"I cannot cut the connection" (guest post)

The author crossing her front yard.

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Sixty years later...
I cannot cut the connection

It began as a normal afternoon in my schoolyard—no reason for it to stand out in my mind. I was racing around playing with water balloons. We filled them part way and then squirted the water out. No use wasting an entire balloon full of water on the Arizona desert by filling water balloons and breaking them.

It was late spring, when a squirt of water would dry easily in the sun. Squirted children then grabbed a balloon for themselves and joined the race around the schoolyard. I spied one girl walking alone. Her dress was temptingly still dry. I squirted her. She turned around, face full of rage, and tried to pull my hair and scratch me with her fingernails. I dodged her. I was shocked. She turned away.

Later I walked home through the desert, between the trees whose branches my brothers had long ago flagged with plastic ties, so I could follow the ties to find my way home. My brothers were off to boarding school and college by then, and I expected an empty house at the end of the path. I was surprised to find my father writing at the dining room table.

I told him what happened. I asked him why she had lashed out. He grew very serious, and said, “I remember walking up to her house, knowing I had to tell her mother that her husband had died.” My father had been the pastor in that little town with maybe 80 kids in the district’s one grade school. I knew the story—her father had died suddenly, leaving four children and a widow. Nancy was the youngest, two years old at the time.

My father leaned down, looked me in the eye and said, “I want you to take care of her, Judy.”

It’s been sixty years now. She puts messages on Facebook like an image of flag-draped Trump saving our planet, with the tagline “On a mission from God.” Another asks for God’s protection because “with every fiber of his being, Trump is trying to protect our Land.”

I carefully weed out these messages, congratulate her on another grandchild, heart the flowery memes. Occasionally I try to offer facts in her pro-Trump posts. However calmly or kindly I word the facts, it doesn’t seem to make an impact.

It all drives me wild, but I do not unfriend her. Every time I think about it, I remember my father’s words. It’s not that she needs me to take care of her anymore. It’s that I simply cannot cut the connection.

I don’t know if she or anyone else in her family now needs Medicaid or the Obamacare subsidies. I don’t know if they are on food stamps. Did anyone get student loans? Has anyone she loves lost their federal government job? And did Republicans tell her all this would happen if she supported Trump?

Will it all come crashing down at their feet, without warning?

I’ve read posts on X ridiculing Democrats’ “hysteria” that Medicaid will be cut. How silly they are, the posts say. They ignore that the GOP has already passed a plan that will necessitate that. What will happen when their food stamps are cut, when student loan applications can’t be processed, when they have no medical insurance? It pulls at my heart.

The nonpartisan Center for Budget and Policy Priorities says the GOP plan just passed requires a minimum of $1.5 trillion in cuts through 2034. Also according to the Center, 45% of the federal budget funds Social Security and health insurance programs, including Medicaid. How could these programs not be cut after a massive tax cut?

Last week I realized with shock that a progressive friend of mine sincerely believed disinformation from the left. The news for the left is bad enough; why make it all worse by spreading lies? Probably for the same reason the top layer of the right-wing purveyors of disinformation do—to gain power and money for themselves.

I’ve been reading Steven Hassan’s book on cults: Combating Cult Mind Control: The #1 Best-selling Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults. I’ve also gotten involved in Indivisible’s Truth Brigade. Their webinar on their grass-roots efforts to counter disinformation was inspiring and well designed. They said their strategies were research-based, but they did not give us sources.

Indivisible pressured us to use a formula for responding to disinformation. It’s hard for me to follow other people's formulas without understanding more of the context. So I searched for the research and best practices on my own. I found a summary of research findings (here) about disinformation that was very helpful. It was well written for an academic piece, but it was the usual thicket of complex sentences, passive verbs, and precise but uncommon English words. I took up my courage and a compass. I navigated my way through the underbrush of words.

I read and re-read a section titled “counter-messaging strategies.” It explained that my factual posts would have little impact on my friend. “There is strong evidence that truthful communications campaigns designed to engage people on a narrative and psychological level are more effective than facts alone.”

Of course. Another word for “narrative” is story. How could I, coming from a long line of story-tellers, have missed that people respond better to story than to a recitation of facts?

Another sentence leapt out at me, too. “Promising techniques include communicating respect and empathy, appealing to prosocial values, and giving the audience a sense of agency.”

Communicate respect and empathy

Of course. Genuine respect and empathy. It’s backed by twenty-first century research, and it’s ancient wisdom as well. Jesus said, ”You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” One can not have empathy without love and respect first. Love and respect opens the way to empathy.

Appeal to prosocial values

I had to look up what “prosocial values” meant. It’s values that “promote the concern and care for the welfare of others.” It’s kindness, helping, sharing, cooperation—that sort of thing. It’s ancient wisdom as well.

Mark Condo, pastor at Reedwood Friends, opened this up for me on a Facebook post, of all places. In the comment section, a friend asked Mark, “How do we follow this scripture in this day and age when thousands are losing the support and sustenance they need because of POTUS?”

The scripture was “Christ is all and in all. As God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience."

Mark replied to my friend’s question, “I've often wondered what my role is at this time. For me, what resonates most deeply and clearly within me is universal compassion. I was struck by this scripture today during my quiet time—just how essential compassion and prayer are right now, as both inward and outward practice, to allow them to flow in my own life, toward my family, Meeting, stranger, neighborhood, city.…”

Allowing compassion to flow sounds remarkably prosocial to me. Clothing yourself in humility would help the left, as well.

Give the audience a sense of agency

I love the word “agency.” It means “the power to think, choose, and act for oneself.” A grace-filled faith will in itself encourage choices. Philip Yancey in What's So Amazing About Grace? wrote, “Grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us more. ... And grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us less. ... Grace means that God already loves us as much as an infinite God can possibly love.”

We cannot earn God’s love by following a strict list of things to do. The Gospels do not give much in the way of formulas to blindly follow. For example, the Beatitudes are more about opening one’s heart and mind. In Matthew, we are told to “welcome the stranger,” but not a strict formula for standing on street corners finding strangers to welcome.

I admit that we humans have difficulty giving each other—and ourselves—grace, so over the centuries Christians have created complex formulas to follow, instead of choices about how to love one’s particular neighbor.

Quakers are not immune from this. It’s only that the rules for how to be a “good Quaker” are more unspoken—keep quiet about it if you just bought a new Cadillac, don’t bring a side of beef to meeting potlucks, etc.

Still, we can call ourselves back to grace. We can ground ourselves in grace, and incidentally encourage agency.

