March 29, 2018

The hum­ble, meek, mer­ci­ful, just, pious, and devout souls are every­where of one reli­gion; and when death has tak­en off the mask they will know one anoth­er, though the divers liv­er­ies they wear here makes them strangers. This world is a form; our bod­ies are forms; and no vis­i­ble acts of devo­tion can be with­out forms. But yet the less form in reli­gion the bet­ter, since God is a Spir­it; for the more men­tal our wor­ship, the more ade­quate to the nature of God; the more silent, the more suit­able to the lan­guage of a Spirit.

William Penn

New York Friends on Climate Change

March 20, 2018

The March issue of New York Year­ly Meet­ing’s Spark now seems to be online, a good dozen arti­cles on the top­ic of “Earth­care Now.” From the intro­duc­tion by guest edi­tor Pamela Boyce Simms:

The NYYM Friends who have shared their sto­ries here­in are farm­ers, chap­lains, hydro­ge­ol­o­gists, shep­herds, mys­tics, home­stead­ers, local gov­ern­ment offi­cials, nat­u­ral­ists, pro­fes­sors, and Mas­ter Gar­den­ers. They till the soil, herd the sheep, insu­late walls, min­is­ter unto many, com­mune with nature, edu­cate, and mod­el resilience in Itha­ca, Brook­lyn, Clin­ton, East Chatham, and Seneca Cas­tle in New York, and in High­land Park and Mont­clair in New Jersey.

I still have to go through them myself. Some that look par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ing are Susan­na Mat­ting­ly’s Quak­ers and Cli­mate Change:

This is a spir­i­tu­al call as well as a mate­r­i­al one, to act not out of fear or through accu­sa­tion, but with hope and love. We rec­og­nize sus­tain­abil­i­ty and care for the earth are inte­gral to our faith and our Quak­er tes­ti­monies as we strive to live in right rela­tion­ship with all cre­ation. As a com­mu­ni­ty, we can make a mean­ing­ful con­tri­bu­tion to sta­bi­liz­ing the cli­mate and build­ing resilience.

Christo­pher Sam­mond’s “Our Gen­er­a­tion’s ‘Lam­b’s War’ “:

As I have held ques­tions about how to respond to the divi­sive­ness, the fear mon­ger­ing, the racism, and the tsuna­mi of lies and half-truths char­ac­ter­iz­ing our nation’s polit­i­cal life at this time, I have been clear­ly and deeply called to go deep, and to join the many, many peo­ple of faith who are seek­ing to bring about the nec­es­sary shift in cul­ture, a shift in spir­i­tu­al con­scious­ness, which is nec­es­sary if we are to sur­vive as a species. And, like my Quak­er fore­bears, I know that work to begin with­in myself.

March 8, 2018

Only wait to know that where­in God appears in thy heart, even the holy seed, the immor­tal seed of life; that that may be dis­cerned, dis­tin­guished, and have scope in thee; that it may spring up in thy heart, and live in thee, and gath­er thee into itself, and leav­en thee all over with its nature; that thou mayst be a new lump, and mayst walk before God, not in the old­ness of thy own lit­er­al knowl­edge or appre­hen­sions of things, but in the new­ness of his Spirit.

— Isaac Pen­ing­ton [Source]

March 5, 2018

Noth­ing, I believe, can real­ly teach us the nature and mean­ing of inspi­ra­tion but per­son­al expe­ri­ence of it. That we may all have such expe­ri­ence if we will but attend to the divine influ­ences in our own hearts, is the car­di­nal doc­trine of Quakerism.

— Car­o­line Stephen

Upcoming FJ submission: “Quaker Spaces”

April 4, 2016

I’ve been mean­ing to get more into the habit of shar­ing upcom­ing Friends Jour­nal issue themes. We start­ed focus­ing on themed issues back around 2012 as a way to bring some diver­si­ty to our sub­ject mat­ter and help encour­age Friends to talk about top­ics that weren’t as regularly-covered.

One of the Greenwich, N.J., Meetinghouses.

