Comments on: Are Catholics More Quaker?

By: Ankur Trivedi

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By: Robin Mohr

Robin Mohr — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 14:58:51 +0000

My six year old was complaining last summer after a period when the other boy his age was away visiting his grandparents for like six weeks. Two weeks ago, he and the other boy flat out denied that they ever thought meeting for worship was boring. I don't know whether to be delighted or worried that he's lying. :) One of the problems is just the small number of other children in our Meeting. Rhetorical question: Why is it that if one other family is away, there are no other boys within five years of his age? However, my plaintive prayer/vocal ministry last summer asking what God wants me to learn from this, (ie if Lloyd Lee Wilson and others are right that God sends us everyone we need for our Meeting, why aren't there more children? or is there something I/we are missing?) was both taken as a personal criticism of the parents who didn't happen to be there that week and a sign that I was about to take my children elsewhere. Neither of which did I mean. If anything, I was mad at God. But that kind of talk wasn't really expected in our Meeting, as advanced as it usually is. I fully agree with you that Quakerism needs to be a community based religion. That's why I'm slogging away here in SF. That's why I finally started going to Quarterly and Yearly Meetings about five years ago. I think the tide is turning back towards being a more God led religion. My experience of coming to Quakerism has been different in my feeling valued and supported. As I have grown deeper, just when I think that I'm going over the line, someone else appears that offers the right book or the right task or the right forum for discussion. God's blessings right out in front of me, leading me down the Quaker path. Finally, I realized that I don't want to pursue the question of appropriate religious education with you via email. It already takes all the time and energy I have to work out these issues live and in person with the Friends in my Monthly, Quarterly and Yearly Meeting where my children attend. Peace, Robin

By: Julie DeMarchi Heiland

Julie DeMarchi Heiland — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 11:15:57 +0000

Hi Robin, A couple of things occur to me. My first thought is that if your six year old and others are saying that there is nothing there for them at the meeting, you better listen to them. There's probably something behind what they are saying, no matter how annoyingly it is framed. Does that make sense? If your six year old is ALREADY articulating that he feels a lack in his experience of Quakerism, hear him!!! The time to address this problem is now and his experience (or lack thereof) is very real. We all need and long for God--it's how He designed us--and sometimes when you hear people say things like this, that's what's behind it. Truly our hearts are restless until we rest in Him. St. Augustine was quite right about this! There is nothing truer. My next thought is that I don't think there are many of us who expect or expected Quakerism to provide some nifty and slick Young Adult Friends program to "tenderly nurture" us. Hardly. Like you, it was my view for years in Quakerism that it was largely a "do it yourself" religion (and what it lacked I had to make up for myself, or just pitch in more). But I realize now there are a couple of big holes in this assumption, even if it is largely the case. First, we don't "do it ourselves." Whether or not things get "done" is ultimately up to God. If He's not the One we're listening to to find out what needs doing and how we ought to be doing things, then certainly there are big problems. And very little that needs doing will actually get done. The second problem with this outlook on Quakerism is that traditionally, Quakerism was a much more structured religion with elders and ministers, etc. There was accountability to larger groups. There were expectations. Quakers were NOT expected to always have to go it alone and "do it yourself"--they were SUPPOSED to have the support and prayers of their meeting, their traveling companion, etc. The COMMUNITY was to act together as one body. The Quaker world is very different now. Don't get me wrong, there was never a golden age, but at least these were the going assumptions about how things were supposed to work. So, as to being "tenderly nurtured," I just wanted to cease to be INVISIBLE and to begin to be seen as an actual adult with my own measure of Light. As such, I wanted the support and prayer of my meeting (or at least a few people in it). Maybe occasionally be seen as worthy of doing something aside from serving cookies and tea. Maybe get nominated for something real (or nominated at all). Call me crazy. But I wasn't old enough and wasn't anybody's kid, so that made me a nobody. Of course, this was only one small part of what made me leave Quakerism, but the fact that I believed I would never be considered a full or visible member until I was practically 50 certainly didn't help things any...no matter what I did or how hard I tried. Or how much I prayed. And I certainly couldn't make anyone believe in God--that wasn't changing. As to developmentally appropriate RE/worship for kids, you are more than welcome to email me directly if you want to continue that discussion. But honestly I don't think we see eye to eye on this issue. A number of weeks ago a woman who looked like she was about 50 or so, someone who I've never seen before at my traditional Latin Rite Catholic church, noticed me with Theo (now 1 1/2) standing just outside the glass doors to the church, in the hallway area. I took him out for a little while because he was being a little fidgety and noisy. But we could still see and hear everything at mass from this location. She said to me something to the effect of, "Isn't there some kind of nursury or children's program for the kids?" At first I didn't understand her. What was she talking about? I said, "What?" I learned that she thought that expecting a small child under some age to stay throughout most of mass was "torture." (I believe that's the word she used.) I simply replied by saying something to the effect of, "We believe that children *should* go to mass and receive special graces by being in God's presence." I haven't seen her back at Mater Ecclesiae since. God bless, Julie

