Writing Community

A couple sat in the lobby of the Captain Whidbey Inn, thumbing through materials describing the Whidbey Writers Workshop MFA in Creative Writing. I was among the students there for the August residency, a ten-day intensive of classes that kicks off the Fall semester. I chatted with these prospective students about how my studies there are helping me to become a better writer. One of their questions has stuck with me.

Directed Reading Class, August Residency
photo by Dave Beach

“What does it mean that this is a writing community?”

Community is a term that people use a lot today.  Many talk of it as a sense of belonging, a desire to be known and supported by those who live near them or by people who share common interests.  The phenomenal growth of Facebook, Yahoo groups, Linked In, and a host of other Internet services is evidence of the yearning to connect with others. But what is this writing community that the Whidbey program tries to foster?

I look to my own understanding of community shaped largely by my experiences among Quakers.  We place a high value on community, including it along with simplicity, peace, integrity, and equality as the principles that guide our lives (what we call testimonies).  Here’s how Moorestown (New Jersey) Friends School describes the testimony of community:

Community means that we are responsible for the human beings that

share the planet with us. This means we must work together to help each

other become the best people possible. Quakers examine their own attitudes

and practices to test whether they contribute as much as they can to the

needs of the wider community; including addressing issues of social, political

and economic justice. In school this means that we all must work to

demonstrate respect for others and a willingness to listen to other points

of view, as well as serving the broader community. 

Quaker writer and teacher, Parker Palmer, describes community this way:

Community is a place where the connections felt in the heart make

themselves known in bonds between people, and where the tuggings

and pullings of those bonds keep opening up our hearts.

I heard myself using similar language with the prospective students in response to their questions about Whidbey’s “writing community.” 

The bonds among the students are strong. During the August residency we felt many connections in our hearts as we supported each other through news of the death of one classmate’s brother and a cancer diagnosis for the best friend of another student. When I learned mid-way through the residency of the death of my dear friend, Greg Ewert (see Sept. 9, 2010 post), I was comforted by several in this writing community.

At the Whidbey graduation ceremony, student speaker Mandy Manning reminded us of the many personal “tuggings and pullings” that she and her classmates had endured and how they had supported each other.

In workshops, craft classes, and at student readings, we work together to help each other become the best writers possible. Like the Moorestown Friends School, we do this with “respect for others and a willingness to listen to other points of view.” Probably helps us become better people, too.

Finally, just like the Quaker testimony of community, the writing program advocates serving the broader community. At Whidbey, we call it literary citizenship, and it’s evident in the efforts of students, faculty, and guest faculty who work to promote literacy, give voice to those rarely heard, and cheer on other writers at all stages of development.

I’m not claiming that my MFA program is a religious organization (Quaker or any other).  But since writing is so intertwined with my spiritual journey, I’m grateful to have a writing community that shares and reflects the values of my Quaker community. If that’s what those prospective students are seeking, they’ll fit in well at the Whidbey Writers’ Workshop.

Afterthought #7

At the recent North Pacific Yearly Meeting Annual Session, Ann Stever (University Friends Meeting) introduced Friend-in-Residence Benigno Sánchez-Eppler. 

“Benigno wears his connection with Spirit on his sleeve,” she said.

I do, too, but sometimes my sleeve is rolled up, my connection with Spirit tucked out of sight, for fear of being misunderstood, or of assumptions being made about my beliefs.  I’m grateful for times of deep sharing and open listening, when I can unroll my sleeve and fearlessly embrace the Spirit that is always with me.

Closer to Each Other Than Language Allows

Photo by Claire Phipps - clairephipps.com

People think of Quakers as loving, peaceful, friendly types (our full name is, after all, the Religious Society of Friends).  And we are all of those things. We’re also human—full of imperfections, confusion, and fear. We don’t all see things in the same way, and our history shows that sometimes those differing views have torn us apart. This week, one branch of the diverse tree of Quakerism—Indiana Yearly Meeting—is considering such a break. For those Friends, the issue that is dividing them is homosexuality.

