Margaret Scattergood: in Memoriam 1986-1989: Forum
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h!ENDS JOUitNAL (ISSN 0016-1322) was established in 19SS as the succesoor to The Friend (1821-19SS) and Friends Jntel/igencer (1844-19SS). It is associated with April 1, 1987 the Religious Society of Friends, and is a member of Associated Vol. 33, No. 6 Church Press. FRIENDS STAFF Vinton Deming, Editor-Manager Melissa Kay Elliott, Assistant Editor Renee C. Crauder, Editorial Assistant JOURNAL Barbara Benton, Art Director Dan Hamlett-Leisen, Graphic Designer Anamaria Rodrisuez, Advertising and Circulation Carolyn Terrell and Mary Erkes, Advertising and Circulation Assistants Contents James Rice, Typesetting Services Jeanne G. Beisel, Secretarial Services James NeveU, Bookkeeper Among Friends: Sustaining the Coals Gina Dorcely, Student Intern Vinton Deming .................... 2 VOLUNTEERS Jane Burgess (Index); Coming to Terms With Jesus Frank Bjornsgaard, Emily Conlon, Vincent McCarthy ................... 3 Larry McKenzie, Ellen Holmes Patterson, and Amy Weber The Christ Factor Richard Rowntree .. •. 5 (Editorial Assistance); Rita, My Mother Saw Daffodils BOARD OF MANAGERS I!JU-1987: Rocky Wilson .. ...........••..•.. 6 Frank Bjornsgaard Judith Brown New Paths to Follow Theodor Benfey . • 7 Emily Conlon (Assistant Clerk) Peter Fingesten A Simple Prayer to God Mary Howarth Marcia PauUin Jeffrey Martin ......... ............ 8 William D. Strong (Treasurer) Thomas Swain Between Vision and Revelation Allen Terrell Mary Wood Thomas H . Jeavons .... .. ... .... 10 1985-1988: John Breasted Divine Light Diantha Rau ............. 11 Teresa J. Engeman (Secretary) Elizabeth B. Watson Margaret Scattergood: In Memoriam 1986-1989: Forum ........... 18 Calendar ........ 24 Jennie Allen Chuck Fager •............... ...... 12 Dean Bratis Films ........ .... 21 Classified ...... 24 Helen Morgan Brooks Journey of the Heart Vince Buscemi ...• 14 Mark Cary Books .... .. ... 22 Meetings . ..... 26 Sol A. Jacobson Quakers and Costa Rica Leonard Kenworthy Mary Mangelsdorf James S. Best . .................... 16 Front cover photo by William Bliss Linell McCurry (Clerk) Janet Norton Elizabeth S. Wiltiams HONORARY MANAGERS Eleanor Stabler Clarke Mildred Binns Young I Among Friends: Sustaining the Coals FORMER EDITORS Olcutt Sanders Susan Corson-Finnerty hat I most value about being a Quaker weeks I don't need much persuading. Ruth Geibel IGlpack James D. Lenhart is my awareness of connections to a Two letters in recent months helped to put in Alfred Stefferud Frances Williams Browin W wide spiritual community of fellow broader perspective this question of meeting at William Hubben seekers. I always have this feeling when I am tendance. One correspondent told me that she •FRIENDS JOU1lNAL is published the 1st and !Sth of each month traveling among Friends, and it is most evident lives a great distance from meeting. During (except January, May, June, July, August. and September, when it is when I worship at my own home meeting. Why, winter months, she said, when the long drive is published monthly) by Friends then, I ask, have I been such an infrequent at impossible, F'RIENDs JoURNAL becomes her Publishing Corporation, ISO! Cherry St., Philadelphia, PA tender at meeting in recent months? (My poor meeting. And Steve Fick, a Friend who lives an 19102. (21S) 241-7277. Second-class postage paid at Philadelphia, PA. attendance came into sharp focus for me recently hour and a half away from his meeting at Ver • Subscriptions: one year SI S, two years $29, three years $43. Add when a Friend who had not seen me for a while non (British Columbia) shared this poem: $6 per year for postage outside stopped me on the street and asked dryly, "Has United States, its "possessions:' I wake to find the woodstove ashes glowing, Canada, and Mexico. Foreign thee become a Presbyterian?") remittances should be in U.S. barely red. dollars or adjusted for currency For one thing, it is hard getting to meeting differential. Sample copies $1 each; Too weak to draw a draft, the morning fire back issues $2 each. located at Friends Center-after I have been • Information on and assistance commuting there five days (sometimes more) to is almost dead. with advertising is available on I gather up the coals into a small, request. Appearance of any do Quaker-related work. To do so makes me feel advertisement does not imply compacted bed, endorsetnent by FRIENDS JOUitNAL. like I'm taking a bus driver's holiday, somehow. Copyright © 1987 by Friends And blow on them until a self-sustaining Publishing Corporation. Reprints And it's not just " Quaker hirelings" like of articles available at nominal flame is bred. cost. Permission should be received myself that suffer from this occupational hazard. before reprinting excerpts longer than 200 words. Available in My four-year-old son