One has to applaud the sheer honesty of the group of leading Quakers who have recently proposed turning the grounds of Philadelphia’s historic Arch Street Meetinghouse into a retirement home. It makes perfect sense. Arch Street is the host for our annual sessions, where the average age is surely over 70. Why not institutionalize the yearly meeting reality?
The Arch Street Meetinghouse grounds are also a cemetery. In about ten years time we can raze the meetinghouse for more headstones and in about twenty years time we can have a big party where we cash out the yearly meeting funds and just burn them in a big bonfire (there’s a fire station across the street), formally laying down Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. The fifteen of us who are left can go attach ourselves to some other yearly meeting.
This year’s annual sessions continue their tradition of self-parody: the featured speakers are the umpteenth gray-hair professional Quaker talking about the peace testimony and a psychologist who appears on NPR. It’s safe to assume neither will stray beyond the mildest communities of faith talk to mention God, gospel order or naming of gifts, and that neither will ask why there’s almost no one under forty involved in the yearly meeting. The last time I went to a nominating committee workshop at annual sessions, members openly explained to me why Friends under forty couldn’t serve on committees. Later during that session we learned the average new attender was in their thirties yet the yearly meeting clerk didn’t think it was appropriate than any Friend under fifty comment on that (about 40 older Friends were recognized to share their thoughts, natch).
The generational freefall is coming to the yearly meeting. Arch Street Meeting is smack in the middle of one of the premier hip young neighborhoods of Philadelphia yet they’ve been resistant to doing any serious outreach or adult religious ed (I could tell stories: don’t get me started). This weekend I learned that the other downtown meeting, Central Philadelphia, continues its practice – almost policy – of not supporting emerging ministry in long-time young attenders (I could really tell stories). I wouldn’t be surprised if Philadelphia has the lowest per-capita yearly meeting attendance.
So why not just admit that the yearly meeting is irrelevant to younger Friends? Why not turn our meetinghouses into retirement homes?
PS: How I wish I weren’t so cynical about the yearly meeting. I don’t want to feel like it’s a state of all-out generational warfare. I’ve tried, really I have. I’m even willing to try again. But no where have I found a space to have these discussions, at yearly meeting or anywhere else. Other Phila. YM Friends concerned with these issues are welcome to email me – maybe we can figure out some forum for this either inside or outside of the official structures.
PPS: There are a lot of wonderful Friends involved with the yearly meeting. They have good ideas and sincerely try to make it a more welcoming place. The best part of the yearly meeting sessions I’ve attended have been the unexpected conversations. It’s the institution I am frustrated with: the sense that it’s bigger and dumber than all of us.
PPPS: What if I took my own words to heart and considered a PhYM renewal as part of the fifty-year plan? If I just stopped complaining and just attended patiently and faithfully year after year for those “teachable moments” that might inch it forward?
The last time I went to a nominating committee workshop at annual sessions, members openly explained to me why Friends under forty couldn’t serve on committees. Later during that session we learned the average new attender was in their thirties yet the yearly meeting clerk didn’t think it was appropriate than any Friend under fifty comment on that (about 40 older Friends were recognized to share their thoughts, natch).
I find this shocking. Truly! Despite my whining about my local Meeting, they at least have made some solid attempts at including younger adults (and successfully, too — our present clerk is under 40 — somebody stop us!).
The average age of a member of PhYM is 70??? Nothing against anyone being 70 (at one time both of my parents were that age and I hope to reach that age one day, relatively in good health I hope, myself! :)), but that is a pretty old age for an average.
Is this attitude prevalent across most Friends over 40 in PhYM? I mean, lots of folks, who are now in their 50 to early 60’s, worked very hard to have their voices and perspectives heard and known when they were younger. Do you find that these folks have some understanding of younger adult Friends’ concerns?
Great to see so many posts. Much more engaging than my latest post of a picture of President Bush getting hit up the side of the head by Jesus. Seriously!
Oh dear God, hold Martin and Friends very closely. Help them to see your way opening. Help us all to find a way to walk together in your path. Amen.
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(I’m not sure how to indicate holding a period of silent worship online.)
Perhaps we on the other side of the continent can simply pray for you. Or you could move to San Francisco???
Peace,
Robin
I wish you weren’t so cynical, too. I’m sorry each time I read of your difficulties, Martin. I share your concerns about the narrow age range of most of those in Quaker leadership and wonder about the reasons. I agree that often there is explicit ageism as well as implicit indifference or lack of imagination. On the other hand, I’m also often mystified as to why our experiences have been so different.
I came to Friends when I was 26 (in 1986). I was single and not particularly consumed with making any particular kind of life or career; I was ultimately available. I joined meeting (Central Philadelphia) within months of first attending, I was so certain I belonged. I took advantage of every opportunity for involvement and service. I worked for Friends for the better part of the next 15 years.
And I found many opportunities. I was often given opportunities specifically because of my age. Sometimes I had to press for what I believed was right for me. (I refused appointment to Peace and Social Concerns Committee; I think I was approached because I was an out gay man. I told them I had come to Friends not out of social concerns but out of spiritual ones. I wasn’t immediately appointed to Overseers, as it was then called, but I was the next year. I also served on Worship and Ministry, which I clerked while in my early 30s.)
Chance put some opportunities in my way. I transfered my membership for a time to the meeting in Camden, New Jersey, which had a tiny resident population. I spoke up about something at business meeting and wound up appointed to Representative Meeting (now Interim Meeting), which was unlikely to have happened at CPMM. I left work early once a month in order to go. By the time I left Interim Meeting some ten years later, it began its meetings after dinner, although still on a weeknight. The range of age and economic situation of the members had radically changed. I was clerk of Interim Meeting at 38, having already served as recording clerk, as well as having previously served as one of the recording clerks of yearly meeting.
