powell house Posts

Last night LizOpp, Robin M and myself hosted our FGC Gathering interest group. The title was "On Fire!: Renewing Quakerism through a Convergence of Friends." All morning long we've had Friends grabbing our arms to tell us how powerful and important it was for them. One well-traveled Friend went so far as to say the spontaneous worship that occurred halfway through was the deepest he's experienced in twenty years of Quakerism. The obvious challenge for us hosts is keeping our egos securely tamed from all this praise.

The work wasn't ours. We simply set the stage. My first impulse is to say we helped create an environment where the Spirit could break into the event, but that's not really it. We tried to create a space where participants would recognize when the Spirit knocked on the door.

Food for Fire participants. Bloggers at the workshop pose for a goofy attacking-one-another photo.

What happened last night felt similar to what happened in last February's Powell House Food for the Fire workshop. While I took notes and journaled a lot about it I never gave a followup blog post. It was powerful and I needed to digest it. Luckily participants Rob, Amanda and Zach and Claire all shared about it or its themes in the weeks afterwards.

I'd like to share something about the assumptions and preparation that went into these two events. There's no way to create a cookie-cutter agenda to force a deep spiritual high. In fact part of what's needed is to move beyond predictability. Both times I've had a clear sense that a point came when I was no longer facilitating, where Spirit was actively guiding us and participants were actively responding to that process, even eldering us past the control of facilitation.

When I came to Powell House I had a workshop description and a keen interest in the topic. What I didn't bring was an agenda. I'm trying to experiment with not being too prepared.* Early Friends held open meetings and while they often bore concerns and had themes that frequently reoccurred in their ministry. Friends today rely very much on models borrowed from higher education: we have workshops that expect agendas, we give talks that expect pre-printed speeches. These are often the opportunities we get for teaching ministries, yet they are very programmed. The challenge is to figure out how to subvert them to allow for unprogrammed surprise.

At Powell House I spent time before each session walking around the grounds in prayer for guidance on what to do next. I had brainstormed ideas beforehand but my main preparation had been a lot of Quaker reading and prayer in the weeks preceeding the event. I wanted the sessions to connect to the spiritual condition of the participants, as individuals and as a group. There were a few moments I thought I was nuts. For example, walking around before the Powell House Saturday afternoon session it seemed like reading a chapter of Samuel Bownas's Description of the Qualifications would be a good idea, but by mid-afternoon I could see the sleepy faces. We did it anyway and faces and spirit lit up. People wanted to engage with Bownas. As it turns out we read all of chapter three, "Advice to Ministers in a State of Infancy." It was so cool.

The real inbreaking happened a little later. The group was tired, dinner was nearing. I started to recommend we go into a circle to break up. One Friend interrupted, looked at another across the room and said "you have something to say, don't you." The second Friend said yes, then challenged us that we hadn't actually answered our queries at all. The main question was still on the table. "What are we called to do?" There was a release. I knew I was not in control of the workshop anymore. We came into a prayer circle and started to talk about some of this. One Friend said something about naming who it is that call us. A theme came out that it wasn't enough for us to find some sort of personal salvation and comfort in our Quaker meetings: we needed to bring all the world into this if it was to be meaningful. It truly felt like the Holy Spirit was in the room. It wasn't necessarily so comfortable and it somehow seemed like not enough, but it pointed to the work we needed to do afterwards.

Blogging participants of On Fire! workshop pose together. About fifty people total came out for the Monday night interest group. Click photo for names and links. Lots of discussions happened at the rise of the worship. The semi-impromptu post-discussion group. (Thanks for FGC's Emily for taking & posting this!) FGC Gathering photos on Flickr and Technorati

Last night, at the FGC interest group, something similar happened. Robin, Liz and I had planned out the first half of the meeting. The most important piece: coming early to sit in prayer and holding it well past the time the interest group was supposed to start. The work of Friends needs to be rooted in worship. We need to be still enough to hear the Holy Spirit. If the medium is the message, our message was about the need to not pack ourselves in with agendas. We started predicatbly enough by asking the fifty-or-so participants to give their names and to name a spiritual practice that gives them joy. We asked for space in between speakers to keep worship at the fore and we were blessed by a self-faciliating group; Friends did hold the spaces in between.

