Throughout Quaker faith, divergence from its roots has brought newer, modern audiences to Quakers and progressed with new pathways while abandoning the shared past commonalities. Yet as a splintered tradition, Quakers have begun to suffer each other as distant relatives do when dining during the holidays; a failing coordination of growth which has led instead to disunity and a lack of understanding and respect for common roots essential to creating a mutually enhancing ecosystem of faith grounded in the Light.

Convergent Friends as New Jazz Traditionalists

Whenever she said something it was well worth listening to. On online forums from Soc.religion.quaker to Facebook she was always encouraging to what Samuel Bownas had called “infant ministers.” She had the rare ability to slice through thorny Quaker issues with unexpected observation and wisdom. She had a long view of recent Quaker history that put things in context and she would pull metaphors from her training as a botanist to explain mystifying behaviors in our coreligionists.

She also had a wealth of institutional memory. There’s incredible value in this. Friends, like most humans, give a lot of value to the ways we’re doing things right now. It only takes a few years before a process feels timeless and essential. We forget that things once worked differently or that other Friends have a different methods. By being involved with Friends in different areas—Canada and Colorado—Christine brought geographic awareness and by being involved in Philadelphia so long she brought a modern historical awareness. That dysfunctional meeting everyone’s talking about? She’ll remember that everyone was talking about it thirty years ago for another controversy and point out the similarities. That doubt you’ll have about a path? Christine will tell you how others have felt the leading and assure you that it’s genuine.

She did all this with such gentleness and modesty that it’s only now that she’s gone that I’m realizing the debt I owe her. More than anything perhaps, she showed how to live a life as a Friend of integrity through the politics and foibles of our Religious Society.

I used Google to find precious gems of wisdom she left on comment threads. It’s a long trail. She was active on soc.religion.quaker back in the day, commented on most Convergent Friends blogs and was active on Facebook. She took the time to write many enlightening and warm commentary. Here is a random sample.

Comment on my post “Vision and Leadership”

Yesterday, I  clerked a small quarterly meeting working group — I’m co-clerk, since it  isn’t my quarter… and the other co-clerk is, which works well. We keep asking the questions and seeing the potentials … but when it comes down to being faithful (a term I use instead of “accountable”) that needs consistent testing. It is important to center in worship, no matter what we are doing.

I had the experience of being chair of a group of biologists, and found that, even then, I conducted business in the same way… one of seeking guidance from other members of the group — even though the group of which we were a small part used Robert’s rules of order. I felt our group was too small to make that approach workable… Occasionally, I forgot I wasn’t among Friends until another member of the group (a United Church graduate of Swarthmore College) reminded me… Church of the Brethren folks just grinned and allowed as how they preferred the approach; we were, after all, both friends and biologists.  For most of us, the work had both a scientific and a spiritual basis.

To Micah Bales’s “Is It Time to Get Rid of Yearly Meetings?”

I checked in with Friends at our Quarterly Meeting picnic yesterday; responses were mixed for a variety of reasons, some having to do with resistance to changing the ways in which we are Friends, and other responses that I can only describe as “institutional cheer-leading”.

Some of this has to do with expected tensions as we grapple with matters of both race and class; still other matters have to do with the fact that our structures have changed at least twice in 30 years, as has the outline of our faith and practice. The question I have (of myself and others) is “How do we — individually and corporately — show that we truly love one another as Christ has loved us?” By that, I mean all others.

The most hopeful exchange was speaking with a dear Friend in my former meeting who had gone for the first time in decades, and feels strongly led to encourage her meeting to assist in work going on at both the quarter and yearly meeting level; this will cross boundaries. I was hopeful in part because this Friend exudes consistent love. … and has in the 25 years I’ve known her. Love of God/neighbor are inseparable. She lives that better than I do.

It seems I have much to learn.