I point this out because I believe that the progressive church in the US can have a profound effect on the political climate today. With so many changes, people need community more. We can be that trustworthy, grace-filled community.

We know in our bones how to communicate respect and empathy, appeal to prosocial values, and give the audience a sense of agency.

We just have to be louder about it, and follow our own ancient wisdom. It works.

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Reposted with permission from the March 30 issue of the Newsletter of Sierra-Cascades Yearly Meeting of Friends. Judy van Wyck Maurer (she, her) lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband Johan and two cats. She is the editor of the Newsletter and clerk of Sierra-Cascades Communications Committee.

Follow this link to subscribe to the Newsletter.

From the same issue, here are more ideas on communicating with respect:

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Too much disinformation on the menu?
Make a truth sandwich!

Indivisible and other organizations recommend responding to disinformation with a “truth sandwich.” It’s based on the same research referenced above. The graphic is from Indivisible’s Truth Brigade.

• First, find and express common ground. “I’m also concerned about…” Or “I agree that ____ is important.”
• Second, help engage the person’s critical thinking, perhaps by posing questions with good information.
• Third, go positive with a shared sense of a good future.

Here’s a good how-to from the Truth Brigade on making your own truth sandwich.

Here’s a different take on the truth sandwich from National Education Association.

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The first Sunday of April is coming up, which means that Bremerton Friends Worship Group, Bremerton, Washington, USA, will be gathering again.

A "silent but not subdued" Quaker response to the police raid on Westminster Friends' meetinghouse in London. (My note of cautious support for the political use of public worship.)

Micah Bales: "What does it look like to bear fruit in this time of deepening national disaster?" Consequences are coming for us all. 

Timothy Snyder, "recent Toronto transplant," has seen tyrants before ... an interview in Maclean's.

Heather Cox Richardson inventories the situations we seem to be facing on the USA's so-called "Liberation Day."

The reality of Starliner's flight to the International Space Station was "far wilder than most of us thought." Eric Berger (ars technica) has the "harrowing" details.

More from space:

Fram2 mission patch (source); Amundsen and team's tent at South Pole (replica); the original Fram.

Stephen Clark reports on the Fram2 mission—the first human spaceflight to orbit over the North Pole and South Pole. The mission is named in honor of the historic ship Fram, used by Norwegian polar explorers. Mission updates.

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Rick Estrin is tired of "Living Hand to Mouth." (Rick, don't look to "Liberation Day" for help!)

Religion and boredom

Word of Life Church (phase two), Flowood, Mississippi, USA. Source.

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In her important commentary on the passing of old-school church culture and what might be replacing it, Christianity after Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening, Diana Butler Bass writes,

...[A]nger is not the only emotion people express when talking about religion. Many people are just bored. They are bored with church-as-usual, church-as-club, church-as-entertainment, or church-as-work. Many of my friends, faithful churchoers for decades, are dropping out because religion is dull, the purview of folks who never want to change or always want to fight about somebody else's sex life....

In all of the fifty years since I started attending weekly services, this has not been my experience at all; quite the opposite. However, I cheerfully acknowledge that I am a peculiar case—peculiarly unqualified to comment on Diana Butler Bass's assessment.

Before I deal with my disqualifications, I should acknowledge that she backs up her comments with statistical evidence of alienation from established religion, and that the trends she pointed to twelve years ago, when her book was published, have more or less continued along the same lines. (However, "boredom" isn't an explicit category in any of those statistics!)

In my case, I didn't have any significant contact with organized religion until adulthood, and then it was in part a rebellion against my family, coupled with a personal mystical experience that no church could take credit for. I specifically looked for a church that reflected the raw experience of the first Christians—experiencing Jesus personally and forming a community around that experience—and that's how I fell into the lap of the Quakers of Ottawa, Canada.

In my flush of new-convert enthusiasm, I was not there to be entertained, and I had no prior experience of "church-as-usual" or "church-as-club," but simply wanted to hold onto that very basic expectation that we were there to meet with God, and I wanted to be with others who would understand that eagerness. I gradually understood that not everyone at Ottawa Meeting would describe their own participation in quite the same way, but their kindness and hospitality, and the weekly adventure of unprogrammed worship, gave me a precious start, and that powerful confirmation of my hopes has sustained me to this day.

My experiences of Friends in Ottawa Meeting, and Boston (Beacon Hill Meeting), and Charlottesville, and later in Moscow Friends Meeting, all involved these meetings' unprogrammed worship format, waiting in silence for God to make the first move. Meeting for worship always had that sense of adventure. (The time when an angry visitor burst into our meeting in Moscow and accused us of being a "sect" was probably more adventure than I had bargained for, but ultimately that was a wonderful and instructive incident.) However, I've spent most of my five decades among Friends in meetings and churches that don't use a strictly unprogrammed format. Most of them have simple forms of programming—sermons, music, and so on—along with a time set aside for direct listening for God. Those planned elements may sometimes seem full of inspiration, and at other times seem fairly rote and predictable, but among people who love being together and praying for each other, that programming doesn't seem to get in the way at all. I'm still there to meet with God in the company with others who have a similar hope and a similar need. Boredom is not an issue.

Practically all my Christian experience is among Friends, but I have no doubt that other traditions have equivalent elements that express God's invitation and grace. However, all of our religious institutions—Friends and others—have a whole other reality that may relate more directly to the alienation that Bass describes. What should I call it?—our organizational overhead? Drag? In my first years among Friends, I didn't have to worry about any of that; the arrangements had already been made, and I was carried along by the community's established patterns. Eventually it dawned on me that the sweet adventure of worship, the intimacy of asking for prayer, the insights of a timely sermon, and all the other things that are best experienced together, in community, inevitably require a tedious logistical checklist, and consequently a need for people to decide how to do those tasks in ways that are consistent with our values and priorities. Even a modest house church has to choose times to meet, some minimal plan for leadership and pastoral care, and ways to get the word out.

And as soon as decisions need to be made, we need trustworthy processes to discern the community's will rather than majority rule or the sway of individual personalities. And here's where we can see the increasing awkwardnesses of those imperatives amidst the competing claims on our time from the world around us. For many of us, maybe it's not the experience of community that is boring, but all the tasks that hosting the community requires, from facilities and staff and committees all the way to the most basic task: naming the times and places (and online channels?) we might meet.

