Comments on: Youth Ministry, Yearly Meeting Style

By: Rich Accetta-Evans

Rich Accetta-Evans — Wed, 23 Mar 2005 14:09:35 +0000

This whole thread is extremely important and I don’t feel up to making a substantial contribution today. However, I have just enough time and energy to point out something I have always found curious in the description Amanda quotes from the Gospel of Mark about how Jesus got no respect in his hometown.
Mark writes “And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them.”
My comment: oh, is that all? Imagine what he could have done if they had faith in him!

By: Amanda

Amanda — Tue, 22 Mar 2005 15:50:38 +0000

I know you were kidding about the debts…but be careful not to think of it that way! Yikes!
I will look at the books when I go home and post the info for you.

By: Robin Mohr

Robin Mohr — Tue, 22 Mar 2005 12:27:30 +0000

Dear Amanda,
Could you please send me the actual names of the two books you mentioned? I am in need of even boring accounts of how my spiritual ancestors managed this. I think the system you described of Friends actually serving in each others’ homes was much more common, even among non-Friends, in those days.
However, in my own life, during both my difficult pregnancies, Friends came and did our laundry, mopped our kitchen floor, loaned us their cars and their books, cheered up my poor suffering husband, etc., etc. It made all the difference. I may never be able to leave San Francisco Meeting because it will take a long time to repay our debts.
Peace,
Robin

By: Amanda

Amanda — Tue, 22 Mar 2005 10:22:32 +0000

Martin: Two things to address... I wish the old Quaker journals talked about the juggle a bit more. I suspect one parent stayed home a lot. And traveling ministry wasn't constant. Maybe it picked up again when the kids got to a certain age. Maybe someone's researched this but I never see this sort of discussion in the journals. I am reading an excruciatingly boring book about Margaret Fell right now, which is mostly based on the account books they gave listing the amounts of saddle soap, straight pins, and stockings they bought at the Hall in any given year. However, there is mention of this problem, particularly in view of the long imprisonments suffered for Quakerism at the time. I'm also reading another book, Peculiar Power, about a woman preacher named Susannah Somebody (it's also very boring and I can't remember her last name) but it also talks about this. The difference, it breaks my heart to say, is in community. They did leave their families, in the Power of the Spirit, and trusted (with good reason) that God was going to hold both them and their family up while they sought His will. People were constantly living in each other's houses. Young unmarried Quaker women served as governesses to families whose mothers and fathers were away preaching. Children were entrusted to Friends and taken into their families for days, weeks, months at a time. The Fell daughters all took turns running the household AND THE BUSINESS while the heads of the house were away. In fact they were the first women ever recorded in England having part ownership and overseership in a Quarry. But that's off topic. The also took care of the young Fell children, and their nieces, nephews, and the children on prominent travelling ministers, some of them couples. The point is, there were people to step in and keep the mundane things going when God's Work was calling. This safety net and protective framework doesn't exist anymore. A lot of this is not so much Quakerism's fault as Society's (ah geeze, now I sound like my mom) - but where are the extended families? Who would take care of your children for eight months while you WALKED to Ireland? Then again, though the "village" model helped, now that I think of it, many Friends from all over the country, who didn't know each other before Quakerism supported each other in this way. My strongest leading these days is to try and find some way to weave a new version of these safety nets, since the old ones have all rotted away. Can't do it alone. Pray for me. Also this, which struck near the heart for me: It has occurred to me that my Quaker experience is eerily like my pre-Julie romantic life, which had too many relationships where I really wasn't appreciated, where I put much more in than I ever got out. I long ago identified a personal tendency to give unearned loyalty. I have this personality trait, too, so strongly it's nearly ruined my life. But I've realized that the appreciation and feedback and love and "pay" almost never comes from the place you expect or want it. You probably won't even get to see much of it in your lifetime. And that's really hard to get over. Sometimes it does mean moving away from the relationship. But if you continue the metaphor, as metaphor and not too literally, think of this... Sometimes what you are stepping away from most when you leave any relationship are your hopes and expectations and investment in that relationship. When I had to leave my husband, I found that even harder than leaving the relationship was leaving my dreams for what our relationship could be. In the end, leaving these dreams was actually emotionally and spiritually much more important that leaving the relationship. That's what freed me and allowed me to grow into true relationsips. Caveat - I left the man because he was doing actual harm to me. If you find Quakerism is doing actual harm to you, you need to leave. If it's your hopes, expectations and investment that are doing you harm, you only need to leave those. "Only". Heh. God asks us to give up such hard things. I gave up so much and didn't start squealing until He asked me to give up my hopes, dreams, expectations, and investments in my relationship with Him and His Church (however that is defined.) Then I cried. I'm still in the middle of wrestling this, and it is very hard. Pray for me. This also should remind the rest of us to keep expressing our gratitude and joy when we feel it. How many times do I read an inspired or moving post in a blog, and I'm just too lazy to frame a response post or an e-mail? Jeff once quoted this to me when I we feeling heartbroken over my family's rejection of my message of peace, and it made me feel better. I guess Even Jesus' misery loves company. "He left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. On the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, 'Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?' And they took offense at him. Then Jesus said to them, 'Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.' And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief." (Mark 6:1-6) Ask him about his meditation on this. Love, Amanda