At Central Philadelphia my ministry was soundly supported. I was young, and I was relatively new to the meeting. But I was a member, not an attender. My experience of CPMM was that membership was considered to make a decisive difference. (CPMM is one of the few meetings I know that has gone through an in-depth process to figure out just what membership does mean.)
I don’t want to go on about what I’ve done. I don’t think of myself as an unusual person. But it wasn’t much of a struggle for me to be usefully involved with Friends even at a leadership level, although I did have to give up some things and make some sacrifices. I had the liberty of job flexibility and no children.
I began thinking and teaching about eldering in my early 30s and constantly had to tell people eldering wasn’t about age (how many foolish old people do you know?). But on the other hand, I do have to admit that my ministry situates me among a relatively small group of Friends. Perhaps I shouldn’t try to draw any conclusions from my experience. I wish I could figure out if there’s anything about my experience that could help others feel more at home or more effective. I’m ever mindful of the fact that I am NOT young, even if I am among the youngest in a group.
All through this life, there have been some things that may be clues: I enjoy getting to know and working with people of all ages; I’m willing to submit to community discernment and needs; I’m accustomed to working within the status quo even while changing it; I’m passionately committed to learning from and building upon the past; I’m a good politician; I consciously try to be patient; I’m generally cheerful.
If yearly meeting is in session, then the star magnolias in the courtyard must be in bloom and perhaps there are even bulbs blooming in the lawns. Here in Boston it’s notable just to see snowdrops in bloom.
*Hi Joe:* No, the yearly meeting isn’t all so ancient. It’s just that so many of the people filling committees (and being called on by past yearly meeting clerks) are older, both at the yearly and quarterly meeting levels.
To be fair, I undestand that a thirty-something Friend is being named to an important post this year but the scuttlebutt is that he was asked in some degree of desparation only after a first round of nominees all rejected the offer. It’s good that a younger person will be in there – very good. And as the current leadership of the yearly meeting burns out or ages out we’ll see more of this. But this kind of jerky, desparate generational transfer isn’t healthy. I think we’re still dealing with fallout from when something similar happened in the early 1970s, when lots of major Quaker positions were suddenly filled with inexperienced very young Friends.
***
*Hi Kenneth:* I’ve always wondered at the differences between us. I don’t know if I ever told you this, but I’ve watched you over the years and seen you a bit as a role-model. I was very happy to see you every week at Central Philadelphia.
But yet you’ve found an acceptance I haven’t. Or maybe not. I do need to get off my horse about being an outsider. I’ve worked for two Quaker organizations, I’ve co-clerked a meeting, I have served on Interim Meeting. Whatever gifts I have are being recognized more. In the past year I actually was approached by very welcoming Friends on PhYM’s nominating committee to serve the yearly meeting (childcare conflicts got in the way). So part of it is just our different outlooks: you’re more glass half-full, I’m more glass half-empty.
I never felt the sense of belonging to Central Philadelphia that you described having so immediately. How did that initial sense of belonging happen? I’ve always wondered what would have happened if someone had noticed me, befriended me and mentored me into the Meeting. What if someone had realized I was regularly attending worship and had offered to go to business meeting with me? Or taken an interest in my attendance and started asking me questions or inviting me to lunch once in awhile that would have made a big difference? Did you have someone like that? How did it happen? How did you feel so comfortable and ready to join within a few months?
I considered applying for membership for years. I tried testing this leading by getting involved in various Quaker circles but had bad experiences. There too is another ‘what if.’
Yes, you are more patient and cheerful and trusting of Quaker institutions than I am. That helps. I’m more of a pain in the butt. I’m not particularly diplomatic. I think I have a talent for making people uncomfortable – which can be a good thing and can help people and communities grow but which goes against modern Quaker culture (this could/should be a whole post in itself). It would be nice to sit down to lunch with you some time, but I think I’m more dissatisfied with where Quakers are (I was upset that Interim Meeting’s average age is so high even when I myself served on it; I’m upset it took till age 37 before nominations talked to me). Maybe in the end, the differences are matters of personality and if so, that’s fine as I think Friends need both of our personalities (Bownas talks about this, doesn’t he, when he says we shouldn’t try to mimic each other’s ministering style?).
I do wish I felt less cynical. I’m working on it, honestly I am. If I can arrange Theo-care maybe I’ll even try to attend some of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. I want to be surprised. Sometimes I am surprised. I’m not the outsider I often feel. I’m very conscious that I’m currently in a two-year out-in-the-desert time, that this time away from a monthly meeting has been necessary for my development as a minister (strange as that seems) and that it’s about time to come back in.
I am very interested in your experience of parenting and Quakering at the same time. I didn’t start going to Yearly Meeting until I had a two year old. (Not the best time to start anything, really.) But one of the most frustrating things for me has been feeling cut off from the “really cool” and radically faithful 20 and 30-something Friends because I have to put my kids to bed at a reasonable hour. I just can’t go to worship sharing at 10:00 at night. I have had some lovely conversations with older Friends, whose kids are grown and gone now, just because they took pity on me sitting with my kids at a Quarterly meeting meal. My husband and I have taken to taking turns with the kids at meals at Quaker gatherings so that at least one meal a day, we each get to talk to the grownups. It seems odd to me that at 30 I was one of the youngest mothers, but among Pacific YM Friends, that seems to be the case. Have you found that your Quaker relationships have changed since you became a father?
I always have to balance my personal interests in Quaker governance and my practical concerns for the children’s program. Chris and I each turned down a nomination to a very interesting committee because it meets for a whole weekend every quarter and we’d have to be away from home more than we’re willing at this point. (The frustrating experience of being taken as interchangeable rather than as individuals with separate gifts is another story.)
I think I’ve grown spiritually as a parent, and I wouldn’t trade my kids for all the tea in China, but I still find myself resenting the blessings in my life. Which is a challenging place to come to. I haven’t found much in the way of Quaker journals about how to balance my vocation as a parent and as a minister. Have you?
