My Quaker Soul part 1

On Tuesday, at 5:28am, I hopped onto my first of four buses that would make up my sunrise journey from Vancouver to Newberg. At 8:30, I stepped off the final bus and wandered on over to the business meeting going on in Bauman Auditorium on the George Fox Campus.

I have not been to yearly meeting in four years. In August of 2008, I packed up my car and drove 2,500 miles to central Kentucky for seminary. With that, I left behind the only kind of church I had ever known and I stumbled into a vast wilderness of baptists, methodists, christians (the restorative movement, not the general religion), baptists (did I say that already? There are SO many different types of baptists!), and countless others. When I finally found a church I decided to settle on, I ended up driving by nine other churches every Sunday before getting to mine. I had certainly landed in the Bible belt.

I loved that church, still do, but I longed for quiet. I longed for room in worship, moments of silence and stillness in transitions, prayers without musical soundtrack, and long spaces of communal silence and centering. Lexington has a local Friends meeting house, and I attended a few times. It was the friendliest group of people I met in Kentucky, and I loved it, but desiring a common denominator of faith in Jesus Christ drew me to the nearby Christian and Missionary Alliance church which I discovered because the pastor's wife was the campus pastor at Asbury. Even as I grew to love that church, I really grieved the lack of a church that understood how to marry distinctive Quaker ideology and disciplines with a Christocentric view of faith and practice.

By a landslide, the United Methodist church is the most represented denomination at Asbury Seminary. Other historically Wesleyan churches make up the next largest representations. As a Wesleyan/Holiness based school in the South it was a foreign world to me culturally and religiously. It turned out to be an impressively painful and incredibly healing and life-giving experience, but one of the things it taught me, or perhaps reiterated for me, was the reality that I am a Quaker in my soul. No matter where I live and what church I may be attending, I will always favor the Friends way of being, and I will always call myself a Quaker when people ask.

Asbury is not officially affiliated with any denomination. It is an institution controlled by a dusty hierarchy which has no real structure of accountability. In 2008, I arrived at a school that was in the midst of administrative turmoil that had reverberated to every sector Asbury touched and had left nothing unscathed. A president had resigned on the day of orientation the year before, and the divisive weeks and months around that event had left a spirit of contention on the campus so clear that I felt it even a year later. Far beyond the time it should have taken, Asbury finally found a new president in the Spring of 2009, and when he and his family began work in July, the school seemed to exhale for the first time in a few of years and was finally able to really heal.

For the first time in my life I was able to place my experiences with George Fox University, where I had received my undergraduate degree and begun my seminary degree, and with the Northwest Yearly Meeting, where I was born and raised, in a larger context. We college students liked to complain about Fox, and there are certainly things to complain about, but after moving, I saw what the accountability of George Fox with the yearly meeting meant and why it mattered. I thought about who that accountability really was to--not to the paid administrative powers that be in the yearly meeting, but to every member of the yearly meeting, because Quakers believe all have a voice that matters. I imagined the uproar in the July yearly meeting business meetings, where everyone is encouraged to attend, every voice is given the chance to be heard, and no decision is made until common ground and consensus is reached, if this had happened at George Fox. I began to understand in a deep way the spiritual wisdom of the Quaker way of business and why it's necessary, and I discovered the sandy foundation of power without accountability.

Despite these issues, Asbury is full of broken people whose greatest desire is to seek out the truth and freedom of Jesus Christ. I do not regret my time there, and made some of my best friendships at Asbury. Though it took my stubborn and willful soul three years to finally be comfortable with it, I find myself reflecting warmly on the high church liturgy in chapel and wondering at the tangible vulnerability of receiving communion from my peers and mentors (I'm so thankful it wasn't the sterile disposable-plastic-cup-and-single-wafer-wam-bam-thank-you-ma'am way of communion). But there were countless times when I wanted to sit there in silence in my Quaker practice of communion, a communion where we all partake in the quiet together and invite in the presence and voice of the holy spirit in community. At the very least, I wanted them to turn off the music. Imagine the heightened awareness of vulnerability if communion were given and received in silence. I still would like to see that happen.

Being at Asbury taught me just how foreign my common Quaker understandings and practices are to the greater protestant world. Seminary was the first time I saw discernment discussed as an individual practice. I couldn't understand the idea of healthy personal discernment without a stronger value on community discernment. I still don't believe it's possible. And the idea of having a rich faith without practicing bread and wine/juice communion was absolutely incomprehensible to some. My world was as strange to many there as their's was to me.

