Tag: Religion

A PILLAR OR MILESTONE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

When I was asked to write a newspaper column two or three times during my senior year of college, I chose – out of the blue – to call it “A Corinthian Column.” Maybe it was just a quirky play on words, crossing the distinctive Greek architectural element with a then very vague sense of New Testament or even prophecy. At the time, my faith was somewhere between agnostic and logical positivist – and vehemently anti-Vietnam war and, to a milder extent, anti-Christian. Yet when someone asked, “Where do you think you’ll wind up, as far as religion goes?” I blurted, “Probably something like Zen-Quaker” – this, when I had little idea of either practice or, for that matter, the way that becoming a yogi a few years later would lead me here in the radical Christian sphere.

Decades later, being nominated to serve as clerk of our meeting had me feeling a similar sense of embarking anew. I could list a hundred reasons why I shouldn’t be clerk. First confession: my motto tends toward “Just do it,” and I worked under relentless daily newspaper deadlines. Either way, this means my patience easily wears thin in many Quaker business sessions. Process? I also wish we had a better system of upholding of our community than committee work. Even so, here we are, all the same.

In the interim, Corinthian Column abbreviates to “C.C.” – the same as Clerk’s Corner. When I set out, I intended to draft some short pieces for the congregation’s newsletter – holding each to just three paragraphs – for upcoming issues. Collect random thoughts on our practice, especially. Maybe even without much (overt) theology. So here’s what happened, Friends. Rarely did it hold to just three ‘graphs, though I usually kept it under a page of copy.

What has surprised me is the way these became pastoral letters after all, much the way the Apostle Paul did, in his own letters to the Corinthians. Yes, I largely avoided the theology, unlike Paul, though I address it elsewhere. The effort of living as a community of faith is interesting enough, as it is.

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You may have guessed many of those newsletter items have now resurfaced in one guise or another here at the Red Barn. My intent this time is aimed at encouraging your own spiritual exploration and growth and possibly even some mutually enhancing discussion of how one tradition can infuse new life or understanding for another.

I love hearing of similar encounters from other directions.

MISSING IN ACTION

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

While I wrote this for a Quaker audience, I’m hearing it’s true in many other faith traditions.

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It’s not just teenagers, first, and then small children. Where are the men? Looking at attendance patterns across denominations, one might ask if religion’s becoming a “women’s concern.” (We might contrast this to some Orthodox Jewish traditions, where the women stay home, figuring men need to do the heavy spiritual work or at least some soul-searching, so everyone will benefit; pardon me if I oversimplify in reaching for a point.) It’s bad enough we Friends now expect the teens to disappear, as well as the college-age youths. There are mornings in our worship when women outnumber men three-to-one, or more. I’m calling for some equality here, or we’ll all suffer. (I recall one researcher who pinned the decline of the Shakers to four decades before the actual collapse became apparent; the point came when the number of men joining the movement fell off sharply.)

Admittedly, there are some pretty powerful countercurrents running through American society. Many of the men are working six-day weeks to make ends meet, and Sunday’s the only day for rest – if not a second job itself. Sports has replaced religion and even politics as the male topic of discussion. Some church planners have gone as far as to suggest stadium seating in response, and Starbucks during the sermon is already customary in the trendiest congregations – especially those gathering in rented movie theaters. This doesn’t even begin to address single-parent or two-worker families, soccer leagues, the claustrophobia-inducing Saturday rounds of shopping, parties, or entertainment venues. Something’s deeply out of balance.

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not calling for any return to patriarchy, and I’m grateful for many of the ways feminist theology has liberated our understanding of Scripture and early church practice. I’m even concerned that women pastors are largely confined to the smaller, lower-paying parishes – or excluded from others. I’m proud of the leadership women have provided in our Quaker Meetings.

I’m simply lamenting the fact that we’re not as diverse and vibrant as we might be. Any suggestions?

POINT NOTED

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Few Friends in unprogrammed (or “silent”) Meetings of our size would admit that we need a pastor. Not for a sermon or vocal prayers, mind you, but simply to provide all the behind-the-scenes counseling and comfort, as well as some administrative oversight. But it’s true.

The job of clerk as envisioned is one of a chairman/moderator. As it turns out is something altogether different. We have no chief administrative executive, and that creates a vacuum, especially if Friends in the meeting fail to step up to do their share of community service.

As one former pastor from another denomination quipped, watching our clerk be besieged by questions in the few minutes before we settled in for worship, “You need an office manager.”

Point noted. That would be a step in a useful direction.

WHO’S THERE?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Overhearing a cadence of one of the littlest kids in our otherwise silent worship sounded like “Knock, knock!” – which, the mother confirmed afterward, it was.

In the room, though, the pattern led to my silent echo:

“Knock! Knock!”

“Who’s there?”

“God!”

A pause, with multiple directions:

“God who?”

Or “Go away, I’m busy!”

