#to use a quaker phrase: it speaks to my condition

[trans-cuchulainn]

okay i've finished rewatching pride now i will stop having feelings all over your dash

[rlgn1100]

Listening to life... my life?

Chapter 1 of Let Your Life Speak begins with Parker sharing his experiences of questioning vocation, self, and purpose. He shares that his initial understand of the Quaker phrase ‘let your life speak’ prompted him to “conjure up the highest values I could imagine and then try to conform my life to them whether they were mine or not” (p.3). While this perspective on vocation and identity seemed right, Parker states that the phrase means something quite different to him now: 

“Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you. Before you tell your life what truths and values you have decided toile up to, let your life tell you what truths you embody, what values you represent” (p.3).

~

I confess, my gut reaction is to reject Parker’s ideas in this chapter of ‘listening to our lives’ for several reasons. 

First, as a child I was taught to view self as sinful and bad; Jeremiah 17:9 says “The heart is deceitful above all things and above all cure. Who can understand it?” I have distinct memories of my youth leader in 7th and 8th grade pounding that idea into our heads- the flesh is evil and the heart is sinful. I thought that if I could spend enough time and effort filling it with good things like worship music, prayer, Bible study and so forth that maybe the ‘fruit’ of my life wouldn’t all be bad. While I don’t think I believed these good works had anything to do with my salvation, I do recognize how awful I felt being told about the sinful condition of my heart and flesh. Interestingly, I don’t remember feeling those ideas imposed on me from my parents, yet the message was loudly proclaimed from other spiritually formative sources in my life. 

This self hatred and distrust came about loudly in middle school, where disordered eating had taken over my life and I slipped into a deep depression, filled with anger, lethargy and self-harm. I intrinsically knew that God didn’t want me to punish myself, yet why couldn’t I hurt myself when one of the key things I knew about my faith was that I deserved to burn in hell? 

Questions: How does one discern true-self from sinful-self? How does the Bible tells us God looked at man and said he was good, yet also state that the flesh is evil? 

My second struggle with the idea that I should listen to my life is this: Listening can be deeply painful and disorienting.  

I consider myself to be an incredibly thoughtful person. I don’t mean to say I am always good at thinking of other people, but more in the sense that I think about all things, and I think about them deeply. However, the thing I am constantly tempted to avoid thinking about is myself. The past two years I have been actively trying to learn how to listen to my body, doing things like mindfulness, yoga, and practicing intuitive eating. It is difficult, yet imperative. 

I suppose in addition to learning to listen to my body, I’m to need to learn how to listen to my life. 

Questions: What are some positive revelations I have learned from self-reflections? Do I prefer to enter into self-reflection alone or with a friend? Why am I scared of what my life might tell me? What are ‘active steps’ I can take to listen to my life? 

[faithful-steward]

OEP Peace Sunday Worship Resources

“Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.”  - 2 Peter 3:13 (8-15), King James Version

Call to Worship - Cindy Weber-Han, Board Member

One: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way (Charles Dickens, “Tale of Two Cities, 1859). 

Congregation: This sounds like our world today, that’s why we are waiting for the promised Child of God who will bring us justice and peace.

One: Then prepare the way and ready the Human Race.  We are called to have courageous conversations with one another even when difficult.

C: God IS calling to us.  We are to be midwives of the birth of a New Way for all of humankind.  

O: Yes, we are called!  We are calling on God’s Wisdom, Guidance and Hope for this New World.

ALL:  “But what we await are new heavens and a new earth where, according to the promise, God’s justice will reside”  (2 Peter 3.13).

Lighting the Candle of Peace - Gail Erisman-Valeta, Board Co-Chair

Invitation to sing: While We Are Waiting, Come - Supplement #1032 Vs 1

One: While we are waiting, come.

All: But we’ve waited so long.  And the nights are long.  It’s so hard to wait!

One: While we are waiting, we wait for a promise.

All: What are we waiting for?

One: The promise of new heavens and a new earth!