By: Robin Mohr

Robin Mohr — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 23:45:15 +0000

Where did the young Friends go to Meeting and what do they remember from religious education? This is what is missing from our Meeting — very few of us grew up Quaker and those who did are often not impressed with their religious education.
I didn’t grow up Catholic either, but if you’ll forgive the cliche, all my best friends were Catholic.
And I devour reruns of The West Wing whenever we are at my parents’ house. It may be what I miss most about not having a TV. Which I otherwise consider one of our best parenting moves.
Robin

By: Martin Kelley

Martin Kelley — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 21:00:54 +0000

Hi Robin, Whew!, glad to get this email. Yes, I thought we were on the same page and wondered about that last post. I thought it was just one of those internet things. Last night I said to Julie "I think the comment will start off with an apology" and it warms my heart to see it. It's interesting to see your own relationship with Catholicism, it certainly makes more sense of your reaction. I'm glad you're still with Quakerism despite everything (in this post and in the email you sent earlier today). I agree that the "what's in it for me" question is not the right one, it's certainly not the one that motivated Fox and Fell and Penn and Woolman, Fry and Mary Dyer. That's great that the children's religious ed is working for your Meeting, I'm jealous. This weekend I heard some really *solid* younger Friends talk about how important their religious education was to them as they grew so I know it's not all gloom and doom. Gotta go, _West Wing_ is starting (priorities priorities!).

By: Robin Mohr

Robin Mohr — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 20:06:01 +0000

Dear Julie and Martin,
Let me start with I’m sorry. For me, one of the problems with online communication is the lack of frames — my tendency is to veer back and forth between philosophical rhetoric and personal commentary and this doesn’t come across well in writing — on paper or online. The other is that it is too easy to forget about the actual people on the other end of the computer. I don’t even know you and I’m criticizing your personal parenting decisions? Never a good idea, Robin.
Perhaps I should also add my personal disclaimers: Where do I work? A Catholic scholarship program. Why not a Quaker one? Because there isn’t one on the West Coast, there are barely any Quaker schools. What am I doing to start one? Umm, not much. Occasionally I fantasize that I am doing an apprenticeship with the Catholics so I can start a Quaker Education Fund, but that seems a long ways away, so for now, I like to think that I’m supporting faith-based education on the ecumenical end of the Roman Catholic church. My last job was also raising significant money for a Catholic Church and Franciscan friary in a poor neighborhood. Is that a skill that Quakers could use? Yes. Did I get the last Quaker job I applied for? No.
I don’t want to argue the question who is more religious, Quakers or Catholics. There are committed people that I know and love in both traditions and I wonder if there are similar percentages of lapsed youth in both.
My Meeting wouldn’t have a good FDS program if it wasn’t for the mother of the first baby born in our Meeting in years. He’s 11 now. I am just following in her footsteps. But our Meeting has come a long way from when she was first asked not to breastfeed in meeting for worship. I personally avoided CRE for years because I thought it was a ghetto for women. But that’s not true in our Meeting. To the point where now the last two clerks of CRE have been men, the new one is a young single man, and a recent convert from Catholicism.
I did not mean to imply that you have not engaged with Quakerism. If I may make a small joke, if the shoe doesn’t fit, don’t wear it. But I get tired of hearing other young people say there’s nothing here for me — ranging from my six year old son to 40 year old single women. One of the great things about Quakerism is that we supposedly believe that Christ has come to teach his people himself. As you know, there were no Young Adult Friend programs for tenderly nurturing George Fox and Margaret Fell into leadership positions. Quakerism is a do-it-yourself religion in a lot of ways. I have stuck with Quakerism because I believe that this is the path God has given me to walk. A Catholic friend once asked me, if those people are so hard to work with, why do you bother? Because there isn’t another Quaker Meeting around the corner, like the Catholics seemed to have in that city, I said. This crazy group is the only one I have to work with.
I hope we could have a more leisurely and charitable discussion of developmentally appropriate religious education at another time. There is a lot of work to be done in this area, and I honestly think we share more opinions than we differ. I think I’ve said everything you wrote at one time or another.
Before this becomes a novel, I want to end by saying that I have the strong sense of having walked in late to the party, hearing something I had been thinking about at the tail end of a discussion, and having said some things so loud and inflammatory that I have alienated the very people I would have most wanted to hang out with.
I hope that we’ll meet at another party soon.
Peace,
Robin

