You never know what we'll churn up in cleaning a stall
As I told them:
Although Jnana does not hunt, he observes points at which ancient traditions – including hunting and gathering – influence modern religious practices, meditation high among them. Jnana also acknowledges the role organized sportsmen have performed in restoring populations of wildlife, and has learned from hunters eminently adept at reading animals’ ways in the field. These days, living in New Hampshire, he keeps an eye open for moose rather than elk along the highway.
As a writer, I love taking a phrase and rolling it around, substituting one word or thought and seeing what happens.
With the Grimms’ fairy tale opening, “A long time ago, when wishes came true,” I began substituting “prayers” for “wishes” and realized many people seem to assume that prayers really did have more effect a long time ago – say back in the time of Moses or King David – than these days.
But that also has me wondering about the depth of our wishes today. Are we too directed by advertising and material possessions to seek what’s truly desirable? The fairy tales and Holy Scripture, as I recall, have a lot to say on that account.
“A long time ago, when wishes came true” is my favorite opening in the Grimms’ collected fairy tales. Much better than the formulaic “once upon a time.”
As I look back at my own “long time ago,” the “wishes came true” part of the proposition easily has me wondering just what I really wished for all along, before landing here? What specifics would have spurred the leap from fantasy into reality and shortened what often seemed an all too long and painful journey?
After all these years, I broached the subject with a longtime correspondent and there we were, reflecting on that point way back when our lives might have taken a different path. Meaning why didn’t we take the leap and marry?
“Well, you essentially believe in mystery while I expect magic,” she said, a reaction that long left me wondering about the difference.
Yes, I could almost hear her peals of delighted surprise at unanticipated happy turns and realized that reflected her idea of magic.
And yes, I suppose I could be labeled as a mystic, in part from all my years of meditation, with its sense of an underlying unity of the universe. (For more on that, go to my As Light Is Sown presentations.) As a mystic, I am instead seeking harmony and rightness that accompanies, well, I’ll just call it the Holy Way for now. Essentially, nothing happens by sheer accident; we just know so little of what’s going on behind the scenes when a miracle occurs.
In contrast, as the commentaries on the fairy tales insist, when good things happen in their stories, it’s a one-time deal, never to be replicated. Except that the good folks live happily ever after.
That’s why I’ll still take the mystical over the magical. I’ll take a miracle any day, while magic can be tricky.
Traditionally, Quaker meetings recognized and nurtured individuals who had spiritual gifts as ministers, elders, or overseers. These roles could be filled by men or women, and their service extended over the entire congregation.
A person who offered vocal ministry during worship might be designated as a minister, if the messages were considered theologically sound. Because a minute would be drafted and approved in the meeting’s records, the individual would be known as a recorded minister.
Elders were those who held the ministers and ministry in prayer through the service. In other traditions, they might be called bishops, except that in Friends meetings, they function within the congregation, rather than over it. In the novel, Miz Lil and the Chronicles of Grace, Miz Lillian Leander upholds this role, even though her Lutheran denomination might not recognize its importance.
Overseers were individuals who were skilled in sensing the needs of others and in knowing how to respond. They were the ones who could transform the meeting for worship into a community of faith or a people of God.
After the painful divisions within the Society of Friends in the 1800s, these distinctions typically fell by the wayside. For quietist Meetings, there was an increasing aversion to hierarchy, especially one where ministers or elders might be appointed for life; other Friends, especially those west of the Appalachian Mountains, moved progressively toward services led by a pastor – someone who was often expected to embody all three gifts.
Still, the work’s there to be done, by somebody. Some forms, I’ll argue, work better than others.
The Nominating Committee is as close as my Quaker meeting generally comes to recognizing and perhaps nurturing the varied spiritual gifts present in our community. In New Testament terms, these are the charismata – abilities in emotional and physical healing, prophecy, discernment, teaching, and the like, but the list could be expanded if we closely examine our community. My name, Jnana, arises from a similar application along a Hindu path. In Quaker tradition, these inclinations were acknowledged indirectly in selecting our overseers, ministers, and elders, back when these positions were acknowledged.
A vibrant Friends Meeting has all three roles present, even if we no longer see them that way. There’s also evidence that some of the historic problems resulted when one was lacking and another tried to compensate for that deficiency. I’m not sure when committees supplanted the old structure, but it often seems that Friends have wound up with a system based more on the work to be done than on the talent and energy to be released. In quietist meetings like mine, the clerk, incidentally, now typically becomes the de facto pastor – including the role of Public Friend, permitted to speak on behalf of the Meeting – while one of the difficulties for pastors in “programmed” meetings is the expectation they can perform in all three roles, overseeing, vocal ministering, and eldering, in addition to being the congregation’s chief executive officer.
Maybe it was a matter of viewing the story through my Quaker perspective, but this dynamic runs through Walter Wangerin Jr.’s Miz Lil and the Chronicles of Grace, a novel about a young Lutheran minister assigned to his first parish: black, inner city, Midwestern. That congregation survived largely because of the dedication of one elderly couple, Miz Lil and her husband, Douglas – one, the wise elder; the other, the mostly silent overseer. Together, they gently guide their young pastor in spiritual and personal growth, and in doing so, bring about a rebirth of the parish that survives them.
I still hear a recorded minister in Ohio with his counsel, “When something becomes everybody’s responsibility, it becomes no one’s,” and wonder how we ensure that our responsibilities and individual talents are aligned effectively. When this happens, we are blessed – in large part, because our nominating committee has been doing much more than routinely filling in blanks on an organizational chart. From there, the matter of developing gifts also means we need the worshiping community more than ever. Mentors, helpers, friends – however you want to name them – all growing together.
Thinking of people I’ve known over the years, I keep coming across memories of individuals who blazed intensely, almost compulsively, for a period – say as a poet or in a religious practice – and then vanished. And then there are others who have faithfully stayed the course.
It comes down to those who blaze for a season versus those who keep growing and deepen.
We could look at flowers and vegetables that are classified annuals, of course, or to the orchard and vineyard.
Still, I miss the ones who’ve vanished. Their loss reminds me of winter.
Continuing this month’s survey of Books Read, here are a few more entries:
Continuing this month’s survey of Books Read, here are a few more entries:
Continuing this month’s survey of Books Read, here are a few more entries:
Continuing this month’s survey of Books Read, here are a few more entries:
Jnana's Red Barn 