All: We wait for the promise of Peace! Where righteousness is at home!

One: We light the Candle of Peace.  We need the light of peace to shine upon our path. The journey is long, and we grow tired.  May this candlelight shine upon us, revealing a pathway to the peace that only Christ brings. Amen.

Children’s Story - Marie Benner-Rhoades, Youth and Young Adult Peace Formation Director

Begin by setting a timer for five minutes (vary the time depending on how talkative your children tend to be and how much time you have for the story time). If possible, use an old kitchen timer that clicks the whole time.  Make a big deal about setting the timer, say something like, “Let’s get the timer started.”

Sit quietly for the first 15-30 seconds letting the timer tick away.

Ask children to share some things they are really looking forward to.  Likely, responses will focus around Christmas- invite children to share specific things about Christmas that they are looking forward to (eating cookies, presents, family gathering, snow, etc.).  When ideas run out, let the timer run quietly for another 15 seconds or so.

Ask the children what it’s like listening to the timer.  Waiting for something to happen.  Is it easy or hard?  Does it feel like a long time or short?  Is waiting exciting or frustrating?  If kids aren’t particularly talkative you can ask them to raise their hands- who thinks it is easy to wait? Who thinks it is hard?

Wait quietly for another 15 seconds or so.

Ask what are some things you do while you’re waiting for something? Some may connect with the things they are waiting for (make the cookies, wrap presents, etc.)  Other ideas may be silly- singing songs, playing games, etc.  If the timer is still ticking, try one or two ideas out.

When the timer goes off, connect with the scripture verse from 2 Peter.  In scripture, we read about people waiting for a new heaven and new earth.  And the waiting doesn’t have a timer that they can check.  While waiting, we are asked to look for ways that God is acting now, glimpses of heaven, and we are called to work for peace.  

Pray: God, help us while we wait to look for You and to work for peace.  Amen.

Prayer - Barbara Avent, Board Member

Today we are gratefully giving THANKS for God Almighty, the Holiest of the Holy, Jesus Christ, Holy, Holy, Holy, Son of God, Holy Counselor that Imbues the Holy Spirit, which is the Holy Trinity now.  On this Peace Sunday, we are praying for the “Peace that Passeth Understanding”, that can dwell within our hearts, minds, bodies and Spirits. This Peace that we are receiving brings us more Joy, Abundance, Justice, Beauty, Righteousness and Wisdom that is available to each woman, man, boy and girl within our communities, in the United States  and throughout the world.

As Disciples of Christ, we speak words of Peace and love, living a life of harmony, compassion each day and seeing the goodness of Jesus in each person we meet. This day we pray for the protection, peace, and love for our immediate families, extended families and the family of humanity.  We surrender our little will to the Big Will of God/Jesus/Holy Spirit now.  We give thanks for God’s protection, blessings, guidance and direction.  We accept the life lessons that are presented to us as we walk our path of purpose and destiny.  For we know that Our God and Jesus is able to provide for us  and make a mighty way out of no way, as long as we have Faith that is only  the size of a mustard seed.  Thank you God each day that we can pray and witness to the Goodness of Jesus Christ as we live transparent and authentic lives. Knowing and expressing the greatest Power and Force of Jesus, LOVE, we express more Peace.  We ask these blessings in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Scripture Reflection - Lamar Gibson, Development Director

2 Peter is no laughing matter. From a surface reading, it sounds like a warning of the hellfire and damnation we later see in Revelations. Just beneath that, it’s yet another unwelcome reminder to our instant satisfaction-seeking and selfie generation that not everything will come when we want it. God’s answers and timing aren’t synced with our Amazon Prime subscriptions and they don’t arrive through next-day delivery via FedEx.

The passage opens with the casual assertion that for God, one day is like a thousand years. Paul was writing to a church that faced grave external threats while also being in turmoil internally and his suggestion was to be patient! Many of us today might see ourselves and our churches in the same way. Patience is the last thing we want to be reminded of when the pressures around us seem so great. Patience seems like avoidance and ignoring what’s right in front of us.

