At home and in my local Quaker meeting, it is part of my role (parent, nominating committee) to organize other people to do the things that need doing. But my kids are old enough to make more of their own decisions, and at meeting everybody has other commitments too. How can I invite them into the work in a way that is encouraging and honoring and effective?

And I want to keep having guests at our house. I love dinner parties. I like introducing people I like to each other. I like cooking elaborate meals and playing board games and talking to people until way too late. (Not every night. See sleep hygiene, above.) This is my idea of deep fun.

So I want to try not to order people around nor guilt them to do things, nor freeze them out, but to invite them into all the fun I’m having in this blessed life of mine - at this amazing job, and my wonderful Quaker meeting and at my dinner table. Maybe even around the dishwasher.

So those are my three words for 2016. It’s funny how my three words for 2015 aren’t wrong now, but they aren’t what I need now, as much as they were a year ago. But when I look at the ones before that, Encourage, Long, Grind for 2014, and here for 2012 and 2010, I start to recognize the patterns of my life. Plus ca change, plus c'est le meme chose.

My three words for 2015

2015-01-02T13:50:00.000-05:00

The end/beginning of the year is a great time to find people reflecting on their lives and writing about their commitments. This morning, I was grateful to read Bono’s A-Z reflections on 2014. Most of the buzz is about his bike accident and his broken arm. But I was personally struck by his quote from Nietzsche, that “to do something great requires ‘a long obedience in the same direction’.”

This is probably the big lesson for my life right now.

For five years now, I’ve been inspired by Chris Brogan’s “My Three Words” exercise. I haven’t always written about it on this blog, but some years I have. http://robinmsf.blogspot.com/search?q=my+three+words

This year my three words are: True, Sustainable, Brave

True
I want to be true to my word. More reliable, dependable, consistent. And this means I have to be more honest with myself and others about what I can and can’t do.

And I want to stay true to the vision I have for my life and for the Religious Society of Friends, like carpenters use the word true, like Peggy Senger Morrison’s metaphor of God’s Love as a plumb line.

Sustainable
I have to keep seeking ways to make my life and my work sustainable. Managing my time, my energy, my resources, my happiness, to hold up over the long haul.

Life is not a sprint. Building a family (marriage, kids, aging parents, etc) and homemaking is a long term project. Being a real part of a local meeting is not something I can put off indefinitely. Taking time for health care and mental and physical strength building and stretching are necessary along the way, not just “when this [day, week, month, year, event…] is over.”

My job is not a sprint. Did you know that, at 3 and a half years, this is already the longest I have ever held a single job? And now I’m in the process of making plans for the next five years, not for my departure in the next six months or anything like that. It’s a little scary, and I’ve realized it means I can’t run flat out for the next three years. I’ve been working on this balance for the last eight months or so, but I have a long way to go to figure out how to do the best I can for as long as it takes.

And this word also leads to thinking about the world, and fossil fuels, and social justice, and what is possible in my lifetime and the long-term prospects for life on Earth.

Brave
I want to have the courage of my convictions, to lead confidently when that is my responsibility and opportunity, to do scary things when that’s my job (at home or at work), to finish things and say they’re done for better or worse, instead of letting them wobble on. I want to have the courage to admit my mistakes and correct course, and to say no when the opportunity is not right. And I want to encourage other people to be brave, about following their leadings, about telling me the truth, and encouraging others in their turn.

All of these will require the grace of God, and Jesus as an example to follow and as the Consoler, as I move forward, day by day and moment by moment, this year and for as long as I may live.

So what are your three words for 2015?

Why I Really Went to Bible Study This Morning

2014-01-26T20:06:00.000-05:00

One time a journalist supposedly asked a bishop, “Do you really believe that prayer changes things?” And the bishop answered, “Well, when I pray, coincidences happen, and when I don't, they don't.”

The painter Picasso supposedly said, “Inspiration comes, but it has to find you working.”

This is a long story.

I went to Bible study at my new meeting for the first time today. That’s two and a half years since I started coming here, for those who are keeping track at home. Over the last 15 years or so, when I might have been interested in going to Bible study, mostly I have said to my husband, “That’s okay, dear, you go. I’ll stay home and bring the children to meeting for worship later.” And really, it was fine. But now I realize we are in a new phase of life – our children could walk themselves to Meeting without us if they had to, and I can go to Bible study if I want to.

So yesterday, Chris and I went to a daylong conference organized by our new yearly meeting for Friends interested in Ministry and Worship. Really, we went as a favor to the organizer. We stepped in at the last minute to lead an afternoon workshop on adult religious education. (We showed a Nooma film with Rob Bell, among other things!) But in the morning, we were talking to another Friend from our new meeting about the Bible study he was planning to lead today and the blueberry coffee cake he was planning to make, and I said, hmm, maybe I should go.

Last night Chris and I talked about the logistics, and it turned out that the boys were willing to go early if they could get a ride and have some blueberry coffee cake, so we decided to all go. Then just before bed, Chris informed me that the group was reading the Gospel of Thomas, and I was skeptical. I haven’t studied the ordinary Bible enough, do I want to start on the Gnostic Gospels too? I decided I was just really tired, and that I ought to go, because it’s my meeting community not because of whichever book they’re reading. So I said, well, I’m not setting my alarm. If I wake up in time to go, that’s great, but if not, I’m going to sleep as long as I need to.