Simeon commutes with me We, too, so scattered.... Gather up your friends microfilm from University to Friends Center during the week to the Microfllms International. like coals, childcare center. He has the same difficulty I do And breathe on us, Lord, making it to meeting on Sundays. He has a talent Till we light each other with our souls. some weeks for persuading me to head off to a l'olllmuter: ...,d odclress cboaaes state park for a hike, to visit a museum, or just lo F'JuENDs JOURNAL, 1501 Chftry St., l'bUidelpllll, I'A 19102. to stay home to recharge our batteries. And some v~,_ "0~ 2 Aprill, 1987 FluBNDs JoURNAL Coming to Terms With neighboring peoples, notably the Jesus Greeks. When Jesus spoke of righteous ness before God, of deliverance from WE HAVE TO the fear of physical death, of humane by Vincent McCarthy treatment of others, he summed up RECOVER JESUS several varieties of Mediterranean FROM CULTURE thought and synthesized its more noble aspects and aspirations. AND TRADITION Yet, however many sources our tra dition has, it is very much Jesus IF WE WISH TO centered, in name and in intention. DISCOVER WHO esus of Nazareth was a difficult However, while Jesus is presumed to be figure for his contemporaries, and he the focus, the original Jesus is not readi HE WAS AND WHAT Jremains so for those who would listen ly to be seen, and in theologies and HE MEANS. for him in the many things said about creeds, he is sometimes hard to find at him. In his preaching, he accepted the all! He seems only to " poke through," religious past, but not in the way others even in the earliest manuscripts that claimed that past had to be accepted. He speak about him. I sometimes feel Jesus looked at it respectfully, but also is as much concealed in the New Testa freshly, and asked its meaning both for ment as revealed there. himself and for others. Like Jesus, we Narrators of Jesus' story bring their do not merely accept the meaning of the points of view with them about who he of God, but he can be defended on this past; we have to discover it. Discover was and what he ought to mean to us, score. For did he not display the canny ing the meaning of the past includes and therefore whether he was human or Wisdom of a Zen master in saying, " The recovering the figure of Jesus himself. divine. Many titles are ascribed to him: Kingdom of God is within you;'? We have the tradition behind us, but we Messiah, Lord, Son of God, Logos, or Jesus did not allow himself to become have the same task as the very first Word. What does it mean to be all of trapped by expectations. He insisted followers or hearers of Jesus: to discover these, or any one of these? People who upon being himself. For that he was for ourselves his meaning for us. Our earlier used these terms could not agree, briefly idolized in Galilee but quickly task is no different from that of a Saul and followers of Jesus have not done cast out and crucified in Jerusalem, the of Tarsus or the Galileans of Jesus' much better. The title most frequently established religious center. Roman time. But it is a task that has been as used by Jesus in referring to himself is authorities eagerly collaborated to make much hindered as helped by the nearly the title least used and heard in the his ministry ineffective, and then sought 2,000 intervening years. Christian tradition: Son of Man. to appropriate the growing religious cult As a late 20th-century modem, I find Perhaps it is because Jesus never ful about him for political purposes. In this when I relate to Jesus I relate to more filled the expectations about the strange way, the Jesus who died a than Jesus, for I am aware of standing mysterious and apocalyptic Son of Man Roman death ultimately became the cen within a tradition that claims Jesus as figure mentioned in the book of Daniel. tral figure in the new Roman religion. its source. I find, however, that the The age did not end, after all, and the Fortunately, spiritually oriented persons tradition has many sources, including world went on. No cloud has appeared countered this use of Jesus by directing the Hebrew Scriptures and Jewish on the horizon announcing the end, his followers toward ordering society wisdom and, to an increasingly despite every generation's anxious ex and transforming the world by personal, recognized extent, the philosophical pectations. Jesus as the Son of Man did inner transformation. wisdom and religious aspirations of not return in the lifetime of any of his The tradition has generally made hearers despite the words ascribed to Jesus the spokesperson and representa Vincent McCarthy is associate professor of philosophy and religious studies at Central Con Jesus in Matthew's Gospel (Matt. tive of an idealized and fulfilled humani necticut Staie University. He is a member ofHart 24:34). Some would say that Jesus as ty, changing with every age's standards.