I’ve just returned from my own North Pacific Yearly Meeting (NPYM) annual gathering. For five days, Quakers from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana worshiped, sang, and played; remembered Friends who died last year and welcomed newcomers; learned about local, national, and international Quaker efforts to promote peace and justice; and reconnected with old friends and made some new ones.

For many, these annual gatherings are a time to take a break from life’s daily demands and to renew spiritually. With the theme of “Listening in Tongues,” we were encouraged to “prepare ourselves for seeing, feeling and hearing unaccustomed perspectives with the tenderness we would wish for our own.” Our Friend-in-Residence, Benigno Sánchez-Eppler, urged us to listen beyond words, beyond the “limited monolingual comfort of our own monthly meetings,” for the similarities of our common Quaker ancestry. We heard from Friends in Pullman-Moscow Meeting that listening in that way can be healing. They reported that as they’ve dealt with conflicts in their meeting, “We are closer to each other than language allows.”

We faced our own challenges with language that separates us as we considered whether to affiliate with Friends General Conference (FGC). After a year of examination of what “affiliation” would both require and offer, we still stumble over that word as well as what it means to be an “independent” yearly meeting.  We decided to discern further over this next year, setting aside the idea of affiliation and instead exploring what kind of  “relationship” we want with the varied branches of Quakerism, including FGC.

As we left our gathering last Sunday, another branch of Quakers in the West, Northwest Yearly Meeting, began its annual session. Their agenda was to include consideration of the current state of affairs in their Yearly Meeting in the area of sexual ethics and same-sex relationships. As with Indiana Yearly Meeting, these conversations likely were fraught with conflict, just as they were twenty-five years ago in North Pacific Yearly Meeting. It took us eight years, but in 1993 we came to unity to revise our Faith and Practice to state that Quaker meetings could take the relationships of same-sex couples under their care (translation of Quaker-ese: same-sex couples could get married) following the same processes as for heterosexual couples.

This week, Indiana Yearly Meeting (IYM) has been considering a split as a way to deal with its members’ differences regarding not only same-sex relationships but also the full participation of gays and lesbians in the life of their monthly meetings and churches.  I first learned of IYM’s proposal to separate into two groups in an article by Stephen Angell in the June/July 2012 issue of Friends Journal. Angell outlines the timeline of the “Indiana Yearly Meeting Schism” there as well as in the Winter/Spring 2012 issue of Quaker Theology - The Impending Split in Indiana Yearly Meeting.  From my reading, it appears that differing views on homosexuality are being cloaked in questions about the authority of the Yearly Meeting over individual meetings.

I’m holding these Friends from Indiana Yearly Meeting this week as they meet to discern how God is leading them.  I hope they can, as Benigno suggested, listen to differing perspectives with the tenderness they would wish for our own.

And I hope that NPYM can do the same as we explore the nature of our relationships with the wider world of Friends. 

Breaking the Rules

Best-selling mystery author, Lee Child, urges writers to break rules.  Like the rule, “Don’t start with the weather.”  To which Child advises, “If the weather is what’s on your mind, start with it.” The weather has been on my mind.

This is the time of year in Puget Sound when it’s finally warm enough to sleep under the stars on the futon I dragged onto the porch. To eat breakfast at the card table I set up on the deck. To wear short-sleeved shirts and sandals without socks.

Spring lingered beyond most people’s patience here, with cool, rainy days all throughout June. The sun broke through just in time for the 4^th of July parade and the fireworks, followed by a week of still air warmed to the upper 70s—a heat wave for these parts.  The peas in our garden responded by lengthening and plumping within hours, requiring harvesting morning and night. The pole beans started tendrilling up the twine support my husband built. Yellow flowers dotted the tomato plants and teacup-sized yellow blossoms sprouted from the ends of the zucchinis.

Lightning off San Juan Island

Christopher Teren – Teren Photography

Several times last week, though, lightning ripped through the early evening blue sky. Thunder rumbled in the clouds like colliding bowling balls. Bucketfuls of rain and hail pelted the raspberries, tomatoes, and the clothes on the line.  Such weather is uncharacteristic here, but it brought back memories of the summer storms of my childhood in the Midwest.

