March 2006 • $5 Quaker Thought FRIENDS and Life OURNAL Today
"SEEING" DIFFERENTLY, SHARING OUR TRUTHS An • AMONG FRIENDS independent magazine serving Faith and Discernment the Religious Society ne of the things that fi rst attracted me to Quakerism was the openness of of friends Friends to a variety of spiritual paths. I was not raised as a Quaker, and at the 0 point in my early adulthood when I began to encounter considerable Quaker Editorial thought, I'd been actively exploring a number of traditions ranging from several Susan Corson-Finnerty (Publishn- and Executive Editor}, Robert Dockhorn (Smior Editor), Rebecca Protestant denominations and the Roman Catholic Church to exposure to Hasidic Howe (Assistant Editor), Judith Brown (Poetry Editor}, Judaism, Zen Buddhism, Native American spirituality, and involvement with Sufism as Ellen Michaud (Book Review Editor), J. Brent Bill (Assistant Book Review Editor}, Joan Overman (Book practiced in the West. Mysticism had begun to stand out as a very real thread for me and &view Assistant), Christine Rusch (Mikstones Editor), was certainly central to my growing understanding ofm yselfas a Christian, albeit a non Robert Marks, George Rubin (News Editon), Kara Newell (Columnist), Marjorie Schier (Copyeditor), doctrinaire one. Quakerism with its emphasis on direct revelation spoke to my own Patty Quinn (Voluntur) experience powerfully, and the openness and honesty with which Friends offered their Production personal revelations was both refreshing and compelling. I appreciated Friends' under Barbara Bemon (An Director}, Alia Podolsky (Assistant Art Director}, Peter Deitz (Web Managn-) standing that revelation is ongoing, and that each of us has a pan to play in human Advertising, Circulation, Development comprehension of the Divine. I still treasure these aspects of Quakerism, although there Nagendran Gulendran (Advertising Managn-), Nicole Hackel (Circulation Assistant), Gabriel Ehri are times when I must confess I wish we were more of one mind with each other. Still, (Director ofMa rketing, Circulation, and Special knowing that we can discern the Divine personally, that we can fmd Truth together Projem), Patricia Boyle (Database Manager), Margie Garren (Dtvtlapmmt Coordinator), Kay Bacon, Ruth and that it will often exceed anything we can find individually-strikes me as a Peterson (Volunteers} compelling reality of our faith. Administration In the pages of FRIENDS Jo URNAL, we editors are entrusted to publish "Quaker Marianne De Lange (Office Manager), Tom McPeak (Accounting Services) Thought and Life Today." In this issue you will find several anicles in which the authors Board ofTrustees give lengthy and strong explanations of their personal beliefs and place them within the Barbara Andrews, Michael Baldwin, Jon Berty, Paul Q uaker tradition. They represent a range of belief from nontheism to finding Spirit in Buckley, Katharine Clark, Karen Cromley, John Darnell, William Deutsch (Assistant Clerk), Maty Ann nature, to various Christian perspectives. Cathy Habschmidt, in "Shades of Gray: A Downey, Walter Evans (Trt! asurer), linda Houser, Paul l.andskroener (Recording Clerk), Pat La Viscount, Linda Liberal Christian Quaker Speaks Up" (p. 21), says, "We are all familiar with the story of Lyman, Jay Wade Marshall, fllen Massey, Ron the three blind men and the elephant. Each person touches a separate pan of the animal McDonald, Larry Miller, Nancy Moore, Perra Perkins, Claire Reddy, Janet Ross, Susanna Thomas, Lynn and concludes that it is something altogether different. None has the complete truth." Waddington, Margety Walker, Catherine Bell She goes on to say, "I hope that by sharing a few of my beliefs I can spark more dialogue Wetteroth, Pamela Williams, Elizabeth Years (Clerk) among Friends. We need to get over our concern that simply by talking about our faith FRIENOS jOURNAL (ISSN 0016-1322) was established in 1955 as the successono Tht Frimd(1827-1955) and we are passing judgment on the faith of others." I could not agree more. Frimds lmel/igmctr(l844-1955). While the authors of the articles in this issue may seem to be presenting widely • FRIENDS j OURNAL is published monthly by Friends Publishing Corporation, 1216Arch Sueet, 2A, varying points of view, I find that I can relate to much of what each has to say. Like Philadelphia, PA 19107-2835. Telephone (2 15) 563-8629. E-mail [email protected]. Cathy Habschmidt, I share a personal beliefin the physical resurrection of]esus. Like Os Periodicals posrage paid at Philadelphia, Pa., and Cresson ("Quakers from the Viewpoint of a Naturalist" p.18) and Bill Cahalan additional mailing offices. • Subscriptions: one year $35, two years $65. Add $8 per ("Opening to the Spirit in Creation: A Personal Practice" p.IO), nature and natural year for posrage to countries ourside the U.S., Canada, and occurrences have played an important pan in my spiritual life. Like Harvey Gillman Mexico. Individual copies $5 each. • Advertising information and assistance is available on (''What Jesus Means to Me" p. 16), I experience Jesus as a teacher and revolutionary who request. Appearance of any advertisement does not imply did not think he was inaugurating a new religion (thus making my heart tender to endorsement by FRIENDS j OURNAL Judaism, the faith tradition of my spiritual teacher). And like ThomJeavons ("So What • Postmaster: send address changes to FRIENDS j OURNAL, 1216Arch Street, 2A, Philadelphia, PA 19107-2835. Can We Say Now?" p.l3), I agree that modern, liberal Friends need to develop a much • <1:> 2006 Friends Publishing Corporation. Permission greater capacity to aniculate the essential beliefs and convictions ofour faith, particularly should be received before reprinting Moving? Let us update your subscription and address. FRIENDS j OURNAL, Ill6 Arch St., 2A Philadelphia, PA 19107-2835 • (215) 563-8629 Fax: (215) 568-1377 • [email protected] Web: www.friendsjournal.org 2 March 2oo6FRIENDSJo URNAL I 1'1 Ll ~LIJ MARCH 2006 JOURNAL VOLUME 52, NO. 3 • FEATURES • DEPARTMENTS 6 Unclean! 2 Among Friends Charles David Kleymeyer 4 Forum A boy neighbor ofjesus learns about justice in an encounter with lepers. 5 Viewpoint The force ofwar and the force ofpeace I 0 Opening to the Spirit in Creation Bill Cahalan 27 Witness A journal charts the author's experience ofthe "untamed, 29 Life in the Meeting wild intelligence" in nature. Quaker kids say the darnedest things 13 So What Can We Say Now? Suggestions for 30 Books Explaining Quakerism Thomas H. Jeavons 34 News Here are five points offaith that the author offers to 38 Bulletin Board inquirers. 40 Milestones 16 What Jesus Means to Me 47 Classified Harvey Gillman His sense ofjesus has evolved since his Othodox jewish childhood 18 Quakerism, from the Viewpoint of a Naturalist Osborn Cresson A nontheist wants Quakers to welcome as members all who wish to be in community with us. 21 Finding Dropt Letters Paul Hamell Addressing atheists and describing his path to Friends, the author offers six tools for building faith. • POETRY 24 Shades of Gray: A Liberal Christian Quaker 12 Except a Seed Fall into the Earth Speaks Up and Die Cathy Habschmidt Judith R. Brown The author lays out her Christian faith, and invites I 5 Discipli~e Quakers to talk more with each other about their beliefi. Elizabeth K Gordon 19 Unfinished Business Cover: John C. Morgan "The Blind Men and the Elephant, " wood engraving from Endangered Species, 20 Adf'stra © 1979 Fritz Eichenberg Earl Coleman FRIENDS jOURNAL March 2006 3 For quality time, try public described the personal experience of a When that flow is violated in early life Friend honoring the memory of Norman through sexual abuse, we cannot grow transportation Morrison, who burned himself to death in Grace-fully-and trust the yang (male) protest of the Viemam War. I have sympathy energy as our Creator desires. I am somewhat behind on my reading, for Norman's feelings of desperation in the Alicia Adams, in "Tree Trust" (F] Dec. but just finished the September 2005 issue. I face of atrocities committed by people from 2005) is right: trust is the root cause of enjoyed both the articles "To Peace or Not to his own country, and it is hard to question much suffering. Peace" and "Child Tune is Quaker Tune." the faith of someone willing to end his Yet God does provide trees to grow for However, I couldn't help but notice that the own life for his beliefs. Perhaps that is why us, bearing elderberries and pomegranates! option of not driving a car was not even moderate Muslims have such a hard Providing us with beauty and shade, a haven mentioned in the first article, and that, in time speaking out against the "martyrs" of co hide in, a wild life center co wander in. the second, the writer mentions how much their religion. In the ancient poem of the Holy Rood the he enjoyed time with his children only after That being said, I am deeply disturbed tree of the Cross speaks, welcoming the driving them home. It was interesting to that FRIENDS jOURNAL would publish such a victim to her embrace, while she also is notice, though, that the things he valued positive article about Norman's self pierced with nails. doing with his children did not involve immolation, as if his symbolic gesture of As a celebrant (not victim, not merely going anywhere by private transportation. suicide were something to aspire to or survivor) of childhood sexual abuse, I find Actually, one of the observations I have something condoned by Quaker beliefs. The trees, like good friends, stand as pillars made, in traveling almost exclusively on basis of our faith is the life of Christ, who both yin and yang, wherever I must face the public transit, is that children on public gave aid and comfort to the oppressed, sp~ke altar of my life, and offer sacrifice. transit are invariably happier, more relaxed the truth against corrupt authority, and That is what Alicia did in writing her and well behaved, than children who spend loved even those who persecuted him. Let us article for FRIENDS jOURNAL. I salute her, their travel time in cars. A frustrated, not forget chat crucifixion was the brutal honor her, and thank her. It was a timely piece. fussy, unhappy child just does not exist on death imposed on Jesus by his fellow men, In Christ, and with the hope of transfiguration. public transit. If Friend Benjamin Lloyd not something he sought out for its symbolic really wants quality time with his children, value. Lee us also not forget that symbols of Roberta Nobleman I suggest he try taking them on the bus all kinds can be powerfully, even Dumont, N.J. or train with him, rather than driving dangerously, attractive, which is why the them places. early Friends shunned them as threats to Tails, not just a Marian Rhys true faith. Portland, Oreg. [a city, she writes, "where True Quaker values are upheld by chose tuxedo one can live car-free"] who bear wimess to the testimonies of With reference to Alison peace and love through positive action co Burnley's letter in the help others, no matter the danger to Worth the whole December 2005 Forum, themselves. In times like these, we cannot I should comment that, subscription by itself risk implying endorsement of destructive when Henry Cadbury actions, no matter how well meant, which Thank you for your work in giving us appeared in Oslo to represent a contorted version of Christianity, chis remarkable publication, month after accept the Nobel Peace much less Quakerism. month. Our meeting was pleased that you Shannon Hughes Prize on behalf of AFSC, ran the article on Darfur by our own he would have been Arlington, Va., and New Delhi, India member David Morse ("Facing Evil: most out of place if he Genocide in Darfur," F] Sept. 2005). And had appeared in a let me add that Daniel Gottlieb's story in The Tree of Life with leaves tuxedo. The Material the December 2005 issue ("The Wounding Aids committee of the and Healing of the Human Spirit") would for healing of nations AFSC supplied a full-dress by itself justifY a whole year's subscription. suit, with white tie and In Shiatsu massage-indeed in Eastern But then, so would The Meeting tailcoat, rather than a thought-the yin (female) life energy goes Community special issue in October 2005, tuxedo (or dinner jacket), from Earth co heaven: from the feet to head, and many others. which would have been or the tips of the fingers. Helen Armstrong entirely too informal for Storrs, Conn. the occasion. Correction AFSC was glad to supply appropriate full-dress for Let's not endorse destructive In the Reflection "Moving Inward the occasion because it actions through Yoga'' on pp. 30-31 in the Feb had collected formal ruary issue, the lase line of type was inad clothes to supply the need of several I have read and enjoyed FRIENDS vertently omitted. The last sentence orchestras of Europe for formal dress. j OURNAL for years and thank you for should have read: "It recognizes a poten When Henry Cadbury returned after the publishing such a wide range ofarticles. tial within each person-a potential that ceremonies, he re-contributed the full- However, I feel compelled to take issue with is too precious to label with a ftxed des dress ourfic to the Material Aids Committee. '~Journey of Love and Entreaty'' by tination." We regret the error. -Eds. The story is definitely not apocryphal; I Dorothy J. Mock (F]Nov. 2005), which had the pleasure of hearing Henry 4 March 2006 FRIENDS joURNAL • VIEWPOINT The force of war and the force of peace: the same force moving in opposite directions? byTom Fox t seems that there is a tendency to see same for the aggressor and the defender. ing in the ego-led direction of individual war as a very active energy and peace Is it possible that this force is in reality the and national power. I as a very passive energy. We refer to force of peace? And is it also possible that the Perhaps the most difficult aspect of peace energy in the negative--nonvio difference is whether this force spins and moves this peace energy would be a unified lence or nonaggression-as if peace were a person, country, or ethnic group away from vision of the peaceable realm. We seem to a vacuum created when the force of war God and towards the human ego, or spins in have such a huge range of vision on rela is absent. the opposite direction to bring that person, tively mundane things like the form of The force of war has several aspects. nation, or ethnic group closer to God? worship in which we participate. Yet First, it requires tremendous energy To create the peaceable realm on Earth throughout the Hebrew Scriptures as well both external, physical energy and the would require tremendous energy. Highly as the Christian Scripture (and the Bud internal drive to carry out the external motivated and committed individuals and dhist and Taoist and-yes-even a good aspects. Second, it requires tremendous governments would need to expend a great part of the Muslim sacred writings) there organization and teamwork. To take on deal of material resources to bring about is a unified vision. Both Isaiah and Jesus the implementation of a war plan peace. Economic disparity and material greed used the metaphor of "the way" as requires a large number of human beings have fostered a great part of the war energy did Buddha and Lao Tzu. Mohammed working together. Third, it requires a uni over history. To eliminate or at least level out spoke of the "straight path." Are they all fied vision of purpose. Goals must be economic disparity has been the stated goal of talking about the direction in which the established and everyone plays a part in those seeking peace since the authors ofLeviti force of peace moves us to bring us closer their successful outcome. cus and the great prophets of Israel first called to God? These forces are evident no matter on for radical economic reform. This call was Would it be possible to bring about which side of a conflict a country finds picked up by Jesus and carried forth by the the peaceable realm and still keep our itself. The country that attacks or the early Christian communities, and it still has a unique modes of worship? Would it be country that defends uses the same force. voice in groups like Quakers, Mennonites, possible to turn enough swords into plow As in chess, the rules of the game are the and Brethren. shares to at least create the beginning of an The force of peace would require a high energy reversal away from the human Tom Fox is a member oflAngley Hill {Va.) degree of organization and teamwork. Imag gods of nation, flag, and ideology, and Meeting. He has been held hostage in Iraq ine for a moment that the United States gov toward the God of the universe? with three other Christian Peacemaker ernment had the same number of people The turbine ofwar can be reversed and Team members since November 26, 2005. working abroad and at home in the Peace begin to move as the turbine of peace; but He submitted this Viewpoint more than two Corps and Americorps as are in the military. it will take many, many people reversing years ago, and he wrote then that he put And that would just create a degree ofs tasis: a their internal polarity so that all our ener down these thoughts on the evening ofSep balance point, not really moving us in the gy is directed toward God and none tember II, 2003. direction of God-just keeping us from mov- toward our egos. Cadbury tell the story himself at Friends page picture of him in his formal attire. Who was Hrst? Meeting at Cambridge. Following his call to the clothing warehouse Samuel B. Burgess in December 1947, Mother wrote, "It just I was heartened to read the letter "The Medford, N.J. happened that AFSC was collecting dress commitment comes first" by Marshall suits to send to Hungary to outfit the Massey in the December 2005 Forum, Budapest Symphony Orchestra, soon going which commends Philadelphia Yearly The word from the to London to give a concert.... Our Meeting in that they "consciously and warehouse warehouse had several on hand not yet baled deliberately committed themselves to for shipment overseas. A coat was found that develop both a collective public witness and I am responding to the letter in the was a perfect fit and a good march for Henry a concrete corporate self-discipline vis-a-vis December 2005 issue from Alison Burnley Cadbury's tuxedo pants. Afrer receiving the any specific major environmental challenge." regarding Henry Cadbury's tuxedo. My Peace Prize, Henry Cadbury returned the tail The writer described it as "a milestone" and mother, Eleanor Stabler Clarke, managed coat to the warehouse where it was baled for a "first" for "any Friends yearly meeting." AFSC's clothing program for many years. Hungary. The musician who wore it litcle There may be other yearly meetings that For the April 5, 1967, issue she wrote an guessed that his coat had played a part in the have made a public commitment before article titled "And Ye C lothed Me," which music of world peace." Canadian Yearly Meeting, but I would like was the 50-year history of the program. She to share with the readers of FRIENDS started with the story of Henry Cadbury and Cornelia Clarke Schmidt the tuxedo, and that article included a full Princeton, N.J. Continued on page 45 FRIENDS j OURNAL March 2 006 5 by Charles David Kleymeyer he sun was pressing down as hard as thunderhead in full voice: donkey couldn't stand it anymore. She it could on the Earth that day, till it felt had to know what was making all that that my eyes might burst into flames. I am a most terrible monster! bother. She clopped up, loud as she could, When my" mother asked me to get I make the lion turn tail and run! letting that watery monster know it was water from the town well, thoughts of a I crush the camel under one foot! n't the only big thing in the world. Peer thousand better things to do buzzed in I clean my teeth with the eagle's beak! ing into the shadowy well and hearing the my head. Then my stomach rumbled, I have taken power ofthis well for threat, her ears stood straight up and anticipating the tasty soup she'd make myself! she, too, turned and ran. Braying, her tail for dinner. I . .. am ... in-vince-able! stretched out behind her, she crashed So I ambled outside and slowly untan Begone. smack into a clump ofbushes before turn gled the braided leather thongs on each of Begone. ing to look back, only her trembling ears the goatskin water buckets. Hanging the Begone. and wide eyes visible through the leaves. buckets on the wooden yoke and hoisting This went on all morning. By noon it to my shoulders, I stood there awhile, Hearing this bold assertion, animals of nearly every animal who used the well, dipping this way and that, pretending I all sorts gathered nearby. One by one they and some who normally didn't, had taken was a giant walking on a long rope found the courage to creep up to the wall a turn. They huddled together nearby, stretched between the sun and the moon, of the well and peer over. reliving their screams, each reporting using the yoke for balance as I crossed the Each time an animal approached, the something more fearsome than the last. sky. To make it extra hard, I closed my frog would slide into the water and bob The whole time, a small, chestnut eyes, and that's when a story popped into up and down, causing the water's surface brown monkey sat on a stone at a safe dis my mind. I had heard it many times to ripple, distorting the