One of the Green­wich, N.J., meet­ing­hous­es, Sept 2009

The next issue we’re look­ing to fill is a top­ic I find inter­est­ing: Quak­er Spaces. I’ve joked inter­nal­ly that we could call it “Meet­ing­house Porn,” and while we already have some beau­ti­ful illus­tra­tions lined up, I think there’s a real chance at juicy Quak­er the­ol­o­gy in this issue as well.

One of my pet the­o­ries is that since we down­play creeds, we talk the­ol­o­gy in the minu­tia of our meet­ing­hous­es. Not offi­cial­ly of course — our wor­ship spaces are neu­tral, uncon­se­crat­ed, emp­ty build­ings. But as Helen Kobek wrote in our March issue on “Dis­abil­i­ties and Inclu­sion,” we all need phys­i­cal accom­mo­da­tions and these pro­vide tem­plates to express our val­ues. Ear­li­er Friends expressed a the­ol­o­gy that dis­trust­ed forms by devel­op­ing an archi­tec­tur­al style devoid of cross­es, steeples. The clas­sic meet­ing­house looks like a barn, the most down-to-early hum­ble archi­tec­tur­al form a north­ern Eng­lish sheep­herders could imagine.

But the­olo­gies shift. As Friends assim­i­lat­ed, some start­ed tak­ing on oth­er forms and Methodist-like meet­ing­house (even some­times dar­ing­ly called church­es) start­ed pop­ping up. Mod­ern meet­ing­hous­es might have big plate glass win­dows look­ing out over a for­est, a nod to our con­tem­po­rary wor­ship of nature or they might be in a con­vert­ed house in a down-and-out neigh­bor­hood to show our love of social justice.

Top photo is a framed picture of the Lancaster U.K. Meetinghouse from the early 20th century--long benches lined up end to end, balcony. By the time of my visit, there were cushioned independent chairs arranged in a circle.
Top pho­to is of a framed pic­ture of the Lan­cast­er UK Meet­ing­house from the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry – long bench­es lined up the length of the space. By the time of my vis­it in 2003, the bal­cony was gone and the few remain­ing bench­es were rel­e­gat­ed to an out­er ring out­side of cush­ioned chairs arranged in a cir­cle sur­round­ing a round table with flow­ers and copies of Faith and Prac­tice.

But it’s not just the out­sides where the­ol­o­gy shows up. All of the clas­sic North­east­ern U.S. meet­ing­hous­es had rows of bench­es fac­ing for­ward, with ele­vat­ed fenc­ing bench­es reserved for the Quak­er elders. A theologically-infused dis­trust of this mod­el has led many a meet­ing to rearrange the pews into a more cir­cu­lar arrange­ment. Some­times some­one will sneak some­thing into the mid­dle of the space — flow­ers, or a Bible or hym­nal — as if in recog­ni­tion that they don’t find the empti­ness of the Quak­er form suf­fi­cient. If asked, most of these deci­sions will be explained away in a light-hearted man­ner but it’s hard for me to believe there isn’t at least an uncon­scious nod to the­ol­o­gy in some of the choices.

I’d love to hear sto­ries of Friends nego­ti­at­ing the meet­ing space. Has the desire to build or move a meet­ing­house solid­i­fied or divid­ed your meet­ing? Do you share the space with oth­er groups, or rent it out dur­ing the week? If so, how have you decid­ed on the groups that can use it? Have you bick­ered over the details of a space. Here in the North­east, there are many tales of meet­ings com­ing close to schism over the ques­tion of replac­ing ancient horse­hair bench cush­ions, but I’m sure there are con­sid­er­a­tions and debates to be had over the form of fold­ing chairs.

You can find out more about sub­mit­ting to this or any oth­er upcom­ing issue our the Friends Jour­nal Sub­mis­sions page. Oth­er upcom­ing issues are “Cross­ing Cul­tures” and “Social Media and Technology.”

