Speaking and Listening
A few weeks ago, during Meeting for Worship at Atlanta Friends, a Friend rose and spoke at some length using very Christian language. This is not new, in that this particular Friend usually speaks this way. This time, however, another Friend spoke about using a language that others can hear, and it felt to me like she was referring to the first Friend's choice of words. It appears to me that many Friends in my meeting tend to stick with words like "Light" and "Spirit" and tend to shy away from saying "God" or "Jesus" and rarely use the name "Christ". I have some difficulties with this, especially with what I perceive as a bias against Christian language - that people who best express themselves with a Christian vocabulary must instead hide behind more vague terms. What I find particularly distressing is that the usual reason for this is that many people are refugees from spiritually abusive churches and find Christian language uncomfortable. By avoiding this language, we reinforce the idea that it is bad, instead of showing that it isn't the language that is bad but the way it has been used by others. While it seems that much of the focus is on how we speak, I believe we should instead be looking at how we listen.
The wife of a friend of mine is a native Spanish speaker, and she once found herself working with a couple of Italian engineers. She did not speak Italian, and they did not speak Spanish, but the languages are quite similar, and they discovered that if they each spoke their native languages, the other was able to understand well enough for them to work. It was much easier for them to find words in the vocabulary they knew, rather than to try to find fitting words in a language that they had only a little familiarity with. They were able to rely on the common ancestry of their languages to be able to hear what each other was trying to say. If our words in Meeting for Worship all come from that single divine source (hey, I can dream), why can we not listen and hear Christ's voice through those words. Why should we ask people to instead translate into language that may not express what God wants them to express?
The second chapter of Acts describes the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came and filled the apostles, and they spoke in other languages (i.e. they spoke in tongues). The remarkable thing is that those in the crowd heard the words in their own language. The Holy Spirit, the Inner Light , or whatever you wish to call it, helped those in the crowd to hear, just as it helped the apostles to speak. Can we not allow that Spirit to do the same thing in us today, and to truly hear and "feel where the words come from"?
posted by Mark Wutka @ 6:11 PM
14 comments
14 Comments:
Mark,
Someone should elder the Friend who appears to have decided to use meeting for worship to engage in debate. This is widely held to be inappropriate and not just among conservative Friends. It is striking since just recently a similar incident was described by a young Friend attending the torture conference at Guilford. Wanting to disagree with what was said in someone else's vocal ministry is a clear sign that it is coming from the individual and not from the Spirit.
Perhaps this is a matter that could profitably be taken to Atlanta Friends Meeting for Business -- requesting that the meeting hold a series of classes for its members and attenders on How to Speak and How to Listen in Meeting for Worship. With an emphasis on How to Listen.
Hi Richard & Marshall,
Many thanks for the recommendations. Our Ministry & Worship committee has been working on these issues for some time, scheduling occasional forums, and working directly with some Friends. The M&W committee seems to do in our meeting what you might expect elders to do in NCYM(C), I'm curious as to how it works in IYM(C).
Marshall's suggestion about classes on speaking and listening keeps bubbling to the surface in my mind. I will have to spend some time in prayer about this, because it feels like the Spirit is giving me nudges.
With love,
Mark
Mark,
It seems that your Ministy and Worship committee is the place to start. If you get involved (nudge) you might just observe which Friends approach individuals to speak to them about sensitive matters. When they do you just might observe that one or two of them seem to do this especially well. Those people are in fact elders even if nobody names them as such.
Mark,
I think the problem you mentioned is a rather common one in Quaker meetings--unfortunatily.
There are those of us--myself included--who like to use Christian references and terminology when speaking about what God has spoken to my heart. But yet we sometimes don't say what we want to say for fear of making non-Christian Quakers uncomfortable. I know that some people in my meeting fled abusive fundamentalist churches and don't like explicit Christian language.
But yet, if I can't say what God has placed in my heart what good does it do? Now I really don't have a problem with saying "Inner Light" instead of "Jesus" but why do I have to hold back on what I really want to say? I really wish we were all comfortable just saying what God wants us to say and not worry so much about "offending" someone. And, like you said, isn't it better for someone who fled an abusive church to know that there is another way of looking at Christianity? That there is a Christianity that emphasizes love, mercy and forgiveness instead of judgement, narrow-mindedness and self-righteousness.
Hi, Mark.
You wrote, "The M&W committee seems to do in our meeting what you might expect elders to do in NCYM(C), I'm curious as to how it works in IYM(C)."
