THE MEETING COMMUNITY

BYM FAITH AND PRACTICE

THIRD MONTH QUERY

by Bob Alexander

“Are love and harmony within the Meeting community fostered by a spirit of open sharing? Do you endeavor to widen your circle of friendships within the Meeting, seeking to know persons of all ages and at all stages of the spiritual journey? Does the Meeting provide for the spiritual refreshment of all members and attenders? Do Friends provide spiritual and practical care for the elderly, the lonely, and others with special needs?”

My personal experience of the RFM community began in 1982, when a Friend (friend) who knew I was struggling in my spiritual journey brought me to Meeting. I felt immediately at home with the silent, unprogrammed worship. Through the years, this community has become a vital part of my life

What makes us a community? First of all, it is a commitment by many of us to seek the Truth by participating in all aspects of the life of the community, to persevere through the hard times, and to rejoice in the good times, and to do the work that is needed to sustain us. We have no paid staff, no bureaucratic hierarchy (is that redundant?), no one to tell us what to do or how to do it. We are all in this together and each of us is responsible to do our part.

What keeps us coming back to worship, to meeting for business, to committee meetings, workdays, threshing sessions and all that we do together? For me, it is being part of a group of like-minded people who are willing to take the risk of worshipping and doing business in a way that is so radically different from the rest of our culture. We don’t take the way of strict creeds and dogma and majority rule. Instead, we seek the Truth through experience, experiment, continuing revelation and a “sense of the Meeting.” As is stated in BYM Faith and Practice, “We have a profound, often tested, durable respect for each individual’s affirmation of his own religious experience, which must be judged not only by his words, but also by his life. From the stimulus of dissimilarity, new insights often arise. Each Friend must, as always, work out for himself his own understanding of religion; and each Monthly Meeting must, as always, fit its practice to its own situation and the needs of its members.” However, it is also stated there that, “The Society of Friends arose out of personal experience of God as revealed through Jesus Christ. The conviction that God can and does speak to all human conditions – enabling, directing and working through us – is at the center of Quaker faith and practice.”

Are these two statements contradictory? While we in Meeting don’t usually discuss our religious beliefs, I know that our members and attenders include atheists, non-theists, agnostics, animists, naturalists, secular humanists, Zen Buddhists as well as Christians. I believe that what makes us a community even with all these differences, is our silent worship, seeking a sense of the Meeting in our business, and having our lives speak through the Quaker testimonies. Beyond all these differences there is something in the Meeting fellowship that touches us deeply.

“Are love and harmony within the Meeting community fostered by a spirit of open sharing?”

An expansion of this query could be, “Do we seek to consider openly matters at issue, seeking a loving resolution of conflict, rather than to preserve a semblance of community by ignoring issues?” (BYM F&P)

Tough questions. We have stumbled at times. We have at times avoided conflict and openness to preserve a façade of harmony. We are not perfect, but it is the imperfection and the struggle to live up to our ideals, and to forgive and love each other that makes an authentic community.

When I sit during worship and look around the room, I say to myself, “these are my people,” Each person is dear and unique to me, even the annoying ones. We are here to share our gifts with each other. And so I sit and rejoice in our community and our willingness to be part of the silence and to travel together on this journey.

“Do I endeavor to widen my circle of friendships within the Meeting seeking to know persons of all ages and at all stages of the spiritual journey?”

I only have the energy to know a few people on a deep basis. Being an introvert (is this an excuse?), I don’t make a great effort to widen my circle of friends and tend to gravitate to those I already know. However, my experience on committees and Friendly Eights over the years has given me the opportunity to know a great many people in Meeting on more than a superficial basis. While I may not see many of these Friends in any other areas of my life, our times together in Meeting related activities foster a kind of sharing and intimacy that I find rare in the wider world. I think what I enjoy most about Friends is that we don’t take ourselves too seriously and we can have many good laughs about our foibles.

I have trouble with the second part of the query about “stages of the spiritual journey.” This sounds too hierarchical to me and infers that the more “spiritually evolved” among us should condescend to make contact with those poor souls who are still in spiritual elementary school. Sometimes my four year old granddaughter seems way beyond me spiritually. We must beware of spiritual arrogance. There are no Standards of Learning to determine how spiritually advanced we are. I would like to rephrase the query as follows: “Do I endeavor to widen my circle of friendships within the Meeting, seeking to know persons of all ages, realizing that I have something to learn from each person?”

However, there are those among us who, through wisdom gained from life and Quaker experience can be teachers and mentors to others. Thomas Kelly, in his book A Testament of Devotion, writes, “Not all members share equally in spiritual discernment, but upon some falls more clearly the revealing light of His guiding will (I would rather say ‘the revealing light of the spirit’). ‘Weighty Friends’ with delicate attunement both to heaven and to earth, bulk large in practical decisions.”

“Does the Meeting provide for the spiritual refreshment of all members and attenders?”

For me, spiritual refreshment is the sense of renewal received through the fellowship of silent worship and shared activities. It is the joy I feel when we come together in committees and, through listening deeply to each other, realize how connected we all are. Our committees work hard to provide opportunities for everyone to be fully engaged in the life of the Meeting and to experience this sense of refreshment, renewal and connectedness.

It may be difficult at times to discern the healthy relationship between product and process, being and doing, and each of us has to strike the right balance for our own circumstances. I find that Meeting folks are very respectful of people’s needs to disengage at times, and no guilt trip is laid on anyone who needs a break. Those of us who can’t say “no”, quickly learn (I hope) that being exhausted with Meeting responsibilities does us and Meeting no good.

We do need individually and corporately to periodically ask ourselves who we are and what we are about, and if all our activities spring from and are centered on the “inward immediate experience of the Inner Light.” (BYM F&P) This is done annually on a corporate basis when Ministry and Worship Committee invites members and attenders to give input into the State of the Meeting report.

“Do Friends provide spiritual and practical care for the elderly, the lonely and others with special needs?”

We have recently had an entire generation of older members leave us, either through death or going to (mostly) distant retirement communities. I saw and was part of the Meeting community pulling together to help provide spiritual and practical care for these Friends who had been such a vital part of the Meeting. As many of them became frail and /or ill, we arranged for meals, provided worship at their homes and coordinated their health care if their families were distant. I am now, at age 68, a member of the senior generation at Meeting and will have the advantage, should I need it, of a fully accessible building, and when it is my turn to need special care, I know Friends will be there for me.