more on convergence

I have been reading Martin's blog and its comments and think this discussion is very important given who we are, where we are and when we are.

I appreciate the comment that 'convergence' will never please everyone and that one can be satisfied with that.

I aspire to be faithful to living such that, notwithstanding the obvious "reality" of that position, my walk does not manifest, validate or testify to its ultimate validity.

My aspiration--and I am confident that of anyone who might read these words--is to live in The Kingdom (if we want to use that language) even though sometimes I find myself in situations in which it seems to me I am the only inhabitant of that Kingdom (or realm or space, or relationship or community) within eyesight or earshot. I know that all of us know what I am talking about, here, and know that the way to increase the population of that Kingdom is to treat those who seem like aliens with the hospitality that erases the line between host and guest.

My oldest daughter no longer brings home things to tape to the refrigerator. Instead, she brings me books from her college classes. "Jesus for President" took up much of my airplane time over the past three days and showed me some "moves" I can use skillfully to reach out to those who are turned off by phrases like "the risen Christ working on us"--a phrase with which I personally resonate.

I do think that we all belong together and that in being together, abiding together, we will all converge; but not in some kind of grand compromise of some sort. This idea--of abiding in the Spirit with people who do not seem, to us, anxious to abide, at all, let alone in what seems to us to be the Spirit--is hardly new to Quaker faith and practice. Until 1827 or so it seems to me to have been the way of being religious together, it seems it was a basic part of "Quakerism"--of the faith and practice of Friends.

The phrase "straddling the divisions until they close beneath our feet" is constantly in my mind, not only in regard to Friends, not only in regard to Christians, but in regard to everyone, everywhere. But we will not get there, I don't think, if we are not together, if we are divided by language and notions of things we can never really know.

convergence and beanism?

I don't have time to do any of this. (Yeah? Then whose time is it?)

This morning I read a post about convergent Quakerism that surprised me a little.

It made me think about standing on the sidelines of the convergent movement, not sure if I really wanted to play and not sure if I was really welcome.

Notwithstanding indications of diversity, it has sounded to me, at times, from some people's mouths, very much like what was going on was about drawing people out of the the current domains of the Society and into a newly developing domain--more division based on some kind of similarity of belief striking Christian, even evangelical, chords.

Perhaps I was (and am) wrong about that, misreading or misinterpreting. Maybe there are personality things going on (it would not be the first time that I turned people off either with what I actually said about something or what they read into what I actually said. And it would not be the first time I did the same thing).

What was written in that post this morning struck me as a great explanation, frankly, of Beanite faith and practice. We belong together not, as some think this mislabeled "liberal" theology "teaches," because we are all "right" but because we are all necessary to one another's perfection. Division deprives us of the edification available through contact with those we exclude or from whom we flee in pursuit of doctrinal purity, of more "comfortable" fellowship.

Listening does not imply that one is easy or in unity with what another says. Sharing fellowship is not approval of everything someone else does. But both make one available to the work of the Holy Spirit that is often accomplished in fortuitous opportunities between and among unlikely people.

A Friend I know states her spiritual condition as "straddling the divides until they close beneath my feet."

Is convergence about the closing--as opposed to merely politely visiting across--those divides?

Is it about taking the change and the edification found in convergent fellowship back and entering into it, enlarging its space, where one has been planted?

Is it about not only bringing everyone along who will come, but also actively and patiently extending a hand of love and humility to those who hold back and even actively resist, waiting for those not yet ready, or unready to become ready, in the confident expectation that they will be along as they are made ready, because they will be made ready (but not by us)?

Is convergence about once again making the Society a place where people share a way of being religious, together, rather than a place of believing or not believing the same propositions, together?

Is it about a place of spiritual practice living in (and in conformance with, being conformed to) the Light, rather than a "safe" space where all encountered will share the same doctrines (even non theological doctrines) or agree that no one will talk about what they believe for fear of offending and riling up others; where, upon hearing things with which they are not in unity Friends will not become offended and riled up?

I don't know that there are answers to those questions, or if anyone has thought or wants to think about convergent Quakerism in those terms. I am just riffing, however, off of Greg's Gambles because he certainly seems to be speaking a language familiar to mine. If it is not the same then it certainly appears to rhyme with mine.

I do know that some of what I have written about Beanite faith and practice has made some "sad" who hold up convergence. I have been asked whether I would not do better if, rather than supporting and encouraging inclusiveness, I took my own Christian faith to meetings in North Pacific Yearly Meeting and talked it up with those I found there.

I don't know what to think about that question, but I know what I am led to do, consistently, every day, every time my hand goes to the work.

An old song says "Hold on loosely and don't let go."

Joel Bean, when asked why he and Hannah did not divide from their yearly meeting when it went so far to isolate and finally excluded them, responded “I was directed to His own perfect example. He never separated Himself from His people in all their opposition and enmity toward Him. He did not disown the Church of His Birthright, though it disowned Him." (letter to R.H. Thomas, 2nd Month 8, 1899).

Is convergence about an eventual "convergence" of all Friends?

Or is it another new domain of an already fractured Society?

Or is it neither of the above and I am just so far off of the farm I can no longer hear the rooster crowing? Oh, that's certainly not so--after all, even on my best days the sound of crowing reaches my ear/heart at least three times. ;-|

I'm thinking people probably have their own answers to those questions (including the answer that says those are stupid questions to ask), and that all those answers will not be the same. But I am wondering whether, really, anyone knows what convergence is really about (quite apart from what they want it to be about) or where it will go (quite apart from where they think it will go, or where they want it to go). We bring children into the world and, in the words of a modern prophet, even though we save, when their rainy days come we find them outside digging the lightening.

But if there are elements of united, independent and balanced spirituality in the convergence movement then Gamaliel's advice (Acts 5:34 et seq) is probably best to heed. In fact, it always is.