Hi Robin: I’m not sure I’m an expert on the juggling baby act. Julie & I are still trying to figure out how to negotiate two churches, one baby and one car in a land with very limited public transportation and it’s all made the harder that we want more intentional religious communities.
I wish the old Quaker journals talked about the juggle a bit more. I suspect one parent stayed home a lot. And traveling ministry wasn’t constant. Maybe it picked up again when the kids got to a certain age. Maybe someone’s researched this but I never see this sort of discussion in the journals.
Martin, thanks so much for your reply. This paragraph especially touched me:
I never felt the sense of belonging to Central Philadelphia that you described having so immediately. How did that initial sense of belonging happen? I’ve always wondered what would have happened if someone had noticed me, befriended me and mentored me into the Meeting. What if someone had realized I was regularly attending worship and had offered to go to business meeting with me? Or taken an interest in my attendance and started asking me questions or inviting me to lunch once in awhile that would have made a big difference? Did you have someone like that? How did it happen? How did you feel so comfortable and ready to join within a few months?
Someone did notice me and take me under her wing. Although I was encouraged to come to meeting by Steve Stalonas, with whom I was working, and was glad to see Becky Birtha, whom I knew from folk dancing, it was Phyllis Sanders who did the most to make me feel welcome and draw me in.
At that time, CPMM regularly had “Meeting Weekend” in the winter, and Phyllis had agreed to organize it that year. She was a great believer in getting people involved and in nurturing young Friends. She roped me into helping with the organizing for the weekend. The organizing part wasn’t new to me, but it cemented a friendship with Phyllis and brought me right into the life of the meeting. Phyllis’s unselfconscious zest for life and her extroversion were a great gift to the Religious Society of Friends. As you say, citing Bownas (who, of course, was drawing on sound Pauline ground), we shouldn’t try to copy one another’s ministry – and Phyllis was a natural at things that would be such a burden to me.
I also had read a lot about Friends before I ever came, and increased that behavior tenfold as I started attending. Membership, for me, had a lot to do with a commitment to an abstract ideal of Quakerism, rather than the particular people or meeting. Mostly that’s served me well, but my current meeting (Beacon Hill) is a meeting where membership is very much an interpersonal and relational act. The difference in perspective has actually caused some difficulties for me.
I’m touched that you’ve looked at me as sort of a role model. A paragraph that I wrote and then deleted from my earlier comment had to do with the almost split personality I feel – I’m just an average, normal person, yet clearly I’m not! The part about my eldering activities putting me in a small group; even being clerk of Interim Meeting at such a young age kind of singles me out (I was very aware of it at the time and tried, somewhat in vain, to avoid pride). I think the first experience of it was at the Gathering one year when Ellen Hodge was looking for Bibles to use with a Jr. Gathering group. I think I was the only person in the FLGC dorm who had a Bible with me. FLGC at that time had far more Christians than the general FGC population, and I didn’t consider myself a Christian. But I was taking the Christian heritage of Friends seriously, and so there I was lending my Bible to Ellen.
The next time I’m coming to Philadelphia I’ll be sure to let you know, and perhaps we can have lunch.
Blessings and love,
Kenneth
My first impulse is to respond to Robin’s comment, about parenting and being part of a faith community. Given that the worship group in which I participate has a regular attendance of 8 adults and 3 children under the age of 4 – with a baby due in June – and all but one of us live within a mile or two of one another, for a while we’ve been able to spread out childcare among parents and non-parents alike.
One family with 2 of the young kids has gotten into a vicious cycle of passing on the flu or some other bug around the household for weeks at a time. Seriously. A few of us healthy folks have pitched in with going grocery shopping, picking up children from daycare, being with the kids as other household things get attended to, etc. It’s not daily by any means, but I feel as though we are touching the edge of what could be possible, in a large community setting where its members share the value that caring for children – and elders – rests on all of our shoulders, not just on those of parents. But it is something that is hard to achieve, when so many of us have been raised in today’s individualistic society…
And I now have to remind myself that I am one of those non-parents who used to look the other way when a parent was in need of having a respite away from their little ones. But I’ve gained new Light by being faithful in offering childcare as Way opens, and I never would’ve known what I was missing if our little group hadn’t gotten underway.
Martin, on the other hand, your situation is so huge and it seems to extend for years in the past and perhaps for years into the future. It sounds overwhelming and searingly painful.
It also sounds like you are finding some possible answers for yourself:
P.P.S. What if I took my own words to heart and considered a PhYM renewal as part of the fifty-year plan? If I just stopped complaining and just attended patiently and faithfully year after year for those “teachable moments” that might inch it forward?
Complaining and sharing concerns outwardly sometimes helps us clear the emotional space for us to hear God more clearly. Many are the times when the Light of Truth is in fact reached by inching forward in the Darkness of Despair. And sometimes it is our faithfulness to the Spirit that teaches us patience; and other times it is our patience that helps us to be more faithful.
…Then there are those other other times, of course, when we’re simply too darn human, and we speak out of turn or act impulsively just to get out of our own pain or discomfort. All that being said, it does sound like God is continuing to speak to you, even in the midst of the emotional whirlwind and painful memory of annual sessions coming up…
I’d like to think that God is speaking to me, too, even if I can’t make out the words: like you, it’s hard for me not to take it personally or to keep my trust in another group’s discernment when I feel passed by rather than invited to serve on committees where I feel I have gifts. *sigh*
I hope you’ll keep us posted in your journey among PhlYM, your journey of inches.