By: Robin Mohr

Robin Mohr — Tue, 22 Mar 2005 01:05:04 +0000

Loyalty is such a funny concept these days. Just like so many of us have been convinced on the way in to Quakerism, I suppose we could all be convinced on the way out. Marriage (in our culture) too has become an institution that we can opt in and opt out at will. Patriotism has become an all or nothing proposition.
However, there is another way. A popular expression is that God loves us just the way we are and too much to let us stay this way. In the recent Pendle Hill pamphlet, “Members One of Another”, there’s a much longer and better exploration of this metaphor, comparing our relationships with God and our Meetings with the unconditional love of parents for a newborn versus the much more challenging love of parents for a toddler. I feel both ways about my Meeting and the wider RSoF. And I believe they (and God) feel that way about me, at least the ones that know me.
Was thee faithful? Did thee yield? These questions are not to be posed to folks on the way out but as we travel along the way together.
My own experience is of going to Pacific YM for the first time in 2000, at age 32, after attending Meetings in NY, MD/DC & CA for about nine years before that. At one of the plenaries, I rose to say something critical of the fact that the Ministry and Oversight report on the State of the Yearly Meeting had not mentioned the existence of children or young people. By the end of the week, I had been appointed to the Sub!committee on the Religious Education of Children. I don’t think this actually reflects very much on my personal qualifications. It reflects much more on the low esteem in which that committee is held. Oooh — a two-fer — a young Friend and someone who would actually be willing to serve on that committee! Any strong opinions I might have expressed about peace and social order would not have gotten me appointed to that august committee. So Martin, you see, you’ve been knocking on the doors of the sacred cows. (Just to mix a few more metaphors.) If you’d choose a less important topic, the doors might be much more open.
Sarcasm probably doesn’t come across well on the Internet any more than it does in meeting for business. So I’ll try to be more plain speaking here. I am not spending any time wondering if I should leave the RSoF. God led me to Friends when I needed a worshipping community. I wonder sometimes why God lets us set up such human and imperfect institutions in God’s name. But I’m having fun. I’m being challenged to live a more faithful life, right here in this blog and in my Meeting.
One of my favorite poems is
The snail does the Holy
Will of God slowly.
–GK Chesterton, from In Every Tiny Grain of Sand, ed. Reeve Lindbergh. (sorry, I don’t know how to make a link)
Same goes for Friends.
Peace,
Robin

By: Joe G.