I remember, as a child, my frustration with understanding God’s timing. In my southern church upbringing between Holiness and Pentecostal churches, I often heard the phrase, “Wait on the Lord!” Old saints would use it when young people were venting about some injustice in the church. Subscribers to prosperity gospel would share it as encouragement with one another to reaffirm that the material blessings they sought were on the way. Preachers would center a week’s worth of revival sermons around the theme and the promise was always the same: God would show up when God was ready and nothing we did could change that. Wait, wait, and wait.

These lessons of my formative years shaped my early view of God as a kind of unreliable construction site foreman who may or may not be around when you needed your work approved. I remember periods of extreme dedication to my Christian practice during my youth in which I would wait earnestly to hear God’s voice of approval for my work. That approval, at least in the form I was seeking it, never came. “How could God be so busy when the world is in such desperate need?” I wondered.

I wouldn’t find an answer to my questions until I took a Quaker Theology class as a college student. I was shocked to discover that the Quakers believe, that because Jesus walked among us, that the kingdom (kin-dom) is now. They believe that the responsibility of the followers of Christ is to create the kingdom and its conditions here, inspired by the example of Jesus. This discovery shook me to my core as it flew in the face of everything I had been taught about God and how I should approach my work as a follower. How could I give up the belief that Earth was some forsaken place doomed to be burned up? How could I shift my childish view of heaven as the site of the world’s greatest family reunion to a place that I had a role in building and creating? Peter’s inquiry into what kind of people we ought to be helps shine some light on possible answers to these questions. From the King James Version of the Bible, verse 13 of the passage reads, “Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.”

This idea of looking or searching for new heavens and a new earth provides an exciting new lens to approach our frustration with waiting. It has the potential to shift us from passive onlookers to active participants in the development of the kingdom. It suggests that we have a role to play like the words in Luke 4:18 that proclaim,  “The spirit of the Lord is upon me and I have been anointed to proclaim good news to the poor, freedom for the prisoners, sight for the blind, and to set the oppressed free.”

As we look for and seek out the new kingdom, we become models of it as we are transformed through the process. We realize that we can and must stand up for justice with the same fervor in which we seek to build peace. We come to see ourselves as fellow citizens in the household of God (Ephesians 2:19) and in doing so, we welcome the foreign-born stranger and we acknowledge the truths shared by people of color about their experiences around the world. We let go of the fear of loss if we speak up. We realize that we are equipped for the process by the teachings and life of Jesus and that when we begin our journeys of looking for, seeking, and creating, we are not alone.

As I close this reflection for On Earth Peace Sunday (and Peace Sunday in Advent), I want to invite us to wrestle with the scripture reading. Most translations of this passage use the words, “wait for” instead of “look for” (KJV) in verse 13. How do we as believers hold these two seemingly opposite ideas (waiting versus searching) together? How do our beliefs about the world’s future determine whether or not we wait or search? Are the two things closer than they appear? What do we have to give up and what can we gain if we go out and begin seeking rather than waiting?

Peace.

Moment in Mission - Bill Scheurer, Executive Director

In this time of Advent, arrival, approach, we note how the Spirit of Christmas--a holiday season where the sacred and secular uniquely merge--fills the air.

The hope, anticipation, comfort, goodwill, and joy are tangible--in sights and sounds, tastes and smells, feelings and memories--as heaven and earth draw near.

From On Earth Peace, we come bearing gifts.

We bring you questions: Are we prayerfully waiting, or actively building and looking, for the change to come; and how are these both, different and the same?

We bring you challenges: A vision of Beloved Community, the Kin-dom of Heaven, both in the making and at hand; and values as stake-posts for that big tent.

We bring you invitations: For celebration and participation in programs and practices where we all raise that big tent--peacefully, simply, together.

We bring you worship: Gathering under that big tent to wait and watch, work and pray, for that new heaven and new earth which is both promised and delivered in this time.

