31 October 2024

A song of quiet trust

It's been about 25 years since I gave a series of messages at the annual sessions of Northwest Yearly Meeting of Friends. The messages were linked to this psalm:

Psalm 131 (New English Bible)

1 O LORD, my heart is not proud,
  nor are my eyes haughty;
  I do not busy myself with great matters
or things too marvellous for me.
2 No; I submit myself, I account myself lowly,
  as a weaned child clinging to its mother.
3 O Israel, look for the LORD
  now and evermore.

For the last three years, I've been giving sermons once a month at Spokane Friends Meeting, in Washington state, USA. Several of my sermons have been encouragements to enter into a conversation with the Holy Spirit on what the Bible is showing us through texts that seem to contain a lot under the surface. Last month, partly in response to the feverish political climate in the USA these days, I wanted to offer something that could bring the fever down a bit—and this psalm came back to me from that series I wrote a quarter century ago. It seemed to meet the need.

I had no memory of what I actually said in those long-ago messages. I hope they were suitable at the time, but now I had no choice but to take a fresh look at the text. 

At first I assumed that I would use the New English Bible translation, because that was the first Bible I ever owned and the first place I got to know this psalm. But in preparing for my Spokane message, I looked up the psalm in the New Interpreter's Study Bible. The commentary there said that verse two seems to suggest that the psalm might have been written by a woman. So I looked again at the translation included in that Bible, the New Revised Standard Version, and look what I found:

Psalm 131 (New Revised Standard Version)

1 O LORD, my heart is not lifted up,
    my eyes are not raised too high;
  I do not occupy myself with things
    too great and too marvelous for me.
2 but I have calmed and quieted my soul,
    like a weaned child with its mother;
    my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.
[see note]
3 O Israel, hope in the LORD
    for this time on and forevermore.

[Note: Or my soul within me is like a weaned child]

Not sure which version to choose for this message, and further intrigued by that note with its alternate reading, I went to a Hebrew-English interlinear Bible to see if that second reference to the “weaned child that is with me” was in that resource ... and indeed it is.

One of the reasons I am so fond of this psalm, especially in the context of preaching, is that it reminds me that, when I speak in meeting for worship, my job is to be faithful, not clever. My task is confined to two things: first, to point toward trustworthy sources of inspiration and vision, and, second, to suggest some implications of those sources as a way of encouraging you to do the same, to consider the implications for yourselves. It is not my purpose to do your work for you, to show off my own cleverness (as obvious as it is), or to one-up someone else, or to even hint that I’ve covered all the possibilities.

From what I’ve just said, you can see why I loved the way John Kinney began his message to Spokane Friends the previous week—and here I’m quoting from his online text:

When I give a message, it is presumptuous of me and you to think that I know what I am talking about. I am groping in the dark. What I say makes sense to me but I am confident that there are theologically and spiritually astute people that could poke holes in most of what I say so always take my message with a grain of salt.

Exactly! The same caveat goes for everything that I say when I visit you.

John Kinney talked about some of the realities we encounter when we do intercessory prayer for others. When our prayers don’t result in healing, is it because we were two prayers short? John’s message reminded us of some important Scriptures that illuminate this picture: in Romans, Paul says that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us through wordless groans; and in Matthew, God causes the son “to rise on the bad as well as the good, and sends down rain to fall on the upright and the wicked alike.” We are to pray continually, but not babble on as if God didn’t already know what we need. In light of God’s promises and the Bible’s teachings on prayer, the temptation to overthink all these questions becomes unbearable, at least for some of us. 

… And it’s at that moment Psalm 131 becomes the healing song of quiet trust that I need.

Maybe some of you have seen this cartoon:

Maybe this isn't exactly theology, but it's an example of the tangents we can go on when we overthink something. God is both deeper and more direct, but we don’t become aware of it until we, like the dog in the third frame, are in an attitude of acceptance rather than reaction.

Does this mean that the good dog was wrong to contemplate the meaning of “good”? I honestly don’t think so. I don’t think God gave us our brains to torture us when we encounter something we don’t understand. I remember Paul saying in 1 Corinthians 14:15 “...I will pray with the spirit, but I will pray with the mind also; I will sing praise with the spirit, but I will sing praise with the mind also.” His point is that our participation in worship should be in language that is understandable to others, but in this cause he honors the role of the mind. Back in the same letter, chapter two, Paul says, “‘For who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ.”