Slowly but surely, voluntarily or involuntarily, willingness to undertake those tasks is being whittled away. For many years, I was a creature of that "overhead"—mostly as a denominational worker or committee member (Friends World Committee, Right Sharing of World Resources, Friends United Meeting, five yearly meetings, several ecumenical organizations, pastor, missionary),  but those overhead structures seem to be increasingly regarded as nice (maybe) but optional. Shrinking congregations find that old patterns of staffing, volunteering, and keeping up their facilities, aren't sustainable.

Is there a positive way to describe these realities? I'd love to hear from you. How do we learn to be light enough on our feet to continue providing that precious access to the adventures and consolations of meeting with God ... together?

And: are there ways that the "overhead" structures and associations, and their international and cross-cultural partnerships, can serve that learning process?

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Related:

The church is like ... an incubator, laboratory, observatory.

The church is like ... a lifeboat, portico, garden.

When bad news is good news.

One final word: We Christians are not called to meet together simply to enjoy those adventures and consolations of the devotional life for ourselves. Our faith's credibility, and the vulnerable people we care about, are under direct attack from white Christian nationalists and others claiming the Name of the Prince of Peace for their aggression. This is not the time to get too casual about our priorities, or to complain about boredom. We need to consult, discern, and act.

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Dmitry Biriukov: Why sobornost' (an aspect of Eastern Orthodox spirituality that reminds some of us of Quakers' "Gospel Order") is a double-edged sword.

Micah Bales: God asks Elijah at Mount Horeb, "Why are you here?" Good question.

Here's an interesting idea for a study Bible ... The NIV Upside-Down Kingdom Study Bible. Have you seen a copy? (Maybe not; Amazon says it is being published September 10. Take a look at the list of contributors.)

Today I visited Nancy Thomas's Life in an Old Growth Forest blog, one of my favorites. I had planned to choose a post to link here, but I found too many good ones to make a choice. My recommendation: go to the blog and just keep scrolling!

In Oslo, our family enjoyed our visit onboard the polar research ship, Fram, which went farther north (with Nansen) and farther south (with Amundsen) than any conventional ship. A few days ago, I learned about the Fram II mission, an upcoming space flight involving the SpaceX Crew Dragon craft known as Endurance. If all goes well, the journey will be the very first crewed spaceflight to fly over the North and South Poles.

In the meantime, we have not forgotten Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore.

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Italian blues band: the Blueaces, "Dust My Broom"...

Silence, freedom, and trust

The Atlantic Ocean.

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During the years we visited and lived in Russia, we were active in the Friends Meeting in Moscow. That small Quaker congregation was unprogrammed—we participants worshipped in silence, waiting on inner prompting before speaking.

Russian historian Tatiana Pavlova was the person around whom the Friends community in Russia gradually developed, starting in the late 1980's. She herself was strongly Christian (I interviewed her about her faith in Quaker Life magazine back in 1999) but the meeting did not require an explicit Christian commitment for participants, and its diversity reflected some of the spiritual ferment and experimentation that abounded in those early post-Soviet years.

Tatiana Pavlova herself was uneasy with some of that variety. Once she said, "When I sit in worship, I want to know that the person next to me is worshipping the same God."

I understand and sympathize, but I'm not quite ready to make the same sort of firm statement. On the one hand, I love the mutual inspiration and encouragement we can get from worshipping with a group of people who fully expect that (in George Fox's words) "Christ has come to teach his people himself." It's this experience that, to me, makes us Quaker, makes us ready to reject the world's reliance on power, violence, objectification of others, and social bondages of all kinds, in favor of trusting in God's leadership.

On the other hand, how will we provide access to this mutual inspiration and spiritual freedom if we don't dare let anyone in who doesn't already speak in Quaker terms? This is what I love about the silence. There's a time for talking and writing, for putting our minds and our creativity into expressing our faith and answering our critics. There's also a time to refer to others' words, whether they're from the Bible or from our more recent prophets and mystics. All that plays a huge role in opening access to our communities, and can serve as an invitation to those who would like to test the values we claim. 

What the silent part of our gatherings give us is this: a chance to put aside our own words, and the writings we love. In other words, it's a time for actual trust—that as we come together in wordless communion, we can trust God's witness to become real in ways that our arguments simply cannot do. In that silence, we are ready to risk precisely what Tatiana Pavlova was concerned about, that the person sitting next to us may not have the same spiritual understanding that we do. Can we trust the Holy Spirit to minister to whatever gap there really is? If we can trust God in unity, can we also trust God in diversity?

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Let's say there were two possible ways to describe the ideal Quaker meeting.

One would be a community of worshippers of unlimited social diversity who cherish the values often associated with us—peace, simplicity, equality, decisionmaking by communal discernment, and so on.

The other description would add just one more feature: ... and who are united by that promise from George Fox, "Christ has come to teach his people himself," fully expecting that the community will experience this promise fulfilled.

Most Friends of that first variant use silent "waiting worship" as the main mode of worship in the community. Among Friends who practice this form of worship, some have become very clear that Christian language is optional and sometimes even unwelcome. How does this affect the freedom of silent worship?

The majority of the world's Quakers worship in programmed meetings, with singing and sermons and other planned elements, sometimes with a limited period of time for spontaneous testimonies and silent waiting on the Holy Spirit. Again, is there trust and freedom in the silence? Or is there an expectation of conformity? Or, honestly, has the silence practically vanished, its crucial demonstration of trust and freedom forgotten?

There are lots of historical reasons for the variety of approaches among us Friends, including internal disputes and personality conflicts, and external trends as well. As many others have noted, it's no big surprise that liberal/skeptical Friends meetings are often found where the wider culture is thoroughly secular and faith is belittled. And, conversely, the evangelical variants can flourish in the world's Bible-belt zones. But almost all of us now live in a very noisy world, and keeping a space open solely for quieting ourselves and listening for the Spirit, might not be easy to realize, whatever our local customs and conceits might be.

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I know that my particular temperament loves silence, and I don't want to imply that I just happen to have the official Quaker temperament. (I remember a woman who was visiting Fresno Friends Church when we were there. About silent worship, she said, "I wouldn't last five minutes.") However, if something is important to the integrity of our claims and values, it doesn't have to have equal weight for everyone, just as singing and sermons and children's sermons and collecting money don't have equal value for everyone. All spiritual disciplines demand commitment and exercise, whether it's during our public worship or our lives at home and work.

In fact, all of our spiritual gifts and temperaments are exercised on behalf of everyone. Those who pray and listen intensely in silence are not just practicing an enhancement to their individual spiritual lives; their attentiveness and devotion is on behalf of all of us, including those with attention deficits. Thank God, there are those who excel verbally, those who are good with numbers, those who have a special care for children, those with the gifts of mercy and healing and discernment of spirits, those who are musicians and poets—we need everyone!