Comment on my “What Does it Mean to be a Quaker?” (on an old site)

I cringe when I hear the word “Quakerism” or “the Quaker Way”… I find the two terms interchangeable — both can lack substance. It seems we have finally become the “bureaucratic association of distant acquantances” rather than the Religious Society of Friends. Some years ago, an experienced Friend wrote that Integrity (saying what one means, meaning what one says) was at the heart of Quaker Practice — as a testimony.

If we’re just going for PR, that lacks integrity.

The question — for me — becomes “How can I live as a Friend?”

Comment on Eric Moon’s “Categorically Not the Testimonies”

When I first came to Friends, it was the way of life — not the intellectual construct — that drew me to meeting week after week (a university meeting in what later became Intermountain Yearly Meeting). When I applied for membership, my committee of clearness questioned more whether I could live into a way of life, into the community of that particular meeting. Friends felt that wrestling with the understanding of the faith tradition was a part of my education. Only after I moved to Philadelphia did I begin hearing of the “parsing” of the faith tradition. It seemed too pat.

Still, the overlapping categories are still as useful by way of explanation, but it isn’t the whole story.

As with many matters of faith, for those who possess it, no explanation is necessary; for those who do not, no explanation is possible. Howard Brinton did his best by way of explanation, but faith-wrestling is a task we all have.

Comment on Ashley Wilcox’s The Cost of Traveling Ministry

My question about younger Friends serving as traveling ministers is somewhat more serious: Are their meetings attentive to both the spiritual gifts and the needs (cost of travel, etc.)as well as the spiritual need for support. If not, is the Friend with a concern for travel, teaching, or any other ministry) humble enough to ask the questions Jon is asking. In my experience (as an older adult Friend)there is little communication among age groups so that gifts of ministry are fully recognized… Young Friends are often left to their own devices. It may be that lack of spiritual support that is the “last door out.”

For instance, I would not travel without the full consent of my past committee of care, all of whom know me well. They have generously supported me this year (as well as my co-leader).

What concerns me is the energy it takes (spiritual and physical), and that it most often takes an elder to attend to the mundane things — as well as to keep the minister on track.

She was also always one to think of the kids. Here she is commenting on Kathleen Karhnak-Glasby’s “Bringing Children to Worship: Trusting God to Take Over from There”

I recall one parent of a small meeting in Ontario at Canadian Yearly Meeting sessions trying to encourage his daughter to sit quietly during worship… Her very reasonable response was “but Daddy, I can pray standing on my head!” Her ministry caused me to reflect on whether I could indeed pray/worship in all circumstances, and from whatever position I was in at the time. I still reflect on that…

At another meeting, when Friends noticed the power struggles between children and their parents, we asked elder Friends to serve as “adoptive” grandparents, with whom the children could sit… That defused the power struggles, and members of meeting who had no children of their own were very helpful to parents in that meeting.

I also recall learning to sink deeply into worship — and hearing a younger Friend’s grandmother giggle. I looked down and there was the 1–2 year old peering up in wonder at why/how I could sit so quietly when he was busy crawling under the benches. it was just fine. He became a part of my prayers that day, and still is a part of them.

And this one has to be the last I’ll share, from a QuakerQuaker discussion started by Richard B Miller and titled “Elders’ Corner”

Like you, I learned about the role of elders from Conservative Friends (in Canada and Ohio).  In the context of my own meeting (and quarter), however, there are Friends who can and do serve as guides and sounding boards — offering corrections as may be required.  Ideally, elders should arise from the monthly meetings, and then be recognized in larger bodies of Friends, not necessarily being named by a yearly meeting nominating committee.

I was asked to serve as an elder for Yearly Meeting/Interim Meeting… but because I was also on the nominating committee, had a “stop” about whether that was rightly ordered. I consulted some North Carolina Friends, who agreed with the “stop”.

One difficulty that you raised is that many of the conservative Friends who held that tradition are no longer available as guides… One effect is that the role elders once played is diminishing among conservative Friends.