reflection of the tance watching the parade and observing before from my friend the carpenter, who creature above. Hearing the threat and the antics, scratching first her head, then lived next door. He had built small chairs seeing what appeared to be a terrible her belly, then her head again. At last it for the village children so that we could monster, each animal hastily withdrew. was her turn to look into the well, and she come into his shop, and sit there listening First to try his luck was a plucky roos did so with great fanfare, striding up to to his stories while he worked and we dug ter who hopped up onto the stony rim of the wall with enormous steps, then our toes into the sawdust and woodchips. the well to see what the fuss was all about. bounding up onto the ledge, and of This story was one of my favorites, and In rnidflight he was greeted by the frog's course making her monkey faces at the with the first line echoing in my head, the next booming challenge: water below. With each funny face she next was already surfacing. laughed louder and louder, not so much Once there was a frog who discovered I am a most terrible monster! at herself as at the foolish animals who a nice, deep, dark, cool well and decided I make the lion turn tail and run! had scared themselves half to death by he liked it so much he would keep it just I crush the camel under one foot! looking at their own reflections in the for himsel£ So he set about scaring all of I clean my teeth with the eagle's beak! shimmering dark water. the other animals away. He would sit on I have taken power ofthis well for myself! Then the monkey made a noose from a rock ledge way down inside the well, I. . . am . . . in-vince-able! a rope of woven vines, and she carefully right at the water line, puff up his chest, Begone. fished out the frog-who sat blinking in the and roar out a threat that echoed and Begone. sunlight that bore down on the dusty swelled as it rose up the steep walls like a Begone. clearing. Woefully he continued to pro claim his monstrous wrath: Charles David Kleymeyer joined Madison Crowing as if he had landed on hot (Wis.) Meeting in 1970 and has since attended coals, the rooster sprang backwards, flap I am a ... a most terrible . .. em; umm ... Friends Meeting of Washington (D. C) and ping his wings as he fell against the I make the, the lion turn tail and . .. L uh Langley Hill (Vtl.) Meeting. An author, per ground. When he scurried back to the forming storyteller, and international grassroots development sociologist, he fashioned this story other animals, they asked what he'd seen. He just stood there shaking, saying noth The monkey then called to the other ftom his novel-length manuscript about a ~oy who grows up next door to jesus. Another story ing, not a peep, like a ghost. animals to come up close and face the ftom the same novel, "God is in the Mouth ofthe Next a cow, a dog, and a goat tried it source of their fright. Wolf," appeared in the April 2004 issue of in succession, and they, too, ran in panic "After all," the monkey told them, FRIENDS jOURNAL. back to the others. Finally a sweet young "You weren't completely wrong. Had you 6 March 2006 FRIENDS JOURNAL tooKtng, tsn t ne~ to catch up. ··What do they mean by ragtag group ot people nulling m tront ot 'Unclean!' Yeshu?" I shouted out. "What's the well. unclean? The water?" "Yeshu, I don't understand." Chuckling as I always did at the end He said nothing, but the set of his jaw He seemed to be thinking out loud as of this story, I hefi:ed the wooden yoke told me how determined he felt. But he walked. "These people have a disease and buckets back onto my shoulders and about what? By now I was breathing hard. called leprosy. No one knows what causes looked down the road toward the well. "Yeshu?!" I repeated. it. The sickness is terrible, and the dread The midsummer sun was merciless. It Looking down, he reached over and ef and rejection it brings makes the suffering hadn't rained in weeks, and the streams fortlessly took the yoke from my shoulder even harder to bear. and waterholes were nearly all dry. onto his. Freed from the weight, my heart "Fingers and toes rot on the body and The air shimmered in the distance, gradually slowed as I caught my breath. fall off. Even a person's nose sometimes. and I thought I could hear bells clanging Soon you'll see for yourself" He quick and a low singsong chanting. I shook my ened his pace, and I had to break into a head to clear my ears and realized with "Everyone is afraid of trot afi:er every few steps, just to keep up. relief it wasn't me but the dirge-like voic them," Yeshu went on. "Everyone is afraid of them," Yeshu es of people approaching the well from went on. "Afraid of catching the disease the other side. At first, I couldn't under '~aid of catching the through touch or even through the air. stand the words. So, I took a few steps These people are cast out by their neigh down the road, the buckets swishing. As I disease. These people are bors and even their families, and con began walking, the voices grew clearer. demned to wander from village to village. "Unclean!" they wailed slowly. "Un cast out by their Unable to work, even when skilled. clean! Unclean!" Homeless. Begging, and picking through Fear stabbed me. What was unclean? neighbors and even their trash for a scrap of food or a rag to wrap The well! Could the water be polluted? around their wounds. We depended on that well. families, and condemned "On top of everything else, they've lost I walked faster. The chanting was to wander from village their names. People call these wretched growing louder. Passing Yeshu's work souls 'lepers,' as ifleprosywas their moth shop, I glanced in. My carpenter fi:iend to village." er and father. Or their home village. was looking up, his eyes wide. I stopped Those fortunate enough to escape this and waited for him to put his tools down and come out. FIUENDS JoURNAL March 2006 7 ed water for a week. Yeshu filled their containers again. After he finished, he turned to the townspeople. "Bring me bread," he asked. "Please. Even if it's a week old." No one moved. "For the love of God, lend a hand. These people are starving," he implored. "How many of us haven't struggled through a famine? Or a bad harvest? We have all known hunger." He waited, then said, "The Jubilee Year is coming. We can start early ... today!" Still no one moved. Most just stared at affliction force Some the ground. those in agony to warn of even picked up Yeshu's face began to color. I could tell their approach with bell and voice. stones and threw by the way people were standing that if he Adding to the injury, the sufferers must them. But the forlorn group shouted they would all run. condemn themselves to live as outcasts. would not fall back. They began pleading "Yeshu," I called to him. ''I'll round up Those who choose to walk along in for water, and for food. your story group." silence, who do not loudly brand them I looked around for Yeshu. He was He understood instantly and relaxed, selves, could be stoned to death! gone. For a moment I thought, "Could he nodding slightly. "So that's what you hear, Daavi. That be shrinking back? Was he feeling fear, too?" I ran through the town, rallying kids to and the pain of being shunned by others Then I saw him over at the well, filling bring Yeshu all the bread they could find. whom they have no desire to harm." my buckets with water. He hefted the A mob of children soon formed at the "What are you going to do?" I asked dripping buckets to his shoulders and well. We knew where every scrap of bread him. began walking toward the band of out was, including pieces that had sat on a "Whatever I can," he answered. casts. I frowned, torn in hal£ A voice in shelf for an entire phase of the moon. By then we were dose. I could dearly one ear whispered, "How could you have Many of us would have less to eat that see the band ofs trangers, standing togeth doubted him?" In the other ear I heard, night than we usually did, but it would be er facing us. I forgot to look at the road "But what will Mother say when she hears worth it. and nearly tripped and fell. What I saw I let Yeshu use our buckets for this?" Yeshu handed out the bread, dropping was more awful than anything Yeshu The townspeople were aghast, but no the hardest pieces into bowls of water that could have described. one had the courage to challenge this tall, the outcasts extended to him. As soon as They were painfully thin, these people, willful carpenter. As Yeshu approached, the bread softened, they snatched it up with stringy, long hair and tattered cloth the outcasts began backing away. Stones with cupped hands and slurped it down. ing. Many limped on sticks, holding in and taunts would not move them, but Yeshu laughed, and they laughed back. the air the stub of a foot bound in dirty fear of physical contact with a "clean" per Some had no teeth at all! rags. Some carried others who were aged son did. Then I saw the carpenter's shoulders or more severely crippled. They contin "Put the water down over there!" one rise and settle as he took a deeper breath ued to slowly wail out their searing song: shouted. "Don't touch us!" and let it out. People in the crowd proba "Unclean! Unclean!" "I was touched by you the moment I bly thought he'd been standing out in the I felt Yeshu wince as he gripped my saw you," Yeshu answered, smiling wryly. sun too long when, one by one, he went arm. "IfI am to share someday the burden you up to each person in that group of lost Then I saw a boy, not much older than bear so bravely, so be it." He nodded his souls and gave them something worth I, looking out from behind a woman's head once, firmly, then blurted out as if more than bread and water. shoulder. I've never forgotten him because the thought were forming on his lips, "It H e touched each one. he had one blue eye and one brown, and would scar me far worse to do nothing!" This man on the shoulder. That I hadn't ever seen blue eyes before. He They stared back blankly, befuddled. woman on the hand. The young boy held a hand to his face, with several fin Then Yeshu brightened. What he said whose eyes had met mine--one eye brown, gers missing. I felt overwhelmed with next revealed he'd found, in his mind, a the other blue--received a stroke on the guilt and pity, and-yes-horror. middle ground where it was safe for these cheek. The boy smiled broadly and leaned That was when I became aware of a forlorn souls to approach. He asked, "Do his head back, showing his face to the sky. crowd forming. My parents' friends, our you have water pots?" "God bless you!" declared an old neighbors, folks I saw every day were Quickly, they produced partially bro woman after Yeshu had embraced her and shouting, "Go away! Shame on you for ken pots and weathered gourds from moved on to the next. endangering innocent people. Get away inside their ragged packs. Yeshu walked Yeshu returned and took her by the from our well!" from person to person, filling the out- shoulders. "God continually blesses all 8 March 2006 FRIENDS JoURNAL holding his scarred and wounded hands "First, learn to recognize illJUstice. to his face, and looking at me with his one Don't turn away! Feel the anger chat comes. blue eye and one brown. Then ask your heart to help you begin I wondered, "Was he sleeping now? Ifso, molding chat white-hot rage into love." I, is where? What kind oflife would he have?" He walked back over to his workbench I wished I had gone up and hugged and picked up a freshly cut and reddish hued cedar board. I watched and waited. 1"'ep finally swept over me, I He held the board straight out and sight :., a dark forest. I was so ed along its edge for a while. "It's like -l:u-kness, I could using a blazing oven co make dough into ,. ., hands or bread. Or firing clay into water pots." · -1-,at I Summer showers swept across his eyes. "Heat is like rage. Both can be used co · ·~so mething." · -.-d to understand, while Yeshu · ~ little longer. "The love "'rure has co lead us must be construc .tSSion channel what mg rage, so that the you see, Daavi?" ,, but all I could do was Jfwords chat were circling big to grasp. my blank look and, setting down on his workbench, a chisel and a wooden mallet. 1en he was searching for words, .d take up a cool and begin using a long time he worked in silence, ng the board so chat it would fit into .:>ther pieces of the door he was mak ;. After a good while, he leaned on the .. ench, still holding the cools, and stared I haa 5 at the scarred surface of the bench top. They seemed farther away, smaller. him my cloa., Then he looked intently back at the That silence lifted soon enough. Many him. And now 1 , tools and said, "When I was growing up, townspeople would complain for days failed him . . . and myse1~ my father, my Abba Yosef, caught me chat afterward about Yeshu's foolhardiness. A Yeshu cilted his head slightly ,, -· life is a craft just like woodworking. But delegation was even sent to talk to Mama "When we see ourselves feeling .,...,ch what I'm calking to you about doing is Maria, his mother and the town midwife. guilt or pity," he said, "we need to find very hard. Much harder chan making a "He shows no respect for rules!" they said. ocher sentiments chat can lead us to actu cedar door. Harder even chan building a "Now we will be overrun by every filthy ally do something useful." He paused and Temple for God. Turning rage to love and leper from miles around." looked me in the eye. love to action is a skill one learns by doing. Mama Maria would have none of it. "In order co accomplish chat," he went And it helps to have a good teacher, don't "Unclean is in our minds," she replied, on carefully, "sometimes we have to look you chink?" her jaw set firmly. "It's a way of seeing, not inside ourselves and ask our hearts to mus I nodded at him, and a smile pushed being. None of us gets through life with ter the compassion to leaven our outrage." its way across my compressed Lips. out illness. Illness is not a mark of sin." Yeshu was seeing what I had been His eyes brightened. "I've had many!" She shook her head adamantly. "It's a sign unable to see, chat my guilt and pity were "We are all of us still learning," he went of bad fortune. covering over the deep anger and fear I on, "how co craft aces oflove ftom rage. It "You know my son has his own way of had felt at seeing chat boy and his com hasn't been done perfectly yet. Or at least looking at the world. Why not ask him panions in such misery. only rarely. But when we get it right, it to explain?" "But how?" I asked. "How can I do will be like the most beautiful door you've But they just went away grumbling. chat?" ever seen. A door to an inn when you are As for me, I walked home chat after Yeshu's gaze flew over my head to the tired and weary and, rather chan turn you noon feeling like the hero of the Great horizon. I watched his lips move slightly away, the owner welcomes you in. A door Bread Raid. But chat bravado soon faded. inside chat chick beard, as if he were test chat is opened when you knock on it. A Late chat night, falling asleep in bed, all I ing different words. Then his eyes could chink of was the boy I had seen, returned co mine. Continued on page 29 FRrENDS JOURNAL March 2006 9 Opening to the Spirit in Creation A PERSONAL PRACTICE by Bill Cahalan see myself within the Quaker Univer creative Universe, or the continuous Cre emptiness, energy, and form that consti salist tradition, which affirms that ation, as revealed by personal experience tutes reality or nature, rather than some I there are many paths to Truth, and enhanced by cutting-edge 20th-century thing outside of or above nature. that no one religious tradition could ever science, and whose spiritual dimension I have evolved a practice of worship in comprehend the whole Truth. I believe may be perceived through mystical expe which I seek the Spirit or Light both in that we can always learn from each other. rience. I have come to think of (and at seated, usually indoor, worship with oth My particular path, although not involv times vividly experience) the Spirit as the ers, and in mostly outdoor solitary ing belief in a personal God or a Creator, self-organizing activity or intelligence engagement with the natural world. Each is one to which I have felt strongly called. which permeates the Universe. This Spir of these ways of worship seems to inter I feel that this is a good time and place to it of the whole manifests itself as sentient, weave with and complement the other. share, with Friends beyond my immedi self-organizing activity in each being, ele The Spirit that I sense inwardly is the ate circle, the spiritual practice which is a ment or system: each galaxy, atom, flower, same intelligent activity present in the part of this path. breeze, woodland, person, and gathering dandelion or the thunderstorm. I need to My ultimate faith is in the evolving, of persons. In this sense Spirit is the deep turn worshipfully both inward and out est essence at the heart of the dance of ward to fully sense this Mystery. "/ was come up into the state of Adam which he was in before he fell. The creation was opened to me." -George Fox 10 March 2oo6 FRIENDS JoURNAL ::>o 1 share some ot my practice and lts Walking quietly on the damp wood Light breeze caresses ji:tce and nostrils. fruits here, drawing a few experiences mulch trail, I hear pairs and small flocks from a journal that I have kept for many of Canada geese honking, see them I stand emptied drawn into years. Perhaps this will interest some through the trees circling above the lake. the ripening stillness. Friends, however their theology may vary They splash together, honking excitedly, from mine, in entering into wild nature as on the far side of the lake. I head down The grove's maples rise part of their pursuit of the Divine. We live hill into the woods, turning left on dark in the fading sky, in a time when the inspiration and learn Whitetail Trace. nodding, ing that may come from such deep en The light is a blessing, illuminating the whispering in the cool breeze, gagement can help to ground us as we scill bare trees and down leaves, warming beckoning. struggle with the growing fragmentation my face, waking the scill reluctant Earth, -]uly2001 of Earth's integrity. waking me up to the wonder of life. I On my "deep listening" walks, I gen weep, feeling that old longing, that sad erally go slowly, leisurely scanning with a ness/joy of old lovers reunited, thinking generalized attentiveness, opening my "I belong here. Why have I ~rayed away senses and heart to how I might be moved this long?" or addressed by the Spirit in nature and its Although the field I am moving many voices. Like Annie Dillard, I through is all brown, tan, grey, and rust "retreat, not inside myself, but outside tones, I feel the aliveness all around me, myself, so that I am a tissue of senses. everything expressing the Mystery in its In meeting for worship roday a tall Wy Whatever I see is plenty, abundance. I am own unique way. Beyond the field, the like flower in a pot on the mantel was the skin of water the wind plays over." woods' dark, grey-barked trunks reach blooming white with blushes of pink. It My direction and pace vary according into the blue sky. was a bright, brisk, partly cloudy day, and to my body's inclinations in response to the two blossoms seem tO reach out tO me land and sky. I stop ofren, as my scanning -March 1996, birthday walk and to the bright day. is drawn into narrower focus by particu I remembered someone saying in a lar places, things, or happenings. Pungent recent meeting that each person is held in tree bark, a flower, or a rotting log may God's love. Do I feel or believe this? I'm ~ invite exploring through touch and smell. thinking that love is a human experience, ~ I am alert to which place, sunlight-dap bur that it does exist as part ofa larger pat- ::I: pled grove, cloud pattern, buzzing insect, tern of the Universe: the sentience and al- f or puddle on the path is inviting me to lurement of all things, the erotic commun- ::I: stop and gaze, entering into its particular ion ofeac h atOm with certain other atoms, motion, imagining what it is doing and It's a cloudy, at times drizzly day in the of stars with other stars co form galaxies, sensing, within this land, community at low 50s. I just returned from the meadow of flowers (like the lily on the mantel) this moment. What is this place or being south of Enright Avenue. I found myself with light and with insects as the plant saying to me? What gifrs is it offering me? drawn tO a big oak in the woods beyond seeks to create seeds. So in this sense each How is the Spirit moving me? Bur I try the meadow, and then to two basswood being, element, and self, including myself, not to think much, staying mostly with trees near the oak. There were catkin-like is held within the nurturipg embrace of sensation and emotion. Later journal writ flowers hanging all over these trees, sil the Mystery, the generative matrix. ing, or sharing with a fellow seeker, may al houetted against the grey-white sky. Lin And spring, including this pre-spring low more reflection about such meanings. gering and gazing for a while, I felt moved day, is a perfect time to experience this by this flowering life reaching out tO the more-than-human love directly. I felt my sky, out to the insects and winds, here on self