Next Chapters for Quakerism

Just a few months away from my 61^st birthday, I’m aware of stiffness in my joints and how white is overtaking blonde in my hair.  I’ve noticed, too, how gray the heads are in my Quaker meeting, and I can’t help but worry about the future of this spiritual community.  

The latest issue of Friends Journal gives me hope, though, that there is new energy to write the next chapters for Quakerism.

In Coming Alive-Discerning the Next Chapter of Quaker Service, Christina Repoley writes of her journey to find a way “to live my Quaker faith.”  Despite her fire “to make a difference in the world” following graduation from Guilford College in 2002, she struggled—as many young, inexperienced people I know do—to find fulfilling work. She knew that earlier generations of Friends had found such support through workcamps organized by the American Friends Service Committee, but those no longer exist. While Christina discovered people in a  Catholic Worker Movement house in Philadelphia who shared her belief in the relationship between peace and justice work and faith, she still yearned for Quaker-based places to act on her desire to serve.  She noticed, too, that she wasn’t alone:  “I wondered why so many young people in my young adult age group were drifting away from the Quaker faith.”

Christina’s questions led her to conversations with Mennonite friends whose desire for faith-based, meaningful work had been met through Mennonite Voluntary Service (MVS) and Mennonite Central Committee (MCC).  Both programs offer young adults opportunities to live in community and to serve others and reminded Christina of the AFSC workcamps of the past and the Quaker Youth Pilgrimage she’d participated in as a teenager.

After ten years of listening—inwardly and to those who shared her vision—Christina found openings and help to establish a Quaker Voluntary Service (QVS) house in Atlanta.

In August 2012, QVS welcomed seven young adults for a year of living in intentional community and working with local peace and social justice organizations. A year later, QVS opened two more houses—one in Philadelphia and another in Portland, OR—and accepted twenty-one new Volunteers into the three-city QVS network.

Christina isn’t alone in her yearning to put faith into action, though, and those desires aren’t limited to young people. Gray-haired Lynn Newsom writes in Friends Journal as well about her own search in My Path to Quaker House. Thirty years after first volunteering at Quaker House, a Fayetteville, NC center that provides counseling and support to service members who are questioning the military, Lynn found herself back on the organization’s board as it searched for a new director.After contacting all the people she thought would be “perfect for the job,” she had a revelation about herself and her husband, Steve:

Suddenly it hit me. Steve and I could and should take on the position. I ran to the kitchen and announced to Steve, as he sat peacefully with his tea, that we would be perfect for the job. “What job?” he replied.

Lynn describes the many opportunities and openings she’s experienced since retiring (for a second time) as an art teacher and sharing the post at Quaker House with her husband. “There is no doubt in my mind that I was led and continue to be led on this path,” she writes.

The searches Christina and Lynn write about are examples of persisting to seek clarity about a leading and about remaining open to the ways Spirit works in our lives. Their stories suggest there are many   chapters in Quakerism yet to be written.

What are other ways Quakers can support young people who are drifting away from Quakerism?

How do you put your faith into action?

When have you felt led to action?

Afterthought #23 - Quakers on YouTube

A year after organizing what likely was the largest Clearness Committee in the history of Quakerism to discern a direction for his work, Quaker singer/songwriter Jon Watts has announced where the fruits of his labor led. In collaboration with Friends Journal, Friends General Conference (FGC), and Quaker Voluntary Service (QVS), Jon will create a Quaker-themed YouTube Channel. This brief teaser has me looking forward to Jon’s new ministry.  I expect the adjectives used to describe it are apt: Succinct. Exciting. Informative.

You can join the project’s Quaker Speak mailing list to be notified when the first videos air.  Stay tuned!

Voices of Peace and Social Justice

My remote, island community doesn’t have the best cellular service, so I have yet to acquire a smart phone; the pay-as-you-go flip phone I bought years ago for travel serves just fine for phone contact on the road.  But it doesn’t do all the things its more high-tech cousins do, so when I bought my new laptop a few years ago and those nice folks at Apple threw in an iPod Touch just for the price of sales tax (about $25.00), the offer was too good to resist.  