Or Revelation 3:20 or even Matthew 7:7 or Luke 11:9 and 13:25.

 

ALL IN THE HOLY FAMILY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

This was written for a Quaker audience, but I suspect it’s applicable to many other communities of faith. Translate it to your own spiritual circle (or beyond) and let me know how it fits.

~*~

Maybe today we would see it as the “extended meeting,” along the lines of an extended family. In earlier times, a few large families could fill a typical meetinghouse. The idea of being part of a Quaker Meeting without one’s spouse – much less grandparents, aunts and uncles, or an array of cousins – was as unthinkable as, well, divorce.

Today, however, Friends who come to worship as couples or families are the exception, rather than the norm, at least in our end of the Quaker spectrum. And that doesn’t begin to take into account the prevalence of singles in American society.

This points to a number of shortcomings among Friends. Foremost, the admission that our form of open worship – contrary to what the original Friends envisioned – does not speak to everyone. (In fairness, we might admit that our “unprogrammed worship” emerged as the “retired meeting,” for those who had received the Truth in those big public preaching sessions where all the quaking and weeping broke out.) Then there’s the recognition that the People of God concept, where faith would be handed down within families, has simply broken down, not that it was ever all that stable. Maybe we’re not even as friendly, welcoming, or fun to be with as we’d like to think.

I’m not proposing that we drag everyone, however reluctantly, into Meeting for Worship or for business. But I do think we need to recognize ways the rest of our families are, however indirectly, part of the Meeting. There may be means to more meaningfully engage them, apart from our worship. What would they find inviting? What would they find nurturing or challenging? What would they find relevant?

I’m open to suggestion – and reflection.

RETURNING TO THE SCENE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Just pondering all the people who’ve come through the meetinghouse doors in the three decades I’ve been here. Some have moved on to other parts of the country. Others have become committed parts of the fellowship. But suppose the remainder might eventually come back?

In my own life, too: how many would I greet joyously, with curiosity about how their lives have since progressed? How many others would I curse, or at least address perfunctorily? And how many would feel the same toward me?

OVERLAPPING TIME AND SPACE IN NEW ENGLAND

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

When my private-time writing returned to poetry shortly after relocating to New England three decades ago, my attention turned to this unfamiliar place where I was now living. Quite simply, it felt much different than any of my previous locales, and the spirit of specific locations has always been a central concern in my literary ventures.

My personal writing has often been a way for me to assemble thoughts and impressions. In many ways, it’s the way I work through a problem or gain focus on an issue. So when it came to the exercise of looking at my new environment, I soon envisioned a set of poems along the line of a monthly almanac or even a calendar of words rather than color photographs.

I’ve long had a fondness for those large monthly calendars anyway, and by the time I got serious in pushing the almanac, I had a good selection of images to draw from as additional inspiration. Just what images does the region conjure up, anyway?

That’s when New England’s famed Winged Death headstone engravings came into play, and each month began to compress the overlapping centuries this corner of the United States embodies – more so than other parts of the nation, at least.

Winged Death 1New England also has a strong tradition of authority and dissent. The Puritans, after all, came to these shores in their dissent from the Church of England, and Samuel Gorton, Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson, and their followers in and around Salem, just north of Boston, were soon challenging the Puritan hegemony before being banished, in waves, to Rhode Island. Early Quaker firebrands were soon adding to that upheaval, and that’s included in my spiritual legacy.

What emerged from all this is a craggy, even Baroque, collage that reflects the evolution of the Yankee character in its landscape of harbors and mountains. It’s now available as a free PDF as my latest Thistle/Flinch edition. To read more, click here.

GUERRILLA CHRISTMAS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

No other time of the year opposes our testament of simplicity as much as the Holiday Season. Here widespread expectations of generosity and excess counter our Quaker discipline of frugality and moderation. The situation becomes especially complicated for individuals like me who find themselves lacking in gift-giving savvy.

Even when Friends formed a sizeable community, they found standing apart from the surrounding society on these activities became impossible over time. Quakers eventually yielded to giving the children an orange or two the day after “the day the world calls Christmas.” We can see similar struggles among Jews regarding Chanukah, where its essential message from 1st and 2nd Maccabbees – to withstand pagan demands, no matter the cost – instead begins to mirror the activities of the general populace. Add to it our mixed families, coming from many different traditions, and any distinctive witness falls by the wayside. In my case, having a wife with a German mother, I’ve learned just how much compromise is required in these decisions.

Actually, she’s taught me a lot about ways to wage a Guerrilla Christmas. Yes, there’s the battle with consumerism, but most of us – and most of the people we know – don’t need more “things.” We have enough clutter already, thank you. So preference is given to gifts that can be used up – food or tickets to an upcoming cultural event or a promised action on behalf of the recipient. Whenever possible, small local enterprises are favored over “big box” retailers. Some of you know about our family tradition of making gingerbread houses, a bit of silliness that accompanies our observation of Advent. As for Advent itself, when you remember that the Twelve Days of Christmas begin the day the advertising ends, you’re liberated to enjoy a less frenetic round of being with those you love.