Blessings,
Liz
Hi Kenneth: your story reminds me of Julie’s story. I’m sure I’m going to get the details wrong and she can correct me. But it goes something like this: she was a junior in a Catholic high school where everyone had to do a report on a local church. Her mom thought of the Friends Meeting down the road so one First Day she walked in. She was lucky to immediately bump into Suzanne Day, who instantly started handing her books and pamphlets and inviting her to yearly meeting sessions that were about to happen, etc., etc. Julie left that day with a Friend and a stack of books. It made a big difference. I guess that’s part of the reason I’m kind of reluctant about the whole membership issue: yes, nice position papers are fine, but that gift of just being friendly to a total stranger is often a much more important first step.
Hi Liz: I’m actually in an okay spot. I’m at the point where I probably could be a yearly meeting insider if I wanted. I have been asked by nominations to serve. It’s just that it seems like a lot of the committees are a locked into patterns and are limited by their own expectations. Sorry to be so psychological about it. I just don’t see the yearly meeting or any of its committees asking the most important questions that we need to be wrestling with. My outsiderness now is more theological (I really need God to be the center) and institutional (I need us reaching out to the world).
Dear Martin,
Just in case you don’t have enough to read already, I’d like to recommend “The Reformation of American Quakerism, 1748 – 1783” by Jack D. Marietta. It is about how Friends in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting moved from a rather worldly position in society and government to a much stricter interpretation of Quaker simplicity and integrity “to become a more distinctive and purified religious community.” As they moved to be more guarded from the world, they cleared the way for the classic Quaker testimonies on abolition, strict pacifism and temperance to become standard policy. The PhYM sessions of 1777 were apparently amazing. At the same time, they decimated the membership rolls by disowning people for all kinds of things, and laid the seeds of the schisms and ossified rule-minding of the 19th century.
Around the turn of the 20th century, Friends had a whole new wave of renewal — re-linking their Quaker faith to actual engagement in the world. See Rufus Jones and JW Rowntree in the Manchester Conference in 1895 and the Haverford Summer School of 1900. By the time Howard Brinton wrote Friends for 300 Years in 1952, he was already thinking that maybe they’d gone too far. Little did he know that it would be darker before the dawn.
So I think your idea of the 50 year plan is about right. I think we’re already 10 years into this wave of renewal and we’re gathering steam. (Sandra Cronk’s pamphlet on Gospel Order was written in 1991. Maybe others can point to other early signs.) Maybe we can learn from our history a little bit about how to better manage the humanly imperfect implementation of God’s Way.
One of the other things I am learning from my reading is that the reformations were led by the 30 – 40 year olds. There were a few older allies, the work was carried forward by younger folks, there were some holdouts. It’s folks who are old enough to know the ropes and young enough to not be completely tied up in them. Also, in earlier days, folks our age would have nearly grown children by now instead of diaper-changing in the middle of the night. But please don’t give up now.
Hi Kenneth and Robin and Liz,
Robin, thanks for the reading recommendations, but I think that Martin’s already read much of that. I read Jack Marietta already and shared large portions of that with Martin. It’s good stuff and too bad it’s out of print.
Kenneth, I wanted to just mention, even though Martin already touched on it, that I came to Quakerism when I was much younger than you (about 15) in 1991. So it was a full 15 years later but I was also about 11 years younger. Part of my experience was people’s changing attitudes toward me as I changed from a cute and unintimidating kid to an adult. I found that I was far less appreciated as an adult and that, in fact, I was not really viewed as an adult anyway. It was my experience that up until a certain age you’re not really viewed as a full-fledged adult in [Liberal] Quakerism, birthright or not. Not only that, but I was definitely treated differently in any number of circumstances because I was female. Of that I have NO doubt. Not only is ageism rampant in the RSOF but also sexism. Lots of really condescending attitudes and I had lots of very unsettling experiences. This shocked me and shook me up FAR more than my experiences of ageism did. I was so naive – I must’ve thought that because many Quakers historically and currently were on the forefront (at least theoretically) of feminist issues that on a personal and institutional level I wouldn’t experience sexism in Quakerism. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
On the ageism front, my first reaction to the experiences you describe (and I’d like to go back and re-read yours and Robins’ and Liz’s posts later too when I have a little more time) is that the opportunities you had wouldn’t happen now. Not even to a Kenneth Sutton, I don’t think. I did many of the very same things you did (with the exception of joining up formally so quickly), including applying for various Quaker jobs and internships for which I was either perfectly suited or OVER qualified. I was never even considered, never even got a return phone call or the hope of an interview. After a number of these experiences I was finally crushed, but began to see more objectively and less personally what was really going on from a cultural/institutional perspective. Comparing notes with Martin over the past few years has kept me sane too and affirmed and confirmed my experiences and thoughts.
I guess that’s all I was thinking for now. Must go up and tuck in Theo as they are waiting for me.
Julie
Oh one other thing I forgot to mention. In my view, Martin’s definitely a lot more optimistic and forgiving than most people, and certainly much more than I am in both categories. Perhaps it’s just disposition, I’m not sure. I don’t see him as very cynical at all, and I think it’s taken like 15+ years in Quakerism for him to come to a lot of these conclusions, “cynical” or not. I think he’s realistic, really.
Julie
Dear Martin (and all Friends),
For some weeks you, and all the Friends in this growing circle I’m on the outskirts of, have been on my heart as you ask yourselves (as I’ve asked myself) if leaving Quakerism is the answer. And I’ve been surprised at how defensive everyone else’s ponderings have made me, even if they were voicing thoughts I’ve had.
And they are thoughts I’ve had! Just three weeks ago (before we were stricken with influenza), I had tears in my eyes over a piece in _Friends Bulletin,_ the PYM, NPYM, and IM Yearly Meetings’ magazine: apparently Intermountain YM has been “struggling for over ten years to produce a Faith and Practice agreeable to its varied constituent membership.” As a joke (?), they submitted a piece which began:
“Chapter 1: Introduction
“George Fox heard from God and passed the message along. Apparently this is possible.
“Chapter 2: Friends’ Faith
“Some Friends believe different things, but that’s OK.”
