GETTING FREE OF GUILT EDGES

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

A renewed compulsion had me rethinking, reworking, pruning, and punching up much of my earlier writing – the dozen unpublished novels; the genealogy research and narrative; several hundred poems, many of which had been published in literary quarterlies; and varied essays and journal entries. It hit with a vengeance, and was given extra clout at New England Yearly Meeting one August when, in a prayer circle, it was made clear to me that these labors are an exercise of talent, a gift, rather than a self-indulgence that had too often before stirred feelings of guilt.

For the first time in my life, I felt free to undertake this labor, the writing that does not pay the bills but somehow keeps me intellectually and artistically alive. What a blessing! (Never underestimate the power of prayer!)

Again, cleaning up these works and seeing them published may be one more way of bringing some closure to what too often seems a honeycombed life! Writing pulls so many of these threads together.

I began trying to set aside one free day each week as a no-automobile day, a kind of sabbath for writing, reading, or reflection; even with my usual three days off at the time (Sunday News worked a double shift every Saturday), achieving this goal became surprisingly difficult – but wonderfully rewarding when it did.

In some rich ways, it became a kind of retirement, even while being employed elsewhere full-time.

REMEMBERING JULIA

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

The Canterbury Shaker Village is a remarkable place to revisit history. I’ve had a lifelong appreciation of Shaker architecture and furniture. In fact, we used to bicycle out to what had been a Shaker village and catch crawdads in the stream. Our denomination also had its orphanage and retirement center at another former Shaker village not far south of us, and I remember touring its remaining buildings.

But Canterbury was one of the last two villages, and one Friend speaks fondly of his conversations with the sisters. Today it is a well preserved living history museum.

So one weekday, when I was free of the office, my girlfriend and I went up for a tour. As we arrived, I noticed one of my coworkers, Ellie Ferriter, and in greeting, asked what she was doing there. “I’m here to meet Julia Child,” she replied. Yeah, sure. “No really, she’s here to tape an interview with the chef.”

One of the things the museum had done was open a restaurant with a menu drawn from the distinctive Shaker recipes, and there was reason to celebrate the cuisine.

Sure enough, when we came back from our tour, there was Ellie, interviewing Julia. Now Ellie was a large woman, but Julia was larger – in fact, towering above and around the interviewer. I hadn’t expected that, even though one profile had described her as having very long legs when she went to work in military intelligence back during World War II.

Julia had already had a long influence on me. In high school, when we finally got a TV set that included UHF, I could finally watch the “educational station” out of Cincinnati, and there, through the snowy image that barely came through, I was introduced to exotic foods like lobsters, asparagus, artichokes, baguettes and croissants, hollandaise. Well, introduced to their concepts and preparation. The actual introductions would come across the years, and what had been exotic has long since become standard.

We settled into the Creamery, the small restaurant, for lunch – my girlfriend and I along with a couple from England at one table, Julia and Ellie at the next one. We could overhear every word. Our English visitors, meanwhile, had no idea who Julia was.

Later, I noticed Julia sitting alone in a shaded spot. Wondered if she was lonely or just needed a break. I was tempted to approach and introduce myself, but refrained.

*   *   *

About that same time, I was talking with a woman who knew someone whose husband conferred with Julia several times each year, and the wife was expected to serve lunch – a daunting prospect. What do you prepare for one of the world’s most famous cooks and food writers? And then she discovered that a boiled lobster and fresh green salad were always savored.

How I’ve come to love that insight when facing a seemingly impossible assignment – a simple but elegant solution, as the Shakers demonstrated, may be the ideal.

Here’s to Julia’s 101st birthday.

THE MANY MEANINGS OF MEETING

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Quakers use the word meeting in many ways. Originating in the mid-1600s in England, Friends understood that church meant the body of believers – not the building, not the denomination, not the structure of hierarchy. Thus, you didn’t go to church – you gathered with the church. And so, the church (that is, people) met. The gathering of the faithful, and their time of worship, quickly became known as a meeting. Within it, we meet with each other and with God – early Friends proclaimed Christ had come to teach his people himself, and they sat in what became known as expectant waiting for his presence. Modern Friends may prefer other terms to describe the experience, even while retaining an awareness of Spirit-led worship. (I might add that in today’s frenetic world, an individual also meets with himself or herself, especially at the beginning of the hour, personally collecting scattered experiences of the week and renewing one’s sense of inner direction.) When we have a building set apart for worship, it is called, logically, a meetinghouse – here, we meet. In addition to the meanings of meeting as the people and as the worship service, Quakers also began to apply  the term to congregations and organization; this is based, curiously, on the frequency of each group’s gathering for the conduct of its business and discipline, or what we now usually call faith and practice. The local congregation is typically known as a monthly meeting. Neighboring monthly meetings participate in a quarterly meeting, four times a year. And the quarterly meetings come together as a regional yearly meeting, which has sessions once a year. (There are some variations within this, but in terms of decision-making authority, the monthly/quarterly/yearly connection holds). Thus, my congregation, Dover Monthly Meeting, is part of Dover Quarterly Meeting and New England Yearly Meeting.

