Tag: Inspiration

WHY HAVE THE YOUTH GONE?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Quakers are not alone in this regard, but what we’ve been enduring is that no matter how much effort we put into raising our children within the faith community, they disappear somewhere in their junior high years. For decades, we’ve been hoping they’d reappear as they started raising their own families, but we’re seeing little of that, and again, we’re not alone.

It’s all too easy to blame competition with Sunday morning soccer leagues and the like, although we might also argue that the values the kids learn in their athletic competition more closely fit those of the larger, secular society than those they are taught in religious settings. Rabbi Michael Lerner makes an extended argument in his 2006 The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right, as he contends that too often our children see all too clearly the dichotomy between what we say we believe in faith and what we actually do in a dog-eat-dog marketplace. It’s a harsh criticism. No wonder religion is losing.

As I gaze around our mostly graying worshiping circle, I wonder just where the young adults are today – not just within religious communities, but just about everywhere I venture. Maybe they’re all hidden away working multiple 24/7 jobs trying to make ends meet. I don’t envy them the economic scene they’re contending with.

But I also wonder about the message they carry about faith itself. If the teaching among youths growing up “under the care” of Quaker Meeting has been to build a hopeful, optimistic foundation of values, how do we help them survive the brutal struggles they’ll encounter in the wider world? How do we instill an awareness of the importance of religious community and shared discipline in maintaining a drive toward a more loving and just society?

Perhaps we’ve been too comfortable in our safe, middle-class, largely professional upbringings and neighborhoods and expectation of college and career.

In my own thinking, I keep returning to the concept of the two seeds, one of Christ and the other, call it what you wish – the point is, we face not just “that of God within each person” and its potential, but also a counter element to challenge. It was a line of thinking at the time the Quaker movement erupted in Britain. Think of the parable of the wheat and the tares.

Contending with the two may be what’s been missing in our teaching and example.

~*~

More of my own reflections on alternative Christianity are found at Religion Turned Upside Down.

SAGELY, SAGGITARIUS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Why wait for the dust to settle? Here are 10 bullets from my end.

~*~

  1. Crows – dozens upon dozens – all over town, roosting together somewhere. Rook, as they say.
  2. Late afternoon driving: so much glare, not just the low sun, either, but blazing up in reflections. Wet pavement or a waterway I’m crossing.
  3. Midnight here now really fits around 10:30, unlike 12 in the summer, calculating midway from sunset to sunrise.
  4. Cranberries, so quintessentially New England, remind me of driving to Cape Cod and passing all the bogs where they’re grown.
  5. When it comes to Friends, we need new blood.
  6. Eastern Orthodox Advent starts on the 28th and continues to the Feast of the Epiphany, Jan. 6 or 7, not our more widespread Christmas Day! Since we’re taking this up voluntarily, rather than under church discipline, we make some adaptations. Thanksgiving, for one, and ending Advent on Dec. 25, for another. Does it make us look like wimps?
  7. Poetry as a heroic journey. Holy, my voice. Or gritty.
  8. Where am I NOW? Where’s my HEART?
  9. Good to be reminded of ACTIVE WAITING, especially through periods when you feel suspended, on hold until others make a decision or act or all the pieces to fall into place. Drawing from James Nayler, Brian Drayton sees a sequence in spiritual response. The waiting prompts a response, which requires prompt obedience. Next is suffering, perhaps as embarrassment or upheaval. And then public witness – telling others, even if only in a small circle. Throughout, small steps count, however tentative.
  10. How much of being a public figure is a matter of being a performer, too – someone who needs a circle of fans?

~*~

It's always an honor for our choir to perform a set for the lighting of the huge Christmas tree at Faneuil Hall in Boston. The 80-foot tree is an annual gift from Halifax, Nova Scotia, expressing gratitude for relief given its citizens after the 1917 harabor explosion that killed an estimated 2,000 people. The tree is adorned with 30,000 lights.
It’s always an honor for our choir to perform a set for the lighting of the huge Christmas tree at Faneuil Hall in Boston. The 80-foot tree is an annual gift from Halifax, Nova Scotia, expressing gratitude for relief given its citizens after the 1917 harabor explosion that killed an estimated 2,000 people. The tree is adorned with 30,000 lights. Here’s the stage before we make our entrance.