This “joke” struck me like a blow. If this is what we’re coming to, perhaps there *is* another place for me.
On the other hand, what has *my* witness been? Have I been so transformed by the love of God, so rooted and grounded in the unknowable love of Christ, that I testify in my daily life that God speaks to me – not apparently but truly? Am I faithful in Meeting and out of it? Am I willing to return patiently and faithfully to the point over and over again?
Alas, no. I’m more convicted about myself than I am about anyone else, and that’s more painful to contemplate than the vagaries of IMYM.
Of course, I can leave the Religious Society of Friends – and it may not be left much poorer for my absence! – but I can’t leave my own lack behind. What gave the Society its power was the transformed and sanctified lives of its members. If we are truly living in God, transformed by grace, sanctified by love, surely *we* will renovate our denomination. And if we aren’t, it won’t help to go somewhere else.
“The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, fidelity, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law.…And let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we do not lose heart.”
That sounds like warrant for a 50 year plan to me.
Love to all,
Melynda
Dear Melynda,
Your description of the “joke” contained in the Friends’ Faith section of the F&P is exactly the point I came to before I realized I had to leave. I suspect that, like me, you are much harder on yourself about being faithful than anyone else is. Ultimately the only one we need to care about is God and what He thinks, and being faithful to Him. And God is simultaneously our hardest and gentlest critic! My experience on the other side of having left, both immediately and after a few years, is that it made very little difference to anyone inside Quakerism but all the difference to me. Martin can attest to the comments we’ve both received that said something to the effect of, “Well we all have our own paths.” Blah blah blah. No one seems to give a hoot whether I stayed or left. If there’s anyone who did, I’ve yet to hear about it. Hmmm.
Dear Kenneth,
I remembered that there is another thing about the differences in your experiences in Quakerism and mine. I’m sure I don’t know the details of your background, but I know that mine, as an Italian Catholic daughter of working class parents, are/were so different culturally from that of the existing Quaker culture that I felt very out of place much of the time, especially toward the end. You had a connection with at least one person at CPMM through your folk dancing. I NEVER did anything even remotely like folk dancing. Culturally I was different from most of the upper or upper middle class, highly educated, universalist liberals who surrounded me. The thing that often occurs to me with regard to this is that, in various situations, there would be an Elephant in the middle of the room. But as good polite Friends we were supposed to talk around the elephant, pretending it didn’t exist or pretending it wasn’t an elephant, but instead a kitten or something. So, me being me, I say, “Hasn’t anyone else noticed?! There’s an ELEPHANT in the middle of the room! Geese, what the heck are we going to DO with that thing!?” Usually the relatively blunt expression of the obvious wasn’t welcome. Everything was supposed to have been so carefully and intentionally framed, well thought out, and gently and delicately stated, with the utmost concern for anyone whose feelings MIGHT get hurt because, gosh darn it, they might LOVE that elephant, no matter how inappropriate its existence in the middle of the room. In a word, I was raised to call a spade a spade, and this talking around the obvious continually and increasingly mystified me…
God bless,
Julie
Thanks for the fascinating discussion.
It strikes me that your experience, Martin, in Philadelphia is quite different from mine in Illinois & Northern YMs (28 years now, collectively) where I never experienced youth as a negative factor in committee service except to the extent that skill, experience, amount of free time (especially for students & young parents), and other charateristics are naturally correlated to age.
My experience is more similar to Kenneth’s where my youthful enthusiasm (and talents, such as they are) was welcomed, despite the limitations inherent in my inexperience in Friends’ ways and personal immaturity. Members of committees I served on were (almost) always able to corral and direct the energy in a positive direction while modelling and imparting the tradition & practices of Friends and were forgiving and nurturing.
I suspect that the relatively younger YMs like Illinois (130 yrs old) and (especially) Northern YMs (now 30 yrs old) (when compared w PhYM) is a function of their smaller membership, geographic dispersion, and predominance of convinced Friends (which, by the way, contributes to many of the problems theological & spiritual problems that you’ve been identifying in this blog) more than anything intrinsic with 21st Century Quakerdom.…
Julie wrote:
In my view, Martin’s definitely a lot more optimistic and forgiving than most people, and certainly much more than I am in both categories. Perhaps it’s just disposition, I’m not sure. I don’t see him as very cynical at all, and I think it’s taken like 15+ years in Quakerism for him to come to a lot of these conclusions, “cynical” or not. I think he’s realistic, really.
Despite the fact that I don’t know Martin that well, that is my impression, too. It reminds me of myself: am I loyal to a fault?
Liz’s thoughts remind me that the answer to this question is: sometimes yes, sometimes no. The complaining and struggle can help to clear the head and heart: this I know experimentally. 😉
OTH, as Melynda points out:
…what has my witness been? Have I been so transformed by the love of God, so rooted and grounded in the unknowable love of Christ, that I testify in my daily life that God speaks to me — not apparently but truly? Am I faithful in Meeting and out of it? Am I willing to return patiently and faithfully to the point over and over again?
…
Of course, I can leave the Religious Society of Friends — and it may not be left much poorer for my absence! — but I can’t leave my own lack behind. What gave the Society its power was the transformed and sanctified lives of its members. If we are truly living in God, transformed by grace, sanctified by love, surely we will renovate our denomination. And if we aren’t, it won’t help to go somewhere else.
Again, this can be part of the struggle: has thee truly been faithful? Buth, then, has thee been too loyal? It reminds me of the instructions given by Jesus: go and preach, but if the message is not well received simply brush the dust from thy feet and move on… Hmm…
Such questions!
Great conversations!
