Eldership and Under-Running One's Guide

It's fascinating to think about the issues this raises. In many ways, blogs are very much against the traditional Quaker methods of publishing. Blogs are freewheeling, personal and often semi-anonymous. Friends, meanwhile, are traditionally advised to be cautious in how they publish. One of the major issues in the Hicksite/Orthodox split was the anonymous pamphlets that were published in the years leading up to the division.

I don't know of anyone who has a eldership committee for a blog. I appreciate the disciplinary concerns of a Conservative-leaning Friend starting a blog. I addressed the problem by coming right out and calling myself the "Quaker Ranter"--I am a Friend who is acting outside the discipline (in the manner of a Ranter) just by having a blog. I love the idea of having publications being vetted by a monthly meeting (it seems Lloyd Lee Wilson tries to do this conscientiously,) but when thinking how I could do that I kept coming to the realization that my monthly meeting doesn't have the gifts or theological underpinning to serve that function.

All this said, the immediateness of the blog format does serve a useful function: I've been moved by the British Friend Ruth Mason's argument that Quaker blogs are valuable because they give seekers insight as to how Quakerism is lived on a personal level. The olde time Meeting-sponsored Quaker journals aren't always very warm or accessible. I can't tell you how many times I put down Woolman's journal at the beginning of chapter three when he spends just one sentence! talking about getting married:

About this time, believing it good for me to settle, and thinking seriously about a companion, my heart was turned to the Lord with desires that he would give me wisdom to proceed therein agreeably to his will, and he was pleased to give me a well-inclined damsel, Sarah Ellis, to whom I was married the 18th of eighth month, 1749.

I understand nineteenth century reticence about sharing personal details, but contracting his discernment in marriage to one sentence just makes it hard for me to relate. The process of finding a spouse took up a decade of misadventures for me but the questions continue even past the courtship and marriage. Like: sure, a three month trip in the ministry sounds great, Johnny, but who's changing the diapers at home? And who's paying the mortgage during that time? It seems like personal openness is necessary if we're going to share Quakerism today.

Outrunning one's Guide can be a problem, but I think my problem has been not following my Guide faithfully enough. I've been nervous hitting the "send" button on a number of my posts, wondering if lightening wasn't going to rain down on me for being so provocative. Instead I've found people have responded surprisingly well. I've gained a certain confidence in ministry through the blog which has transferred over to the real world. If I ever write a spiritual memoir there will have to be a chapter about the events of 2003/2004 that made me despair of ever being taken seriously and how that hopelessness let me be bold enough to write the blog. This isn't the form of training Samuel Bownas outlined, but the comments and online community have helped my spiritual formation in the ministry. There's a void of eldership in the insitutions that might be expected to shape me but the void's been filled by wonderful online elders. I long for a face-to-face deepened sense of eldership and ministry and I long to not be a "Quaker Ranter" someday, but for now it seems like the place I've been guided to.