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Silence is like spiritual oxygen to me, and I've written about it many times over the years. But in this post today, I'm particularly concerned about keeping that unprogrammed space open in our meetings for worship, because in the silence of waiting for God, we have an immediate experience of both freedom and trust. Those testimonies are at the heart of Quaker spirituality, and transcend arguments about theology and doctrine. If we don't believe God can be trusted to minister directly to each person who is truly listening, then we should not expect that our outward programming, however valuable on its own merits, will compensate.

Some related posts: Silences. Gathering to meet with God. Quaker communion. Return to silence.

Silence, freedom, and trust, part two.

Молчание, свобода и доверие (this post in Russian).

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Windy Cooler: why support public ministry when we're all supposed to be ministers? (Be sure to scroll down to read updates.)

Juan Cole: how the Palestinian crisis became the crisis in Israel itself.

Anna Funder has written a new biography of Eileen O’Shaughnessy, "... a compelling figure strangely absent from her husband’s writing." The husband: George Orwell. The book (which I've pre-ordered): Wifedom: Mrs. Orwell's Invisible Life.

Nancy Thomas's four-year-old theology professor.

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Blues dessert: Steve Guyger in France.

"Let us become more aware of Your presence"

The congregation sings the chorus "I Speak Jesus"
(screenshot from source)

These words from the praise song "Holy Spirit" sum up what I've gained from watching several hours of YouTube feeds of the nonstop worship from Asbury University, that began a week ago yesterday.

At the moment, I have the audio from Hughes Memorial Auditorium on my headphones as I write. I'm completely aware of the conflicting ways we Christians view revivals of this sort, or even how we define them. We can see them as worship events that overflow the usual formats we use to fit worship into our lives and schedules. We can see them through the lenses of mass psychology. We can worry about manipulation; we can wonder whose agendas are played out in these events.

As with any group behaviors, we are right to exercise discernment. But after these hours of enjoying (yes, enjoying, in the midst of this time of loss and pain and bondage), I keep noticing these features of what is going on in that auditorium and campus:

• student leadership
• prayer from the front, at the edge of the platform, in small groups, and on many faces
• beautiful, soaring aspirations conveyed with quiet, modest rhetoric
• no celebrities, no slogans, no coercive exhortations
• no flashing lights or pounding bass
• cycles of contemplative songs followed by more lively songs, again followed by contemplative songs
• expressions of joy, expressions of repentance, of gratitude, of intercession
• behind the scenes, amazing efforts to keep people safe, fed, moved in and out of the worship space
• emphasis on God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, without sharp dogmatic elbows
• No dramatic claims that these days foreshadow End Times; the fruit of these many hours remains to be revealed.

The online coverage has been free and fragmented, with people apparently using their mobile phones to share their experiences, trading off without apparent planning, and no centralized control. I can't recommend any single channel; I've just jumped from one live feed to another as they start and stop. [UPDATE: See rules and schedules now in place.] 

The comments are fascinating, too. I've seen so many languages, including Russian and Ukrainian, the tone overwhelmingly respectful even as occasional sour moments also occur.

In my first few minutes of watching these feeds and clips, I had a twinge of regret that there was no way I'd get to attend in person. That ended as soon as my eyes were opened to the reality that we were already a global congregation, upholding and being upheld by each other, wherever we were. There were people we know who are physically present, and others we know are sharing their reflections—all testifying to the authenticity of this experience.

Wherever we are, we are fulfilling the yearning of the chorus. We are becoming more aware of God's presence.

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In case some background to this story would be useful, here are a few links:

UPDATE: Sarah Thomas Baldwin wrote a book about this outpouring, based on her personal experiences in the midst of the event.

Contemporary links:

"Why students at a Kentucky Christian school are praying and singing round the clock." Bob Smietana, Religion News Service.

Video: Shane Claiborne interviews several students as well as Clint Baldwin of the faculty. Interesting comment from Lena, one of the students, concerning terminology: "… I’m kind of transitioning from using the word 'revival' to an 'encounter' because I feel like with 'encounters,' when we encounter God, God also encounters the people that we’re close to." (Yesterday Shane Claiborne spoke again with Clint.)

The Roys Report, which I'd consider an unsentimental observer of the church, posted this article, "Opinion: What is Revival—and is it Happening at Asbury?"

"We're witnessing a surprising work of God." Thomas McCall of Asbury Seminary (a separate institution; he's writing for Christianity Today).

"When the dust settles." Some thoughts from an Asbury student leader on life beyond the revival.

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Quakers were born of revival. May you find a blessing in these sober words from George Fox:

All Friends every where, in the living spirit, and living power, and in the heavenly light dwell, and quench not the motions of it in yourselves, nor the movings of it in others; though many have run out, and gone beyond their measures, yet many more have quenched the measure of the spirit of God, and after became dead and dull, and questioned through a false fear: and so there hath been hurt both ways. And therefore be obedient to the power of the Lord, and his spirit, and his spiritual weapons; war with that Philistine that would stop up your wells and springs. Jacob's well was in the mountain, (read that within,) he was the second birth. And the belief in the power keeps the spring open. And none to despise prophecy, neither to quench the spirit; so that all may be kept open to the spring, that every one's cup may run over.

For you may all prophesy one by one, and the spirit of the prophets is subject to the prophets. ‘Would all the Lord's people were prophets,’ said Moses in his time, when some found fault; but the last time is the christian's time, who enjoys the substance, Christ Jesus; and his church is called a royal priesthood, offering up spiritual sacrifices; and his church are his believers in his light. And so in the light every one should have something to offer; and to offer an offering in righteousness to the living God, else they are not priests; and such as quench the spirit cannot offer, but become dull. ‘I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh, in the last time,’ saith the Lord, which is the true christian's time, God's sons and daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and old men shall dream dreams; ‘and on my servants and handmaids I will pour out of my spirit in those days, and they shall prophesy.’ Now friends, if this be fulfilled, servants, handmaids, sons, daughters, old men, young men, every one to feel the spirit of God, by which you may see the things of God, and declare them to his praise; for with the heart man doth believe, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation; first, he has it in his heart, before it comes out of his mouth: and this is beyond that brain-beaten-heady stuff, which man has long studied, about the saints' words, which the holy men of God spake forth as they were moved by the holy ghost: so the holy ghost moved them, before they came forth and spake them. And therefore, as I said before, do not resist the holy ghost....

from epistle CCLXXV, 1669

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Nancy Thomas's valentine may not win the prize, but I like it!