I’m feeling pretty broken up right now. And I’m feeling the weight of this loss. I’ve found myself more and more to be the one giving out advice and giving historical context that newer Friends might not have. It’s the kind of perch that Christine had. I’m only starting to appreciate that she formed a gentle mentoring role for me—and I’m sure for many others.

A few years ago my wife and I lost our remaining parents (her dad, my mom) and we had the unescapable recognition that we were now the oldest generation. I know there are older Friends around still and some have bits of Christine’s wit and wisdom. But one of our human guides have left us.

How many of your political positions and social attitudes could be accurately guessed by a savvy demographer who knew your date of birth,  postal code,  education and family income? I’d guess each of us are far more predictable than we’d like to think.If true,  then what role does our religious life actually play?

Religious beliefs are also a demographic category,  granted, but if they only confirm positions that could be just as actually predicted by non-spiritual data, then doesn’t that imply that we’ve simply found (or remained in) a religious community that confirms our pre-existing biases? Have we created a faith in our own image? And if true, is it really fair to justify ourselves based on appeals to Quaker values?

The “political” Quaker writings I’m finding most interesting (because they’re least predictable) are the ones that stop to ask how Quaker discernment fits into the debate. Discernment: one could easily argue that Quaker openings and tools around it are one of our greatest gifts to human spirituality.  When we build a worship community based on strict adherence to the immediate prompting of the Holy Spirit, the first question becomes figuring out what is of-God and what is not.  Is James Nayler, riding Jesus-like into Bristol, a prophet or a nut?

When we go deep into the questions,  we may find that the answers are less important than the care we take to reach them.  Waiting for one another,  holding one another’s hand in love despite differences of opinion, can be more important than being the right-answer early adopter. How do you step back from easy answers to the thorny questions? How do you poll yourself and that-of-God in yourself to open your eyes and ears for the potential of surprise?

Today Jaime Johnson tweeted out a link to a new piece by Rachel Held Evans called “The Future of Evangelicalism.” She does a nice job parsing out the differences between the two camps squaring off over Rob Bell. On the one side is a centralized movement of neo-Calvinists she calls Young, Restless, Reformed after a 2006 Christianity Today article. I have little to no interest in this crowd except for mild academic curiosity. But the other side is what she’s dubbing “the new evangelicals”:

The second group—sometimes referred to as “the new evangelicals” or “emerging evangelicals” or “the evangelical left” is significantly less organized than the first, but continues to grow at a grassroots level. As Paul Markhan wrote in an excellent essay about the phenomenon, young people who identify with this movement have grown weary of evangelicalism’s allegiance to Republican politics, are interested in pursuing social reform and social justice, believe that the gospel has as much to do with this life as the next, and are eager to be a part of inclusive, diverse, and authentic Christian communities. “Their broadening sense of social responsibility is pushing them to rethink many of the fundamental theological presuppositions characteristic of their evangelical traditions,” Markham noted.

This is the group that intrigues me. There’s a lot of cross-over here with some of what I’m seeing with Quakers. In an ideal world, the Religious Society of Friends would open its arms to this new wave of seekers, especially as they hit the limits of denominational tolerance. But in reality, many of the East Coast meetings I’m most familiar with wouldn’t know what to do with this crowd. In Philly if you’re interested in this conversation you go to Circle of Hope (previous posts), not any of the established Quaker meetings.

Evans makes some educated guesses about the future of the “new evangelical” movement. She thinks there will be more discussion about the role of the Bible, though I would say it’s more discussion fo the various Christian interpretations of it. She also foresees a loosening of labels and denominational affiliations. I’m seeing some of this happening among Friends, though it’s almost completely on the individual level, at least here on the East Coast. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out over the next few years and whether it will bypass, engage with or siphon off the Society of Friends. In the meantime, Evans’ post and the links she embeds in it are well worth exploring.