A MISCELLANEOUS TENDRIL OF LITERARY ADVICE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Why wait for the dust to settle? Here are 10 bullets from my end.

~*~

  1. De-racinated, “no root system,” a criticism Tony Hoagland makes regarding so much contemporary American poetry. Also, he notes our fiction is far less diversified than our poetry, in its many tribes.
  2. Don’t know who described Franz Wright as not a formal poet yet “the structure of his poems develop organically, driven by music, rhythm, and symmetry.” Not a bad model!
  3. For that matter, who wrote, “Their humor often depends on a single word: in fact the whole laugh can rest on a single word choice,” before quoting Mark Twain: “The difference between any word and the ‘right’ word is the difference between a lightning bug and the lightning.”
  4. TONE as the angle of sensibility toward the subject. Looking, too, for the fractional element – the bit that counters the previous.
  5. As far as the persona of the writer, think of that time before World War II and the larger-than-life characters who were largely self-created: the conductor Leopold Stokowski or movie star Cary Grant as examples who wound up as caricatures of themselves, or at least strangers. It was, after all, a Sol Hurok era. As for our own obsession with “celebrities” rather than “doers”?
  6. Czeslow Milosz: “The purpose of poetry is to remind us how difficult it is to remain just one person.”
  7. Denise Levertov corresponding with William Carlos Williams: “I have been honest in what I’ve written – but with what hypocrisy I have selected what I wrote!”
  8. To which Williams replied: “You know yourself better than anyone else can ever know you. … Perhaps you will never be able to say what you want to say … deep feeling that would reveal you in what may not want to be revealed … In that case, the loss will be great.”
  9. John Berryman: “You should always be trying to write a poem you are unable to write, a poem you lack the technique, the language, the courage to achieve. Otherwise, you’re merely imitating yourself, going nowhere, because that’s always easiest.”
  10. “And these bottles of wine, which we filled, were new; and, behold, they be rent: and these our garments and our shoes are become old by reason of the very long journey” (Joshua 9:13, KJV).

~*~

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
The Boston Public Library, left, faces Copley Square in Boston’s Back Bay. How many other landmarks, by the way, can you name that give honor to an American painter? At the right is the 1873 Venetian Gothic Revival style Old South Church. They are seen here from the steps of famed Trinity Church, whose shadow reaches across the green.

 

WITH THE LOCO IN LOCOMOTION

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

My awareness of the importance of forested trails of my own sanity and balance has evolved slowly. I see two parts at work here.

First is the aspect of locomotion. I could begin with the fact I’ve never been an athlete. As a youth, I delighted in speed — as in running or riding a bicycle — or in swimming, with its parallel of flying suspended in space. But I’ve never enjoyed the repetition of exercise for its own sake, gym class was a bore, and team sports have largely eluded me. Since I existed largely within mental activities, such as science or the arts, the idea of doing something that involved a mindfulness to my own body in motion did not register with me, at least until I took up yoga after college. I could add to this a recognition that I’ve also been filled with nervous energy and general restlessness. Sitting still — and focused — is something I’ve had to learn in the course of practicing meditation and attending Quaker meeting for worship.

Second is an encounter with natural history. Somehow, at an early age, I was introduced to geology, birding, tree identification and the like. I’ve also been interested in maps and map-making. Human history, too, which often turns up as discards in places returning to the wild.

