Burning down the meetinghouse is a metaphor for the true freedom that we find when we renounce all the things that we put before God. What would it look like for younger Friends to take responsibility for leadership within our Yearly Meetings, not waiting for permission or validation?
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For those of us with no meetinghouses, who wander from place to place trying to find a home for our worship groups, this sort of hyperbole (metaphor though it may be) is just painful. Is tradition and heritage really such an awful weight? Try being a spiritual vagabond …
I also think it is the wrong question. The only question really useful to ask is what our Inward Guide and ever-present Teacher, Jesus Christ, is asking us to do corporately and individually …
I totally agree with you Isabel. Reading the various responses to Micah’s post (on his blog, Facebook, etc.), I think his piece tried to tie in too many issues, most prominently the “burn the meetinghouse” metaphor (which I read as a warning against idolatry), the “young adults need to organize” call-to-action (which I think is shifting quickly).
Here in Quaker-heavy South Jersey I approached the meetinghouse question semi-literally. With one exception, none of them were founded since the eighteenth century. Many are located a few blocks off the “King’s Highway” that’s now just a two-lane road connecting antique shops up and down the Western spine of the state. They’re not doing too well; some will almost surely end their 250 year witness in the next twenty years. We could try to pour money into them, with outreach programs, expanded facilities, etc, but I’m unclear whether any of that will help.
I think we will need to really carefully poll the ever-present Teacher to discern what we should be doing. We may not be called to be a historic preservation society disguised as a religious organization. We don’t need to burn the meetinghouses, of course. I love them as architecture, as space, and as living tributes to the continuity of our faith. But we shouldn’t confuse them for who we are or think that they are the Holy Spirit’s special temple.
Maybe meetinghouses need to be repurposed. Suppose we used them to shelter the homeless and feed the hungry?