As commonly happens, I read someone's blog and it started me thinking. Next thing I know I have too much to say to fit into a comment and what I want to say isn't really a response to what the blogger said, anyway.
So, in this way this blog post was inspired by, although is not a direct response to, a blog post that I would recommend to everyone.
I have not yet come to the wide-spread post-modern rejection of "progress" as a model for the human experience or human history. I can't say, one way or the other, whether things are headed in some pre-determined direction or, if it is, whether that was pre-determined by some super being or is a playing out of forces that are mutable or immutable. I just don't know.
Progress, however, in the sense of development (without a characterization of change as "good" or "bad" or "inevitable" or "evitable'), in the sense of progression--seems obvious to me.
While I don't know that "the world" or "history" is headed in a certain direction (how could I possibly know that?) I do know that my spiritual condition--my relationship with Christ and the ramifications of that for me and others--is developing in a predictable direction. That same process, heading in the same direction, is described by Friends (and others) historically and contemporaneously.
I find that maturity--sanctification--perfection--is usefully described and characterized as a journey. My experience also indicates that the destination, as an individual human condition, is also well described and understood in the literature. That condition is summed up in a lot of ways by different people, but each summation is a paraphrase or restatement of the others.
Some do use "journey" in the sense of a seeking something not yet glimpsed or even glimps-able, celebrating seeking as a permanent vocation that is based on the assumption that one will never "find." That is not a description of what I refer to, here. My journey is not a perpetual wandering with the idea of a destination being irrelevant to that up to which I am.
I cannot say, as I say, much about the "human condition" in the general sense, but I know that human beings do progress spiritually, in predictable directions, over familiar terrain. I know that because it is something I experience, something that others have described as what they have also experienced, and something I see people around me going through.
I cannot say that I know, in this same way, what I know "means" in the context of some one or the other larger thought-system about where things came from, how they were made, why they were made, the character of the God in charge, if indeed one is, or what that God may be up to. That's all notional, by my light, and not very important or useful to me.
But I do know there is progress in individual human lives, that it goes in predictable directions, toward predictable destinations.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Sunday, September 06, 2009
Too long for an answer to a comment--to one of my own blog posts!
This is a reply to Ashley's comment on one of my previous blog posts. I think it is the eighth comment, down, and as of this moment it's the last one. To understand the rest of the post you are now reading, and to be fair to Ashely (as what I write may be a straw man if I did not understand her well), one might want to read her comment before reading this.
Hello, Ashley
I am grateful for the comment, even though 'belated,' especially because your view appears to be different than mine, and from that of the relatively small number of Friends at the interest group at annual session in July. Perhaps those in attendance were not a cross section of the yearly meeting and may have been pre-disposed to the idea. Self selection sometimes brings together diversity of view and sometimes it does not.
It is also possible, however, that you and I don't really disagree and the underlying unity of the yearly meeting is radical inclusiveness--albeit an imperfect one.
You are right that there is an uneven "tolerance" of the diversity of belief in the yearly meeting in the sense that there are those who don't think that non-theists, atheists, deists, Buddhists, pagans, Jews, sexual minorities and so on "belong" in a Quaker meeting.
There are also people who do not believe that evangelicals (a category into which some small number of these will place anyone who uses the word "Christ" except as a swear word) are a part of "our tradition," and that what they call "Christo-centric" language is inappropriate among Friends because so much hurtful "baggage" is attached to it.
There are times both views get expressed openly and the uneven nature of the "tolerance" you cite is then apparent.
Friends have strongly held beliefs--strongly held beliefs that make up their personal "creeds" and strongly held beliefs about the beliefs that make up the personal "creeds" of others.
Because I am the clerk of the Committee on the Discipline/Faith and Practice I have both sought and been sought out during these last three and a half years by Friends to talk about these (and, oh! so many other) issues and how they should be addressed in the Faith and Practice.
I've yet to meet or talk to a Friend who has said that there are beliefs to which one must adhere to be a member of this yearly meeting. I have certainly, however, encountered many who have expressed with a great deal of certainty and determination that the language of their own personal creed (which they might regard to be "Quakerism") should be the one used in the Book of Discipline for North Pacific Yearly Meeting, and that their personal beliefs about the nature (or non-nature) of the D/divine should be its frame of reference.