It didn’t take me long to begin to enjoy many of the features this device offers. It now serves as my calendar, address book, and note pad.  And I never imagined how much I’d enjoy downloading and listening to podcasts; I now have quite a library stored there including food programs, author interviews, news analysis, short stories read out loud, and comedy. 

One of my favorite podcasts is offered through Northern Spirit Radio (NSR). Since 2005, Mark Judkins Helpmeet, along with the support of Eau Claire Friends Meeting, has prepared Northern Spirit Radio’s programs to “promote world healing by broadcasting inspirational voices of peace and social justice using the language of personal story, music, and spirituality.” Though Mark is a Quaker, he talks with people from a wide range of faith perspectives on his two shows, Spirit in Action and Song of the Soul. The program’s website gives a flavor for the topics Mark and his guests tackle. Over the years I’ve had some great companions on walks as I’ve listened on my iPod to people responding deeply and intimately to Mark’s questions about the ways the Spirit is at work in their lives. 

As is true for many people who are led to spiritual work, Mark has a day job to help support his broadcasts.  A recent fundraising letter from NSR nudged me to take out my checkbook to help with those efforts.  It’s a small price to pay for some regular doses of inspiration. 

Where do you find voices of peace and social justice?

New Kids on the Literary Block

Over the past two weeks, I’ve transferred a little magazine from my backpack to nightstand to kitchen table to desktop.  Its corners are curling, and its white cover is smudged, sure signs of well-appreciated reading material. Each time I pick it up, I’m glad I’ve subscribed to this new literary magazine,  The First Day. 

Published by Jana and Mike Llewellyn of First Day Press, The First Day is a quarterly print magazine that features in-depth articles, essays, and creative writing related to the arts, culture, and faith. Although The First Day is guided by Quaker principles and values, it strives to offer stories of hope, inspiration, journey, and discovery for people of all spiritual traditions and beliefs.

The inaugural issue does just that. Its pages are full of thought-provoking essays such as Chuck Fager’s personal look at racism in “Playing the Lottery,” and Kody Gabriel Hersh’s essay, “Queer Lessons for Spiritual Life.” There’s also fiction by Elizabeth Spencer and Quaker minister J. Brent Bill, and a dozen poems.

One of the issue’s highlights for me was interviews with writers Tracy Chevalier and Amy Brill.  Both authors have written novels with Quaker women as the main characters (Chevalier’s is The Last Runaway and Brill’s is titled The Movement of Stars), and the interviewers explore with the writers the books’ spiritual themes. Another delight was reviews of two television shows, Orange Is the New Black and Breaking Bad.  Even though I haven’t watched either program, I’ve heard plenty of buzz about both and appreciated the reviewers’ examination of the moral questions the shows raise.

In her introduction to this premier issue of The First Day, Jana writes of the uncertainty she and Mike felt of whether they would receive “well-written and poignant submissions.”  It’s clear from Volume 1, Issue 1, that there are plenty of writers out there who, as Jana found, “…show the deeper truths beneath stories of personal journey.”

While this slim volume supplies reading to occupy me for many hours, I don’t have to wait for Issue 2 for more offerings like these.  I’ve also subscribed to the press’s The First Day Blog for regular online posts about a wide range of personal spiritual experiences.

Jana and Mike Llewellyn bring considerable experience in writing, editing, and publishing to this endeavor, and it shows.  As a result of the couple’s faithfulness to a call to merge faith, culture, and creativity, people of all faith traditions, as well as those seeking a spiritual home, will find a welcome refuge at The First Day.