We often note that at On Earth Peace it is Christmas and Advent all year long. It is in our name, which is also our mission and message, and in our work and ministry.

And we have congregations and disciples like you to thank.

Because your gifts for this ministry are what make it possible all year long for the On Earth Peace community to keep “look[ing] for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness”--justice and peace--both, in the church and beyond.

Benediction - Cindy Weber-Han, Board Member

O:  As we leave our worship, let us take the inspiration we have felt today into our week and know that God is with us in all of our conversations.

C:  We will use courage in heartfelt listening to engage one another to become compassionate midwives for God’s peace and justice in the world.  Partnering with God, we assist the birth of “New Heavens and a New Earth.”

[meykandal]

The Truth Shall Set Us Free

I sit in wonder that this practice of the Quakers is hidden deep within the folds of the Quaker community, it’s like having to dig for buried treasure. Until recently I had only thought of the Quakers as advocates of peace...perhaps a group positioned on a moral high ground of their own making.

If it wasn’t for the fact that something inside me called me to look into their meetings, I might have missed this simple way to find the truth within. I wanted to connect to spirit. Ever since a friend had started automatic writing in the middle of the night out of the blue - astoundingly answering questions I had put to her earlier that day - I had been running around trying to work out how I could do that myself.  When I realised the Quakers have meetings where they sit in silence with others in deep contemplation, the thought occurred maybe that would do it. 

But it was like a thought that occurs and then disappears when it seems a little too difficult to realise. Like seeds being sown, not ready yet to see the light. Then, after I had moved from London to live by the beautiful sea where my senses came to life, and after I had attended a psychic development circle for a year to dispel my self-doubt, I must have become ready.  

After a year of sitting in the development circle, I discovered that one of my spirit guides was Abraham Lincoln, which explained why every time I stood up to try and get a message from spirit for someone in the room, I kept seeing his face in my mind… I had dismissed it each time because I thought it couldn’t possibly be someone’s relative coming through. His face appeared whoever I was trying to get a message for. I was annoyed at myself, thinking I had somehow seen his image browsing the internet and it was imprinted on my memory because of that.  I had tried to shrug it off, but his image kept appearing in my mind’s eye.

Then one day in the circle we did some psychic art.  We held up our drawings for others to see, and I saw my face in a drawing held up by the circle leader. I immediately recognised myself.  I saw he had obviously not drawn me as he saw me with his physical eyes, because he had given me a centre parting. I had a side parting. I kept forcing my unwilling hair to stay on one side because I didn’t like my natural parting which was in the middle. He had drawn my parting as it naturally was. And right behind my face loomed a larger face, huge and close up to mine…a face I had seen during the previous few days several times as I closed my eyes for meditation.  The circle leader didn’t know who that was, and I didn’t know either. All I knew was that I’d been seeing that face right up close several times.

I consulted an old friend in India, who, over the past year had found he was able to get reliable messages for me from his own spirit guide, Gangamma, Mother Ganges. I sent him a photo of the drawing and asked him to ask her who it was.  The answer came, ‘Abraham Lincoln’. It was a shock to both of us. I hadn’t ever shared with him that I’d been seeing Abraham Lincoln’s face in my mind all this time. And then came a huge wave of relief, like my body had been holding the tension of an unanswered question, and now it could let go.

I began reading up on Abraham Lincoln, I didn’t know that much about him. But as I began reading his biography, I learned that he came from a Quaker heritage.  And the pieces fell into place. Now I understood why I’d had thoughts about going to a Quaker meeting on and off over the years.  I looked up my nearest meeting and saw it was just ten minutes’ walk away, there was nothing difficult about it this time. I went along.