I agree with a lot of his observation. But at the same time I’m not sure what a serious examination would look like or would produce. In recent years my own yearly meeting has developed a kind of circadian rhythm of constant reorganization, tinkering with organizational charts, legislative processes design to speed up decisions, and changing times and frequencies of events hoping to attract new people. And yet, as I wrote a few weeks ago, when I went to sit in on a meeting of the governing body, I was the third or fourth youngest person in a room of about 75 Friends. It was pretty much the same group of people who were doing it ten years and multiple reforms ago, only now they are ten years older. We actually ripped through business so we can spend an hour naval-gazing about the purpose of this particular governing body and I can report it wasn’t the breath of fresh air that we might have hoped for.

A big part of the problem is we’ve forgotten why we’re doing all this. We’ve split the faith from the practice–and I don’t mean Christian vs non-Christian, but the whole kit-and-kaboodle that is the Quaker understanding of gospel order, a world view that is distinct from that of other Christian denominations. Lloyd Lee Wilson calls it the “Quaker gestalt” in Essays on the Quaker Vision of Gospel Order. When a spiritual tradition has an internal consistency, and the process and theology reinforce each other. Architecture and demeanor, cultural and business values fit together. It’s never perfect, of course, and maintaining the consistency against new influences and changing circumstances is often the source of unnecessary petty squabbling. But even something as innocuous as a meetinghouse’s bench arrangements can tell you a lot about a group’s theology and its balance towards authority and individualism.

It’s our understanding of our faith and our concept of body-of-Christ community which undergirds our institutional structures. When we don’t have a good grasp of it, we do things merely because “we’re supposed to” and the process feels dry and spirit-less. We defend particular institutions as necessary because they’re codified in our books of doctrine and lose our ability to positively explain their existence, at which point frustrated members will call for their abandonment as unnecessary baggage from a bygone age.

As an example, about seven years ago my quarterly meeting went through a naval-gazing process. I tried to be involved, as did my then-Quaker wife Julie. We asked a lot of big questions but others on the visioning committee just wanted to ask small questions. When Julie and I asked about divine guidance at sessions, for example, one fellow condescendingly explained that if we spent all our time asking what God wanted we’d never get anything done. We really didn’t know what to say to that, especially as it seemed the consensus of others in the group. One thing they were complaining about was that it was always the same few people doing anything but after a few rounds of those meetings, we ran screaming away (my wife right out of the RSoF altogether).

Re-visioning isn’t just deconstructing institutions we don’t understand or tinkering with some new process to fix the old process that doesn’t work. If you’ve got a group of people actively listening to the guidance of the Inward Christ then any process or structure probably can be made to work (though some will facilitate discernment better). Our books of “Faith and Practice” were never meant to be inerrant Bibles. At their core, they’re our “wiki” of best practices for Quaker community discernment–tips earned through the successes and failures of previous generations. I think if we understand our spiritual roots better we’ll find our musty old Quaker institutions actually still have important roles to play. But how do we get there? I like Brent’s questions but I’m not sure you can just start with them. Anyone want to share stories of spiritual deepening in their meetings or faith communities and how that fed into a renewed appreciation of Quaker bodies and process?

I was curious to return to Interim Meeting, a group I served on about half a decade ago. As I sat in the meeting, I kept seeing glimpses of issues that I planned to address afterwards in my talk: how to talk afresh about faith; how to publicize our activity and communicate both among ourselves and with the outside world; how to engage new and younger members in our work.

Turns out I didn’t get the chance. Only half a dozen or so members of Interim Meeting stuck around for my presentation. No announcement was made at the end of sessions. None of the senior staff were there and no one from the long table full of clerks, alternate clerks and alternate alternate clerks came. Eleven people were at the talk (including some who hadn’t been at Interim Meeting). The intimacy was nice but it was hardly the “take it to the estabishment” kind of event I had imagined.

