Tag: Inspiration

PRACTICING ADVENT

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments

As I’ve previously mentioned, Quakers historically were among those Christians who did not observe Christmas, much less celebrate it as a holiday. Of course, I’ve also noted that it’s hard to live as a “peculiar people” within a wider society and not run up against the festivities, especially if you have children. (It’s far easier to be a minority if you’re not the only one or even the only family. Preserving your distinct identity really does require a community.)

Add to that the fact that Quakers do not follow a set liturgy through the year, although I might argue we’ve had a very subtle one based on the seasons and our quarterly and yearly meeting gatherings or even our monthly sets of queries.

One of the queries, though, reminds us of the importance of preparing ourselves during the week for our Meetings for Worship – taking daily time for prayer, reflection, Scripture, and spiritual readings. In that vein, joining with my wife in a book of readings for Advent seems to fit right in.

Finding the right book, though, has been another matter. Some years, we’ve found that the commentary and accompanying discussion questions don’t really fit with the Scriptural text or the excerpts from significant authors that open the daily reading. Other times, the focus veers into speculation, away from personal experience and encounter, and has felt less than edifying.

This year’s another matter, I’m happy to report. The book we’re following – Keeping House: The Litany of Everyday Life by Margaret Kim Peterson – isn’t even set up as daily readings, much less of an Advent sort, but the pages are working … well, let me use an old English word I’ve come to treasure, goodly. Not perfectly, then, but goodly.

The narrative opens with a defense of keeping house – something that has, as Peterson notes, become tainted in modern American society, even as it’s taken on a Martha Stewart mythology. Put another way, what we’re looking at is theology from a woman’s reality. As she argues, feeding and clothing the poor doesn’t have to mean people we don’t know. In modern society, impoverishment comes in many forms, even for people who seem to have more than enough material goods. People like us.

You can see where this is going – right to the heart of our daily survival.

Of course, I can also ask: What recommendations do you have for next year’s readings? Anything that’s especially moved you? Are there particular practices you find helpful? Any noteworthy memories? What are you doing this Advent, if anything? If you’re not in a Christian tradition, are there other winter solstice practices you find satisfying and would like to present?

Advent, we should remember, is quite different from a holiday shopping season.

FREE COFFEE, LOAVES, AND FISHES

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

At a week-long conference last summer, the caffeine addicts made rounds through the campus bookstore, where coffee was available all day, unlike the cafeteria between meals.

So the first morning I poured a cup from the carafe and prepared to pay, I was told, “It’s free.” Eh? The sign says one dollar. “Somebody already paid for you.”

So I smiled at getting a free cup … and threw a buck into the jar for the next person to come along.

Let’s say simply, I had free coffee all week. Really felt good about it, too.

Keep thinking that was the secret of the loaves and fishes when the thousands gathered to hear Jesus. What happens when we simply open up a bit rather than hoard.

ADMIRING THE QUEEN OF GIFT-GIVING

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

For many folks – especially of the male gender – nothing adds more stress to the approaching holidays than the matter of gift-giving. Matter? Should I instead say requirement or obligation or necessity or, uh, finals examination? That’s even before we get to any consideration of price tags or value.

We (ah, the crucial confession!) just don’t get it. And when we think we do, it’s usually with some very useful item they’ll see as totally lacking sentimental value. A garbage disposal, for instance? (OK, I avoided that one.)

Being married to a woman who has a sixth sense in this realm, moreover, has not only been illuminating but heightens my apprehension. She’s not one for flowers or jewelry or chocolate, for starters, at least on the receiving end. No, it’s her sense of empathy in finding some surprise she knows the receiver will appreciate. Often it’s humorous – and often it’s useful without being, shall we say, utilitarian. It’s downright psychic.

I can point to the binoculars or the little recorder that captures our choir rehearsals or the turtlenecks I seem to live in these days. Sometimes they’re even baffling, those things I didn’t know I wanted or needed until, well, time proves otherwise.

There’s no way, either, to top the panini press she presented a dear friend. It makes him think gratefully of her almost daily. It’s also proof that she listens carefully for clues no one else seems to notice.

Locating appropriate gifts – and it’s really something other than shopping – is an enterprise she tries to have largely wrapped up (sorry for the pun – the wrapping comes later) by Halloween. Well, that relieves some of the pressure – many of her finds actually come at yard sales as early as May, and there are other bargains to be found through the summer and fall, if you’re alert.

She’s the one, by the way, who can’t comprehend how a mother could have no clue to what her kids like or want. Just know that it’s fuel for a rant.

But I rather treasure it for the way it gets us guys off the hook just a tad. That mother, that is.

Now, from my end, I’m further along than I would have been before I met her. But I’m still distinctly playing second fiddle. Or even viola.

EX- MARKS THE SPOT

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

A comment from Martha Schaefer got this ball rolling.

She was confessing that she never liked Brussels sprouts until her ex-husband, “an excellent cook,” introduced her to what happens when the tiny cabbages are cooked well. And, of course, that changed everything.

My, that could even get us going on a crimes-against-foods rant, considering how many vegetables, fruits, meats, and so on are abused in kitchens around the globe.

For now, though, let’s consider an overlooked aspect of broken relationships. Think of something positive you’ve carried away from an ex-spouse or lover. What were you introduced to that you now treasure or delight in?

A special place, perhaps, or food or beverage, music or art, literature or activity, friends or family, even (maybe most of all) lovemaking.

What comes to mind? Or your heart? Pipe up!

ADDRESSING THE QUERIES

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

As Ohio Yearly Meeting’s Book of Discipline stated, the Queries and Advices “provide a means for maintaining a general oversight of the membership pertaining to our Christian life and conduct. … It remains this Yearly Meeting’s heartfelt desire that good order and unity may be maintained among us … the attention of each member of the Society should be drawn at regular intervals to individual self-examination … To aid the members in this exercise, a series of both Queries and Advices is provided to impress upon the minds of us all various principles and testimonies which should guide our daily lives.”

The tradition was for Quakers (the Society of Friends) to ponder a set of these Queries at each monthly meeting for business and have someone draft a summary to be reviewed the next month. (This is in contrast to the weekly times of worship on Sunday, or “First-Day,” morning and, if possible, sometime during the week.) The monthly meeting’s summaries would then be reviewed at the next quarterly meeting – a gathering Friends from nearby meetings – and another summary would be drafted, to be shared in a similar manner at the larger yearly meeting.

When I was living in Baltimore, one Friend suggested that those of us living at a distance from our home meetings sit down and partake in this exercise and then mail our written answers to our home meeting. Although intending to take up this practice, I procrastinated and Winona received nothing until a personal invitation arrived, gently urging me to join in the exercise.

Many of my short essays and poems originate in those responses, now turned from addressing the community of faith to the Source itself and outward again.