being called co witness to this experi this slope above the muddy Ohio River ence during meeting for worship, bur looked on this sopping pre-spring day. I could at my watch and it was eleven d dock. feel the land wakening, and myself, roo. On the way home we stopped for a -March2004 walk in Eden Park. T he sky was a pageant, a show ofli ght and shadow, as pufl)r, flat- .._ bottomed clouds sailed past. I later ~ Walking out from the house walked alone down the street and entered J\ into the gathering july evening, the trail into the woods. The douds con- ~ dull with too much good tinued coasting through f~om the west,~ I finally leave sidewalk and traffic. growing larger, more brilliantly gilded Treading on damp mowed grasses by the sun, dark-bottomed, laden with Bill Cahalan is a member ofCommunity Meet I come to the hushed grove ing in Cincinnati, Ohio. He leads retreats for rain, which just now spattered on the Friends interested in beginning or deepening silhouetted against softly lit window behind me here in the bedroom their practice ofopening to the Spirit in Cre horizon after sunset. where I write. ation. He may be reached at FRIENDS JOURNAL March 2006 II ::::: buds outside this west window, by the fires above and, looking down, saw stars ~ gusting wind and brilliant sky, by the in the grass all around us! They were glow ~ Spirit, out of my winter house into the worms, maybe signaling to each other with ~world again. their slowly waxing and waning lights. -March2004 Then I found myself speaking out loud Just before the autumn equinox this to the worship group, saying something year, I was sitting silently with friends in like the following, which I share now with an outdoor meeting for worship. We sat you as an invitation: under an ash tree whose leaves were shim mering in the blue sky, filtering sunlight Come into the wild! Come into the forest and shadow across our faces. Images with me. we open to the forest within dur flowed through me from the night before: ing seated, mostly indoor worship, to the singing around the wood fire, and walk untamed flow of images, to the whispering; ing away from the fire's warmth up the hill ofsomething vast from beyond ourselves. into the darkness to lie under the brilliant Risk opening in like worshipfUl manner I am drawn south across the creek and stars, gazing into the immensity and feel to the same untamed, wild intelligence mov into the ridge-top woods. T here are a pair ing a part ofi t. Then walking with others, ing through all the Creation: the breeze in of piliated woodpeckers calling, flying occasionally shining a flashlight, to the the treetops, the brilliant stars, wildflowers away and close together through the trees. lake, where we gazed again at the distant in the meadow, the turning of the Earth I hear them and others again toward evening and toward morning, the and again. Later I see a pair of first subtle signs offoiL ducks burst from the pond. Except a Seed Fall Into a. Edt and Die we are all threads in this one fabric, And soon after, a pair of turkey members ofthis one flesh. buzzards high in the sky, cir Alleluia And ifyou feel a sudden pulse ofjoy, gaz cling near each other and then The word sounds tike It feels. ing into a bed of black-eyed Susam, don't moving into a long glide Handel must have liked the sense fear that you're being caught up in pagan together, one just behind and of It since he wrote a whole chorus to seal idolatry! The flowers can be windows open above the other. T hey all seem ing into the Whole ofthingr, expressiom of to say something about Debo the tone of It in the ears of the world. the Divine Presence. Each galaxy, each but rah and me. I'm gathering The very lilt of it thrills. terfly, can be felt as a word spoken by the All, some lichen, bark, moss, and Alleluia as a particular gesture of the Whole, or fern to bring her. I realize that God-as can you and l I want to be more affirming of Alleluia There can be a wonderful rhythm her and show her my love That's what the tulips bending between worshipfUlly turning within, turn more often. their shrill green stems say. ing to other people, and turning to the rest of I step out of the woods into Rower bulbs must all recall the day Creation. Any one motion of worship is a meadow, part of a savannah in the fall when shriveled and seeming dead incomplete without the others. like mosaic of meadows, with they were dropped in their tombs So open the door, step from your safe autumn olives and red cedars, house, and come silently into the wild, interspersed with patches of to wait for spring to come awake, untamed world, waiting and listening for young woods and occasionally to be reborn in blood-red, the breath ofthe Spirit . . . listening! peninsulas ofo lder woods. The fringed yellow, bloom. sky is so vivid blue, up through Alleluia. the arms of the bare trees! I stop and ask the trees, the Alleluia woods, the birds, the All: I need to sing after this dark "Should I, after these 12 years winter when strife spread rot, attending Community Friends ripped bodies, nations, rocks Meeting, seek membership?" Immediately I see Jamie, Tim, apart. The word insists that I recall Eric, Deborah, and the faces seeds must fall into the ground, perish of others I care about. I feel before they can flourish. Rebirth Teilhard de Chardin wrote, "By means supported by them and by this will come, have faith, of all created things, without exception, nonhuman community on the word sings. the Divine assails us, permeates us, and my particular, strange journey, Alleluia. moulds us. We imagine it as distant and and sense a strong affirming -Judith R Brown inaccessible, whereas in fact we live response to my question. steeped in its burning layers." May we open more often and more - March 2004 birthday walk judith R Brown, a member ofUniversity Meeting in Seattle, Wash., is poetry editor deeply to this fire, this Light, allowing our ofFRIENDS jOURNAL. lives to be transformed. 0 12 March 2006 FRIENDS JoURNAL So WHAT CAN WE SAY Now? Suggestions by Thomas H. Jeavons for Explaining ered to learn about, much less think about to our Quaker meetings, about what how best to explain, the central tenets or Quakerism has to offer them now? Quakerism core theological convictions of our faith. The vast majority of Friends, I believe, But this is often what people ask, i.e. understand-as the quote from Fox sug "What do you believe?" Second, Quak gests-that the essential core of Quaker erism is a complex and, in some ways, faith and practice is experiential. We argaret Fell, "the mother of subtle faith, and we live in an era ofsound know that the central, enlivening heart of Quakerism," describes an occa bites, where any explanation of anything Quakerism involves literally encountering M sion when George Fox chal- requiring more than one minute or one and actually responding to an experience lenged his listeners to recognize the expe page is likely to lose people's attention. of the Divine Presence, the Holy, the Eter riential nature of "true religion." H e is Now some argue that nal Ground of all Being. quoted as saying, "You will say Christ we should just not worry. Moreover, those who have sayeth this, and the apostles sayeth this, Friends have said to me, • had such an encounter but what canst thou say?" An irony about "We should just let our Ifwe do not know that this experience this famous quote is that while it empha lives speak, and trust that yields, as one might sizes the inward and experiential it also lifts the rest will work out. If want to die off expect, a vision and un up the need to be able to speak about what we live our testimonies, derstanding of faith that one experiences, to say something as well others will be moved by completely, can be dramatic, yet subtle that describes the content of one's faith. our example, or perhaps maybe we had and complicated, and so As one of only a few people employed drawn by our way of wor very difficult to describe full-time to lead a Quaker organization ship, to join us." This, of better think more or explain in a few words. with a public profile, I am frequently course, is precisely the Still, if we want others to asked to explain Quakerism. Since anoth approach that has led to about how we begin to understand our er part of my job involves working with the marked decline in the resent our faith faith, perhaps even join monthly meetings, sometimes when they number of Friends of our and share in our faith, are experiencing conflict over what they type over the last two cen to others. then we have to com- should do or how they should do it, I have turies, especially in rela municate this somehow. also often witnessed what occurs when tion to the total popula- St. Francis of Assisi our members do not understand the basic tion, so that we now represent a statisti once said, "Preachn the good ews always; spiritual vision and central theological cally insignificant element of the U.S. reli and when necessary, use words." Do we tenets that should undergird and shape gious landscape. So, if we do not want to want to encourage and support people in our practice. As a result of both these die off completely, maybe we had better the practices of worship and service that experiences, I am convinced that modern, think more about how we present our might give them the same kind of direct liberal (or unprogrammed) Friends need faith to others. experience of the love and grace of God to develop a much greater and more skill Moreover, beyond a self-centered con and communion with the Divine that we ful capacity to articulate the essential cern for survival, which may or may not ourselves have had, and which is the beliefs and convictions ofo ur faith. More be a good thing, there might be a question object and the ground of meeting for wor over, for a number of reasons, most espe to be asked here about our responsibility ship? If so-and I believ~ we should~ cially relating to effectiveness in outreach, to others, and to God, to share "the gift of then we must learn how to speak of the we need to learn how to do so in concise, faith'' we have been given. good things we have experienced in our simple, and compelling terms. Quakerism had its origins in the expe faith with our words as well as our actions. We face a couple of challenges in this rience of one person, George Fox, who Unfortunately, the way this seems to regard. First, Quakerism is a religion cen was a religious seeker. It then set its roots work now, if asked to say what we believe, tered in experience, where doctrine has in a movement of people who called modern liberal Friends have two strong largely been of secondary importance- so themselves "Seekers." What they all tendencies that make us poor commuqi much so that many of us have not both- sought was authentic spiritual experience, cators. First, we are very likely to begin the kind that answered the deep spiritual our explanation with a long series of Thomas H Jeavons, general secretary ofPhi la hunger they fel t. Many people still feel caveats and disclaimers. ("Well, I can only delphia Year[y Meeting, is a member 'ofSwarth that hunger today. What do we have to speak for myself . .." "Not all Friends more (Pa.) Meeting. say to those we encounter, or who come believe the same things . . . ." "Of course, FRIENDS ]OURNALMarch 2006 13 we have no creed ....") If a potential lis Mass is; but we believe that the presence "full of faith'' - requires and creates a tener is not asleep at the end of that intro of the Divine can be known inwardly and genuine community. Living a whole and duction, then (our second tendency) we directly, without need for any outward, spiritual life is not a solo act. Jesus some are likely to launch into a long, compli sacramental representation, or any inter times encountered people one by one, cated explanation that few have a chance mediary (like a priest) of any son. The sometimes in large groups; but he created ofcomprehending. "What we have here," ways we make decisions and seek guid a small community around himself in his as the prison camp warden said to Cool ance, both individually and corporately, life, and a larger one after his death. The Hand Luke, "is a Failure to communicate." simply make no sense unless one assumes occasion of Pentecost, when his disciples I recognize the challenges presented by God's presence and wisdom can always be were given the gift of the presence of the who we are and the culture we live in, and known by those who seek the Divine "in Holy Spirit, was also the occasion when the importance of being able to describe Spirit and in Truth." they were formed into a community of and explain our faith in ways others might power and grace, a community where wane to listen to and be able to under Third· There is a spark of the Divine, "everyone was filled with awe, and many stand. Let me suggest what we ought to "that of God," in every person. This is wonders and miraculous signs were done say when given an opportunity to describe one reason God is knowable to us in an ... [and] all the believers were together who Quakers are or what Quakers believe. immediate way. Scripture tells us we are and had everything in common." (Acts I recommend centering on five essential all "created in the image of God" (Gen : 2:43-44). points. (I know not all Quakers would say 1:27). Because of this, there is that of the Quakers took that community, the this in this way. But what follows does, I Divine in us that recognizes the Divine early Church, as the model for their reli think, fairly summarize what most Quak Presence, Power, and Love that is at work gious movement and community offaith. ers have held to be essential features ofour in the universe-"thac ofGod," by far the They looked to a community in which faith over most of our history.) larger pan, that is transcendent, that is people were drawn into and nurtured in a beyond us. This is also one reason we have living, transforming relationship with the First: God is real. What the first Quak (traditionally, at least) been so dear and Divine. And they believed-and created ers found, and Quakers ever since have strong about affirming the dignity and community practices, like the meeting for both experienced and taken as a fact, is inherent worth of every human being. business that assumed-that the commu that the Divine is real, and that spiritual nity of believers has a necessary role in experience is real. The most often repeat Fourth: Jesus Christ has some very helping each individual see God's truth ed phrase in Fox's journal is "the power of special, uniquely important role in re and love and live by that revelation. God was over all." Isaac Pennington, vealing the nature ofGod to humankind. Always affirming the centrality ofan indi Thomas Ellwood, and other early Friends George Fox's transforming spiritual expe vidual's personal relationship with the all describe their first experiences of rience came as he heard a voice that said, Divine, Quakers have also strongly Quaker meetings for worship as occasions "there is one, even Christ Jesus, that can affirmed the need for a community of where they encountered a Presence that speak to thy condition." Quakerism has believers to suppon and help guide indi was unlike any other they had known always been strongly anchored in the viduals on their spirirual journeys. undeniably there, all encompassing, chal Christian tradition. Quakers have long lenging, comforting, and transforming. been cenain that the Judeo-Christian Scrip o, here are five essential beliefs or We should note that this conviction is, tures offer invaluable insights and present theological tenets that shape and in and of itself, actually a radical convic critical truths on which we should reflect S undergird modern Quaker faith. tion in our overwhelmingly empirical, sci and to which we muse respond in order to Now if I stop here, someone will surely entific, and materialistic culture. This sec live deeply spirirual and whole lives. say, "But what about the testimonies? What ular culture tells us in many ways, "If you Now, whether we understand Jesus about the Peace Testimony, and the testi cannot see it, touch it, measure it, or (bet as the Christ-as "the only begotten Son monies on Equality, Integrity, and Sim ter yet) buy it and sell it, then whatever it of God" (as the creed says), or "the Light plicity? Are these not essential elements of is, it doesn't really matter." And the that lights all who come into the world" the Quaker faith?" Divine cannot be seen, touched, meas Qohn 1:9), or "the Inward Teacher" (a Not meaning to split semantic hairs, I ured or traded; but those who have expe favorite of early Friends) who helps us see would say, "No, they are not core ele rienced this Presence know that nothing and connect with the spiritual dimension ments, but rather vital fruits ofour faith." could be more real or more imponanc. of life may not matter so much. But that The primary Quaker testimonies repre is true if, and only if, we at least see Jesus sent ways of being in the world that both Second: God is accessible and know as a figure whose life and teachings we · depend upon and give evidence of our able directly and immediately. The cen must reflect on and respond to in some faith. They are ways of behaving and tral elements of Quaker practice-the significant way. To attempt to construct a explaining our behavior that "testify to" way we worship, make decisions, and version ofQuakerism where Jesus-as the that is, point at and give evidence of- the look for direction even as we are engaged Christ-is unimportant is to engage in core of our faith, which is our experience in service-are based on this as a given. historical revisionism and create a spiritu and conviction of the reality of the pres We look for, expect, and (if we are faith al text for Quakerism that is counterfeit in ence, love, and power of God that heals ful) act on "leadings of the Holy Spirit." its content. and transforms our lives. Quaker worship is about "communion" If we really believe the five tenets I have just as much as any celebration of the And Fifth: Being "faithful"-literally described so deeply that they shape the 14 March 2006 FRIENDS JOURNAL way we see the world and live our lives on a day-to-day basis, then the testimonies inevitably emerge. They describe the ways DISCIPLINE in which our lives should speak. And if that is true, they are surely features or Depression, indecision, chronic aspects of our lives--corporate and indi debilitating fatigue-why don't vidual-that should mark us as Friends. these wrack CEOs and Let me be clear: to say this about the tes secretaries of defense? timonies is in no way to diminish their Why aren't thieves importance. Indeed, to say this is to rec ognize that, besides being ways of living and torturers too sad that should change the world for the bet to make eggs ter, the testimonies should be valued as in the morning? well as another way of sharing our faith. We know they don't often crack their own eggs, don't n the first Epistle ofPeter (3:8-16), the scramble or fry them disciples in the early church are urged or set the plate down I to live lives that are so marked by compassion, humility, service, and love for the dog to lick clean, but that other people will have to take notice they are sad, I think: of them. In other words, they are exhort to the mitochondria ed to let their lives speak of the love and of their cells power of God as they experience it. And they are sad then they are told to "always be prepared to give an answer to anyone who asks you yet they rise at dawn, they to give a reason for the hope that you work all day, work out, eat right, have" (3: 15). In other words, to be able to uplink and download explain who they are and what they believe in ways that will open the oppor more information before lunch tunity for a similar spiritual experience to than those of us who can read others-to seekers, to fellow human beings could read in a week. who also long to know the transforming Always cramming Presence of the Divine in their lives. for the final, This, it seems to me, is the challenge fighting for the A, we face as Friends today. Liberal Friends counting on the curve, with have often been good at preaching the great discipline Gospel with our lives, but too often unable (or unwilling) to use words effec and the most up-to-date methods tively. Maybe this is because we do not training their hands know what words to use. Maybe it is to the old work because we have some unfortunate reluc of devouring tance to share what we believe. fields and orphans. No matter what the reason, we have too often failed to offer others something ~·s the insanity they are looking for: the good news of the of the Holocaust century reality of God's love and grace at work in the world and in our lives, and how the running a cool-down lap, practice of faith can continue and extend flag streaming behind, one's experience of that. So whether it is crowd mad with national pride. the words I have just used, or some oth Let we who love life let life ers, I hope we will work at being better remove the caul able to describe what we believe for our from our faces. selves and for others, better able to give a Let wounds reason for the hope that we have. It is crit inflicted in the past be past -Elizabeth K Gordon ical to our future as Friends, if we are to and wounds inflicted in the present have one; and just possibly critical to the Elizabeth K Gordon lives in Kingsley, Pa. work that God wants done in the world. 