Retirement, Remixing, and the Religious Society of Friends

I don't post much here anymore since I mostly use Facebook, Twitter, and the like to offer thoughts. But what I have to say here requires a bit more space.

As my faithful reader (notice, singular, not plural) knows, I retired from full-time, paid employment a year ago. And while I'm as busy as I've ever been, I'm busy doing mostly things I really enjoy -- writing, leading retreats, hanging out with friends, and the like.

I've also come to really enjoy something else -- and that's watching friends of mine who are a generation or two younger than me move into really significant leadership and staff positions in the Religious Society of Friends. What I especially enjoy about this is seeing how they do things differently than I (and others of my advanced age) would do them.

Now, when I was younger and way more insecure (I'm still insecure -- just not as much as I used to be), I would have been critical of how they do things differently. After all, I did them the right way. And I did -- for my time and with my understanding of what was needed. But times have changed (my gosh, I sound like my Grandma Bill!) and ways doing things in the RSOF and its institutions and organizations need to change, too. I'm pleased that younger (than me) leaders are doing just that.

I'm just going to focus primarily on one example (because otherwise this post would become a book -- and I'm already working on a book with a deadline looming!!) and that's my friend Wess Daniels who serves as the William R Rogers Director of Friends Center and Quaker Studies at Guilford College.

I've known Wess for a number of years and followed his thinking and writing -- especially about the RSOF and revitalization. He's a good thinker (but not as good a writer as I am -- kidding). And his thinking and writing have challenged me to rethink some of ways of how we do things. One of his most innovative ideas is that of remixing. I'm not going to go into it fully here (if you want to explore it further and I hope you do, check out his book A Convergent Model of Renewal: Remixing the Quaker Tradition in a Participatory Culture or his recent Michener Seminar at Southeastern Yearly Meeting), but as I understand it, it is remaining faithful to the bedrock of our faith tradition while reinterpreting it (remixing) so it is hearable, usuable, and useful for today. He posits that "remixing" is what the early Friends did to revive their understanding of the spiritual vitality of primitive Christianity.

And now Wess is remixing in his position at Guilford. The good work of Friends Center and, especially its Quaker Leadership Scholars Program, was founded and grew thanks to the efforts of my dear friend (and Friend) Max Carter. It's been a joy to watch this program grow and prosper under Max's direction (and with the help of other friends/Friends like Frank Massey and Deborah Shaw). I've even had the good fortune to lead workshop or two there. Friends Center and QLSP made a huge difference in RSOF and in young adults' lives. Max's contributions can not be overstated (I only wish my own to the RSOF were anywhere as significant as his!). And his vital ministry to Friends continues (which is one of the fun things about retirement -- all the ministry without all the administration, budgeting, etc!).

I see Wess taking the bedrock of Friends Center's "tradition" and remixing it in ways that embrace that tradition and make it accessible in new ways to a new generation of students. I think that's grand. In the same way that it's grand that Gabe Ehri and the Friends Publishing folks have remixed Friends Journal, Marta Rusek and Dan Kasztelan are remixing communications at FGC and FUM, and on and on.

Part of what I believe is that we, as created in the image of God, are called to create -- and re-create. I see that happening around me and am grateful.

My prayer is that I can continue to celebrate the "re-creation" (remixing) even when it rubs up against my ideas about how things should be done. While I continue my ministry in new ways, freed from the constraints of having to earn a living, may I support those who are re-doing our ministry in new ways. To borrow an idea from the Bible -- "the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!"  Well, the "old" (at least my personal part of it!) has not quite gone yet (and I hope it doesn't for awhile!), but I rejoice that the "new is here."

A Quaker Advent Reader: Day Seven

"The Annunciation"
by Edwin Muir

The angel and the girl are met.
Earth was the only meeting place.
For the embodied never yet
Travelled beyond the shore of space.

The eternal spirits in freedom go.
See, they have come together, see,
While the destroying minutes flow,
Each reflects the other’s face
Till heaven in hers and earth in his
Shine steady there. He’s come to her
From far beyond the farthest star,
Feathered through time. Immediacy
Of strangest strangeness is the bliss
That from their limbs all movement takes.
Yet the increasing rapture brings
So great a wonder that it makes
Each feather tremble on his wings.

Outside the window footsteps fall
Into the ordinary day
And with the sun along the wall
Pursue their unreturning way.
Sound’s perpetual roundabout
Rolls its numbered octaves out
And hoarsely grinds its battered tune.

But through the endless afternoon
These neither speak nor movement make,
But stare into their deepening trance
As if their gaze would never break.

*************************

“The House of Christmas”
by G. K. Chesterton

There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.

For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.
Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honor and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.

A Child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam,
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost - how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky’s dome.

This world is wild as an old wives’ tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.

To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.

“The House of Christmas”


Yes, I know that Quakers don't recognize liturgical seasons. But I like Advent and so will be sharing various readings during this season (all of which fit with my understanding of Friends faith and life). 

A Quaker Advent Reader: Day Five

"Too much to ask "
by Luci Shaw

it seemed too much to ask
of one small virgin
that she should stake shame
against the will of God.
all she had to hold to
were those soft, inward
flutterings
and the remembered sting
of a brief junction--spirit
with flesh.
who would think it
more than a dream wish?
an implausible, laughable
defence.

and it seems much
too much to ask me
to be part of the
different thing--
God's shocking, unorthodox,
unheard of Thing
to further heaven's hopes
and summon God's glory.

From The Risk of Birth: A Gift Book of Christ Poems (Harold Shaw Publishers, 1974).

***********

"We humans contribute to the world’s gloom, like dark shadows on a dark landscape.…But now this man from Nazareth comes to us and invites us to mirror God’s image, and shows us how. He says: you too can become light, as God is light. What is all around you is not hell, but rather a world waiting to be filled with hope and faith."
by Jörg Zink 
Doors to the Feast

Yes, I know that Quakers don't recognize liturgical seasons. But I like Advent and so will be sharing various readings during this season (all of which fit with my understanding of Friends faith and life).

A Quaker Advent Reader: Day Four

From the beginning, writers of the Christmas story have been bothered by the inn, with the stable and manger close at hand. That is where we find ourselves: not by the shepherds, whose poverty and simplicity we lack; and not by the wise men, whose watchfulness and decisiveness we lack. We are, at best, guests at the inn. We sleep, we follow our own plans and dreams. Can we be awakened by the angels’ news? That is the question.