Emily Provance begins a series of posts on institutions. "The best thing that institutions do is perpetuate existing patterns. The worst thing that institutions do is perpetuate existing patterns."

We still receive bulletins intended for USA citizens in Russia. Reuters describes the latest such bulletin, which can be summarized in one word: "Leave." (And I keep dreaming of the day we can visit again and be reunited with former students and colleagues.)

An astronomical phenomenon described as "a colossal and utterly spherical blast..." or, in other words, a "kilonova."

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Just audio this time: "... You're going to need King Jesus on your bond." Lightnin' Hopkins, Big Joe Williams, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Jimmy Bond.

A query on queries

Yesterday, I attended a meeting where the subject of "queries" came up. One Friend said, "I don't like it when our waiting worship [that is, Quaker worship in silence, waiting upon the Holy Spirit] is introduced by queries."

She was referring to a practice that that I've found in many programmed Quaker meetings, where the sermon may be given ahead of the silent portion of the worship, and that sermon may conclude with queries that Friends are free (but not required) to consider in the silence.

From a sermon on 2 Corinthians 5:15-19.

From a sermon on Ephesians 1:13-19.

From a sermon on Mark 12:13-17.

From a sermon on being shrewd and innocent. Luke 16:1-13; Matthew 10:16; Matthew 5:48; Matthew 19:21; Romans 12:2; Luke 10:25-29.

Some speakers' sermon queries are shorter than mine.

I often use queries this way myself.

Queries were introduced as a practice early in Quaker history, as a set of standing questions that would be directed, perhaps annually, to constituent congregations by the quarterly and yearly meeting. As Jan Hoffman writes in The Historical Dictionary of the Friends (Quakers), 

The earliest queries were sent to monthly meetings in the 17th century: "What ministering Friends have died in the past year?" and "How does Truth prosper among you?" New queries have been added, both to collect further information and to sharpen reflection on particular topics. Currently, queries are seen by both individual Friends and meetings or churches as a means of engaging their hearts, minds, and spirits in an examination of their spiritual condition. Only rarely today are written responses to the yearly meeting expected.

(At least three yearly meetings I've visited continue to ask local meetings to respond to queries annually; many others at least expect annual reports from local meetings and churches.)

So ... this practice of ending a sermon with queries for Friends to consider during the silence is a new variation of an old tradition. One important deviation: instead of drawing on a standing list of queries, perhaps seeking the query that most closely relates to the theme of the sermon, this form of query is written particularly for the occasion. As you can see from my examples, they ostensibly serve to encourage reflection on the sermon, but they may also be a way of making the sermon's central points more memorable. As with traditional queries, this new type sometimes includes rhetorical questions that imply a right answer. This may seem manipulative, and maybe that's so, but traditional queries also had a teaching function.

My friend explained why she opposed the use of queries as a transition from sermon to the open worship period: her ideal of waiting worship was that it was entirely a matter of surrendering to the Holy Spirit, not cluttering the matter with anyone's agenda, however fine that agenda might be.

I take this objection seriously, but I wonder whether there is still room for the practice if it seems helpful to some. Therefore, I am asking whether you have experience with this use of queries, and whether you feel it is helpful on balance. Do you think it might depend on temperament, that for some on the Myers-Briggs chart (for example) it might be more helpful than for others? Is there a way of making clear that such post-sermon or pre-open worship queries are entirely optional, or does their very presence inhibit the freedom with which we ought to enter that period of worship?

Also: do you know of other uses to which queries have been put?

(I'm serious about wanting to know how you feel about this. Please respond in this post's comment section or on Facebook or Twitter—whatever is most convenient for you.)

Part two.

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These changes in how Friends adapt or reinterpret the old Quaker practice of queries remind me of a couple of other terms that contemporary Friends have reinterpreted for present-day needs.

Threshing meetings, as I noted a couple of years ago, are now a way of seasoning a matter of church business before it is presented for decision at a meeting for business. Originally, the term referred to an evangelistic meeting directed at a "promiscuous" (mixed) audience, including people not (yet) convinced by the Quaker message.

Source.   

Clearness committees, or meetings for clearness, are another practice whose roots go far back in Quaker history, but were originally intended as part of the congregation's process for approving a new membership or a marriage. As Patricia Loring explains in that same dictionary I mentioned above, "... a primary purpose was to ensure that individuals were clear of other entanglements and able to live up to their commitments." Now meetings for clearness are often used to help a meeting/church or group or individual come to a well-grounded decision about almost any major step in life, from planting a new church to taking a new job or moving to another part of the world.

In my own yearly meeting, meetings for clearness are part of the process for recognizing and recording public ministers among us.

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When I became a Friend, my first membership was in Ottawa Monthly Meeting, Canadian Yearly Meeting. Their book of discipline puts their "Advices and Queries" into one unified list. Ohio Yearly Meeting is one of those that expects written responses to their queries from local meetings.

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Adria Gulizia on antiracism and the Lamb's War. [Link below is Adria's.]

This call to the Lamb’s War, which spoke to me so profoundly, demands the highest discipline and the most absolute humility as we follow the Living God. Internally, we stand in the Light, allowing God’s secret power to weaken the evil within us and raise up the good, to paraphrase Friend Robert Barclay. Externally, we work tirelessly for the good of our communities, while loving our enemies, doing good to those who hate us, blessing those who curse us, and praying for those who abuse us.

Which brings me to antiracism.

Right Sharing of World Resources and Friends World Committee for Consultation are collaborating to study the possibility of adding Guatemala as a location for Right Sharing partnerships.

The current home page of Quakers Uniting in Publications (QUIP) includes links to videos of their recent annual meeting, including the bloggers' workshop and other workshops and plenary sessions.

The Quaker Religious Education Collaborative has announced its June Conversation Circles: Experiments in Meeting for Worship: Plain, Virtual and Blended. Choose between June 21 at noon Eastern time or June 23 at 8 p.m. Eastern.

When the temper of the times turns against "thoughts and prayers," what do we gain? What do we lose?

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Champion Jack Dupree plays his first composition, "Alberta."

Digesting 2007, for better or for worse!

It's a great relief to be sorting through old material for today's blog post, especially after last week's sad and intense post. This time I'm putting together a selection of posts from the year 2007, the year I became an instructor at the New Humanities Institute in Elektrostal, Russia.