I cannot speak from experience for any monthly meeting in Iowa (Conservative) but my own; and I've only been in my own for three and a half years, since moving to Omaha from Denver.
In my own meeting, we have only about a dozen active participants. Most of them have known each other for many, many years. Most of the kids grew up together.
This means that most of the functioning that RichardM ascribes to elders, happens in our meeting on an informal, as-needed, friend-to-friend basis. No good purpose would be served by formalizing the process or singling out one or two people and giving them the honorific, "elders".
Ministry & Oversight ("M&O", of which I am current convener) is the committee responsible for whatever eldership proves needed that isn't done informally. The last thing it had to do in that department was about a year ago, when it addressed the fact that our members were having trouble answering the queries directly. This issue proved easy to address, though I think it will take more than this first year for us to fully unlearn our old bad habits.
The (aging) discipline of Iowa (C) calls for the creation of such M&O committees in all monthly meetings.
The Iowa (C) discipline also speaks, in typical twentieth-century-unprogrammed style, of identifying people with the "special qualifications" or "gifts" of "a counselor" in mind, and appointing those to M&O where possible. However, most of our monthly meetings are quite small; if we restricted our M&O committees to those who had displayed such "qualifications", many meetings would have trouble creating any M&O committees at all. So, as the old Quaker joke has it, "We take what we can get." And taking what we can get seems to work out. God provides.
Not surprisingly I disagree, somewhat, with Marshall. Where no elders have yet be recognized meetings need to do what needs to be done. So creating a Ministry and Oversight committee out of whichever Friends are willing to serve is often what needs to be done. In North Carolina conservative that is what has to happen in many of our monthly meetings since the traditional practices are hard to maintain. But does naming elders serve a purpose? It does indeed. Stories abound of people taking it upon themselves to elder someone and doing it badly. In fact your story seems to be an example of something deciding to "elder" a Friend for using Christian language. And I would guess that this Friend who decided to do this "eldering" considered himself a seasoned Friend. It is very clear to me that some people are especially discerning of what to say and how to say it when it comes to gently guiding people and others, while they may be able to discern the truth about their own leadings, are not able to see clearly in these matters. When the community as a whole tries to use its power of discernment to figure out who elders well it throws a spotlight on what good eldering looks like.
Mark,
What a beautiful insight into the Spirit's descent in Acts 2. "Each heard in their own tongue." When I hear Buddhists or Hindus talking about their experience of the Holy, there is something that resonates with me. I know through their words that they have experienced the same Light as I have.
For me, my experience of God can only be told in the language of Christianity. That is what I know. That is the language with with I was reared. It is in the pages of the Bible that I see the move of God, the stories (midrash) that give light to my understanding of the Holy.
As a gay man, I could be one of those folks who could not bear to hear Christian language because of the hurt inflicted by the church and by Christians. And, indeed Mark, there was LOTS of hurtful things I heard and felt growing up in an evangelical home. Heck, I remember being beat up (thus the crooked nose) by the same members of my youth group with which I prayed and worshipped at church camp because I was a bit effiminate.
But you grow up, you learn to forgive and you learn that it was not Jesus, but those whose veiw of Jesus was filitered through right wing extremism that did hurtful things. And why should I be different than any other Christian who attempts to follow the teachings of Jesus? Followers of the Lamb have been persecuted throughout history for many reasons..."blessed are the meek...blessed are the merciful...blessed are the pure of heart...blessed are the peacemakers." And, sadly, at times I have been the persecutor as well.
When I was convinced that this Way was a Path I could walk which would connect me with God, I was thrilled by everything I read in early Quaker writings about our faith. I had no idea that many who are active in the Society of Friends found that Path repugnant and offensive.
On my better days, I realize that God can reach folks where they are and bring them to healing and to the ability to hear from the Living Christ. On less than good days, I am frustrated that Friends will follow any path save that of the Path we have inherited from our spiritual forebearers. On these days, I wonder that even though "each one heard in their own tongue" at what point do we become a tower of Babel where there is no common tongue which serves to unite us as a Beloved Community. And on those days I wonder at what point God will destroy our tower and raise up a new Community to be Christ's Bride.
Above all, I long for the day when what John saw comes to pass: "Then the Angel showed me Water-of-Life River, crystal bright. It flowed from the Throne of God and the Lamb, right down the middle of the street. The Tree of Life was planted on each side of the River, producing twelve kinds of fruit, a ripe fruit each month. The leaves of the Tree are for healing the nations. Never again will anything be cursed. The Throne of God and of the Lamb is at the center. His servants will offer God service—worshiping, they'll look on his face, their foreheads mirroring God. Never again will there be any night. No one will need lamplight or sunlight. The shining of God, the Master, is all the light anyone needs. And they will rule with him age after age after age."
