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)

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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 members 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'.

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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.

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Kitty, Daisy and Lewis in Japan.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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: 

"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?

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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.

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Related:

The first rule of gracious correspondence.

Iran, biblical realism, and perpetual war.

Mark Twain's "The War Prayer."

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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.

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

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.)

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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.

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

"Foreigners for the rest of our lives"

Asya, the narrator of the novel The Anthropologists, by Ayşegül Savaş, and Asya's husband Manu, are from two different countries and live in a third country:

We were scholarship students in a foreign country, which is to say that we recognized something in each other. We'd been raised by similar types of people—their worries, their discipline, their affection, their means—even though we had grown up on opposite ends of the world. We accepted, children that we were, that we would remain foreigners for the rest of our lives, wherever we lived, and we were delighted by the prospect. Back then, it didn't seem to us that we'd ever need anyone else, in our small world that was also a universe.

I don't intend to write a full review of this endearing novel; others have done a good job...

Sana Goyal in The Guardian:  "The novel exists in the liminalities, distances and tensions between two states or stages of life, and traces the discrepancies between the kinds of adults the characters are and the kinds of adults they were expected to be."

Kayla D. Walker in Electric Lit (including a conversation with the author): "... a breathtaking excavation of the wonders and intricacies involved in making a modern life in a new city, of feeling both young and adult, and of growing up while settling down."

... I just wanted to give you some idea of why I loved this quiet novel so much. Its structure is a series of Asya's observations on their life together, with insertions from the interviews she conducts in a city park as she films a documentary about the life of that park. The task the young couple have set for themselves is to find a new, more "sturdy" place to live in that unnamed city, something better than the small, dark apartment they had found "in an unremarkable part of town" which they'd chosen "without much thought. Back then, we were only playing out our adulthoods rather than committing to them."

In the meantime, daily life goes on:

Manu left home early to go to work at the nonprofit organization on the other side of the city. While he made breakfast, I made a pot of coffee and sat with him at the table in pajamas. It was a ritual of sorts, sitting across from each other, face-to-face. There were few rituals to our lives, certainly none that carried any history, at least not the history of traditions, of nations and faiths. So these small things mattered. I would make sure to sit with him at the table.

Before he left, we kissed in the hallway.

Okay, Manu said, back in my shoes.

Another ritual: their periodic online conversations with family members in their respective homelands, revealing the anxieties of parents and grandparents, and their variable ability to understand what their kids are doing. And part of the progression of the book is their establishment of new, lightweight but significant, rituals of their own.

Most of their acquaintances are also expats, who vary in their comfort with the city that unites them and the culture they may or may not be adapting to. When do friends really say what they're anxious about? How do you know when someone is avoiding you ... or are you misinterpreting their signals?

The book is full of tiny but telling details—what objects they choose, for example, to decorate their apartment, and the hints of long-term intimacy in their nicknames for themselves as a couple, and their ritual catch-phrases. Some reviewers mentioned that they inhaled this novel in one or two sittings, but I found myself needing to take frequent breaks to savor and ponder what I'd just read.

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We managed to fit 11 people into our Elektrostal kitchen.

Sign in an Elektrostal transport minibus: "A few minutes of TERROR, and you're home"

Judy and I have lived something like expats at times, particularly during our years in Elektrostal. We were not from "opposite ends of the world" (although Cave Creek, Arizona, and Oslo, Norway, have some notable differences), but, in establishing ourselves in a new place, we often could not be sure we heard people correctly, or understood what they really meant; and we had to develop our own mix of familiar rituals and new patterns of behavior. I mentioned a bit of this reality in my post entitled "I ain't no stranger."

Some parts of The Anthropologists also reminded me of my years in "exile" from the USA—that is, my university years in Ottawa, Ontario, during the war in Viet Nam.