Book Review - Staying True

As far as I’m concerned, the world could use a few more spiritual memoirs. A lot more people of faith writing about their spiritual journeys.  Fortunately, lifelong Quaker Lynn Waddington did just that during the final two years of her life. And her partner, Margaret Sorrel, labored through her own grief after Lynn’s death to bring this story to print in Staying True­—Musings of an Odd-duck Quaker Lesbian Approaching Death.

The title should be the first clue that this isn’t your average memoir. Bruce Birchard, former General Secretary of Friends General Conference, calls it “a spiritual memoir for the twenty-first century,” and I couldn’t agree more.  Lynn took her spirituality seriously (though with a great deal of humor), explored it deeply, and shared it honestly. 

For Lynn, life was about constantly discerning her true leadings, and she generously takes her readers along on that journey.  I’ve turned down the corners of many pages to be able to return to her stories and experiences that speak to me.  Here’s one example:

We are seekers, not finders. For every profound experience I’ve had, I’ve been left with deep questions.

Lynn also wrote eloquently about something that often is beyond words, that experience of the presence of the Divine. She did find the vocabulary, though, when she wrote about one day in early adolescence when she took her questions of her identity with her to a favorite spot along the Delaware River:

I felt the calm seep into me as it usually did. And then I was wrenched open. . . I realized I was trembling and crying. Sweat was running down my sides. I was seen through and through. . . . Every flaw of my being was visible, but the fear that brought was dissolved by the sweetest, most tender love I had ever known. . .This was God—who saw me uniquely and bent down to touch me alone.

In Staying True, we have not only an account of the path of Lynn’s spiritual journey through young adulthood, her professional life, her role as a parent, and her relationships, but she also invited us in to her deep seeking near the end of her life.  Although she continued to ask questions about what she was meant to do, she also shared the peace she felt from her knowledge of being held in God’s love. 

Staying True is a source of wisdom, comfort, challenge, and more than a few belly laughs as well as tears.

To find out more about Staying True, visit Plain Speech Press.

What Do We Worship?

My husband and I take a right at the driveway marked by a light blue sandwich board sign:

We enter the living room of the farmhouse where our Meeting gathers every Sunday for worship. I settle into a straight-backed chair softened with an ivory sheepskin, close my eyes, place my feet flat on the floor, rest my open palms in my lap, and breathe in and out deeply. The woodstove crackles and hisses, the electric tea kettle in the kitchen clicks off, friends shuffle in and find spots on the couch and chairs arranged in a circle. Meeting for Worship has begun.

Why, as a friend new to Quakerism recently asked, is it called Worship? She wasn’t asking how we worship, but rather, who/what it is that Quakers worship. I’ve wondered that, too, and didn’t have an immediate answer. 

The sitting in silence of an unprogrammed Quaker Meeting for Worship bears little resemblance to the liturgy, hymn singing, and communion of the Lutheran worship services I grew up in. To prepare for confirmation when I was twelve, I learned the meaning of the Lutheran order of service. Many parts of that service were designed specifically to praise and honor God.

I’m no scholar on Quakerism, but in my own study of this faith tradition, I’ve not found an explanation of how the word worship came to be used to name our coming together in silence (perhaps others reading this blog know this history and can share it with me).  I suspect that early Quakers were comfortable with use of the word that typically describes reverence and praise for a deity. But for my friend and me, and many others I know who attend Meeting for Worship, something else is going on during that hour of silence.

My North Pacific Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice describes Meeting for Worship as the heart of the life of the Religious Society of Friends, a time that “calls for us to offer ourselves, body, mind, and soul for the doing of God’s will.” William Taber suggests in Four Doors to Meeting for Worship that worship is a “…reality which has always been there from the beginning of time, waiting for us to join it… an invisible stream into which we can step at any time…communion with this invisible stream.” British Friend Ben Pink Dandelion shares a similar view in Celebrating the Quaker Way and finds worship a time “to concentrate on what is alongside us at all times…to a deeply felt but easily reached place of holy relationship.”