Going back to Psalm 131, “...My eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.” I don’t interpret this as a way of telling us that piety equals dumb passivity, but that when we encounter Godly mysteries in Scripture and in life, we simply acknowledge our limitations, and don’t make our intellects a sort of limitation beyond which we won’t allow God to go. We don’t stand above those mysteries in some sort of detached or superior position, the way the citizens of the Snarky District live:

(By permission of cartoonstock.com.)

Instead of overthinking, or resorting to irony or intellectual distancing, we can enter into dialogue with the text. Even comparing translations might be part of that dialogue. I think it is entirely consistent with Psalm 131 to ask God to help us discern what the implications of the Scripture are for us.

For example, the question that really touches my heart is the meaning of the weaned child. How do I apply this image? Quoting, “I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.” In this scene, my soul is not trapped by my arrogance or skepticism or the temptation to react on my own terms, but what is my soul’s relation to God in this receptive place? Is God my mother in this image? Having been weaned, am I now in the world as God’s creation, in some way separate from my Creator? But in any case, I’m not far off; my soul is like the weaned child, still with its mother but now vulnerable to the world’s hazards, just like every other person in God’s creation.

As it happens, this image recalls a very specific memory from my early childhood. When I was about three or four years old, my beloved German grandma, my Oma, was teaching me how to tie my shoes. I was living with her and my Opa in their house in Stuttgart, Germany, before I went to Chicago to be reunited with my parents. As my grandmother helped me with my shoelaces, she told me about the Good Shepherd who loved me. Those memories came back to me years later, even as I was living in a family where faith was a taboo subject. It’s like my soul was never cut off from the silver thread that led back to my grandmother’s care.

(Here’s a picture of my Oma holding me, alongside my mom and my Opa. I included this picture so you can maybe glimpse some of the care that gave me that silver thread that never broke.)

Back to Psalm 131. This is my reality: my soul can relax, stop obsessing, and enjoy companionship with God, but at the same time, it remains true that I’m as vulnerable as any other creature. My hope isn’t in any physical shield or force, but in remembering, as Israel is exhorted to do in the third verse, to “hope in the Lord, now and forevermore.”

At Spokane Friends meeting for worship, I ended my sermon and we went into open worship. For that period of quiet, I offered these queries for those who wanted to continue to reflect on the psalm:

  • Is there comfort or discomfort for you in Psalm 131, or perhaps both?
  • In either case, can your questions open up a place of dialogue?
  • Are there people in your life or past who personify God’s ongoing love for you? Are there other ways you’ve experienced this love? Do you feel free to ask for more?

Another set of queries that comes to me now, as election day in the USA draws ever closer:

  • In this moment, is there a tension between "calming and quieting" our souls, and being conscientious and persistent participants in a nation's civic life?

The hope I have for today is not a denial of reality, but a deeper perspective, "now and forevermore." In another election season, eight years ago, I mentioned another psalm that I also keep before me these days: (Psalm 119:45-46, NIV; context)

I will walk about in freedom,
     for I have sought out your precepts.
I will speak of your statutes before kings
     and will not be put to shame...

Heather Cox Richardson comments on the Madison Square Garden spectacle of a few days ago.

We're just back from another four-week visit to London. I continue to be fascinated by the two (at least two) Englishes we experience in these visits, and how they influence each other. As Ben Yagoda says, it's a two-way street.

Sarah Thomas Baldwin on the subversive spiritual quality of "lingering." (With references to the events of February 2023 at Asbury University.)

A serious look at an influential periodical of my teenage years. Were you also a loyal reader of MAD?


Sarah Quintana, "Rolling and Tumbling" in French.

24 October 2024

Sober hope and November 5

To tell you the truth, I'm a bit embarrassed to wear my campaign tee shirt for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

I'm not embarrassed about my support for these candidates for the USA's highest offices, and my intention to vote for them on (or, rather, before) election day, November 5. Choosing them has been part of my observance of "sober hope," as I'm about to explain.