-- Rudolf Otto Wiemer
Source: from the foreword to the play “The End of the Night”

A Quaker Advent Reader: Day Three

"Winter Grace"
by Patricia Fargnoli

If you have seen the snow
under the lamppost
piled up like a white beaver hat on the picnic table
or somewhere slowly falling
into the brook
to be swallowed by water,
then you have seen beauty
and know it for its transience.
And if you have gone out in the snow
for only the pleasure
of walking barely protected
from the galaxies,
the flakes settling on your parka
like the dust from just-born stars,
the cold waking you
as if from long sleeping,
then you can understand
how, more often than not,
truth is found in silence,
how the natural world comes to you
if you go out to meet it,
its icy ditches filled with dead weeds,
its vacant birdhouses, and dens
full of the sleeping.
But this is the slowed-down season
held fast by darkness
and if no one comes to keep you company
then keep watch over your own solitude.
In that stillness, you will learn
with your whole body
the significance of cold
and the night,
which is otherwise always eluding you.

“Winter Grace” by Patricia Fargnoli from Hallowed. © Tupelo Press, 2017

************

The frightened shepherds become God’s messengers. They organize, make haste, find others, and speak with them. Do we not all want to become shepherds and catch sight of the angel? I think so. Without the perspective of the poor, we see nothing, not even an angel. When we approach the poor, our values and goals change. The child appears in many other children. Mary also seeks sanctuary among us. Because the angels sing, the shepherds rise, leave their fears behind, and set out for Bethlehem, wherever it is situated these days.

-- Dorothee Soelle
Source: Watch for the Light

Yes, I know that Quakers don't recognize liturgical seasons. But I like Advent and so will be sharing various readings during this season (all of which fit with my understanding of Friends faith and life).

A Quaker Advent Reader: Day Two

Although we sing, “All glory to God on High and on the earth be peace,” there seems to be today neither glory to God nor peace on earth. As long as it remains a hunger still unsatisfied, as long as Christ is not yet born, we have to look forward to him. When real peace is established, we will not need demonstrations, but it will be echoed in our life, not only in individual life, but in corporate life. Then we shall say Christ is born.…Then we will not think of a particular day in the year as that of the birth of the Christ, but as an ever-recurring event which can be enacted in every life.

-- Mahatma Gandhi
Source: from a talk given on Christmas Day, 1931

Yes, I know that Quakers don't recognize liturgical seasons. But I like Advent and so will be sharing various readings during this season (all of which fit with my understanding of Friends faith and life).

A Quaker Advent Reader: Day One

Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for him at all, Christ has come uninvited. But because he cannot be at home in it – because he is out of place in it, and yet must be in it – his place is with those others who do not belong, who are rejected because they are regarded as weak; and with those who are discredited, who are denied the status of persons, and are tortured, exterminated. With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present in this world. He is mysteriously present in those for whom there seems to be nothing but the world at its worst.

Thomas Merton

Source: Watch for the Light 

Yes, I know that Quakers don't recognize liturgical seasons. But I like Advent and so will be sharing various readings during this season (all of which fit with my understanding of Friends faith and life).

"So what I said was..." On Racism and Quakers

I just returned from FGC's summer Gathering. It's an experience I always find challenging (and I mean that in a good way). This year's was especially so. It was my first experience helping run the QuakerBooks store there. The wonky internet, not having enough copies of popular books, and other stuff was not fun. Chatting with Friends, serving their needs, and finding just that right book was.

But overlying it all was a great cloud of concern regarding race, white privilege, and all that goes with that in America and among Friends. Some Friends of Color at Gathering experienced things from micro-aggressions to harassment.  Then there was the killing of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge on Tuesday. Then the next day Philando Castile was shot and killed by police. Then the next day, Micah Johnson gunned down a number of Dallas police officers, killing four of them.

All of the above rocked the about 1,000 Friends attending Gathering -- which had the theme "be humble, Be Faithful, BE BOLD." As it should have. I won't report here on what happened at Gathering -- I'm certain lots of other bloggers who were more involved than I (tucked away in the bookstore as I was from early morning until late at night most days) will do so. Nor will I comment on what I think and hope FGC's response and actions might be, though I do have opinions on that as well. But it is an association of Friends and as such, needs the collective discernment of those Friends as it moves humbly, faithfully, and boldly forward in an area where it continues to do much good work -- from publishing titles such as Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship: Quakers, African Americans and the Myth of Racial Justice (which QuakerBooks.org is keeping on sale at the reduced $5 price because we feel it's an important book that all Friends should read) to working on the White Privilege Conference to much more. And FGC, along with other Friends organizations has much work yet to do.

Instead, I want to talk about this 65 year-old, white male's troubled heart and soul and what I shared with Friends at West Newton Friends Meeting this morning. West Newton is my spiritual home. My spiritual family. Today it was my turn to, with Divine assistance, to lead worship.

I arrived with my heart deeply troubled by the things I've mentioned above. So what I said was... that I was grieved. Deeply grieved. And I realized it's not enough to be grieved. What am I called to do? What is our little meeting called to do?

I reminded myself and the other Friends of John Woolman's words that:

Our gracious Creator cares and provides for all his creatures. His tender mercies are over all his works; and so far as his love influences our minds, so far we become interested in his workmanship and feel a desire to take hold of every opportunity to lessen the distresses of the afflicted and increase the happiness of the creation. Here we have a prospect of one common interest from which our own is inseparable, that to turn all the treasures we possess into the channel of universal love becomes the business of our lives…

Oppression in the extreme appears terrible: but oppression in more refined appearances remains to be oppression; and where the smallest degree of it is cherished it grows stronger and more extensive. To labour for a perfect redemption from this spirit of oppression is the great business of the whole family of Christ Jesus in this world.
Am I turning all I possess (not just things, but time, passions, energy) into the channel of universal love toward all people in this land? I admit to deep pain in my heart as I read those words. And a choke in my voice. Because my answer, sadly is "No."

Likewise, I may not extremely oppress or cooperate in oppression of African Americans, but I do have a "more refined appearance" which "remains ... oppression."

God help me. God help us.

"To labour for a perfect redemption from this spirit of oppression is the great business of the whole family of Christ Jesus in this world." As I read those words, I am challenged to consider what I am doing to work toward a redemption of this spirit of oppression. To proclaim and act out my beliefs in this regard. With real, helpful, and earnest action. Not just a "Peanuts" sort of wishing good things for or on the oppressed.

What am I called to do? What am I compelled to do? What is my yearly meeting, which convenes this week going to do?

That's what I said. And asked. And ponder in my heart.

Who Would Jesus Kill?

