I’m a Quaker from
South Jersey with a love of
outreach and ministry.
More bio and my contact information in my
about Martin
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MartinKelley.com, my
technology blog and freelance web services site.
Finding the Language at the FGC Gathering
The FGC Gathering is coming up in a few weeks. I'm taking the workshop on James Nayler led by David Neelon.
Regular readers will know that I have a concern that Friends have become so generic with our spiritual language that we have lost the vocabulary to talk about our faith experience. Read any random page from an old Quaker journal and you'll come across half a dozen beautifully-rich metaphors for the Divine. Early Friends knew that human language could trap the Spirit and they vigorously challenged the human institutions and creedal statements that encrusted the organized religion of their day. They responded with a kind of poetry (in fact, one of Walt Whitman's influences was Elias Hicks and an argument can be made that Hick's impossible-to-pin-down theology was a poetical response to the Quaker stand against creeds). Today most Friends deal with this mandate not with poetry but with a sanitized political correctness. We strip our discourse of any language which is too evocative and limit ourselves to increasingly tamer metaphors for the divine.
So when it came time for me to choose a Gathering workshop, I decided to take an organized approach. I picked all the theological words I could think of and cross-referenced these with the extended workshop descriptions. I then picked the workshop with the most evocative language. I realize that a methodical keyword search of the workshops is not a particularly "poetic" way to make a choice, but as I'm interested in both protest and prophecy, I thought it might be a good match. I'll let you all know!
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I know I've already commented on how I agree with your concerns about what occurs amongst us liberal Friends. I had never thought of characterizing this as seeking "lowest-common-denominator" terms to define the Divine (oh, le't just state it plainly - God), well, to please everyone (who is like us, at least :)). This is partly why I have tried to avoid the term "Inner Light" or "the Light". Here in LA, some attenders mistake this to be akin to what I would label New Age ideas about "the Universe" or the "Third-eye" kind of stuff. And, of course, none of us Friends make any effort to correct this (well, OK, sometimes I actually do explain that traditionally the INWARD Light refers to Jesus Christ).
I read the description of your chosen workshop: wow, this Friend actually has required readings, which include WHOLE books of the Bible. Someone elder him! :) It looks as if it will be at least an interesting workshop. I wonder how he might deal with those individuals who don't do the required readings (many liberal Friends take it as a badge of honor that we Friends don't brow-beat, I mean, require others to do things that they don't feel - the linchpin of all truth, it would seem - they should do).
By the way, there appeared to be some other workshops explicitly about Jesus and/or the Bible in this year's conference. I couldn't find the rebirthing or "past lives" ones though! ;)
Oh, my, I think I've just written a miny-rant.
The process for discerning my FGC workshop was slightly less technical, but perhaps roughly as time-consuming. The first step was easy -- I sifted through the program descriptions to weed out all the ones that more resembled a Landmark Forum seminar than an opportunity to experience God in our midst.
With the remaining dozen or so, I tried to balance out the potential for my own personal growth with potential for a positive contribution to my meeting community -- I received financial assistance from my Meeting to attend, so it was important to me to be able to bring something back to foster the spiritual growth of my meetings Young Adult community. So I eventually settled on something both I and Cambridge Friends Meeting (and most liberal meetings) could use -- "The Power of Early Quakerism." Though I have to admit -- the Nayler workshop was incredibly tempting!
I'm deeply anticipating this coming week, though. It will be my first FGC Gathering, so I'm trying to shed any expectations and assumptions of what it will be like. But between the sweat lodges, past lives workshops and Bible studies, I have a hunch it will be the quintessential Liberal Quaker experience.
Martin, do you think enough people could be gathered to warrant a Quaker Ranter meetup at the Gathering? :)
Hi Jeffrey,
Oh great. The book list for Deborah Haines' workshop on early Quaker power looks great. I think it will attract an interersting group, which is what makes for a good workshop. Maybe I'll drop in on that one some time during the week if the Nayler workshop gets a bit too academically rigorous.
That's funny, a Quaker Ranter meetup! Actually the Gathering has "Interest Groups" on Tuesday nights. I haven't seen the list but we could make sure to gravitate toward the same one. In the meantime, I'll be easy to find in the Gathering bookstore. Meet you soon!
Martin
Bad news: I'm not attending this or any Gathering workshop, alas! My Gathering life got a little too crazy. On the first workshop meeting day we had computer problems in the Gathering store and I spent my time troubleshooting them. Later that day Julie took ill with a 24-hour stomach virus and I spent workshop day two taking care of Theo so his mother could sleep through the morning. My Gathering is thus somewhat disjointed and I'm filling it with a lot of small fascinating conversations.
Just an update for Friends: although Jeffrey and I weren't able to communicate at Gathering, we did end up in the same Tuesday-night interest group: the one on FGC's Traveling Ministries Program (TMP). Funny, enough, there were other people there I wanted to meet and talk with. We all sensed that this was the interest group that would speak to our condition. My wife Julie visited for a few minutes at the end and said that it's attendance was a greater than the TMP interest group at Gathering a few years ago. There is definitely an increase in interest in grounded Quakerism...