Instead, I cannot help being sad that, among their campaign's several tag lines ("We're not going back," "we're turning the page") is this stark set of three words: TRUTH HOPE DECENCY.

That last word refers to the direct contrast between their candidacy and that of their principal opponent. Over the years, I've said enough about him in this blog (for example, last week) and I don't plan to say any more today. If I can't convince my own beloved relative, quoted last week, to change her mind, then I doubt very much that this modest blog post will change any other minds. But it's a sad commentary that a low-bar word such as "decency" even needs to appear in a presidential campaign tagline.

So this week I'm simply going to explain my endorsement of Harris and Walz as an expression of sober hope. There's more to it than simply opposing the alternative.

  • Yes, both Harris and Walz seem "decent." They're not perfect, but they're also not likely to embarrass themselves or their country with blatant corruption or petty cruelty.
  • I have enjoyed watching the enthusiastic crowds drawn by Harris and Walz in their campaign stops. But star quality, which both Harris and Walz seem to have (based on their own personalities and merits as well as a contrast with hardworking but uncharismatic Joe Biden), is not enough to earn our votes. And the other team is also capable of bringing out crowds of cheering people. However, I will not discount the evidence that millions of donors and potential voters seem to have shaken off their political passivity and found hope in the Harris/Walz message.
  • I would not expect instant miracles from a Democratic victory. It's true that both Harris and Walz have executive and legislative experience, and have been able to attract good teams to help run their organizations and implement their programs. As I've said before, if the winners of an election were merely five or ten percent more competent than the losers would have been, that could still save or improve the lives of many thousands of people worldwide. And this year, the competence gap seems very large.
  • I expect that the priorities of Harris and Walz, who are both Christians, would align as much with the values of capitalism and USA-style imperialism as they would with the Gospel. Regardless of her private beliefs, Kamala Harris would have little room to maneuver with respect to Israel and Palestine, for example. (Oh, I hope I'm wrong!) The Pentagon will still account for nearly half the military expenditures of the whole planet. And even where Harris's heart is in the right place, our dysfunctional Congress and our compromised Supreme Court may frustrate some or all of her best plans.

    Making a choice among imperfect candidates in a presidential election is not placing U.S. citizenship above the claims of Christian discipleship. Making the best selection I can is an attempt at faithful stewardship and care for neighbors, in hope but not illusion.

If you are a voter in the USA, and are undecided about this year's presidential race, I hope you will prayerfully consider voting for the Democratic candidates, even if you then spend four years protesting their inadequacies. Given the level of polarization and mistrust in our country, they would need our prayers as well as our protests, our support as well as our vigilance. No outcome of this year's election would guarantee national healing, but a public commitment to TRUTH HOPE DECENCY would be a good place to start.


Hope, four years later.

More thoughts on keeping hope sober.


Why Billy Graham's granddaughter Jerushah Duford is voting for Kamala Harris.

My copy of Alexei Navalny's autobiography Patriot just arrived. Here's talk-show host Stephen Colbert interviewing Yulia Navalnaya on her late husband and his book. I plan to post a review of Patriot as well as Sarah Rainsford's Goodbye to Russia in the next few weeks.

Cheyenne McNeill in The Guardian writes about American evangelicals deconstructing their religion. You probably already know most or all of what the author covers, but I rarely see a treatment as thoughtful as this in a secular newspaper.

Raúl E. Zegarra remembers his friend Gustavo Gutiérrez.

"The City Gent" writes about the place where we go to meeting when we're in London, and the immediate neighborhood. And a few weeks earlier, he wrote about the nearby Bunhill Fields Burial Ground, which we pass through on our way to meeting.

If you'd like a guide to London's Quaker historical sites, this map on the Bunhill Fields Friends' Web site may serve well.

Here's a repeat announcement: In November, Friends Peace Teams are celebrating their 30th anniversary with an online Global Gathering 2024 with a staggered schedule to accommodate diverse time zones. Theme of the gathering: "Justice and peace are possible! What sustains our faith in justice and peace in the face of violence and war?"


Imelda May, "When It's My Time."