There's just one problem: I'm not quite the same person that I was back in 2007. I'm not sure I would make the same judgments about Friends United Meeting's sexual ethics policy, for example. However, that old post really does represent my thinking at the time, and therefore must go into an honest time capsule. That, in general, was how I selected these items from that year: I looked for items that convey a sense of the time, whether it's my then-persistent defense of Friends United Meeting (a theme that has almost disappeared in recent years) or my naivete about working in Russia.

I'm aware that this occasional exercise of assembling annual digests is 100% self-indulgent, although I hope you'll find something that is interesting or amusing, or that reminds you of things that drew your attention that same year. Aside from the gratification and mortification involved in re-reading stuff I'd long since forgotten that I had written, it gives me a chance to clean up the formatting, replace some of the dead links and lost videos (where possible) and restore photos formerly hosted by Photobucket.

Before getting to the chronological part, here's an item out of order:

April 2007's Quaker Blog Carnival was my contribution to a tribute that a bunch of us Friendly bloggers paid to Martin Kelley and his quakerquaker.org hub, a service that expanded our audiences and promoted inter-Quaker conversation way beyond the traditional institutional channels.

Back when I was involved with Quaker Life magazine, I wrote an editorial nearly every month. [Now a quarterly, in those years Quaker Life was published ten times a year.] I didn't realize how addictive that form of expression would be! For me, maintaining a Friendly weblog has allowed me to indulge that need, with the very important added benefit of receiving almost immediate feedback.

Cherice and Chris have wonderfully summarized many of the blessings of the world of Quaker blogging and the Grand Central Water Cooler of the community, quakerquaker.org. I agree with everything they've said. Not only do we discuss important ideas and leadings that cumulatively help us be more faithful people, we also give each other glimpses of our personal worlds and generate new ties of mutual care. (I certainly experienced that when my mother died.)

More.

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January 2007: Worship seeking more understanding.

In part, I was confronting my inner curmudgeon: "I shouldn't pretend that my settled views on a subject have been settled all that long!"

...[I]f it were up to me, worship would be outwardly pure and austere. In my fantasies, the community gathers in subdued joy, simply and reverently sits and waits on the Holy Spirit, responds with sincerity and mutual forbearance to the Spirit's inward and outward manifestations and our often fumbling attempts to be faithful, and at some ripe moment recognizes that meeting for worship is over. Before or after that adventurous hour (using the word "hour" loosely), we also gather for "education"--to help each other understand the issues of being a biblically-informed group of disciples who want our practice to match our faith, and who want to design processes of access for children and newcomers to be in possession of all the information, and all the models, that we have drawn upon for our encounters with God.

At our regular meetings for church governance, we would, as a community, prayerfully agree on what additional elements might be added to the worship period to serve our primary hunger to entrust our worship to the Holy Spirit.

More.

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February: The unbearable lightness of being Quaker.

I served as general secretary of Friends United Meeting for seven years, 1993-2000. During those years (and for many years later), I often found myself writing in defense of FUM and the ways Friends misunderstood or even misrepresented it. I've included a couple of examples of these essays in this digest, starting here:

Among its many other wonderful qualities and shadowy sins, FUM is still paying for the decades it spent trying to pretend that it was truly "united," served by a staff and a leadership caste that, by and large, was highly invested in presenting the best face to each end of the spectrum, trying to be good friends (and actually succeeding miraculously often) with people who were often not friends with each other. Among the survival tactics: publishing a magazine that was as inoffensive as possible, therefore hardly ever carrying any substantial news, and publishing two lines of Quaker curriculum, Living Light and Living Word, for a market that was so small that it could barely sustain one.

More.

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March: Rootless.

When my immigrant mother died in February 2007, I was in the midst of reading a series of books about immigrants.

Actually, I didn't plan this theme; I didn't see the connections until she died. Only then did I think of her story -- born in Japan, involuntarily exiled to Germany, choosing to emigrate to the USA, but never reconciled to American pluralism -- in light of those books.

All of these books are excellent; I'd be hard put to rank them. The first one is Philip Marsden's The Bronski House: A Return to the Borderlands. It is a part biography and part travelogue, but as a hybrid it is seamless, with the wholeness of a wonderful novel....

Dubravka Ugresic's edgy but deeply humane novel The Ministry of Pain is superb at portraying the cost of separation from one's homeland, coupled with the aching confusion of seeing one's homeland become a battle of violently competing identities--the situation faced by every refugee from the civil wars of the former Yugoslavia....

The last book I read was the one that affected me most deeply: Nikolai's Fortune by Solveig Torvik. Like The Bronski House, this book is based on fact: every major character of the five generations populating this historical novel actually existed, and all of the major events really happened....

More. 

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April: The hyphen within.

Frustratingly, I could not find the original blog post by "quakerboy" that kicked off these reflections. I hope I've included enough context to make up for that deficit.

Paradoxically, who we are is a people of hospitality and tender ears. This is precisely why some of our meetings and churches receive people who have allergies and grievances, or who are by nature skeptical. Those people are precious! Among other things, they keep us honest, they keep us from getting stagnant, and they deserve our attention. If we don't exercise a stewardship of our testimonies and learnings, obtained over the course of centuries, we have nothing to offer them but secondhand cliches (whether liberal or evangelical) delivered in a sort of quaint, antiquarian container. Our guests deserve generous hospitality, but they also deserve stable hosts -- hosts who provide loving access, but who maintain that stewardship, while not forgetting that the process of going from guest status to host status must be available and transparent.

More.

The hyphen within, part two.

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May: Why it's hard for me to criticize biblical literalists. [Even though I do!]

Here I'm reflecting how different cultures read the Bible in different ways, cutting across neat divisions of literalism vs liberalism.

Donald Miller and Joel Carpenter ... speak about the role of the Bible in specific social contexts, Miller in what he calls "new paradigm" churches in the USA, and Carpenter in what used to be called the Third World.

Many of us in North American and European Quaker circles are accustomed to arguing about the legitimacy of mining the Bible for rules and models and debating points. Some of us get devotional goosebumps from its ancient eloquence, and experience being drawn closer to the Holy Spirit by the experience of meditating on the Bible. Some of us are comfortably caught in a mesh of linkages between doctrine and Biblical passages. We may even assume from habit that a passage means a certain thing when on its textual face it may not. I gave an example here recently -- the passage that is often cited as proof of the Bible's plenary inspiration and inerrancy, 2 Timothy 3:15-17, makes no such claim. More than that, of course, our present Bible was not even assembled when Paul wrote those words, and literalists rarely seem to acknowledge that a lot of work by human committees had to be done before that assembly was completed -- with some variations in the resulting canon among different broad traditions of Christians.