A few nights ago, as my husband and I settled in after dinner to watch a new episode of Downton Abbey, lightning again tore the sky and brightened the dusk. Lights flickered once, twice. He unplugged the TV, lamps, and the computer; I lit candles. Another crackle darkened our house and all those on our road.  I snuggled under the soft hand-woven throw on the couch; he leaned back in the recliner.

We talked lazily, shifting from one subject to another like the hummingbirds flitting among the red lilies in the garden. About the kids (now grown and both living on the East coast) and where we might all rendezvous for Christmas. About how to reinforce the frame for the bird netting over the raspberries.  About putting out the crab pots for the first time this season.

The candlelight blinked and went out, the house darkened as the sun sank below the horizon, and our eyelids fluttered. Rain tap-danced on the metal roof as we headed upstairs, rummaged through drawers for headlamps and flashlights, and settled in with our books.

The next morning, the flashing red digital numbers on the electric alarm clock signaled that sometime during the night, the power returned. As quickly as spring had turned to summer, the season had shifted again with the premature arrival of morning fog. The milky drape usually doesn’t pale sunrise until August—the month we refer to as “Fogust”—but this year it’s appeared mid-July. The ferryboat’s bass horn called us to rise.

The computer is back on, we have Internet access again, and we’ve returned to following the rules of to do lists and tasks.  I don’t intend to romanticize the power outage. I know the loss of electricity can devastate businesses and put fragile people at risk. Fortunately, I haven’t heard of any severe damage from last week’s storm.  But with the weather on my mind, I’m rethinking my self-imposed rules about productivity. Might be good to sit by candlelight more often and break some more rules.

Afterthought #6

Thirty pages from the end of The Crying Tree (see 6-29-12 post), two sentences bore into me.

“It was all too sad. Fear of loss causing more fear, more loss.”

Isn’t fear of losing something or someone at the base of most of our suffering? The motivation behind many of our most hurtful actions?

When fear looms for me, far too often my first impulse is to try to take control.  Centering, and opening myself to the wisdom that I call God, is where I need to begin. 

Forgiveness Revisited

“Forgiveness is a condition in which the sin of the past is not altered, nor its inevitable consequences changed. Rather in forgiveness a fresh act is added to those of the past which restores the broken relationship and opens the way for the one who forgives and the one who is forgiven to meet and communicate deeply with each other in the present and the future.  Thus, forgiveness heals the past, though the scars remain and the consequences go on.”   ~ Douglas Steere

In 2011, I wrote about forgiveness in response to Douglas Steere’s quote and thoughts it raised during a time of Worship-Sharing at my Quaker Meeting.  That day, I focused on my response to interpersonal conflicts, disagreements, and misunderstandings. Now, after reading the novel The Crying Tree, I’m thinking again about the act of forgiveness in the face of violent crime.

The book’s author, Naseem Rakha, spoke recently at Bellingham (WA) Friends Meeting, giving some background about how she came to write The Crying Tree and what she’s learned from that process. In 1996, she was assigned by NPR to cover the first execution in 34 years of a death row inmate in Oregon.  Naseem’s research in order to write a story to be aired the day of the execution was the beginning of her examination of the death penalty. Eventually, it led her to write a novel based on the Oregon execution and others. Written with the integrity of a journalist and the literary skill of a storyteller, the book delves deep into the complexities of crime, punishment, and forgiveness.

Irene, one of the characters in The Crying Tree, adds what Douglas Steere would call a  “fresh act” when she writes letters to her son’s killer as a way to heal her pain and anger.  The reactions of others to Irene’s eventual forgiveness of him span the breadth of views about crime and punishment, giving readers insight into a wide range of perspectives.

As part of her research, Raseem talked with many people on death row as well as family members of victims.  Their experiences convinced her of the healing power of face-to-face meetings between offenders and victims.