But lo and behold, I was wide awake and ready to leave by 9:30 am. We got to the meetinghouse, got some coffee and a choice between banana-nut or blueberry-orange breads. Yum. Then I had to ask Chris, so where does this group actually meet? He pointed to the room under the stairs at the back of the kitchen. There were five of us for Bible study today, and the reading was interesting and the worship-sharing was interesting, but I think now that’s not really why I was meant to go today.

I had never fully been in that room before. I didn’t know there was a lending library in there. I had only seen the historical books in the library room upstairs. There were a lot of good books in the collection. On the shelves across the room from where I was sitting, I saw a book I’ve been wanting to read for a couple of years now, called Sustaining Our Spirits: Women Leaders Thriving for Today and Tomorrow. It was recommended to me by Mary Ellen McNish, one of the authors. So that was cool. And when I walked over to look more closely, I found another book that I really need to read right now, called Leading from Within: Poetry that Sustains the Courage to Lead from the Center for Courage and Renewal (Parker Palmer’s outfit). Here’s a poem that I really needed this week:

"Sabbaths"

Whatever is foreseen in joy
Must be lived out from day to day.
Vision held open in the dark
By our ten thousand days of work.
Harvest will fill the barn; for that
The hand must ache, the face must sweat.

And yet no leaf or grain is filled
By work of ours; the field is tilled
And left to grace. That we may reap
Great work is done while we’re asleep.

When we work well, a Sabbath mood
Rests on our day, and finds it good.

--Wendell Berry

But the real reason I went to Bible study this morning is because I have to show up for the things that are happening at my meeting. I have to say yes to the long form improv scene that is the life of my spiritual community. Worship this morning was so full for me. Full of new insights and old lessons and bubbling over with ideas. I needed that. I needed Bible study this morning. I needed the workshop yesterday afternoon. I need the community that gathered there, and here. I need to say yes to the leadings of the Holy Spirit, not just no to all the things that feel like distractions from my job and my family life.

Thy will, Lord, not mine.

A ministry of encouragement

2013-12-30T09:49:00.000-05:00

I love opportunities to get together informally with Friends – this was the original basis of the convergent Friends dinner parties I organized a few years ago. In the last year, the Quaker Revival and Nursery of Truth had some of the same characteristics of taking advantage of the presence of a visiting minister to gather local Friends for worship and conversation and a shared meal. I think the most important part of these gatherings is the opportunity to share our joys and concerns with other Friends, some familiar and some new faces, and the encouragement we take home from them, knowing we are not alone in walking the Quaker path.

I recently had the opportunity to visit with several small groups of Friends while traveling for work. In each case, the gathering was around 15 people from multiple monthly meetings in a local area. In each case the conversation somewhat naturally turned to the future of the Religious Society of Friends. And the message I was given to share with the group in each case was

“Do not be discouraged.”

I understand that the state of the Religious Society of Friends and of any particular local group can be discouraging. I think that is par for the course. In life. At least in this lifetime.

So if Quakerism and Quakers are just going to be discouraging, what are we supposed to do?

The answer is perseverance. Forgiving 70 times 7 times. And coming back, and showing up, and not letting the tedious or the insidious or the pompous get you down so much that you give up and go away and don't come back. That is the Tempter speaking to you: telling you it’s not worth it; these people will never change; there’s a better group out there somewhere.

Just as God and grace frequently become present to us through other people, Evil becomes present to us through other people, sometimes in the most banal ways. C.S. Lewis said that better than I can, but he was right. Evil is not always grandiose. Even the biggest evils, for example, apartheid, are made up of a lot of small pedantries.

This is different from Way Closing. There can be a sense of rightness in something ending. People, and all animals, die. Campaigns end. People change religions. Meetings in a particular place are laid down. This can be rightly ordered. Sometimes it’s hard to know the difference between this and giving up prematurely. That’s advanced discernment, for sure.

In any case, this is not a new phenomenon.

Have we trials and temptations?
Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged*
Take it to the Lord in prayer

That's an old song, written by Joseph Scriven in 1855. Isaiah 42 was written long before that, and it's a whole chapter on the same theme.

As far as positive advice for Friends who are feeling discouraged, I have two thoughts. One is that we have to encourage each other, in living rooms and at kitchen tables, in meetinghouses, on street corners and in the pickup line at preschool. This is one of my favorite parts of my calling to ministry, which is further enabled by my current employment, but certainly didn't start with getting hired and I doubt will end when the paychecks do. If you know someone who is doing good work, encourage him/her and be encouraged by her/him. It's not actually all that complicated, and it's really important.

I actually think this is my personal answer to what the Religious Society of Friends needs right now. On my better days, I practice a ministry of encouragement. I aspire to humbly and boldly follow in the footsteps of Margaret Fell as a nursing mother of Quakerism. If you have ever felt that you weren’t getting enough encouragement among Friends, consider whether instead God is calling you to encourage others.

Second, and here I'm cheating a little because this is really seven things, read Chuck Fager's article, The Seven Ups, courtesy of Western Friend magazine, and follow his advice:

Show Up.
Read Up.
Speak up.
Ante up.
Smarten Up.
Toughen Up. And
Don’t Hurry Up.

Amen.

Keep up the good work, all of you.

*I wanted to quote this song in the title of this post, but I found that I had already used the most relevant line as a title of a previous blogpost. Here is a set of other blog posts by me referencing the same song: http://robinmsf.blogspot.com/search?q=take+it+to+the+lord+in+prayer [This was just a simple search, but I think it produced a fascinating cross-section of this blog.]