Then the three of us told our stories of starting spiritually-focused blogs and coming to find a fellowship that extended beyond our traditional Quaker branches (hence the term "Convergence of Friends"). I went first and explained that I trying to be careful not to do this to lift myself up. My story is simple and like those of many Friends. I was giving testimony. The idea of testimony rang throughout the evening. Robin's story in particular was very grounded and coming last it took us into the unprogrammed agenda-less time we had left free. Friends rose to give testimony of other "convergent" experiences, for example particpation in the Northwest Women's Theological Conferences, events of the Western branch of the Christian Friends Fellowship.

At some point a woman I didn't know stood up without being recognized and she had a pose of supplication. My first though, "oh no!" Then I noticed another Friend, worshipful in spirit, who pointed her to us. She said she was going to sing a song. "Oh no again!" I thought. But this was the facilitation coming off our shoulders. This was a Friend rising to name what we needed and another Friend pointing that we needed to go this direction. It was like the two Powell House Friends: one recognizing in the other a need to share ministry and being willing to break through "proper" group process. At the interest group the song was powerful, it brought us to a place where we could be low and thankful. We were now spontaneously in worship. Liz, Robin and I had planned some closing worship but this wasn't the time yet. But it was the time and the suceeding ministry was heartfelt and largely from the Source.

The only funny aside was that we felt we couldn't let the group go on past our 8:45 end time, for the simple reason that childcare ended then and we needed to let parents go. We mentioned this around 8:30 but twenty minutes later the worship was continuing. Just then the cellphone of the Friend giving ministry went off: it was his daughter calling to ask where he was! He turned off the phone but it gave us the excuse to close the meeting and invite an extended meeting to continue outside. This was wonderful as there were a number of other similarly-themed interest groups (one on youth ministries, the other on the World Gathering of Young Friends) and participants from all three groups met outside and continued the sharing for another two hours.

Lessons? Simply to ground workshop events in worship, let the agenda be empty enough for the Spirit to intervene (having backup exercises just in case it doesn't is fine!). I don't think this is a foolproof method. A lot depends on the participants and how willing they are to share in the faciliation and worship. A lot also depends on Friends breaking into the agenda, for both times that was what turned the event from a workshop to a gathered meeting.

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• For me the danger is a personal style that has long relied on a last-minute miracles (I was the kind of college student who read all the material through the semester but didn't actually start writing anything until the night before an assignment was due). I don't want my theology to be an excuse for my procrastination and I try to test this regularly.

Related posts:

Lots of folks have been talking about the Gathering and the Monday night interest group.

• Co-faciliator LizOpp also details some of the process of the Interest Group and of the semi-impromptu multi-generational interest group afterwards. She's also written about the visits from Freedom Friends Church.
• Co-facilitator RobinM has the first of a handful of promised posts where she emphasizes the importance of grounding and starting the session in worship.
• ChrisM describes how he couldn't sleep after the Interest Group.
• Dave T has a quick check-in and description.
• Paul L felt a real covering of the meeting halfway through the Interest Group.
• Both AJ Schwanz and Gregg Koskela have posts about a post-Gathering meet-up of some Friends around a picnic table in Oregon.

I'm sure more reaction posts are up there and I'll link to them as I find them. I suspect that in addition to being the biggest group Quaker blogger photo to date (sorry Gregg!), this will end up being the most blogged about Quaker event yet, at least till Wess gathers West Coasters together next month. I counted at least 20 Quaker bloggers at the Gathering.

Sorry for the quiet on the blog front. I've been busy, busy. My Second Month has seen an FGC committee meeting in Greensboro, the "Food for Fire" Powell House weekend and a deadline for the Gathering Advance Program. I'm sure I'll be more talkative soon, promise promise.

In the meantime, I'm online in another realm. Mia Consiglieri Joe G interviewed me for Beppepodcast #24: Martin Kelley, Quaker Blog Father (subscription here). Molto buon, il mio figlio. Bello! Bello!

In early February I'm leading a young adult workshop up at New York Yearly Meeting's Powell House. I don't have any desire to get into the "spiritual workshop circuit," but I was asked and it seemed like an opportunity to gather some interesting folks to talk about what we hunger for. The workshop is called "Food for Fire: Breaking into the Power of Quakerism" (already regretting the "breaking in" metaphor--shouldn't it be "broken in by?").