More.

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June: Recording ministers, calling pastors.

Some questions and answers (?) on two separate (if often related) Quaker practices: recording ministers, and recruiting pastors.

In recording ministers, aren't you setting up a hierarchy, implying special status, or putting people on a pedestal? In theory, no. Our doctrine of the equality of all persons is not threatened by saying "this person has a public gift, and we feel led to confirm it publicly." However, if gender or social status or other irrelevant criteria entered into the process, smoothing the way for some and blocking others, that would compromise the practice of recording. Also, if recorded ministers were treated with undue deference, or were given any privilege other than being permitted to exercise their gifts, that undue deference would also be a problem.

The denial of recognition of public ministry, especially when denying people who by social stereotype are not seen as carrying spiritual authority, can represent the opposite problem--a form of marginalization. I remember one example of a modest but spiritually gifted woman being considered for recording, in the face of opposition by men who used the equality argument despite their own prestigious credentials in their work settings. Moreover, the absence of explicit recognition of public gifts does not prevent elitism and power plays. When criteria for recognition are not explicit, those who want recognition or influence for the sake of their own agendas will still find ways of getting it, but without transparent criteria and accountability.

More.

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July: Absurdly happy.

A blog post inspired by Colin Saxton and David Niyonzima at Northwest Yearly Meeting sessions.

Just as the brightest, most unfiltered light we can see comprehends all colors, the children of the Light must comprehend all conditions. Together, we must be ready to shine the light into places where unspeakable horror is hiding. We may be personally sheltered from those realities in ways that David Niyonzima has not been; as a teacher, he witnessed the massacre of all of his students. And, individually, we vary in our capacity to see those things, both by location and by temperament. But together we can see, and we can shine. For me, happiness and joy are names for that experience of shining together, and are subversive of the shadows in which the principalities and powers conceal themselves to do hideous things to God's beloved creation.

More.

Also ran: The FUM retreat: what did we accomplish?

Absurdly happy, part two.

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August: What is really wrong with Friends United Meeting.

A post that starts out (defensively?) with what is not wrong! How many of these alleged virtues and defects are still accurate? Which observations might you (or I) make differently almost a generation later? 

But now the walls of suspicion may simply be too high for such dialogues to be institutionalized in organizations such as FUM. When significant groups of Friends in the more liberal yearly meetings use the language of money (as in threatening to cut off funding) to communicate with FUM, and when individual meetings in the more evangelical yearly meetings threaten to leave their yearly meeting if it doesn't cut ties with FUM, then it's time to be honest about the alienation we're witnessing.

There were once substantial centrist groups that held FUM together, groups who believed that love is a bridge that doesn't require the opposite shore to be symmetrical to theirs. I don't know how much of that constituency still exists. From the liberal side, the most pro-FUM message that I hear seems to be that by staying engaged, "we" can change FUM. What qualifies them to change FUM is not specified--by all indications it's not passionate support for FUM's central goal, which is to energize and equip Friends for evangelism.

More, including many interesting comments.

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September: Gospel order revisited.

This post was originally written as a sermon, in response to a request to address accountability and discipline in the church.

Matthew’s Gospel and George Fox’s commentaries presuppose that these offenses occur among people who have roughly equivalent amounts of power, or the offenses involve a person’s public behavior that threatens the reputation of the church. When one person has power and control over another, the victim may not be at all in a position to confront the abuser privately. In the church, that’s what the elders are for—to provide the safety and healing that’s essential to keeping trust and obedience real. For anyone who has been betrayed, trust remains a nice abstraction until you—the church community—do what it takes to provide that healing and create that safety. That’s why the elders of that meeting with the sharp-tongued member could no longer dodge the issue. They appointed a pair of people who spoke with him, and he was also required to give up his church responsibilities for a season.

I love how Fox talks about the spirit in which we deal with offenders—“in the power of the Lord, and spirit of the Lamb, and in the wisdom and love of the truth.” That instruction to act “in the power of God” reflects how Gospel order constantly links back to the cosmic context, God’s purpose of unity in heaven and on earth. Just as the offender threatens that unity, a half-baked or politicized remedy may also threaten it.

More.

From 2019: Out of order.

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October: Gratitude.

Thoughts as my first Halloween and Thanksgiving  holidays in Russia approached.

One of my circuit breakers tripped the other day, and my neighbors didn't know what to do. I had no key for the breaker box. The owner of the apartment lives four hours away. After trying everything I could think of to get into the breakers, I thought I remembered some numbers stenciled onto the wall downstairs near the elevator. The stencils were inked onto a stucco-like surface and were almost unreadable, but if I looked at one of the words just the right way, it looked like it might say "Elect ..." Dubiously, I called the number, was given another number. I called that number and was given yet another. When I called that third number, success!! -- the dispatcher promised an electrician would visit me shortly. And so he did -- he fixed the ceiling fixture that had shorted, he reset the circuit breaker, and, after giving me a friendly lecture about not buying cheap fixtures, he charged me all of $4!

What if I'd succeeded in resetting the circuit breaker on my own? I probably would not have found out what caused the short in the first place.

In looking back over my many visits to Russia since 1975, giving up certainty and giving up control have been constant themes. For every loss of familiar procedures, familiar guarantees, there's been a gain: techniques and procedures are replaced by relationships and kindness. Both the exchange and the lesson have been invaluable. I'm sure that, before Thanksgiving rolls around, I'll have a fresh crop of examples.

More.

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November: The romance of war.

Putin's plan -- Russia's victory!

Patriotism Russia-style, or at least the tiny samples I got to see in Elektrostal.

My seven-year-old friend, who lives up Yalagin Street a short ways, is with his grandmother today. I can tell -- he's sending me a steady stream of text messages on her cellphone, asking me when I'll be stopping by again. I'll probably drop in on him and his brother this evening after my last class.

These days, whenever I visit, he's always eager to show me a new fighting technique. He loves to demonstrate how to slither along on the floor, holding his gun high so it doesn't touch the mud of his imaginary battlefield. He drops down from the top level of his bunk bed, cushioning his fall (as he solemnly explains to me) by bending his knees just right so that he lands soundlessly. His gun is slung over his back, his rubber knife is in his sock, his eyes sweep the bedroom for signs of the enemy. Now his back is to the wall and his toy grenade is in his hand as he edges toward the door, ready to peek into the corridor. His face is utterly serious as he sets out to capture singlehandedly the living room....

More.

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December: Elektrostal's hospitable artists.