C. Wess Daniels and Remixing the Quaker Way

A few weeks ago I found a copy of C. Wess Daniels A Convergent Model of Renewal: Remixing the Quaker Tradition in Participatory Culture in my mailbox. I'd been looking forward to this book for a long time. So much so that I tore open the packaging on the long walk back from the road to the house and started reading it.

For those of you who don't know Wess, for the past more than five years he's been the released minister at Camas Friends Church (in Washington state), has been an adjunct professor, and has a PhD from Fuller Seminary. He also makes a mean sauerkraut and is a connoisseur of coffee. Wess has just been named the William R. Rogers Director of Friends Center and Quaker Studies at Guilford College, succeeding Max Carter, who will retire this summer after 25 years there.

In my opinion Guilford could not have made a better choice.

Wess has been one of the foremost articulators of the "convergent Friends" movement and practices what he preaches about Quaker renewal. I've been fortunate enough to have had a number of conversations about the latter topic with him over the past few years. Which is why I looked forward to his book.

Shortly after I received it, I was bound for a series of airplane trips. I usually don't read on planes -- mostly (since I hate flying) I listen to tunes and try to forget that I'm on a plane.  This time I made an exception. I took the book and a yellow marker.  We had not taken off on the first leg of the trip before I had begun highlighting sections.  That's because there's much good stuff herein -- including sections like: 

"Each...formulated branch touts its own rival theories about the origin and core message of the Quaker tradition. Each polarization represents only a piece of the larger tradition." 

I could fill this blog with other such gems. Wess has a clear eye and views us Quakers honestly and provides a good analysis of the issues facing all of our various permutations -- Evangelical, liberal, middle of the road, and so on.  But since this is blog -- and not an academic review -- I need to be brief.

Here's why I think Wess' book bears reading.  It's an articulate, accessible analysis of the current state of North American (primarily) Quakerism. He also provides a cogent portrayal of the participatory and remixing nature of early Quakerism and why it had an such an impact on culture, faith, and life.  He offers a model "for participatory renewal" that has much to commend it. And I do mean much.  These pieces (plus Ben Pink Dandelion's foreword) make the book worth reading.

But, in the interest of integrity (since I am a friend of Wess' and don't want readers to think I didn't read the book critically because of our friendship), I also have to name my quibbles.  One is that there's one contemporary case study -- that of Freedom Friends Church.  Now I find Freedom Friends an amazing place that is doing good work, but I would have rather seen a summary of findings from a number of contemporary meetings/churches Wess feels are implementing the remixing/participatory model he outlines.  One example hardly feels convincing.

Another quibble is the emphasis Wess places on convergent Friends faith and practice as a base for his model. I love his model -- less the descriptor "convergent." Regarding convergent Friends as a model, well, I am not convinced -- never have been. That's probably due in no small part to my skeptical nature. But I think it also has something to do with having been a long-time congregational consultant and seeing how churches and meetings look for the one program/theology/resource/practice that will bring about renewal and then import it wholesale, only to find it doesn't fit them. 

The convergent Friends movement has much to commend it. But it is not, as a package one can import, for all Friends. Instead, I think each Friends meeting/church needs to wrestle with the points that Wess raises in this book -- have we abandoned Quaker tradition as irrelevant in our proclamation of Jesus or have we abandoned Jesus in order to practice our post-modern discover your personal truth with us? And everything in between.  Wess' book lays out some of the questions we all -- Evangelical, ultra-liberal, mushy-moderates, conservatives -- need to consider and struggle with. He shows the potential power of remixing vital tradition and spiritual experiences and language and culture into a vital Quaker way for today. But I don't think it's dependent on the convergent model.

When I mentioned my concern to Wess, he replied, "I only write about the Convergent Friends group a little and make more of it as a gesture towards holding onto both tradition and innovation. The hope of the model is that Friends, within whatever context they are in, will find ways to hold that tension, not so much become a part of the group of 'convergent Friends' who get together have pizza, chocolate chip cookies, and worship together. I guess what I am taking from them is that commitment towards both tradition and innovation more than extrapolating insights from what those groups do."

That said, I fully embrace his model and feel it can truly help Friends move forward in culturally and spiritually relevant ways.

In the book, Wess says:

As a highly participatory faith tradition, Quakerism is uniquely positioned ... in today's culture, reformulating the movement in ways that might bring about renewal.

I would drop the "might." I say that because that's what non-Quakers like Phyllis Tickle and Diana Butler Bass involved in the renewal and emergent movements among Christianity have been saying about the opportunity for Friends today.  Wess has hit the Quaker nail on the head here. His call to remix and become fully participatory is spot on.  

Get the book. Read it. Share it. Ponder it with Friends.

********************
If you're interested in my own thoughts on Quaker renewal, check out the blog posts titled "A Modest Proposal" or download the booklet here. 

God's Good Green Earth: Doing Unto Others, part 4: Humble Stumble

For me the easiest thing about caring for the earth is the how. The why is harder at times. Well, if not harder, than more complex. While I can search the scriptures for words about why I should care for the earth, some of them seem a bit of a stretch. I mean to read about Jesus’ ruling the wind and the waves doesn’t really tell me that I need to! And, yes, "The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters." (Psalm 24:1-2; cf. Psalm 89:11; 1 Corinthians 10:26), but if it’s the Lord’s do I need to care for it? Besides other Bible verses are used by people (especially in the King James version) to justify using up all the resources – “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” (Genesis 1:28)

Of course, "You must keep my decrees and my laws.... And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you." (Leviticus 18:26, 28) seems a pretty clear (and graphic) justification for taking care of this planet.

For me, in all my badness, there is an even greater reason – it’s the connection between earth care, peace, looking for that of God in others rooted in Jesus’ own life and example. Jesus ministry reflected a commitment to the poor and oppressed. Much of his work consisted of caring for the poor and oppressed in the society of his day. He fed, healed, and cared for the less fortunate – and confronted the privileged and their resources for not doing so. He more than hinted that we, as his followers, were to participate in the kin-dom of God – the interrelationship of all creation that brings universal shalom. Taking care of the earth is part of that participation.

How? Well, that may not be apparent on the surface. But when you stop to think that we in the so-called “developed” countries on this planet use and misuse resources, it’s obvious we have to be causing real harm to those unfortunate enough to have been born in less developed places. Remember earlier when I talked about the seeds of war in our possession? Especially as it relates to the Congo? One report says that thirty percent of kids in the Congo drop out of school so they can go work in the mines. The minerals mined are used mostly used to produce goods consumed in the western world. In the United States. In Indiana. In my home. My “need” of coltan dragged from the earth by the extreme methods they use means their lack of education.