17 October 2024

Avos' and politics, part four

Russiapedia. (Source.)
"It might [avos'] all come out OK..." /
"It might not! Let's get to work!"
(Promotion for a mediation firm; source.)

Russian avos' and American politics (2016)

Russian avos' and American politics, part two (2019)

Russia's performance in Ukraine: Is avos' to blame? (2022)


The Fox network's Bret Baier, interviewing U.S. presidential candidate Kamala Harris, questions her about her strong criticisms of rival candidate Donald Trump:

Why, if he's as bad as you say, that half the country is now supporting this person who could be the 47th president of the United States? Why is that happening?

Good question! Many of us who see Trump's candidacy as something close to an extinction-level danger to the USA's democracy are asking ourselves the same thing. 

(We may not agree that his support throughout the whole electorate is actually 50%, but we are astounded by the undoubted tens of millions supporting him in the face of his constant lies, cruelty, blatant exploitation of gullible Christians, and inability to communicate actual ideas.)

David Gerlach, a retired Episcopal priest, has one suggestion. He says that people don't necessarily love Trump because of Trump's personality or policies, and goes on to ask:

... So what can it be? And the place that it leads me to is, is it simply because he gives people permission to be awful?—to look down upon those who are "less than" in some people's eyes....

Permission to be awful. Is it that simple? 

I got a clue from a conversation I had back in 2020 with a Russian immigrant in Portland, Oregon. He was planning to vote for Trump in the November 2020 election because, in his view, Trump was good for business. As I talked further with him about his experiences as an entrepreneur during Trump's term, I understood that it wasn't just about profits. My conversation partner loved the permission he felt from Trump to be aggressive, to cut corners, to sabotage the competition, to dislike regulations and despise political correctness. It's not exactly that he wanted to be "awful"; he just wanted to keep pursuing wealth on his new hunting grounds and felt that, in this desire, Trump was a kindred spirit.

Here are some articles from 2021 that may still help explain Trump's popularity among recent Russian immigrants: Anastassiya Gliadkovskaya, "Us and them: how Soviet-era thinking divided immigrants over Trump." Elizaveta Gaufman"Socialist trauma and American politics: why many Russians vote Republican."

Trump has support among my own relatives. One wrote to me, "I'm still voting for Trump /Vance due to Trumps last stint as president and the results of debates. That is what my gut tells me." This preference for "gut" over dispassionate analysis, and over the conventional wisdom of the perceived elites who normally run things, may be a common thread among those Russian immigrants and disaffected Americans who've turned to Trump. 

In my original avos' post, Natalia Antonova drew on David Frum to help explain this alienation:

Perhaps one of the most telling lines about Trump supporters was recently published by conservative writer David Frum, who quoted this line from his discussions with fellow Republicans who are set to vote for Trump: "You believe in institutions because they work for you… But our people don’t believe in institutions any more."

People who have lost faith in institutions have lost faith in institutional change. This makes them especially vulnerable to promises made by firebrand demagogues. And it places them further beyond the reach of facts or logic.

But maybe this is overcomplicated. I think some of those attracted to Trump never had faith in institutions. They may never have asked themselves, "What would it take for me to trust the Congress, elections, government in general, or civil society?" Now Trump tells them that it's all a swamp, and his cult choir shares a powerful insight with them: just as they suspected, nothing is trustworthy but Trump alone. Go with your gut and support the man who elevates his own instinct above all that so-called "information."

Some of Trump's most committed supporters believe that his triumph will surely be theirs as well. Others may simply believe that, as Trump tells them, things are such a catastrophic mess that they really have nothing to lose. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained," or in other words, pure avos'. In most cases, neither facts nor mockery will break open this allegiance to the one who legitimizes mistrust of that swamp. I can only advise holding up a Gospel vision of genuine hope, one that envisions universal blessing rather than tribal triumphs, over the fake hope and momentary thrill of avos'.


James K.A. Smith finds wisdom from Augustine in an election year.