0 be tended . Let us work hard too. Let no dawn find our eyes closed. Let us reconsecrate discipline to hope. FRIENDs JOURNAL March 2006 WHAT JESUS MEANS TO ME by H~ey Gillman As AN ORTHoDox ognizing how dangerous Jesus was for the and justice. Christians, however, were Jewish boy in Manchester, England, I was church, decided he was safer on a crucifix using the word to mean strange things: taught that Christianity was the religion than walking round the world disturbing that Jesus was the unique son ofGod who of our oppressors. It was forbidden to go his followers. So I wanted to know more had reconciled the world to God by dying into a church, to read Christian Scrip about this Jesus about whom these Chris on the Cross (at the hands of his own peo tures, or even to mention the name of tians kept talking. ple who had rejected him) and who had Jesus. My ideas ofChristianity were of the ended up somehow as God. This idea of haziest. I would probably have answered, Messiahship was totally incomprehensible if asked (but no one did since all my to Judaism, even if it was based on a par friends were Jewish), that Christians wor IT CAME TO ME THAT ticular reading of the Suffering Servant of shiped three gods and blamed Jews for Isaiah. (In fact at the time of Jesus there killing one of them. This probably sums THERE WERE MANY were several differing understandings of up my ideas before the age of 11 or so. DIFFERENT JESUSES. the role of the Messiah, Judaism being But I have always been restless. The much more fluid a religious path than it idea of God speaking to just one people TO ME HE WAS A later became.) On the whole many Chris troubled me. The idea that "one of the tians seemed to regard "Christ" as a sur gods" of the Christians was Jewish BROTHER, A TEACHER, name and not as a function. It was only intrigued me even more. So I ventured after I had read some theology that I could onto forbidden ground. I needed to make A REVOLUTIONARY begin to tease out the various elements of sense of the world around me, outside the WHO HAD SOMEHOW all of this and then let them speak to me Jewish area of Manchester, outside the personally and affect my life. By this time, prescribed books. The more I read and BEEN KIDNAPPE D my late teens, I had started attending thought and met non-Jews, the more I Quaker meetings for worship (though at realized the prejudices of various commu BY THE INSTITUTIONAL first this lasted only for a brief period). nities and the breathtaking untruths they This added a new depth to my own search held about each other. CHURCH. to make sense of things. Then came the 1960s, a time of new So what does Jesus and this "Christ ideas, new theories of religion, new at least The problem was Jesus was Jewish and thing" mean to me today, after years of for me. I was challenged by the revolu that so many of his later followers knew thinking, reading, arguing, studying oth tionary attitudes towards religion of a so little about Judaism. This led me to er religions, listening to so many ex-Chris Methodist religious education teacher in read the Christian additions (called by tians trying to make sense of what they my sixth grade who made religious debate Christians the New Testament, as if the had rejected? Jesus is first and foremost a exciting. I read Honest to God and The Jewish Testament had been superseded). historical character in the tradition of the True Wilderness, books by Christian the It soon came to me that there were many prophets. He preaches against the estab ologians that sounded much more inter different Jesuses depending on which bit lished Jewish sects of his day in the name esting than the narrow forms of Judaism of the Bible you preferred, which theory of a time or state of being he calls the I had met before. I was overwhelmed by you followed; and I had the sneaking idea Kingdom of Heaven, and which I call the Dostoevsky's Jesus in The Brothers Kara at the back of my head that Jesus himself Divine Commonwealth. He is from the mazov and how the Grand Inquisitor, rec- would scarcely have recognized any of margins, socially and geographically. them. To me he was a brother, a teacher, The preaching ofJesus has the effect of Harvey Gillman is an elder at Brighton Meet a revolutionary who had somehow been changing the lives of those who hear him, ing, and co-clerk ofSussex and Surrey General kidnapped by the institutional church. so much so that, after the manner of their (quarterly} Meeting in Engkmd. He is a regular He had been tamed, worshiped, made days, they begin to see him as extraordi speaker and workshop leader among British into a bourgeois; worst of all he had been nary and supernatural. He begins to Friends and groups of spiritual directors. This made respectable. express an age-old longing for a deeper article was one ofa set ofessays by 19 Friends, And then there was this "Christ thing." way of living and relating, both to God all on the theme "What jesus means to me, "that appeared in The Friends Quarterly, july 2003; Christ means Messiah, the anointed one. and to the community. He does this in a ©2003 "The Friend" Publications Ltd; reprint In the Jewish Bible priests and kings were way that is both in continuity with his tra ed with permission. A forthcoming book by Har anointed to carry out special functions. dition and radical in that he challenges vey Gillman, Consider the Blackbird: Essays in The Messiah whom Jews were still expect some of the old teachings in the name of Spiricuality and Language, is scheduled to be ing was not a divine figure, but someone a deeper, more inward commitment published at the end of2006. who would inaugurate a time of peace but he is not unique in this, as Jeremiah r6 March 2006 FRIENDS JoURNAL Left: a burial portrait dating from the first to third century in Roman Egypt may give us an idea of how Jesus looked. that ancient world. I do not think Jesus thought he was inaugurating a new reli gion. The signpost pointing to a reawak ened relationship became itself the object of worship for many. The miracle for me is that Jesus will not let the church keep him locked away in a building; he keeps bursting out of the theological concepts that strive to imprison him. When I think of the word "Christ," I think ofa universal anointing in a less his torical, more mystical way. In Britain Yearly Meeting's Advices and Queries, the phrase "the spirit of Christ" is used, though few Quakers in Britain today use it in everyday speech. Jesus was, as it were, anointed to perform his task of prophecy and transformation, but that anointing is part of the condition of all those who, in Quaker language, are turned to the Light. Thus, Jesus as one filled with the "spirit of Christ" is an archetype of how it is to be a human reaching outwards (and inwards) to the Divine. Christ is not the object of worship, more a challenging way of living that has a cost, a way of living that I constantly betray and that is resur rected as a daily, this-world reality. How ever, we are not Jews of the first century; we have to find our own way, our own understanding of the spirit of anointing for the time and place in which we are now living. We have to fmd our own way of being Christ in and to the world. Jesus is historical and particular; Christ is time less and universal. It is my conviction that simply by being born we have a role to perform, though it may be many years before we know what that role may be-if we ever know. This is our anointing. It does not ~ matter what we call it or if we think of it ~ as part of the _Christian tradition ~r so~e j. other path. It IS not a matter ofwhich reli- § gion we follow, but which Kingdom or and Isaiah preached in a similar way. be. Like many of the rebels against the sta Commonwealth we are trying to live in Some of his followers go so far as to break tuS quo he is murdered by the authorities and to bring about. 0 down the boundaries of the community for challenging one kingdom in the name in which they live, admitting those who of another. After his death his earliest fol previously were considered unclean and lowers tried to understand his extraordi alien. Some even see him as a man-God, nary life, and so little by little began a reli which I do not believe he saw himself to gion using the imagery and concepts of FRIENDS JOURNAL March 2 006 17 --{rrrm fk VibvfaiN- if tit Nt~tfW"t~tlift- by Os Cresson ( grew up loving nature and feeling part of free will. This took ten years to work Os Cresson is a member ofMount Holly (NJ) of it-dirt, bugs, people, and everything. out. Finally, I saw that it is enough to live Meeting, where he is the recording clerk and a It was, and still is, amazing how the uni meaningfully, behaving as do those who member ofthe Worship and Ministry Commit verse simply rolls along, no miracles find meaning in other realms. I care just tee. He wrote ';4 Quaker Family in Ajghanistan, required. You and I are orderly, physical as much as they do and share many of 1949-1951, "published in FRIENDS jOURNAL events, like the weather. their values and purposes even as I accept in April 2002. He and other Quaker theists and People have always fascinated me. How that my behavior is the universe dancing non theists have a website, FRIENDS JOURNAL March 2 006 19 alized and to wonder how I could help. Humankind today is being asked to consider a demotion, one in a series that have taken place during recent centuries. The question facing us is whether religion To Friends Everywhere, status, criminal record, political views, has to involve the supernatural. For me We, the members and attenders of or religious beliefs and experiences of the experience of being part of the natu this monthly meeting, gathered in a the applicant. We are committed to ral world is a religious experience. Atheists meeting for worship for attention to love that overcomes differences. and other skeptics can lead good lives, business on this day, unite in support Diversity in our meeting is a wonder good Quaker lives, and they can function of the following statements about ful thing. well in our meeting communities. Quak membership in our meeting: As a diverse community we speak er practices are available to us all, howey Decisions regarding membership in different ways. We expect speakers er we speak of them. are made by members and attenders to speak and listeners to translate. We Sadly, naturalists who are not Quakers participating in a clearness process. hope that members and attenders of probably don't know they would be wel This includes the person or persons our meeting will not bite their come in many meetings. Wouldn't it be a asking for membership. We seek to tongues, but will express themselves joy to declare this to the world?! Of discern what is involved and what is freely in their several religious lan course, we wouldn't want to limit it to one appropriate for all concerned. guages. perspective. We could announce our com During this process we ask whether When speaking with visitors, or mitment to diversity of all kinds includ the applicant and the meeting are writing materials for them, we try to ing religious faith and experience. Many functioning well as a community. We make dear that each person is respon sorts of minutes might accomplish this; look at how we live together as a sible for listening carefully to, and one is offered in the sidebar. monthly meeting and not at whether interpreting for themselves, the reli A minute like this would be an invita we have had the same religious experi gious expressions of others. Writings tion to all who wonder whether their reli ences and hold the same beliefs. published or distributed by our meet gious experiences are acceptable among We consider membership without ing are meant to serve as guides rather Friends. It would say: come and let us being limited by the race, ethnicity, than rules. We are all called to express worship together and get to know each gender, sexual orientation, age, physi our religious views in our words and other. Let us try being Quaker together. 0 cal condition, education, economic lives. We describe the origins of this commitment to diversity in many ways. Some of us are led to it by the AD ASTRA experience of the Divine in every per son. Some are led by a conviction that A great star dies. News of its demise all people are worthy. Some hold that reverberates throughout our universe, the views expressed here are sufficient arriving light-years later announce unto themselves and need no justifica to tion m other terms. All these the devastation planets feel, when any sun approaches can work well for the peo expires in some flash catastrophe, their ple saying them and can address the tears, like diamonds, washing half the sky. same needs. Amid diversity we seek and fmd unity. We join in a sense of the meet Not so below, where news of death is instantaneous and ing even as we differ. We join in action trivial, and massive orchestrated weeping lasts no more inspired by our different faiths. We commit ourselves to love one another than half a nanosomething, sorrow always forced to merge and to live together in harmony. with commerce going on, while our ingenious spacecraft It is with joy in our hearts that we paradoxically transmtts ad nauseum meticulous detail declare this to the world. of temperatiures of what may be dead rilles of the moon. Why not aspire to a Morse of data from the nebulae which teaches us that it takes time for grief to fill and empty, time for gravity to operate, and time to love a son or brother, and, in the absence of the treasured other, mourn? -Earl Coleman Earl Coleman lives in Somerset, Nj 20 March 2oo6FRIENDS JoURNAL iberal Quakers today often frame as its emphasis on the blood of Jesus or our discussions about theology as a talk of eternal damnation, I often totally L FRIENDS JOURNAL March 2006 21 be contained in stories that are not Except for the bit about the strictly factual. divinity of Jesus, I'm probably not It is clear that the Bible has yet straying too far from typical lib been horribly misused over the cen eral Quaker beliefs {if there is such turies to oppress millions of people. a thing), but there's more. I also The Bible is a powerful tool and in believe in the virgin birth and phys the wrong hands it can be used to ical resurrection ofJesus. I'm quite commit great evil, supposedly in willing to give up some traditional the name of God. I think the Bible Christian beliefs, but these two is most dangerous when we expect somehow seem to cling to me. The it to reveal a clear and simplistic primary reason I believe in the mir message. God, fai th, and the Bible acles of the virgin birth and the are all more complex than our physical resurrection is because I human understanding can fathom. have no reason not to believe them. If we can learn to live with the I have trouble saying something is ambiguity, with the shades of gray, impossible for God, because I reject then I think we can start to under trying to limit God to only what I stand the kind of faith God calls us can understand. to have. The death of]esus on the Cross For a long time I struggled with is a different matter altogether. I the notion of the Trinity. Thinking don't buy a traditional assertion of God as somehow "three-in-one" that his death was preordained by seemed contrived. As much as folks God and is somehow necessary for in the first millennium ofC hristian the restoration of humanity. In history struggled to clarify and pin stead, I see the C rucifixion as a sign down this image, it just didn't of Jesus' perfect faith. He was so make sense to me. Then two con- faithful that he willingly bore the it cepts-the complexity of God and destructive human Consequences ·~ the relationality of God-helped for spreading his unpopular mes c.;s move me to the understanding I sage. The Resurrection shows us ~ hold today. that evil does not have the last We are all familiar with the sto word, but that God's love will pre ry of the three blind men and the ele vail in the end. The Resurrection is the phant. Each person touches a separate source of our hope. part of the animal and concludes that it is All of these specific beliefs about God something altogether different. None has and Jesus are perfectly valid Christian the complete truth. I think that God is so convictions. You do not have to abandon complex that God's identity cannot be Christianity if you are uncomfortable contained in one single image. T he idea of with certain parts of it. There are a lor of God as creator, companion, and guide for rooms in the Christian mansion, all with me is more helpfully symbolized by think different sizes and decors. If we abandon ing of God as multifaceted rather than as Christianity to the fundamentalists, we monolithic. We can never understand God effectively lock the doors to many of completely, but by conceiving of God as a God's glorious rooms. union of God, Christ, and the Holy Spir I hope that by sharing a few of my it, we are constantly reminded that God is beliefs I can spark more dialogue among not like anything else we know. Friends. We need to get over our concern Relationality is the other aspect of that simply by talking about our faith we God's character that is well represented by that Jesus is both fully divine {the Christ) are passing judgment on the faith of oth the idea of the Trinity. I've come to under and fully human (the historical Jesus). He ers. At the same time, we should listen stand the essence of Christianity as loving is the human incarnation of the Spirit of deeply to the voices of each other to dis relationality. The central biblical message C hrist, the Logos, the Word of God, cern whether God might be calling us to for me is that we are to love God with all which has existed since the beginning of move in a new direction. I rejoice that I our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and time. God loves us so much that God am learning how compatible liberal to love our neighbors as ourselves. T he became human in order to reach us by Christianity is with my Quaker faith, and significance of relationality is highlighted example the lessons we so desperately I invite any Friends who are uncomfort when we think of God's very nature as need. Jesus fully experienced life on Earth, able with C hristianity to take another internally relational among the three as we all do, except he had a relationship look at it with an open heart and mind. aspects of God. with God more perfect than any human Try to see where God might be calling Okay, so what about Jesus? I believe could ever have. you today. 0 22 March 2006 FRIENDS JOURNAL FRIENDS ] OURNAL March 2006 23 FINDING DROPT LETTERS by Paul Hamell h e Religious Society of Friends contains a number Spiritual World, ''Arguments are devised subsequent to of very active members who attend worship every week, our deep conviction, not preceding our conviction. They yet do not believe in God. Some consider themselves bolster faith; they do not create it." agnostics, and some say they don't believe in God as God In the modern and postrnodern world, we trust in is commonly understood, but say they believe God is science and the scientific method, rejecting everything simply the good that is present in all people. that seems to depart from their rigor, without allowing This brings to mind Mark Twain's statement that the ourselves to marvel that science has no answers for the difference between the right word and almost the right most basic questions of our existence: What is con word is the difference between light sciousness and how did it come to be? What is time? ning and a lightning bug; God is the What is matter and how did it come into existence? creator who is a potent and active What is beyond our universe, which science tells us is force in the world even today, where finite? What is the context of our existence? Why does as good is human virtue. They are not anything exist, rather than just nothing? Why do we see the same thing. our world as beautiful? Furthermore, if God is only the It has been said that when the only tool in your tool good found in humans, then God is box is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail. less than a human being, not more, Scientific method is a useful and important hammer, but and certainly not God. the framework of our lives contains a lot of material that Some Friends have wondered why is not nails. We all need tools to handle the blocks and people who do not believe in God planks that make up the greater part of our lives. We would devote a great deal of time and need other ways of seeing and thinking, in addition to, WE NEED energy to a Religious Society that but not instead of, scientific method. We need more, not holds as fUndamental that God is pres fewer, tools. OTHER WAYS ent in all people, and that if we sit Yesterday, I talked with a young woman who I know OF SEEING together quietly, we may hear God well, who has always described herself as an agnostic. whisper within us. On reflection, I, for Recently, I have sensed that she has become more AND THINKING, one, have stopped wondering; it is open to belief, and during our conversation yesterday, because there is that of God in all peo she seemed to have crossed the tipping point where IN ADDITION ple, and we do hear God whisper with "Who knows?" becomes "I think so. .. . " I asked her in us, calling. Even when our rational why her perspective had changed and she replied, "Mol TO, BUT NOT ism keeps us from seeing, we can still ecular biology." hear, at least well enough to know we She has been thinking about the mechanisms by INSTEAD OF, are sought. And so, we continue to which DNA molecules separate into individual strands, SCIENTIFIC seek the God whose existence we and use themselves as templates for synthesizing proteins doubt, for God stirs our souls to seek that govern every aspect of development and fUnction, METHOD. WE And so, Friends who are much old at the cellular level and for the entire organism. She can er than I, and have been part of the describe and understand the processes and their effects, NEED MORE, Religious Society of Friends for a but she cannot begin to understand how molecules much larger portion of their lives, and began behaving in this manner or why they keep doing NOT FEWER, are not at all shy about sharing their it. Even if someone eventually describes such a mecha doubts, have told me that they envy nism, it is certain to deepen the mystery, not solve it. TOOLS. my clarity on this question. Their envy The first tool we have to add to our toolbox is a sense is not really envy, but the universal of awe and wonder. yearning for God. I have tried to share this clarity and light, but have seen no success to date. It is as if my soul is aflame, but A lthough I cannot remember a time when I did not can kindle no new fires. I have tried to let my life speak. believe that God is, I can well remember the time before I have spoken of what has been given to me, and what I I knew that God is, the time before I was a Quaker. I have seen, not expecting others to see what I see in the remember that awe and wonder were in the foundation telling, but hoping to teach others to see as I see. This, I of that belie£ So much ofour existence remains inexpli know, is the key. As Thomas Kelly wrote in Reality ofthe cable, and only becomes more so as our curiosity nibbles around the edges of our ignorance. Paul Hamel! is a member ofRidgewood (NJ) Meeting. I also remember my sense of awe being stimulated by March 2006 FRIENDS JOURNAL ur a parc::m Glfmg ror a cnua or a scana or wn1te bircn Let JatL upon zts tJack tfJe soot tfJat falls ;rom among green grasses have always brought a feeling of chimneys, oneness, a feeling that I was also seeing with my heart. Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, And while a skeptic can explain our capacity for loving And seeing that it was a soft October night, as a naturally selected trait, enhancing our ability to sur Curled once about the house, andfeU asleep. vive as a species, I can see no such explanation for our ability to see beauty and our tendency to pause in its When we are able to perceive meaning presence. The fact that we see each other and the world between words, find meaning diffused as beautiful is a gift and a constant reminder that there through words, hear meaning in the breath is a giver of gifts. that carries the words, then we are ready to Awe brings humility, and humility brings gratitude. perceive God in the poems of our lives. Our toolbox is filling rapidly. There is a place for poetry in our toolbox. Rra large part of my adult life, I was working on a A we, wonder, humility, gratitude, awareness of college degree in literature. I was reading a lot, including unity, and poetry are probably the essential tools for a lot of poetry, and I was beginning to write. This disci building belief, and living with belief for a time is pline brought a spiritual gift that I recognized at the probably sufficient for finding faith. However, like many time, and another one that I have only recently recog people, I required one more thing to turn belief into nized for what it is. faith: crisis. There's nothing like a good crisis to make us I saw that, in reading and writing, I was participating humble, and nothing like good help in a crisis to make in a vast conversation across the millennia. All of us, us grateful. from the ancients to the postmoderns, share common My personal crisis was precipitated by another's crisis, concerns and common responses. I could read a bawdy someone whose privacy must be respected. However, I joke written by Aristophanes more than 2,000 years ago can say this much: there came a time when it was clear and laugh the same as at a joke written yesterday. In fact, that I had a responsibility to act, was compelled by love the gag was frequently the same. I found Shakespeare's to act, and my own judgment was in agree characters and their problems as familiar as the people I ment with all the advice I was receiving have known, and found a kindred spirit in Anne Brad from friends and professionals. But, there street, a 17th-century Puritan woman who wrote poet was a part of me that disagreed violently ry. I came to see literature as a conversation, a call and about what should be done, was holding response through the ages as we read, then write in reply. me back and asking me to trust someone I was living the oneness of being human. Comprehen who I knew to be completely untrustwor sion of the unity of existence is a tool we can use. thy. I didn't know which way to turn. I also was beginning to see my life as a poem. At the Then the thought came to me that the time, I found it a little funny, even alarming, that I nonrational alternative that was pressing would catch myself thinking of real-life phenomena as itself on me might be what I knew Quak metaphors or symbols, and I would caution myself that ers call the Inner Light, that the God I this was reality, not poetry; things are what they are, and believed to exist, but not interfere very there are no metaphors. It is only recently that I have much, might be offering me help. Hoping realized that I was wrong, that the ability to see life as a that I wasn't just making an excuse to do poem is an important spiritual gift. what was emotionally easier, I went with REQU I RED The most important difference between poetry and what I felt, not what I thought. prose is in the use oflanguage. In prose, language is used The person I couldn't trust made a ONE M ORE denotatively; we strive to be precise and to impart a very promise and kept it. A series of coinci specific meaning-this sentence is prose. In poetry, lan dences provided a course of action that TH I NG T O guage is used evocatively, to tease meaning out of the started the mending and healing I was seek reader, meaning that may be very different from the lit ing. This healing began when an avowed T URN eral, denotative meaning of the words used. This is done atheist experienced a change of heart and BELIEF through what the French poet Charles Baudelaire called reponed feeling God catch him and hold "the universal analogy'': the recognition that all experi him when he lost his footing atop a cliff. INTO FAITH: ence is, in some way, similar to other experience. In poet Way was opening. ry, meaning emerges from our feelings and thoughts like While this was happening, I stumbled CRISI S. a tabby cat emerging from the fog in this passage from across an excellent book on Quakerism "The Love Song of]. Alfred Prufrock" byT.S. Elliot: while shopping for someone else. I also had a series of small experiences that seemed highly relevant. The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, One evening, after dark, I was walking in a strange Theyellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes city when I encountered a homeless man; a very strange Licked its tongue into the corners ofthe evening, looking, obviously mentally ill, scary homeless man. As FRIENDS ]OURNALMarch 2006 25 GuideOne Insurance is America's leading insur urge to speak to him, so 1 turned around, went after him, and asked ifh e was eating er of religious institutions, and has been pro regularly. The madness went out of his tecting Friends houses of worship and schools eyes, and he said, "When I can." So I for more than 20 years. In fact, since 1979, bought him dinner. GuideOne has been the Friends Insurance A short time later, I was speaking with Group property and casualty insurer of choice. an acquaintance who was going through To arrange for a FREE premium quotation, and a family crisis of her own, as her troubled teenage daughter was pregnant. She men to learn more about GuideOne Insurance, call tioned that she had decided to skip 1-877-448-4331 ext. 5429. Christmas that year because she just couldn't get interested. The conversation contin ued, but I couldn't stop thinking about what she had said and the strange reply that wouldn't leave me except by being spoken. Finally, I said to her, "I Aw some Q!taker perspectives know this is going to sound really strange coming from me, a Jew, but I was really bothered by what you said about skipping on the wrong track? Christmas, and I wish you would recon sider; now, of all times, would be a good time for you to celebrate the birth of a child who brought hope into the world." Do you want to know what sincere Quakers think, who She was quiet for a moment, then said to truly advocate peace, justice, and helping the poorest of the her husband, "I think we should go see Father Tom." poor, but who think many Quaker perspectives are on the It was shortly after this that I found a wrong track? Friends meeting within a reasonable dis tance, and became a regular attender, then a member; for it had become clear to me Try reading The (}Jtaker Economist, a free weekly online news that God is with us always, and may speak commentary on peace, justice, and world affairs, somewhat at any moment, either for our benefit or to benefit those around us. I have found that different from the usual Quaker line. in the synergy ofa gathered silent meeting, the presence of God is almost palpable. Over eighty leners have now been published and appear on If we go about our day-to-day business thee-mails of over 600 subscribers, mostly Quakers. To see with our eyes open and our tools at hand-awe, wonder, humility, gratitude, them all online, visit hnp:/ /tqe.quaker.org. To subscribe (;free), oneness, and poetry-the world starts to send an e-mail to [email protected]. look like it did to Walt Whitman when he wrote these lines, excerpted from "Song of Myself': I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least, The Meeting School Nor do I understand who there can be 56 Thomas Road, Rindge, NH 03461 more wondeifitl than myself Organic Farm Why should I wish to see God better than ~ rare breeds, active student involvement this day? / Caring Quaker Community I see something ofGod each hour ofthe putting fai th into practice in our dai ly lives twenty-four, and each moment then, Progressive Secondary Education In the faces ofmen and women I see God, day/boarding, small classes, hands-on learning and in my own face in the glass, I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign'd by God's name, And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe'er I go, email:[email protected] (603) 899-3366 www.meetingschool.org Others will punctually come for ever and ever. 0 26 March 2006 FRIENDS j OURNAL • WITNESS ~~L Friends of the Homeless at HORSHAM by Ann Herbert Scott A FRIENDS ELEMENTARY t all began very simply. By chance two old across campus to be on hand for our meetings, AND MIDDLE SCHOOL FOR friends met at the square in Sonoma, Cal and once when she couldn't come, she called BRIGHT CHI LDREN WHO I ifornia, and decided to have lunch togeth to see how she should make out her check. er. "But let's not go out to lunch," one of them Our attendance varies from month to LEARN DIFFERENTLY suggested. "Why don't you bring a sandwich month, usually from 15 to 25, but!ast month and come to my house. T hen we can give the we had an all-time high of 34. We meet 318 M eeting House Road, Horsham, PA 19044 money we save to the homeless." around a large square table and add extra 215-674-2875 • www.quakerschool.org Out of that chance beginning Friends have chairs as needed. The group is co-sponsored been gathering monthly in the same spirit of by the Committee of Peace and Justice at care for homeless persons for more than seven Friends House and Redwood Forest Meeting. years now. We call ourselves Friends of the When we gather, except for the time for our Homeless, and we meet at Friends House, a speaker, the talk is nonstop. Quaker retirement community in northern The amount of contributions also varies California, to hear from guest speakers up-to from month to month. One time we gave date information on the myriad issues that more than $400 to make possible the reprint- affect our neighbors and near-neigh- bors, the homeless people of our com munity. Our structure is simple. We meet promptly at noon on the second Mon (609) 714-0100 day of each month. Everyone brings a [email protected] lunch. One of our two volunteer coor • MARRIAGE CERTIFICATES • dinators clerks the meeting, making • INSCRIPTIONS • SCROLLS e brief announcements and introducing our speaker. We then listen to a speaker 22 New Freedom Rd., Medford, NJ 08055 working with one or more aspects of meeting a homeless concerns. O ur guests have bag is passed included representatives of a great vari and the ety of nonprofit organizations, city and county officials (including the mayor), dll.fktion ts gwen BENJAMIN experts on legislative and housing issues, din...a to the speaker and homeless people themselves. T here The Meetinghouse Mouse is time for questions, and our questions have become increasingly informed over by Benjamin, as told to Clifford Pfeil, the years. th~ J~Jel.rxer with illustrations by John D. Gurnrnere We have no treasury. But at each program meeting a paper bag is passed around- chooses. Thus ftiNut If you remember the Benjamin stories no one sees what anyone else gives-and have in past issues, you will be happy the collection is given directly to the more than $34,000. to share them-now in book form speaker for whatever nonprofit homeless with your children, grandchildren, program the speaker represents or and Friends! chooses. Many members bring their check ing of hundreds of guides to homeless books and we have contributed more than resources. Another time members provided $34,000 thus far to the concerns represented. more than $700 to support a fine nonprofit Available for $6 Our meetings are lively. Many of the anen agency in severe financial crisis. Individuals plus $2 shipping and handling ders from Friends House and Redwood Meet have also given substantial personal contribu ($3.50 for shipping and handling outside ing have given their lives as professionals or tions to the work of the Sonoma County Task volunteers in the fields of teaching, social Force on the Homeless and to individual US., Canada, and Mexico) work, and other forms of public service. For agencies. In addition, we raised $10,000 to from the FRIENDS j OURNAL office. many, Friends of the Homeless provides our provide counseling resources as a special one opportunity to be in touch with the needs memorial to a former social worker in the ofo ur community. We are eager to be in touch Tenderloin district of San Francisco and her with those needs. A number of us are in our husband. This Sonoma couple inspired the 80s, and some faithful stalwarts in their 90s. formation of our group. One 97-year-old regularly pushed her walker Perhaps our most important contribution is not a fmancial one. To the benefit of the Ann Herbert Scott is a member ofRedwood For wider community we lobby regularly for low est Meeting in Santa Rosa, Calif income housing. We discovered soon after we FRIENDS j OURNAL March 2 006 27 had begun to meet that the lack of affordable housing is crucially related to homelessness. Resident Life We learned that whenever a promising low income housing project was being considered, Its not like home, it is home ... the proposed project met with opposition from neighborhood groups, real estate people, and other self-interested folk. We try to be a voice in support of public interest and affordable housing projects that are needed in the wider community. When we first appeared at a Santa Rosa City Council meeting, a member greeted us with enthusi asm. "We've been waiting for this for a long time," she said. It was good news to her to have a group supporting, rather than oppos ing, the affordable housing so badly needed in our city. When we appear at meetings of the City Council, the Sonoma County Board ofSuper visors, the Planning Commissions, and other appropriate governmental agencies, one or ... at the most affordable rates more of our number are prepared to give tes A Quaker Sponsored Retirement Community timony. The rest of us sit patiently-some times impatiently-for a chance to show our 6300 Greene Street • Philadelphia, PA 19144-2596 support for the proposed project. Because 215-844-0700 most of us are retired, we can sit for three or ~...... four hours (on one occasion for five hours) www.stapeley.org OPPOfllfUNJT't' waiting for the time when our concern comes up on the agenda, a luxury many younger folk do not have. Twenty or thirty of us can show up when we are needed and sometimes we carry cards signaling our support. At one memorable City Council meeting there were more Friends House people at the meeting than there were at home at Friends house. Olney Friends School In addition to lobbying, we do what we Est. 1837 can to directly support agencies serving home less people. We collect and sort large quanti ties of clothing and bedding to send to a fam An intellectually challenging ily service group. Several of us volunteer regu larly at nonprofit agencies. Many of us worked college preparatory on a major census of the homeless population. Two of us serve on the board of the Sonoma program within a County Task Force on the Homeless. Three of us regularly attend providers meetings to stay supportive Quaker in touch with the changing and relentlessly growing needs in our area. community. I believe the model of Friends of the Homeless can be repeated in many places Olney Friends School where a few concerned persons are willing to take responsibility for organizing and follow in Barnesville, Ohio up. Are such groups needed? Indeed, they are! is a small co-educational 0 boarding school for grades 9-12. March 2oo6 FRIENDS JoURNAL door into the heaven that is within us all, He stared out the door and down the here on this Earth." road toward our town well. "One day we Yeshu was quiet for a long time. Then will help them do this, you and I." He he laid the mallet and chisel down again, glanced back a't me. side by side, and began pacing back and When he said that, whenever he said forth through the wood chips and saw anything like that to me, although I felt dust on the workshop floor. pleased and special, ready to set off down "Those people we met yesterday the road that had been laid out, a moment what they really need is fairness," he told later it seemed like walking over a cliff. me, "not charity. They need wells of their Ifonly I could have seen into the future. The critical balance between own rather than a few drops of our water academic rigor andjoy in learning to wet parched lips; worse yet, drops that had to be begged for." h at night I had a second dream. It was He locked his fingers together in front dusk, and I was all alone in the desert. I of his chest. "Until the day arrives when felt deep hunger, and thirst. Suddenly a they can return home and live among lone figure appeared before me and I tast their own people, they must have not just ed bread in my mouth. And cool water on ABINGTON FRIENDS SCHOOL wells, but land and farming tools so that my lips. I closed my eyes and opened A coeducational ~aker school they can live in a decent place together them again. from preschool through grade 12 and feed themselves." It was the carpenter. 0 575 Washington Lane, Jenkintown, PA 19046 2.15-886-4350 • LIFE IN THE MEETING www.abingtonfriends.net Quaker Kids Say the Darnedest Things Patricia Smith by Photographing eaching the young ones in our meet On another occasion, I was going through people, places ing, I think often of Art Linklerrer's my normal routine with the children before T show that I watched when I was we headed into meeting for worship. This objects, and events young. Because of the small number of youth included a moment ofstillness and a reminder (also dancers andfish) and lack of volunteers the children meet that they need to be quiet when they enter the together with ages ranging &om 2 to 14. Most meeting room. I emphasized not talking aloud Arthur Fink Photography . of the time the older children are wonderful at until the worship had ended. After the chil af@arthurfi nk photo. com helping the young ones with crafts and games. dren had settled into their parents' arms, an However, there are hectic, unruly days when I elder member stood to minister. The moment wonder if anyone has heard a word I've said. this white-haired gentleman opened his mouth, One morning when the kids seemed espe one of my littlest ones hissed disapprovingly, cially noisy and inanentive, I was trying to get "Quiet-you're not supposed to talk!" the group to understand the concept of diver Sometimes I underestimate the intelli sity. As I escorted the children in to join the gence of our children, and how much they adults during the final ten minutes of meeting pick up &om their parents and other adults in for worship, I felt quire &ustrared, even won the meeting. One First Day, shortly before the dering, "Why do I bother trying to reach these start of the Iraq war, I taught a lesson on coop THE FRIENDS CAMP IN BUCKS COUNTY kids?" After we settled into the silence a four eration. We talked about working together year-old stood. His grandfather looked anx and discussed various ways of cooperating. 