Those terms, communion and holy relationship, speak to me of my experience of worship, whether at the farmhouse on Sunday morning, in the rocking chair in my bedroom, or on a windswept bluff at Iceberg Point here on Lopez Island. Worship for me is a time of quieting my planning, thinking, and worrying. It’s an emptying and an opening to the Divine that I too often forget to tap into in my daily life. The outward quiet supports me to connect, or commune, with the Presence that I call God.

On Sunday mornings, as I notice soft inhalations and exhalations, hear chairs creak and feet rustle, I know that others are with me on this journey. At its best, the silence of worship deepens and we become aware that we have entered that invisible stream together, reminded that it’s always there, always ready to be stepped into. That is something to revere and praise.

Some resources on Quaker Worship:

Four Doors to Meeting for Worship, Pendle Hill Pamphlet 306, by William Taber, Pendle Hill Bookstore

Celebrating the Quaker Way by Ben Pink Dandelion, Friends General Conference Bookstore

“What If Quaker Worship Came with Instructions?” by Liz Oppenheimer,

The Good Raised Up

No Cause for Celebration - Yet

I froze when I saw the bold, large headline on the New York Times website – “Osama bin Laden Dead.” I called out to my husband and read it out loud, disbelief in my voice. As I read through the story that bin Laden had been found in Pakistan and killed by US special forces, my stomach soured.  I searched my heart for feelings of relief—relief that this man our nation has feared since long before Sept. 11, 2001could no longer wield influence. I tried to imagine how I would feel if I were a family member of someone killed in the attacks on Sept. 11, or if someone close to me had been killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Would bin Laden’s death provide them some kind of closure?

But I felt no relief, and certainly no joy. Instead, all that welled up was grief – for the nearly three thousand lives lost on Sept. 11, for the tens of thousands of lives lost in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the trillion dollars spent so far by the U.S. to end terrorism.

In the following days, as I read about celebrations around the U.S., I felt alone in my sadness. In the comfort of my rural, remote community, with no threats to my well-being, I re-examined my commitment to non-violence. Although my heartache was real, I judged my rejection of killing another human being, even one who had brought so much violence to thousands of people for decades, as naïve. Yet I couldn’t shake the darkness that I sensed as I read justification for bin Laden’s murder.

Since the news of bin Laden’s death, I’ve read, prayed, and talked with others to find clarity about my opposition to my government’s actions.  One friend recommended the site of Sojourners Magazine and its “God’s Politics Blog.” There, Jim Wallis posted some helpful queries: 

·        How do we best respond to evil and those who perpetrate it?

·        What have we learned in the last 10 years about what truly is the best answer to the violence of terrorism?

·        How do we change the conditions that have allowed terrorists to pull others into their agenda?

(For the full essay, go to http://blog.sojo.net/2011/05/02/how-should-we-respond-to-the-death-of-osama-bin-laden/).

An e-mail from the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) directed me to a discussion on their Facebook page about bin Laden’s killing. And an essay by Kathy Kelley of Voices for Creative Nonviolence (http://vcnv.org/) presented sobering facts about the people and the place our country has been fighting for ten years.  She writes in“Beyond Retaliation” –

“They live in a country where 850 children die every day, a country which the UN has termed the worst country in the world into which a child can be born, where the average life expectancy is 42 years of age. The UN says that 7.4 million Afghans live with hunger and fear of starvation, while millions more rely on food help, and one in five children die before the age of five. Each week, the U.S. taxpayers spend two billion dollars to continue the war in Afghanistan.”

I also turned to the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) to help me discern my beliefs about the actions of my government. Once again, there I found grounded, Spirit-centered wisdom as well as tools for action that strengthen my commitment to nonviolence and support to speak my truth.