Hi Paul,
While Philadelphia Yearly Meeting is a force unto its own, the invisibility of young Friends is across the board. As someone who works for FGC, I have a lot of contact with both Illinois and Northern Yearly Meetings and quite frankly, most of young people I see being lifted up in either yearly meeting are the children of prominent Friends.*** [[Update: LizOpp challenged me on this, asking about two specific NYM Friends. Google found that the mother of one is the past presiding clerk of a major national Quaker organization (news to Liz). The other appears by all accounts to be of more modest parentage. Neither is self-convinced. Liz was right to call me on my over-generalization but it’s still true that FGC Central Committee sessions feels like “bring your kid to work day” and that few if any of the reps are convinced.]] Forget convinced twenty-somethings for a moment. If your mom isn’t the clerk of multiple committees, it doesn’t matter that you were born into a Quaker family, you’ll be left whistling in the wind. I wish I couldn’t state that so categorically, but whenever I hear of a prominent younger Friend I can assume it’s someone’s kid. Nine times out of ten I can name one the newly-lifted-up person’s parents. The primary qualification to serve come from their relationships. This is tokenism, pure and simple. And even these annointed young Friends are complaining that they’re not being recognized for their gifts.
From the stories here, it looks like this: If you hit your twenties in the seventies, you could find yourself with a major Quaker appointment right out of college (like any number of Friends I could name). If you hit your twenties in the eighties, you could (like Kenneth) find a small meeting, spend ten years on committees and become clerk at 38. Those of us who hit their twenties in the 1990s.… well, most of us have left.
I suspect this isn’t about Quakerism but about Baby Boomerism. The current Quaker leadership is part of a generation that’s always been catered to, that thinks it’s eternally young and that has a really hard time noticing when the times have changed. I think a big underlying reason why FGC is suddenly interested in youth ministry is that its leadership is realizing its mortality. For the last fifteen years they’ve been leading without any concern that they wouldn’t be around forever. There have been so many Baby Boomers around that they’ve been able to fill all the committees and rotate clerkship around amongst themselves. There’s been little mentoring, no sowing of seeds.
I hear similar stories from my age peers in other religious denominations. There’s one methodist minister in Canada who’s been an influential “emergent church” writer. He’s well-known and very respected among thirty-somethings interested in church renewal issues. He devours books and goes to every conference he can. He’s clearly someone who should be lifted up and given the time to write and organize. But since he started working long hours stocking shelves in a supermarket, his posts have become ever-more likely to chronicle his exhaustion. A few years ago I looked forward to every post he made but now I’ve dropped him from my Bloglines subscription.
Martin wrote:
…so many Baby Boomers around that they’ve been able to fill all the committees and rotate clerkship around amongst themselves.
Yep, and the people in the meeting I was a part of for eleven years told me that this is exactly what they did. Every so many years one of the core half dozen people (or less actually) would take their “turn” at being clerk of the meeting or some other committee. This, of course, can only last so long. But it’s also been my experience that many Quakers will continue to do this until they are well past the age that they can even safely drive to meeting. Therefore I fear it is likely that some meetings and institutions will let their respective organizations die with them (or suffer a long and agonizing disease before an eventual death). Or else they will appoint inappropriate and ill-trained birthrights to positions of leadership. Isn’t that practically what happened when many of the current generation of baby boomers came into the picture? (Except that many of the young’ns were convinced, which tells you exactly how desperate the elderly Quaker leaders must have been!)
It will be interesting to observe what happens or doesn’t happen in time. I guess I don’t hold out all that much hope that any new, young, convinced blood will be entrusted with any positions of importance in meetings or larger bodies, as the current generation, as Martin pointed out, doesn’t seem to see itself getting any older.
Anyway I certainly wasn’t appointed to any positions of responsibility or hired for any jobs or internships, and the only people roughly my age who were were people’s kids. Really I can’t speak for others roughly my own age, but then usually I was the only other person in any meeting or quarterly mtg I attended within twenty or so years of me, aside from whatever few children (if any) were around. It’d definitely be interesting to find out the details of what happened back in the 70s and 60s and why it happened.
Hello Martin,
In terms of gift-naming, I see you as being in the prophetic mode. Not saying you are a prophet, but definitely in that mode. And their glasses weren’t just half empty, they were typically shattered.
Reading just a tiny little bit of Jeremiah makes you sound happy and content, and eminently reasonable.
“Oh Lord, you have deceived me and I was deceived.” Jeremiah 20:7 ??? I think ???
Isabel
Hi Julie: I think it is possible to take a little solace in learning things weren’t always as they are now, as that means they won’t always continue as they are now. I first walked into a Friends meetinghouse as a twenty year old eighteen(!) years ago. Eighteen years from now 95% of the current Quaker leadership will be pushing 80. Things have to change.
As far as I can see, what I call the “lost generation” is largely gone. A few of us remain and a few would probably wander back if they saw something interesting happening in Quakerism but I suspect we’ll always see a “Generation X”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_X gap (“Gen X” is roughly born 1965 to 1980; Julie and I are both a few years shy of bookmarking the generation).
The questions:
* How long will (can) Quaker leaders continue to classify twenty- and thirty-something Friends as “young Friends” whose ministry and leadership should be ignored or used only in token ways as eye candy and/or for donation appeals? And if so, will the promising early twenty-somethings on the scene also dissapate?
* Will the problem get so bad that we’ll repeat the crisis of the 1970s where very unseasoned Friends were put in charge of large swaths of Quakerism? A lot of the cultural problems Friends have had over the last thirty years can be traced to this phenomenon.
* Will Quakerism use the generational shift to be able to work through its various identity crises and figure out how to bring in new seekers?
I don’t like pointing it out, but most of the great schisms of Quakerism had generational overtones as a major contributing factor and tokenism and birthright’ism are recipes for future breaks. Woe be to Friends that can’t figure out these issues.
