by WebPost | Dec 16, 2005 | Archive, Writings - RFM
Personal Reflections on BYM Query #12
The Environment
by BobRugg
© Robert D. Rugg
December 24, 2005
Personal Reflections on BYM Query #12.
The Environment
Are you concerned for responsible use of natural resources and their nurture for future generations? Do you try to avoid wasteful consumption and pollution? Do you seek to preserve the beauty and balance of God’s world?(BYM, 1988, p.39)
I shall attempt to reflect on this query from the standpoints of (a) personal experience; and (b) initial thoughts, still in progress, from the viewpoint of the importance of queries in the spiritual life of the Meeting as a corporate body.
A .Personal Experience
The environment has been close to my work interests throughout the Quaker years of my life. Here is a brief summary:
As a college senior, I discovered that there was an academic discipline called geography, the purpose of which was to analyze the relationships between human societies and the natural environment, so I entered a graduate program in geography at the University of Chicago.
While there, Donna and I became convinced Friends and joined the 57th street Meeting. My mentor and thesis advisor was Gilbert F. White, then chair of the American Friends Service Committee and the leading U. S. geographic expert on water resources management. Those familiar with the varieties of belief among Quakers may know that Illinois Yearly Meeting is traditionally Hicksite. Our first exposure to Faith and Practice was the one from Philadelphia in use at the time (PYM, 1955) A section of the queries in this version addresses the “stewardship of the environment” (PYM,1955, p.213). The first of six different questions reads:
Is the Meeting concerned that human interaction with nature be responsible, guided by a reverence for life and a sense of the splendor of God’s continuing creation?
The last one in the list brings the focus back from the corporate Meeting to the individual :
Do I choose with care the use of technology and devices that truly simplify and add quality to my life without adding an undue burden to essential resources?
Under Gilbert’s tutelage, I completed a Master’s thesis on “Reservoir resettlement in Africa,” a study of how government and U.N. sponsored resettlement programs arising from the flooding of traditional resource areas by the construction of dams at Aswan on the Nile, Akosombo on the Volta, and Kariba on the Zambezi River, had already affected, or would potentially impact, the livelihoods and ways of life of those displaced.
It is inspiring to recall that this spirit-led scholar was even then in the process of broadening his focus from “human adjustment to floods” to all kinds of natural hazards including tornadoes, tsunamis, coastal erosion, earthquakes, etc. Years before, my first week in Chicago had been spent walking the length of the city’s magnificent lakefront park. After finishing the master’s study, I turned my attention to issues of recreation geography and open space planning. I spent a summer as a research assistant to a U. of C. economist His research demonstrated that the predicted recreational benefits of reservoirs in South Dakota, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere were being exaggerated by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers in the benefit/cost studies required by Congress to justify the projects. Using the analytical skills acquired in preparation for this study, I spent the following summer back home in New Jersey as a volunteer for the New York City chapter of the Sierra Club. At the time, the club was supporting a proposal to build a dam at Tocks Island in the Delaware Water Gap , a scenic river segment through which I used to lead canoe trips.. The dam was part of a proposed project to create a national recreation area. The club favored the project because it would enable the National Park Service to preserve some of the rapidly disappearing natural area close to New York City. I suggested that the loss of recreational benefits caused by impounding the river would be greater than the alleged benefits of sailboating and motorboating on the reservoir. The club changed its position to favor a national recreation area without the dam, which was the eventual outcome.
Meanwhile, I continued in graduate school and did a Ph.D. study at the University of Ottawa on “The use and Non-use of urban parks: accessibility and social characteristics in relation to pubic outdoor recreation in selected neighbourhoods of Ottawa-Hull.” Ottawa, Canada is a city rich in parks and open spaces. I tried to find answers to urban planner Jane Jacobs’s question, “Why are there so often no parks where the people are, and no people where the parks are?(Jacobs, 1961, p.95)”
We became” sojourning members” of Ottawa Monthly Meeting. We requested this status in response to an Orthodox advice recommending that Friends should reside close to their meetings and regularly attend meetings for business.
We had difficulty adjusting to Ottawa meeting, for various reasons including the different flavor of Quakerism we found there. During our two-year sojourn, we were constantly being misunderstood and suspected of not being “real Quakers.” For example, it was just as we were leaving to move back to Chicago that we learned that some people in the meeting had assumed that I had been in Canada to avoid the draft. During those years, we frequently consulted the LYM book of discipline to check up on points of faith and practice, often from a sense that not everything in the Meeting was as it should be, or because our experience there was so different from what we had experienced in Chicago. When we moved back to Chicago, the closest meeting was a pastoral, programmed one, the Chicago Monthly Meeting on 108th Street. We resumed attending 57th Street Meeting until we moved to Richmond three years later.