Perhaps a fifth-century African doctor of the church can help us engage with the constructive relationship between Christianity and liberal democracy as we attempt to survive this election year. Augustine of Hippo’s sprawling masterpiece The City of God, written in the early 400s, has enduring relevance for us today. I believe that its wisdom can teach us to inhabit the fractious, polarized time in which we live.
...
Augustine counsels a kind of holy impatience. On the one hand, we pray and labor for a world that looks more like the just, flourishing kingdom we long for. The waiting of Christian eschatology is not the same as what Martin Luther King Jr. called “the tranquilizing drug of gradualism,” which uses waiting as a code for enshrining the status quo. On the other hand, even a properly prophetic desire and hunger must avoid the hubris of thinking we could socially engineer our way out of the world’s brokenness by our own ingenuity. As Immanuel Kant would put it centuries after Augustine: all of our human political constructions are built with the crooked timber of human beings.

Heather Cox Richardson: Mark Milley, Eric Hoffer, ... and Donald Trump.

In a pivotal U.S. election season, what are Friends called to do? You're invited to an online conversation on "Friends Witness and Action for Our Democracy," scheduled for October 30 at 6:30 p.m. Eastern time, with Emily Provance and Diane Randall.

Qassam Muaddi's Palestine letter: the fresh face of the Nakba, and Palestine at the heart of a new world.

A segment on Democracy Now's devoted to Israeli and Palestinian peace activists. (This clip was recommended by one of the participants in the weekly online meeting for prayer for peace, organized by the European and Middle East Section of Friends World Committee for Consultation. Please join us!)

Mehdi Hasan challenges us: if Israel's leaders hate the United Nations so much, both in words and in actions, should Israel be allowed to remain a member?

Facing the mixed agendas of cross-cultural outreach: When the evangelistic tables are turned.


Kitty, Daisy and Lewis in Japan.

10 October 2024

Prayer and place, twelve years later

Underground prayer cell, Transfiguration
Monastery, near Buzuluk, Russia.

I wrote my first post on prayer and place in the context of the Pussy Riot controversy twelve years ago in Russia, when the dissident rock band of that name managed to get into the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, near the Kremlin, and performed their musical prayer against Vladimir Putin.

In the post, I confessed my "mixed feelings about the very concept of sacred space." In my final post about the controversy, I wrote, "I have grown to have a lot of respect for them [the dissident musicians], but it's a complicated respect." I also wondered whether we Westerners with our diminished sense of reverence (is this fair?), were qualified to comment.

On reverence (freely expressed or compulsory), I also wrote a separate post.

All of these related themes came back to me when I read Mark Russ (Jolly Quaker) posting about Thicc places: a Quaker on pilgrimage. My best service to you now would be to reduce my own verbiage in favor of persuading you to read Mark's post. I'll just add a couple of thoughts:

First: I utterly agree with Mark that both the journey and the destination are important, for the reasons he expresses so well. I also want to take into account our varying temperaments. For some of us, the regular pilgrimage, perhaps every week, to our usual places of worship, and the anticipation and fulfillment of the worship itself, are all that we need. Those who go on pilgrimage to a more remote or special location might anticipate a more immersive experience than they experience in that regular cycle; are those of us who find no such need in ourselves qualified to deny them?

My red flags would go up only if those pilgrims inform us on their return that they're now superior to the rest of us. That's never happened in my experience; what actually happens is that they're eager to share the riches they've gained with the rest of us, and we listen eagerly, to everyone's benefit. It was wonderful to hear my cousin Johan Fredrik Heyerdahl talk about walking the Camino de Santiago when he was about the age I am now. I experienced a somewhat similar pilgrimage without leaving home when I read Timothy Egan's marvelous book A Pilgrimage to Eternity: From Canterbury to Rome in Search of a Faith.

In my experience, this last century of Russian history, with religious repression followed by Orthodox triumphalism and state-church enmeshment, has intensified and complicated all concepts of sacred space.

Second: Might it be true that those who argue for a flat and fastidious Quakerism, one that denies any forms of specialness, are often perfectly happy to go on holiday to interesting and, to them, exotic destinations? Maybe they would be willing to consider that traveling with a spiritual intention or hope would be equally legitimate? This line of questioning does have its own complication: the cost of such travel, whether or not it is for spiritual gain, surely puts some forms of pilgrimage beyond the reach of many people.