***
Hi Isabel: Jeremiah, hmm? Maybe I’ve been focusing too much on Matthew and James the last few weeks. I’m not sure I’ve even cracked Jeremiah. Due to my lack of religious upbringing I still think of him primarily as that incoherent bullfrog…
***
*Joe wrote:* _Despite the fact that I don’t know Martin that well, that is my impression, too. It reminds me of myself: am I loyal to a fault? Again, this can be part of the struggle: has thee truly been faithful? But, then, has thee been too loyal?_
Joe, stop asking these questions! I don’t want to think about that! I have wondered the same thing, of course. It has occurred to me that my Quaker experience is eerily like my pre-Julie romantic life, which had too many relationships where I really wasn’t appreciated, where I put much more in than I ever got out. I long ago identified a personal tendency to give unearned loyalty. Is that at play in my institutional and professional affiliations? (Julie would certainly say yes, ahem).
How do you always seem to know the questions that will make me squirm?
Hi Julie,
While of course I’m sorry for the facts recited, I was so glad to read of your experiences. There are a couple of big differences that you point out that I agree were central to our different experiences:
I’m male. It’s a sin that it makes a difference. (It makes a difference, too, with the Unitarian Universalists. [where I’m working now]) (Who are also struggling with “youth ministry.”)
In addition to the different decade, I came to Friends old enough that I was able to enter directly into the “adult” track even though I could have entered the “young Friends” track. You were given no such opportunity and then had to attempt to get out of the “youth” ghetto. I have a f/Friend here in Boston who couldn’t stay in the meeting she grew up in because they wouldn’t allow her to grow up.
I just missed the mythic World Gathering of Young Friends in 1985, and most of the people who went to it are ten years older than I, or more. I think there have been two more gatherings, and yet another is on the way this summer. In 1991, when I could have gone to a Young Friends gathering after the World Conference, I didn’t because, well, I was at the World Conference! It just never occured to me to go to it. And I felt guilty as I neared 40 when I approached Friends Institute for a grant one time. –But that’s for YOUNG Friends, I thought. Ha! Now I’d be fascinated to attend a Young Friends Gathering, but that’s partially just middle age speaking. I’d love to be the kind of 70-year-old who could successfully go in solidarity, as Tom Bodine did in 1985. (I have no idea how old he actually was. Probably not 70.)
And ah, family culture. Among Friends I feel like I’m with my people. I grew up in a nonreligious home. I don’t think my father’s ever been in a church except for weddings, funerals, or concerts. My mother grew up in a Congregational Church but didn’t continue with them. We were (and are still to a large extent) classic don’t talk about it, keep a stiff upper lip, don’t make a big scene WASPs. So you see how I would feel right at home.
It’s ironic that Friends (and then usually only friends) often note that I speak my mind and am blunt. But when you describe your upbringing, and as I remember a former partner who grew up in a voluble, outwardly emotional family, I think: but I’m not like that! And it’s a shame that Friends have not made both forms of expression (and more) more welcome. I can vouch for how hard it is, though. In personal relationships I’ve really struggled with being able to hear and speak in that relational culture.
Dear Kenneth,
Thanks for the post. You made me laugh out loud (esp the section about family), and not feel so crazy!
Dear Martin,
Glad to hear that things HAVE to change institutionally within Quakerism by the time you’re nearing retirement. Yikes! Hee hee hee. Do I detect a little sarcasm?
Love,
Julie
Martin writes:
I suspect this isn’t about Quakerism but about Baby Boomerism. The current Quaker leadership is part of a generation that’s always been catered to, that thinks it’s eternally young and that has a really hard time noticing when the times have changed. I think a big underlying reason why FGC is suddenly interested in youth ministry is that its leadership is realizing its mortality. For the last fifteen years they’ve been leading without any concern that they wouldn’t be around forever…There’s been little mentoring, no sowing of seeds.
I’m afraid that this is pretty accurate. I was the youngest of a family of Boomers. Despite my pointing fingers at my older sibs, I’ve often found that I am very much like they are. There is a tendency amongst us Boomers to always refer everything back to ourselves…kind of like I just did with the my first few sentences in this post. I’m not kidding! A “generation”-specific weakness, I suppose.
I think the interest in “youth ministry” is also the fact that many of these Boomers now have children in that age range so…Of course, one can’t fault a parent wanting good things for his/her children, but it still can come across as self-serving (again) given the previous history of things…
Marting continues:
Joe, stop asking these questions! I don’t want to think about that! I have wondered the same thing, of course…How do you always seem to know the questions that will make me squirm?
Because I’m your doppleganger, remember? Plus, I have a close relationship with Lily, I mean, the Spirit so… 🙂
Honestly, I’m not sure why although I suspect that Quakerism might draw similar temperment types that, in an odd way, have similar “issues”.
Loyalty is such a funny concept these days. Just like so many of us have been convinced on the way in to Quakerism, I suppose we could all be convinced on the way out. Marriage (in our culture) too has become an institution that we can opt in and opt out at will. Patriotism has become an all or nothing proposition.
However, there is another way. A popular expression is that God loves us just the way we are and too much to let us stay this way. In the recent Pendle Hill pamphlet, “Members One of Another”, there’s a much longer and better exploration of this metaphor, comparing our relationships with God and our Meetings with the unconditional love of parents for a newborn versus the much more challenging love of parents for a toddler. I feel both ways about my Meeting and the wider RSoF. And I believe they (and God) feel that way about me, at least the ones that know me.
Was thee faithful? Did thee yield? These questions are not to be posed to folks on the way out but as we travel along the way together.
My own experience is of going to Pacific YM for the first time in 2000, at age 32, after attending Meetings in NY, MD/DC & CA for about nine years before that. At one of the plenaries, I rose to say something critical of the fact that the Ministry and Oversight report on the State of the Yearly Meeting had not mentioned the existence of children or young people. By the end of the week, I had been appointed to the Sub!committee on the Religious Education of Children. I don’t think this actually reflects very much on my personal qualifications. It reflects much more on the low esteem in which that committee is held. Oooh — a two-fer — a young Friend and someone who would actually be willing to serve on that committee! Any strong opinions I might have expressed about peace and social order would not have gotten me appointed to that august committee. So Martin, you see, you’ve been knocking on the doors of the sacred cows. (Just to mix a few more metaphors.) If you’d choose a less important topic, the doors might be much more open.