The Orthodox Canada Yearly Meeting followed the faith and Practice of the then London Yearly Meeting (LYM,1959) Following British tradition, Ottawa Friends expected that Friends who relocated would immediately transfer membership to the new meeting. In this volume, there are more “advices” than “queries,” touching on many specific aspects of life, from choosing a career, whether divorced Friends should be permitted to re-marry, etc . Looking through the LYM book again, I could not find a query or advice with the term “environment” included. A web search of the web site for Britain Yearly Meeting (former London Yearly Meeting) revealed that the term occurs only in the Handbook for Wardens of meeting houses in Britain. In the process, I was reminded of how instrumental this version of Faith and Practice had been in shaping our experience and outlook as Quakers during the two formative years, as newly convinced Friends, we spent in Ottawa. We often had recourse to this book when there were difficulties and differences to be resolved in Meeting.
Ph.D. in hand, I took a teaching post at VCU and taught geographic techniques and open space planning until I retired 29 years later. This time, we requested a “certificate of removal” from 57th Street to Richmond Monthly Meeting, thus coming into the discipline of the consolidated Baltimore Yearly Meeting.
I worked as a consultant on a proposed national recreation area in the Shawnee Hills in southern Illinois. An analysis of the potential recreation benefits showed that the project was too far from Chicago and other major urban areas to justify the project cost. Congressman Paul Simon, who wanted the project for his district, was disappointed; however in an editorial the Chi cago Tribune expressed satisfaction that the taxpayers’ money would be saved.
In Richmond, I began to work on the Virginia Outdoors Plan. I worked on several of the decennial updates, being generally assigned to work out the demands, supply, and needs analysis for each county and city in Virginia. While at VCU, I volunteered to serve on the National Committee for Digital Cartographic Data Standards. I joined the committee’s working group on cartographic feature definition, a group trying to standardize the definitions of real world phenomena being depicted on maps produced by U.S. government agencies. The assignment led me into further service as project leader for project teams on geographic feature definition of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). On these committees, I was privileged to work with colleagues from across the continent and all around the northern hemisphere (From west to east: United States of America, Canada, United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, China, Korea, Japan, and Russia ) during the two decades before I retired from VCU.
As I approached retirement, I became involved in what may turn out to be the most significant environmental issue of all: a project by the Rappahannock Indian Tribe to develop a spiritually based retreat center on some of their ancestral land near the river from which their name is derived. The tribe asked VCU to find a volunteer to do a feasibility study for the retreat center. I accepted the assignment. The tribe envisioned a center unlike any that exists anywhere else in the country, so there were no existing data, nor anything to compare it to, so the analysis was a challenge to my creativity. I produced a result that was positive and favorably received by the Tribal Council. Since then, I have been working on the implementation of their vision for the past four years. Seeking clearness to proceed, I had first met with the Peace and Social Concerns Committee to tell them about my leading in this direction. I met with the Indian Affairs Committee (IAC) of BYM to tell them about the project, and they added me as a co-opted member. Some members of the committee were pleased to find a way to connect with native people within the verge of the yearly meeting. The IAC recently held a meeting at the Rappahannock Cultural Center in Indian Neck, VA. The retreat center has been a wonderful project to be a part of. Having been forcibly resettled away from the river, the tribe is seeking to preserve and revive their traditional language and culture and to live once again in harmony with their natural environment. The more I am privileged to learn, from the Chief and other members of the tribal council, about the values going into the thinking behind this project, the more excited I become. It is an honor to be of help in whatever ways I can. In a way, it is a “reverse resettlement” project, seeking to reverse the damage to culture and the environment done in the past.
- Queries in the life of the Meeting (in progress).
The existing BYM query seems to lack a sense of what we mean by environment. It guides us toward reducing our consumption of resources and preserving the amenity value of the environment we already have.