There are no doubt Friends here, as elsewhere in the Society, who were first attracted by what they understood to be "Friends beliefs" (or, perhaps, the freedom from them). And there are no doubt some for whom propositional belief (or non-belief) is supremely important.
What has been opened to me, however, is that most Friends with whom I speak have remained Friends because they have been greatly edified (or "fed" or "nourished" or "enlightened" or "matured" or whatever) by the experience of being here, by doing the "Quaker Stuff" we all do, here. Whether they call it "Quaker process" or the "faith and practice of Friends" or "living out spirituality in the manner of Friends," this "Quaker way" (with waiting/silent worship as its center piece and its epitome) is what is central to most.
This would mean that "Quakerism" is not a set of beliefs but a set of traditions or practices that have been shown, through the years, to bring about a measure this edification, feeding, nourishing, enlightening, maturing or whatever. Over time and distance this particular orthopraxy has created a remarkably consistent (although not unique) outcome. Today we express it as simplicity, peace, integrity, community and equality. As I have said before, other lists also skillfully describe these same human qualities.
It is not the beliefs that Friends might use to explain this experience but the experience itself about which we are radically inclusive--as Joel and Hannah Bean were, as George Fox and Margaret Fell were. We will include those who want to live out their spirituality in the manner of Friends--regardless of their beliefs. That is radical for a spiritual community in the sense that it is "extreme," and it's radical in the sense that it relates to the root from which everything else "Quaker" comes.
If someone wants to celebrate mass, pray bowing to Mecca, or chant vows, or sacrifice a chicken during meeting for worship we are not likely to go there. That's because it's not a part of the practice that has been shown to Friends, century in and century out, to give use the water of which we have had a taste, ourselves, and its ability to slake thirst we have seen in others. People who "believe" that which underlies those other practices are welcome, of course, to worship with us in the manner of Friends and we are glad to include them.
And we acknowledge that ours is not the only set of disciplines and practices that edifies, feeds, nourishes, enlightens, matures or whatever. It's one that works for us and, as replicating outcomes from any successful models depends on fidelity to that model, we go with doing it the way it's worked, before. (Not without change, of course. Isaac Penington did not participate in worship sharing, after all. But change must show that it enhances the work from the root: the outcomes sought and the experience that brings them about.)
The fact that many of us in the yearly meeting don't understand that it's the experience that comes out of the process/practice/discipline that keeps us here doesn't mean that it is not so. It just means that in this regard we are much like some people in business who don't know what it is that really makes them successful (until they stop doing it) or like fish who do not get the centrality of water to their existence.
It is certainly not propositional belief that is central to holding our community together. We are not held together by our gregarious charisma, our outgoing and easy-going personalities, our sense of fashion, our lack of annoying eccentricities or our potlucks. (OK, maybe the potlucks have something to do with it).
We are held together by the experience of Quaker practice, and it is not just some ecstatic "other worldly" "bliss out" kind of experience. It's an experience of change and growth we see in ourselves and those around us as time goes on, and it's all about relationships. First, of course, is our relationship with that which we sense moving among us (however we may characterize it), our spirituality. But also crucial are the relationships we have with those who, like us, are trying to live out their lives and spirituality in the manner of Friends.
The Kingdom of Heaven is described in the Gospels as being both "is" and "is becoming," a concept that Quakers have used before to describe what was "going on" with and around them, what was moving among them. In that same way I have described radical inclusiveness.
So, Ashley, I do and I do not agree with your take on radical inclusiveness as being an aspiration and not a reality in North Pacific Yearly Meeting--because it is both.
The "reality" is not to be proved, in my view, at some time in the future when everyone "blesses" and confesses the validity of all the beliefs held by every one in the yearly meeting.
The reality is proved, to me, right here and now by the way people who dearly hold to mutually exclusive and inconsistent beliefs meet together for worship, do business together, abide with one another through the child births and the death watches, the celebrations and the occasions for mourning--doing all of this living out of their spirituality in the manner of Friends.
