The Nominating Committee is as close as my Quaker meeting generally comes to recognizing and perhaps nurturing the varied spiritual gifts present in our community. In New Testament terms, these are the charismata – abilities in emotional and physical healing, prophecy, discernment, teaching, and the like, but the list could be expanded if we closely examine our community. My name, Jnana, arises from a similar application along a Hindu path. In Quaker tradition, these inclinations were acknowledged indirectly in selecting our overseers, ministers, and elders, back when these positions were acknowledged.
A vibrant Friends Meeting has all three roles present, even if we no longer see them that way. There’s also evidence that some of the historic problems resulted when one was lacking and another tried to compensate for that deficiency. I’m not sure when committees supplanted the old structure, but it often seems that Friends have wound up with a system based more on the work to be done than on the talent and energy to be released. In quietist meetings like mine, the clerk, incidentally, now typically becomes the de facto pastor – including the role of Public Friend, permitted to speak on behalf of the Meeting – while one of the difficulties for pastors in “programmed” meetings is the expectation they can perform in all three roles, overseeing, vocal ministering, and eldering, in addition to being the congregation’s chief executive officer.
Maybe it was a matter of viewing the story through my Quaker perspective, but this dynamic runs through Walter Wangerin Jr.’s Miz Lil and the Chronicles of Grace, a novel about a young Lutheran minister assigned to his first parish: black, inner city, Midwestern. That congregation survived largely because of the dedication of one elderly couple, Miz Lil and her husband, Douglas – one, the wise elder; the other, the mostly silent overseer. Together, they gently guide their young pastor in spiritual and personal growth, and in doing so, bring about a rebirth of the parish that survives them.
I still hear a recorded minister in Ohio with his counsel, “When something becomes everybody’s responsibility, it becomes no one’s,” and wonder how we ensure that our responsibilities and individual talents are aligned effectively. When this happens, we are blessed – in large part, because our nominating committee has been doing much more than routinely filling in blanks on an organizational chart. From there, the matter of developing gifts also means we need the worshiping community more than ever. Mentors, helpers, friends – however you want to name them – all growing together.
Jnana's Red Barn 
Interesting observations. Your meeting is a silent one I believe. Is quietist literal here, as in consciously practicing quietism, or as a metaphor? I had never heard of the term. I don’t know its relationship to Friends.
Some of us use quietist for what’s otherwise called an “unprogrammed meeting,” which always requires further definition or fails to describe what’s actually happening. Quietist seems more accurate than “silent,” too, since there are usually messages spoken or sung spontaneously out of the silence in the hour of gathering together.
I see. They didn’t refer to that on the Wikipedia site.
Yes, I came across that formal-movement definition later, which adds a layer of confusion.
So the quest for the most accurate description of traditional Quaker worship continues. “Open” worship is another option, or “waiting” worship is another, but both, once again, require explanations.
I like the Zen definition of meditation as “just sitting,” but even there, we know so much more is at work.
Any suggestions?
Oh I don’t see that it matters. All you need is a word everyone agrees upon then communication happens. So much of Friends needs explaining anyway. Unprogrammed meeting has been in use so long perhaps it is the best since most understand it. Sometimes Friends worry about words too much I think, in trying to be as clear and simple as possible. But rehashing is a complexity in itself.
Wow! Do you guys sing? Cool. I haven’t come across that. Is it hymns or some such? I think your meetings are far more conservative than the Pittsburgh meeting I “grew up” in.
This line length is too short! Look at the word spacing. : )
It can be so difficult to balance work and gifts, in part because that dynamic that is always changing. There is so much work to be done, both within the community and in the world, that it’s easy for us to allow work to predominate. Blessed are we, indeed, when we recognize and develop one another’s gifts.
Blessed are we, indeed, when we recognize and develop one another’s gifts.
What a beautiful thought, Jennifer! And what wisdom it takes to do this. So often allowing another to blossom involves refraining from interfering. A worthy practice.