If we think broadly of the environment as the source of human material existence: food, shelter, clothing, and transportation, it is inextricably bound up with our way of life, our level of living, our social organization, and our culture including our spiritual lives—both as individuals and as a religious society. The beautiful open woodlands, soils, clean streams, lakes, waterways, clean air, trails, and roads encountered by the first English settlers here were managed, used, and made productive by native people, living in harmony with their environments over thousands of years. Then the land was invaded by English imbued with, as Talcott Parsons put it (Parsons, 1960), a value orientation of “instrumental activism,” or mankind dominating nature through technological means. Yet, for all we take from the environment, we rarely give thanks nor do we attempt to give back, by helping to manage the environment or serve as stewards to help foster its natural productivity. Another neglected aspect of enjoying the fruits of a productive environment is helping to ensure the distribution of its benefits to all. When I told my cousin Jim Rugg about my work on standards, he commented that he was in favor of standards. He thought that we should be able to define a basic level of living for everyone, and work to ensure that all could attain this level.
An editor might suggest to make the wording more clear and specific: Replace “try to avoid” with “avoid” and “seek to preserve” with “preserve” or perhaps “take action to preserve.” It is tempting to generalize that some of the BYM queries, being crafted from two different traditions of Quakerism, are so bland as to offend no one; yet they provide an opportunity for reflection about right action. Nevertheless, they are our discipline; they outline the dimensions of a life lived in obedience to the light of Truth.
The Queries are found in ‘Faith and Practice, so named because it provides guidelines for putting faith into practice. There are references to “Humankind and the Environment” on p.33 and “Civic Responsibility” on p.30(BYM, p. 30-33).
Under Civic Responsibility, we find comments on the need for members to “bear their share of responsibilities of government” with cheerfulness as recorded by the Elders at Balby in 1656 in their proclamation of the peace testimony.
Under Humankind and the Environment, the issues of population growth and technological abuses are mentioned, with no specific positions or viewpoints given.
References
Jacobs, Jane, 1961. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Random House
Baltimore Yearly Meeting (BYM), 1988. Faith and Practice of Baltimore Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. Sandy Spring MD: BYM, approved at Yearly Meeting sessions, 1988.
London Yearly Meeting (LYM; now Britain Yearly Meeting), 1960. Christian Faith and Practice in the experience of the Society of Friends. Richmond IN: Friends United Press. Approved by Yearly Meeting, 1959.
Parsons, Talcott,1960. Structure and Process in Modern Societies. New York: Free Press.
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (PYM), 1998. Faith and Practice: a book of Christian Discipline. Philadelpha PA: PYM, adopted 1955.
by WebPost | Nov 16, 2005 | Archive, Writings - RFM
Responding to
The Baltimore Yearly Meeting
11th Month Query
by Rita Willett,
RFM Ministry and Worship Committee
Do you provide religious education, including study of the Bible and of Friends’ history and practices, in your Meeting? Do you ensure that schools under the care of Friends exemplify Friends’ principles? Do you support and strive to improve the public schools?
Do we, at Richmond Friends Meeting, provide religious education?
Of course we do! Our dedicated Religious Education Committee is mindful of the importance of teaching Bible study, Quaker history and Quaker practice to the children and teens in our Meeting. Our First Day School curriculum is planned with sensitivity to the diversity of our Meeting – teaching thoughtfully about Jesus in a faith community that includes Universalists and Christians, for example. Teachers design age-appropriate activities – preschoolers are working with the sheep and shepherd play figures while the high school students conduct their own Meeting for Worship with a Concern for Business. In the summer, many Friends get involved, teaching children the role of each Meeting committee. Religious education is provided for adults as well. Friends gather for Bible Workbench on First Day. Quakerism 101 provides both newcomers and seasoned Friends an overview of Friends’ history and practice. Other adult religious education opportunities include Fall Retreat, Spiritual Formation groups, First Day forums, and other gatherings. Yes, with care and dedication, we provide religious education in Meeting.
While “providing” religious education is important, perhaps we should ask an additional question… what do children and adults learn about being Quakers in our Meeting? When John Woolman wrote about education, he addressed, not what should be taught, but rather what might be learned. From Woolman’s essay, “A Plea for the Poor”:
“When we are thoroughly instructed in the kingdom of God, we are content with that use of things which his wisdom points out, both for ourselves and our children, and are not concerned to learn them the art of getting rich, but are careful that the love of God and a right regard for all their fellow creatures may possess their minds, and that in all their learning their improvements may go forward in pure wisdom.”
