Documentary and Discussion at Green Street Meeting: "Salt and Light: The 6th World Conference of Friends"

Chris and Robin Mohr will host the documentary "Salt and Light" on Saturday, January 12, 2013, at 6:30 pm, as a way of reporting back from the 6th World Conference of Friends that they attended in April 2012. They will also speak briefly about their experience in Kenya and about the Friends World Committee. 

The 42-minute documentary was created by filmmakers from Pacific Yearly Meeting. 

The film is appropriate for all ages, but probably of more interest to Friends over age 10. Child care and refreshments will be available. (It is unlikely we will have any ugali, but we'll try to make popcorn.) 

Green Street Friends Meeting is at 45 West Schoolhouse Lane, between Greene and Germantown Streets, Philadelphia, Penna.

Quaker Revival in West Philadelphia, 12/6/12

So I went to the Quaker Revival in West Philadelphia on 12/6/12. I missed potluck and the very beginning of the service, because I went there right from the annual joint meeting of the Advisory Council and Board of Directors for the organization where I work, after which I had to help clean up. Micah Bales and Robin Mohr have written about it already and reported accurately, in my opinion. I have something personal to add. Really, it was a semi-programed meeting for worship, with rollicking music just at the start, and a few Friends asked to be prepared to bring a message to share as vocal ministry. There was a good crowd in the parlor (where the organizers were sitting) and the living room of the home where we met. I was waiting for someone to break through the ceiling and lower a pallet down with someone on it who couldn’t get through the crowd. Because I got there late, and for a variety of other circumstances, I ended up standing in the back, in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. At first, I was slumping against the door frame, a bit tired, and wondering if I should mind being in the next room or not, two rooms away. Then I was transformed in the twinkling of an eye. I thought I could stand like a steward at the ready waiting for a call to help. And that helped! I stood with better posture, with my hands clasped behind my back, and felt better both physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I was authentically in “waiting” worship, in the classic phrase of Friends. After a while, my biceps fell asleep, which was a first for me. It felt odd to have my arms flop forward when I reached for something. No pins and needles, just floppy! I found the vocal ministry generally rich and speaking deeply, and sometimes “to my condition” directly and sometimes less so. I do think the messages are still working their way through me, too, over a week later. Overall, the revival meeting was somewhat similar to convergent Friends events Robin and I have participated in. So while she and I may have been a bit jaded, in the sense that this wasn’t spectacularly new and eye-opening (see her post), yet I felt like it was a time of spiritual refreshment and good worship together as a group. The revival meeting closed promptly at 9 pm, which was helpful to us as we had our 9th and 5th graders with us, and it was a school night. It meant we didn’t spend as long socializing at the end as we might have liked, but we did give a ride home to a Friend who had been at one of the original convergent events with Wess and Emily Daniels after Pacific Yearly Meeting in the mid-2000s. PS Micah quotes from Philipians in his 2nd post after the event. That was the book I was reading ahead of the event, thinking there might be a message for me to give! It didn't quite rise to that level, but it's reassuring to know it was on another Friend's heart as well.

Qwitters or Qweeters?

I've been using Twitter for work for some time now (@hlc_sanmateo). However, I have not used it personally, and so I haven't followed many Quakers who Tweet.

(That phrase just begs the question: Are Quakers on Twitter "Qwitters" or "Qweeters"?

(Or just your "Qweeps"?)

Until now.

Sparked by the imminent arrival of Quaker Heritage Day with Wess Daniels (@cwdaniels) this Saturday, 2/12, I decided to start a personal Twitter account and follow other Quakers. I'm @chrismsf, naturally.

My first tweet was actually a retweet of Wess's suggestion to use the hashtag #QHD2011 to follow Quaker Heritage Day on Twitter.

Back in the old days, in 2007, I organized the QuakerQuaker Blog Carnival (remember blog carnivals? does anyone still have them any more?).

Now, given today's social media environment, I'm thinking we need a Qwestival -- a Twestival for Quakers, naturally. If you're not that ambitious, you could just have a QweetUp -- a Quaker meetup.