This year, the legislature in my home state of Washington took a first step in supporting such healing by adopting a Restorative Justice bill.  Drafted with leadership from Friends Committee on Washington Public Policy, the law encourages a voluntary process of bringing together certain juvenile offenders and those harmed by their actions. Typically, theses face-to-face encounters also include others in the community, including family and support systems around the offenders and victims. The goal is for these parties to arrive at a mutually acceptable approach—a fresh act­—to encourage the offender to take responsibility for righting the wrong that has been done. 

The story of The Crying Tree is far from my personal experience, and I pray that I never have to endure the pain and sorrow of the book’s characters.  But I know that we all are affected by our culture’s values and responses to crime. Quaker faith and practice calls us to forgiveness and offers some healing alternatives. Recent issues of Friends Journal (March 2012) and Western Friend (June 2012) focused on the long history of Friends’ witness for restorative justice and some of the ways that continues today. Now, I’ve added The Crying Tree as another source for seeking the path of forgiveness.

Occupy as a Spiritual Act

http://occupyphillymedia.org/galleries

 My rural island home in Washington State couldn’t be much further—geographically or culturally­—from Manhattan’s Wall Street.  Last fall, when the first actions of Occupy Wall Street began, the movement seemed like an abstraction to me. After hearing Madeline Schaeffer’s podcast at Friend Speaks My Mind, I’m feeling more connected to this social and economic justice effort.

Fueled by the role of Wall Street in creating an economic collapse and inspired by uprisings last spring in Egypt and Tunisia, Occupy Wall Street protesters brought their call for democracy to Liberty Square in Manhattan’s Financial District on Sept. 17, 2011. Soon, Occupy groups organized across the U.S. to “protest and change the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process.” All use a consensus-based collective decision-making tool known as a "people's assembly,” that sounds much like a Quaker Meeting for Business.

Madeleine’s audio story describes Occupy efforts in Philadelphia and the influence of Quaker faith and practice on its work. I was drawn by her first words, recounting an outdoor Meeting for Worship at Dilworth Plaza at Philadelphia’s City Hall. Madeleine and other attenders spoke of the power of that worship to assert the Occupy Philadelphia site as “holy ground.”  

Madeleine believes that the Occupy Movement is revitalizing Friends’ understanding of the connection between spirituality and action and that Quakers are providing a spiritual groundedness to this movement. In Philadelphia, that spiritual grounding is evident in tangible ways. “Supporting social change for peace and justice is woven into the fabric of Friends Center,” says Patricia McBee, Executive Director at Friends Center in Philadelphia, of their involvement with Occupy Philadelphia. The Center, just two blocks from Dilworth Plaza, has put its faith into action by offering its commercial kitchen to prepare food, office equipment and services, and space to retreat and “take a breath.”

http://occupyphillymedia.org/galleries

Lucy Duncan, American Friends Service Committee Friends Liaison, coordinates a Quaker tent at Dilworth Plaza. She spoke with Madeleine of her sense that the Spirit is present in Occupy Philadelphia work and that people there are “being engaged in something much bigger than themselves.”  Michael Gagné, director of the new Envision Peace Museum in Philadelphia, believes that Occupy Philadelphia is teaching people decision-making processes that delve into conflict as part of truth-seeking and without violence. Madeleine spoke with others in the movement who look to Quakers to contribute on the front lines of occupations and direct actions to prevent them from becoming violent. As one participant put it, Quakers have tools to do this and “understand that action is a spiritual act, a transformative experience of their souls.”

Friends and others in Philadelphia are using those tools to organize the upcoming Occupy National Gathering. From June 30 to July 4, the Occupy movement will convene in the vicinity of Philadelphia’s Independence Mall for a week of direct actions, movement building, and the creation of a vision for a democratic future. On July 5, the Gathering will conclude by joining Guitarmy (guitar-playing peace activists) for a 99-mile march from Philadelphia to Wall Street. Perhaps Friend Jon Watts will be there with them singing “Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Your Life,” a song that he performed at Occupy DC (http://www.jonwatts.com/2011/faithfulness-quakers-and-the-occupy-movement/). 

I’ll be 3000 miles away from the Gathering, but I’ll be singing along.