Learning about the different facets of Christianity was eye opening for me. Attending a capital "H" Holiness school while coming from a background that pre-dated it exposed me to what it must be like when outsiders come into the Friends church which is full of practices, structure, and language that is unknown to people outside of the Friends world. In the end, I found myself simply wanting to teach everyone the value of Quaker theology (because its Biblical basis makes it really more than just an ideology), and I admit I delighted in telling people that Richard Foster was a Quaker and had, in fact, pastored my church at one time, albeit before I was born.

I left Oregon with no plans of coming back. The only reason I did was because I ran out of money after graduation. I came back kicking and screaming, really. On my return, I wanted to try to plug into a new church, make my own new start. I found a place in Portland, but after a few months I discovered no matter where I tried, I craved my Quaker worship. I ended up getting a job that worked me on most Sundays, but on my first Sunday off, I gave into my need for some good Quaker silence and fellowship and made quite the nutty trek via bicycle and bus to one of the Northwest Yearly Meeting churches in Portland. Even though I had never been there before, it was like finally coming home. My soul really rested for perhaps the first time in nearly four years. I love my Methodist friends, my Catholic family members, my second home CMA folks, among others, and I find great value in their traditions, but my heart will always be with my yearly meeting Friends.

This past week, walking up River Street heading to my first business meeting since 2008 was a homecoming I hadn't realized I had longed so much for.

Sunday, June 17

Today:

Rodney King died at age 47.
Unofficial tallies declared the muslim brotherhood presidential candidate the winner in Egypt.
Portlanders marched for equality and gay pride while many others watched.
At least 21 people died in church bombings and countless wounded in Nigeria.
It's Father's Day.
A man was rescued this morning after clinging to a cliff all night after a kayaking accident.
Justin Bieber won a Canadian music award.
Madagascar 3 was the top selling movie.

Do you ever wonder what is happening all around the world at the same exact second?  You're drinking coffee.  Someone else is hiking up Mt. McKinley.  A child is sleeping after a long day walking miles to gather water.  A young woman is in between "customers," working the line in the red-light district in east India. Countless families are sitting down at the table for dinner.  Countless others are scrounging on their own.  A baby was born, a child just died, an elderly woman has just passed away after a full life.

We can't even begin to fathom the vastness of our world, even if we are aware of it.  The world is so big and so small all at the same time.  It is immensely connected and astonishingly disconnected.

And here we are.

As we wait. May 11

Today, I read David's pleading words to God, "Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing; O Lord, heal me, for my bones are shaking with terror, while you, O Lord--how long?

For much of my childhood I would hear in great abundance about the number of psalms that praise God for his glory and righteousness and grace. That's what I knew the psalms to be. But one particularly difficult summer in college I turned to the psalms for solace and discovered, to my surprise, that many of the psalms beg for God's mercy, plead for protection, and expose fear and frustration.  And they reveal the vulnerability we confront when we come face to face with our inability to see the future.

A number of David's psalms were written in the midst of what, for David, was a great unknown. Wandering in the wilderness, running from Saul, David had no idea how long he would be stuck out there hiding and fighting. Scholars have estimated David drifted around in the mediterranean wilderness for fifteen to twenty years. Anointed by a prophet as a youth, appointed musician to the king, and defeater of Goliath and the Philistines, David was run out of town and spent years without a place to call home. Undoubtedly, it must have felt like it was never-ending. His psalms give us a glimpse into just how hard it must have been to wait without end.

Waiting is a necessity of building maturity, but its clash with human nature makes it frustrating and its entirely foreign relationship with American culture makes it maddening. Whether we're waiting to get better from an illness, waiting for our child or brother or sister to get a clue, waiting for an important phone call, or waiting for our life to start, the process (and it is a constant process) can make us question our very existence.  Waiting is frustrating, though, not primarily because of the delay in getting what you want. It is frustrating precisely because we are always aware of the lingering possibility and fear that we could be waiting forever.

The piece of the process that makes us (or at least me) want to, at times, rip our hair out is that foggy state of limbo--that blind walk through the wilderness with no map to guide us.  I wonder if David ever questioned his call to be king, if he had moments where he thought maybe he had it wrong. As years continued to pass by and he kept trudging around the untamed land, day after day, week after week, year after year, his vision must have blurred now and then.

But it turns out there is a lot of waiting in the Bible. Paul hoped for years to go to Rome, never knowing if he would finally make it.  Moses kept throwing plagues at Pharaoh and Pharaoh continually denied the Israelites their freedom.  (It turns out plagues only have a ten percent success rate in delivering freedom.) The widow waited for her imminent death before Elijah showed up in her life and brought God with him, or maybe I should say, before God showed up and brought Elijah.