That’s in addition to the huge disparity of my resource use compared to a person in Zambia. The United States, for example, has only five percent of the world population but uses twenty percent of the world’s energy. (http://www.worldpopulationbalance.org/population_energy) So let’s say that a family in India has seven children. That family still uses a lower percentage of the world’s energy than an American family with one child! I’m not certain that was what Jesus had in mind for us in ushering in the Kingdom of God.

This is not about blame. Or guilt. It is about being aware of how our actions impact those whom we will never see – and rarely think about. It’s about being the Friends of Jesus in a way that is possible now that wasn’t when he walked the shores of Galilee.

Think of it. We now know that what we do impacts others around the world in a way that generations before us could not. A smart bomb dropped in Syria while we’re watching “The Voice” on television is witnessed shortly after it happens – though we rarely count innocent dead that are collateral damage. And rarely count the resource costs – natural and economic resources – that it took to make that bomb “smart”, flying it around the world, and drop it on the people below. All of this resource “use” takes food from the mouths of poor children. Including the poor children in our own neighborhoods.

And while it’s easy to decry government spending on such things, what about our own need to have inexpensive clothes, food, and cars? How do we care for the poor and oppressed while simultaneously taking their labor and natural resources?

********

Wow. That was preachy, wasn’t it? Sorry. I get that way sometimes – mostly about what I need to be preached at about. Guess you’re just sort of collateral damage.

God's Good Green Earth: Divine Inaction, Godly Action, or Spiritual LOAFing, part 3: Humble Stumble

"Brent is a gentleman farmer. He lives on 50 acres being reclaimed into prairie and woodlands. That mean he raises grass and trees. Now, as I understand it, grass grows on its own. And trees do, too. So he gets to sit and watch them and read books and think deep thoughts. My thought is -- 'That's the kind of farmer I want to be!'"

That’s how I was introduced prior to giving a speech one time. Everybody chuckled, of course, including me. It was a witty introduction. But part of it nagged at me a bit and I remember it from time to time whilst working the farm this weekend.

Yes, the thousands of trees that have been planted over the years will grow on their own -- so long as they’re kept free of weed entanglement and damage from deer who like to munch on tender young shoots or rub the bark of young trees. That means weeding, mowing, and tying strips of dryer fabric softener sheets on each one (the deer hate the scent as much as I do. So do mice, which is why I tie them in the engine compartment of my truck, so they don’t eat all the wires up. Which they did once!). Let me tell you, that's a lot of cutting and tying. And the prairie has to be burned to kill off the woody growth and destroy weeds. Some, though, don't seem to mind the fire. So the bazillion thistle rosettes (that's a baby thistle, I've learned) that sprouted after the fire, have to be dealt with.

That, in part, is what I’m called to do. But before I was called to that work, I had to be convinced it was important spiritual work. Otherwise, I was just being another do-gooder. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I’m not a natural do-gooder. So for me to be one that, God sorta has to kick my rear end and say “Pay attention, Brent. You need to do this.”

My first conscious efforts toward earthcare as intentionally spirit work began small. Little things like getting rid of incandescent lightbulbs, wrapping the water heater in a cover, buying a high mpg car, buying energy efficient appliances when the old ones needed replaced. Tiny steps for a tiny soul.

As my soul grew, and an opportunity came to build a house, we designed it to be energy-efficient from its 6 inch thick insulated sidewalls, 8 inch thick insulated roof, triple insulated windows, geo-thermal heating and cooling system and more. Now this wasn’t cheap. Which kept grating my desire to live simply. It wasn’t that I couldn’t afford it. I could. But rubbed up against another faith matter – earth care/simple living.

Which is the thing about the Quaker way. Jesus’ way. It’s not so easy sometimes. The values it gives us sometimes fit easily together. Other times, not so much.

What’s a bad Quaker to do?

Actually, the question is what is this bad Quaker to do? There is no one answer that fits all of us. Which is part of the delight and frustration of being Friends of Jesus. We are called to determine, with divine assistance, what is ours to do in this world. About peace. Justice. Truth. Simplicity. Care for the earth. Please, God, can’t you just type out instructions and send them to me???

The joy in this comes from, instead of being told and just having to follow set directions, discovering and working with God in the redemption of this world and our souls. We are lead into new places of growth as we discern how we can be more responsible consumers, what wasteful household habits we have, how can we use resources more responsibly, whether to join a community supported agriculture effort, have our church create a community garden in a "food desert”, work for national legislation that regulates or prohibits the use of genetically engineered food, or just LOAF (buy food that is Local, Organic, Animal-Friendly, and Fairly produced and traded).

Of course, it’s not that there’s not stuff to do. There are plenty of things. Rather, it’s what is God calling you to do. Not what are you being guilted into by other people of faith (or even a bad Quaker), but what feels right in your life. What fits – not what is forced. If it doesn’t feel right to you to create a wildlife sanctuary in your backyard and/or on church property, then don’t. Not until you feel it is right and fit and from God. If a leading to make your own naturally based cleaning products*; composting all organic waste — and recycling paper, cardboard, cans and bottles — to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions associated with landfills, sell your car and rely solely on a bike or public transit, and so on is truly from God it will persist. It won’t let you go and will work on your soul. It will also

• come with a sense of joy
• feel life giving, not life draining
• give you the power and will to actually do it!

God's Good Green Earth: Priuses or Pruii?, part 2: The Humble Stumble

Every summer almost 1,500 Quakers converge on a college campus somewhere in North America for a week that’s known as Gathering. In 2014 it was at California University of Pennsylvania. Confusing, eh? What made it even more confusing was that California, Pennsylvania is not some major metro area. People were a mite worried about finding the place. On Facebook, one wag wrote, “Just look for the line of Priuises with peace and earth care bumper stickers and follow them.”

Good advice. Sure enough when I looked around the cars coming in the percentage of Pruii was huge. Quakers do probably buy more Priuses (or is that Pruii – I’ve never been able to figure out the plural for Prius) percentagewise than any other faith group. It’s not because they’re trendy (the car or us) but because of this whole care for the earth thing. Because we love God we love God’s good earth. It is God’s creation in the same way that each one of us is. And so we try to the call to be good stewards of this planet during our lifetime and for those who come after us, remembering, as John Woolman said, that “to impoverish the earth now to support outward greatness appears to be an injury to the succeeding age.” That’s why so many Friends were among the 400,000 folks who participated in the People’s Climate March in NYC recently. It’s not because they’re good people (well, they are) or it’s a good political stand, it’s because their faith led them to do it.