The other comparison that the humane, steady, affectionate voice of Ayşegül Savaş brought to my mind was Jim Jarmusch's film Paterson. There are major differences, of course; for example, Paterson doesn't have an explicit "foreigner" context, although it's hard to forget in today's world that Golshifteh Farahani, who plays Paterson's wife Laura, is from Iran. But there are parallels, too, in the quiet portrayal of long-term intimacy and the little rituals that accompany it, the yearning to create art (Laura is a designer always seeking new media, and wants to become a country music star; husband Paterson, a bus driver, observes his passengers and writes poetry on his breaks). In both the novel and the movie, conflicts do arise, and are mostly resolved, but kindness rules.

Laura: I was dreaming that we were in ancient Persia. And... you were riding on an elephant. A big, silver elephant.

Paterson: A silver elephant?

Laura: Yeah. You looked so beautiful.

Paterson: Do they have elephants in ancient Persia?

Laura: [laughs]  I don't think so. Not silver ones, anyway.

[Source.]

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From The Anthropologists' author Ayşegül Savaş on creating her story's clock.

Friends Committee on National Legislation advocates restoring USA humanitarian funding for Gaza.

Conversation, conversion, and "faithful betrayal"—part of what it has meant to Wess Daniels to find and be found by God.

Epistle from the Young Adult Friends' gathering at Jordans meetinghouse and a related article by Matt Rosen.

Sierra-Cascades Friends make a visit to Kake, Alaska. Reflections from Joel Jackson, tribal council president, and Juulie Downs of Camas Friends Church.

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More Canadian content: Blues guitarist Sue Foley, "Come to Me."

Honest prayer

Antonio Guillem via Getty. Source.

MSF field hospital in central Gaza. Source.

During a prayer meeting for peace this week, a Friend read this passage, ascribed to 'Anna', from the second chapter of Britain Yearly Meeting's Quaker Faith and Practice:

Prayer is an act of sharing with God, the Spirit, and not an attempt to prompt God to action. It is a promise that I will do my best, even if what I am able to do seems too insignificant to be worthwhile. When I pray for peace, and that the hearts of those in authority may be changed, it is a promise that I shall do such things as write to those in power, share in vigils, and above all lead my own life, as far as possible, in such a manner as to take away the occasion for strife between individuals and between peoples. When I pray for others who are in need, it is a promise to make my own contribution, perhaps by writing, by visiting, by a gift, by telling someone whom I know could help. When I pray for forgiveness, for strength and courage, I try to open my heart, making it possible for me humbly to receive.

(Link.)

I wish I were this mature! For me, prayer absolutely is full of my attempts, pathetic as they may be, to prompt God to action.

A few months ago I wrote about my prayers that God would send angel armies to the skies over Ukraine, fully conscious of my prayer's lack of logic or chances of being fulfilled. It's not that I believed that my tiny voice would push God over the edge, despite history's long evidence that, whatever God is doing, it doesn't apparently include restraining the hands of warmakers. It's more that, in the face of the constant stream of tragedies and agonies (for example, in Gaza) witnessed by the whole world, my relationship with God will suffer if I don't make this plea.

Consider the unnamed representative of God's people laying out their frustration in Psalm 44 (in Eugene Peterson's paraphrase, slightly adapted), starting with verse 8:

All day we parade God’s praise—
    we thank you by name over and over.

But now you’ve walked off and left us,
    you’ve disgraced us and won’t fight for us.

You made us turn tail and run;
    those who hate us have cleaned us out.

You delivered us as sheep to the butcher,
    you scattered us to the four winds.

You sold your people at a discount—
    you made nothing on the sale.

You made people on the street,
    people we know, poke fun and call us names.

You made us a joke among the godless,
    a cheap joke among the rabble.

Every day I’m up against it,
    my nose rubbed in my shame—

Gossip and ridicule fill the air,
   people out to get me crowd the street.

All this came down on us,
    and we’ve done nothing to deserve it.

