Tag: Religion

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~*~

HOW ABOUT MAKING THIS A DAY OF PRAYER AND FASTING?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

After reading a post by Jonathan Caswell of the blog, A Mighty Mumford,  I’m wondering about reviving a practice from Colonial America – a day of prayer and fasting.

The idea would be for people of faith in America, across religious denominations and faiths and political identifications, to set aside time to pray for the future of the country. Not in negatives, but in visions that call for greater love, justice, peace, and compassion throughout the land. (No “Smite My Enemies,” for starters.)

Prayer, as Caswell observes, is difficult, for many reasons. And done truly, it leaves each of us exposed and humbled. To which I would add, praying truly also means listening and waiting rather than ordering the Holy One what to do.

There’s much to be done, including turning swords into ploughshares. I’d say, Let us begin.

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.

WHERE ARE MILLENNIALS FINDING FELLOWSHIP?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 5 Comments

In his classic Democracy in America, published in 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville makes much of Americans’ propensity for affiliating in multiple organizations in the common good. The French historian and diplomat was astonished by our proclivity to establish and join in all kinds of formal groups, not all of them political parties or civic commissions. We enlisted in fraternal lodges, cultural and educational institutions, ethnic-immigrant centers, charities, trade associations, labor unions (still in their infancy), business ventures, and, especially, churches. Well, it meant electing leaders and boards and building organizational skills we could apply elsewhere.

His observations on the American character still make for provocative reading, no matter where you stand on a political spectrum. For me, his insights on religion appear to be more problematic, a situation I attribute to his difficulty in understanding the strands of our pluralistic Protestant thinking through his Roman Catholic precepts. Still, some of his conclusions fit better than others. One, though, keeps resonating for me in this current election season:

“I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers – and it was not there . . . in her fertile fields and boundless forests and it was not there . . . in her rich mines and her vast world commerce – and it was not there . . . in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution – and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.”

~*~

Here I was, trying to take a break from my almost morbid fascination with the daily developments in this unrivaled American election season, but, wham! I chanced upon this quotation, which came right after reading an analysis of the difficult plight the Republican Party will confront in looking to its future. Quite simply, as the argument goes, the GOP can’t continue to identify with conservative Christians if it wants to survive. It’s a shrinking constituency in the American population. Put another way, survey after survey finds religious identity and practice in America dropping sharply, especially among millennials. Like it or not, we’re entering a post-Christian society.

And what do I hear in this passage: “Make America great.” But it doesn’t end there. The “righteousness” and “good” elements, to me, stand in sharp contrast to what I’m hearing in Donald J. Trump’s posturing and deceitful exhortations. Righteousness, after all, is a matter of living right in upholding the teachings and standards of one’s religious faith. It proves downright humbling, if not humiliating, in practice. Read Anne Lamott and Dietrich Bonhoeffer for details, if you will, or even the New Testament.

Here, the fruits of the Spirit, including mercy, justice, peace-making, charity, self-restraint, and much more, are markers of faithfulness. End of sermon.

~*~

Well, I could veer off in many directions at this point. For now, I’ll focus on the millennials, who are a distinct minority in most of our congregations. I can share their distrust of much “organized religion.” And that’s even before the self-inflicted wounds imposed by the sexual-abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic church or the monetary improprieties among evangelicals and fundamentalists or any general hypocrisy that comes to light. We can argue against many of the distortions and outright lies preached from some pulpits, but that hardly fits all of the religious spectrum. Remember, I come at this from the radical Christianity of the Anabaptist strain – Friends, or Quakers, who are grouped among the Mennonites and Amish and an “underground church” stream dating to the Waldensians before the Inquisition. Look it up, if you must.

The bigger point has me repeatedly wondering just where young adults are finding fellowship. Tocqueville saw Americans joining networks of kindred spirits, but I just don’t see that happening now. A church – literally, in my understanding, the believers themselves rather than a building or an institution or any hierarchy – is the essence of community for many of us. Ask us for our best friends, and you know where to find them. Where are the alternatives?

The workplace? Unlikely, unless you’re ready for serious disillusionment in the rounds of pink slips.

College classmates? You’ll soon be scattered.

Neighbors? Do you even know their names? Unless you have children, that’s unlikely.

A corner coffee house or bar? Well, maybe for introductions. As well as the gym or, in my case, indoor swimming pool. Maybe sports teams are another category.

Put another way, just where are we meeting others nowadays? And how are we building community?

Tocqueville looks at our affiliations, but even the Masonic orders are having trouble filling their ranks. (Who’s going to drive funny clown-filled cars in parades in the future? Oh, that’s their Shriners’ wing, but still, you have to know one.) I rather like the Kiwanis and Rotarians in our town, but I’m not quite in their social or economic circles.

In all of this, I’m going to point to a bigger problem. In the globalized economy, everybody but the top five percent is in trouble. The current employment scene is not sustaining a single-parent household income for most Americans, and the Republicans have no response for this reality, even if it fits their ’50s mindset, other than attack the trade agreements that vastly enrich their elite financial supporters. Who do you think they’ll vote with? Not the medium-income and single-parent households, believe me.

Don’t be fooled. There’s more to “making America great” than we’re hearing: Bernie’s been right all along about where the productivity gains have been going, and it’s not to those who are working all those hours while their benefits, if any, are being decimated.

Put all of this together, and the post-Christian society is looking more and more to me like re-enslavement. How can democracy function when the people are so divided?

For that matter, we need true Elijahs and Elishas more than their pandering pseudo-prophetic foes. American greatness demands much more than we’ve been hearing or seeing, for certain.

And here, I thought I was taking a break …

NAMING TODAY’S FORBIDDEN FRUIT

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

As I contend in my latest book release at Thistle/Flinch editions, the Biblical story of the Garden of Eden goes much deeper than the traditional children’s telling or, for that matter, the conventional interpretation that focuses on disobedience and a teaching imposed much later, the one known as Original Sin.

The surprisingly short Creation story – the second one in the Bible, actually – is one of those texts that just won’t let go of me, and the new layers of understanding just keep on surfacing.

The other morning I was struck by a consideration of what the Forbidden Fruit might be in our own time. Nowadays we could consider things like global warming (more accurately, climatic instability), overpopulation, or nuclear arms proliferation, just for starters – things caused by our own curiosity and consumption, one way or another. Each bears an ultimate warning, “and you are not to touch it, lest you die.” Each one is a negative consequence of advances that seemed good at the time they were introduced.

So here we are, in a situation very much like Adam and Eve in the aftermath, looking for direction and restored balance.

For my earlier musings on the original text, take a look at Eden Embraced. I’d say it really is all about the timeless human condition.

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.