Jonathan Evans, FCNL Legislative Representative, Foreign Policy, questioned why he, too, felt no joy or relief at the news of bin Laden’s assassination. He spoke my mind on the FCNL blog:

“… I believe deeply that war is not, and never has been, the answer to terrorism. My Quaker faith leads me to the conclusion that nonviolence is the only way to promote peace and justice. Jesus taught us to love our enemies. He did not teach (or ask) us to kill them. That basic teaching is as relevant today as it was two thousand years ago. In short, we are called to witness to the spirit of love that takes away the occasion for war. We are called to seek that of God in every person, even when that person perpetrates evil in the world.”

Posted on another page of the FCNL website was an action alert (http://fcnl.org/action/alert/2011/lam0502/) for those who viewed bin Laden’s murder not as a success but  “a failure of imagination and of political will that led to answering violence with more violence.” With a few clicks, I drafted messages to both of my senators and my representative, expressing my view that killing bin Laden and more violence are not the answers. With the help of FCNL, I listed alternatives to violence that I believe will promote peace:

·        begin a significant withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan

·        halt offensive operations against the Taliban

·        engage Afghan parties and Afghanistan's neighbors in negotiating peace

·        channel U.S. development aid for reconstruction through Afghan, multilateral, and other civilian humanitarian organizations.

Now, as the shock has faded, and I’ve felt buoyed by evidence of many others who mourn this act of violence, I’m starting to see the potential for changed approaches and opportunities.  Jim Wallis suggests, “The death of Osama bin Laden could be a turning point in our ability to both resist evil and seek good, to turn away from the logic of both terrorism and war, and, as the Bible says, to find the things ‘that make for peace.’” Jonathan Evans also believes in the possibility of a turning point  “…that takes us in the direction of realizing sooner rather than later two FCNL objectives: the removal of U.S. military bases and combat troops from Afghanistan; and diplomatic efforts to reach a negotiated settlement in Afghanistan. When accomplished, both will be worth celebrating.”

David R. Woolley, a Friend from Minneapolis, is already thinking of how to celebrate. According to his post at Quaker Universalist Voice, he’s promoting an idea for how Friends might turn this year’s tenth anniversary of 9/11 into “…an opportunity for honest dialog, mutual forgiveness, and reconciliation.”  Here’s what he envisions:

“9/11 this year is a Sunday. What if Quaker meetings were to pair up with mosques and hold joint worship services? What if Friends were to attend Friday prayers at a mosque, and Muslims were to attend worship at a Quaker meeting on Sunday?  It would make for a weekend of interfaith worship, fellowship, and learning, from 9-9-11 to 9-11-11…If this idea could spread beyond Quaker meetings, with HUNDREDS of partnerships forming between Friends meetings, other Christian churches, synagogues, and mosques all over America, it would be too big a story for the mainstream media to ignore. Maybe it could begin to turn the tide.”

I pray, and believe, that healing comes through nonviolent work toward justice. I’m grateful for Jonathan, Kathy, Jim, David, and many others like them who are leading the way.  Quaker Universalist Conversations

Held in the Light

Candles burn bright and long in my small community these days, even when summer asserts itself for a few more sunny hours. Many of us have turned to these flickering flames to symbolize what Quakers call “holding one another in the light.” The one we’re holding is a beloved man, husband, father, brother, teacher, mentor, friend, neighbor, storyteller, juggler, pilot, sailor, hiker whose world was turned upside down two weeks ago when a doctor told him he has a brain tumor. Now, Greg has a giant half-parentheses incision spanning the right side of his head, and he and his family and a wide circle of friends have been awaiting results of the pathology report.

Two days before Greg’s surgery, our Quaker meeting gathered around him and his wife, Nancy, for worship with an intention to “hold them in the light.” Marcelle Martin writes in the Pendle Hill pamphlet, Holding One Another in the Light, that this is the term Friends use for intercessory prayer—prayer for another person—and that it comes in many forms. “It may involve lifting up specific requests on behalf of someone else, or simply joining with God’s constant love for that person. It can be done when we are alone or with others,” she explains.

