Tag: Quaker

A MERRY SEASONAL NOTE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Because many of my blog pieces on Quaker practice originated as monthly reflections for our Meeting newsletter, it’s natural that they would address some seasonal concerns, especially regarding what’s come to be known as the Holidays.

Over the course of these postings on Quakers and spiritual practice, I’ve touched on the interplay between the deeply personal inward search each Friend conducts and the discipleship we extend to one another. Sometimes this meant encouraging us to turn to the journals of earlier Quakers or their practices; sometimes it has meant looking to other branches of the Society of Friends and other denominations for differences or parallels; sometimes it has suggested we rethink our responses to the larger society or the demands of maintaining our own household and its wealth of talent. These days, as I look at Dover’s committee structure, I find myself seeing it recast as “ministries” – where each of us may grow and blossom through service. Ideally, then, the inward and outward would come together.

Living in northern climates, however, seems to amplify one’s awareness of seasonal change. The dark and cold of winter solstice, and the stretch that comes afterward, present their own lessons. Especially as we appreciate the Light as it enters our lives.

~*~

Seasons 1For more on my reflections, click here.

CLERKING … WITHOUT A PASTOR OR ADMINISTRATOR

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

There is a tendency in many silent-worship Quaker meetings to turn the clerk into a de facto pastor. This is curious when we consider the widespread resistance in the same meetings to recognize ministers, elders, and overseers – historic roles a modern clerk becomes expected to fill, at least in part. This is something I had observed long before agreeing to serve as clerk of our meeting.

To be fair, one of the difficulties facing modern pastors is that congregations expect them to assume all three of the historic Quaker offices – to be ministers, elders, and overseers – while few individuals are gifted in more than one. Somebody who’s great in the pulpit may be lousy in hospital visits or in coping with children. Add to that expectations as administrator or chief executive officer, or even as a major fundraiser or organizational planner, and you can imagine the stresses and burnout that result. The fact that “programmed” Friends have both a pastor and a clerk should be a healthy reminder.

The message for quietist Friends like us is that the central job of the clerk is to moderate our business sessions. Yes, by extension, the clerk typically becomes a Public Friend empowered to speak on behalf of the congregation. At Dover, we usually expect our clerk to sit at the head of Meeting for Worship (and, as a consequence, to have nearly perfect attendance), although that has not always been the case. Other expectations may creep in, almost unseen – as the Most Visible Friend is sought out to solve Meeting problems left and right. No, this one will rarely solve the problem. Our strength is that we ALL have active roles in this faith community. Making the service and talents of each Friend more visible is a worthwhile accomplishment – and a sign of health, too. Please stand up and take a bow for the ways you contribute, even as I steer someone in your direction. Especially those of you serving as clerk of your committee-ministry.

~*~

Seasons 1 For more of my reflections, click here.

FRIENDLY GREETINGS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

As I said at the time …

I’ve heard there was a time when elders would hand tracts to Friends entering Meeting for Worship. I suppose it was like the ushers in many congregations who distribute bulletins listing the order of hymns and sermon title, as well as announcements. Let me confess I’ve been tempted to randomly distribute some of our weekly mail that way, just to see what pops up.

Tracts and pamphlets do seem quaint in an Internet era, but a lot of Quaker teaching has been passed down in those small pages. Are there new ways of doing this without “spamming” the message? Maybe relying solely on the written word is too limited. Perhaps the actors and visual artists in Friendly circles will step up to the challenge. Audiotape? DVD? Web streaming? Well, the newsletter as a PDF download is one step in that direction.

All the same, in this frenzied season, there’s something comforting in opening next year’s Plain-style calendar – the one from the Tract Association of Friends. And who would have guessed how helpful it is, thanks to the numbered rather than named months, in dealing with the computer protocol at the office? Maybe some things are simply timeless, even when looking toward a Happy New Year at the end of frenzied holiday celebrations. So here we are, turning the page, and in some ways, just starting all over again.