As soon as I sat down in the room I felt good.  I did what I had started to do when I know I need to connect with unfamiliar or distant people, I imagined that I was made up of atoms of vibrating energy, and each other person in the room was made up of atoms too, that we were reflections of each other, all one big mass of energy at one with the energy of the universe, all love, all compassion, all kindness, all magnificent, all powerful, all free.  And I sank into bliss.  As three different people stood up and spoke I marvelled at the beauty of their words and let the energy of the thoughts sink into me.  At some point during the meeting, I felt a deeper release as my body unfolded from a tension I didn’t know I was holding. By the time the meeting was over it was like I had experienced a miracle within me.

Each time I went to the meeting was unique. And the more I discovered about the practice of sitting to listen in silence for spirit, of how it was used to make decisions in business meetings, how it was used to help members with problems, I was enthralled. I read up as much as I could; each time I read about the practice of listening to spirit, and the thoughtful insights that came from it, it touched me deeply.  It even moved me to a state of ecstasy that I took into my everyday life. What could be more enlivening, more enriching than sensing the spirit within?

And I wonder why I needed to dig so deeply to find it?  I wonder why the public knowledge about the Quakers is more about their stance on peace, and not about this beautiful practice?  Because surely this beautiful practice is the heart of what it is to be a Quaker, isn’t it?  

The truth shall set you free.  I’m not a Christian but I know this phrase.  And it keeps echoing in my mind, as if it needs to be spoken again and again.  I know that seeking the truth is at the heart of what it is to be a Quaker.  That is the core attractive power of the movement is.  ‘The truth shall set you free’…why is truth so attractive? Because somewhere deep within we recognise truth matters to us, and we recognise that it will set us free.  The phrase ‘the truth shall set you free’ itself recognises that freedom is a deep desire for every human being.  Free in all ways.  Freedom from worry, anxiety, freedom to speak the truth, freedom from slavery, freedom from violence, freedom from physical needs, freedom of movement, freedom to travel to any country, freedom to live anywhere on this planet, freedom to love anyone we choose, freedom to leave anyone we don’t want to be with anymore, freedom from any outside authority, freedom to be guided by our own authority within, freedom to be unique, freedom from labels that categorize us and separate us, freedom to find the work we enjoy, freedom from physical ailments, freedom to be who we really are.  All kinds of freedoms, because the intrinsic nature of freedom is that it has no limits. 

I ponder on the fact the Quaker practice embodies the seeking of truth for freedom, yet freedom is not one of the values Quakers propound.  They state their values as: truth, equality, simplicity and peace, even sustainability. But in their literature freedom is nowhere to be found. I’m not sure why it is absent. 

I am reminded of a time when I felt acutely how freedom mattered to me more than life itself. I had taken a refugee boat from Sri Lanka to escape the war which was intensifying.  When I arrived on Indian shores I was put in a refugee camp, and then released because, being a British citizen, the British Embassy had made a phone call to intervene on my behalf. But then immediately the Indian police put me in prison. And while I was in prison I had the clearest vision of the injustice that state authorities can mete out arbitrarily on anyone in their territory. 

It was like a huge Monty Python foot that had come down and squashed me, taking away that which made me alive. I suddenly saw that we had created a world where there was no free place to escape to.  Whichever place we might go to in the world, there we would find a state authority that could squash us like this, take away our freedom, the most precious thing in life. 

I yearned to be with my loved ones, I thought I might spend the rest of my life in prison, away from them, die there eventually. Nothing mattered as much as freedom.  Not prison conditions, not the concrete beds, not the sanitary conditions, not the food. I was happy to endure anything if only I got my freedom.  But the thing I did have was the other women in the prison. We shared love. In the months I was there the 20 or so women who shared my prison cell and I were loving to each other, and that was what sustained us.  Virtually none of them could read nor write. I saw the beauty of their souls, some single mothers trying to do the best they could to live their lives until the state had taken away their freedom. Taken them away from their children. Preventing them from even knowing what had happened to them, whether they were even safe.  Freedom and love are the most powerful forces we have within us.  And I wonder, though Quakers do speak of love, I haven’t heard of the importance of freedom in the Quaker movement.