The talk itself went well, despite or maybe because of its intimacy. I had asked Seth H (aka Chronicler) along for spiritual support and he wrote a nice review on QuakerQuaker. Steve T, an old friend of mine from Central Philly days, took some pictures which I’ve included here. I videoed the event, though it will need some work to tighten it down to something anyone would want to watch online. The people who attended wanted to attend and asked great questions. It was good working with Stephen Dotson again in the planning. I would wish that more Philadelphia Friends had more interest in these issues but as individuals, all we can do is lead a horse to water. In the end, the yearly meeting is in God’s hands.

Below are observations from Interim Meeting and how the Convergent Friends movement might address some of the issues raised. Let me stress that I offer these in love and in the hope that some honest talk might help. I’ve served on Interim Meeting and have given a lot of time toward PYM over the last twenty years. This list was forwarded by email to senior staff and I present them here for others who might be concerned about these dynamics.

GENERATIONAL FAIL:

There were about seventy-five people in the room for Interim Meeting sessions. I was probably the third or fourth youngest. By U.S. census definitions I’m in my eighth year of middle age, so that’s really sad. That’s two whole generations that are largely missing from PYM leadership. I know I shouldn’t be surprised; it’s not a new phenomenon. But if you had told me twenty years ago that I’d be able to walk into Interim Meeting in 2010 and still be among the youngest, well… Well, frankly I would have uttered a choice epithet and kicked the Quaker dust from my shoes (most of my friends did). I know many Friends bodies struggle with age diversity but this is particularly extreme.

WHAT I WANTED TO TELL INTERIM MEETING: About 33% of QuakerQuaker’s audience is GenX and 22% are Millenials. If Interim Meeting were as diverse as QuakerQuaker there would have been 16 YAFs (18–35 year olds) and 25 Friends 35 and 49 years of age. I would have been about the 29th youngest in the room–middle aged, just where I should be! QuakerQuaker has an age diversity that most East Coast Friends Meetings would die for. If you want to know the interests and passions of younger Friends, Quaker blogs are an excellent place to learn. There are some very different organizational and style differences at play (my post seven years ago, a post from Micah Bales this past week).

DECISION-MAKING

The first part of the sessions was run with what’s called a “Consent Agenda,” a legislative measure where multiple agenda items are approved en masse. It rests on the idealistic notion that all seventy-five attendees has come to sessions having read everything in the quarter-inch packet mailed to them (I’ll wait till you stop laughing). Interim Meeting lumped thirteen items together in this manner. I suspect most Friends left the meeting having forgotten what they had approved. Most educators would say you have to reinforce reading with live interaction but we bypassed all of that in the name of efficiency.

WHAT I WANTED TO TELL INTERIM MEETING: Quaker blogs are wonderfully rich sources of discussion. Comments are often more interesting than the original posts. Many of us have written first drafts of published articles on our blogs and then polished them with feedback received in the comments. This kind of communication feedback is powerful and doesn’t take away from live meeting-time. There’s a ton of possibilities for sharing information in a meaningful way outside of meetings.

MINUTES OF WITNESS

Two “minutes” (a kind of Quaker statement/press release) were brought to sessions. Both were vetted through a lengthy process where they were approved first by monthly and then quarterly meetings before coming before Interim Meeting. A minute on Afghanistan was nine months old, a response to a troop level announcement made last December; one against Marcellus Shale drilling in Pennsylvania was undated but it’s a topic that peaked in mainstream media five months ago. I would have more appreciation of this cumbersome process if the minutes were more “seasoned” (well-written, with care taken in the discernment behind them) but there was little in either that explained how the issue connected with Quaker faith and why we were lifting it up now as concern. A senior staffer in a small group I was part of lamented how the minutes didn’t give him much guidance as to how he might explain our concern with the news media. So here we were, approving two out-of-date, hard-to-communicate statements that many IM reps probably never read.