As we nurture the children of meeting, are we “careful that the love of God and a right regard for all their fellow creatures may possess their minds”? How might we shape our religious education program – and our inclusion of children in our Meeting community – toward this goal? How do we, as Friends, share our experience of God’s love so that all of us, adults and children, will be “instructed in the kingdom of God?” Are we developing, in ourselves and our children, “a right regard” for all our fellow creatures?
With this month’s query, Richmond Friends might examine how our religious education program fosters our spiritual growth.
Do we, at Richmond Friends Meeting, ensure that schools under our care exemplify Friends’ principles?
While Richmond Friends Meeting does not have a Quaker school under our corporate care, a number of Richmond Friends work as educators in diverse settings in our community. Some Friends are employed as teachers for children or adults in traditional schools and colleges. Other Friends teach in varied arenas, helping refugees learn the skills they need, facilitating a learning environment at a botanical garden, or sharing their knowledge of the arts. Teaching is the chosen ministry for many Friends in Richmond Meeting. How do we, as teachers, incorporate Friends’ principles in our work? Do we respect the equal worth of persons, finding that of God in everyone? Do we recognize the ideas and needs of all instead of the usual “majority rules”? Are we careful to speak the truth in our role as teachers?
Richmond Friends Meeting does not have a Quaker school under our corporate care, but we do have a number of teachers under our care. Do we support those Friends in discerning their call and in developing their teaching as a ministry? With such care for the teachers among us, Richmond Friends Meeting might help bring Friends’ principles to a number of schools in the Richmond community.
Do we, at Richmond Friends Meeting, support and strive to improve the public schools?
Individual Richmond Friends have differed in their approach to public schools, some choosing private schools or choosing to homeschool their children. Friends who are teachers work in both public and private institutions. Those decisions have sometimes involved a difficult process of discernment or a series of attempts before settling in a particular school. Does Richmond Meeting support and respect the difficulty of those decisions when no school seems “right” for a particular family? How does Richmond Meeting support those who study or work in public schools?
As I think about the support that Quakers as a group might provide to public schools, I am again drawn to John Woolman’s essay, “A Plea for the Poor.” Woolman writes about the central importance of the relationship between teacher and student and the problems created when teachers have too many students:
“A large number of children in a school is often a heavy weight on the mind of an honest tutor, and when his thoughts and time are so much taken up in the more outward affairs of the school that he cannot so attend to the spirit and temper of each individual…, there the minds of children often suffer and a wrong spirit gains strength, which frequently increases difficulties in a school and like an infection spreads from one to another.”
Woolman points out that the resources required to maintain a low student-teacher ratio would be available if we lived more simply:
“Were we thoroughly weaned from the love of wealth and fully brought out of all superfluities in living,… there would on a reasonable estimate be so much to spare on the education of our children that a plain, humble man with a family like himself might be furnished with a living for teaching and overseeing so small a number of children that he might properly and seasonably administer to each individual, and gently lead them on…”
Are we, as Friends, willing to live more simply so that resources might be more available for the general good, such as support of public schools? How do we, as Friends, promote the right use of public resources for education, especially at a time when our nation has tremendous expenditures on war? With this month’s query, Richmond Friends might examine the importance of public education as one of our social concerns.
by WebPost | Oct 16, 2005 | Archive, Queries, Testimonies, Writings - RFM
After the reading of the Minute from York Friends, Roanoke Friends composed and sent the following and attached letter about hurricane Katrina to their legislators and other leaders. Roanoke Friends encourage other Meetings to consider a similar response.
What a timely coincidence that on the day that disaster struck New Orleans, the annual census report was released revealing that for the fourth consecutive year the number of persons living in poverty increased in America. The vivid images from the desolation of New Orleans made that poverty viscerally real to Americans in a way far more than dry-worded government reports ever could. We saw intimately the anguish and misery of thousands of our fellow citizens who were abandoned to despair.
It is perhaps understandable that fingers are pointing in all directions seeking whom to accuse and blame for the bungled response to this disaster. While finger-pointing may be a very human response, it is not a particularly productive one unless we are able to move forward with lessons learned. So we call upon you, our leaders, to examine not only what went wrong in the response but also to look to ways to correct the inequities that exist.
We ask that an independent commission be formed to investigate why the disaster response was inadequate. It is paramount to the integrity of such an investigation that this is an independent commission, not a congressional one nor should it be under the aegis of the executive branch. Partisan politics would only impugn the legitimacy of its findings and recommendations.