Sarcasm probably doesn’t come across well on the Internet any more than it does in meeting for business. So I’ll try to be more plain speaking here. I am not spending any time wondering if I should leave the RSoF. God led me to Friends when I needed a worshipping community. I wonder sometimes why God lets us set up such human and imperfect institutions in God’s name. But I’m having fun. I’m being challenged to live a more faithful life, right here in this blog and in my Meeting.
One of my favorite poems is
The snail does the Holy
Will of God slowly.
–GK Chesterton, from In Every Tiny Grain of Sand, ed. Reeve Lindbergh. (sorry, I don’t know how to make a link)
Same goes for Friends.
Peace,
Robin
Martin:
Two things to address…
I wish the old Quaker journals talked about the juggle a bit more. I suspect one parent stayed home a lot. And traveling ministry wasn’t constant. Maybe it picked up again when the kids got to a certain age. Maybe someone’s researched this but I never see this sort of discussion in the journals.
I am reading an excruciatingly boring book about Margaret Fell right now, which is mostly based on the account books they gave listing the amounts of saddle soap, straight pins, and stockings they bought at the Hall in any given year. However, there is mention of this problem, particularly in view of the long imprisonments suffered for Quakerism at the time. I’m also reading another book, Peculiar Power, about a woman preacher named Susannah Somebody (it’s also very boring and I can’t remember her last name) but it also talks about this. The difference, it breaks my heart to say, is in community.
They did leave their families, in the Power of the Spirit, and trusted (with good reason) that God was going to hold both them and their family up while they sought His will. People were constantly living in each other’s houses. Young unmarried Quaker women served as governesses to families whose mothers and fathers were away preaching. Children were entrusted to Friends and taken into their families for days, weeks, months at a time.
The Fell daughters all took turns running the household AND THE BUSINESS while the heads of the house were away. In fact they were the first women ever recorded in England having part ownership and overseership in a Quarry. But that’s off topic. The also took care of the young Fell children, and their nieces, nephews, and the children on prominent travelling ministers, some of them couples.
The point is, there were people to step in and keep the mundane things going when God’s Work was calling. This safety net and protective framework doesn’t exist anymore. A lot of this is not so much Quakerism’s fault as Society’s (ah geeze, now I sound like my mom) — but where are the extended families? Who would take care of your children for eight months while you WALKED to Ireland? Then again, though the “village” model helped, now that I think of it, many Friends from all over the country, who didn’t know each other before Quakerism supported each other in this way. My strongest leading these days is to try and find some way to weave a new version of these safety nets, since the old ones have all rotted away. Can’t do it alone. Pray for me.
Also this, which struck near the heart for me:
It has occurred to me that my Quaker experience is eerily like my pre-Julie romantic life, which had too many relationships where I really wasn’t appreciated, where I put much more in than I ever got out. I long ago identified a personal tendency to give unearned loyalty.
I have this personality trait, too, so strongly it’s nearly ruined my life. But I’ve realized that the appreciation and feedback and love and “pay” almost never comes from the place you expect or want it. You probably won’t even get to see much of it in your lifetime. And that’s really hard to get over. Sometimes it does mean moving away from the relationship. But if you continue the metaphor, as metaphor and not too literally, think of this…
Sometimes what you are stepping away from most when you leave any relationship are your hopes and expectations and investment in that relationship. When I had to leave my husband, I found that even harder than leaving the relationship was leaving my dreams for what our relationship could be. In the end, leaving these dreams was actually emotionally and spiritually much more important that leaving the relationship. That’s what freed me and allowed me to grow into true relationsips.
Caveat — I left the man because he was doing actual harm to me. If you find Quakerism is doing actual harm to you, you need to leave. If it’s your hopes, expectations and investment that are doing you harm, you only need to leave those.
“Only”. Heh. God asks us to give up such hard things. I gave up so much and didn’t start squealing until He asked me to give up my hopes, dreams, expectations, and investments in my relationship with Him and His Church (however that is defined.) Then I cried. I’m still in the middle of wrestling this, and it is very hard. Pray for me.
This also should remind the rest of us to keep expressing our gratitude and joy when we feel it. How many times do I read an inspired or moving post in a blog, and I’m just too lazy to frame a response post or an e‑mail?
Jeff once quoted this to me when I we feeling heartbroken over my family’s rejection of my message of peace, and it made me feel better. I guess Even Jesus’ misery loves company.
“He left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. On the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, ‘Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?’ And they took offense at him. Then Jesus said to them, ‘Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.’ And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief.”
(Mark 6:1 – 6)
Ask him about his meditation on this.
Love,
Amanda
Dear Amanda,
Could you please send me the actual names of the two books you mentioned? I am in need of even boring accounts of how my spiritual ancestors managed this. I think the system you described of Friends actually serving in each others’ homes was much more common, even among non-Friends, in those days.
However, in my own life, during both my difficult pregnancies, Friends came and did our laundry, mopped our kitchen floor, loaned us their cars and their books, cheered up my poor suffering husband, etc., etc. It made all the difference. I may never be able to leave San Francisco Meeting because it will take a long time to repay our debts.
Peace,
Robin
I know you were kidding about the debts…but be careful not to think of it that way! Yikes!
I will look at the books when I go home and post the info for you.
This whole thread is extremely important and I don’t feel up to making a substantial contribution today. However, I have just enough time and energy to point out something I have always found curious in the description Amanda quotes from the Gospel of Mark about how Jesus got no respect in his hometown.
Mark writes “And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them.”
My comment: oh, is that all? Imagine what he could have done if they had faith in him!