On that Sunday, about forty of us gathered. Our clerk lit five candles (one for Greg, his wife, and their three daughters). Out of the silence of worship we expressed our love for Greg and his family; our appreciation for his surgeon and other caregivers; and our hopes for healing, courage, strength, and Greg’s vision that what the doctor would find was a glob of blue jello and marshmallows. Two days later, another group of us met at Greg’s home at the hour he went into surgery at a hospital 100 miles away. Again, we lit candles and spoke aloud our requests that Greg be well cared for and that his tumor be released.

For the past two weeks, I’ve been holding, praying, pleading, and questioning almost constantly. I’ve lit and re-lit candles on my desk and the kitchen table, in the living room, and in the meditation corner in my bedroom. This candle lighting is such a tangible act for something I don’t understand.

Throughout my childhood and early adulthood, I prayed to the God of the Bible stories I read in Sunday school. God was an all-knowing, all-powerful man who, I believed, listened to my every word and might just do or give as I asked. As I matured and my faith at times wavered, but mostly deepened, my mental picture of God became less human-like. Now I experience God as a presence, mystery, an essence of love and wisdom far beyond my human comprehension and constructs.

So when I hold Greg and his family in the light; when I pray for healing, strength, and courage for him; to whom or what am I praying? I no longer believe there is a Great Listening Ear hearing my cries for peace, justice, and restoration of the earth. I don’t picture a white-bearded man nodding thoughtfully or shaking his head in response to my requests (though that doesn’t stop me from chanting silently in my airplane seat during take-off and landing, “Please, please, please keep us safe”). And yet I believe in miracles. And I believe there is a mystical power that receives and responds to my outpourings of love, fear, rage, and hope. A presence that hears my desire to serve and be light in the world. A force that guides my actions when I open myself to its cues and signals.

Earlier this week, Greg wrote on his Caring Bridge website of his anger about this threat to the hopes and dreams he had for the future. He’s mad and asking why this is happening at a time he was looking forward to retirement from a teaching career, just as he was anticipating alternative work, new adventures, and telling the stories he’s collected over 61 years to future grandchildren. That anger and those questions are understandable, seem healthy and right. And I suspect God, that great lover of life and joy and peace, is asking them, too.

Yesterday, Greg got a phone call from his doctor that the cancer cells he cut out of my friend’s brain are stage 4 glioblastoma. Greg has a difficult road ahead living with this tenacious cancer. I don’t know who or what has heard my prayers for a tumor that responds well to radiation or chemotherapy. It’s tempting to believe my prayers were ignored. But as heavy as my heart is today, I know that Greg, and his family, and all of us are being held by an ever-present love and power. And I continue to light candles.

Blogging journey update – One of the finest uses of blogs is Caring Bridge (www.caringbridge.org), a site to help people “stay connected with loved ones during a significant health challenge.” Or as we Quakers say, it’s a way to hold someone in the light – electronically!

Comments on my last post led to a bit of dialogue and connection to other Quaker bloggers finding their way with this spiritual discipline; I don’t think these exchanges would have happened without this technology.

On the Way to Blog, Life Happened

Three months ago, when I began this blog, I committed to posting once a week. Now it’s been over three weeks since my last entry, and I’m writing today primarily out of honoring what I had said I would do (thank you to one of my followers for gently holding me accountable to this intention) rather than from a clear sense of having anything to share, of ministering.

Since August 11, I’ve spent little time in worship. That day, I journaled:

“August – the month every year when, if possible, life here speeds up. More gatherings, more guests, more food from the garden to process, more sunshine pulling me outdoors, more, more, more.

And this morning, fog drapes its shroud over everything except what’s just a few feet in front of me. I hear the ferry’s foghorn out in the bay, reminding me it, and the world, are out there. For now, my focus is trained on what is at hand.”

What was at hand was saying farewell to my son as he relocated to Washington, DC; preparation for being away from home for five days for an intensive writing workshop followed by a short return home for a friend’s 60^th birthday party; and re-packing my suitcase for five days in New York visiting my daughter. Now I’m back home, hosting long-time friends here for a few days, then one last get-away before the school schedule resumes for my husband and me (his as a sign language interpreter at a high school and mine as a school nurse).