All of this originated in response to the open worship and the desire to strengthen and deepen it. Early Friends soon perceived themselves as a people of faith, rather than as motley individuals, and that vision has left a treasured legacy of social change that is taken for granted by most people today. Again, I’ll leave that discussion to a number of excellent Quaker history volumes.

Even so, as we begin to participate within our spiritual community, we realize that when we’re faithful, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Here in Dover, I’m constantly surprised to find how far our activities extend, within the meeting itself (in all of its meanings) and throughout the surrounding towns and various networks of concern. Surprised, too, at the range of talent and skill in our midst. In the history of Friends, we have somehow come to rely on committees to meet our common organizational needs. I’m not sure when this emerged, and believe that early on, many of the tasks were performed within extended families, but today’s Quaker meetings depend on Friends’ service on various committees – everything from Ministry and Worship or Pastoral Care to Finance or Trustees to Religious Education or Building and Grounds to Hospitality or Peace and Justice Concerns. In practice, what I’ve observed is that these never all function smoothly at the same time. Even so, they extend our understanding of waiting from one of expectation to one of service, a meaning we see in language through terms such as waiter or waitress or lady in waiting. As I’ve said, in practice, sustaining a weekly hour of silence is not easy, individually or as a group. Nonetheless, I still find it’s essential, both ways.

SMOKING GARDEN

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment
At night these strands twinkle.

I’ve mentioned the space we whimsically call the Smoking Garden – the funky patio, as it were, beside the barn.

It’s great for late afternoon and evening dining all summer, or parties ringed by Tiki torches, though it’s been a while.

Even so, here it is.

BIRDS AS BYSTANDERS

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A ring of blue jays is sounding an alarm somewhere close by. Who knows what it is this time.

So I stop typing, get up to look out the window, just in case they’re in view. What I see instead is a grandstand of smaller birds – sparrows, juncos, chickadees – all sitting contentedly on branches and facing the action.

Here we have it: the idle curiosity of us all.

SPLITTING THE RENT

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Yes, splitting the rent, as I remember it, way back when leaving home and living not with a spouse or a lover, but instead sharing a dorm room or an apartment as a matter of economic necessity. You would wish otherwise, of course, for a space all your own, with privacy. In all of this transition, all the same, the unanticipated connections. As if you would ever go back.

BACK FROM SESSIONS

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The 353rd annual sessions of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends were held last week, and it was wonderful to be among the hundreds of Quakers of all ages who gathered at Bryant University in Rhode Island for the six-day gathering.

Since the regional yearly meetings are the top level of the Quaker system of church government, their decisions affect all of their constituent local congregations – in New England, that’s about 100, ranging from rural or small to large and urban. And since our group decisions are reached without ever taking a vote, resolving our differences when it comes to joint action can be quite an exercise. (We had several of those.)

One of the issues we did unite on was to publicly renounce what’s known as the Doctrine of Discovery, which originated in papal pronouncements that lands held by native non-Christian peoples could be claimed by Christians – a perspective that was later extended into American law. Native peoples of New England told us our support is important in their attempts to change current policies for more just outcomes, and we agreed to continue working with them on this concern.

The Bible half-hours each morning were led by Michael Birkel of Earlham College who used quotations from early Quakers to show how scriptural language shaped their thinking and tender communications to each other. What emerged was an awareness of the depth and intimacy of their experiences in times of great turmoil, even before they speak to us as well. His loving and often humorous examination of the texts and their wider meanings earns him my nomination to be the leading Quaker rabbi, if we acknowledged such.

There’s much more to yearly meeting than the sessions each summer. Throughout the year, committees meet and work, special programs are presented, youth retreats (especially) are conducted, and local meetings are visited.

But it’s always delightful to be among so many kindred souls, reconnecting with people I’ve known for decades and establishing new friendships, too. We get to meet and know visiting Friends from around the world – this time including Bolivians, Cubans, and Kenyans, who add much to our worship and global awareness. I suspect that much of the most important business occurs in informal one-on-one conversations over meals, while just sitting along the pathways through the campus, or during late nights in the dorm lounges. We’re also surrounded by children and teens, many of them zooming around on scooters or bicycles in their free time. It’s all high-energy.

Parting is always sweet sorrow, but we’re already anticipating next year’s sessions, which will be held in Vermont.

PAINFUL NEUTRALITY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 5 Comments

At the least, the pursuit of objectivity has meant that news reporters and editors cannot engage in political activities. Even community-wide charity drives become suspect. I learned early on I couldn’t wear political buttons or put a bumper sticker on the car, much less participate in a protest line. The ethics policy at the Kansas City Star was famed for telling its personnel that the only organization where they could vote was their church. (And, presumably, public elections, although some journalists have argued even that would taint their professionalism.) To be honest, even though we Quakers never take a vote in our business sessions, I felt some relief to know that my church was taking public stands in my stead.

It’s not that we don’t have values or don’t believe that reforms are needed. Rather, it’s an awareness that to report all sides fairly, we need to have some distance from participating in the battle itself. We have to be able to report shortcomings even in the places where we feel most sympathetic.

Still, I’d like those who accuse journalists of bias to try living under such strictures themselves. Maybe they’d even see a bigger picture.