Sorry for being so wordy (how unQuakerly) but your post really touched me and spoke to my condition. Thanks f/Friend. I cannot tell you how much I look forward to seeing you and Ceal again.
-Craig
RichardM writes, "When the community as a whole tries to use its power of discernment to figure out who elders well it throws a spotlight on what good eldering looks like."
I am very comfortable with the idea of the community as a whole using its powers of discernment to throw a spotlight on what good eldering looks like. But there is no need to get personal about it; it can be done without any talk about "who elders well" in the meeting and who does not.
And I am not at all comfortable with the community trying to make public judgments about "who elders well" as a way of handling some poor sod who just thought she/he was answering a problem minister. There are better and less personally judgmental ways of dealing with such behavior.
From the story as Mark originally told it, the problem speaker -- the person who took exception to the first person's Christian language -- did not pull the first person aside and speak to her/him privately, but rather, presented her/his disagreement publicly during meeting for worship. So this second person thought that she/he was actually speaking ministry.
The issue before us in this story, therefore, is not an attempt at eldering in any normal sense of the word, but poor speaking and poor listening in the context of meeting for worship. To try to handle it in the meeting community as an eldering issue, rather than a speaking-and-listening-in-meeting-for-worship issue, would very likely confuse many members of the community.
Howdy Marshall. Looks like Eldering continues.
I want to say, eldering someone publically on the floor of Meeting for worship does happen -- and I have seen it done by members of our Ministry and Counsel (M&C I presume is the Canuck version of your M&O). I think generally doing so is a mistake for all the reasons already noted. It also tends to fan flames of discord rather than dowse them.
I suspect it comes form opur hang ups with authority. Nobody acn tell you what to believe -- so you say it in the relative safety of Meeting and disguise it as an FYI.
David, I am very sorry to hear that some folks in your former meeting thought it appropriate to "elder someone publicly on the floor of the Meeting for worship".
Advices against doing this go clear back to the beginning of our Society. For example, George Fox wrote in 1656, in his letter #116, "Friends, do not judge one another in meetings, ye that do minister in the meetings; for your so doing hath hurt the people, both within and without, and yourselves under their judgment ye have brought. And your judging one another in the meetings hath emboldened others to quarrel, and judge you also in the meetings. And this hath been all out of order, and the church order also."
Fox then offered positive advice, regarding how to proceed: "Now, if ye have anything [critical] to say to any, stay till the meeting be done, and then speak to them in private between yourselves, and do not lay open one another's weakness; for that is weakness and not wisdom to do so. For your judging one another in meetings hath almost destroyed some Friends, and distracted them. And this is for want of love that beareth all things; and therefore, let it be amended."
William Dewsbury, too, advised Friends to do their eldering in private, and added other sound advice as well, in a general letter to Friends in 1668: "...Be tender one over another, and watch over one another with a pure single eye, and every one see the beam cast out of your own eye, before you go to spy a mote in others. If any brother or sister offend, you that know, speak to them privately, in all tenderness, to restore them.... But if they will not hear, take two or three more, and speak to them again in the spirit of meekness, waiting, and seeking the Lord for their recovery; but if they will not hear, but persist in wickedness, then acquaint the church, whom the Lord in his wisdom will order to deal with them for his own glory."
In 1691, Fox wrote up this method of dealing with "disorderly walkers" -- first to speak to them privately; if that doesn't work, take two or three witnesses with you and speak with them a second time; if that doesn't work, bring the issue to the meeting as a whole -- in a more systematic fashion, in his general letter #264.
Among Fox's advices in that letter were these gems: "...It is desired of all, before they publicly complain, that they wait in the power of God to feel, if there is no more required of them to their brother or sister, before they expose him or her to the church: let this be weightily considered." And also: "...Let no one accuse any one, either in a Monthly or Quarterly Meeting, publicly, except they have spoken to them by themselves first, and by two or three, as before."
With suitable rewording, this general method of handling "disorderly walkers" and other problems was restated and echoed in Friends' yearly meeting books of discipline and other major Quaker publications all through the 19th century. The method became generally referred to simply as "gospel order". Joseph Pike followed this method in dealing with disorderly Friends in Ireland; John Woolman, John Churchman and other Quaker reformers followed it in dealing with stubborn slaveholders in America. Birthright Friends learned the method almost with their mothers' milk, seeing it modeled by their parents and others in all matters churchly and familial; it became second nature to them to approach all interpersonal difficulties in this way.