And yet I see that the desire for freedom can’t be an experience that is alien to the Quakers in history.  As I read up on Quaker history I see it is not just slaves who cry for freedom, it is not just the many who have joined freedom struggles around the world who cry for freedom, the Quakers must have done so too. In the 1700s more than 60,000 Quakers were imprisoned in Britain. Surely, they must have felt the deep desire for freedom?  Many Quakers left to find freedom in America. So the desire for freedom cannot have been absent in Quaker experience.  And yet freedom doesn’t seem to be vocalised as a value to be cherished.

In my reading I saw that when the Quakers settled in America they didn’t respect the freedom of the Native Americans. They were so focused on forcing peace on them that they forced the Native Americans as if they were wild cattle into subservience. Forcing them to adopt English customs. They stripped from them everything that they held dear, their spiritual identity, their dignity, their free will. And without that who can stand up for themselves against any hostile force.

So while Quakers say they treated the Native Americans kindly compared to others, it was a kindness that came from paternalism, in fact not kind at all but controlling. A controlling paternalism that destroyed the spirit within and it was the necessary precursor to the Native American genocide, without which that genocide may not have even taken place. 

The Quakers then and now still care more about peace than they do about freedom. Like many Western people feeling powerless to control the militarism of their own armies, they instead try to control the other, forcing a peace of subservience on people who are targets of their army’s militarism. And we wonder why genocide abounds in the modern world. There is no peace without freedom.  In fact, it’s only in true freedom that we can find our way to peace.

What the Quakers did to kill the spirit of the Native Americans, the Western world has gone on to do to similarly to the rest of the world. After colonial rule ended, instead of withdrawing and allowing the people freedom, the West set up a system of control, creating the rest of the world as a system of states with armed authorities, administering the law and tax collection and prisons.  And far from being free, these states are held by the reins through the United Nations, where the Western powers can whip other states into ‘correct’ behaviour.  The people are imprisoned within the states, restricted from leaving one state and from entering another, even if their loved ones are there.  And the state has been allowed all the weaponry to bomb the people, to tear their life in shreds through armed force. Which has happened in Sri Lanka, as it has, and still is happening, right across the world.

Not many people understand what the war in Sri Lanka was about.  In one short sentence, the war in Sri Lanka was about resisting genocide.  

There were no end of Western organisations preaching peace to the people who were trying to find ways to resist genocide. They preached peace, but they didn’t help the people resist genocide. Instead of helping, the world instead blamed the people for fighting back. They called them terrorists because they used arms to resist as David did with Goliath.  They preached peace to them, while the violent state had the entire force of the world on its side and tore the people to pieces.  And meanwhile, the people who resisted by arms on one side, on the other poured out poetry and song about the sweetness of freedom.  During the 30 years of war there was a massive resurgence in art, in song, dance, drama and poetry, because the desire for freedom demands creative expression.

The people who preached peace did their best to hide the evidence of genocide as it unfolded over the decades.  As well as hide the evidence that the ‘terrorists’ were not actually terrorists.  These peace organisations also took it on themselves to speak on behalf of the people who had never asked them to speak for them. And when the final genocide happened in 2009, with between 40,000 to 100,000 people killed by Sri Lankan forces in the last months, the people who had preached peace did their best to cover it up.  They either covered up the fact of the genocide, or covered up their collusion with it when the facts started spilling out. And so perhaps some of you can understand that talk of peace and reconciliation is a further affront when the survivors of that genocide are still living under the rule of the army that carried it out.  Right now, freedom is all I care about, and all they have ever cared about.

I ask the Quakers, if the truth shall set us free, and we find our own individual truth in the energy of Quaker meetings, why is it not those beautiful meetings which proliferate around the world?  Why do Quakers proliferate instead the preachers of peace who in their ego don’t recognise the violence within themselves?  Why instead don’t Quakers extend to the world the gift of silent listening to the spirit within, the truth within.  Extend the practice as a loving offering to all the people who in such difficult circumstances are crying out for truth and freedom.  I am sure together we can find creative ways to do this, I can already think of several. Or am I missing something?