What I’ve come to appreciate, though, is largely an esthetic response in walking through places of repose. If forest trails are the symbolic ideal here, I must admit they are not the only examples. Walking miles along the Atlantic on the outer Cape Cod shoreline, for example, serves well (although walking on sand always presents an effort) or trekking above treeline or through wild meadow can be heavenly. Even a stroll through a wooded cemetery or a city park can be recommended. But I speak of forest because of its timeless nature, in both senses of the phrase; this is what this land would remain at climax, forever. Everything is in balance or harmony. There are, of course, seasonal changes, but these are within a rhythm or cycle of returning, much like the movements of a symphony played over and over. Somehow, this begins to merge with the rhythm of walking, which itself begins to pace my own thoughts and emotions. Nothing too rushed, too overwhelming: everything, one step at a time. Uphill or down, all within reach. Walking along a city street or even a country highway can induce some of the step-by-step rhythm, but the balance is off: traffic rushes past, always as a threat, especially at intersections; there’s too much commotion or stimulation; my soul’s not at rest. Look around and notice all the trash and discard, all the waste as a social illness. The wilderness, in contrast, is continually healing. “Come to the woods for here is rest,” John Muir counseled. “There is no repose like that of the deep green woods.”

For more insights from the American Far West and Kokopelli, click here.

MORE THAN A COMMITTEE, ACTUALLY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Perhaps it will also help to keep in mind that the modern Ministry and Counsel committee reinvents the traditional select meeting of Ministers, Elders, and Overseers: those with recognized gifts in prophetic, free-gospel vocal ministry; in being bishops or anchorites, holding the meeting community in prayer; and in being pastoral caregivers, aware of temporal and spiritual needs and responding to them. At Agamenticus our biggest weakness is on the overseer front. In many pastoral congregations, I would argue, many problems arise because the pastor or minister is expected to embody all three functions, and the “priesthood of all believers” is subsequently lost. That’s a far cry from “releasing” the pastor to fulfill one gift, with the congregation performing the other roles as they, too, are gifted. In an unprogrammed meeting, this means being aware of the ways each person fits into the body of Christ.

I sense that it will be important for you to reach out beyond Orono Meeting, to find within Vasselboro Quarter and the Yearly Meeting the “secret Wilburites” who seem to exist in every meeting, but who often feel isolated; in my travels among Friends, they often come up to me after the hour of worship and express gratitude for hearing a Christ-centered, Bible-based message. One Friend observed that as she grew spiritually, she began to discover that everyone she considered a “Weighty Quake,” a Friend with depth and grounding, was also a devoted Christian. And the traditional Bible Half-Hour each morning at Yearly Meeting has contained some of the best spiritual study I’ve encountered anywhere, arising more “in” the text than “about” it.

~*~

For more Seasons of the Spirit, click here.

TURKEY TALK, TOO

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments

The mind dances here and there, rarely in a linear progression. So what’s in my thoughts these days? How about counting on these fingers?

~*~

  1. While driving through town, I glance over at a small cemetery and notice wild turkeys padding about. A whole flock, actually, reminding me of hunting season hereabouts and the national holiday just ahead. Somehow, the critters know the calendar, and the wiser ones find sanctuary in town. Good luck to the rest of their brood.
  2. With the return of cold weather, we once again use our front entryway and the mudroom beside the kitchen as auxiliary refrigerators. Don’t trip over the pots and pans when you visit.
  3. When it comes to problems, focus on what’s closest, rather than always on the horizon. (The view from Mount Aquarius.)
  4. It’s all New Work, in the works.
  5. After all the lost or difficult years, the dashed dreams and desires, broken promises, upheavals – mingled, curiously, with gratitude. I’M HERE!
  6. What never happened – and then?
  7. Asked how long they’d lived there, in an American Walden, the artist replied: “Too long!”
  8. Could the text be made simpler, rather than wildly reaching?
  9. It’s better to know, even if it’s bad news, than to be left hanging in limbo
  10. We keep trying to find a good system for storing our leeks through the winter. We’re very open to suggestions.

~*~

A mid-afternoon view of the Cocheco River running through Dover carries a forewarning of winter.
A mid-afternoon view of the Cocheco River running through Dover carries a forewarning of winter.

PLACES OF RETURN

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Years later, a friend relates an incident of telling his wife his intention of spending the day in a favorite place in the mountains, countered by her question of what makes him return there. Even though he’s a photographer, he replies by acknowledging that many of his writer friends have answered the question simply, saying it’s the surprises that draw them back.