Aug 2016: Quaker Spaces

What do our archi­tec­ture, inte­ri­or design, and meet­ing­house loca­tions say about our the­ol­o­gy and our work in the world? Quak­ers don’t con­se­crate our wor­ship spaces but there’s a strong pull of nos­tal­gia that brings peo­ple into our his­toric build­ings and an unde­ni­able ener­gy to inno­v­a­tive Quak­er spaces. How do our phys­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tions keep us ground­ed or keep us from shar­ing the “Quak­er gospel” more wide­ly? Sub­mis­sions due 5/2/2016.

Pareto opportunities for Friends?

June 10, 2015

Nate Sil­ver recent­ly ran a piece on Mar­co Rubio’s pres­i­den­tial chances has used the previously-unknown-to-me con­cept of the “Pare­to fron­tier” to line up poten­tial candidates:

In eco­nom­ics, there’s a con­cept known as Pare­to effi­cien­cy. It means that you ought to be able to elim­i­nate any choice if anoth­er one dom­i­nates it along every dimen­sion. The remain­ing choic­es sit along what’s called the Pare­to frontier.

Sil­ver then fol­lowed up with a real world exam­ple that speaks to my inter­est in food:

Imag­ine that in addi­tion to White Cas­tle and The French Laun­dry, there are two Ital­ian restau­rants in your neigh­bor­hood. One is the chain restau­rant Olive Gar­den. You actu­al­ly like Olive Gar­den per­fect­ly well. But down the block is a local red-sauce joint called Giovanni’s. The food is a lit­tle bet­ter there than at Olive Gar­den (although not as good as at The French Laun­dry), and it’s a lit­tle cheap­er than Olive Gar­den (although not as cheap as White Cas­tle). So you can elim­i­nate Olive Gar­den from your reper­toire; it’s dom­i­nat­ed along both dimen­sions by Giovanni’s.

These days we choose more than our din­ner des­ti­na­tions. Spir­i­tu­al­i­ty has become a mar­ket­place. While there have always been con­verts, it feels as if the pace of reli­gious lane-changing has steadi­ly quick­ened in recent times. Many peo­ple are choos­ing their reli­gious affil­i­a­tion rather than stick­ing with the faith tra­di­tions of their par­ents. For Quak­ers, this has been a net pos­i­tive, as many of our meet­ing­hous­es are full of “con­vinced” Friends who came in to our reli­gious soci­ety as adults.

Quak­ers are some­what unique in our mar­ket poten­tial. I would argue that we fall on two spots of the reli­gious “pare­to curve”:

  • The first is a kind of mass-market entry point for the “spir­i­tu­al but not reli­gious” set that wants to dip its toe into an orga­nized reli­gion that’s nei­ther very orga­nized nor reli­gious. Lib­er­al Friends don’t have min­is­ters or creeds, we don’t feel or sound too churchy, and we’re not par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cerned about what new seek­ers believe. It’s a per­fect fit for do-it-yourself seek­ers that are look­ing for non-judgmental spiritually-minded progressives.
  • Our sec­ond pare­to fron­tier beach­head is more grad-school lev­el: we’re a good spot for peo­ple who have a strong reli­gious con­vic­tions but seek a com­mu­ni­ty with less restric­tions. They’ve mem­o­rized whole sec­tions of the Bible and might have the­o­log­i­cal train­ing. They’re burned out by judg­men­tal­ism and spirit-less rou­tine and are seek­ing out a more authen­tic reli­gious com­mu­ni­ty of reli­gious peers open to dis­cus­sion and growth.

It seems we often reach out to one or the oth­er type of “pare­to” seek­er. I see that as part of the dis­cus­sion around Mic­ah Bales’s recent piece on Quak­er church plant­i­ng–do we focus on new, unaf­fil­i­at­ed seek­ers or seri­ous reli­gious dis­ci­ples look­ing for a dif­fer­ent type of com­mu­ni­ty. I’d be curi­ous to hear if any Quak­er out­reach pro­grams have tried to reach out to both simul­ta­ne­ous­ly. Is it even pos­si­ble to sucess­ful­ly mar­ket that kind of dual message?