Joe G. — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 23:58:47 +0000

Martin writes:
I suspect this isn’t about Quakerism but about Baby Boomerism. The current Quaker leadership is part of a generation that’s always been catered to, that thinks it’s eternally young and that has a really hard time noticing when the times have changed. I think a big underlying reason why FGC is suddenly interested in youth ministry is that its leadership is realizing its mortality. For the last fifteen years they’ve been leading without any concern that they wouldn’t be around forever…There’s been little mentoring, no sowing of seeds.
I’m afraid that this is pretty accurate. I was the youngest of a family of Boomers. Despite my pointing fingers at my older sibs, I’ve often found that I am very much like they are. There is a tendency amongst us Boomers to always refer everything back to ourselves…kind of like I just did with the my first few sentences in this post. I’m not kidding! A “generation”-specific weakness, I suppose.
I think the interest in “youth ministry” is also the fact that many of these Boomers now have children in that age range so…Of course, one can’t fault a parent wanting good things for his/her children, but it still can come across as self-serving (again) given the previous history of things…
Marting continues:
Joe, stop asking these questions! I don’t want to think about that! I have wondered the same thing, of course…How do you always seem to know the questions that will make me squirm?
Because I’m your doppleganger, remember? Plus, I have a close relationship with Lily, I mean, the Spirit so… 🙂
Honestly, I’m not sure why although I suspect that Quakerism might draw similar temperment types that, in an odd way, have similar “issues”.

By: Julie DeMarchi Heiland

Julie DeMarchi Heiland — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 21:47:02 +0000

Dear Kenneth,
Thanks for the post. You made me laugh out loud (esp the section about family), and not feel so crazy!
Dear Martin,
Glad to hear that things HAVE to change institutionally within Quakerism by the time you’re nearing retirement. Yikes! Hee hee hee. Do I detect a little sarcasm?
Love,
Julie

By: Kenneth

Kenneth — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 19:58:36 +0000

Hi Julie, While of course I'm sorry for the facts recited, I was so glad to read of your experiences. There are a couple of big differences that you point out that I agree were central to our different experiences: I'm male. It's a sin that it makes a difference. (It makes a difference, too, with the Unitarian Universalists. [where I'm working now]) (Who are also struggling with "youth ministry.") In addition to the different decade, I came to Friends old enough that I was able to enter directly into the "adult" track even though I could have entered the "young Friends" track. You were given no such opportunity and then had to attempt to get out of the "youth" ghetto. I have a f/Friend here in Boston who couldn't stay in the meeting she grew up in because they wouldn't allow her to grow up. I just missed the mythic World Gathering of Young Friends in 1985, and most of the people who went to it are ten years older than I, or more. I think there have been two more gatherings, and yet another is on the way this summer. In 1991, when I could have gone to a Young Friends gathering after the World Conference, I didn't because, well, I was at the World Conference! It just never occured to me to go to it. And I felt guilty as I neared 40 when I approached Friends Institute for a grant one time. --But that's for YOUNG Friends, I thought. Ha! Now I'd be fascinated to attend a Young Friends Gathering, but that's partially just middle age speaking. I'd love to be the kind of 70-year-old who could successfully go in solidarity, as Tom Bodine did in 1985. (I have no idea how old he actually was. Probably not 70.) And ah, family culture. Among Friends I feel like I'm with my people. I grew up in a nonreligious home. I don't think my father's ever been in a church except for weddings, funerals, or concerts. My mother grew up in a Congregational Church but didn't continue with them. We were (and are still to a large extent) classic don't talk about it, keep a stiff upper lip, don't make a big scene WASPs. So you see how I would feel right at home. It's ironic that Friends (and then usually only friends) often note that I speak my mind and am blunt. But when you describe your upbringing, and as I remember a former partner who grew up in a voluble, outwardly emotional family, I think: but I'm not like that! And it's a shame that Friends have not made both forms of expression (and more) more welcome. I can vouch for how hard it is, though. In personal relationships I've really struggled with being able to hear and speak in that relational culture.