WHAT I WANTED TO TELL INTERIM MEETING: Blogging gives us practice in talking about spirituality. Commenters challenge us when we take rhetorical shortcuts or make assumptions or trade on stereotypes. Most Quaker bloggers would tell you they’re better writers now than when they started their blog. Spiritual writing is like a muscle which needs to be exercised. To be bluntly honest, two or three bloggers could have gotten onto Skype, opened a shared Google Doc and hammered out better statements in less than an hour. If we’re going to be approving these kinds of thing we need to practice and increase our spiritual literacy.

THE ROLE OF COMMITTEES

The second part was Interim Meeting looking at itself. We broke into small groups and asking three questions: “What is the work of Interim Meeting,” “Are we satisfied with how we do this now?” and “If we were to make changes, what would they be?.” I thought to myself that the reason I ever go to events like this is to see dear Friends and to see what sparks of life are happening in the yearly meeting. As our small group went around, and as small groups shared afterwards, I realized that many of the people in the room seemed to agree: we were hungry for the all-to-brief moments where the Spirit broke into the regimented Quaker process.

One startling testimonial came from a member of the outreach committee. She explained that her committee, like many in PYM, is an administrative one that’s not supposed to do any outreach itself–it’s all supposed to stay very “meta.” They recently decided to have a picnic with no business scheduled and there found themselves “going rogue” and talking about outreach. Her spirit rose and voice quickened as she told us how they spent hours dreaming up outreach projects. Of course the outreach committee wants to do outreach! And with state PYM is in, can we really have a dozen people sequestered away talking about talking about outreach. Shouldn’t we declare “All hands on deck!” and start doing work? It would have been time well spent to let her share their ideas for the next thirty minutes but of course we had to keep moving. She finished quickly and the excitement leaked back out of the room.

FOLLOW-UP THOUGHTS AND THE FUTURE OF THE YEARLY MEETING

Now I need to stress some things. I had some great one-on-one conversations in the breaks. A lot of people were very nice to me and gave me hugs and asked about family. These are a committed, hopeful group of people. There was a lot of faith in that room! People work hard and serve faithfully. But it feels like we’re trapped by the system we ourselves created. I wanted to share the excitement and directness of the Quaker blogging world. I wanted to share the robustness of communication techniques we’re using and the power of distributed publishing. I wanted to share the new spirit of ecumenticalism and cross-branch work that’s happening.

I’ve been visiting local Friends Meetings that have half the attendance they did ten years ago. Some have trouble breaking into the double-digits for Sunday morning worship and I’m often the youngest in the room, bringing the only small kids. I know there are a handful of thriving meetings, but I’m worried that most are going to have close their doors in the next ten to twenty years.

I had hoped to show how new communication structures, the rise of Convergent Friends and the seekers of the Emerging Church movement could signal new possibilities for Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. Toward the end of Interim Meeting, some Friends bemoaned our lack of resources and clerk Thomas Swain reminded them that with God there is no limitation and nothing is impossible. Some of the things I’m seeing online are the impossible come to life. Look at QuakerQuaker: an unstaffed online magazine running off of a $50/month budget and getting 10,000 visits a month. It’s not anything I’ve done, but this community that God has brought together and the technological infrastructure that has allowed us to coordinate so easily. It’s far from the only neat project out there and there are a lot more on the drawing boad. Some yearly meetings are engaging with these new possibilites. But mine apparently can’t even stay around for a talk.

[Thomas] Paine believed that societies exist in an “eternal now.” That something has existed for ages tells us nothing about its value. The past is dead and the living should use their powers of analysis to sweep away existing arrangements when necessary, and begin the world anew. He even suggested that laws should expire after 30 years so each new generation could begin again

[Edmund] Burke, a participant in the British Enlightenment, had a different vision of change. He believed that each generation is a small part of a long chain of history. We serve as trustees for the wisdom of the ages and are obliged to pass it down, a little improved, to our descendents. That wisdom fills the gaps in our own reason, as age-old institutions implicitly contain more wisdom than any individual could have.

For Brooks, the Paine folllowers are Tea Party activists who think it’s fine to “sweep away 100 years of history and return government to its preindustrial role.”