Cups of Tea and Hammer-strokes

2013-11-16T13:36:00.000-05:00

I may be suffering from a lack of ordinariness. Most of my life, I have wished for exciting things to happen to me. And now that they are happening, I miss the simple things that I don’t have time for. Like making jam. Gardening. Sewing. Teaching First Day School. Serving on clearness committees.

Recently, I was at an international committee meeting that was hosted by Friends in a thriving meeting in a small town. I was really touched by the obvious care and concern and interwoven nature of their personal lives and their meeting life. It made me think of two passages on marriage that I love, in Catherine Whitmire’s book, Plain Living,

“We thank God, then, for the pleasures, joys and triumphs of [life together]: for the cups of tea we bring each other, and the seedlings in the garden frame; for the domestic drama of meetings and partings, sickness and recovery; for the grace of occasional extravagance, flowers on birthdays and unexpected presents; for talk at evenings of the events of the day; for the ecstasy of caresses; for gay mockery at each other’s follies; for plans and projects, fun and struggle; praying that we may neither neglect nor undervalue these things, nor be tempted to think of them as self-contained and self-sufficient.”
from London Yearly Meeting, 1960.

And a poem by Ellen Sophia Bosanquet, from 1938:

If truth be told,
It was not priest, who made us one,
Nor finger
circled with gold,
Nor soft delights when day is done
and arms enfold.
These bonds are firm,
but in death-storm
They may not hold--
We were welded man and wife
By hammer-strokes of daily life.

[Bold emphasis mine]

I think these two images, the kind gestures of the cups of tea we bring each other, and the hammer-strokes of daily life, are both key to marriage and to meeting-life.

It takes time and active participation to be part of a meeting, just as marriage takes work and attention. It’s the same drudgery of washing dishes or making a budget work. The important conversations (and cups of tea) at the kitchen table late at night or in clearness committees for marriage or membership. The misunderstandings, getting hot under the collar, practicing forgiveness and receiving forgiveness, year after year. This is what makes a meeting or a marriage.

Any marriage is part of a family made up of marriages, and part of a wider community. This is where we learn that while every marriage is unique, it has a lot in common with other people. Likewise, a meeting needs the family of yearly meeting, and a wider community of Friends, where we sometimes learn other ways of solving our problems and sometimes we learn just to be grateful for what we have, and the problems we don’t have.

I don’t think I could do the job I have now without the grounding of 17 years of being part of San Francisco Monthly Meeting, the support and the hammer-blows of our daily life together. I think I need to be more connected to my new meeting, to stay fluent in Quaker practice, and to be a coherent, spiritual human being, in order to continue to be a blessing to the wider family of Friends.

I know I couldn’t do my job without the ongoing support and dedication of my husband. I have also learned a lot that is useful in this job from being a mother. I am blessed. I am grateful.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Rob Bell

2013-09-03T21:56:00.004-04:00

I don't know Rob Bell. But I'd like to thank him for his work. Thank you for writing books that I like to read. But thank you even more for writing books that my 15 year old son likes to read and that we can talk about afterwards.

I first heard about Rob Bell in 2006 when he appeared in a series of Nooma films. I arranged to show a series of these short, postmodern films about God at San Francisco Friends Meeting after reading about how Gregg Koskela had shown one at Newberg Friends Church.

The first one of his books that I read was Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith. It's a reminder of all the different ways people have been Christians and how there can be more than one way to follow Jesus just like there is more than one way to paint a picture of Elvis. (Just re-reading pieces of it while writing this blogpost was inspiring all over again.)

Our copy of SexGod: Exploring the Endless Connections between Sexuality and Spirituality has about the most boring cover you could imagine. But it is a beautiful work of thinking and writing on the inside. I hope my sons will read this one too. (For those of you who worry about these things coming from an Evangelical Christian, as far as I can remember, it doesn't talk about same gender relationships. Neither condemning nor affirming. It is clearly heteronormative but fairly progressive about male-female roles in heterosexual relationships. If you can translate from that to your own situation, you might like it.)

Somebody gave us a copy of Drops Like Stars, about creativity and suffering. It's beautiful, but I didn't really get it. But eventually, I figured out that it wasn't written for me. Me who likes to read all the words, the writer, the know-it-all, the girl-who-always-raises-her-hand-in-class. It is designed for people who think like visual artists. You know who you are.

All of this came up because Chris brought home Bell's latest book, What We Talk About When We Talk About God. Chris read it, then I read it, then our 15 year old son read it while in meeting for worship the other week. [For more on teens reading in worship: part 1 and part 2] Bell asks why we still talk about God and how we have to be/get to be open to new ways of talking about God and deal with the both/and nature of much of the discussion. Then Bell explains that he thinks that God is with us, for us and ahead of us, and then why this all matters in this day and age. Right on, brother.

I don't actually agree with everything that Bell writes, but pretty close. And I find his books to be a very engaging and inspiring conversation partner and conversation starter. I asked my son if he thought other young Friends would be interested in reading and discussing it and his eyes got big and he said Yes. So let me encourage other Friends to bring this to the attention of any youth group or any mid-week study group - it's a fine way to get into the discussion about what we actually know or believe about God.