These have been rich times, filled with stimulating lectures and conversations about writing; celebrating with friends; sharing in my adult children’s lives. In all of that richness, I spent little time in my usual disciplines of prayer, quiet, and journaling. My openness to the Spirit has come in short spurts, often in the midst of getting ready for days so unlike my usual routine I felt as though I was putting my shoes on the wrong feet.

I yearn for my spiritual practice to be more constant through life’s ebbs and flows. I’m aware that I too readily let my disciplines slide when I’m busy, and those likely are the times I need them most.

I have much to ponder right now.

The writing workshop was a beginning exploration of whether I’m being led to enroll in a graduate program in writing. In the coming months I’ll be discerning (hopefully with the help of a clearness committee) if that’s the way to strengthen my ministry of writing.

While I was visiting my daughter, the husband of the friend whose birthday I celebrated two weeks ago was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and he’ll have surgery next week. He’s a beloved teacher and leader in my small community, and his unexpected health crisis, like the August morning fog, has draped us all in sadness. As I re-read those words, I’m struck by the constant challenge in life both to plan for the future and to live in the present.

I don’t know if sharing my journey through this blog or other writing I do ministers to anyone else. I do know writing is one way I open myself to the Spirit. My pledge to blog regularly nudges me to slow down in these busy and emotional times and ground myself in God’s presence.

No Assumptions

This year’s Pacific Northwest Quaker Women’s Theology Conference, the eighth such gathering of women from various branches of Quakerism, carried me several steps further on the path of letting go of the assumptions that distance me from the rich diversity within the Society of Friends. The epistle from the conference (follows this post) expresses well the collective experience of the sixty women who worshipped, discussed, sang, and prayed with a focus on the theme, “Walk With Me: Mentors, Elders, and Friends.” Through my writing, I’m exploring what the conference meant for me.

My introduction to Quakerism nearly thirty years ago was through the unprogrammed tradition. Like so many other convinced Friends, quite soon after attending my first meeting for worship, I had a sense of having found my spiritual home. And, just like many Quakers I’ve met, I was a refugee from a church (Missouri Synod Lutheran for me) that I felt couldn’t tolerate my questions and beliefs about God and faith. For me, the Religious Society of Friends was a place that not only tolerated, but also encouraged my seeking to understand my own spiritual path. A community that didn’t claim to have all the answers and that didn’t require that I adhere to a prescribed set of beliefs “spoke to my condition.” When I discovered there were evangelical Friends with churches and ministers and missionaries, I was surprised. For years I assumed that branch of Quakerism didn’t have anything to do with me or my faith journey.

Slowly, I began to open myself to the possibility that, despite differing forms of worship and beliefs, there was much common ground among these varieties of Friends. Not long after my son participated in the Quaker Youth Pilgrimage in 1998, I started to hear about a group of women from Friends churches and meetings in Portland, OR who were getting together regularly to bridge the differences among them (their history is told eloquently in Pendle Hill Pamphlet #323, “An Experiment in Faith – Quaker Women Transcending Differences,” by Margery Post Abbott). When I learned they had expanded the conversation among women throughout the Pacific Northwest through a Quaker Women’s Theology Conference, I was intrigued, but intimidated. What did I know about theology? I was still brimming with questions about God, Jesus, Spirit, faith, and what I was called to do in life. I assumed that the women who went to this conference had all of the answers and that those from the evangelical branch would try to impose their beliefs on me. But I remained intrigued and grew in openness to the experience as I watched trusted women F/friends venture into this experiment.