We never betrayed your Covenant:
   our hearts were never false, our feet never left your path.

Do we deserve torture in a den of jackals?
    or lockup in a black hole?

If we had forgotten to pray to our God
    or made fools of ourselves with store-bought gods,

Wouldn’t you have figured this out?
    We can’t hide things from you.

No, you decided to make us martyrs,
    lambs assigned for sacrifice each day.

Get up, God! Are you going to sleep all day?
    Wake up! Don’t you care what happens to us?

Why do you bury your face in the pillow?
    Why pretend things are just fine with us?

And here we are—flat on our faces in the dirt,
    held down with a boot on our necks.

Get up and come to our rescue.
    If you love us so much, Help us!

Look at this comment in the New Interpreter's Study Bible:

Pledging innocence and faithfulness to the covenant, the people accuse, because of you we are being killed all day long (v. 22, cf. Rom. 8:36). There is no justice in God's crushing them. The text insists that there is no congruity whatever between the people's sin and the judgment that has befallen them. It is easy to understand why this text was so frequently on the lips of those facing death in the Shoah (Holocaust) of 1939-45.

And from today's Palestine, Munther Isaac of Bethlehem Bible College does not hold back, either:

We prayed. We prayed for their protection … and God did not answer us, not even in the “house of God” were church buildings able to protect them. Our children die before the silence of the world, and before the silence of God. How difficult is God’s silence!

'Anna' (of Quaker Faith and Practice) is right about the promises that we make, or could make, as we pray: promises to do what we can in the face of violence. But those promises are in the context of our plea to our God for justice. After we pray and lament and grieve before God in utter honesty, and confess our inability to match reality with God's own explicit promises, we face what it actually means for us, our limited and often discouraged selves, to be the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27, context). So, even as I stubbornly ask for angels over Ukraine (counting on God and you to overlook my naïve ways), what I also want and need is for guidance on how we can rise up, in all our diversity of gifts and temperaments and levels of maturity, and be that Body of Christ.

It's in that context that I understand Anna's encouragement (again, drawing on the Britain Yearly Meeting text), to "write to those in power, share in vigils, and above all lead my own life, as far as possible, in such a manner as to take away the occasion for strife between individuals and between peoples." As communities, we can join and support the letter-writers and those who participate in vigils. We might find other strategic ways of influencing events: becoming diplomats, or serving in the government, even seeking elective office! Others may be led to take riskier paths: withholding war taxes, serving in medical teams, becoming war correspondents, or providing pastoral care and accompaniment in the very places of violence, knowing that in the Body, others are praying and paying in support. As Paul says (my emphasis): "[God] has committed to us the message of reconciliation."

Alice Walker wrote, "We are the ones we have been waiting for." Maybe God, the sovereign Creator, has been waiting for us, too....

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Related: Anger. "Life is not a short story." "You can never learn that Christ is all you need...." What can love do?

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Coming later this month to Youtube, the film For Our Daughters ("stories of abuse, betrayal, and resistance in the evangelical church") is based on the final chapter of Kristin Kobes Du Mez's book Jesus and John Wayne. Kristin gives some context for the film on her substack blog.

A "Catholic feminist," Kristina Traina, explains her journey with Orthodox saints.

Jeremy Morris on the Ukrainian invasion of Kursk, why the invasion registers so minimally among Russians, and (once again) the challenges of measuring popular opinion.

 Exploring the spiritual significance of fasting: a webinar on September 30, presented by British Friends.

What are the specific challenges Friends face as we seek to embrace gifts of public ministry? Windy Cooler considers the results of Friends General Conference's survey on public ministry.

I'm delighted to see that Simon Barrow, long associated with Ekklesia, has just launched his substack column, Illuminations.

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"Mellow Down Easy"—a version of Willie Dixon's classic, made famous by Little Walter. Here are Steve Guyger and his band at the Mojo Music Club in Kleinstaasdorf, Austria. Enjoy!