I often joke that, as a Quaker, I’m not a member of an organized religion. If you ever come visit us and stick around awhile, you’ll see what I mean. We’re always waiting to see what God is telling us to do and we often have various takes on that which we have to sift through to discern what is God telling us to do and not us telling us what God wants us to do. Confusing, eh? Then we’ll appoint a committee with a subcommittee with a working group to discern if the discernment was right on. Then it’ll come back up the Quaker ladder for further discernment.

One thing that we’ve actually gotten to work on, though, is earthcare. At a personal level, that’s one reason you see so many hybrid or high mpg vehicles parked in front of the Quaker meetinghouse. While the percentage of the farmers among us has tumbled in the last century, those who remain often practice responsible farming practices. My friend Katrina runs the family farm her parents founded in the 1970s. Meeting Place Organic Farm is in southwest Ontario, Canada and Katrina's family farms organically with Belgian horses and has a mixed livestock operation designed to nourish the soil and produce food in an ecologically sustainable manner. While that may sound vaguely Amish, trust me, I’ve never seen bubbly Katrina dressed anywhere close to a staid young Amish woman. If she’s wearing black, it’s a fashionable little black dress and she’s stepping out for a night on the town. And step out on the town Katrina does.

In my case, the land we steward has all been taken out of production agriculture and converted to tall grass prairie or forest. This is a big change for me – a man who once saw this land as a potential development and a possible source of monetary wealth. All because of faith and an increasing awareness of the fragility of our eco-system and the vanishing species here in the Midwest. It is rather affirming to see butterflies, for example, in places where there weren’t any fewer than ten years ago.

Besides individual efforts, we actually have some groups that work directly on the issue. Quaker Earthcare Witness takes spirit-led action to address the ecological and social crises of the world from a spiritual perspective, emphasizing Quaker process and testimonies. My friend Katherine, a writer like me, is their publications person. She works with QEW because

Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve met God in nature—in the light, in the sky, in trees, flowers, and animals. I’ve had a reverence for all life because God loved it, and even as a child I would make it my job to clean up streams (and even a drainage ditch by my house) because I knew caring for creation was caring for God.

I have a number of other Friends friends who work with the Earth Quaker Action Team which endeavors to build a just and sustainable economy through nonviolent direct action. They’re leading a strategic effort to get PNC Bank out of the business of financing mountaintop removal coal mining. They use nonviolent direct action to shine the light on PNC Bank’s lead role as one of the primary financiers of this devastating surface mining practice which has destroyed more than 500 mountains and 2,000 miles of river and streambed in Appalachia.

My friend (and Friend) Eileen Flanagan is active in this group.

I’d been growing increasingly concerned about climate change when, in February 2011, I had a strong intuition to attend the Philadelphia Flower Show. Although none of the friends I’d invited were available, I kept feeling that I needed to go on a particular day, which turned out to be exactly when EQAT was protesting PNC Bank’s financing of companies engaged in mountaintop removal coal mining. PNC was also a major sponsor of the Flower Show, so here were all these Friends—several of whom I knew—singing and handing out fliers in front of the PNC pavilion. There was something about their mixture of joy and courage that really touched me, so I grabbed a stack of flyers and joined them. I felt that God had given me the nudge I needed.
What many people call “climate justice” really integrates the testimonies of peace, equality, simplicity, integrity, and stewardship. Through my work with EQAT, I’m learning how to confront injustice while still honoring “that of God” in those who are upholding the system. I have a growing appreciation for the early Friends who were willing to actively confront the wrongs of their own society, even when it meant ostracism or jail time. Their faith inspires me!

They are not bad Quakers like I am, but they’re certainly bad ass. And, again, all of this comes from a spiritual – not a “do-gooder” – base.

These folks aren’t a bunch of wacked out aging hippie types either. If you saw them on the street, you think they were as normal as you are. And they pretty much are. Except for Katrina and she’s normal in her own unique way. What they each have in common is that they’ve heard the voice of the Spirit calling them to action in caring for the earth – and often that call is tied in with their views on peace, simplicity, equality, and more.

What canst thou say about caring for the earth as a spiritual practice? More importantly, what canst thou do? Even more importantly, what canst I do?

God's Good Green Earth: The Humble Stumble

  

Photo by Brent

The produce of the earth is a gift from our gracious creator to the inhabitants, and to impoverish the earth now to support outward greatness appears to be an injury to the succeeding age.

 -- John Woolman, 1772

How I’ve become a conservation minded fellow is beyond me. It must be evidence of God’s slow but steady work in my soul – sorta like the slow steady work of the Colorado River on that which is now known as the Grand Canyon. I only hope that someday my soul is as beautiful as that natural masterpiece.

It’s not that I disregarded the earth. Indeed I was a Cub Scout, a Boy Scout, an Indian Guide, and Christian Service Brigade member. As kids, my cousins and buddies often camped out in the summer, albeit often in our city backyards. My granddad and dad and his friends went camping and fishing and dragged me along at times, often to the Hocking Hills in southern Ohio. I had appreciation for natural beauty, but was a bit disconnected from it much of the time. I lived in a city in an era before urban hiking/biking trails and intentional green spaces meant part of the blacktopped playground was painted with industrial green paint. It was also a time that we thought our biggest danger was the God-less Russians and their H-bombs and not our own over extension of natural resources and pollution of air and water.

Doh!

I started waking up to the need for care of the earth as a freshman in college (I began waking up to a lot of things that year!). On April 22, 1970 (just a few weeks before the Kent State massacre) the first Earth Day was held. It seemed like a good thing. Who could be against taking care of our planet. Even our Evangelical Quaker college observed it (not by letting us out of class, however). Plus it was sorta fun to dress up and have a mock funeral for the Earth. Bill Roman donned a cassock and carried a book of prayer while a group of other students served as pall-bearers and grave-diggers. But conservation seemed a hippie-ish, radical sort of thing. Never mind that I had grown up attending John Burroughs Elementary School, named for one of the most famous naturalists and conservationists for his day. And the man who said, “I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see.” Which well reflects how I feel.

Still, for years, despite a long time involvement in caring for the earth by many of my friends who are Friends, doing so myself not much on my radar. I mean, I tried to do no real harm – which was pretty easy since I didn’t own any smoke-belching, pollution producing factories. Nor did I worry about my oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere leaking and spilling thousands of gallons of crude into the ocean. I had no oil platforms. I didn’t strip mine. I didn’t mine at all. I didn’t use massive amounts of fertilizer to increase crop production. The only crop I had was usually the grass growing on the city lot around my house.