I'm reminded of my dislike of the way spiritual books are sometimes marketed. See my comments on Richard Foster's Sanctuary of the Soul—go to this post and scroll down past the movie stuff.

If I'm making unfair correlations, let me know!

We Quakers generally downplay sacred actions as well as sacred places, but maybe you'll see why I loved this Threads post from Karen Swallow Prior, which I present not to one-up anyone, but simply as a reminder to remain tender:

My parents love their church immensely. For health reasons, however, they’ve had to join the service online for some time now.

Yesterday, I was taking them lunch and unintentionally arrived before the service had ended. It was communion Sunday.

When I saw the two tiny cups of juice and two tiny crackers my father had set on the kitchen table, I felt like I had entered some of the holiest, most sacred ground I’d ever been honored to enter.

Now, please go to the post that provoked these thoughts, from Mark Russ.


While we're enjoying Mark's good company, here's more to think about: Dirty religion.

Other related items from my own blog: To see light more clearly. Memories of Buzuluk. Quaker communion.


Helen Benedict on Israelis, Palestinians, and ending the cycle of revenge.

Issa Amro: "It's a miracle that I even exist." His organization, Youth Against Settlements, has just won the Right Livelihood Award, one of the prizes sometimes known as the "Alternative Nobel Prize."

Forum 18 reports that a wide range of religiously-oriented Web sites have been blocked to Russian audiences. (Also: the Discord messaging platform is now being blocked in Russia.)

If you would like to join Friends United Meeting's "Living Letters" group, visiting Cuba in January 2025, the registration deadline is November 10.

Becky Ankeny finds comfort and consolation in the blunt words of Micah chapter 3.

The Washington Post's guide to helping people in distress owing to hurricanes Helene and Milton.


This afternoon at St Olave's Church and its free concert series every Wednesday and Thursday, we heard a wonderful piano concert by Kanae Furomoto, including the famous "Raindrop" prelude by Chopin. Here it is performed by Alice Sara Ott: 

03 October 2024

"If you strike us..."

Source.  

For several days, I've been thinking about Benjamin Netanyahu's speech at the United Nations General Assembly. The specific words that pulled at me were these: "I have a message for the tyrants of Tehran: If you strike us, we will strike you. There is no place—there is no place in Iran—that the long arm of Israel cannot reach. And that’s true of the entire Middle East."

(My italics.)

I'm not going to evaluate the whole speech, which is based on the unquestioned assumption of Israel's total innocence and victimhood in the region and at the UN. For just one example of the one-sidedness of the speech, its "blessing" does not take into account the treatment of Palestinians. Their existence in limbo has been prolonged indefinitely because Israel's leadership for generations has seen no advantage in resolving this cruel anomaly. The resulting inevitable bloody clashes, as each side "teaches lessons" to the other, are exploited as just another proof of Israel's victimhood.

Right now I'm more interested in the words, "If you strike us, we will strike you." On one level, that's the history of the human race. In any long-standing conflict, each side says these words to the other, taking turns with every action and reaction. It's true that one side's case may have more justice than the other's, but rarely do we see 100% good fighting 100% evil. Each side, however, usually portrays the conflict in those terms.

The politicians who raise the banner of "If you strike us..." are speaking to at least two audiences—the enemy and their own voters. The enemy doesn't need this information; they already assume the customary game is going to continue. The voters are supposed to understand that these politicians are their heroes, doing their heroic job to defend them, and deserve to remain in office.

What the "if you strike us" politicians are not making clear is the moral implication of their threat. "If you strike us, there must be death and destruction on your side. Our only choice is to kill people. We hope guilty people will die, but innocent people will also die. Instead of finding a more creative and lasting response to your attack, one that saves people on both sides of our conflict, we prefer to waste those lives."

In my fantasy world, Netanyahu's speech would have included ways that Iran could be part of "the blessing" and that the grievances of Palestine's allies could be addressed. (After all, the treatment of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are the ostensible reasons for the current hostilities against Israel.) To go even deeper into fantasy, he could also have admitted that Israel is not always innocent.