I hope that some of the extended Quaker Ranter family will be able to make it out. This could be a kind of Mid-Atlantic/New England gathering of whatever this of informal movement/network is. Because this is a workshop model I am expected to impart knowledge but while I'll come with an worked-out agenda, I'm happy to loosen and/or toss it aside if needed. The workshop description:

Many of the classic themes of Quakerism speak to the condition of a world wracked by consumerism, war, bigotry and environmental disregard. Friends have a history of uniting truth and love and turning it into action. We'll reach into the Quaker attic to dust off gospel order, plain living, traveling ministry, prophetic witness; we'll try them on and see how they fit into our experiences of the living Spirit. There will be plenty of time to share stories in small groups and together. How are our monthly meetings doing recognizing the gifts of ministry and service among younger Friends? How are Friends doing spreading the good news of the Quaker way? There is a great people to be gathered still but how can we enter into the faithfulness required? Jesus came up the fishermen and said "Come, follow me;" what would we do if we got that call? Like any programmed Quaker event the workshop is really an excuse to assemble Friends together in prayer and faithfulness to God. The most important thing we could do this weekend is build friendships: friendships of support, mutual accountability, and peer mentorship. Friends from all branches of Quakerism welcome, as are the newest of seekers.

The price is $180 for the weekend (registration form) but if that's a burden then try to get your meeting to pay--I suspect they'll be happy to see that you're showing an interest in Quakerism. I'll be driving up from South Jersey and will probably be able to pick up folks from Philly & New York. Email me if you have or need a ride from other points and I'll try to connect you with other travelers.

If you're too old or too impatient to wait for Second Month to roll around, pick up Brian Drayton's new book On Living with a Concern for Gospel Ministry and read that instead. Yes, I plugged it five days ago and yes, my paycheck comes from the publisher--but I've now now read the first chapter and it really is that good. Reading it feels like putting that soon-to-be-favorite pop album on the turntable for the first time. Where were you when you first heard Sgt Peppers? (for the YAFs in the audience: yes I'm being silly with the Beatles reference; if you remember first putting that album on a turntable in 1967 then this isn't your workshop!).

A major article by Barton Gellman and Walter Pincus in the _Washington Post_ "blows open Bush Administration lies about Iraq's nuclear program":www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39500-2003Aug9.html. The Administration set up an in-house public relations group to oversee the selling of the Iraq War to the American public. It was led by White House Chief of Staff Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., who famously told the _New York Times_ last year "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August." The misinformation campaign was extremely-well coordinated, with specific threats and wording being introduced at precisely-timed moments by various Adminstration and British officials. Named the White House Iraq Group, or WHIG, this P.R. group consistantly ignored and mocked evidence. One of the lies concerned intercepted aluminum tubes that U.S. officials said were going to build centrifuges for uranium enrichment. The Iraqis claimed that the tubes were to be used for rockets. Time and again Administration officials followed the WHIG script that the tubes "overspecified," "inappropriate" and "excessively strong" for rocket use. Now it turns out that the tubes were the exact size of an Italian rocket design, with specifications exact to the millimeter. U.S. intelligence knew the Iraqis were copying this rocket and that the tubes were probably meant to be used this way. The whole centrifuge-tube story came from a guy identified only as "Joe" who worked at the Oak Ridge nuclear facility's cetrifuge plant and spent his spare time obsession over cetrifuge tubes going to Iraq. Not connected at all with U.S. intelligence, he made up this story, which was quickly discredited by centrifuge experts, including the founder of the Oak Ridge department Joe worked at ("it would have been extremely difficult to make these tubes into centrifuges") and Department of energy experts ("they were convinced that no way in hell were these likely to be centrifuge tubes." Still, the centrifuge story fit with the WHIG script and became international headlines. One U.S. policymaker, speaking anonymously, told the _Post_ : bq. To me, just knowing what it takes to have a nuclear weapons program, he needed a lot of equipment. You can stare at the yellowcake [uranium ore] all you want. You need to convert it to gas and enrich it. That does not constitute an imminent threat, and the people who were saying that, I think, did not fully appreciate the difficulties and effort involved in producing the nuclear material and the physics package. There are many revelations in this article. Two especially show the machinations of WHIG: * Dick Cheney's assertion that the U.S. had first-hand information on Iraq's nuclear program from Saddam Hussein's son-in-law is exposed as an outright lie. * On September 7, 2002, British PM Tony Blair Blair said proof of an Iraqi nuclear threat came in a "report from the International Atomic energy Agency this morning" and Bush added: "a report came out of the . . . IAeA, that they [Iraqis] were six months away from developing a weapon. I don't know what more evidence we need." The report was seven years old and specifically referred to the Iraq's program before weapons inspections had destroyed it in the early 1990s. Friends, this is how Watergate started. The _Post_ chipped away one by one at the Nixon Administration lies until it became clear that they were part of a larger pattern of lies and cover-ups. George Bush, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice and Colin Powell have all repeatedly claimed threats they knew not to be real (one gets the impression the naturally-cautious Powell was repeatedly hoodwinked in all of this). A political misinformation campaign was run out of the West Wing by Chief of Staff Andrew Card. It consistantly mocked U.S. and British intelligence knowledge and built sandcastles out of threats it knew not to be true. On a number of occasions it just made stuff up. The U.S. war effort was led by West Wing speech writers. President Bush's reponse to all this is to "distract Middle America's potential outrage of WMD lies with gay marriage non-news":http://edition.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/07/30/bush.gay.marriage/index.html (Since when is marriage a Presidential issue? Why bring it up again when there's already federal laws against its recognition?).

