In America today our sense of spiritual fellowship in Liberal meetings, the feeling of belonging to the same tribe, is diminishing. We no longer live in the same communities, and we come from diverse faith traditions. Our cultural values are no longer entwined at the roots, as were those of our founders. As a body we share less genetic and cultural memory of what it means to be Quakers. Different viewpoints often prevent us from looking in the same direction to find a point of convergence. We hold beliefs ranging from Buddhism to non-theism to Christianity, or we may simply be ethical humanists. Just imagine a mixture of wild seeds cast into a single plot of land, producing a profusion of color. A wide variety of plants all blooming together symbolize our present condition in the Religious Society of Friends. Discerning which is a wildflower and which is a weed is not easy. We are living a great experiment of religious diversity.
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Yes, I think the tradition can be called in to nurture our faithfulness, and hugely valuable on those occasions. I know I have learned a lot from those few occasions where I have heard that done, in Britain Yearly Meeting’s annual sessions a while back.
My current learning is something about that teaching ministry requring a lot of maturity on the part of a minister. Lots of the people I’ve encountered who value and learn from our tradition, go through years of feeling defensive and annoyed about how little other Friends value the tradition in liberal Quaker circles. I think when a contribution comes from that spirit of criticism it’s hard for anyone else to take it in. But perhaps when we have grown through that stage into spiritual maturity, we can offer ministry by serving the need of the meeting to remember and learn from our rich heritage with an open heart and an open hand, and then it is fruitful because it is blessed by the holy spirit.
It occurs to me this morning — because liberal friends are so focused on the momentary experience, I wonder if that can make them more sensitive to the spirit from which a contribution comes? That discernment to ‘listen for where the words come from’ is about the only part of the tradition that was taught at all when I began attending MFW for business. Even then it has taken me the better part of fifteen years to understand what that meant, but I know I am a slow learner in some ways.
I’m thinking aloud here (usually dangerous in public!), but if that is the case — the heightened sensitivity to the spirit which the contributions come from, but without other elements of the traditional discernment toolkit — it makes sense of what I have witnessed — something like an allergic reaction — and I think what was being reacted to was mis-use of vocal contributions as a pulpit to press their own agenda. That can prevents the good stuff from the tradition being taken in because of a lack of maturity in the minister — no-one likes to be told off, or talked down to, and the former context of collective church discipline that might allow folks to respond creatively to lovingly-intended criticism might be entirely missing.
I am reflecting on this stuff as it seems I am moving towards peace and humility about the discouraging experiences I had in one meeting I tried to attend where I felt ignored, patronized, and ridiculed by turns. I thought I was being faithful and humble but I am beginning to be able to see that sometimes I was coming from a place of criticism and that it was perhaps not the holy spirit moving me. It is not the same as the experiences I am having now where if I am preaching, it is because I feel a divine light is shining brightly, and if I am able to and feel instructed to, I speak from the power of that living presence.
When ministry comes from the holy spirit I think there is an unmistakable flavour to it, the fruits we read of in Galatians 5 are brought forth from deep roots drinking from that living water. When the tradition comes alive in us, we become able to feed Jesus’s sheep. Sufficient maturity on my part shows me those reactions of Friends last decade as simple ignorance and bewilderment — they hadn’t the spiritual maturity to nurture me in my stumbling steps. Thank goodness it is God’s vine I am grafted onto, and not the human ‘Quakers’: perhaps experience of finding none to help us is a perennial part of developing a Quaker spirituality.
I hope someone with your keen eye for “what is really going on” is present to bless the next MfW for church affairs that I get to. That kind of teaching ministry can be the bread of life to meetings. I am learning that my focus has to be on whether it is the creator of the bread of life, the maker of the well of living water, who is prompting the teaching, and to do my best so what I say comes from the loving power of that spirit.
I wonder if Meetings can become an experience purely of intersubjectivity where we are tuned into each other and synchronize our emotions and thinking. Unconscious and conscious values guide gatherings in silence especially where people are empathetic and caring. When people meet open to God as an objective reality and beyond our understanding and within the paradoxical nature of. The Christian faith and where there is an immersion in the Scriptures and shared language then I believe there is a very different experience and we are spoken to from beyond this gathering. Maybe it’s like a telescope that can be turned to the ground or to the stars. Of course God is at work but a shared language and frame deepens the experience. I first came to worship at a time when my faith was rusty and the gap between head and heart a gaping chasm. I desired simply to find a simple human experience in a place without judgement, creed and certainty. I found myself in a meeting with a diversity of views but that unassuming Quaker sense of being open to the questions and to truth. In that setting meeting for me was a purging a painful yet supportive place to be held in unconditional love. What am I suggesting, maybe both my ideas may lack the sense that Grace is abounding yet with a sense of prayerful focus on the Light there is that deeper more transformative dimension.