We ask also that appropriate controls be in place as FEMA begins to award contracts for reconstruction. Will an inspector general be named to oversee the payment of large amounts of money that FEMA will be dispersing to contractors? What policies will be put in place ensuring that competition for contracts will be fair and equal?
Certainly there are many other issues impacted by this disaster that cry for unblinking scrutiny, environmental as well as social and political, but none more pressing than poverty itself. This catastrophe has brought the realities of poverty into light and national awareness.
We strongly urge a renewed effort on the behalf of this nation’s leaders to address the issue of poverty. The response to Hurricane Katrina was disgrace enough to a powerful nation. Not acting to remedy the inequities that exist would be an even greater disgrace.
As members of The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), we believe that all are equally precious in the sight of God. We are reminded of the words of Isaac Pennington, who stated, ”Our life is love and peace, and tenderness; and bearing one with another, and forgiving one another, and not laying accusations one against another; but praying for one another, and helping one another up with a tender hand.” Now is the time to extend that tender hand, as we witness an unprecedented outpouring of compassion and relief efforts.
It is our hope and request that you, our leaders, will offer a tender and uplifting hand as well with the powers invested in you: by thoroughly investigating our disaster response and implementing policies and legislation that will guarantee the well-being of everyone living in this great country.
Roanoke Friends Meeting
Roanoke, Virginia
by WebPost | Oct 16, 2005 | Archive, Writings - RFM
THE PEACE TESTIMONY
“Do you live in the virtue of the life and power which takes away the occasion of all wars?”
Well, what does “occasion war”? No use looking in history books, because “history is written by the winners,” and winners tend to rationalize their own motives. So I have to ask “what occasions war in my spirit?” And then, “what takes away those occasions?”
First to mind come words like injustice, irresponsibility, incompetence – and direct threats to my well-being, as when someone invades my privacy, abuses or imposes on me. Anger often comes from finding I need to say “No”to a request (“They might not like me!”); or having to acknowledge my own limitations, and the fact that I neither can nor should “do it all” myself; or from resentment that, instead of being appreciated for what I’ve already accomplished, I’m asked to do more. That’s Ego, pouting. I don’t advocate being a doormat: one should protest injustice. There’s nothing wrong in any case with saying: “No, thanks, I don’t feel called to do that.” It isn’t a crime for people to ask, and I could just as easily see it as a compliment. Logically, there is no call for rage. Anger is usually a projection of an insecure Ego: it’s easier to rage at “them” than to change my behavior or expectations.
And what is “the virtue of the life and power” which would enable me to do that? Virtue: from Latin virtu: courage, strength, and (under the “old dispensation”) manliness – i.e., not some prim or passive sort of righteousness but an active, decisive courage mobilized by the strength of one’s convictions. OK, but what’s the “life and power” that has, or confers, that sort of virtue? What is it that, on occasion, has allowed me to decide and act with patience and perseverance? Of one thing I’m fairly sure: it’s not Ego. Ego will inevitably “cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war” because it feels threatened and inadequate – as of course it is! Ego, in the mode of rugged individualism, is like a human standing at the low tide mark and presuming to hold back a tsunami. To Ego’s fear is added the frustration of utter futility: of course it erupts in fury. Trying to repress it is like trying to cork Krakatoa! And so will I ever do, if I rely on my own “life and power.”
So what’s the alternative? Like small landholders in the days of feudalism, Ego really does need a “liege lord.” Jesus is the paradigm, the model of what it’s like to live that way. It was consoling, for much of my life, to project that “Lord” onto Jesus of Nazareth, rather than recognizing Jesus also as subject to God as Lord. When projection is no longer intellectually valid, the opposite temptation is for Ego to “swallow the archetype”: become inflated with the idea that I/Ego on its own can do what Jesus did. But Jesus never “did that” from Ego-strength! It was no easier for him than for any of us to persuade his Ego to submit, to acknowledge the lordship of the One, Holy Unity, Yahweh–God by whatever name one knows! Paul’s phrase, “I live, but no longer I, but Christ lives in me,” provides a clue: the strength/virtue of “that of God within” is the life-line, the “hot line” to Holy Unity, whose life I manifest here on Earth, as does every other being. That Life belongs to God, not to Ego. “My privacy” is a specious idea: my very life is simply a tool, an instrument, to be used and spent at the will God. If Ego feels challenged and demoted, perhaps it can be reassured by realizing that the Life which it is at such pains to defend is already immortal–existed before Creation and will endure beyond it–and is not in danger. All that is required of me, of any of us, is in this instant to acknowledge the One to whom we belong; for God is the life that flows through every moment of my mortal existence. The power of that Life is potency, not domination. When I stay grounded in Holy Unity, that potency can safely flow through me to do whatever is needed in the situation, whether it is to live or to die. But if I try to climb some Ego-tower and grab hold of the high-tension wires, bad things happen: I get fried, as does everybody connected to me! So, if my Ego can let go of its obstinate individualism and live in the virtue of that Life and Potency that is my Lord, it can relax in the confidence that nothing will be asked of it which it will not be given the capacity to do.
