Faith in the face of tragedy

It has been difficult to even read about the tragedy at the Amish school in Pennsylvania. I saw this quote from Sam Stolzfus, a 63-year-old Amish woodworker:

We think it was God's plan and we're going to have to pick up the pieces and keep going. A funeral to us is a much more important thing than the day of birth because we believe in the hereafter. The children are better off than their survivors.

That last sentence reminded me of Isaiah 57:1, which says:

The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come. (KJV)

Blown by the Spirit

The wind blows where it wishes
and you hear the sound of it
but cannot tell where it comes from
cannot tell where it goes
so is everyone who is born of the Spirit. (John 3:8)

-- from Robert Evans' Scripture Songs

As I have been reflecting on this verse, I think of a leaf in the wind. It is totally at the whim of the breeze and moves in response to the slightest change. When we first feel that holy wind stirring within us, most of us try to cling to where we are and what we are. It is when we are able to let go completely and let ourselves be taken by that wind that we are truly able to live our life in the Spirit of Christ - to let ourselves be not only born of the Spirit, but to be borne by the Spirit.

My Utmost For His Highest

At the Gathered Meeting Retreat for Atlanta Friends Meeting this past April, our facilitator was Rubye Braye from Wilmington Friends Mtg (NCYM-C). Rubye recommended a daily devotional book to Ceal called "My Utmost For His Highest" by Oswald Chambers. For several months, I had seen that book in various places of the house, but I didn't pick it up because I was never that happy with daily devotionals.

When we visited the NCYM-C gathering earlier this month, I heard a number of people quoting Oswald Chambers, but didn't make the connection until I saw the book in our room. Since then, I have started reading it daily, and so far I have found it very satisfying, inspiring, challenging, and thought-provoking. Although we have it in book form, I usually read it online.

The Marriage of Spirit and Scripture

Peter Kirk, a bible scholar from Chelmsford, U.K., recently wrote about Bible Deists (in a nutshell, people who believe that God created everything and now just sits back and lets things unfold without any intervention). Most of what he talks about, though, has to do with how many Christians treat the bible - almost as a replacement for God. They ignore the Spirit that inspired the words, and focus only on the words themselves.

George Fox articulated the Quaker approach to the bible when he said "For as the Spirit of God was in them that gave forth the Scriptures, so the same Spirit must be in all them that come to understand the Scriptures."

The main reason I want to draw attention to Peter's article is the end. These are not actually Peter's words but are quote from the book Surprised by the Voice of God by Jack Deere:

Somewhere along the way, though, the church has encouraged a silent divorce between the Word and the Spirit. Divorces are painful, both for the children and the parents. One parent usually gets custody of the children, and the other only gets to visit occasionally. It breaks the hearts of the parents, and the children are usually worse off because of the arrangement. Many in the church today are content to live with only one parent. They live with the Word, and the Spirit only has limited visiting rights. He just gets to see and touch the kids once in a while. Some of his kids don't even recognize him any more. Some have become afraid of him. Others in the church live with the Spirit and only allow the Word sporadic visits. The Spirit doesn't want to raise the kids without the Word. He can see how unruly they're becoming, but he won't force them to do what they must choose with their hearts.

As Quakers, with our focus on being guided by the Holy Spirit, I think we sometimes develop a tendancy to ignore the bible and in doing so we lose a valuable guide. We are in danger of becoming those unruly kids that the Spirit has to try to raise without the Word. It's not that I don't understand why some people avoid the bible. I know many people have been beaten over the head with its words to the point where it is a source of pain for them. That may also be why people try to avoid overtly Christian language in some meetings, as well. It seems to me that this behavior only reinforces those feelings someone may have developed about the bible. If the only people they hear quoting the bible or talking about Christ are preaching anger and hostility, how can they form any other opinion? As Paul said in Galatians 5:22-23, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (NET). Wouldn't it be better to hear about the bible from this Spirit?

George Fox knew what it was to be beaten over the head with the bible -- literally!