Finally, in 2004, I mustered the courage to attend the conference and felt welcomed into a community of faithful, seeking women. I served on the planning committee for the 2006 conference; missed the conference in 2008 due to schedule conflicts; and returned for this year’s gathering June 16-20 (http://pnwquakerwomen.org/wordpress/). At each conference I’ve found a safe haven to explore my own beliefs and to learn from others as they explore theirs. I’ve been especially drawn to the conference’s use of narrative theology, that is, personal stories of faith expressed in reflection papers that participants share with each other, as a way to integrate our experiences and our understanding. Much of my own narrative theology revolves around finding the vocabulary to describe my faith experience; it’s through wrestling with words that I become more clear about what I believe. The conference is a place I can see how some of this faith vocabulary—God, Jesus, calling, ministry, mystery, Spirit—feels on my tongue and reverberates in my ears. The conference is a place I let go of my assumptions of what those words mean to others and where I trust people let go of assumptions of what those words mean to me.

This year, in particular, it didn’t matter to me which tradition the women I met are from, and I didn’t feel a need to name my affiliation when I met someone new. What did matter, and what nourished me, were the many opportunities we had to share the variety of ways in which we experience the presence of God in our lives.

Epistle - Pacific Northwest Quaker Women's Theology Conference

To our Quaker family,

Surrounded by the waters and wildlife of Hood Canal and the snowy peaks of the Olympic Mountains, sixty women gathered in Seabeck, Washington from June 16-20, 2010 for the eighth Pacific Northwest Quaker Women’s Theology Conference. Begun fifteen years ago to promote dialogue and build relationships among different Quaker traditions, this conference continues to be deeply Spirit led and enriches the lives of women who attend.

Though we represent different backgrounds and branches of Quakerism, the lines between these seemed very thin and blurred. No one avoided talking about her home meeting or church, but our membership didn’t have as much weight as our personal experiences shared in love. Even as we attempted to be open and accepting, at times we mis-stepped and unintentionally hurt each other. Many of us felt broken open and left this conference changed.

Through reflection papers we wrote, plenary sessions, home groups, and discussion, we each connected personally with the theme, “Walk With Me: Mentors, Elders, and Friends.” Each plenary brought us back again and again to the awareness of the need for support and mentorship in our lives. We identified places in which we are being accompanied and are accompanying others and places where we feel the absence of that loving presence. Many of us made commitments to seek those relationships in our meetings, churches and beyond.

Despite colds, more serious illnesses and concerns for the health of loved ones, we drew strength, support, and encouragement from one another. Many think of the Women’s Conference as a reunion and newcomers found they were welcomed into the family with open arms.

In keeping with the testimony of community, we opened ourselves to another group, Interplay, also staying at the conference center. We described the kind of work that we each came to do, invited them to join us in worship, and likewise were invited to experience their ministry and we shared grace together before meals.

We celebrated the gifts of many through plenaries, workshops, singing and readings by several published authors. During one plenary session, several young adults shared personal experiences of their ministries in relation to the theme of the conference. We were thrilled to hear stories of women being supported and held sacredly in their ministry. However, we were deeply saddened to learn that some are not empowered or recognized in their ministries. We were thus reminded of the reality of sexism in the Society of Friends. Encircling the young adult women, we joined together in heartfelt prayer and were moved by its healing and supportive power. This experience deepened our worship and fellowship together. We challenged ourselves to be aware of internalized sexism, as well as the sexism in our churches and meetings, and to work toward true equality.

During business meeting on Saturday, we reaffirmed the work of this body of women and our leading to continue meeting together as an intra-faith group. We look forward to the next opportunity to join in fellowship.

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Blogging experiment update – One woman led a workshop at the conference about blogging, and of course I signed up. I learned a few more “tech-y” things like how to find out how many people visit my blog, and another woman helped me set it up through Google Analytics. I got there by “googling” Google Analytics, and my friend prompted me about how to set it up for my blog; I don’t know how well I would have done on my own, but I think it’s fairly self-explanatory. Now I can monitor how many people visit my blog whether they comment or not. I’m not sure what that will tell me, but I’m curious.