It’s not what earlier Quakers would have expected from us, but it’s still a witness. Maybe it’s also a way for us to expand our understanding of simplicity and joyfulness, too.

So here’s to the First Day of Christmas. Remember, the season runs all the way to January 6, so enjoy.

TEACHING OR PREACHING

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

One of the criticisms that Evangelical Friends level at quietist Meetings like ours is that we are short on teaching. “Silent worship, for those who are well-instructed in divine truth, has real benefits,” they write, before cautioning: “upon those who have neither read the Bible nor hear it expounded the effect may be very different.” The passage I quote continues: “As a result, the Friends Church became victim to a group of erroneous teachers, among whom Elias Hicks was most prominent.” The section also points to some very deep misunderstandings among Friends, including Job Scott’s decision to remain silent in sessions called on his behalf during his traveling ministry; he sensed too many people had come with “itchy ears” primed for novelty rather than an open heart.

Ideally, vocal ministry arises as a prophetic voice, as William Taber describes in his Pendle Hill pamphlet, The Prophetic Stream. From this perspective, pastoral sermons can be criticized as arising too much as a matter of teaching and too little as an outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Walter Wangerin Jr.’s novel, Miz Lil and the Chronicles of Grace, also addresses this, though from a different perspective. There, the young Lutheran pastor realizes that in greeting parishioners after the service, he cannot tell whether one woman is telling him he offered good teaching or good preaching on any given morning. One Sunday, however, it becomes quite clear she has been making a distinction: “’Pastor?’ All at once, Miz Lillian Leander. She took my hand and we exchanged a handshake, and I let go, but she did not. … Her voice was both soft and civil. It was the sweetness that pierced me. I think its tones reached me alone, so that it produced a casement of silence around us … there was Miz Lil, gazing up at me. There was her shrewd eye, soft and sorry.

“’You preached today,’ she said, and I thought of our past conversation. ‘God was in this place,’ she said, keeping my hand in hers. I almost smiled for pride at the compliment. But Miz Lil said, ‘He was not smiling.’ Neither was she. Nor would she let me go. … The old woman spoke in velvet and severity, and I began to be afraid.” Then she gently rebukes her pastor for unintentional consequences, after he has prided himself for being frugal by cutting off the water to an outdoor faucet.

“’God was in your preaching,’ she whispered. “Did you hear him, Pastor? It was powerful. Powerful. You preach a mightier stroke than you know. Oh, God was bending his black brow down on our little church today, and yesterday, and many a day before. Watching. ‘Cause brother Jesus – he was in that child Marie, begging a drink of water from my pastor.”

I love the way that passage illustrates how the prophetic voice flowing through an individual can be larger than its vessel. “Did you hear him, Pastor?” I love, too, the way it illustrates an elder laboring with a minister: “Miz Lillian Leander fell silent then. But she did not smile. And she would not let me go. For a lifetime, for a Sunday and a season the woman remained immovable. She held my hand in a steadfast grip, and she did not let it go.”

ENGAGING THE POWERS AND PRINCIPALITIES

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 8 Comments

Like it or not, practicing an art means wrestling with power, including, in St. Paul’s phrase, the “powers and principalities.” Powers of destruction, on one hand, and sustenance, on the other. Destruction that can, as we’ve seen too many times, include the artist. Hence, the fascination with Faust. With madness. Alcoholism. And on. Self-absorption and inflated self-importance rather than humble service.

We hazard much, often without the slightest awareness of the risks afoot. For the Christian, these involve Satan’s dominion over “the world,” which includes the realm of the arts; in Asian teachings, we can turn to the traps of Maya, that spider web of worldly attraction and deadly illusion. Either way, cause to be wary. Need for disciplined faith. Yes, let’s introduce something we’ll call Satan, just to thicken the drama.

Which raises an ancient point of conflict for a Christian artist: I’m not at all sure art is a proper activity for a Quaker. Through much of Friends’ history, most of the arts were considered superfluous and dishonest engagements taking our attention away from true worship. “We Quakers only read true things” is the way one expressed it while returning an unread novel to a neighbor.

Yes, “we Quakers read only true things,” or used to. The exclusion of not just fiction but theater and paintings and sports as distractions from worship. Traps of the flesh?

And yet: discipline is essential in spiritual growth. Self-discipline, route to true freedom. And where is the mind without imagination? I continue to read and write fiction and poetry. I love symphonies, string quartets, and opera. I’m a baritone or occasional tenor in four-part a cappella singing. When I practice my art, I am fed by this love/compulsion/infusion.

So we’re back to the ways and spirit in which we engage the powers and principalities, and the ways we order our lives.