Waiting, waiting, waiting. "...while you, O Lord--how long?"

When circumstances are beyond our control, we simply wait. We wait for our health to come back to us in the midst of sickness.  We wait for our finances to catch up with our bills as we diligently try to control our budget. We wait for a good job to show up in our seemingly endless search. We wait for miracles.

Some time ago I read the quote, "Everything will be all right in the end.  If it's not all right, it's not the end." David's story is great evidence of that.  Of course, David didn't have a fairy tale ending. He slept with another man's wife, killed that man who had been very loyal to him in order to cover his own ass when consequences of his bad choice spiraled out of his control, and his son, Absalom, ran him out of town.  But the story of his wilderness wanderings did come to a close and after years of wondering if Saul was ever going to die, David finally became king.

In our fast-paced, technology driven culture, our theology around waiting is poor at best. For the past year I have been waiting for my life.  I'm waiting to have my independence back, waiting for a job that I'm passionate about and that gives me good experience while paying me enough to live and cover all my bills every month. In the meantime, I work a job I have no passion for, am deferring a number of student loans, and I live with my parents in a very tiny house.  It's less than perfect, to understate it, and I find myself constantly wondering what God is doing and where God is.  As I think about that I realize just how fickle my faith is. God is great when I love my life but when the fog roles in and I can't see where I'm going, I think maybe I don't really understand God at all.  And then I see the inconsistency and wonder just what do I base my faith on, anyway?  I want to have that blind faith that fully trusts no matter what my circumstances are.

But then I read the psalms and I see David ask the same questions I want to ask. If David, who is described as a man after God's own heart, can ask those questions, maybe I can, too. Maybe wondering what is going on is part of faith and part of growing.  What I learn from David is this is not where faith ends.  David's pleas always seem to be followed by a note of recognition of God's faithfulness and holiness.  Psalm ten begins with, "Why, O Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?" But in verse fourteen, a shift comes with, 'But you see! Indeed you note trouble and grief.'

Waiting is trying to our patience, to our spirit, to our faith.  For those of us who desire that heart of God, we tend to believe even in endless waiting we will ideally never question what is going on with God.  But what if that's wrong? Maybe for me, for us all, the object in faith is not reaching a point where we have no more confusion and questions.  Maybe it's having the questions but making sure we don't stop in the middle.  Maybe the mission is simply to follow the questions through to the other end of the psalm.

Wonder, 4/28

On the MAX today, in downtown on my way out of Portland, twin eight year old girls got on the train with their mother and their mother's friend. Their eyes were lit up like they had just walked into a candy store, and energy was bursting from them as if they were about to explode the moment the train would actually start to move. They chose the sideways facing bench and sat up on their knees, their feet hanging off the seats, their hands and faces glued to the window, mesmerized with wonder and newness at the strange morphing scenery from downtown to the railway station and all the way up through north Portland, which offers a big park, old houses, abandoned graffitied buildings, and an array of particularly sketch hotels with flashy neon signs, all along the way dotted with bars and restaurants and at least one organic grocery store (they're not just for rich people in Portland). Right next to their seats was the junction of the train car, and with the slightest turn one would call to the other as the accordion walls would crunch together on one side and stretch apart on the other and the ribbed lines on the floor would deviate all at once in a semi-circle. Oos and awes followed and then right back to the window. Numerous times in their wonder their mother had to tell them to settle down. They were clearly wired with excitement.

With straight nearly-black hair and thin-framed glasses, they reminded me of me at that age (except I had the stylish glasses of turn-of-the-decade 1990), when everything was grand and new and sparkled with the adventure and anticipation of the unknown. Whatever was around the corner was clearly going to be amazing. How could it not?! I have never forgotten that wonder, what it feels like surging through your body. As I sat there, delighting in their excitement, I remembered being that excited on the MAX at their age and I wished I could experience life like that again.

But wonder like that doesn't come around much anymore as an adult. Life gets heavy and full of responsibilities, both personal and community. The sadness of the world's depths of darkness weighs on us. Wonder doesn't come in giddy energy. Instead, I think as we get older and busier and more full of things to know, wonders come in the small moments, in the whispers, in the split seconds, in the every day, little spaces of goodness and beauty.  Sometimes we have to look for them. Sometimes they look for us. But now and then they just show up on the train with their own wonder to share and remind us why it's good to always know children and to once in a while be a little giddy. When we see the world through their eyes, we remember it is spectacular.  

As I was getting off that train I wanted to turn and say to them, never lose that spirit! But I didn't. I just walked on by and stepped off the train. I hope they had a fun day.  And I hope, by some chance, that I may see them again on the MAX.  Hours later, I am still marveling, and it is still making me smile.