Somehow, as one of his writer friends, I find the word “surprise” in this context jarring. For surprises, one would be better served by trips to new locations, rather than returning to an old favorite. Novelty, rather than familiarity. Upheaval or intoxication, rather than purity or sobriety. Even so, as I consider my own places of return, her question becomes increasingly kaleidoscopic.

First, there’s the very demand of naming a favorite place. In this context, he invokes wilderness, where return is a kind of pilgrimage. Here, return may be once or twice a year, if that frequent. I could counter that with an evening stroll, as I used to do along the canal bank at the back of the desert orchard, or sitting at the café downtown in the small New England city where I now dwell — activities that could take place daily. We could add to that an opera house or concert hall, museum gallery, or even places of dedicated labor: a studio, cabinetry shop, garden, kitchen, or laboratory. Even, though rarely for me, shopping destinations: a boutique or farmers’ market, perchance. A fair or festival.

So the question soon turns to a matter of one’s intention. What is one attempting to escape or encounter? What is one leaving behind and what does one face instead?

Continue reading “PLACES OF RETURN” →

MONTHLY, QUARTERLY, YEARLY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

punctual attendance at Meeting for Business is important

as worship
for to love is finding work also

there unmasked, when failing
a shining model of uprightness
and moderation

this purposing of expectation
coming to befriend each other
in daily labor and dreaming

vigilant close labor with any who slight
the holy standard

purposing
a forgiving spirit cherished by the whole
to resume anew

aggregating strength
for individual tribulations
where you’d otherwise succumb

*   *   *

the old pendulum, tick-tock
causing more than one who attends
to sit on the far side of the unadorned room

and that’s their business

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set, click here.

WHAT’S IN THE BAG

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Being mindful of what’s right in front of us can always be a challenge. Here are 10 new items from my end.

~*~

  1. Been collecting bags of fallen leaves from the neighbors, urban farmer that I am. These days, a couple dozen bags are sufficient, unlike the 200-plus I gathered in many of our first years together. They get stacked against one side of the barn to break the sharp blasts of cold wind that otherwise freeze the pipes to the mother-in-law apartment on the other side of the barn. It’s another of my winter-prep rounds. Come spring, the leaves get moved to the big compost bin.
  2. I carry a sense of being responsible for making everything better – me, alone. Except I have insufficient resources. Which takes us back to my deeply ingrained fear of poverty. No wonder I always want everything to work just right – and get so upset when it doesn’t! And that twists back to my fear of conflict.
  3. All of my writing (as I’m venturing) assumes an experience, if only an out-of-nowhere phrase (exploring the subconscious, then), demanding discovery as some unity of the cosmos. Even when I’m writing about what I don’t know.
  4. My appreciation of raw oysters on the half-shell goes back to my girlfriend in college, who insisted I eat (real) seafood while visiting in Florida. (And here we were, staying on a cattle ranch.) Up till then, it had been frozen fish sticks or canned salmon. Flash forward, to New England, where these days just before winter provide some of the fattest, juiciest oysters imaginable. These bivalves have stocked up for their version of hibernation. And, as one Mainer points out, you can count their age on their shells, just like rings in a tree.
  5. Gotta brace again for the end of Daylight Savings, the day our winter begins. Really begins.
  6. Of course location affects my writing and sensibility. The slums of a small city can be as urban as anything in a big metropolis, if you look and listen.
  7. Turn up an old Gohn Brothers catalogue – Amish clothes etc. Realize that’s no longer me, either.
  8. Ever so messy, the girl with the Lord & Taylor shopping bag.
  9. Somehow, even my Quaker practice and theory break free from some past.
  10. Taking the bus to Boston, I look out to see a field of big trucks just before the state line. Then remember, from a detour, it’s the truck spa. Seriously, that’s what it’s called. Keep wondering if there’s something on the side for the drivers.

~*~

In a solidly residential neighborhood these days, an echo of a more rural past.
In a solidly residential neighborhood these days, an echo of a more rural past.