In the twentieth century, the old careful descriptions of this method were dropped from most yearly meeting books of discipline. The method itself, however, survived in most places, being still taught by each succeeding generation of Friends to their heirs. Unfortunately this did not guarantee that it would be known in meetings that sprang up in big cities and college towns without solid historical Quaker roots. Accordingly, in 1991, an older Friend named Sandra Cronk wrote a Pendle Hill pamphlet titled Gospel Order: A Quaker Understanding of Faithful Church Community, spelling out the old method afresh for a new generation of readers.
As far as I can tell, this method, "gospel order", is still how most seasoned Friends understand that "eldering" is supposed to proceed. If the "elders" in your own meeting did not understand it, this raises real questions in my mind as to the meeting's overall knowledge of Quakerism.
Well, I left a comment on here last night, it seems to have disappeared. I hope I can remember everything I said.
First of all, it looks like there has been a bit of activity while I was up in Asheville with the Southern Appalachian Young Friends. Thank you everyone for your comments!
I would like to make it clear that this wasn't just a case of someone standing up and directly addressing the first speaker. I'm not sure everyone thought it was a case of attempted eldering, or maybe they did and thought it was good.
As I have been considering what I wrote, one of the things that has been foremost in my mind is my own need to listen better. It seems like most of the statements I hear in my home meeting tend to focus on what we do, and not why we do it - that is, focus on the fruit instead of the vine, as Marshall put it over on Cherice's blog. There are often a number of political statements, too. Notice I am even hesitant to use the word "messages". I feel like I have become very negative and hyper-critical. For example, at the beginning of the Ninth month business meeting, the query reflected on the recent 5-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, and asked if we are doing everything we can to take away the occasion of war. My immediate thought was "We aren't the ones who take away the occasion of war, it is the work of the Holy Spirit". I wanted to stand and say that, but I was sure that was me talking.
I think my inner critic needs to shut up for a while so I can hear better.
With love,
Mark
Mark,
Bearing in mind that my reaction is at a distance and lacks the benefit of hearing the words people in your meeting are speaking my impression is this. You correctly perceiving that there is inappropriate vocal ministry going on. At the same time you are correct in holding back on trying to elder these people at this time. You sense in yourself that if you were to speak to them at this time it would come across as hectoring and not the sort of loving correction that eldering needs to be. Eldering is very, very important and very, very hard. It must be done in a loving humble spirit and most of us "channel the angry god" (as a Friend put it on another blog) when we perceive some weakness in another. During Janie Sams memorial service someone reminded us of another of Janie's sayings: "There's a little bit of the good in the worst of us and a little bit of bad in the best of us and it behooves all of us to remember that." An elder has to be realistic about the flaws she sees in the Friend but also humble enough to deliver the message from a loving place--if it comes from an angry place it's not coming from the Spirit of Christ.
So hold back on saying anything directly until you can either feel the correction coming from a loving Spirit and not the angry god or until you can find someone in your meeting who can do it.
I should mention that I can say this because I personally have a lot of trouble developing the humility necessary to speak to people in the right spirit.
Hi, Mark and others--
I'm glad to have a chance to read a few more blog posts, in-between committee meetings, travels, etc.
Here are some of my own thoughts:
1. As I mention elsewhere, it seems to me that there are times in these comments that the word "elder" is used rather than the more precise "admonish." I guess I really do have a hot button about those two words being used interchangeably...
2. I realized as I was reading all these comments, Mark, that the idea of a workshop or adult ed program about knowing when/how to offer vocal ministry and when/how to listen just feels like "same old, same old." I wonder if Friends need a chance to reflect more specifically on questions like, "What can I DO when my own buttons get pushed during MfW and while listening to a Friend's vocal ministry? What does a 'good Quaker' do in a time like this?"
3. Our personal and inward response to what occurs at MfW is part of the "we're all human" equation of being a Quaker. I am beginning to believe that we must help one another engage in understanding the various forms of "discipline" that exist among Friends:
- waiting for an opening
- discerning what is in harmony with God's wil
- testing our leadings
- laboring with one another
- holding paradoxes in tension
- keeping low.
Oooh, now I better sign off and listen some more myself!
Blessings,
Liz Opp, The Good Raised Up
Post a Comment
<< Home