Those would be politically hazardous steps to take. When Barack Obama told international audiences that the USA was not always innocent, he was endlessly attacked by his political adversaries for "apologizing for America." Netanyahu's own political situation is far more precarious, and he would probably not survive the revolt within his coalition that would result. But the space might well open up for a wiser approach to the present conflicts.

In 2007, an ecumenical delegation with Quaker participation went to Iran and met with counterparts there, including an Iranian ambassador who quoted a proverb: "Build a bridge to me, and I'll build 99 bridges back to you." How many innocent people must die for lack of serious bridgebuilding?


The rhetorical strength of the "If you strike us" language, presented without any references to moral implications, depends on people accepting it as true and obvious. Christians particularly ought to be saying, in season and out of season, that it is not true and obvious at all. We are not to return evil for evil. (1 Peter 3:9; context. Romans 12:17; context.)

We might think that all we need to do is put more energy and creativity into evangelism, making the world more aware that paths to genuine peace do exist, that we are not trapped in endless rounds of counterstrikes, and there is a global community that has arisen around a Prince of Peace who has overcome death. I agree. But of course there's a problem with that. The awkward question arises: do we Christians ourselves believe that we are not to return evil for evil? After all, "if you strike me I will strike you" is Donald Trump's own attitude to conflict, and God knows how many Christian followers have become admirers of his belligerence. Apparently it turns out that it's hard to believe in Jesus.


Related:

The first rule of gracious correspondence.

Iran, biblical realism, and perpetual war.

Mark Twain's "The War Prayer."


Juan Cole, writing before the current stage of the Israeli-Lebanese war, described how U.S. president Joe Biden's Mideast strategy was disastrously falling apart.

Bloomberg's Matt Levine: Is there a way to automate (via AI) the things we like about Warren Buffett?

The Bell's commentary on Russia's record military spending plans, and possible consequences.

Speaking of Russia: Fadu Abu-Deeb on the Orthodox Church, its Babylonian-Byzantine legacy, and the prescient warnings of V.S. Solovyov (1853-1900).

Katherine Hayhoe at Lausanne 4 (the Fourth Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization) on creation care as an issue of faith.

Elder Chaplain Greg Morgan on leaving home and learning the ways of mortality.


A video from Charlie Musselwhite's front porch, with Aki Kumar on harmonica and Kid Andersen playing bass.

26 September 2024

What I've learned about living 'centered in Christ'

My attempt at a brief spiritual biography:

“Love your enemies, and pray for your persecutors….”

Reading these words, from Matthew 5:44, was the turning point of my life. The year was 1974. I was 21 years old, a university student in Canada. I felt like an exile from the USA, disillusioned by the war in Viet Nam and by President Nixon’s Watergate scandal. I had fled my violent and alcoholic family, but in leaving them I had abandoned my ten-year-old sister to their care, if that’s the right word.

How I came to be reading the Bible that day is a long story for another time, but those specific words from Matthew opened me up in an unexpected and unprecedented way. Underneath the printed words I could feel a voice saying, “You can trust me.”

From that moment forward, that promise of Jesus shaped my life in at least three ways. First, after the disillusionments that had shaken my life to that point, both in the world and in my own family, I desperately needed healing for my ability to trust. Bitterness and cynicism seemed very inviting alternatives. Instead, I had a new goal for my life: to relearn how to trust and to be trustworthy. I’m aware of my failures, but that’s still my daily goal.

Second, I wanted others to have access to that voice, especially those who’d also experienced disillusionment and betrayal. Some might discover it in the Bible, as I did, but I thought others might be reached through trustworthy communities, and the people that those communities empowered and sent out into the world. That‘s why the ideal and goal of “building a trustworthy church” became so important to me.

Finally, here’s the Quaker part. My path to Jesus began in an unlikely place: growing up in an anti-church family in which any mention of religion or mortality was forbidden. I felt blessed to hear his promise directly, cutting through the blanket skepticism I’d inherited from my parents. I knew right away that I wanted to find out more among people who would understand my hunger for that direct confirmation without unnecessary ceremonies or gatekeepers. I had heard about Quakers, and it seemed to me as a young seeker that maybe these were people who would offer that understanding.