It doesn't matter to me what anyone believes when we are doing the work of the building maintenance committee, or sitting next to one another in meeting for worship, or when you are on my porch with a hot dish in a time of illness, or when you gather with me to send my daughter off to college, or your son is raising money to go on a service trip, or we are putting together shared transportation to annual session, or figuring out infant care to allow young parents to attend a vigil. What matters is how we do those things together in obedience and humility so that through doing them together, we all grow in the Light.
You point with justification to the lack of perfection.
But notwithstanding all that, I suggest that radical inclusiveness describes both the current condition of North Pacific Yearly Meeting and that which holds us together in it.
Thank you, again, for your comment Ashley. I am sure I'll see you again soon.
Hello, Ashley
I am grateful for the comment, even though 'belated,' especially because your view appears to be different than mine, and from that of the relatively small number of Friends at the interest group at annual session in July. Perhaps those in attendance were not a cross section of the yearly meeting and may have been pre-disposed to the idea. Self selection sometimes brings together diversity of view and sometimes it does not.
It is also possible, however, that you and I don't really disagree and the underlying unity of the yearly meeting is radical inclusiveness--albeit an imperfect one.
You are right that there is an uneven "tolerance" of the diversity of belief in the yearly meeting in the sense that there are those who don't think that non-theists, atheists, deists, Buddhists, pagans, Jews, sexual minorities and so on "belong" in a Quaker meeting.
There are also people who do not believe that evangelicals (a category into which some small number of these will place anyone who uses the word "Christ" except as a swear word) are a part of "our tradition," and that what they call "Christo-centric" language is inappropriate among Friends because so much hurtful "baggage" is attached to it.
There are times both views get expressed openly and the uneven nature of the "tolerance" you cite is then apparent.
Friends have strongly held beliefs--strongly held beliefs that make up their personal "creeds" and strongly held beliefs about the beliefs that make up the personal "creeds" of others.
Because I am the clerk of the Committee on the Discipline/Faith and Practice I have both sought and been sought out during these last three and a half years by Friends to talk about these (and, oh! so many other) issues and how they should be addressed in the Faith and Practice.
I've yet to meet or talk to a Friend who has said that there are beliefs to which one must adhere to be a member of this yearly meeting. I have certainly, however, encountered many who have expressed with a great deal of certainty and determination that the language of their own personal creed (which they might regard to be "Quakerism") should be the one used in the Book of Discipline for North Pacific Yearly Meeting, and that their personal beliefs about the nature (or non-nature) of the D/divine should be its frame of reference.
There are no doubt Friends here, as elsewhere in the Society, who were first attracted by what they understood to be "Friends beliefs" (or, perhaps, the freedom from them). And there are no doubt some for whom propositional belief (or non-belief) is supremely important.
What has been opened to me, however, is that most Friends with whom I speak have remained Friends because they have been greatly edified (or "fed" or "nourished" or "enlightened" or "matured" or whatever) by the experience of being here, by doing the "Quaker Stuff" we all do, here. Whether they call it "Quaker process" or the "faith and practice of Friends" or "living out spirituality in the manner of Friends," this "Quaker way" (with waiting/silent worship as its center piece and its epitome) is what is central to most.
This would mean that "Quakerism" is not a set of beliefs but a set of traditions or practices that have been shown, through the years, to bring about a measure this edification, feeding, nourishing, enlightening, maturing or whatever. Over time and distance this particular orthopraxy has created a remarkably consistent (although not unique) outcome. Today we express it as simplicity, peace, integrity, community and equality. As I have said before, other lists also skillfully describe these same human qualities.
It is not the beliefs that Friends might use to explain this experience but the experience itself about which we are radically inclusive--as Joel and Hannah Bean were, as George Fox and Margaret Fell were. We will include those who want to live out their spirituality in the manner of Friends--regardless of their beliefs. That is radical for a spiritual community in the sense that it is "extreme," and it's radical in the sense that it relates to the root from which everything else "Quaker" comes.