1WO weeK SeSSIONS ious, trying to decide if he should grab his The children spoke of things like passing the June through August grandson before he took off running around ball in a basketball game rather than always the room. Instead, this wise little boy looked trying to shoot. Then I asked for examples of SLEEPOVE~ CAMP up at the ceiling and said, "I have brown eyes not cooperating. One bright-eyed four-year for Boys & Girls ages 8-13J and Michael's eyes are blue, but that doesn't old declared loudly, "Bush doesn't cooperate make me any berrer than him." Then he sat with the UN." Once I swallowed my surprise, Campers choose* their* *own* activities* and live back down. My eyes welled with rears as I real we continued with our discussion. I had and play in a friendly, diverse community. ized that, through all the turmoil during the become more aware of how influential our FOR INFORMATION, CAll.. 610-847-5858 lesson, some ideas still got through. speech and actions are on our youth. Spending tiJille with these amazing chil 609 Geigel Hill Rd., Ottsville, PA 18942 Patricia Smith is a member of C!dremont dren is a blessing and I often wonder who is [email protected] • www.camponas.org (Calif) Meeting. the real teacher. 0 ACA Accredited Camp FRIENDS JOURNAL March 2006 29 make music Eat Here: Reclaiming rias, and every family that takes the rime to eat home Homegrown cooked food together-all Friends people performing small Music Pleasures in a Global but powerful acts of rebel lion against food that is Camp Supermarket increasingly transformed, By Brian HalweiL WW Norton and sterilized, and removed at Olney Friends School Company, 2004. 235 pages. from its source. Barnesville, Ohio $13.95/so.ftcover. Many Friends know intuicivdy that our rela ages 10-18 Can you imagine a successful burger chain tion to what we eat is important. Eat Here pro July 9 - August 6, 2006 that has seasonal shakes from local farms vides a larger context that is truly nourishing. chocolate hazelnut during the fall nut season, For brochure and camp video: strawberry in the spring, blueberry in the -Pamela Haines FMC, P.O. Box 427 summer, and wild huckleberry when the Pamela Haines is a member ofCentral Philadel Yellow Springs, Ohio 45387 berries are ripe in the nacional forest? phia (Pa.) Meeting. Author Brian Halweil obviously can. And Phone: 937-767-1311 he encourages us to join him by laying out the [email protected] situacion in global agriculture today. Food COs travels incredible distances under the control of giant conglomerates. Even if a McDonalds is surrounded by potato farmers, for example, Regulars and Refugees they ofren buy from across a continent or an By Carrie Newcomer. Rounder Records, 2005. ocean because fuel is (relacively) cheap and dif $17.98/CD. ferent contracts with small growers are com l(DeWtJ!Y plex. Farmers are reduced to hired hands on Drunkard's Prayer their own land, with an ever-decreasing share of the food profits. Raw ingredients often cost By Over the Rhine. Back Porch Records, 2005. faerttficati? less than packaging. This is scary stuff. $17.98/CD. Yet the author spends the bulk of his book ~ J\{a!_Y_~idunan talking about hopeful seeds that have been Food for the Long Haul Car l:9ref'Qy sproucing all over the world as a counterforce By jesse Palidofiky. Carroll Street/Azalea City www.mtcalllgraphy.coin and alternacive to this trend. We learn about Recordings, 2005. $17.98/CD. the potential of urban and suburban farms, 11 River Terrace, Holyoke, MA 01 040 1(413) 529 9212 E-mail: [email protected] the Slow Food movement, local marketing Though my hair's about all gone and I and food processing initiacives, the power of haven't tuned my faithful guitar in a year or so, an inscirucion choosing to buy locally, local I still harbor illusions of making it big as a food policy councils, and incentives that can be Friendly musician. Nowadays, though, I live used to get local food businesses offthe ground. that dream vicariously though others. Here I found this book scary, hopeful, and pro are three Quaker-connected arcists with new foundly ethical. The very fact that this Earth COs that I think you'll enjoy. provides us with the means of sustaining life Carrie Newcomer is a Friend from Bloom Bm Moyers - March 14 is a mystery and a gift. A system that "degrades ington, Ind., and Regulars and Refogees is her Hastoa Smith.- March IS the crafr of land stewardship into the crude tenth album. It's very much a follow-up to labor of commodity production" and destroys Niyoou SpUm- Mardt 26-28 2004's Betty's Diner, which introduced songs local economies for the sake of profit is deeply from a fictional small town diner and the folks Quaker Education Sinc.e 1837 immoral. Any steps we can take to reclaim our that inhabit it, as well as compiling some of .Admiasion OlJice respect for the land and those who work it, her best previously released songs ("Gathering 5800 Wcsr FriesldlyAw • Greensboro, NC 27410 and rebuild local conneccions that allow us to of Spirits," ''I'll Go Too," and "Should Have 336-316-2100 • 1-800.992·7759 • FAl036-316-2954 be a resource to one other, is a step toward www.guilfOtd.edu Known Better"-the cover of which was fea right order. As Brian Halweil points out: tured on Nickel Creek's Grammy-winning Sideways album). Regulars and Refo.gees fea CREMATION While the advocates of local food tures this musician's luminous voice and com Friends are reminded that the produccion aren't a major lobby group, pellingly spiritual lyrics to more fully intro Anna T. Jeanes Fund they are gaining support from a grow duce the folks who dine at Betty's. These will reimburse cremation costs. ing segment of the populacion, a seg include Olivia, a gay hospital chaplain, 90- (Applicable to members of year-olds Alice and Roy (a former AFSC relief Philadelphia Yearly Meeting only.) ment that potentially includes every person who plants a home garden, worker), Bob the dog, and more. Short stories For information, write DORIS CLINKSCALE every farmer who wants to sell food to included in the liner notes introduce the char 414 Foulkeways his neighbors, every parent who cares acters and the songs, all of which have tinges Gwynedd, PA 19436 about the food served in school cafete- of Carrie Newcomer's Quaker spirituality shot 30 March 2006 FRIENDS jOURNAL FRKE N D § FKDUCK ARY COR PORATIO N Friends Fiduciary Corporation (FFC) embraces a widely held concern of Friends that investment should be made in businesses which serve a beneficial purpose in a well-ordered society and exclude those which raise concerns about their products, management and business practices. Through our CO NSO Ll DATED I NVESTM EN T FUND and PLANNED GIVING SERVICES , FFC can help your organization provide responsible financial stewardship. l·l/11/r/, 1·/(/iil/t/1 \ ( IJI/!IJ/tll/11//1' II !!11( /ol jllo/11 111/f!i!/t/(/11// "''Ill, IJ//1 /t//o" 1·1/tllrf, IJ/~i/1//,' tll/1!//' l'k.i'L'lllilt.llf ( 11!1\f.lllll' 1\J L'llLIII l.lhiJdllll l ll".i()IL()JlJ ()J "''! \IIIII IJJL'Jllhl i d i il i .JI\ ( IJ ~ FRIENDS j OURNAL March 2000 31 reet through them. It's subtle, but very present. /Would do murder to my soul"). If there's a And it's not an easy spirituality-Newcomer problem with this album, it's not the produc wrestles with hard questions, like what will tion, backing musicians, or Jesse Palidofsky's "the small school that Jennifer do tO put food on the table (''And I voice. It's the over-earnestness of some of the makes big people" still hope and I pray/ For some thing, some lyrics. There's a bit too much of his telegraph day''), how we treat those who move tran ing his point of view and feelings, and too lit siently through our lives ("You never know de letting the listener get it. Still, there's a lot what might blow through the door like a to appreciate in these 15 tracks. silent prayer"), and hope in the midst of - Brent Bill despair in troubling political times ("There is Brent Bill, assistant book review editor for a voice above the madness/ There is a spirit FRIENDS jOURNAL, is the author of Holy moving now"). This album is one of Carrie Silence: The Gift of Quaker Spirituality, and Newcomer's strongest efforts tO date, and a former singer/guitarist with the barely known Friends and their friends will find comfort and and rarely heard bands Sure Foundation and challenge among the regulars and refugees The Happy Establishment. Greene Street Friends School who hang out at Betty's. Besides Regukm and 551 1 Greene Street Betty's, The Gathering ofSpirits, The Age ofPos Philadelphia, PA 19144 sibility, and My True Name are well worth In Brief • a listen . Pre-K through Grade 8 Over the Rhine, the mainstays of which Founded in 1855 Living Truth: A Spiritual Portrait of are the Cincinnati songwriting duo of Linford Pierre Ceresole ' Detweiler and Karin Bergquist, met at Mal Please call TODAY for a one College, a Friends school in northeastern By Keith R Maddock. Pendle Hill Pamphlet tour. 215-438-7545 Ohio. Their 15th album, Drunkard's Prayer, #379, 2005. 35 pages. $4/softc()IJer. follows the successful 2-disc album Ohio. Who was Pierre Ceresole? Although he is Ohio showcased haunting lyrics ("The last not an especially big name among modern time I saw Jesus/ I was drinking Bloody Marys Friends, Pierre Ceresole's life was representa tive of many of the ideals of all Friends in the The Bible Association of Friends in the South'') and musical styles from black first half of the 20th century. This pamphlet in America gospel ("Till we lay these weapons at your feet, Lord/ How long, how long/ Till we call all tells his story as a "spiritual portrait" since 1829 has offered Bibles, NewTesraments, emphasizing both the moral weight of his and Portions free or ar cost to Friends hatred obsolete, Lord! How long, how long"). instirmions, individuals, and others worldwide. Drunkard's Prayer is a quieter, more con outward activism and the vital faith of his Write to: P.O. Box 3, Riverton, NJ 08077 templative album than Ohio. It's centered inward mysticism. around relationships and was fittingly record Ourwardly, he worked for reconciliation ed in the living room of their home. The and relief of suffering during and after both arrangements are spare--mostly guitar, piano, World Wars, and was imprisoned repeatedly and upright bass complementing Karin's for speaking truth to power and crossing bor poignant voice. You hear the realization (''And ders illegally to bring aid and witness to peo this ache is gonna break me love/ Until you ple struggling under fascism. He was a come back home/ Right or wrong/ There is no founder of Service Civil International (SCI), Frien ~ home without you"), love ("Whether or not! dedicated to the reconstruction of communi photography • design Your lips move/ You speak to me"), and ulti ties devastated by natural disasters or war. graphic art • greeting cards mate hope ("I was born to laugh/ learned ro Keith Maddock writes, "God came to repre [email protected] laugh through my tears/ I was born tO love/ sent for him a principle of integrity, a great toll free: 877.477.4662 I'm gonna learn tO love without fear"). It's an mirror in which we see ourselves just as we are, album best listened to the way it was record with all our ugliness and with all our hopes." ed-at home and with someone you love. In a sense, Pierre Ceresole himself was such Jesse Palidofsky is a Maryland Friend and a mirror. He used his training as a scientist to graduate of Earlham School of Religion who look upon the world around him with a dear A Vibrant City. has shared his music at the National Theatre eye, seeing its beauty and joy, seeing its pain, A Close Community. and at festivals like Common Ground on the and entering into its complex life with his fear Hill and the Washington Folk Festival. His and hope fully engaged, witnessing with A Culture of Learning. newest release is Food for the Long Haul. This integrity, participating with sincerity and album is an eclectic mix of musical styles effort. May we all resemble him in his "striv backed with guitars, clarinets, drums, fiddles, ing for a fully integrated life that takes in the banjos, and more--from the playful Woody whole panorama of earthshaking events, sim rHII'\J>s Stttct Guthrie-ness of "Personal Growth Blues" ple everyday activities and moral behavior, ("You know I got such a bad case of those beautiful vistas, and the intricate details of the /Personal growth /Cutting edge /Deep pearl Pre-K through 12 natural world." diving /Individuation blues") to the earnest 17th & Benjamin Franklin Parkway - Ktrsten Backstrom "Crossing the Poison River" ("Papa grieves for Philadelphia, PA 19103 215-561-5900 ext. 104 • www.friends-select.org me /Old friends call me a fool /A naive dweeb Ktrsten Backstrom, a writer, attends Multnom trying to save the world /But to turn back now ah (Oreg.) Meeting. 32 March 2006 FRIENDS jOURNAL .. . Connecting Friends • ·Crossing Cultures • Changing Lives Vincula a los Amigos • Sobrepasa Barreras Culturales • Cambia Vidas Friends World Committee for Consultation Comite Mundial The FWCC de los Amigos SECCI6N Founders Fund As part of FWCC's recently announced $2.5 million campaign, the Founders Fund recognizes family members and friends who were instrumental in the first 30 years of FWCC's history. We welcome information and memories about Friends who attended one of the following World Conferences: 1937 (Swarthmore and Haverford, PA) 1952 (Oxford, England) 1967 (Greensboro, NC) Establ ished with a generous challenge gift in memory of J Passmore and Anna Griscom Elkinton, the goa l of the Founders Fu nd is A lOVE: 1937 Friends World Conference to raise $300,000 to provide long-term Swarthmore & Haverford, PA funding for FWCC programs. For more RIGHT: information, please contact us! 1967 Friends World Conference Greensboro, NC THE CAMPAIGN FOR FWCC SECTION OF THE AMERICAS Friends World Committee for Consultation Section of the Americas 0 Bridging bounda ri es among Friends in the Americas 1506 Race Street, Philadelphia PA 19102, USA 8 Strengthening Friends' work and witness in Latin America 215. 241. 7250 f) Investing in the future of FWCC by building a quasi -endowment [email protected] 0 Build ing the annual fund www.fwccamericas.org FRIENDS J OURNAL March 2006 33 • NEWS FREEING Live Oak (Tex.) Meeting received a $25,000 grant from American Friends Service Com mittee to support participation in the Neigh bor to Neighbor program, which provides CREATIVE personal assistance to hurricane evacuees adjusting to life in H ouston. "With 125,000 evacuees, strangers to the city, Neighbor to Neighbor is intended to help find schools, government agencies, malls, stores, and other f\1 I N D S . information about the city that will help them adjust to Houston," Barbara Cowan, clerk of For Students with Learning Differences Live Oak Meeting, said. The meeting's partic ipation in Neighbor to Neighbor is just one of Multisensory teaching strategies for diverse leaming styles many miniseries supported, individually and Prospective Parents Open House dates for 2005-2006: collectively, by the 70 members and 125 October 26 • November 16 • December 14 attendees of Live Oak Meeting. Among other January 25 February 15 March 15 • April 12 • May 10 activities, Live Oak Meeting joined with the Interfaith Ministry of Greater Houston in Professional Open House dates: October 12 • January 11 organizing six canteens to feed evacuees. College Preparatory • Grades 7-12 • Summer Program Friends also worked with other religious 8-day Orton-Gillingham Associate Level Training Course: June 14-23, 2006 groups arranging hospitality and housing for evacuees. According co Barbara Cowan, sever al evacuee f.unilies were provided homes by members of Live Oak Meeting. One member offered the home of her mother, who died recently, for an evacuee family. Another mem ber made a large house with four bedrooms available as a home for three families of evac uees. In addition, Live Oak Meeting approved a contribution of $10,000, from a bequest left to the meeting by a longtime member, to sup port ~istance for the evacuees. Meanwhile, "Sometimes I feel as if we Live Oak Meeting coordinated responses from other meetings across the country to have our own life-time assist evacuees in Houston. "The assistance from other Quaker meetings, in money and learning establishment:' clothing contributions, has been outstand ing," Barbara Cowan said. One response carne -A Foxdale Resident in a letter from Friends in Australia. "They Opportunities for growth abound at Foxdale Village, wrote that they were keeping Live Oak Meet a community where each resident is encouraged to live ing in the Light. That meant a lot to us," Bar fully and compassionately, with respect and care for bara Cowan said. -Telephone conversation each other. Three levels of care contribute to a graceful with Barbara Cowan life at Foxdale: residential living in ground-floor garden apartments, assisted living, and skilled nursing. Baltimore (Md.) Meeting, Stony Run, plans • Front-door public transportation to theatres, to sponsor a Peace Making Day in the spring or early summer. The purpose of a Peace museums, sporting events, and shopping Making Day, as proposed by the meeting's • Cultural and educational Peace and Social O rder Committee and Q approved by the monthly meeting on Sep opportunities at nearby · Foxdale Penn State's campus Vi IJ tember 6, 2005, is to "touch participants about the human costs of war and their sense • Reasonable fees include I age of compassion, thus moving them to seek lifetime medical care A QU(Jker-Direded OJ,ti,.uittg more information on how you really 'do' and pharmacy Care Retiremettt Community peace." One goal is to make the connection between a peaceful world and social justice at the local level. Focusing on the educational community, workshops and other activities could include sessions for First-day school SOO •:ast \taql)n ·\\enue • State College. P:\ 16XOI • """.fmdale\illage.org teachers on teaching peace, for day care work ers who need credits for accreditation, as well f<'or more information call (81"1) 238-:Bll or (800) 2S3-49Sl as public and private school teachers. Under 34 March 2006 FRIENDS JoURNAL consideration for a date are a Saturday in March, April, or May. -Baltimore (Md.) Meet ing, Stony Run, newsletter Baltimore Yearly Meeting is undertaking a self-examination of its needs and organiza tion as it seeks a replacement for Frank Massey as general secretary. Massey, who of (j) Broadmead served as general secretary of BYM for 17 years, has taken a position with Guilford Col lege in Greensboro, N.C., where he will work QS2!