The Washington Post has an interesting article on National Secuity advisor Condoleezza Rice. She's being asked the same question we've wondered about President Bush in recent months: Is Condi Rice incompent or a liar?

She's long claimed not to have seen the CIA warnings about the authenticity of the claims that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger. Yet it was her job to know everything about Iraq's nuclear aspirations and the CIA doubts were sent along to her White House office. They were even included in some blunt footnotes in an official report. It's hard to believe that Rice overlooked all this and that she wouldn't have had her aides confirm the Niger intelligence before passing it along to the President. She's too smart for that.

Last week one of her advisors Stephen J. Hadley claimed responsibility for the Niger scandal but like the former responsibility claim of the CIA's George Tenet, it felt wrong. The CIA did warn the White House and Hadley wasn't the one ultimately responsible for knowing the intelligence.

The question of "Who knew what and when" keeps going up the chain of command. Condi Rice is the next administration official to go under the microscope. Colin Powell and Dick Cheney are next. And soon enough it will be the President himself. It's almost certain that he was the one who gave the orders to fudge intelligence to implicate Iraq.

The Bean Defense... Readers might remember the field day I had a few weeks ago when US occupying forces announced they had uncovered a cache of beans. They claimed Saddam Hussein had stockpiled a few hundred bags of castor beans to use to make a biological agent called ricin. In my post US: Iraqis Planned Operation Fart and Stink I pointed out that the supposed weapons worked on the well-documented principle that beans can produce gas and indigestion--ricin just works especially well and concentrates the effect enough to kill someone in a particularly messy way.

What I didn't do was Google ricin and Iraq. Today I did and found this fascinating article that I missed at the time. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed an Iraq/ricin connection before the House International Relations Committee back in early February:

"The ricin that is bouncing around europe now originated in Iraq -- not in the part of Iraq that is under Saddam Hussein's control, but his security forces know all about it," Powell said.

european intelligence sources quickly discredited this claim, pointing out that it was obvious the european ricin was home-made and not Iraqi. The French were "stunned" that Powell would make such a obviously-wrong statement, and the British flatly stated they were "clear" that that ricin found in London wasn't produced in Iraq.

Here we have another instance of a senior US official claiming an easily-disprovable claim of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, just weeks after the now-infamous Niger/Iraq forgery appeared in the President's State of the Union address. Powell and others in the U.S. have trotted out the ricin threat repeatedly yet it's hard to make a weapon out of the stuff. It's really only ever been used for a ridiculous James Bond-like assasination in 1991, when a Bulgarian agent is supposed to have killed a dissident in London using a ricin-filled pellet fired from an umbrella tip (one is reminded of Austin Power's Dr. evil: "I'm going to place him in an easily escapable situation involving an overly elaborate and exotic death"). As one site points out The current wisdom among biological defense experts is that ricin is more likely to be used as a tool in assassinations than as a weapon of mass destruction.

There is a clear pattern of the Bush Admininstration deliberately mis-interpreting Iraqi threats to make the case for war. These are purposeful deceptions with only the thinnest escape clause to wiggle through when the lies are exposed. Colin Powell isn't stupid enough to make this kind of repeated mistake and a year of disproven ricin alerts is a mark against the Administration's integrity.