By: Julie Heiland

Julie Heiland — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 22:09:35 +0000

Hi Robin, I'd like to address some of the points you raised, as frankly I feel as if people like me, so to speak (youngish--meaning under 30 or 40--people who are dedicated to God, and formerly to Quakerism), were severely critiqued in your post. As an aside, I should mention that most of my friends who I remain close with, who like I was, were raised Roman Catholics, remain deeply committed to their faith. They teach religious education, are Natural Family Planning educators, and are very concerned about orthodoxy in the churches that they attend. But I certainly am aware of the flakiness that exists within some parts of the Church, the poor catechism, and the flagrant disregard for God that causes people to become inactive. As far as organizing Quaker FDS along one's own principles, this is a difficult thing. First it is difficult to even HAVE a FDS in a meeting that has no children (or very few). I have traveled widely in Quakerism--in fact I attended a meeting in Northern CA for the better part of two years when I lived there. This was an exceptional meeting--ie a "large" one-- that actually did have children. But the vast majority of Friends meetings (unprogrammed ones, at least) are very small and have next to no children. Of course this is a chicken or the egg situation. Nevertheless, I do not see many adult Quakers clamoring to share their "faith" (if they have any, that is) with their children. Second, I fear that attempting to organize a FDS along one individual's principles is not something that would or should fly in a meeting anyway. I say this even though I had tried it from time to time. Third, I really wish I knew all these meetings that you know of who are wanting people to teach FDS. In a couple meetings I was involved with I offered to teach FDS and was flatly turned down. The unspoken reason, naturally, was that I was too young. In the meeting in Northern CA I mentioned, I was instead assigned to the hospitality committee to put out cookies and tea. Needless to say I declined. (I should mention one thing that really got under my craw at this meeting. The Ministry and Worship committee, which was theoretically open to anyone to attend, met only on Wednesday afternoons somewhere around 11:00. This is the type of exclusivity that I have found abounds at most meetings on some level or another. Yeah, theoretically we want your input, but in reality we're not. Passive aggressive? A little.) It seems that from a very fundamental point of view I have differences from you in outlook regarding the primary purpose of religious education for people of any age. I do not view the search for analysis, historical accuracy, and theological inquiry as the primary purposes of RE even later in life. The primary goal of RE, from my perspective, is to instill faith in God and a mature life of prayer. From these things grow the virtues, and this lays the groundwork for life in community. I say this as someone with a masters degree in religion, by the way, so I'm not opposed to the nerdly pursuits you describe. I just don't think they're what meetings or churches' religious education programs are primarily for. As to developmentally appropriate worship, I must also be blunt. I think all this "developmentally appropriate" discussion I frequently hear among Friends is mostly just an excuse. It's an excuse to keep kids out of meeting because they are squirmy and noisy. It's an excuse to lower our expectations for children, not expecting them to have a life in the Lord all their own. It's an excuse to not allow them to have a foundation in prayer that they NEED to properly UNDERSTAND the religious education we seek to provide for them. After all, if religion rightly is first and foremost experiential, it is crucial that we all experience God. I was expected to sit through mass from the time I was a baby. Nobody carted me out because it was developmentally inappropriate. And the result, from my perspective, was a healthy love for God and desire to live for Him. Nobody can convince me otherwise because I think it's crap. Finally, I'll just say--and perhaps not so politely--that I resent your implication that I and others like me failed to "engage" with Quakerism and merely go around complaining about it. I "engaged" with Quakerism for over eleven years. I was extremely involved--and, might I add, from about the age of 15. I did not leave easily or without a fight. I finally decided that God was my priority and I needed to follow Him. If this was not the intention of most Friends I ran into--especially not the meeting I was a part of for all of the eleven years, not to mention the many I was involved with in several parts of the country and elsewhere--then clearly I had to leave. I needed to return to a place where He would be honored as King of the Universe. This was hardly the case in most Quaker circles I knew. It was my experience that if God was not receiving my due attention because of the "religious" community I chose to associate with, then I had no option but to leave so that I could focus on Him. Julie