As usual, my timing is off regarding big moments in the blogosphere. I finally read Bell's 2011 book
Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. This caused a huge controversy a couple of years ago in Evangelical circles but I didn't actually read it until I checked it out of the library last week. (I was a little busy in 2011, and did not have the bandwidth to argue much about theology just then.) It has a lot in common with If Grace is True and If God is Love by Phil Gulley and Jim Mulholland. Bell just issued a new version, Love Wins for Teens which I don't quite understand because I think the original is pretty accessible for teens, but maybe the new pink cover will appeal to a different demographic?

So the last thing I want to write about is the rockstar pastor phenomenon. Rob Bell has been one of the biggest of this millenium. Best selling author, 10,000 member church at some point, one of Time's 100 most influential people in 2011, New Yorker profile in 2012. But he left that to move to California, write, surf and maybe make a tv show. I have to hope that he now has more time for his family.

I am grateful that Bell writes about his doubts about being a pastor, a Christian, a worthy human being. And I am happy for him that he was able to take a break, to step away from the push to do more, bigger, faster.

But I wonder about the rockstar Quakers I have known, who have charisma and depth, who aren't actually rockstar famous. Is that a good thing? Or not? This topic is probably another blogpost in itself, but I will just put it out there for you to think about.

My Hopes for First Day School

2013-08-24T17:37:00.002-04:00

My new meeting is having one of those recurring conversations about what do we want from First Day School? (FDS = our children's religious education program). I was not able to go to the first meeting because I was leaving town. So rather than expecting my husband to communicate my opinions, which are not always the same as his opinions, I decided to write some notes in advance and send them to the meeting's email group. I think it's important for a wide range of people to share their opinions about this, not just parents. This post is largely based on that email, with further embellishments as I continue to think about it.

My basic hope for FDS is that it will enable our children to know enough about their own spiritual lives and about being Quakers that they will want to and be able to choose to be Quakers.

I've written a few things about this topic before. See What do you want out of First Day School? and Middle School Affirmations from 2010. I didn't have a blog back when I was clerk of the CRE committee of my previous Meeting or there would be posts on the same topic from 2001-2004, mostly dealing with religious education for preschoolers. But you can see one of my earliest forays into the blogging community dealt with this, as a response to Martin Kelley's 2003 post about religious education for children.

In the earliest years, I think it's enough that our children just want to be with other people they know at meeting. When my son went to preschool for the first time at the age of three, I was astounded at what they can learn at that age. Reading books, singing songs, making art, playing games with Friends - all good.

I think it's not developmentally appropriate for children under the age of maybe eight to be expected to sit still and silent for an hour. I wouldn't want them to do it very often in school or in meeting for worship. It can be done, and sometimes my kids did it. But mostly, I think young children need to walk in nature and experiment with different postures for sitting and have prayers spoken out loud for them. Then they can take their experience of the Divine with them into Meeting for Worship.

In the elementary school years, I hope they learn basic techniques to settle their bodies and center their minds and some awareness that there is something transcendent happening in worship and some language/vocabulary to start to talk about it. I hope that they will learn enough Quaker stories and enough Bible stories that they know they are part of a longer history. I hope they will have opportunities to serve the meeting community - like setting up for hospitality after meeting or special events. I hope the children in my meeting can attend Junior Interim Meeting together. I don't think that children's religious education has to happen at the same time as meeting for worship, but it has to happen some time.

In middle school, I hope they have opportunities to experience longer periods of unprogrammed worship in different settings (like outside on the grass, or while biking in the Wissahickon park, or sitting on pillows upstairs or as a group in the meetingroom), and they learn about worship sharing and Quaker decision-making. I hope that they learn about other religions and about how to become a member of our meeting. I hope they do service projects in the community, and talk about Quaker responses to current events, and have some time to just do silly fun things together. I hope they can attend the yearly meeting's middle school Friends retreats.

I hope that kids are actively encouraged to apply for membership at around 8th-9th grade, not just by their families, but by the meeting.

In high school, I hope that they attend meeting for worship and adult religious education programs and service projects and both family-based and teen-focused social events. I think it is good for the meeting to expect teens to participate and to prepare for their attendance and participation in meeting-wide events. I think it is good for teens to go to visit other meetings, near and far, for worship and activities with teens at those meetings, and to welcome visiting groups at our meeting.

I used to say that my ulterior motive for organizing children's programs at meeting (and Quarterly, Yearly Meeting, etc) was to be sure there were enough young Friends when my kids grew up that they could marry one. Not that they have to, but I wanted them to have the option. The other reason that good programs are important to me was because I want to go to all these Quaker events, and my kids have to go with me, and it behooves me to be sure that there is something worthwhile for them there. I have lots more to say, but I think this is enough for one blog post.

For more recent writing about children as Quakers, see Kathleen Karhnak-Glasby's article in Friends Journal magazine, Wess Daniel's blog post, and Chris Mohr's blog post.

Who's gonna fill their shoes?

2013-04-30T11:23:00.000-04:00

George Jones died this last week. Many country music singers said George was the one they admired most. But back in the early 1980s he wrote a song about all the singers he looked up to, called "Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes?"

Who's gonna fill their shoes?
Who's gonna stand up tall?
Who's gonna play the Opry and the Wabash Cannonball?
Who's gonna give their heart and soul to get to me and you?
Lord, I wonder, who's gonna fill their shoes?