And now I find myself living in an Energy Star rated house that’s extremely energy efficient and heated and cooled by geo-thermal system. And that’s just the outward manifestation of the gradual inward change.

What happened?

Faith happened. That’s what. The slow arc of God’s grace and teaching has brought home to me this idea that it’s not enough just for me to bemoan (and smirk a bit about) the Cuyahoga River catching on fire the summer between high school and college. Nope, I actually have to do something.

If, that is, I believe in God and want to be a Friend of Jesus.

The Fightin' Quaker, part 3: Humble Stumble

Besides living lives of peace, Quakers are also urged to live simply. I'm bad at that, too. Back in the 1970s I was an inveterate hoarder of 45s and LPs, aka "records." I'm happy to report that has changed. In the 80s I began collecting CDs. As with "records", I've given up acquiring as many CDs as I used to. Now its MP3s. And I still have most of the records, CDs, cassettes, 8tracks, and reel to reel tapes that I ever bought or made.

Sigh.

But all that acquisition hasn't been in vain. I've learned a lot from various pieces of music. Like an album I found in the early 70s. On one of my frequent long afternoons in the record department of F. R. Lazarus in downtown Columbus, Ohio, I came across a cut-out in the bargain rack. It was a flop in era of successful spiritual rock songs, most notably Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky." The record I found had a cover featuring Edward Hick's painting "The Peaceable Kingdom" along with two long-haired fellows inserted. Long hair wasn't unusual in those days -- even I had long hair. Heck, I had hair back then! What was unusual was that all of the songs had spiritual themes based on Quaker writings. So, I plunked down my $1.49 and took it home.

It really wasn't very good. In fact, I think it was one of the LPs I let my ex-wife have when we divvied up our music collection. But it was the first time I heard the expression "Let us then try what love will do" sung or spoken. It was memorable enough that I was curious where it came from. I found, of course, that it was by William Penn, who said:

Let us then try what Love will do: for if men did once see we love them, we should soon find they would not harm us. Force may subdue, but Love gains: and he that forgives first, wins the laurel. (William Penn, 1693 24:03)

This was the beginning of my learn to live a more peaceful life.

Like all Quaker principles, it was more than just a good idea or philosophy. It was something rooted in the teaching of Jesus. And it was a call to life and attitude changing positive action. Which was something that appealed to me.

Unlike many Christians I am not attracted to a life of denial and giving up. Oh, I see that those are good things. And even necessary things. But I much prefer a call to something positive, not denying something negative. As kids we were often urged to give up sin in the form of things like going to the movies or rock and roll music or ... horrors ... roller skating. Well, that last one I could give up easily. We were asked to give up our middle class existence and trek off to Timbuktu. It was always give up. And try as I might, I wasn't good at giving up. It's a character flaw, I admit. But as I've said, I'm bad at being good.

And I could be called again and again and again to give up hate or violence. But if someone did me wrong (or what I considered wrong) I could get a good mad on and punish the person for days. Just ask my poor first wife. I wasn't pleasant about slights real or perceived. I was trying to put into practice the way of peace as against war. I could do that. Probably because it was more theoretical and removed. But in my daily life, not so much. Hate flared at drivers who cut me off, fellow workers who seemed more favored than me, etc.

Until I heard that record. And began to think, have I ever tried to see what Love would do? Not my "love" but "Love." God's Love. What would it be like to treat those around me with Love? All the time. Not in the abstract, but in the real day to day stuff of life.

For one thing I knew I'd have to start treating those closest to me a bit nicer. I'd have to remember what it was like to be in love with my spouse. I'd have to treat my children with more of the wonder I had on the day I saw them born.

For another thing, I'd have to start remembering that it's not all about me. It just might be that the driver who cut me off was racing to the hospital to tend to someone in dire need. Okay, so that probably wasn't the reason. But it could happen.

I knew I'd have to start small. I'm not that good at starting big. If I started big, I'd fail big. So I didn't start by trying to peaceful and loving toward ... um, I've forgotten who I found most annoying at the time. Instead I tried to be more loving to my family -- the people I was living with. Sometimes I succeeded. Sometimes I failed. Drastically. That's shown by the fact that I have a former spouse. If I was that good at it, surely that relationship could have been saved.

I've taken small steps and learned small things that help me live in love more fully and live more fully into a life of peace. You might find some of these practices helpful.

• Be helpful -- I can choose to be helpful (positive action) or choose to be obstructive (negative action). How am I modeling the way of Jesus if I stand in the way of that which benefits another?
• Be caring -- practicing compassion doesn't cost me anything. Another person's suffering doesn't enhance my standing in this universe. Rather it diminishes me. 
• Be friendly -- this can be pretty hard for me. I'm an introvert and am just fine most of the time keeping to myself. But smiling at someone or welcoming a stranger into a place that I'm familiar with doesn't take anything away from me and indeed makes them more comfortable -- and at peace.
• Be listening -- even though I'm pretty sure it (whatever it is) is all about me, there's a chance that it isn't. So what I have to say may not be the most important thing. Especially when there's a chance for disagreement or discord. So I'm learning to listen to what others have to say. Even the idiots.
• Be childlike -- Jesus says that the kingdom of Heaven (which I imagine to be a true place of peace) is made up of those who are like childlike. Be honest, trusting, wide-eyed, and non-cynical. Not easy!
• Be non-anxious -- yeah, hard to believe that Mr. Anxious (just ask anybody who sits next to me on an airplane!) would say this, but it's a good practice. It's amazing how it brings peace into a situation.
• Give up control -- actually,you're not giving up anything but the illusion of control. Rarely can we control anybody for more than a short time. And the reality is that nobody likes to be controlled. We know we don't! So give them and the situation over to God and trust God to do what is best. "Oh wait, you mean God's in control." "Yep!"
• Look for Commonalities -- everyone human is a part of the family of God. If we truly believe that, we can look for the links, not the differences. I mean, who wants to smack his brother or sister? Okay, bad example.
• Focus on What's God in Them -- Quakers have this saying, "That of God in everyone." Look for it! You may have to look really hard, but do it.

Am I perfectly at peace? Nope. Especially toward fellow drivers, who I can be annoyed at anonymously. But the Quaker idea to try first what Love can do has been an important lesson in living in peace. As Friend Sidney Bailey said --

The follower of Jesus is to discover and then promote the Kingdom of God. That Kingdom has two tenses: it is already here, in each one of us; and it is still to come, when God’s goodness becomes a universal norm. We are to live now ‘as if’ the Kingdom of God were already fulfilled.