The two-touch pare­to nature of Friends and pop spir­i­tu­al cul­ture sug­gests that meet­ings could focus their inter­nal work on being the bridge from what we might call the “pare­to entrances.” New­com­ers who have walked through the door because we’re not out­ward­ly churchy could be wel­comed into Quak­erism 101 cours­es to be intro­duced to Quak­er tech­niques for spir­i­tu­al ground­ing and growth – and so they can deter­mine whether for­mal mem­ber­ship is a good fit. Those who have come for the deep spir­i­tu­al ground­ing can join as well, but also be giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ties for smaller-scale reli­gious con­ver­sa­tions and prac­tice, through Bible study groups, region­al extend­ed wor­ships and trips to region­al opportunities.

If you add charts you don't understand to blog posts, people will think you're extra smart.
If you add charts to blog posts, peo­ple will think you’re super-duper smart.

Overnight camping at Fort Delaware on the Delaware River’s Pea Patch Island. 

September 28, 2014

Ear­li­er this month we took a fam­i­ly trip to the “Three Forts” along the low­er Delaware — Fort DuPont on the Delaware side, Fort Mott in New Jer­sey, and Fort Delaware right in the mid­dle (okay, it’s offi­cial­ly Delaware, mean­ing our hosts were the excel­lent staff of the Delaware Park Ser­vice). This week­end I went back with the two old­er boys on an overnight campout.

The island is only acces­si­ble by fer­ry. Most nights, the entire staff dis­em­bark back to Delaware on the last fer­ry (we joined them last time) but for the first time in any­one’s mem­o­ry, they had this cam­pout. If our fam­i­ly did­n’t scare them they might make it a more reg­u­lar event.

We camped out in the old march­ing ground right inside the fort and got to walk around all of the safe parts of the fort. In addi­tion, the staff had lots of great programs:

  • Scav­enger hunt
  • Para­nor­mal ghost tour includ­ing the normally-closed Endi­cott Tunnel
  • Camp­fire with s’mores
  • I did the nature trail on north side of island in near pitch black
  • A night vision work­shop about how noc­tur­nal ani­mals see in the dark (rods and cones in the eye).
  • The camp­ing of course
  • In the morn­ing there was a guid­ed nature walk where we learned about birds and mam­mals on island.

And because I like shoot­ing time lapse videos late­ly, here are two. In the first the sun ris­es over the riv­er. In the sec­ond we ride the tram from Fort Delaware to the fer­ry dock. If you’re inter­est­ed in low-res videos of bridge cross­ings, spooky night wan­der­ings, or ghost sight­ings then fol­low the links. There’s also a more com­plete Flickr set of the trip.

Last weekend I was invited to speak to Abington (Pa.) Meeting’s First-day school…

November 8, 2011

Last week­end I was invit­ed to speak to Abing­ton (Pa.) Meet­ing’s First-day school (n.b. prop­er FJ stylesheet) to talk about vocal min­istry in wor­ship. I haven’t been to wor­ship at that meet­ing for eons and can’t speak to the con­di­tion of its min­istry, but I do know that vocal min­istry can be some­thing of a mys­tery for unpro­grammed Friends. Many of us are “con­vinced,” com­ing to the Soci­ety as adults and often have a nag­ging feel­ing we’re play-acting at being Friends, but I’ve met many life-long Quak­ers who also won­der about it.

Per­haps as a response to these feel­ings, we some­times get rather pedan­tic that what­ev­er way we’ve first encoun­tered is the Quak­er way. The cur­rent fash­ion of vocal min­istry in the Philadel­phia area is for short mes­sages, often about world events, often con­fes­sion­al in nature. What I want­ed to leave Abing­ton with was the rad­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent ways unpro­grammed Friends have wor­shipped over time and how some of our prac­tices out­side wor­ship were devel­oped to help nur­ture Spirit-led ministry.

(writ­ten this a.m. but only post­ed to lim­it­ed cir­cles, cut and past­ed when I saw the mix-up)

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