Last week I thought a lot about leadership. I found a 35 year old report on leadership in the Religious Society of Friends that could have been written last month. Same issues have been going on for at least that long. Lack of trust, lack of shared vision, need for divine guidance and human accountability, unclear relationships between individuals, monthly meetings/churches and larger institutions...

Some of the solutions the report suggested would still be functional. One of the problems with not having enough leadership is that good solutions don’t get implemented.

I've been thinking about that this week, and about the legacy of Rufus Jones, and about Sheryl Sandberg's new book, Lean In, and the idolatry of heroes, and the right balance of a well-lived life.

So Rufus Jones (1863-1948) is one of my heroes. He did so many things in his lifetime. He helped Friends and others to reconcile modern science and religious faith, to remember that Christian faith requires us to be active in the world, not just pious in a sterile meetinghouse, and he worked for peace and reconciliation within the Religious Society of Friends and in the wider world. That story you've heard about the Quakers who went to Germany to try to convince the Gestapo to let the Jews go? Yeah, Rufus Jones was one of them. And he was a great storyteller.

He also tried to rewrite Quaker history to show a direct connection to the mystical tradition in Europe that was not justified. He spoke every. single. time. and at great length in meeting for worship at Haverford College, for which he was mocked by students. In the last week, I've heard people criticize both his emphasis on mysticism without conversion of life and his emphasis on works over the transcendent. And I've heard he was a terrible driver. A man of giant gifts, giant vision and giant mistakes. That's okay, he is still one of my heroes. I think it's a form of idolatry to expect that our heroes must be perfect in every way. But who could possibly fill his shoes?

When I wrote a post in 2010 about all the imminent turnover in Quaker organizations, I wondered, "Will all these institutions survive this once in a lifetime mass shift in leadership? How many will move in new and vibrant directions? Are there too many openings at one time? Are there enough younger Friends who are ready, willing and able to take on new responsibilities? To take on the hard work and hard choices? To commit?" And then I responded, "I continue to reflect on these questions and where I might feel called to serve. I think that some of us need to step up to the plate." As I look around almost three years later, of the 20 or so organizations I can think of that changed leaders, all of them found adequate applicants. About a quarter of them chose people younger than 50, and almost half chose women. I've met most of them and I have confidence that they are willing to take on hard work and move in new and vibrant directions. But I can tell you that none of those people feels adequate to fill Rufus Jones's shoes.

Rufus Jones wrote something like 57 books and gave thousands of speeches all over the world. [Including these two that I love: The Vital Cell, 1941, and What Will Get Us Ready? 1944] I can barely write a blogpost once a month. But before I get too caught up in comparing myself to him, I have to remind myself that he had a wife, and a housekeeper, and a driver, and probably a series of typists to help him out. He wasn't cleaning his own bathroom. He probably never changed a diaper. Times have changed and there are limits to how much he can serve as a role model for me

Still, this brings me to considering how I am stepping up to the plate in my world. If you haven't heard one of Sheryl Sandberg's talks or read her book, you can go to her new website, www.LeanIn.org. She is encouraging women to take professional risks, to push for a seat at the table at work and for equality at home, to not give up on their careers just because it's so damn hard when your kids are little. It's controversial, as important conversations are. For me, it helps to articulate it that I have leaned in hard this last couple of years. And I have been supported at home, and in my meetings, and by many Friends. But is it enough? Am I doing enough? Or doing it well enough?

I like to think that I am not aiming to be as famous or influential as Rufus Jones, but I am working on being as faithful to the calling I have, to live up to the Light that I have been given. Leaning in hard can still look undramatic and unheroic. I suspect that Rufus Jones did aim to be dramatic and heroic and that's one of the things that annoyed people. How is that different from singers giving their heart and soul to get to me and you?

Is it wrong to have ambition to be faithful on a large scale?

Well, at meeting on Sunday, I asked God that question. (One of the things I forever appreciate about unprogrammed Quaker meetings is the opportunity to bring my inarticulate mess to God in prayer. I don't have it all figured out, and that's okay. I can just hold my swirling questions in the Light. And sometimes there's an answer. Not a booming voice from beyond the ceiling, but a quiet knowing of something new.) And the answer went like this, "So what are you doing for those who will come after you?" Huh? I'm the one who is looking for role models, and instead I'm being asked to be one. Not by any actual younger people, mind you, just by God. Darn. Now what?

Rufus Jones, for all his foibles, was strongly committed to encouraging and supporting younger generations, and they loved him for it. The two speeches I cited above were both given to Young Adult Friends, at their invitation, when he was about 80 years old. Perhaps I can aspire to be like him in this regard and let go of the temptation to try to be like him in other ways.

I can still give my heart and soul for the Religious Society of Friends. Thy will, Lord, not mine.

FWCC from A to Z

2013-03-08T22:25:00.000-05:00

I've been entertaining myself today with a single handed game of "I'm going to Grandma's house and I'm taking a..." Did you play that when you were a kid? Or with your own kids?

Well, I'm going to the Friends World Committee Section of the Americas Meeting of Representatives next week, and I'm taking

an Agenda
a Bible
some Crayons
Donation Envelopes
Friends
a Glossary/Glosario
a Hymnal
Ideas
my Journal
Knitted hat
Laptop
a Mission
some Nominations
I hope to find some Opportunities when I get there
a Pencil
a QUNO report
Respect
Socks
Thermal Underwear
Vision
Workplan
Xtra paper
Yahweh
and Zeal.

