Hang in there, Baby!!!

Again, this began as a comment to Mark Wutka's post of November 26, 2006. Samuel Caldwell Revisited It got so far out of hand that I didn't think it fair to post it there.

Oh, Mark, do I know what this is about and do I share you condition!

The Quaker Movement is no longer like a sect (if ever it really was), members of which have a clear shared understanding and a dedication to living out that understanding in the company of those who share it. We are now a church (in one sense of the word), embracing the looser, more tepid and more out to lunch as well as the real and not so real saints.

I often long for secthood. But given where the divisions and schisms have taken the Movement I am less inclined than ever to think that good. In fact, I go the opposite way. Put us all back together and give us the strength to bear with one another as we stay together and move ... but I digress.

And it is with me, as it appears to be with you, around the "drift" in the meaning of words and phrases that this longing to separate or become ill often develops. I hear people use the word "universalism" and wonder if they have ever read--or been instructed about--what that concept meant when it was talked up by Penington and Fox and Woolman and Barclay. Conscience, liberty, seeker...get thee to a dictionary! No, actually, don't do that. That is is the problem. If one is going to plead for the legitiimacy of these things as part of the Quaker Movement then one should use them as they are used in Quaker literature.

And you are right about mistaking the fruit for the point of what we are about. The testimonies are not a starting point, a set of values. They are the result of a transformation that has taken place. No transformation, no simplicity (or harmony, or equality, or community or integrity). No cross, no crown.

I am glald, however, that we in North Pacific Yearly Meeting still use the word "unity" and eschew "consensus" although I am not comfortable that everyone understands the distinction. After all, how can one be seeking the will of God (or Spirit, or spirit, or Light, or the Transcendent Reality, or the Big Kahuna) if one doesn't believe in such a being/presence/reality/whatever? Another digression must be suppressed, at this point.

The simple gospel of the Quaker Movement is that there is a Light (Christ, if you will--or won't--it doesn't matter) that shines into the lives of all people. All people can recognize it and heed it (quite apart from their knowing anything about the historical Jesus). If they do heed it then they will be transformed to conform to its own likeness. This is not often mentioned, let alone affirmed among us Liberals, today (is it among Evangellicals? Conservatives?). Sometimes I have been told that I am adopting a "creed" when I talk about this--by people who have no understanding of where "non-creedalism" came from or what it really means in the Quaker literature. George Fox probably had no problem with what was in the creeds of his day--he just understood the danger of creeds!

Sigh.

This is a very siimple gospel and it bears repeating over and again to people who do not grasp it. The repeating does not teach it, but points the way to the experience of it. It's all one can do. And we have to keep doing it. But with entreaty, not contention. That's the big snare for me. Just bring it to mind where, if you are in the power, you'll only be helping them recognize and come to grips with what is already there. Nudge. Remind. Support. Encourage.

I am often discouraged about the state of things it the Quaker Movement. But as I was reading this morning, intending to get to responding to you later in the morning, I found a nice piece of encouragement. It's in John Punshon's "Portrait in Gray," on page 150.

It has to do with "gay Friends" as that term came to be used in the late 18th Century. It meant one who did not observe simplicity of dress as that term was then used, but who dressed as the fashion of the day dictated (see how the words drift? What does "gay Friend" mean in the Quaker Movement, today?)

An American travelling minister, William Savery was at meeting in Norwich. He was was so taken a back by the number of "gay" Friends in the meeting that he stood up and ministered about the "marks of wealth and grandeur" that were "too obvious" in the meeting.

In Punshon's telling, his preaching had effect. Betsy Gurney (wearing purple boots laced with scarlet) sat listening defiant but troubled. Later, turned to plainness, she would would become known as Elizabeth Fry and would occupy an important place in the Movement.

I do not tell this story as an endorsement of Elizabeth Fry, or in any way to make a comment about "gay Friends" today. (My daughters have god mothers who are a lesbiann couple, and Unitarians, at that!).

I tell this story as a reminder that when we entreat others we do not know what impact it is having (on others as well as on ourselves). We may not know how it adds or detracts weight from one side or the other of someone's scale, out there. We only know that we are called to do the entreating. We are not called to give up the field to people who want our minutes to sound llike those of the Democratic Party Central Committee.

This is overly long for a comment. Hope for all these words I was actually clear. I understand where you are coming from, Mark, and I actually know that you agree with what I am saying, here.

This is just an elaborate way of saying "I feel your pain, hang in there, Baby."