Now while I was at Mansfield-Woodhouse, I was moved to go to the steeple-house there, and declare the truth to the priest and people; but the people fell upon me in great rage, struck me down, and almost stifled and smothered me; and I was cruelly beaten and bruised by them with their hands, and with Bibles and sticks.

But George also knew the inner workings of the Spirit, and knew that in the hands of those people who were not in that same Spirit, the bible was nothing but a paper club.

Building Walls and Drawing Lines

It seems like a good percentage of the Quaker-blogosphere has been dedicated in one way or another to the issue of building walls - who is a Quaker, who isn't, do you have to believe this or that. The words "inclusive", "exclusive" and "tribal" seem to get thrown around a bit. This is often a very painful subject for people, and I think one of the driving issues is that people fear that a wall is being built, and that they will be left outside it. That is not my intention here.

Often in these discussions, people talk of building a wall, or drawing a line - those on one side are "in" and those on the other are "out". The thing is, there is a difference between walls and lines. Walls keep people out, lines do not. What lines frequently do is help you know where you are and what to expect. When you're driving down the highway, the lines give you guidance as to the direction you are going, and also where to expect other cars to be. I don't even want to think about what rush hour in Atlanta would be like if we erased all the lines on I-285.

What I would hope we have within the global Quaker community is more like a highway with different lanes. There are lanes for Christ-oriented people, some who prefer having a minister, some who prefer the older tradition, and lanes for people who may or may not be Christ-oriented but want a diverse, even eclectic community. We are all (hopefully) heading in the same direction, but we take different ways to get there. We look over at the other lanes and see how things are going there, sometimes we even decide to change lanes.

My hope is that we can all find a lane where we can get to where we are all going without giving other drivers the finger.

A little more about my experience at the NCYM-C gathering

I feel like I went off on a tangent before with respect to some similarities between my experience among Conservative Friends and what I read about the Convergent Friends. I would like to just share some more of my experiences, without getting into schisms and such. I have felt a little uneasy that I have been allowing myself to be pulled away from something precious into something that distracts me.

The opening worship was rather quiet, but there was a depth and a seriousness to the messages. After dinner was the meeting for the committee on Ministry and Oversight, to which everyone was invited. Ceal and I were seated next to Louise Wilson, who is a recorded minister from Virginia Beach Friends Meeting. It was a delight getting to know her. Sometimes she is very deep, other times just funny and makes effective use of a mischievous smile. We were talking about simplicity and how hard it can be to give some things up. She said that looking back over her life, she has been amazed at how things just seem to fall away. It reminded me of the possibly apocryphal story about William Penn being told to wear his sword "as long as thee can". To me, that isn't saying that it is okay NOT to simplify, but that as I come into a closer relationship with God, those extraneous things will fall away on their own.

I ended up volunteering to be a reader for the 7th Night program, which was the Gospel of Mark in 9 Voices. There were 2 narrators who read everything that wasn't a direct quote, one person reading all of Jesus' lines, and then everything else went to the other 6 people. I was one of the other 6, and we were scattered throughout the audience on 7th day. When we were first deciding where everyone would be seated, it was suggested that the person reading God be placed on the top row. For some reason there are times when I can't help making a joke, and I said that while I liked that idea, I might also suggest the middle of the front row, because if God can't get tickets for front row, center, who can? Lloyd Lee laughed and said "Thee has a future as a theologian". There's a scary thought! I thought everyone did a great job, especially Tommy Gipson, who read Jesus. Now, I'm sure it was just a coincidence, but I couldn't help noticing that they had the visitor from the Liberal Friends (i.e. me) read every one of the unclean spirits. I AM LEGION!!!