Are you coming? What are you bringing?

If you're not coming, what are you carrying with you wherever you are?

Conflicting Concerns

2013-02-18T17:21:00.001-05:00

As I have said before, my paid work for Quakers at the very broad level and my responsibilities to my family at home are more than enough to fill my every waking minute. I already feel like I’m not keeping up.

But every so often, a concern arises in my heart and mind that doesn’t fit neatly into one of those buckets. Issues at my monthly meeting, in my yearly meeting, in my kids’ school. Things that have been laid upon my heart to care about but that I really don’t have time for.

Except that we all have time for the things that really matter. As Thomas Kelly says, even very busy lovers find time to write long letters to each other, because they care. I used to say, “If I have time to complain about it, I have time to do something about it.”

So we have to make choices. Every minute I spend on one thing is time away from another and this is true for everyone. I prioritize sleep. I make time to go to some but not all of my kids’ athletic games. I am not serving on any committees or teaching First Day School at my monthly meeting. So on the whole I have a reasonable balance.

And then come these special moments. I don’t know whether to call them temptations or distractions or openings. I am specifically not giving examples here because they are too personal and too much involving other people to get into in this space. I guess I can say they variously involve sex, money and God, but not all three at once, for which I am grateful.

So anyway, the point is that I’ve been trying to sort out what is really mine to do, and what I just need to let go of. Like I said last year, courage, serenity, wisdom, and the discipline to make myself stick to a decision and not keep fretting in the middle of the night over things that I decided are not mine to work on.

And the spark for putting this into a blogpost was an insight that came to me in worship this morning. A 100 year old Friend spoke about how grateful she is that 90 years ago, a Sunday school teacher made her memorize certain passages from the Bible. She still remembers the Beatitudes, for example. She was recently reminded of these because a couple of months ago she was temporarily blind after a surgery but she still had these verses, and some poetry she also memorized over the years. She is so grateful now even though at the time she wondered what good it would do.

So my new yardstick, among the others I have been using, is to consider what I’m going to care about 90 years from now. Ok, maybe 50 years is all the horizon I need to worry about. In any case, I need to ask not just what has the most heat and Light in it right now, but what will I care about later? What will I regret? What will my grandchildren care about? What does God care about? What will I be held accountable for in the long run?

This is helping me sort through the recent concerns with more clarity. And I hope that this reminder, like so many things that I’ve heard before but needed to hear again, will help me sleep better in the coming months.

What I'm Reading Now: January 2013

2013-01-31T09:28:00.000-05:00

I used to write these pretty regularly, but it's been a long time now. I mostly compile this list by walking around the house and writing down the names of the books I've left sitting around. It's not necessarily a recommendation, just a fact.

Books:

The Hobbit, out loud. by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Skin I'm In by Sharon Flake
Wonder by R.J. Palacio
The Wisdom to Know the Difference by Eileen Flanagan
Dirt and the Good Life: Stories from Fern Creek by Lisa and Mark McMinn
Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin (a collection of his essays)
This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Mysterious Benedict Society and The Prisoner's Dilemma by Trenton Lee Stewart
The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen
Jesus Loves Women: a memoir of body and spirit by Tricia Gates Brown
Ungifted by Gordon Kerman

Magazines:

Philadelphia
O
National Geographic
Scientific American
Sports Illustrated for Kids
Time: Person of the Year
Newsweek: Last Print Issue
Friends Journal
Quaker Life
Western Friend
Princeton Alumni Weekly

Dirt and the Good Life

2013-01-28T17:57:00.000-05:00

Dirt and the Good Life: Stories from Fern Creek
by Lisa Graham McMinn and Mark R. McMinn
Published in 2012 by Barclay Press,
cover design by Darryl Brown

This is a collection of short essays about the life of two college professors who decide to start a farm on five acres of land in western Oregon and to start selling their produce through a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) where people pay an annual price to receive a weekly share of the crops. Some of the stories are about their spiritual journeys, some are about their marriage and family, some are about sustainable living, and some are about their farm.

Things I liked about this book:

1. The cover. I don’t think I ever mentioned the name of the designer in a book review before. But I noticed I liked this one right away, especially compared to a lot of small press book covers, and then I recognized the name. I like a lot of his work, which can be seen on his blog.

2. Their obvious but not blind or cloying love for each other, and their ability to write about it with grace. Two people who have been married for many years, who are honest about the hardships, grateful for the blessings, and are still crazy about each other. Gives me hope, it does.

3. Their humor and willingness to laugh at themselves and each other. This is probably a strong contributor to #2. And it makes the book fun to read.

4. The stories about farming: plants, animals, tools and weather. I am not a farmer, and I never want to work that hard. But I am related to some farmers (some long gone) and I love these stories about the real things in life.

5. The way that their Christian values inform their relationships and their stories without overwhelming everything else. This is hard to do in writing.

6. They’re Quakers and I know their pastor. I always like the feeling that even if I don’t know the author personally, that there’s a chance that I could meet them and that we’re not really that different. And I like it when people make Quakers look good in public.