CARPE DIEM

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments

Among the historic divisions among Friends, none were more traumatic than the Hicksite-Orthodox separations, 1826-27. While New England and North Carolina were spared, most other American yearly meetings were torn in two. The reasons were deep and complicated – often along socio-economic and geographic lines. Subsistence versus commercial farming, artistan-craftsmen versus industrialists, rural versus urban, traditional versus forward-looking, tensions between having the polity of Friends lodged within the monthly meeting or at the yearly meeting level, even language itself, one holding to old expressions versus those wanting to embrace a new evangelical ecumenism.

We were not alone. The Puritan legacy, for instance, splintered into Congregationalists and Unitarians about the same time we Quakers split, theirs ostensibly over naming the president to head, first, Dartmouth College and then Harvard. The Dunkers (or German Baptist Brethren), meanwhile, managed to hold together, although their tensions would finally reappear in the 1880s, leading to a five-way split, producing the Church of the Brethren – about the same time many Friends began turning to pastor-led programmed worship. Curiously, the Brethren, laboring under a single yearly meeting, faced major tensions between the Eastern, old-fashioned members and the “Western” (west of the Appalachian Mountains) progressives – the same lineup that Friends would see in the quietist versus pastoral worship styles, with our Western Yearly Meetings going programmed and the Eastern ones largely holding to tradition.

These tensions were fueled by and reflected in many larger societal issues. In politics, the Jacksonians reflected the emergence of westward expansion. In religion, the Great Awakening first blazed through New England (sometimes as the New Lights movement) before igniting in Kentucky and the newly settled regions. In the economy, the industrial revolution was well under way.

For Quakers, the divisions essentially shut down the itinerant ministry from traveling Friends, which had kept the central messages of the faith and practice intact. That loss no doubt played into the emergence of the pastoral system in places where Friends were settling, rather than long settled. Another loss was a breakdown in the sharing of epistles and other written material. We no longer had a common vision to express or unite behind.

I reflect on these not so much as history but as a recognition that our larger society is in one of those watershed transitions – as our presentations and discussions on envisioning the future have suggested. How do we parlay what’s been entrusted to us into the future? Will Friends, as a whole, respond with radically new worship, organization, expression? Will we be sufficiently open to be led where we are needed? Of course, Israel under Roman occupation turned out to be another of those watershed moments, spreading both Judaism and the newly emerging Christianity across the empire. But that’s a much larger and more complicated story, except for the fact that we’re Friends as a consequence.

Or, as old Quakers would say, “Christ is come and coming.” It’s more than “Season’s Greetings,” after all.

HERE COMES THE SNOW AGAIN

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

New England can be a harsh place. Its winter is long, with snow possible October into April or even longer, at least where I live.

You’re never far from earlier generations, either. They’re hardy as stone.

Each month sinks down through centuries.

As do the poems in this almanac.

The new year’s just around the corner. For your own copy, click here.

Winged Death 1~*~

PARA MIS AMIGOS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Whatever my reasons for enrolling in Spanish to fulfill my foreign language requirement in high school – rather than, say, Latin, French, or German, the other options – I have only the vaguest notion today, but I did have a fabulous teacher my first year. Profesora Hughes was animated, strict, immersion-oriented – and we quickly achieved a level of proficiency, even playfulness. Unfortunately, my second-year teacher only muddied the waters instead without advancing my skills. So when it came to college, I shifted to French, which had the effect of mixing both tongues in my mind.

Well, the French did give me a clearer sense of the workings of English, which I see as a Germanic language overlaid with French. Forget those who argue for the Latin influence.

For the past quarter-century, though, Quakers in New England have had a relationship with Cuba Yearly Meeting of Friends, and that’s included annual visitors to our Meetings. Finding myself at the mercy of interpreters – when we could find them – has been mildly embarrassing. Once I spent two hours driving one Cuban between connections in New Hampshire and Boston, and our attempts at communicating were a revelation. That is, largely non-verbal communication.

This past summer’s visitors somehow tipped the balance for me. Maybe the fact that Odalys, Candido, and Melissa came to Dover, stayed at our neighbors’, even went to a contradance (“baile folklorico,” rather than “social” dance), made the exchange more personal, even before they became next-suite residents the following week in Vermont, meaning we were always bumping into each other on the campus where our sessions were taking place. The possibility that one of them, staying in the States for a year of schooling, might be our guest over Christmas break gave me the impetus to brush up on that Spanish. I even still had my second-year high school textbook to fall back on.