If someone wants to celebrate mass, pray bowing to Mecca, or chant vows, or sacrifice a chicken during meeting for worship we are not likely to go there. That's because it's not a part of the practice that has been shown to Friends, century in and century out, to give use the water of which we have had a taste, ourselves, and its ability to slake thirst we have seen in others. People who "believe" that which underlies those other practices are welcome, of course, to worship with us in the manner of Friends and we are glad to include them.
And we acknowledge that ours is not the only set of disciplines and practices that edifies, feeds, nourishes, enlightens, matures or whatever. It's one that works for us and, as replicating outcomes from any successful models depends on fidelity to that model, we go with doing it the way it's worked, before. (Not without change, of course. Isaac Penington did not participate in worship sharing, after all. But change must show that it enhances the work from the root: the outcomes sought and the experience that brings them about.)
The fact that many of us in the yearly meeting don't understand that it's the experience that comes out of the process/practice/discipline that keeps us here doesn't mean that it is not so. It just means that in this regard we are much like some people in business who don't know what it is that really makes them successful (until they stop doing it) or like fish who do not get the centrality of water to their existence.
It is certainly not propositional belief that is central to holding our community together. We are not held together by our gregarious charisma, our outgoing and easy-going personalities, our sense of fashion, our lack of annoying eccentricities or our potlucks. (OK, maybe the potlucks have something to do with it).
We are held together by the experience of Quaker practice, and it is not just some ecstatic "other worldly" "bliss out" kind of experience. It's an experience of change and growth we see in ourselves and those around us as time goes on, and it's all about relationships. First, of course, is our relationship with that which we sense moving among us (however we may characterize it), our spirituality. But also crucial are the relationships we have with those who, like us, are trying to live out their lives and spirituality in the manner of Friends.
The Kingdom of Heaven is described in the Gospels as being both "is" and "is becoming," a concept that Quakers have used before to describe what was "going on" with and around them, what was moving among them. In that same way I have described radical inclusiveness.
So, Ashley, I do and I do not agree with your take on radical inclusiveness as being an aspiration and not a reality in North Pacific Yearly Meeting--because it is both.
The "reality" is not to be proved, in my view, at some time in the future when everyone "blesses" and confesses the validity of all the beliefs held by every one in the yearly meeting.
The reality is proved, to me, right here and now by the way people who dearly hold to mutually exclusive and inconsistent beliefs meet together for worship, do business together, abide with one another through the child births and the death watches, the celebrations and the occasions for mourning--doing all of this living out of their spirituality in the manner of Friends.
It doesn't matter to me what anyone believes when we are doing the work of the building maintenance committee, or sitting next to one another in meeting for worship, or when you are on my porch with a hot dish in a time of illness, or when you gather with me to send my daughter off to college, or your son is raising money to go on a service trip, or we are putting together shared transportation to annual session, or figuring out infant care to allow young parents to attend a vigil. What matters is how we do those things together in obedience and humility so that through doing them together, we all grow in the Light.
You point with justification to the lack of perfection.
But notwithstanding all that, I suggest that radical inclusiveness describes both the current condition of North Pacific Yearly Meeting and that which holds us together in it.
Thank you, again, for your comment Ashley. I am sure I'll see you again soon.
Friday, September 04, 2009
Another comment too long to be a comment...
This post was of interest because I dress in simple clothing--but not plain dress.
For work I wear black slacks of the dockers type, black shoes and socks with a tie that's black or gray (sometimes other solid colors) and a white shirt. I rarely wear a jacket, but if I do it's a sport jacket that is a shade of gray or brown. (I'm the only lawyer I know who doesn't own a suit.) Always the same. Makes deciding what to wear (and what to pack for business trips) easy.
I spend far less time deciding what to buy or what to wear on a specific day, than it takes me to get dressed.
It does get noticed, because I work among legal and social work professionals, and I do say, if asked, that it's a personal Quaker scruple. I will also, insofar as anyone is interested, talk about it. In that regard it's a witness.
Witness or not it is a testimony: an outward manifestation of an inward change done in my by Christ.
For casual, it's blue jeans (sometimes shorts) and t-shirts or long-sleeved shirts of solid dark colors (except for my "second string" white shirts--too gray to wear for work and too ragged to donate but too good to discard). I wear those same black shoes or sneakers or sandals (without socks even though I live in the Pacific NW...). Sometimes I go barefoot.