Things I didn’t like (which are all somewhat ironic):

1. I am not cooking enough to make it worthwhile to join a CSA and this book made me feel sorry for myself.

2. It occasionally comes close to being too sweet – it worked for me, but a snarkier reader might take it badly.

3. I didn’t get to meet Mark and Lisa yet. (One more reason to visit Newberg again. See #6 above.)

One of the chapters/stories is called Downward Mobility. In it, Mark tells about writing a book that flopped and how that financial failure was a nudge towards living a better life. He says that he then gave up on ever writing a best seller. I hope that Dirt and the Good Life proves him wrong. It's that good.

Full disclosure: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher. He didn’t ask me to write anything about it, and I wouldn’t have if I didn’t really like it, but just so you know.

The Tools We Need

2013-01-24T13:13:00.001-05:00

It is not a new statement that among Friends, we are all ministers. We have different gifts and experiences, but we all have some. And we can all use some basic tools in our ministry. But we don’t all get the basic training that would help us to live up to our potential as ministers. Last weekend, I attended a basic training workshop, called “The Nursery of Truth.”1

The event began with a large gathering of Friends from about a 50 mile radius for great music by Adam Sweeney and friends and an introductory message from Zachary Moon.

Zach's message was about the importance of loving our enemies and learning to understand the people we think of as our enemies. His own spiritual journey has taken him from counter-recruitment community organizing to ministering to a Reserve Unit of the U.S. Marine Corps as their Chaplain. I can not say that I understand his leading, but I do believe that

God works in mysterious ways
Jesus’s commandment to love our enemies is both clear and hard

So we all need all the encouragement and inspiration we can get, and Zach brought both in abundance.

On Saturday, three Friends taught specific skills applicable to any Friend. The group that was invited to attend the full day session were intentionally a younger and more economically diverse crowd.2 Let’s be clear, in this group, I was old, and maybe ¼ of the people were older than me. I was invited to attend as an elder, not in the chronological sense, but as a grounding and experienced presence and resource person. I will admit that I currently fit none of the requested categories (see note 2 below), but I’m glad I was there, nonetheless. My favorite description of my role (I didn’t make this up): to serve as “an agent of contagion for the Holy Spirit.” I pray that I may have served that role in ways I don’t even know.

So the first session was on Spiritual Storytelling with Kathy Hyzy. She encouraged us all to see ourselves as storytellers. She reminded us that a wide swath of the stories we tell about our lives are spiritual and exhorted us to use our stories in our vocal ministry. Then she told a powerful story from her own life, of coming to Friends as a teenager after her mother’s death. And then she divided us into small groups to practice telling our own stories. Of course there wasn’t really enough time, but in my small group, the stories were profound, personal, brave and short.

The second session was on Quaker Remix with Wess Daniels. It was a better developed version of a bit he did at Quaker Heritage Day in 2011. I think this is a key element of his doctoral research and I look forward to reading his final version. Essentially he gave us a framework for how to become effective ministers. We have to steep ourselves in our tradition, learn it deeply as apprentices, and then remix it with our contemporary (postmodern) culture in order to have it be accessible and relevant and then test that in a participatory community. Wess did a great job of posing questions and drawing the answers out of the group. How did we see this as true or not, how did it apply to our own lives and our Quaker Communities?

My personal question is do we have/are we creating enough apprentices in our tradition to have a sustainable chance for our religion? And if not, is there anything we (meaning I) can do about it? Again there wasn’t enough time (like a whole week) to get into it really deeply, but it was an introduction and food for much thought and conversations that could continue for years.

One advantage of having a lot of local folks coming together is that many of them will see each other again. A further advantage was how many different churches and meetings were represented so the conversation can be replicated in many places.

In the middle we all went out for lunch, most of us to Burgerville in Camas. This was a chance for me to get to know some of the other young-ish women at the event, particularly three I had met before, but never really talked to. The four of us were not only from three different churches, but three different yearly meetings, and the discussion exposed shared values and concerns that were both fun and heartening to discover.

That's a big Bible.

The third session was about using the Bible as a bridge, not a battering ram, with Peggy Senger Parsons. She reviewed many of the ways people use the Bible and encouraged us to take the time to figure out how to articulate how we use the Bible (or would like to). And then she encouraged us to practice telling the story of a positive experience we have had with the Bible that we can launch into at any moment, in any company, if only as a non sequitur kind of jujitsu move to shift a discussion and to diffuse the tension when necessary. Her third practical tip was to choose a favorite verse or commandment and to deflect attempts to draw you into unproductive arguments by focusing on your chosen verse. As in “I know you want me to get wound up about _________, but you know, I’m still working on how Jesus said ‘Love your enemies,’ and it’s taking all I’ve got for now. When I get that down, then I will work on your suggestion.” These all seemed very useful for staying in relationship with people who have different uses for the Bible without compromising your integrity or getting caught up in arguments with a lot of heat but not much Light.

Plumb bob from Wikipedia Commons

The last part was Sunday morning worship at Camas Friends Church (a Quaker Meeting). Peggy brought the message and a plumb bob. Have you seen one before? It’s a heavy weight on the end of a string that helps to determine the vertical straight line that carpenters use to determine if a building is going up straight. It works because the weight always points to the center of the earth. She compared it to the Love of God, which can help us to orient our lives. The message was also about Truth and Compassion. And I didn’t take very good notes because it was an awe-inspiring message that captured my full attention. When I grow up, I want to know how to preach like Peggy. The Lord knows I will never be that good, but I am taking lessons starting now.