When we were at SAYMA, we saw our f/Friend Deborah Fisch and we joked that we were coming to the NCYM-C gathering to heckle her - she was the keynote speaker. Deborah laughed, and then said "Well, maybe you could be on my support committee". That was a new one for me, and we were quite happy to have been asked. For me, being on the committee was like doing a meeting for healing, and it turned out I really needed to do this - not necessarily for Deborah, but for me. We met about 30 minutes before Deborah's talk and held her in the light, prayed, offered some vocal ministry and song. Then we held her in the light through her talk. That opened something in me, as it does sometimes in meeting for healing and it affected me for the rest of my time there - it is difficult to describe, but I do get a sense of being "in the Spirit" at various times and at various intensities, and I felt that way much more frequently afterwards. If you ever get a chance to hear Deborah Fisch speak, go! She had so much to share and I think everyone there was deeply and personally touched by her words. One thing she said that I heard repeated a lot afterwards is that there is nothing you can do to make God love you any more than you are right now, and there is nothing you can do to make God love you any less than you are right now. Deborah also spoke quite a bit about 1 Corinthians 12, which I blogged about just two weeks ago. Of course, Deborah is much more insightful than I am.

The closing worship was just incredible. Deep, moving messages. I was even given a brief message, which is quite rare (the message part is rare, they have all been brief). It was an interesting experience in that the message had been trying to get my attention, like it was tapping on my head or something (dink, dink). But I figured it was just a random thought. So finally, I said "God, if this is really a message, let me know." I don't really remember how it became so clear, but a minute later I was on my feet. Sometimes I wonder whether God doesn't need me to speak much, or if I am just not a good listener. But then, there are other ways to minister to people than just speaking in meeting. Maybe that's what I am meant to do.

The day after I got home, I typed in a 2-page document that was from an earlier meeting of Ministry and Oversight discussing what is the core of being a Conservative Friend. I sent it to the Gwinnett Friends Preparative Meeting where I have been worshipping a good bit lately. As I was typing it in, I got to the list names of those present at the meeting, most of whom I had just met. Each familiar name brought a little bubble of joy, and I long to see these people again and worship with them.

Update (8/1/2006):
The summary of what it means to be a Conservative Friend, answering the query: The “fabric” of Conservative Friends is made of many threads. Name the threads that make up the “religious” part of the Religious Society of Friends. Which of these thread(s) seem essential to our identity as Conservative friends? Which thread(s) are essential to the manner in which we practice our faith? is now available online!

Judgement

We had an interesting bible study at NCYM-C. We discussed 3 parts of Deuteronomy and a section of 1 Corinthians 11. Bob Gosney, who led the bible study, said that he had intentionally chosen very difficult passages. The passages from Deuteronomy had to do with reciting Israel's history as something of a ritual, and the latter part of 1 Corinthians talks about communion. Bob jokingly said we were dealing with "3 Rituals and a Sacrament". I had a rather odd way of looking at a section of 1 Corinthians 11 and I wanted to share. Here is the passage (1 Corinthians 11:27-32):

For this reason, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. A person should examine himself first, and in this way let him eat the bread and drink of the cup. For the one who eats and drinks without careful regard for the body eats and drinks judgment against himself. That is why many of you are weak and sick, and quite a few are dead. But if we examined ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned with the world. (NET Bible)

This is probably one of those passages that Quakers hurry past, especially with the blood drinking and all, but I think deep down, there is some relation to our practice. I think the key to looking at this section is in the word "judgment". Most of the time, we hear "judgment" used as one of those "end times" things where all the bad people go to Hell and all. But in this case, "judgment" is used in the present tense, as is the word translated as "are disciplined".

Now, although liberal Quakers don't talk about it much, there is a judging aspect of the inner Light that illuminates some of the dark sections of our soul. It can be a painful process, and I think this is really what Paul is talking about. It isn't that if you do this wrong you are going to Hell, but that if you do it wrong, the Holy Spirit is going to let you know about it. Sometimes we may speak in meeting and afterwards have a squirmy, uneasy feeling that we strayed from our guide. I think this is an aspect of that judgment and it isn't meant as punishment but a correction. It seems that Paul is exhorting us to pay attention and follow the inner promptings of the Spirit - not necessarily in following a ritual, but in everything that we do. And if we act against those promptings, God will let us know.