When it matters, April 25

Being beautiful isn’t about what you wear or about making sure you burn more calories every day than you eat.  Living a life that is floating somewhere in Limbo is teaching me a few things about the depth and meaning of beauty.  Yesterday, in a conversation about this strange land of foggy limbo I’m in, a friend said to me, “This is just a season.”  It is good to be reminded of that, but at the same time I responded, “I would just like to know when this season is going to end.”  Sometimes it is hard for me to see the beauty in life.  I can dress so that I look really good, but I have realized that has no bearing on feeling beautiful--feeling good about myself, yes, but not feeling beautiful.  Perhaps it’s because I am me or perhaps it’s because I’m 30 and not 21 anymore, but in my life beauty has become something that strikes my heart.  Beauty has a depth and a meaning so much better than what the world will have me believe, and it can be seen in little moments, not just epic booms.  Beauty has to be found in little things I see each day.  The days in which I’m most distressed about my life are days in which I have blocked the ability to see beautiful things, or maybe a better way to say that is the ability to see things beautifully.  

Life ceases to be enjoyable when beauty ceases to exist.  Sometimes we have to work at seeing beauty, we have to be intentional.  And, yes, there may be days here and there where we simply can’t see.  

Today, I’m going out to Portland.  I’m going to go to Stumptown where I will enjoy the beauty of getting around when I can’t afford a car (because before this I lived in a place where that was very difficult), and where I will enjoy the beauty of a place that values a prize-winning cup of coffee even more so than mass profit.  They really do make the best mocha I have ever had.  And then I will go meet up with a friend. Sometimes I get bored in Portland, because overall, it is not new for me, and I want a new adventure, but the truth is that Portland is an amazing city.  It is beautiful to look at.  You never know what kind of people you will see on the street and on the bus.  Its unique character shines in the funky local business that can be found everywhere, not the least of which is the most amazing bookstore in the world.  So today, instead of being disappointed that I’m bumming around Portland, I will look for something interesting, something beautiful.  I may still be a little disappointed, but I will not let it rule my day.

April 17

Standing at the transit station today, I watched an airplane take off from the airport, soaring up and up into the sky.  I dreamed to be on it.  I have no idea where it was going, but I didn’t care.  I just wanted to be flying somewhere, anywhere, far away.  Just a little bit earlier, I sat on the MAX as it pulled into a stop and thought, I wish I were in a different city, a new city.  The plane was so inviting.  And then I turned around and saw my bus coming, which would simply take me into the next town.  It was such a let down.

What does it mean to be a woman?

April 9

I do not believe women can only find ultimate worth in getting married and having children.  There are many women in the world, and each of us have our own paths to walk.  Marriage is one path.  Marriage and children is another.  Singleness, widowhood, convent life are yet other ways of being.  My path right now is a path of singleness, a fact which I don’t generally have a problem with.  I love being single.  I love the freedom to go places, do things, travel, move without having to consider a whole other life of dreams and desires independent from mine.  The single, childless life is every way as worthwhile as the life who has birthed a multitude of children.

Every life is valuable.  

And yet, I found myself, today, believing someone else’s life was better than mine based largely on the fact that she is married and has children (really great children).  It was so inherent that I didn’t even think about why I thought her life was better until I took a moment to consider it.  The reason surprised me.  And yet, maybe it didn’t.  My friends who have children of their own, whether the children are six months or thirty years, speak about pregnancy, childbearing, and the emotional and physical ups and downs of parenting in profound ways that leave me in awe and starkly aware of the self-centeredness of my life.  I feel, perhaps strangely, less like an adult, and, not so strangely (unfortunately), less like a woman.  

That I would feel less like a woman is not really a surprise.  The value of womanhood has been defined by numerous cultures, in many cases for thousands of years, by the ability to procreate.  In some cultures in history, a woman who could not or did not have children held no purpose in society.  Such an understanding has been long pervasive in the church, so much so that today it saturates the mind without even being overtly discussed.  It simply permeates the air.  

I don’t know what to do about this disconnect between what my head believes and what my heart feels.  I don’t believe my life is any less valuable than this other person’s life.  But I find, despite my own disapproval, that I do see my life as less worthy, and I’m at a loss with this, because it goes against everything I ever want to teach young women about where their worth comes from.  

I’m not sure how this needs to change, but I know that it does.  Perhaps first we need safe space where we can even begin to talk about it.  There are too few safe spaces for women.  It is worth the consideration.  This whole discussion is.