So now what? I know that the ministers who pulled this together are hoping that this Nursery of Truth idea might catch on. And if it did, I think that would be a good thing for the Religious Society of Friends/Friends Church. But how? Would it work to transport these ministers out of their local environment and invite them to speak at your meeting? Yes. Individually or as a group? Yes. Would it help to be conscious of how they went about attracting a not-the-usual-suspects crowd? Yes. Would it work to invite the ministers who are already in your local area to share their practical skills with Friends near you? Yes.

Would it be the same? No. I think that is the catch. God works in those mysterious ways, remember? Trying to replicate specific events or constellations of events becomes discouraging. We need to be open to how the Holy Spirit is leading us every time, all the time, and that is hard.

I think this is the lesson of Quaker open worship – it is different every time, but we need to keep coming back and experiencing the opportunity, even through dry spells, even when you know that people are going to talk about the latest political crisis (in our yearly meetings or in Congress), because we don’t know how or when the Holy Spirit will reach in and grab us by the scruff of the neck and take us to a new place.

Are you ready for that trip over Jordan? I don’t mean dying, I mean going to a strange land where we will have new responsibilities and new opportunities. This “new” land may look surprisingly like the neighborhood where you’ve been living all this time, or it may be thousands of miles away, but it will require new strength and courage to live there. And the basic skills of storytelling and relationship-building and a framework for understanding our place in the Divine story.

For these, I am grateful to the Nursery of Truth, and to Wess, Kathy, and Peggy for having the vision and the courage to bring us together.

All photos from Wess Daniels' Flickr set for Nursery of Truth unless otherwise noted. If you’d like to read more of the real-time commentary, search the Twitter stream for #nurserytruth.

1. Nursery of Truth was one of the names for the island of Barbados where many Quakers coming to the Americas in the 1600s stopped for rest and instruction before arriving in the northern English colonies. To read more, visit Wess's blogpost.

2. Here is the list of attributes that were sought: Under 30 – AA – NA – LGBTQ – military service – never attended a cross-Quaker event – Work an hourly wage job – attend a Spanish language Friends Church – Rent your home – New Quaker – HS diploma or Associates degree as highest degree – Single parent – have ink or a bike that drinks fossil fuels…

Necessary but Not Sufficient

2012-12-08T20:33:00.001-05:00

I went to a Quaker Revival the other night. Organized by a small group of Christian Friends in the Eastern U.S. and held in West Philadelphia. It fit my idea of a good time.

First, a potluck supper with some Friends I don’t see often enough and some new-to-me people. The house was packed. I didn’t count but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were 50 people there.

Followed by two hours of semi-programmed worship. I would happily have continued in worship much longer – I don’t think the Holy Spirit was done with us by any means. But I had to take my kids home, so I was glad it ended at 9 pm anyway. Well, the meeting for worship ended. The conversations were still going strong when we left.

On that note, why am I (and my husband) the only one who brings her kids to stuff like this? In fact, it worked out pretty well for them. They got to eat what they wanted at the potluck, see and talk to some people they know, sing with the group, pet cats, do their homework and stay up a little (but not too, too) late. On the whole, not such a bad deal from their perspective. It’s important to me that they ARE part of the Quaker community, and the only way to really be part of something is to show up.

For me it was nice that I went, not as a part of my job, but just as a Friend in the community. So I feel like I can write about it here in a different way than if I had been working. On the other hand, I don’t go anywhere anymore without my official (but metaphorical) hat and I know that. Still, probably half the people there didn’t know I was wearing it, and the ones who did know, didn’t care. I’m glad that’s possible.

But, back to what actually happened. There was some singing at the beginning, and then there were three visiting Friends who were asked to prepare a message, and then the rest was unprogrammed worship, with some Bible reading, some more singing, and a variety of messages. It was nice. I enjoyed it. I was not transformed in any noticeable way. Other people seemed generally pleased, some more than others, of course. I think the difference is that it wasn’t exciting to me in the way new things often are, because I’ve done stuff like this before. I asked Chris, “So am I just jaded?” And he said, “Yes.” It reminded me a lot of the convergent dinners that I helped organize over the course of a few years, or the dinners after Quaker Heritage Day. (See SF, LA, Newberg, Berkeley, Boston, Indiana, Baltimore, Berkeley, Philadelphia).

Another key is not to have too high of expectations. As George Fox learned, when we are hoping for too much from other people, we are often disappointed and disillusioned. If calling it a revival means you’re expecting Azusa St. all over again, you’re going to be sorry. But if you’re open to what the Holy Spirit has to offer in the moment, you will be refreshed.

The important point is that evenings like this shouldn’t be a one time event. They should be a semi-regular event in the life of all Quaker communities. Any time a traveling minister is visiting – the community should gather like this. And that is how we revive ourselves. Revival is not a once and for all kind of event. It is the regular infusion of energy, not in the slow trickle of everyday life, but in cloudbursts of the Holy Spirit among us.

The long-term transformation of lives really happens in the steady flow of service and forgiveness and patience and commitment that we experience in our local meetings. But we need the little jolts of enthusiasm that come from really inspired preaching. We need the friendships and connections that are built in an evening like this. It brought together Friends from several worshipping communities in the area, who live too far apart to do this every week, but ought to know one another in the way of extended family. That too makes a difference over time. The ministry that comes out speaks to different people each time.

It may have been a little gimmicky to call it a Quaker Revival. But it got people to come – a wide range of Friends from 20 miles around. Plus the Holy Spirit. For that, let us be truly thankful.