Now for the update. I quickly discovered my skills were much, much lower than anticipated. Vocabulary, conjugation, irregular verbs, tenses – the whole shebang. Working from the book was going to be a struggle.

From family and friends came the advice to look online for free courses, a suggestion I viewed with suspicion. Still, I decided to take a look, enrolled in DuoLingo, and found I tested out of … nothing. That is, my Spanish was essentially nada. OK, it was time to get serious.

Four months later, after a half-hour or so each day but Sunday, let me say I’m an enthusiastic supporter. I’m impressed with DuoLingo’s system of teaching in a way that saves some of the more technical aspects for later. Much of its early vocabulary, in fact, was never part of my high school learning but would be much more useful in real life. Emparedado, or sandwich, for example. And I’m feeling some of the youthful joy of discovery I felt back with Profesora Hughes. I certainly didn’t expect that!

I do get dinged, though, when I type “elle” instead of “ella” or something similar in my responses. Still gotta watch out for that French, along with those crazy accent marks that rarely make sense to me.

Further down the pike, I’m thinking of a round of Greek. Hey, you wouldn’t believe the language options. And it’s all free.

ONE CHANGE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

As I said at the time …

Daily encounters are full of times I fall short of the Quaker / Christian ideal. At least I see others in Meeting who do much better on this front.

One way the faith has changed me, though, is in teaching me when to sit on a problem, rather than force a solution (as long as this isn’t mere avoidance, which is a different situation). As the saying goes, “Some of the best barns in Rhode Island were designed in Quaker Meeting.” (Yes, Silas Weeks liked to enlarge it to “New England.”) Maybe you know the postcard:

NOTICE, I AM A QUAKER.
IN CASE OF EMERGENCY,
PLEASE BE QUIET.

I think it’s part of the process we see extending to our decision-making as a faith community, and how much it’s lacking when we’re engaged in a business session elsewhere. The divisiveness, egotism, us-versus-them mentality that so often prevails, the rush to judgment, the name-calling or the boss calling the shots, and so on. The desire to appear decisive or in command. You know all the symptoms.

On the other hand, some of the best headlines I’ve written have been by taking a break when I was stuck – by stepping aside to walk down the hall or to the bathroom. Release the problem, for a minute or two break. And then the answer appears. No need to feel guilty, is there? A little quiet, and voila, originality or productivity, as they would say. A barn or a headline, all in the job, as we Friends know, all the same.

KEY WORDS OF FAITH TO CONSIDER

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

A new Pendle Hill pamphlet, Robert Griswold’s Marking the Quaker Path: Seven Key Words Plus One, has sparked some fresh thinking on my end.

I’ve previously posted on the ongoing series from the press at the Quaker retreat and study center in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, and often advise newcomers to Meeting to peruse its display rack in our library for titles that might best touch their interests, whether theological, historical, peace and social justice action, or simple daily living.

What I like about Griswold’s volume is the way he identifies some basic terms that are also found in other religious traditions while noting ways we Friends have come to apply our own unique understandings.

I’m sensing that each of his eight words (OK, one is a phrase) would be a fertile topic for group discussion, and not just among Friends.

His list:

  • Condition
  • Experience
  • Covenant
  • Discipline
  • Discernment
  • Authority
  • The Beloved Community
  • Submission

~*~

I won’t try to define them here, but each one can be stimulating, even controversial, as we look at the fullness of their implications in contemporary life. It’s also instructive to think of words he hasn’t focused on, starting with Belief, Worship, Prayer, and the like.

To learn more about his pamphlet and more, visit the Pendle Hill website.

DON’T BLAME EVE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 6 Comments

You know the usual slant on the Garden of Eden, that it’s all Eve’s fault.

Look more closely, you’ll see it’s the Apostle Paul and Augustine’s reading.

That’s it, blame the woman.

But it’s wrong.

Give me a breather. There’s Jewish tradition, after all. Listen up!

For all of its brevity, it’s a complex story. It’s where humanity – and history – begin.

For my part, I believe it’s only one of many similar gardens – where else do you think their sons found their wives? The only one we’re told of, all the same.

Eden 1

~*~

For more on my book and others, click here.