On August 11, 1974, I decided to test this hope. I went to a Quaker meeting for the first time, and hope became reality. I joined the movement that took George Fox at his word, “Christ has come to teach his people himself,” and will be forever grateful that I found you.


My story would be very incomplete if I did not mention the role of my marriage in “what I’ve learned….” Judy has gifts of spiritual sensitivity that I lack. I’ve learned that our gifts supplement each other, and I’ve grown to rely on that.

I don’t want to be interpreted as saying that marriage is a superior state. I’m grateful for this partnership in my own case, but complementary gifts and partnerships are not confined to any particular relationship model.

Our healthiest meetings and churches recognize and liberate the gifts of all of us, so that our prophets and teachers, our helpers and treasurers, our evangelists and poets, our pastors and clerks, all encourage each other, and even our conflicts can become fertile and redemptive.


I originally wrote the text above as an exercise for our yearly meeting's Faith and Practice Committee. If I were asked to provide a spiritual biography of reasonable length, what could I come up with? This was my answer, for now.

Have you written anything along similar lines? If you're willing to share it, I'd be very grateful!

The title of my attempt comes from the opening paragraph for our slowly-emerging book of Faith and Practice—a preamble approved by our yearly meeting last June:

The Sierra-Cascades Yearly Meeting of Friends is a voluntary association of Quaker meetings, churches, and individuals whose worship, ministry, and service are centered in Christ, guided by Quaker testimonies and experience, and committed to the full participation of LGBTQ+ people in all aspects of the life and leadership of the Yearly Meeting....

The full preamble is in this post.

Related: What differentiates Quakers from other Christians? 
What does "that of God" mean? (with lots of comments)
Why conversion?
The most important question.


This morning I attended an online meeting of the European and Middle East regional team of Friends Peace Teams. Among other important agenda items, we had a vivid and distressing direct report of conditions in the Gaza Strip as of today. If the text of the report becomes available for circulation, I'll add a link here. In the meantime, we already know the urgency of a ceasefire.

In the meantime, here is the most recent newsletter of Friends Peace Teams, covering much of the range of the work of FPT and its partners. 

And ... Friends Peace Teams is hosting an Online Global Gathering, November 13-16, 2024. The gathering is for newcomers and long-timers, for justice and peace workers, facilitators, supporters, donors, inquirers, members of Quaker meetings and churches and their friends, to get to know and learn from each other, celebrate our work, and deepen our connections. Join us to celebrate and discuss our theme: Justice and peace are possible! What sustains our faith in justice and peace in the face of violence and war?  Check out the program for information and registration.

Finally, the Europe and Middle East team is looking for a Volunteer Treasurer to manage our slowly growing funds as we work to build our regional efforts.  The Treasurer works with our accountant and other regional treasurers to coordinate donations, spending, and our annual budget.  For more information about joining our team, composed of Ukrainians, Iraqis, Palestinians, British and Americans, or about other aspects of these reports and plans, please contact Ann J. Ward, Northern Yearly Meeting representative and clerk of Friends Peace Teams - Europe and Middle East, or contact me, Sierra-Cascades' representative. (Or leave a comment on this post.)


British Friends call for the UK government to review its trade agreement with Israel.

Fordham University's Orthodox Christian Study Center is hosting an online panel presentation, The Plight of Gaza's Christians, this coming Sunday, Sept 29. More information at this page.

Source: Fernwood Press

A Ukrainian Vision of Peace: a statement adopted by the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement on the International Day of Peace.

For Our Daughters: The Story of Abuse, Betrayal and Resistance in the Evangelical Church—the full version of this film became available on Youtube today. Here's a link to the study guide for viewers. Producer Kristin Du Mez explains the context of the film in this video.

John Kinney speaks to Spokane Friends about intercessory prayer.

Thanks to Jim Fussell (Quaker Theology Group on Facebook) for drawing our attention to this article on flowers at Quaker meetings. And here's Nancy Thomas on late bloomers. Nancy's newest poetry collection, The Language of Light, is on sale now.


A Steve Guyger rerun: Sonny Boy Williamson II's "Mighty Long Time." (Here's a Youtube audio clip of Williamson performing his song.)