Peace begins within ourselves. It is to be implemented within the family, in our meetings, in our work and leisure, in our own localities, and internationally. The task will never be done. Peace is a process to engage in, not a goal to be reached. (24:57)

"The task will never be done." Indeed...

The Fightin' Quaker, part 2: Humble Stumble

"Get off my land!"  I yelled those words, hands cupped around my mouth, at a bunch of ATVers (all terrain vehicle riders) tearing up and down the creek bed below me.  Then, heart racing along with my mouth, I scrabbled down the hillside to where they were churning up muddy water, driving up and down the creek bank, zipping up into the field where I'd freshly planted tree saplings.

I was pissed.  I was beyond pissed.  I was so mad that I wished I could have just punched one of 'em.  Especially the one who smiled as he ran over my foot while speeding off.  By the time I got back up the hill and called the sheriff to report them, I had a really good mad on.  My sister and her husband were there when it happened -- and love to tell the story of the fire-breathing Quaker pacifist chasing wild riders off his property.

They don't know that it wasn't the first time it happened.

But this isn't about the yahoos who trespass on our property (on horseback, in Jeeps, on foot, with hunting dogs, destroying prairie flowers and grass, trampling trees -- "Oh, this is private property?  We didn't know").  Nope, it's about me and how, despite my aversion and abhorrence of war, and how I'm just not a very peaceful person.

Which is one reason I'm a Quaker today.

It challenges me.  The early Quakers said they lived in that spirit that takes away the desire for all war.  Which I take to mean all violence.  And I don't live in that spirit sometimes.  I mean I'm better than I used to be -- but the heart of the killer that was in me as a young kid still resides (at least partially).  I have the feeling, despite my public testimony against violence, that sometimes there are some people who just need to be slapped.

In fact, in the early days of the Association of Bad Friends (for Quakers who admit that we don't quite measure up to our Friendly ideals), Jacob Stone and I came up with a plan to relieve the tension I -- and I suspect others felt -- while raising money for good Quaker causes.  We proposed instituting a series of Quaker indulgence.

Here's how it could work (with apologies, somewhat to Jacob for stealing his idea and going completely wild with it). Let's say you're like me -- a bad Quaker. I don't mean evil, I just mean, not very good at it. And as a bad Quaker someone has really ticked you off and you'd just love to smack some sense into them. Under the Quaker Indulgences Plan, you could donate $500 (in addition to your regular giving) to your favorite Friendly organization and in return they would issue you an one day indulgence from the Peace Testimony. Then you could skip calling your Lutheran brother-in-law, and just go slap the offender silly yourownself.

Well, of course, while it's funny, it's not helpful. What I want, what I need to is to learn to live in in that spirit that takes away any desire to inflict injury -- whether physical, emotional, intellectual, whatever -- on another person.  I want to know that spirit of which early Friend James Nayler said, "... delights to do no evil, nor to revenge any wrong, but delights to endure all things, in hope to enjoy its own in the end. Its hope is to outlive all wrath and contention, and to weary out all exaltation and cruelty, or whatever is of a nature contrary to itself. It sees to the end of all temptations. As it bears no evil in itself, so it conceives none in thought to any other. If it be betrayed, it bears it, for its ground and spring is the mercies and forgiveness of God. Its crown is meekness, its life is everlasting love unfeigned;"

That speaks to my untamed, unruly, often hateful heart.  

But how do I start?  And  does the Quaker way help?

An Open Letter to Fellow Quakers and Our Organizations

 Friends in Fellowship

A Quaker Worship Group

6960 E. Hendricks County Rd

Mooresville, IN 46158

https://www.facebook.com/groups/121963541237172/

August 1, 2014

To Friends Everywhere –

At our most recent meeting for worship, we of Friends in Fellowship (an unaffiliated Quaker worship group based in theological hospitality and comprised of friends of the Friends’ way and Quakers from a wide variety of yearly meetings in Indiana) had an especially rich, but challenging time of vocal ministry and sharing.  Hence this open letter to all Friends and Friends’ institutions.

As we sat in an early evening holy stillness listening to our Inner Teacher, we were struck by the contrast of the quiet beauty and comfort we enjoyed while around the world turmoil and violence raged.  This contrast was made more stark as the golden sunset light lit the woods around us following a violent storm that had just passed through, leaving our meeting place undisturbed but downing trees and power lines just a mile or two away from us.  Concerns were shared about the violence raging in Gaza and Israel and the masses of Central American children trying to immigrate to the United States.

Further, some of us who had attended yearly meetings and other Friends assemblies recently were concerned that these bodies did not appear to find time to reflect on issues around which we might find common ground in God – the violence in the Mideast, the undocumented child immigrants, homelessness, and the increasing number of deaths by shooting in our own cities.  Could we have made, after prayerful consideration and listening to the voice of the Divine, corporate statements regarding our stance as Friends on such topics as:

• 1)      the increasing violence in our cities (seven people shot and a police officer killed in one incident in Indianapolis)?
• 2)     the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight number 17 while some of us were sitting in yearly meeting sessions?
• 3)     the treatment of the children being picked up and detained while crossing our borders?

We acknowledge our own failure to bring these matters on our own hearts to the attention of Friends who were gathered.  We were remiss in not asking for consideration of them.  We ask for the strength and wisdom to be more faithful in future times together.

We prayerfully considered how we celebrate Friends in days past for their courageous and outspoken stances on any number of Gospel issues.  These ranged from slavery to women’s rights to peace and more.  Does this generation of Friends have anything collectively to say to a violent, war-wracked world?  Have we Good News for them?  What prophetic word might we Friends offer?

We went into a time of deep worship with a query – “What is God calling us (our group and as individuals) to say and do?”

Out of worship came the leading to send this query to Friends everywhere and invite them to consider it with us.  We especially desire that other meetings, yearly meetings, and Quaker institutions will discern if they are led to speak a Good Word, as we are feeling led, about such issues to a hurting world.  And then to follow what we say with some concrete action of Love.

J. Brent Bill, Acting Clerk

Quakers Are Weird? Yepper!

My friend Jana Llewellyn recently wrote "The Bible says that the Jews are God’s chosen people. Author Anne Lamott says that the Presbyterians are God’s frozen people. I decided last week that the religious sect I’m a part of, Quakers (also called The Religious Society of Friends), are God’s weird people.

That means I’m weird, too."

That means I'm weird, too -- which is a badge I'll add to my "bad" badge.  Not bad as in "evil," but bad as in not being very good at being a good Quaker.