This isn’t a matter of beating Ego into submission: every time I try that (too often!), it turns into a masochistic drama of Ego beating on itself, trying to prove how humble it is. “Bah, humbug!” The Creator is both loving and intelligent enough to leave human will always free in its relation to God. My service, my ministry, is requested, not required: “your mission, should you choose to accept it…” And within the limits of our comprehension, I want to say it’s always informed consent, too. Ego is permitted to be afraid and need explanations and reassurance, is even encouraged to plan carefully and not be rash: that’s its job! The Angel waits until “that of God within” can calm Ego’s anxiety. Mary’s “Be it unto me according to your word” was neither coerced nor naive. Jesus didn’t have to go to Jerusalem at Passover time that year. Even in Gethsemane, Jesus could have headed for the hills; but he was empowered to stand fast, to wait; and his sole response to Pilate was: “You could have no power over me except it were given you from above.” What Jesus does is to trust that Potency over every manifestation of human dominance. “Perfect love casts out fear” – it’s God’s love that is perfect and casts out fear, not my little mortal attachments. A human lifetime is a short course in learning how to trust THAT Love, enough to be willing to be used by it, so that my human/Ego fears, frustration and fury can be transformed into the potency of God’s love.
So: the next time I’m tempted to use my “inner meat-axe” to kill a spider, I might want to look more carefully at the Spider as God’s web-spinner, and hear the gentle voice that says: “Here–sheathe it here: in my side.”
“Do you work to make your peace testimony a reality in your life and in your world?”
The BYM material relating to this part of the query warns that procrastination, indifference, and timidity work against the peace testimony; and that attitudes of justice and compassion are requisite to it.
I find myself most often uncomfortable in this regard when I hear of all the things that other people are doing. I think perhaps I should be more active in projects directly targeted at public issues of peace and justice. Those concerns aren’t always very present in my prayer life; and there are many vigils in which I have not participated (when I could have done so); many letters I have not written; e-mail petitions I have neither signed nor forwarded; decisions that I made without considering alternatives in the light of peace and justice. When I do write letters of protest, they often sound like judgmental diatribes. Even granting that the behavior I deplore really requires strong objection, scapegoating some distant “Other” may be more comfortable than exploring how I am implicated in, or benefitting from, the status quo; but the “Ain’t It Awful” game is inevitably counterproductive.
It’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the data about tragedies all over the world. Media emphasis on disaster invites viewers to become apathetic, bitter, cynical, indifferent: the ethnic cleansing in Darfour, the generations-long strife between Palestinians and Jews, the famine in Niger, jihads directed against crimes instigated by our own country, and the centuries-long injustice just unveiled by Katrina’s ravages — how do you go about “making peace” in situations like those?? What on earth can one person do, anyway?
Understandable as this overwhelmedment is, inertia has little to do with either compassion or justice. We are called to “suffer with” – that’s the model we’re given in the incarnation. “That of God” within each of us is here to “weep with those who weep” – and “rejoice with those who rejoice.” The key, I suspect, is to realize that this charge calls me out of my comfortable cocoon where I encounter mostly like-minded f/Friends. I’m supposed to empathize with (which means knowing) the folks on my street whose names I’ve not learned in nearly 12 years of residence; it means making opportunities to meet actual persons from different sections of Richmond, and experience their concerns as “ours,” not just “theirs.” It means doing something about the refugees from Katrina–not just turning off the TV when the images are too heart-rending. None of this is easy for an introvert!