/tt- inclusive healthcare, maintenance-free garden apartments, with students and others in discerning gifts and interesting friends are a way of life at Broadmead. Enjoy an and caJlings. Meanwhile, Howard Fullerton, a abundance of resident-driven programs & activities or the serenity member of Sandy Spring (Md.) Meeting, has been named interim general secretary. A for of the natural surroundings on this 84-acre campus. It's all up to mer clerk of BYM Interim Meeting, Howard you. We invite you to visit us and catch the Broadmead spirit. Fullerton is clerk of Representative Meeting Call (410) 527-1900 to schedule your personal tour. and the Yearly Meeting Manual of Procedure Committee. He has just rotated off the gener al board of Friends United Meeting. The self examination recaJls the reevaluation experi enced by BYM in 1988, when Massey was Broadmead is an inclusive, accredited, not-for-profit named general secretary. At that time, the Continuing Care Retirement Community future of yearly meeting and the role of staff and operated in the caring Quaker tradition. and volunteers were considered. Now, accord ing to a statement by Michael Cronin, Inter TrY/Voice - Maryland Relay Service im Meeting clerk, and Lauri Perman, presid 1-800-201-7 165 ~ \Vww.broadmead.org ~ ~~v..,. ing clerk ofBYM, among issues to be consid ~...... ered are what monthly meetings want and need from yearly meeting, what is yearly meeting doing well, and where does yearly meeting need to make improvements. BYM includes 40 monthly meetings and i2 prepar ative meetings and worship groups in Mary "An Adventure for the Summer ••• land, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. - Telephone conversation with .Memories for a Lifetime" Howard Fullerton, website of Baltimore Yearly Unique multicultural communities where every child feels important Meeting, and Baltimore Monthly Meeting, Stony Run, newsletter CAMP REGIS APPLEJACK TEEN CAMP Co-ed 6-12 Co-ed 13-16 Salem Quarterly Meeting, within Philadel phia Yearly Meeting, has established a Child Safety Committee with responsibility to Family owned and operated, specializing in first time campers. Friendly Quaker implement and maintain the new Policy and leadership since 1946. Mature, nurturing staff, close supervision, ratio 1 to 3. Procedure of Salem Quarterly Meeting For Rustic cabins with fireplaces overlooking a majestic Adirondack lake. Child Safety. The purpose of this policy is to Warm, supportive, relaxed environment where the fun never stops. Over 50 prevent any incident of sexual abuse or sexual activities to choose from including sailing, water skiing (superb 3/4 mile misconduct with any child while attending or private waterfront), all land sports, tennis (7 new courts), music, dance, drama participating in any event or program under the care of the quarter or one of its commit (large theater), art, gymnastics, wilderness canoe and mountain trips, nature/ tees. Among the requirements outlined in the ecology (farm with animals), mountain biking, and much more! policy, applicants for the position of"employ Teen Adventure Programs include tours to Canada, Cape Cod, and Maine. ee" with the quarter must undergo a criminal 4- and 8-week sessions available with introductory 2-week program for background check, and "volunteers" must younger, first-time campers. ACA accredited. For video and brochure: have been approved for a position involving the care and supervision of children by a Michael F. Humes monthly meeting in Philadelphia Yearly 60 Lafayette Road West Meeting. During supervision of children, no Princeton, NJ 08540 employee or volunteer will be alone with one (609) 688-0368 child. Two adults must be in attendance at all times when there is only one child present. All www.campregis-applejack.com overnight events will be chaperoned by at least FRIENDS J OURNAL March 2006 35 two adult volunteers, and at least one volun teer must be of the same sex as any of the chil dren involved. Copies of the policy have been distributed to the clerk of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and to the clerks of each of the monthly meetings in the quarter. Salem Quar A small farm home camp in the ter comprises seven monthly meetings, including Greenwich, Mickleton, Mullica North Carolina mountains Hill, Salem, Seaville in Ocean View, Wood Under Quaker leadership for over 50 years bury, and Woodstown Meetings, all in New Jersey. -Salem Quarter News, winter 2005 boys and girls ages 7-12 3:1 camper/staff ratio www.campcelo.com 828-675-4323 Quaker Earthcare Wimess held its annual meeting October 6-10, 2005. This group, which consists of members from all parts of the United States and Canada, approved send ing a letter to Congress and to all Quaker year ly meetings regarding its concern for proposed plans to extract oil from the Arctic National Friends Academy Wudlife Refuge. Ruah Swennerfelt, general Founded 1876 Located on scenic Long Island, secretary of Quaker Earth care Wimess, writes, "We are writing to ask you not to approve any • less than 30 miles from New York City. proposed extraction of petroleum resources from the Arctic National Wudlife Refuge ... . Oil produaion from this ecologically impor Celebrating our 125th Anniversary tant area would not significantly add to the energy output of the United States. . . . We urgently need to put more emphasis in the development of renewable energy resources and energy conservation.... Should Congress approve petroleum development in the Arctic, we anticipate a likely expansion of existing boycotts against the products of oil companies that operate within the Arctic National Wudlife Refuge." - QJ Brother Roger Schutz, founder of the ecu Founded in 1876 by Gideon Frost for "the children of Friends and those menical religious community of Taize, was similarly sentimented," Friends Academy is a Quaker, coeducational, inde stabbed and killed by a distraught pilgrim pendent, college preparatory day school serving 750 students from age three from Romania during evening prayers at the Church of the Reconciliation in Taize, through the twelfth grade. The school awards significant financial assistance. France, last August 16. Brother Roger died within 15 minutes, and his fellow brothers Friends Academy • Duck Pond Road • Locust Valley, NY 11560 asked those in attendance to complete their prayers as they knew their prior would have Phone: 516-676-0393 • Fax: 516-671 -2025 • [email protected] desired. Located in the countryside of France outside the town of Macon, the community of Taize, whose 90 brothers come from all May issue: Reserve space by March 6. Christian traditions, annually welcome thou sands of pilgrims from across Europe and the DisplAy Ad Deadlines Ads must be received by March 9. world. Brother Roger, who began this com June issue: Reserve space by April 3. munity in 1940 during the Nazi occupation Reservations are of France, believed that if people of different Ads must be received by April 6. required for display ads religious traditions and nationalities could in FRIENDS JOURNAL. share moments of prayer, dialogue, and com Ad rate is $38 per column inch. munion, then a solid foundation for peace in a war-torn world could be laid. He empha sized community over structured institution Call (215) 563-8629 now and believed God could be met even in a bro with your reservation or questions. ken community. Brother Alois Loser will suc E-mail: [email protected] ceed him as leader of the Taize community. March 2006 FRIENDS JoURNAL HomeLink, Quaker Social Action's rent in advance scheme, reached a major milestone in 2005, housing 100 homeless people in east London in eight months. The project has housed and supported 1,225 homeless east Londoners since 1994. HomeLink works to Friends General Conference house and support "non-priority'' homeless nurtures a vibrant future for people-those not eligible for emergency Quakerism by providing housing- in East London, and only takes spiritual and practical clients who have been referred from local raourc:es for individuals, authority. Landlords are provided with rwo meccinp. and the Rdigiou. months of rent in advance, which is then Society ofFriends as a whole. claimed back through the housing benefit sys tem, a guarantee against loss. Staff and volun teer resenlement workers support clients afrer they have been housed. On average, one in four newly housed people find themselves unable to sustain the tenancy. Nine in ten are more successful. Quaker Social Action is one of the largest independent Quaker charities in the United Kingdom, running five projects in London's East End. For more informacion, visit • BULLETIN BOARD Upcoming events • Aprill2-16-Southeastern Yearly Meeting • April13-16-South Central Yearly Meeting • April13-16-FWCC, Europe and Middle East Annual Meeting • April 13-18-Europe and Middle East Summer Camps Young Friends Spring Gathering in Barcelona, Spain. that Specialize • April 20-23-Ireland Yearly Meeting • April27-30-Quakers Uniting in Publica in Kids tions Annual Meeting at Powell House in Old Chatham, N.Y. Visit FRIENDS JOURNAL March 2006 37 Personalized Care in the ~y: The History and Consequences of US. Quaker Tradition Involvement in Torture. For more information and to register, visit Learning for Life, Learning with Joy Resources • Friends General Conference has developed a new service for isolated Friends and seekers. QuakerFinder.org already provides seekers Coeducational and Friends with the location of the nearest Friends meeting or church. But what if that Academic Excellence meeting is too far away? The website's newest Quaker Values feature lets individuals register and search for others interested in Quakerism closer to home. For help starting a new worship group, Age Three or to sign up without Internet access, contact to Martin Kelley, Advancement and Outreach Grade 6 Coordinator, FGC, 1216 Arch Street, 2B, Philadelhpia, PA 19107; call (215) 561-1700; or e-mail 851 Buck Lane • Haverford, PA 19041 March 2006 FRIENDS JOURNAL Marriages/Unions Sheldon-Williams-Fran Williams and Paul Shel don, on October 8, 2005, under the care of Lans tSfe&lleeEJ? downe (Pa.) Meeting, where Paul is a member. In addition tO traditional vows, Paul declared, "This *All graduates acoopted to college love is intended not to encumber your freedom, but to support you along your life path, so that you may live fully and authentically." Deaths Bansen-Elizabeth (Lisi) Mutch Bansen, 40, on November 4, 2005, in Saint Louis, Mo., afrer being struck by a car. Although federal law makes wheel *Laptop computer program chair access a civil right, much ofth e sidewalk along her three-block route was either broken or choked *Daily Collection, weekly with weeds, and lacked a curb cut, forcing her to Mooting for Worship use the street. A streetlight near the crash scene was not functioning. Lisi was born on Aprilll, 1965, in Philadelphia, Pa. T he daughter of Richard Bansen and Shirley Mutch Bansen, Lisi anended GermantOwn Friends School from kindergarten through 12th grade, graduating in 1983. She worked for one year in the nursery at Germantown Friends, then attended Earlham College in Rich mond, Ind. During her second year at Earlham, Lisi had a recurrence of a benign brain tumor that had been operated on twice before. The afrereffects ofs urgery left her moror skills and speech damaged, but her intellect and wit intact. The hardest part for this animated, perceptive woman was that her thoughts came much more quickly than her abili ty to express them. She earned her BA in Human Development and Family Studies from University Guidelines for Writers ______----, ofNevada, Reno, in 1998, then moved to Colum bia, Mo., where she was politically and socially The articles that appear in Friends Journal are freely given; authors receive copies of the issue in active in organizations for disabled people and in which their article appears. Manuscripts submined by non-Friends are welcome. We prefer arti the Religious Society of Friends. She started a sup cles wrinen in a fresh, nonacademic style, using language that clearly includes both sexes. We port group for women with disabilities. In 2002 she appreciate receiving Quaker-related humor. moved to St. Louis and worked for a year as a dis •:• maximum 2,500 words; electronic submissions are encouraged •:• include full references ability counselor in the M issouri chapter of the fed for all quotations •:• author's name and address should appear on the manuscript eral AmeriCorps program. Most recently she was •:• for the full guidelines, see FRIENDS JoURNAL March 2006 39 ...,...... ,...... A Catechism and Confession I .,.. of Faith by Robert Barclay, $6.95 ing as an industrial engineer, he was inspired while a school in Henderson, Nebr. Thinking they were unable to have children, they adopted their first = Barclay's Apology in Modern 2. participating in several Philadelphia workcamps led =co En glish by Robert Barclay, $18.00 by David and Mary Richie. He and wife, Sue, child, David, in 1955. Afrer Ernie had completed ...... Waging Peace by Ralph Beebe moved into the Hill DiStrict ofPirtsburgh, Pa., and a master's in Library Science at University oflllinois ,..... (& John L.amoreau ), $5.00 3 started a weekend workcamp and housing rehab and won a position at Kansas Scare University, the .,..,._ project with help from the local Quaker meeting couple found that Mary Lou was pregnant. T heir At Home with the Poor by Jean Thomas with Lon Fendall, $15.00 4 and the Hill District People's Forum. He larer srud daughter, Anya, was born in 1959; and they adopt -0 ied management at the London School of Eco ed a second son, Jonevan, born in 1961. Ernie was ~ Citizenship by nomics and, back in Texas, worked as an industri appointed head librarian at Kansas Scare, but afrer .Q.. Lon Fendall, $15.00 5 al engineer and stockbroker, and operated a carcle miraculously surviving a near-lara! car accident, he ...~ :z:: Unlocking Horns by David G and timber f.um. In Troy, N.Y., he was director of resigned his position. In 1965, he and Mary Lou - Niyonzima & Lon Fendall, $12.95 parr-rime srudies. There, each winter for nine years, moved to Berkeley, Calif, to try their luck as artists. = The Jekyll/Hyde Syndrome Ernie quickly became a successful painter. The cou 'II: he and his sons designed and operated a neighbor by Mark McMinn, $13.95 7 hood ice skating park in his yard that incorporated ple joined Berkeley Meeting in1 967. In 1970, they ...... - Messengers of God g jumps, slides, and iced slopes. When students were joined rwo couples &om the Catholic and Unitar c .... by Arthur 0. Roberts, $14.95 killed ar Kent State University while protesting the ian fellowships to form a living community con Viemam War, Marvin had become a convinced tiguous to Fore Hunter-Liggett, a strong military ~ Prayers at Twilight z: by Arthur 0. Roberts, $9.95 9 pacifist. He was a member of Albany Meeting, presence. Officers at the Fort came to respect and :zi where he served as clerk. He was part of a group admire members of the community, and Ernie Understand My Muslim People 10 from the meeting that gathered in Washington, shone in his role as nonjudgmencal peacemalcer, his by Abraham Sarker, $18.00 ;::::j D.C., to "hold Richard Nixon in the Light" and sense of humor and frnesse becoming essential to ...... The Secret Colors of God II was arrested there for praying on the sidewalk in the community. Afrer returning co Berkeley in ...... by Nancy Thomas, $10.00 from of the White House. Convinced by caking 1975, they learned of a new community called -.... The Sense of the Meeting 12. polls that showed overwhelming support for elim Alpha Farm in Deadwood, Oreg., and they moved >- by Jack L. Wilkuts, $1 6.95 inating all nuclear weapons in the world, he and again. T hey then had a one-room schoolhouse on ...... < ...... Why Friends Are Friends 13 Sue traveled through the Midwest for several their own acre of land. They formed a home busi -...< by Jack L. Willcuts, $9.95 months, talking to groups. They spent more than ness called Schoolhouse Arts, and began printing a month meeting with city council members their arrwork for sale. The business expanded, and throughout South Dalcoca, resulting in many ofth e from 1983 to 1987 they ran a store in Eugene, councils passing resolutions for nuclear abolition. Oreg., called Simple Gifrs. In rime the store In the 1990s, the couple established a committee became Goertzen's Gifts and China, as Mary Lou's A Minimy ofFrayt'f' mLeaning devoted to for global demilitarization that promoted sending art was reproduced on fine china. They often sang monthly e-mail messages to heads of nuclear states, duets for their customers. During the GulfWar, the the School of the urging them to eliminate their weapons of mass Goertzens joined the Siuslaw Peace Force in oppos destruction. In 1995 this group helped Nobel lau ing the war. Ernie's last art project was sketching reate and former President of Costa Rica Oscar homes for a Deadwood calendar. By then, his phys Spi it Arias raise funds to publicize the desire of most ical condition was getting worse. On the eve of his Haitians to abolish their military, which the then death, with Mary Lou and Anya joining in, Ernie president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, put into effect. sang his last song for the hospice nurses. A biogra Marvin took great joy in observing natural wonders phical sketch based on interviews with Mary Lou and learning to appreciate other creatures. In the and their children, entitled "Memories of an woods near Petersburg, N.Y., he constructed Artist," was printed with many of Ernie's sketches. bridges and built innovative structures including Wherever they went, they brought the joy of their his own cabin. Marvin was predeceased by his sis music and their art. Ernie was survived by his wife ter, Margery Funderburk. He is survived by his of 53 years, Mary Lou Goertzen; rwo sons, David wife, Sue Clark; rwo daughters, Linda Clark and and Jonevan Goertzen; daughter Anya Goertzen Gabriella Bavrielle; four sons, Russell, Rex, Lee, Lecuyer; and a grandson, Colins Goertzen. and Dan Clark; and ten grandchildren. Jon~/ Parry jones, 86, on August 10, 2005, in Goertzen-Emie Goertzen, 78, on July 22, 2004, Newtown, Pa. Parry was born in Wrexham, Wales, in Deadwood, Oreg., of heart failure. Ernie was on March 31, 1919, the third offour children of born on February 14, 1926, in Marion County, John M. and Catherine E. Jones. As an adolescent Kans., the only son ofJa cob S. and Pauline Unruh he lived in Machynlleth and often roamed the sur Goertzen. He had 40 first cousins. He grew up on rounding mountains, which he came to love. Dur the f.um, and walked rwo miles each day to reach ing his one year as an agriculrural student at Uni Con/ilct: the one-room schoolhouse he loved. He was drafr. versity of Wales, he formed friendships chat sosmini st:[email protected] ed at age 18 to serve in World War II, but became strengthened his deep belief in pacifism. In 1940, (919) 929·2339 o quakerinfo.ccm/sos.shlml a Mennonite conscientious objector, working firsr afrer Britain entered World War II, he was granted for a civilian service center in South Dalcoca where unconditional exemption from military service as a AMristyumbear-eoftleWcclJP ax! Ore~ of All~Yeady Meeting Rd:~SociayofFrim:ls he helped build an earth dam, then in an institu conscientious objector, and joined Friends Ambu tion for the mentally ill. Afrer the war, he entered lance Unit, first doing air raid rescue work in Lon Bethel College in North Newton, Kans., earning a donduringtheblirz,andfrom 1941 to 1945work one-year provisional teaching certificate that let ing in "Free" China as a truckdriver, delivering him rerum home co reach in the one-room school medical supplies to the civilian population. Afrer The Quaker house. He caught for a year before returning to col the war he spent rwo years, again under Friends' SWEAT LODGE-- lege, where he met Mary Lou Rich, a fellow Men auspices, working in Madras, India, on a f.unine nonite. Ernie and Mary Lou were married in 195 1. relief project. In 1947 Party came to the United ..RACIST-7 Or No~7 Background, They took up singing duets, which they continued Scates to ralce up a scholarship offered by Swarth Docume nts & Perspectives: to do until the day before Ernie died. For rwo years more College, where he received a BA in History www.quakersweat.org they staffed a school in western Kansas, dividing six in 1950. During this time he joined the Religious classes berween them, then taught for chree years ar Society of Friends with a membership in Radnor March 2006 FRIENDS j OURNAL Inviting Applications NEWTOWN FRIENDS SCHOOL SUMMER RESEARCH SEMINAR July 8th-August 6th, 2006 Bar Harbor Maine The oldest Quaker school in the world, An opportunity to work on William Penn Charter School embraces individual research projects tradition and welcomes innovation. within a community of Q uaker "The accomplishments of adults scholars and practitioners. begin as the dreams of children. A unique research environment Essential Quaker principles and practice Newtown Friends is a place incorporating Quaker process where dreams begin." guide Penn Charter, a Friends school of communal discernment. by birthright and conviction. Within a - NFS Mission Statement diverse community, we engage students in a stimulating and rigorous educational A Program of program. We foster academic discipline and Pre,K to Grade 8 intellectual curiosity to prepare graduates OPEN HOUSE QUAKER INSTITUTE for higher education and for life. April 2, 2006 FOR THE FUTURE 3000 West School House Lane, Philadelphia Promoting Human &ttnment 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. and Eco/Qgicallntegrity. Applying 215.844.3460 For further information, Friends Testimonies to Public Policy www.penncharter.com call 215-968-2225, or visit us at newtownfriend&org Contact Gray Cox, ~ SRS Coordinator william Penn 11~ tu, tk.