Jana offers seven tips to help us deal with the not so good weirdness we Quakers sometimes experience/demonstrate --

First and foremost, we need to live a life that focuses on a deep inward connection to God.

Second, each of us needs a personal and daily practice of communing with God.

Third, stop talking about being Quaker. Stop navel-gazing. Reach out.

Fourth, cut your beard.

Fifth, humbly minister to other Quakers.

Sixth. Get out of the past.

Seventh: Look for the best in everyone you meet.

This essay is warm, quirky, funny, biting, and helpful.   Every Quaker and every Friends meeting should read the whole thing -- which you can here: God's Weird People

Planting for Spiritual Renewal: Post 5

[Jesus] told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed.  As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow.  But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants.  Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.”  (Matthew 13)

That's a good parable and it holds a lot of spiritual truth.  But, this prairie farmer is not going out scattering seed the way Jesus' farmer did.  Nosirree.  Not when that seed costs $100 an acre and is coming out of his "hobby" pocket.  When Woody and I planted the prairie we wanted to make certain that every expensive seed made contact with the soil in such a way that germination and growth would be optimized.  To that end we hooked up my John Deere tractor to a Great Plains seed drill with a native seed box and designed to open a shallow furrow, drop the warm season grass and wildflower seeds, and cover and slightly compact the furrow, pressing the seed into the soil.  We seeded the field and hillside (as the picture above show) going one lengthwise.  Then we went widthwise.  And then we drove across at angles.  

It was intensive work.  A little tractor pulling a big seeder that weighed as much as it did.  We had to be careful to go the right speed to get the seed into the ground.  Woody drove.  I helped by riding on the back and keeping the seed stirred and jumping off the seed drill to make sure seed was dropping freely and at the right amount.  

All of this serves as a good parable for Quaker revitalization and renewal, I think.  While Jesus is promiscuous in his seed of life sowing, even he recognized that the the seed grows best in ground that's ready to receive it -- good soil.  We have good soil in many of our meetings.  Soil that is ready to receive the Seed. 

To maximize growth, we would do well to use a spiritual seed drill -- to open up furrows, place the seed carefully, cover it over, tamp it down and allow the Spirit to water it and bring it to life.  I referred to some of the seeds in my post immediately previous to this one.  The difference between a prairie and our spiritual life is, though, that careful, intentional seeding is constant for the spiritual life.  We need to be intentional -- individually and corporately -- about getting the Seed in contact with the soil of our souls.  Our seed drills may vary -- spiritual deepening classes, spiritual story telling, outward practices, inward practices, adult religious education opportunities.  We may use a variety (or all!) of these things over and over as we move across the fields of faith.

Intention and frequency are the key words here, I think.  We need, as the Religious Society of Friends to be offering intentional and frequent spiritual seedings in our meetings.  Just as there is no one prairie management plan, so to is there no one plan for spiritual seeding in a meeting.  We need to find what works for our soil -- our souls.  And then get to it. With care, prayer, and intention.

Seeds and Spiritual Renewal: Post 4

When Woody and I planted the prairie we used special seeds.  Because we wanted to plant a prairie and not a lawn or pasture, we started with warm season grass seeds and wildflowers seeds.  “Well, doh?!”  you say.  “Of course you did.” 

While our choice of specialized seeds for the prairie seems obvious, why are we so easy to use generic seed (or no seed plan at all) when it to renewing our spiritual fields?  If we want our fields to flourish, I propose the following seed mix (based on Diana Butler Bass’s recommendations in Christianity after Religion and intentional conversations Beth Collea and I have led on “Friends in a Time of Spiritual Awakening.")

Reconnection with our prime texts
            Friends need to connect deeply with the Bible.  This is true for both liberal and more conservative Friends.  The Bible was the foundational text for the early Friends.  In addition to their personal experience with God, they were well versed in scripture, studied it carefully, and quoted it often.  If we would understand the faith and practice of our movement, we need to reconnect with serious study of the Bible.  Some liberal Friends will need to lay down their resistances that spring from a number of understandable sources (misuse of scripture by others, woundedness, intellectual disagreement, etc) and look at what it says and examine how it informed Friends through the years.  Many programmed Friends will need to lay down their assumption that they “KNOW” what it says and read it again with careful eyes.  It is not enough for them to quote verses memorized as children or stories told so often that we have stopped really reading them.
            Friends need to connect with Quaker texts.  For many years Friends families often had, in addition to the Bible, core Quaker texts in their home libraries.  Fox’s and Woolman’s journals, Barclay’s Apology, Penn’s maxims, Faith and Practice, and so on.  Friends today know occasional favorite Friendly quotations, but have rarely studied these (and other) hallmarks of Quaker faith to find the essence, the life of the Spirit that empowered these Friends.  Of course, there are other Quaker texts that we could study.  We need to use these good seeds that we have – for they abound.

Sharing our spiritual stories
            We need to provide opportunities to share our spiritual stories with each other in community.  What possibilities are there in our meetings for us to share our spiritual journeys and beliefs with each other?  We may be worshiping next to someone we’ve known for years but not have any idea what brought them to Friends or any of the significant, formative spiritual experiences in their lives.  We need to create seeds of such opportunities – based on what will work for our community.  A seed of weekday evening sharing groups?  A five week adult religious education class on First day?

An Inward spiritual practice
            One seed is to enhance our spiritual life through a daily practice.  We might do a gratitude practice.  Or a daily prayer practice.  Or a meditation practice.  Intentional.  Regular.  Deep.  The strength of a regular practice is that it becomes a part of us while helping us deepen.  When regularly practiced, it becomes so valuable to our souls that we miss it and long for it when we aren’t able to do it that day.
            Think of the power of a meeting community doing this together – finding a practice for everyone to do for a month.  And then a different one the next month.  There would be personal and communal deepening from which The Seed could spring.

An Outward spiritual practice
            Another seed is putting our faith into practice in the larger word.  As William Penn said, “True godliness does not turn us out of the world, but helps us better live in it.” (Brent Revised Version).  What outward practices could we do that would connect our inner lives with our outer world?  Both as individuals and as a meeting?  What fits our spiritual life and our passion?  Work in a homeless shelter.  Work for peace?  Till up some of our lawn for a community garden? 

In the same way that a good seed mix makes all the difference in the establish of the kind of prairie Woody and I wanted to see spring forth, so will the above seed mix (with maybe a few local “wildflower seeds” that fit your community thrown in) help the establishment or reestablishment of a thriving Friendly faith community.