Nor is that the end of it: the query isn’t about finding some little thing I can do to make myself feel less guilty. Guilt and “should” just seem to produce the sort of philanthropy that says “Thank God I’m not like those poor slobs,” and throws alms to get rid of “them.” What changes things, for me, is a sense of possibility, an excitement about Way opening, about being “in on” a movement that might actually increase the justice in our world. I tell myself, and believe, that any movement or growth must start with the individual–but that shouldn’t be where it stops. Nelson Mandela and Gandhi and Mother Teresa and Brother Roger are modern saints– but they’d be unknown if they’d worked entirely alone or focused solely on their personal spiritual growth. So: I may reexamine my checkbook and my calendar to see how I might live in more conscious solidarity with those around me – but I’ll also follow the guidance of the Peace Education and Social Concerns Committee, the Richmond Peace Education Center, AFSC and NCL, and other trustworthy groups that can channel my energy and efforts productively – and I’ll write those letters in pairs: one commending somebody for their peace and justice activities for every one of protest.
Do you weigh your day-to-day activities for their effect on peace-keeping, conflict resolution, and the elimination of violence?
This part of the query prompts me to consider what are my “daily activities”? As of this summer, my morning walk is certainly one. One week’s walking taught me the value of using walk-time to reflect on a Query or issue rather than just letting my mind wander. The remainder of most days during the academic year is involved with preparing for, facilitating, and evaluating group sessions–study, writing, cooking and interactions. House and garden tasks fit in around the edges.
A couple of things I’m learning: one is not to be too attached to Ego’s decisions about what the day is going to bring. A corollary is that I don’t have to achieve, and shouldn’t expect, Ego’s vision of “perfection” to be accomplished. That’s a precautionary attitude, lest I fly off the handle when the inevitable happens and my plans get derailed. There are an awful lot of unpredictables and imponderables in even the least significant human endeavor, but we do get direction if we “have our ears up.” The garden continually teaches me that Obedience is to put myself in the presence of the task, and allow the Work itself to energize me and guide my hands. It also teaches me that, left untended even for a very brief time, the Work gets so overgrown with monstrous weeds that you can’t even tell I’ve been there! That kind of faithfulness, that kind of trust in the Guide, is the discipline I’d like to apply to other areas of my life as well.
Another learning is to work with others toward clearness before I go off half-cocked with some notion or other. At least for me, as an Introvert, Ego has to be coaxed and even nudged to go out and play. Even once out of the door, it’s apt to go off alone: tumbling through the day operating on its own guidance system, which is typically myopic and all too often in cahoots with “Murphy,” if not actually malevolent! It’s a continual surprise to me that sharing the Work with others can actually be energizing–at least for a while. My cells don’t seem able to bear the full charge of extraverting for any great length of time: I suspect I’ll always have to step back to assimilate and integrate the Leading that comes through other people. So part of the discipline for me is to find a good balance: not to take on more extraverted assignments than I can say grace over, but to accept enough to make me useful.
I think this involves slowing down sufficiently to be truly intentional about my choices and mindful in my behavior. While I was ruminating about this query, I got so caught up in complexities it suggested that I literally got lost – two blocks from home, on streets I’ve walked every day for months. Even after reading street signs, I turned and went in precisely the wrong direction. The confusion continued until I finally stopped and asked aloud: “Where am I??” Without that sort of check-in throughout the day, I lose my inner sense of peace, become conflicted – and soon thereafter my feelings, if not my actual behavior, are definitely violent. My hope is that taking time to thank both Brother Ego and Sister Body for their service in a given task, before I race on to the next one, will pacify their rebellion and allow Self’s invitation to be heard.
I think, if I’m neither to flame out nor to freak out, there must be not so much a static balance as a constantly moving dance between receiving and giving extraverted energy on the one hand, and recharging and tuning introverted energy on the other. Ego has to spend as much time as it needs to go deep within, to lay its offering on the altar of Self, of the Christ archetype, and to wait there – waiting is crucial: to wait there until those offerings are cleansed, molded, chiseled, honed, sanctified, and returned as proper tools for a new assignment. These waiting times are not passive or easy. Whether they last months or mere nanoseconds, neither Self nor Ego is exempt during the wait from anxiety, from anticipatory grief, from pain, from the blood, sweat and tears of the Passion.
How do these ruminations affect activities of my daily life? Significantly, it seems not to be about laying out a minute-by-minute discipline which Ego can either inflate itself by trying to follow it, get frustrated by failing to follow, or rebel against counterdependently. Incarnational reality, I think, requires that I be conscious enough of Chronos (extraverted clock-time) to estimate fairly how much Kairos (introverted grace-time) I’ll need to have “banked” to support any endeavor I consider adding to my calendar.
“Are you working toward eliminating aggression at all levels, from the personal to the international?”
