From LizOpp, back on the blog:

I have come to believe that I live my life not in a straight line from birth to death but in a series of small and large cir­cles: from birth to learn­ing; from growth to for­get­ting; from remem­ber­ing to pride­ful liv­ing; from bro­ken­ness to humil­i­ty; from deep love and con­nec­tion to sep­a­rate­ness; from despair to faithfulness.

https://​the​goodraisedup​.blogspot​.com/​2​0​2​3​/​0​2​/​r​e​-​e​n​t​r​y​-​t​r​u​t​h​-​a​n​d​-​b​e​i​n​g​-​h​o​u​n​d​e​d​.​h​tml

I too have felt cir­cles com­ing back around. Liz attend­ed last week­end’s work­shop, the first multi-day retreat I’ve led since… check notes… 2014, when R. Scot Miller got me to Kala­ma­zoo, Michi­gan, for Green Pas­tures Quar­ter­ly Meet­ing. Last year I final­ly stopped my meet­ing wan­der­ing and have set­tled down at Crop­well Meet­ing, where I get to be involved in all the sil­ly, light­weight dra­mas that occur when­ev­er a group of peo­ple come together.

There, I’ve felt my spo­ken min­istry return. I was shocked a few months ago when I stood and was giv­en words that start­ed with reflect­ing of the sounds of the leaves blow­ing against the out­side walls, ref­er­enced an atten­der who had just been sweep­ing them, cir­cled to the his­to­ry of the peo­ple who have gath­ered with­in those walls and main­tained the build­ing for wor­ship, moved side­ways into a gen­tle les­son on min­istry in the qui­etist tra­di­tion, pulled it back to Jesus’s words in the Ser­mon on the Mount, and then tied it up in a bow with prayers of thanks to our faith­ful ances­tors and to those today who con­tin­ue to sweep away the ever-returned leaves. Read­ers, let me assure you I don’t think I’ve ever giv­en such coher­ent, bal­anced min­istry and I’m not sure where it came from. But faith­ful­ness is key.

I’ve also felt the nudge to bring back some iden­ti­fi­able plain dress. For years I’ve tend­ed toward what I used to call “Sears plain“¹ and dur­ing the work-from-home life I’m some­times lucky if I get through the day with­out still wear­ing my paja­mas. Over the last few weeks I’ve been adding sus­penders to my reg­u­lar clothes. Of course I’ve gone through all the old famil­iar self-questioning: Am I doing this to stand out? Am I try­ing to puff myself up? Is this what faith­ful­ness leads me? But these ques­tions are part of the process and a tug toward plain­ness often pre­cedes out­ward min­istry; in his study Quak­er Jour­nals, Howard Brin­ton not­ed that future min­is­ters often record­ed inward nudges in their teen years and became plain­er in dress to the ridicule of their peers. I’m not a teen and I doubt any­one is going to make fun of me (at least to my face) but I do feel a cer­tain seri­ous­ness of intent come over me when I over­come my nat­ur­al desire for social anonymi­ty and put the sus­penders on.

1. I’m not sure I can call it that now that Sears bare­ly exists anymore?