Disappointment, frustration, and betrayal

March 8, 2019

From Johan Maurer:

What choic­es do we have? The most obvi­ous and most glib answer is: leave! Escape! In fact, after prayer and con­sul­ta­tion and weigh­ing options, that may end up being the best answer. 

This seems like a very ground­ed look at some of the oft-recurrent dys­func­tions in church­es. Check out the list of prob­lems. I sus­pect thet most seek­ers have run into at least a fee of these in congregations.

https://​blog​.canyoube​lieve​.me/​2​0​1​9​/​0​3​/​t​r​u​s​t​w​o​r​t​h​y​-​p​a​r​t​-​t​h​r​e​e​-​c​h​o​i​c​e​s​.​h​tml

None of us is a volunteer

April 5, 2018

Sam Barnett-Cormack is a pro­lif­ic non-theist British Friend. His lat­est post, Doing It Our­selves, has some thoughts on com­mu­ni­ty dis­cern­ment that I find interesting.

Quak­erism “done right” is not “do it your­self” in either sense… No task is done by one per­son alone; it is always the work and respon­si­bil­i­ty of the com­mu­ni­ty, though we might not always clear­ly see the sup­port and assis­tance we are giv­en. Some would say that we are “upheld in prayer,” a term that does not speak to my expe­ri­ence, but we are cer­tain­ly upheld by the love and nur­ture of our com­mu­ni­ty – unless our com­mu­ni­ty is failing.

March 28, 2018

When we say we are hold­ing some­one in the Light, it is wise to remem­ber that hold­ing is an action verb. Some­times I con­fuse inter­ces­sion prayer with plac­ing a short order to a Spir­it I treat as a per­son­al com­plaint depart­ment. “You didn’t get my order right, God…she’s even sick­er than before!” I love the way Quak­er teach­ings hum­ble me and help me work with love while wait­ing expec­tant­ly for God’s will to be done.

— Bon­nie S.  in a recent comment

March 24, 2018

When­ev­er we inter­cede in prayer we must be pre­pared for answer which places a prac­ti­cal oblig­a­tion upon us.
 — GREEN

Cornerstone Fellowship

July 28, 2009

Cornerstone FellowshipCor­ner­stone is a rel­a­tive­ly new church plant in Smithville, Atlantic Coun­ty, New Jer­sey. They’re site is a sim­ple design built in Mov­able Type using off-the-shelf tem­plates to keep the bud­get down. The most excit­ing part of the site is the pod­cast ser­mons and the abil­i­ty to ask Bible ques­tions and make prayer requests from the home­page. I’m most hap­py to see the church using the site and updat­ing it regularly!

Pas­tor Fred Schwenger also has a new local con­nec­tion: he and a part­ner have just opened Supe­ri­or Auto­mo­tive here in Ham­mon­ton at 880 S White Horse Pike! 

Vis­it: Cor​ner​stone​Fel​low​shipOn​line​.com

Call off the search parties

March 10, 2007

The retreat at the Carmelite Monastery was nice. Here’s some pic­tures, the first of those “long-remembered”:/if_i_dont_make_it_back.php tall stone walls and the rest of the beau­ti­ful chapel:
Carmelite Monastery, Philadelphia Carmelite Monastery, Philadelphia Carmelite Monastery, Philadelphia Carmelite Monastery, Philadelphia
It was a silent retreat – for us at least. There were three talks about “Tere­sa of Avila”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teresa_of_Avila giv­en by Father Tim Byer­ley, who also works with the “Col­legium Center”:http://www.collegiumcenter.org/about.php, a kind of reli­gious edu­ca­tion out­reach project for young adult Catholics in South Jer­sey (I men­tioned it “a few months ago”:https://www.quakerranter.org/teaching_quakerism_again.php as a mod­el of young adult youth out­reach that Friends might want to con­sid­er). Much of what Tere­sa has to say about prayer is uni­ver­sal and very applic­a­ble to Friends, though I have to admit I start­ed spac­ing out by around the fourth man­sion of the “Inte­ri­or Castle”:http://www.ccel.org/ccel/teresa/castle2.toc.html (I’ve nev­er been good with num­bered reli­gious steps!).
I’m in no dan­ger of fol­low­ing my wife Julie’s jour­ney from Friends to Catholi­cism, though as always I very much enjoyed being in the midst of a gath­ered group com­mit­ted to a spir­i­tu­al­i­ty. The idea of reli­gious life as self-abnegation is an impor­tant one for all Chris­tians in an age where “me-ism”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScWdek6_Ids&eurl has become the “sec­u­lar state religion”:http://www.walmart.com/ and I hope to return to it in the near future.

If I don’t make it back.…

March 9, 2007

Monastery entranceTomor­row Julie and I are going on an all-day Lenten retreat at a Carmelite Monastery on Old York Road in Philadel­phia. She’s giv­en me creedal cheat sheets in case I feel led to read along, as I have to fake it on any­thing past the The Lord’s Prayer.
The monastery has forty-foot tall stone walls all around and is locat­ed a few blocks from where I grew up (pic­ture cour­tesy the “monastery’s organ­ist’s webpage”:http://home.att.net/~lucycarroll/page5.html) and it was a place of some intrigue. When­ev­er we would dri­ve by I’d press my face against the car win­dows think­ing maybe I’d catch a glimpse of a nun swing­ing her­self over the wall in an escape attempt. Need­less to say I was­n’t brought up Catholic or even Catholic-friendly and so did­n’t real­ize how ridicu­lous this imag­in­ing of mine was. Still, I’ve prob­a­bly nev­er passed the monastery as an adult with­out tak­ing a quick peek at those walls. In twelve hours I enter them myself!
Julie’s gone on the retreat a num­ber of times (it’s usu­al­ly women-only) and has always been released to my con­nu­bial arms at end’s day. Still, just in case some­thing hap­pens, y’all know where to look! The kids are going to be with Julie’s sis­ter and their cousin and should have a good time.

A time of sadness and prayer

March 11, 2006

Sad news com­ing over the inter­net: after 100 days of cap­tiv­i­ty, Chris­t­ian Peace­mak­er Tom Fox was found dead yes­ter­day in Iraq, the sta­tus of his three com­pan­ions unknown.

The Chris­t­ian Peace­mak­er Teams issued an ele­gant and heart­felt state­ment begin­ning “In grief we trem­ble before God who wraps us with com­pas­sion.” Fox knew the risk he was tak­ing going to Iraq unarmed. But he also knew that this wit­ness  would mean more to the Iraqi peo­ple than a hun­dred tanks. He knew the war we Friends wage is the Lam­b’s War, a war won not through strength but through meek­ness, our only weapon our humilty before God and our love of neigh­bor. My prayers are with his fam­i­ly and friends, may Christ’s com­fort con­tin­ue to hold them through these aching times.
More his­to­ry and resources on my “Chris­t­ian Peace­mak­er Team Watch”:http://www.quakerquaker.org/christian_peacemaker_teams/