By: Martin Kelley

Martin Kelley — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 19:36:44 +0000

Hi Robin, Youch! Do we have an elder in the house or did I hit a nerve with this post? You're right, of course, we should make our stands in a thousand Monthly Meetings, blah blah blah. But you could be a bit more charitable--after all, many of us are in Meetings that barely have kids and don't have good First Day School programs. We didn't create the crisis with our ranting websites. Part of my ministry is done online because of a deep sense of alienation and powerlessless. I have served as co-clerk of my monthly meeting, as a representative to the yearly meeting governing body and on the committee trying to revision a dying quarterly meeting. I work for the largest denominational body of liberal Friends in North America and worked for two years at liberal Quakerism's most prominent publication. In my free time I run a major peace website, raise a eighteen-month old, make a wicked lattice-top apple pie and try to find moments to spend with my wife Julie. Do I have to do everything? I haven't felt led to teach much FDS but I've hardly been a slacker. Honestly, I don't want to be an outsider; I would love to be a committee Friend. But all the work I've done has run up against the same sets of problems that are not easy to crack. I would love it if our Quaker bodies supported, recognized and named prophetic ministry, but right now the only mentoring I see is through websites, informal fellowships and oddball workshops and consultations. If someone as ultra-involved and connected as I am is still feeling like an outsider, then there are serious issues we need to address. And to do that we need to listen, understand and appreciate why people are doing the work they're doing. There's a lot to be done. It's not about our meetings meeting my needs: it's about God's needs and discerning God's plans for us, which is _not_ something I've seen on most agendas. As I return to more committee work I'll be in a different place ready to engage in some of the prophetic ministry that's needed. I don't think I could have gotten there if I hadn't stepped back two years ago to see the big picture. There's a long tradition of disappearing out into the desert before beginning public ministry. It's okay Robin, really, the twenty- and thirty-something bloggers and emerging ministers are alright. We'll figure it out, partly by having these sorts of conversations. But yes, call Zach, tell him your beefs, talk about all this. We all need to talk about all this. From my emails with you I know we're all wanting the same thing. I want us to work out these frustrations in way that builds the Society of Friends we need and that God demands. PS: The personal piece is also that after marrying a good Quaker wife I found myself in a mixed marriage when she went back to the Catholic Church. She left for all the right reasons, I just have to admit. Now, any religious education has to be negotiated. Theo will hear about Quakerism, don't you fear. He'll also hear about Catholicism and Christianity and God, never Philadelphia Yearly Meeting fear.