Comments on: Sodium-Free Friends

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By: Julie

Julie — Thu, 25 Mar 2004 17:10:20 +0000

For many years now, it seems, I've been really disgruntled about the overuse, misuse, and abuse of the word "community." The worst example of this misuse and abuse is, of course, the term "gated community." May God help us. Over the years, the term community has been used increasingly in everything from churches to tv commercials, as you note. Last Sunday Father Pasley at Mater Ecclesiae mentioned briefly in an announcement before the sermon, in relation to the various events going on at the church, (and no, I didn't have a tape recorder in my pocket so I'm paraphrasing here, but I think I'm pretty close because this has been running through my head all week), "Other churches do nothing but talk of building 'community,' especially when they don't have it. We never talk about 'community' here and we have nothing but it." (Something like that. And by the way, when he mentioned "churches," I think he meant both other Catholic churches and various Protestant denominations.) Anyway, I think he is right. Father's implication that I too have found to be true over the years is that the people who talk about "community" the most really have no idea what a real community is. The best kind of community, of course, is a group of people focused on a common goal holding important values in common, all looking to the good Lord first and foremost as source and summit of their lives. They are not feigned by the prospect of hard work, struggles, difficulties, time spent, distances traveled. Notably, people in the best kind of community don't necessarily find themselves doing things for the sake of "community," but for the sake of the kingdom of God. Those joined together in faithfulness wind up getting community as a kind of indirect side effect of their love for God--He, in turn, binds them together. Those in true community know things won't turn up rosy all the time, of course, but when something larger binds you, well, you try to deal with problems in that light.

By: Martin Kelley

Martin Kelley — Mon, 08 Mar 2004 17:58:47 +0000

Hi Kenneth, Fox isn't _that_ inscrutable, not really. If only you had quoted sentence two between one and three you would have the bridge between the sheep and lion: "But walk all honestly and uprightly; for the upright and meek in heart know God, and God delights in the upright and righteous." I don't worry about anyone who is asking the sort of questions you're posing. Once we're sitting around debating just how many paragraphs are fair, we're inside the wrestler's ring and engaged with our past. (I've had to explain to first time attenders why Kenneth stood up in Meeting to talk about a "Lamb's War" ("but I thought you Quakers are pacifists?")). What bugs me are the snippets which are extracted out to mean the complete opposite of their original meaning. There's that one about "the only way to peace being to sit still in the Light" (paraphrasing here) when the original goes to on to make clear this is the Light of condemnation and judgment of Christ who will expose us and convict us of our sins. Mainstream liberal Quakerism is doing too much skipping over the hard stuff: sin, accountability, sacrifice, darkness. Too much Hallmark & Lawrence Welk. Or Lifetime and Utne Reader. And the quotes aren't coincidence: they are selectively chosen and only the easy ones get published widely now. I wouldn't care except I think Friends and the world both really need to hear that meaningful community and simplicity comes only from a deep surrender of our wills and a submergence into a demanding community that's not afraid to stand up to the world's vanities or its member's inconsistencies. I'll describe it in different vocabulary than Fox but I think he does give us some important clues forward as a people but a lot of the good stuff is there in the hard quotes that we're mostly ignoring.

By: Kenneth

Kenneth — Fri, 05 Mar 2004 15:19:45 +0000

So Martin, what’s the offending snippet? Wondering minds want to know.
Even complete sentences don’t always add up when reading Fox, that notoriously inconsistent genius. Take the first sentence of Epistle 24:
TO all Friends every where, dwell in the truth, and walk in the love of the truth, in patience, and every one in your measure keep your habitations, and learn that good lesson of Jesus Christ, to be low and meek in heart, giving no occasion to the adversary by evil doing.
And the third:
And walking in uprighteousness, ye will be bold as lions, resisting the wicked with your spiritual weapons, not by bloody hands, as the wicked are tearing and rending the just that dwell in the truth.
Quite a range there, in just three sentences, when taken out of context.
I sometimes use a Quaker text (the length of four or five Bible passages) and the Friendly Bible Study questions with a workshop or retreat. With that, or even with quoting Scripture, I wonder what the appropriate amount is. I also wonder, when interpreting or thinking about a text, how to weight sentences or phrases in proximity against the gist of the whole.