I am probably in a place similar to where the writer of the blog post to which I respond is on dress.
My understanding of plain dress was that it was originally something to which one was led because one had been dealt with concerning superfluity of dress and fashion--that one had stopped squandering one's time and money on things that were not necessary. Friend Woolman had a particular scruple, too, about cleanliness of clothing.
I have worn uniforms in my life--including those of the US Marine Corps, of a law firm, and judge in court. I do believe that clothes make the person and I do believe that is not a good thing, very often. Uniforms--even informal ones worn, say, by bank employees, intentionally instill a conformity and rigidity to limit one's ability to respond to people spontaneously and to dictate to others how they are to act toward the person wearing it. It's not about a witness to equality.
I have heard it said I wear a uniform, now, and I suppose I do, in a sense. But a uniform actually gets its name from uniform dress among a group of people, not one person's habit of dress. It's a uniform, in so far as it is one, of my own making and it's done with a conscious intention, consistent with the testimonies of simplicity and integrity.
It does influence my behavior, so it does "make the man" to some extent although it doesn't transform me so much as it reminds me of the transformation already done in me. It makes me grateful, at times, too, for that and all the rest that has come with it.
It does not, however, influence how others treat or respond to me.
So uniforms draw lines between and among people--conveying stereotypes and often moving us to respond to the uniform and not the person wearing it. The only way I'd wear one again, I think, is if I went back on the bench.
ps on the bench I prompted people to call me "judge" rather than "your honor." I knew, and they knew, that I was in the role, the job, of a judge. I don't think they could know,in the same way, from that robe I had on, whether I was honorable. That I had to earn--or not--day in and day out.
For work I wear black slacks of the dockers type, black shoes and socks with a tie that's black or gray (sometimes other solid colors) and a white shirt. I rarely wear a jacket, but if I do it's a sport jacket that is a shade of gray or brown. (I'm the only lawyer I know who doesn't own a suit.) Always the same. Makes deciding what to wear (and what to pack for business trips) easy.
I spend far less time deciding what to buy or what to wear on a specific day, than it takes me to get dressed.
It does get noticed, because I work among legal and social work professionals, and I do say, if asked, that it's a personal Quaker scruple. I will also, insofar as anyone is interested, talk about it. In that regard it's a witness.
Witness or not it is a testimony: an outward manifestation of an inward change done in my by Christ.
For casual, it's blue jeans (sometimes shorts) and t-shirts or long-sleeved shirts of solid dark colors (except for my "second string" white shirts--too gray to wear for work and too ragged to donate but too good to discard). I wear those same black shoes or sneakers or sandals (without socks even though I live in the Pacific NW...). Sometimes I go barefoot.
I am probably in a place similar to where the writer of the blog post to which I respond is on dress.
My understanding of plain dress was that it was originally something to which one was led because one had been dealt with concerning superfluity of dress and fashion--that one had stopped squandering one's time and money on things that were not necessary. Friend Woolman had a particular scruple, too, about cleanliness of clothing.
I have worn uniforms in my life--including those of the US Marine Corps, of a law firm, and judge in court. I do believe that clothes make the person and I do believe that is not a good thing, very often. Uniforms--even informal ones worn, say, by bank employees, intentionally instill a conformity and rigidity to limit one's ability to respond to people spontaneously and to dictate to others how they are to act toward the person wearing it. It's not about a witness to equality.
I have heard it said I wear a uniform, now, and I suppose I do, in a sense. But a uniform actually gets its name from uniform dress among a group of people, not one person's habit of dress. It's a uniform, in so far as it is one, of my own making and it's done with a conscious intention, consistent with the testimonies of simplicity and integrity.
It does influence my behavior, so it does "make the man" to some extent although it doesn't transform me so much as it reminds me of the transformation already done in me. It makes me grateful, at times, too, for that and all the rest that has come with it.
It does not, however, influence how others treat or respond to me.