Until then, you can find Qwitters or Qweeters through the QuakerQuaker list at @quakerquaker/quakers.

Reclaiming the Power of Primitive Quakerism - photos

The workshop "Reclaiming the Power of Primitive Quakerism for the 21st Century" was good - Wess, Robin, and Martin have all written about it already. I was hoping to do so, too, but spent my available time trying to remember my Flickr signin credentials. Martin kindly emailed me to say that I could always post the photos directly to QuakerQuaker, so I did.

You can find his and my photos, and eventually more from other Friends, too, by clicking here.

Or just go to the photos page of quakerquaker.org and search for the tag "quakerreclaiming2009." Martin is uploading his video interviews at a mad pace, so check those out, too. I was pretty wiped out when he interviewed me, so it's not one for the ages. It was fun showing the interview with 10 Year Old to him and his younger brother tonight before bedtime.

Here's a pic of Chad explaining the Quaker schism chart (aka "The Religious Society Of Friends In North America Chart") to 7 Year Old.


Update, 2/24/09: added the tag "quakerreclaiming2009" in case it wasn't supposed to have a period in it.

Albert Nolan's Jesus Today

A couple months ago I read Albert Nolan's book Jesus Today: A Spirituality of Radical Freedom (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2006).

Nolan is a Dominican priest from South Africa, which very much informs his world view, in a positive way, from my experience. His first book, Jesus Before Christianity, is apparently relatively widely read.

I have finally had a chance to type up some of the passages that spoke to my condition, and reproduce a few of them here. The book starts with a review of the current situation in the world, the "signs of the times."

P. 7: In our present circumstances of uncertainty and insecurity, spirituality could be seen as yet another form of escape. While this may be true in some cases, it seems to me that by and large the new search for spirituality, the deep hunger for spirituality, is genuine and sincere. It is one of the signs of our times.
     The sign, however, is not the number of people who have found a satisfactory form of spirituality to live by. Some have done so, but the sign is rather the widespread hunger for spirituality, the search for spirituality, the felt need for spirituality. One could argue that all human beings need, and have always needed, spirituality. What is happening today is that many more people are becoming acutely aware of their need for spirituality.

Nolan then reviews what he sees as the core of Jesus's spirituality.

Page 135: Trusting God, as Jesus did, does not mean clinging to God; it means letting go of everything so as to surrender ourselves and our lives to God. There is a difference between attachment and surrender. In the end we must become detached from God, too. We must let go of God in order to jump into the embrace of a loving Father whom we can trust implicitly. We don’t need to hold on tightly, because we will be held—like a child in the arms of its parents.
     There are people who cling to God. They make God into a crutch... Clinging, even clinging to God, is the work of a frightened ego. Surrender and trust come from the depths of our true self.

p. 146: For many of us the process of unlearning or unknowing our previous images of God might include a stage of atheism or at least a period of grappling with a de-personalized God. But as our search continues, and especially if we are learning from Jesus, we will come to experience God in personal terms. This will of course be very different from the childish images of a personal God some of us grew up with.

Part III of the book is titled, "Personal Transformation Today." Nolan's goal is to outline a practical spirituality for today. The chapter titles indicate the elements of this: In Silence and Solitude; Getting to Know Oneself; With a Grateful Heart; Like a Little Child; and Letting Go.

Finally, Nolan concludes with Part IV: Jesus and the Experience of Onenes: one with God with ourselves, with other human beings, and with the universe.

p. 191: We are God’s handiwork, a small but unique part of God’s great ongoing work of art. But we are also invited to participate in the process by becoming co-artists and co-creators of the future.
     We do this by allowing God to work in and through us. When we are radically free or on the way to radical freedom, divine energy can flow through us unhindered. This divine energy, which is also called the Holy Spirit, infinitely powerful, creative, and healing. We see it at work in the prophets, the mystics, and the saints, but above all in Jesus. The Holy Spirit is Jesus’ spirit....
     God’s Work, like God’s Wisdom, is revolutionary. It turns the world upside down. We participate by adding our voices to the many prophetic voices that are speaking out boldly in our day and age. There are countless numbers of people around the world who are doing God’s Work. The challenge we face is to join them, if we have not already done so.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who's interested in what could be likened to an "emergent" or "convergent" view of Jesus, from a religious in the Catholic church.

