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| Elektrostal settles into winter. (Taken while walking to the Institute--green building--this morning.) |
I've enjoyed crossing paths with Betsy Blake and her family several times over the years--in Arba, Indiana, and in Greensboro, North Carolina--so I was eager to read her article, "Quakerism Left Me," in Friends Journal. If you've not seen it yet, I recommend it.
Over the years I've walked alongside several people who more or less parted with Friends to join communities that seemed to match our ideals more closely than we often do ourselves (Eight years ago I wrote about two of them here--and one of those two, Bill Samuel, wrote comments to Betsy's article.)
One of the most sobering things about Betsy's article is the way she describes the political upheavals in North Carolina Yearly Meeting, and in Friends United Meeting's relations with other yearly meetings as well, from the point of view of a young Friend--the very upheavals I was seeing from another viewpoint as FUM's general secretary. I was frustrated by the ancestor-worship, back-biting, Bible-bashing, generational role-playing, and one-upping that I observed in all these arenas. Too few seemed to care about the truth about FUM or anything else; what mattered was confirming one's suspicions about the other camp, and organizing one's own side with alarming stories and shared enemy lists. What a scene--and what a sobering revelation it now is to get a glimpse of what that scene looked like to its younger observers.
The Quaker myth, using that word in its most positive meaning, has beguiled many for centuries now. We love to believe that the Holy Spirit has formed a community of disciples who want nothing more or less than to be taught by Jesus himself, to live by those teachings and their ethical consequences, and to help each other live that way in joy, peace, simplicity, and equality. Reality intrudes: we're wounded and betrayed; we're fragile and defensive; we mobilize along ancient patterns of "us" and "them"; we generate folkways to preserve echoes of the old beguiling feelings. Those folkways certainly come in handy when we're insecure or tired or just plain lazy. (I think of the yearly meeting that began its 300th anniversary sessions with a tour of the graveyard.) The myth wouldn't even exist if it hadn't been for a powerful reality, but some of us can't see the reality any more when our elders and teachers prefer endless caressing of the folkways.
In the meantime, that powerful Reality forms and energizes new communities, perhaps including those described by Betsy Blake and Bill Samuel. Maybe their testimony will be a refreshing call to those of us still committed to Friends: wake up, take heart, your deepest desires and hopes are as valid as ever. The living Water flows--right through the widening cracks of the old vessels.
On to another myth, one that I find very hard to let go of: the beautiful vision of a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel. Our politicians are so dependent on the nation-state model of organizing people that they continue to pretend to believe in this myth instead of acknowledging reality, namely that no genuinely sovereign Palestinian state is ever likely to be tolerated by Israel. (At least not until that day comes when the lion lies down with the lamb, at which point nations will be irrelevant anyway.)
Every day brings new evidence of how Israel maintains a magic zone in which neither the laws of democratic civil society nor the international laws of occupation apply. Thus, every day makes a true two-state solution less possible, while every day that Palestine remains outside Israel allows this zone of legal magic and factual abuse of power to continue.
The sad irony of this spectacle is that it demonstrates that the vision of a truly biblical Israel, conforming to the ethical demands of the Law and the Prophets, is, at least for now, also a myth.
Sean Guillory addresses the myth of the European Union's power to make all things wonderful for Ukraine. And would such a linkage actually be a "Bad Deal"? In the meantime, Global Voices samples the online chatter about the situation and its Russian ramifications: "Why Ukraine's Revolution Won't Spread to Russia" and "Russians Talk Ukraine."
One more myth and I'm done. Christians, sex, and a "theology of glory" ... "Sex Is Not Arithmetic."
Micael Grenholm's testimony on "Holy Spirit Activism."
Researching the history of Bolivian Friends: "Finding the puzzle pieces." (And a delightful "abominable" rabbit trail.)
Jason Morehead on the reactions to Rutger University's course on Bruce Springsteen's theology. "... What is incredulous to me is this continuing idea that popular culture — be it rock n’ roll, television, video games, etc. — ought to still be considered as something not worth serious consideration and thought."
Get right church and let’s go home
Get right church and let’s go home
Get right church get right church
Goodbye church and let’s go home
I'm going home on the morning train
I'm going home on the morning train
I'm going home I am going home
I'm going home on the morning train
Evenin' train may be too late
Evenin' train may be too late
Evenin' train Evenin' train
Evenin' train maybe too late
Back back hearse and get your load
Back back hearse and get your load
Back back hearse back back hearse
Back back hearse and get your load
Get right church and let’s go home
Get right church and let’s go home
Get right church get right church
Goodbye church and let’s go home
I am going home on the morning train
I am going home on the morning train
I am going home I am going home
I am going home on the morning train
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