So uniforms draw lines between and among people--conveying stereotypes and often moving us to respond to the uniform and not the person wearing it. The only way I'd wear one again, I think, is if I went back on the bench.
ps on the bench I prompted people to call me "judge" rather than "your honor." I knew, and they knew, that I was in the role, the job, of a judge. I don't think they could know,in the same way, from that robe I had on, whether I was honorable. That I had to earn--or not--day in and day out.
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Some Questions
I saw the writing of someone trying to sort out a number of things about "universalism" and it led me to wondering what the importance of such sorting was, what it meant to the writer to be working through it.
I also became curious about the writer's take on the nature and purpose of spirituality.
I wondered if the writer sees spirituality as being about developing/adopting a set of propositional beliefs, the acceptance or rejection of which gets a person something, or shows a person something about themselves or other people.
I wondered whether the writer saw these propositions/axioms about universalism, the nature of the divine/profane--about how the divine/profane works or doesn't work-- as the basis for reasoning about how to act toward others and live one's life.
Is spirituality about developing one's personal condition along some pre-determined path that is in some way inherent in the nature of things, of God?
Does such development, such transformation, turn us into the image of Christ/Buddha/Spirit/Light/the Big Kahuna?
If it is neither about developing a set of propositional beliefs, or developing a spiritual condition, what is it about?
If so, or not, do we think we need to know why or how that takes place or does not?
Is our spirituality a source of understanding about "how things are," what the nature of God (or no god) is, what God/no god's purpose is or is not?
If so, what is the value of that understanding? What do we do with it?
Does it make a difference if Jesus walked out of the tomb and a video camera would have captured his image in the process? If so, why?
Does it make any difference whether or not Mara tempted the Buddha?
Does it make a difference in how we live whether or not there is an afterlife?
What difference does it make in the way we live our lives if, as one universalist "take" has it, everyone is going home to God, in the end, or, as another has it, God gives everyone (regardless of their "religion") the chance to know and accept Christ (although not necessarily by that name), or as another has it, all religions are like a sacred GUI interface sitting on top of a divine DOS--that all religions are really "takes" on a common spirituality, the proverbial paths to the top of the same mountain? If one or the other of these, or none of them, is true, so what?
How do (or do not) (or should) the answers to any of these questions affect who we are, what we do, day to day, in living our lives, in relating to other people?
Can the answers to these questions be known?
If so, so what?
If not, so what?
I also became curious about the writer's take on the nature and purpose of spirituality.
I wondered if the writer sees spirituality as being about developing/adopting a set of propositional beliefs, the acceptance or rejection of which gets a person something, or shows a person something about themselves or other people.
I wondered whether the writer saw these propositions/axioms about universalism, the nature of the divine/profane--about how the divine/profane works or doesn't work-- as the basis for reasoning about how to act toward others and live one's life.
Is spirituality about developing one's personal condition along some pre-determined path that is in some way inherent in the nature of things, of God?
Does such development, such transformation, turn us into the image of Christ/Buddha/Spirit/Light/the Big Kahuna?
If it is neither about developing a set of propositional beliefs, or developing a spiritual condition, what is it about?
If so, or not, do we think we need to know why or how that takes place or does not?
Is our spirituality a source of understanding about "how things are," what the nature of God (or no god) is, what God/no god's purpose is or is not?
If so, what is the value of that understanding? What do we do with it?
Does it make a difference if Jesus walked out of the tomb and a video camera would have captured his image in the process? If so, why?
Does it make any difference whether or not Mara tempted the Buddha?
Does it make a difference in how we live whether or not there is an afterlife?
What difference does it make in the way we live our lives if, as one universalist "take" has it, everyone is going home to God, in the end, or, as another has it, God gives everyone (regardless of their "religion") the chance to know and accept Christ (although not necessarily by that name), or as another has it, all religions are like a sacred GUI interface sitting on top of a divine DOS--that all religions are really "takes" on a common spirituality, the proverbial paths to the top of the same mountain? If one or the other of these, or none of them, is true, so what?
How do (or do not) (or should) the answers to any of these questions affect who we are, what we do, day to day, in living our lives, in relating to other people?
Can the answers to these questions be known?
If so, so what?
If not, so what?
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