An Edvard Grieg concert at the Paustovsky Central Library was a wonderful conclusion to my first semester in Elektrostal.

I sat there in the audience, simply marveling: here I was, a Norwegian-American and fan of Grieg's music, sitting in the obscure industrial city of Elektrostal, Russia, listening to this familiar music being played by Russian pianists and a noted violinist from Dagestan! Singer Antonina Yegorshina performed several of Grieg's songs, lovingly translated into Russian. And Zalmina Abueva, in her own remarks, praised the composer for his faithfulness to the spirit and natural surroundings of his native Norway. On the walls were my new friend Alexander Poroshin's paintings from his ongoing exhibition at the library.

More.

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I tried to pick an article or two from recent Russian Religion News postings to link here, but decided just to point out this resource once again.

Gary Abernathy: Why USA's conservatives should support reparations.

Friends World Committee for Consultation is conducting a search for a new general secretary to serve the World Office.

Margaret Fraser writes on receptivity, personality, transformation, and Eoin Stephenson's lecture at Ireland Yearly Meeting. She observes:

Saul/Paul was so filled with the righteousness of his efforts to persecute the followers of Jesus, that he needed a booming voice, a bright light and temporary blindness to stop him in his tracks. No gentle insistence to pack a spare tire for his chariot, or to rethink his mission; no invitation to breakfast would have stopped him in his tracks. He needed the entire works for transformation to happen. Fortunately, most of us can be reached by something gentler, if we are willing to open ourselves to listen.

More on Stephenson's lecture here.

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I've posted several individual clips from this Muddy Waters/Otis Spann appearance at the Copenhagen Jazz Festival in October 1968. Here's the whole set, with Muddy Waters on vocals and slide guitar, Otis Spann on piano, Luther "Snake Boy" Johnson and Pee Wee Madison -- guitars, Paul Oscher -- harp, Sonny Wimberley -- bass guitar, and S.P. Leary -- drums. (Thanks to commenters for the lineup.)

Credible faith, part two

Source.  

I usually do my Bible reading around 4 a.m., when I might be just a bit sleepy. A few days ago, these verses from Deuteronomy snapped me wide awake:

Don’t return a runaway slave to his master; he’s [sic] come to you for refuge. Let him live wherever he wishes within the protective gates of your city. Don’t take advantage of him. [23:15-16, The Message.]

I'm sure I've read these lines dozens of times but they never landed with quite this force. Never mind the "Slave Bible" (see photo); this text must have been missing from the slaveholders' Bible! 

Just in case Eugene Peterson was reading too much into these verses when he composed this paraphrase, I looked up the same verses in the Authorized Version, the translation that the slaveholders probably used:

15 Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee:
16 He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that place which he shall choose in one of thy gates, where it liketh him best: thou shalt not oppress him.

Who can count the numbers of lives blighted and cut off because Christian slaveholders paid no attention to this unambiguous command? The harm echoes through the ages: aside from the direct human cost, the pattern of biblical malpractice is established. In turn, people who are inclined to be skeptical of any argument from Scripture are reinforced in their skepticism -- and why not?

What oppression is now justified or neglected by us because we can't see God's plain command? And what happens to the reputation of the Good News as a result? I remember John Woolman's vision from around 1770, in which he saw "heathen" laborers oppressed by Christian bosses:

I was then carried in spirit to the mines, where poor oppressed people were digging rich treasures for those called christians; and heard them blaspheme the name of Christ, at which I was grieved; for his name to me was precious.

Then I was informed, that these heathen were told, that those who oppressed them were the followers of Christ; and they said amongst themselves, If Christ directed them to use us in this sort, then Christ is a cruel tyrant. [Journal.]

I feel similar grief when I see the Bible being used to tell people that their sex means they cannot lead, or their gender identity threatens the community. What credibility do we then have to confront the actual addictions and perversions all around us, when we've already wasted these labels on false and cruel diagnoses in the service of oppression?

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[Jesus] came to Nazareth where he had been raised. As he always did on the Sabbath, he went to the meeting place. When he stood up to read, he was handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Unrolling the scroll, he found the place where it was written,

God’s Spirit is on me;
     [God has] chosen me to preach the Message of good news to the poor,
Sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and
    recovery of sight to the blind,
To set the burdened and battered free,
    to announce, “This is God’s time to shine!”

He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the assistant, and sat down. Every eye in the place was on him, intent. Then he started in, “You’ve just heard Scripture make history. It came true just now in this place.” [Luke 4:16-21, The Message; compare NIV.]

Our business as the Body of Christ is to witness Scripture becoming real in our time and place. Do we see this promise being realized among us? When every eye in the place might be upon us, watching us with hope or with skepticism, what do they see?

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Habbakuk 2:20:

The Lord is in his [sic, NIV] holy temple;
    let all the earth be silent before him.

We Quakers sometimes express a subtle version of the elitism that appears in more scandalous forms when reinforced by biblical malpractice, as I cited above. I've often heard variations on the noxious implication that our Friends forms of worship, with their use of outward silence ("waiting worship") are not for everyone. Maybe some cultures would prefer more action, more rhythm.

Two thoughts:

• We Friends might need more action, more rhythm. There is nothing about the practice of keeping a space open for the unscripted Holy Spirit to move us, that would prohibit any expression that is genuinely Spirit-led during that open period, or at other points within the worship time. Keeping silence is God's command, but the silence serves us, not the other way around. Above all, let's beware of the class and cultural boundaries we may be unintentionally reinforcing in contradiction to our theology of radical hospitality. (Please note that I'm writing as a Northern European middle-class introvert.) No theatrics, just freedom and trust.
• Everyone who yearns to know God must at some point hold their tongue and listen. It's not just for Friends. When we worship in spirit and truth, ready to witness Scripture making history in our meetinghouses and homes, on street corners and in prophetic actions, we're not acting as special adepts or spiritual aristocrats; we're simply making our faith visible and accessible. We're saying, come and be among us to see what God wants to say and do today through us! Again: no theatrics, just freedom and trust.

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Credible faith, part one

George Fox on overcoming corruption

Worship and protest

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Novichok; source.

Putin as "killer" -- some reflections and lots of links. I was awfully tempted to comment on this incident, but wisdom prevailed.

Writers' houses, ghost stories, and the pandemic.

A women's dacha for Russian activists.

Gender bias in Christian nonprofits.

Scientists and theologians alike mourn John Polkinghorne.

The U.S. diplomatic corps: the lack of diversity is a crisis.

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2021 Grammy winner Fantastic Negrito with Tarriona "Tank" Ball.