Notes from Convergent Friends interest group

Notes from the Convergent Friends Interest Group at the Friends General Conference Gathering, 7/2/08
with ~ in 30-35attendance

(Note: Liz has already posted her more thoughtful reflections here, so consider this a backup source. I haven't had a chance to process the experience, merely time to post the notes I typed while in Johnstown while the wifi was down...)

Liz Opp: Heard about blogs @ FGC Gathering ~5 years ago from Martin Kelley. Found his blog through a Google search. He was exploring going deeper in Q faith tradition, a concern Liz shares. Some traditions endangered. Left long comments on his blog. Found she had a unique voice and started her own blog. Found there were conversations happening across schisms. Holding concern for Quaker faith. How to name it? “convergent” – Vibrant.

Robin M.: Defined convergent Friends. Quaker practices that bring transformation and life. It’s not a precise term. Fuzzy understanding. What does it mean to be a Quaker today? Not just in her monthly or yearly meeting. Many Friends are exploring this. Evangelical Friends in Newberg are interested in the Quaker distinctives. Quaker institutions are developing vision statements, often in conjunction with fundraising campaigns. Her experience meeting Friends in FUM meetings this last year confirms winds of the Spirit are blowing across different branches of Friends.

Questions:
Participants were invited to write down questions on index cards. They then read them in turn with a (very) brief silence between.

• How can we bridge the growing divide around sexuality?
  
• Where can a universalist or nontheist Friend find common ground with a Christian Friend?
  
• If you don’t blog, how can you engage in this exciting conversation more than once a year at the FGC Gathering?
  
• Will the conversation become more?
  
• Where is the movement on the continuum between formal institutions and informal conversations?
  
• Is convergence reforming, renewing, or revolutionary? (Paul)
  
• You use terms like “renewal” and “reclaim.” Do you think Quakerism is degenerating?
  
• How can we bring this to our monthly, quarterly, and yearly meetings?
  
• What roles if any can existing institutions play? How does the involvement of those institutions change the conversation?
  
• Does the convergent church expect the Kingdom of God? What’s it mean?
  
• Is this a process that requires unity in meeting?
  
• You mentioned commonalities about renewal among different faiths, including Judaism and Islam. What are the possibilities for an emergent interfaith conversation?
  
• You mentioned people being enriched by practices that their meetings don’t embrace. What are they?
  
• What will convergent Friends look like in 50 years? Will the convergence be complete? Or is it a process, like seeking, that is never complete?
  
• What are some of the topics you discuss? Is there consensus, especially on issues that are controversial among Friends more widely?
  
• What would convergence look like in my meeting?
  
• Are inclusive Friends the same as convergent Friends?
  
• How is it specifically, “mechanically,” you find common ground?
  
• Is it good or bad, helpful or prohibitive to institutionalize convergent Friends?
  
• What queries have you used at your “convergent Friends meetups”?
  
• How much interest is there about this in EFI?

Robin and Liz offered some responses to particular questions, then we moved into worship sharing. At this point, I was aiming to provide a worshipful center and did not take notes. It felt centered, as people spoke their truth and were able to listen to different points of view.

What’s next?

• See the book Quakerism: A Spirituality for Our Time
  
• Friends World Committee for Consultation
  
• Worship sharing
  
• Don’t be afraid to speak of our spiritual experiences. Let’s hear them!
  
• Organize times or series at meeting for Friends to share about their spiritual journeys
  
• Quaker Quest
  
• Convene a discussion at your meeting or QM or YM. Doesn’t have to be about convergent Friends. Could be about Quaker practices that help renew or transform you.
  
• Small support groups among people you know. Take care for it not to compete with the meeting.
  
• Spiritual formation groups through the Yearly Meeting level.

The conversation continued past the formal closing worship, as several Friends stayed behind to process the session together.