(J~/1~"" [email protected] 207-288-3888 Cliarter P~/1~$"'-U School www.Qpakerlnstitute.org FRIENDS j OURNAL March 2006 (Pa.) Meeting. He began a teaching career in 36 years ofmarriage and two years as a widow Mary Philadelphia, and in 1953 married Elise Faulkner met Arthur Millman. They were married in Santa in Brookline, Mass. From late 1955 until early Rosa, Calif., in1975 and at various times were 1957, he worked in lahore, Pakistan, as executuve members of the Santa Rosa Meeting, Pima (Ariz.) secretary of the Family Planning Association of Meeting, and Mulmomah (Oreg.) Meeting, before Pakistan. He returned to the United States to teach, joining Eugene (Oreg.) Meeting in 1985. Mary and, &om 1958 to 1964, taught at George School, always held numerous offices and committee posi where he developed a course in Chinese and Indi tions, gave faithful attendance at meetings for wor an history. From 1966 until his retirement in 1979 ship for business, and actively participated in meet he taught history at Princeton Day School in New ing events. Mary's love of the outdoors led her to Jersey, specializing in European and Asian history. the Eugene Obsidians. Between 1985 and 2000 At various rimes he served on the Boards ofACLU she participated in 242 hikes and summer camps, of Pennsylvania, FRIENDS j OURNAL, and Planned a significant achievement for which she received an Parenthood Association of Bucks County. In later award in February 2004. Mary knew her mind and years he transferred his membership to Newtown spoke it; she was forthright, direct, and chaUenging. Meeting. Parry's sense of adventure and love of Mary is survived by two daughters, Annie Fine and places and people gave him enjoyment throughout Heather Booth; two sisters, Barbara Graham and his life journey. From the Welsh mounrains of his Vera Bleasdale; and a grandchild. youth ro the rutted roads of China, the jungles of WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER. southern India, and his classrooms in the United Sharnis-Richard Shamis, 85, on January 28, States, he always enjoyed experiencing at a very 2005, in Sacramento, Calif. Richard was born on PEACEFUL PRMNTION IS. intimate level the diverse environments in which he December 16, 1919, in Chicago, IU., to Estelle found himself. His lifelong pursuits included Blazek and John Adam Shamis. He spent his early Free "Peaceful Prevention" Welsh nationalism, choral music, sheep £arming, years in Chicago and graduated from University of tennis, and his global concerns for civil rights and Illinois at Urbana with a degree in electrical engi booklet or "War Is Not the peace. First and foremost a Welshman, he remained neering, then left for Washington, D.C., where he Answer" bumper sticker in close rouch with childhood contemporaries, col worked for the federal government. He became an leagues from China and India, and former students expen in the use of radar. After World War II, he See www.fcnl.org going back ro the 1950s. Parry is survived by his was active in the space program. He retired from or call 1-800-630-1330 wife, Elise Faulkner Jones; three sons, GwyndafM., the federal government when he was 47. After earn Daf)rdd P., and Owen F. Jones; four grandchildren; ing a master's degree in Public Administration, and his sister, Gwenllian M. Evans. Richard went to work for the city and counry of San Francisco, where he was placed in charge of Friends Committee Millman-Mary Millman, 91, on January 7, 2005, Hetch Hetchy, San Francisco's water supply. In San on National Legislation in Eugene, Oreg., ofkidney failure. Mary was born Francisco he met Elizabeth Lawrence, and the cou on April 27, 1914, to missionary parents in Podili, ple was married in 1971. In 1977 Richard retired India. Her childhood there, as the oldest of four again, and moved with his f.trnily to England, daughters, was a blend of fun, freedom, loneliness, returning 12 years later to Sacramento, where he strict discipline, and a constant striving for the Support worked for the state ofCalifornia. He retired a third moral high ground. She formed an early personal and final time in 2000. A member of Falls (Pa.) QUAKER HOUSE relationship with the natural world around her, Meeting, for years Richard regularly attended naming the rivers and streams her sisters, the trees Fayetteville/Ft. Bragg, N.C. Sacramento (Cali£) Meeting and Hastings Meet her cousins, and later, the ocean her mother. The ing in England. He rarely spoke in meeting, bur A front-line Friends Peace witness Earth was her dwelling place. This love of nature was actively interested in Friends' concerns. He would sustain her through the loneliness and Gl Counselling, Draft/CO Information excelled in engineering problems, and Sacramento depression she experienced at age 14, when she was Meeting appreciated his expertise when building its Peace Research, Education & Action left in the United States for seven years, while the meetinghouse. Richard had a great concern for his 223 Hillside Ave., Fayetteville, NC 28301 rest of her f.trnily returned to India after a furlough. f.trnily, and aU who knew him miss his stead&st Mary also found sustenance in self-expression 910-323-3912. www.quakerhouse.org presence. He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth through writing. She was only 15 when her first Shamis; daughters, Helen Jordan and Deborah [email protected] article was published. Mary graduated &om Welles Schwartz; and grandson, Jasper Jordan. ley College in 1935, and later earned a master's in Chuck Fager, Director Library Science. In 1937 she married Owen Booth, Smith-Harriette Marie Smith, 89, on July 26, a free-spirited sign painter and cabinet maker. Their 2005, in Loveland, Colo. Harriette was born on twins, Heather and Annie, were born in Taos, March 5, 1916, in Navarre, Kans., to Harry Jason N.Mex., where Mary was employed by the Taos Smith and Mary Kaufman Smith. Harriette grew ""'etlng ~'>t. p ~ County Project of the Harwood Foundation, a up in Topeka, Kans., where she attended public social experiment in cooperative living. She began schools, then studied for two years at McPherson '&ft ~, her active membership with Friends in 1947 in College. Harriette's gentle and kindly disposition West Chester, Pa. She continued to write for her and sincere concern for the welf.tre ofothers shaped ~ self and for others: book reviews, essays, articles, her choice of work throughout her life, including r- and poems for numerous Quaker publications. secretarial work in the social work offices of the Her work reflected her intense connection to state of Kansas; at the Church of the Brethren 171$0 nature and her evolving sense of sel£ In 1974, Ram Headquarters in Elgin, IU.; and at the World Coun Pre-K through 6th Grade Dass stirred a great excitement in Mary about the cil of Churches in New York City. While in New Admission Open Houses: Wed. Oct. 12, Sat. difference between having to "do" and being able York she underwent Jungian analysis, then worked Nov. 5, Wed. Jan. 25, 2006, Wed. Apr. 5, 2006 to "be." His work, and that ofThich Nhat Hanh, as an educational assistant at Hartford Retreat in 2150 Butler Pike, Plymouth Meeting moved her to "the practice of presence." She Connecticut. Returning to Illinois, she worked in PA 19462 • {610) 828-2288 believed she was meant to enjoy life--to love, to the men's diagnostic ward at Elgin State Hospital. www.pmfs1780.org give thanks, to relate to others, to do what she could During World War II she assisted Nisei to find to aUeviate any suffering she saw around her. After employment and housing at the Brooklyn Japanese 42 March 2006 FRIENDS JOURNAL hostel. In 1947 she married Don Elton Smim and moved to California, where me couple began auending an unprogrammed meeting in Whittier. In 1951 mey became members of Palo Alro Meet ing. Harrieue helped establish Momerey Peninsula Meeting and Grass Valley Meeting, where she served as clerk. She studied Library Management at Sacramento State College and worked in libraries at Hartnell and LaVerne University. She was a member ofa group mat planned and founded John Woolman Friends School in Nevada City, Calif., and in 1963 she established a library for the new school, where she served as librarian until her retire ment in 1980. She led a number of off-campus service projects for students, taught a class about Dynamic community, enriching lifestyle! women in American history, and regularly visited shut-ins. In 1997 Harrieue and Don moved to Beautiful arboretum setting · Superior health & wellness services Colorado and uansferred their membership to Fort Collins Meeting. Harrieue always sought to deep en her understanding of me spiritual dimension of life. She enjoyed reading biography and devotional books, and regularly attended musical and meatre events. She appreciated me beauty of me natural world, and in younger years liked to cycle and hike. All of these interests were gifts mat she quietly yet indelibly passed on to her daughters. Harriette is MEDFORD LEAS survived by her husband, Don Elton Smith; rwo ~ A nationally accredited, Quaker-related, not-for-profit community daughters, Melinda Bart and Pamela Bolesta; four ~ for older adults, with campuses in Medford and Lumberton, New jersey. granddaughters; and rwo sisters, Ruth Miller and Wilina Shank. Thomasson- Lawrence (Larry) Calloway Thomas Call Boo.:Ht .4:l02 or\ tstl o 11 r \1 <'I> sti<': 1111\1 .nwdfordi <'ds .org son Jr., 61, on September 16, 2004, at his home in Philadelphia, Pa. Larry was born on September 19, 1942, to Lawrence and Sarah Thomasson in the Mt. Airy/Germantown section of Philadelphia. He graduated from Germantown High School, where he was an outstanding athlete and scholar. At 17, he joined the Air Force, became a medic, and then quickly turned against war. Upon returning to civilian life, he attended Temple University. In the 1960s and 1970s, Larry was a well-known e Hill singer/songwriter in me Philadelphia coffee house scene and on me East Coast. His unique blend of blues, country, and folk won him high praise. Dur rAJitet'ha1tiv4ts to VIOlence Projed: Basic Training ing the late 1960s, he also worked for American Stephen Angell, Nancy Dlaz, Archana Gour, Friends Service Committee on civil rights issues. In Vlv Hawkins and John Meyer me late 1970s, he began designing and managing water treatment systems for hemodialysis at Aprll17-20 Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and else where. He married Joyce Rohde, and they had a The Rise of Liberal Quakerism: son, Casey, whom they raised in Mt. Airy. In his 1650-1920 with Thomas Hamm 50s, Larry, always a strong athlete, had back surgery 11 mat limited his mobility. He spiraled into a deep Home is Where One Starts depression mat brought him to a veterans' shelter From": Literature of Place in West Philadelphia. As he emerged from despair, with Paul Lacey Larry felt me Divine had given him an opportuni ty to live in a state of mindfulness, prayer, and grat April 24-27 itude. He was inspired by Thomas Kelly's admoni tions in A Testament ofDevotion. During this time, Healing Class Divisions: Larry reunited wim Kathryn Kitsi Watterson, wim Bringing Spirit into Adion whom he had protested the Vietnam War, and with Linda Stout and Pamela Freeman worked on behalf of prisoners' rights. The couple united their lives, meir work, and their children; got arrested together demonstrating against the War on Iraq; and felt blessed every day. Larry began To find out more, contact playing his guitar and harmonica again. He was PENDLE HILL 800.742.3150 (US only) ext 3 A QUAKER CENTER FOR STUDY AND CONTEMPLATION performing regularly and planning a European tour 610.566.4507 ext. 3 when he was diagnosed with gall bladder cancer in 338 Plush Mill Road· Wallingford, PA 19086 [email protected] 2004. Larry played his last concerr and recorded an www.pendlehill.org album, I'm Still Loving You, me very next monm. FRIENDS JOURNAL March 2 006 43 Larry served as co-clerk of Cenual Philadelphia Monthly Meeting's Ad-Hoc Committee on Race and Racism, was a member of the Friends General Conference Central Committee, FGC's Commit tee for Ministry on Racism, Vanessa Julye's Minis Kendal-Crosslands residents nurture an terial Care Committee on Racism in the commu array of life-affirming opportunities: nity, and served on the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Working on Racism Committee. He was known •140 resident-directed interest groups ro Quakers through his work on racism and mod •lifelong learning at the University of ern-day slavery, and was particularly interested in Delaware and West Chester University what he saw as the slavery used in the production • two 11,000-volume, resident-run libraries of perhaps 80 percent of the cocoa currently con • 300 acres with trails, woods, ponds sumed in chocolate in the United Stares. Larry is • on-site concerts and lectures survived by two sons, Casey Leland Thomasson and Zachary David Watterson; and his "heart •local community volunteer opportunities daughters," Leslie and Lauren Oshana and Chari Named as one of the nation's top 25 ty Marshall. continuing care retirement communities, Werle--Martha Grawols Werle, 82, on October 4, Kendal-Crosslands is not-for-profit and 2004, in Kennett Square, Pa. Martha was born on Quaker-related. Full services, lifetime August 8, 1922, into a Quaker family in Evanston, restraint-free health care. Ill. The teachings of Quakerism profoundly affect ed her life. She attended Swarthmore College, where her love for learning and curiosity flourished. IQ;:NDAL-CROSSLANDS Fascinated by new ideas and new places, she trav eled ro over 60 countries, at one point prompting Communities a British Immigration Office to remark "Trying to fir us all in, are you?" Martha relished that story 610-388-7001 • 1-800-216-1920 because it so aptly captured her enthusiasm for P.O. Box 100 • Kennett Square. PA 19348 exploration and her success in achieving her goals. www.kcc.kendal.org In 1942, Martha married a young Navy doctor, Bert Kanwir. Together they had five children. Martha's lifelong interest in learning brought her back ro school when her children were older. She earned a master's degree from Teacher's College of Columbia University and taught disadvanraged inner-city children in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. She later became a doctoral candidate at Columbia, before being recruited by her sister Marian and Marian's husband, Kenneth Roberts, to manage Harbor House Restaurant at the Worron Creek Marina, Md. For seven years she combined her love of food with a buoyant personality to make Harbor House a labor oflove. In 2001, Martha moved to Kendal Retirement Community in Kennett Square, Pa. She immersed herself fully in the community, vol unteering for numerous activities and committees. She made many good friends there and felt a true sense of belonging. Martha will be remembered, above all, for her enthusiasm, compassion, sparkling and engaged intellect, and her love. She is survived by twO daughters, Elizabeth and Anna Kanwir; three sons, Glen, John, and Thomas Kan wit; a sister, Marian Roberts; 12 grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. 44 March 2006 FRIENDS j OURNAL Forum continued ftom page 5 Address: City: State: ----Zip: I found '~ome1 ''"~··-- Marriage among Friends" by Georgana Foster in your January issue to be a particularly valuable addition to the )OURN~s ongoing dialogue on this topic. An Exceptional Retirement Lifestyle. My own letter on the topic, "What is the Meaning of Marriage?" was in the August Pennswood Village, a Quaker-directed 2005 Forum, and my recent marriage sent retirement community with a rock solid me on a spiritual journey that I hope to have the time to put in writing at some point. In reputation for quality, has an opportunity the meantime, here is a suggestion/ for you to enjoy our exceptional lifestyle. observation on a different tack, for whatever Our apartments are sun-filled and spacious, it may be worth. and offer modern amenities plus the added I find your Milestones often enlightening and inspirational, with their accounts of the value of our all-inclusive life care contract. lives of deceased ftiends. But the A splendid new aquatics and fitness center Marriages/Unions section has never seemed enhances our already lively campus, providing to contribute much. I'm not sure of its even more opportunities for your physical, purpose and I certainly don't find it interesting. Do you want to liven it up, and intellectual, social and spiritual growth. perhaps find a way to contribute to the Our Quaker values show us our lives together ongoing dialogue through a back door? are enriched through diversity - we welcome women Consider placing this: and men of all races, colors, religions, national origins "Sheldon-Williams-Fran Williams and Paul Sheldon, on October 8, 2005, under and sexual orientation. the care of Lansdowne Meeting, where Paul Call215-504-1122 or toll free 1-888-454-1122 is a member. In addition to traditional vows, EQUALHOOOING Paul declared, 'This love is intended not to OPPORTUNITY encumber your freedom, but to support you along your life path, so that you may live 1382 Newtown-Langhorne Rd., Newtown, PA 18940-2401 fully and authentically."' www.pennswood.org I think this might be a way to liven up "marriages" and contribute to a very FRIENDS j OURNAL March 2006 45 interesting topic that's come to the recent Building or Expanding Your Meetinghouse? attention of FRIENDS JouRNAL readers. Paul Sheldon Drexel Hill, Pa. [Note: we have followed Paul Sheldon's suggestion in this month's Milestones column. Comments are welcome. - Eds.] An elephant in the room Quakers, at times, seem to be so intent on being loving and kind that we are afraid to be Friends Helping Friends forthcoming. We are often enablers because we allow people to hurt our feelings without letting them know. This leads us to harbor resentments and allows those whose behaviors www.QuakerFacilitiesFoundation.org are hurr.ful to continue them without becom ing aware of their effect. We are timid under the cloak of kindness and nobody grows. Where is the benefit? It truly takes a certain amount of bravery to face one another with these kinds of issues, but who ever said serving God was easy? Bringing uncomfortable issues into the open may be the most difficult challenge we have before us. It is much easier to grapple with issues concerning others than it is to be hon est, face-to-face, with someone else about our bruised feelings. On these occasions we need to find a way to work with one another in a Inside each child: wonder 1}4 ) L .- ,~ __, . /l.-,..,1..+-. loving and forgiving way and learn to say with /V~ ~~7 ih fxr 7vv, kindness, "My feelings were hurt when such and such happened, and I have not been able to let it go." When we avoid this difficult chal lenge, we allow our wounds to fester, our inner peace is lost, and our resentment becomes a problem for the whole meeting. Running away doesn't help you, and it does n't help us. This is not a naive message asking us all to be best friends. That isn't even necessary. One isn't expected to like everybody. This is a sug gestion that, when relationships in meeting need healing, we communicate, work out the conflicts, and then lay them to rest. "Let go and let God." in order to live in the Light and achieve inner peace, it is necessary to learn to WESTTOWN SCHOOL disagree without anger. This is the elephant in the room that Everything that matters most. nobody wants to talk about. Lisa Stewart OPEN HOUSE Monday, April 17th, 9:00 a.m. Greenacres, Fla. 0 spiriud Quak.:r education sinu I 799 Westtown School pre-K-8 day I 9-10 day & boarding I 11 -12 boarding Westtown, Pennsylvania 19395 610-399-7900 www.westtown.edu March 2006 FRIENDS JOURNAL rut IIUUIIIIGU\IU\.OGU\.CI;J}~£:1' Fax (21 5) 568-13n E-mail: [email protected] Classified rates 75e per word. Minimum charge is $20. Logo is additional $1 8. Add 10% if boxed. 10% discount for three consecutive insertions, 25% for six. Appearance of any advertisement does not imply endorsement by Friends .Joumal CWSIFIED AD DEADUNES: What you are holding in May issue: March 13 June issue:April 10 your hands is more than a Submn your ad to: magazine. It's an Advertising Manager. Friends .Jouma/ 1216 Arch Street, 2A Philadelphia, PA 19107-2835 opportunity to (215) 563-8629 gather in spirit with a Accommodations F RIENDS JoURNAL March 2006 47 March 2oo6FRIENDS JOURNAL Upper School Principal CAPE COD REALTOR-specializing in the Falmouth Personals Sidwell Friends School and Bourne areas. I will be happy to help my fellow Friends find a special property on the Cape. Golden Thread s Celebrations for Older Lesbians, 20th , ....~v.t£HosJ'<" Nancy Holland, Coldwell Banker, Joly McAbee Weinert Ae· annual gathering, June 22-25, 2006 in Provincetown, ally, Inc. Direct Voice Mail: (978) 307·0767. E-mail: MA; music, books, sexuality, spirituality, dancing, ban FRJENos j OURNAL March 2006 49 Moving? Maybe David Brown, a Quaker real estate bro The Hickman, a nonprofit, Quaker Schools ker, can help. Contact him at 50 March 2oo6F RIENDS JoURNAL If all U.S. Quakers contributed just $5 each month, there would be $20 Million each year available to build and expand meetinghouses. ....__www.QuakerFacilitiesFoundation.org Donating Is easy! You can sign up using our secure Web site for one-time or monthly contributions charged to your credit or debit card. 51 June 23-August 5, 2006 re you one of the many people who want to be part of the Resident Program at Pendle Hill, but haven't had time? In response to your requests, Awe are introducing a six-week Summer Term, June 23 -August 5, 2006. Join us for the Summer Term and • enjoy an extended stay on Pendle Hill's beautiful campus; • take any (or many) of the nine five-day retreats or three weekend workshops we offer during the term, including weaving, yoga, spiritual discernment, prayer, songwriting, clay and writing, basic Quakerism, qi gong, Japanese paper dyeing, Chinese calligraphy and diversity training for trainers; • take term long courses in pottery and/or Quaker faith and practice with our resident faculty; • participate in regular "drop-in" yoga sessions; • eat nutritious, organic food-fresh from our bountiful summer garden; • discuss your spiritual journey with a staff consultant for an hour each week; • share work and prayer life as part of an intergenerational community (the Young Adult Leadership Development prog ram is June 18 to August 6); • use the pool, exercise facilities and library at nearby Swarthmore College; • enjoy special community events designed just for the resident community .. . and more. ur summer yroaram yrovid"es a ricfi environment for syirituat; menta£; 0 yfiysica{ ancf emotiona{stretcfiing ancfrevitafization. }lou can 6e as refaxecf or r-r,aorous as you clioose. Contact the registrar today for more PENDLE Hiu information and an application. A QUAKER CENTER FOR STUDY AND CONTEMPLATION Extension 3 at 800.742.3150 (US) 338 Plush Mill Road ·Wallingford, PA 19086 or 610.566.4507 (worldwide) or www.pendlehill.org email [email protected]