Reading reports of the devastation in Louisiana and Alabama from Hurricane Katrina, I’m realizing how hard it is accurately to remember how miserable it was, after Isabel, just to be without electricity for a couple of weeks: how the heat bothered me, and the noise, and the inability to sleep, and the exhaustion, and to some extent a very unaccustomed boredom. When you’re tired and you can’t sleep, and there’s no power for any distractions (reading, music, TV), and lighting candles just increases heat which is already intolerable, the emotions get short-circuited and flame out in anger. Individuals tend to get isolated, too, cut off from normal support systems both physically and via communication links. In the Katrina disaster area, people don’t even have their houses left: herded together in a huge sports arena, they had no cooling, no food, little water, no sanitation for nearly a week. Though Isabel was a hassle for us, our stores got ice and water shipments, we could buy food, and those with gas grills cooked and shared thawing freezer foods for neighbors. We had roads and gas: we could get necessities–or even escape the area, if we were so inclined. Katrina’s refugees have none of that, and have lost not only possessions but family members as well. They must rely on what’s supplied by inadequate and dilatory emergency services, and many of them couldn’t even access that.
My initial reaction when I saw the headline in the paper, “Our Tsunami,” was that it was like comparing some “gang rumble” to the Holocaust: out of all proportion. But as I remember my own experience, I question that knee-jerk judgment. When an individual or community is struck by devastation like that, there isn’t any sense of proportion or history. With no communication, you feel no support from the rest of the world, don’t know of aid that is perhaps being mobilized on your behalf. It’s hard to be conscious of anything beyond your present personal misery: your world shrinks to a black hole devoid of comfort or hope. What strikes me now is that, if and when things do return to what we’re pleased to call “normal,” we forget so fast what it was like to be plunged back to that atavistic Reactive level, where we are helpless and vulnerable to powers we can neither predict nor control nor escape. When neither fight nor flight is feasible, and all your senses reject denial, there’s a sort of paralysis of the decision-making faculties of thought and will: you sink into the catatonic stupor of your absolute abandonment. But that’s not a static condition: if you don’t die of it pretty soon, the whole crisis reaches some sort of nuclear reaction point where an explosion is inevitable. The only question is academic: what form it will take. What may seem at a distance to be irrational outrage is all too understandable when one realizes how much human tragedy could and should have been avoided by evacuation plans including transportation for the aged, the disabled, the institutionalized, those who have no cars or money for gas. As one Friend pointed out, the problems of the poor were not created by Katrina: they’ve been festering for centuries, and now stand pitilessly revealed along with the shocking inadequacy of government assistance. Injustice added to tragedy sparks violence: how can anyone be surprised?
In a “civilized” society such as ours, is aggression the result of primal but largely unconscious urge to try to protect ourselves against disaster? Within our lifetimes and tribal memories most of us, in this country, have been relatively safe from natural disasters and (thus far!) from war and other human-induced catastrophes on our own streets. In recent centuries scientific advances have led us to feel less at the mercy even of disease. Our “defenses” have become more symbolic, and less pragmatic. We’ve clawed our way up the values ladder to the point where somehow symbols of “success” make us feel invulnerable. We brag about our “progress” even while we build bulwarks of trivia to protect ourselves from terror! When we’re caught in this “compound mentality,” what we react against is any prophetic word that our dikes will not hold against the coming deluge; the slightest whiff of consciousness that would reveal the obvious: that all our aggregation of possessions merely gives us more to lose.
Mutant Message Down Under may not be “factual,” but it is certainly a good parable – a challenging alternative to our futile reliance on materialism and technology. I’d be as reluctant as anyone to give up my “mod cons,” starting with water; and this summer’s experience with a leaking roof gave me a tiny taste of what it means to lack adequate shelter. I think it’s “not good” for a people to be fearless, to conceive of ourselves as invincible and invulnerable, because it strips us of empathy and compassion. I think it enables otherwise “normal” human beings to commit, against a designated “enemy,” acts of brutality which would be literally unthinkable if we had not been brain-washed into an utterly artificial we/they dichotomy in which the survival interests of two groups of people are presented as mutually exclusive rather than utterly interdependent. If we have trouble recognizing other humans as part of “us,” how much more difficult is it for us to recognize other creatures–and indeed Earth itself–as peers without whom we cannot survive?
What I know from my own experience is that it has been my times of devastation that have begun to sensitize me (introvert that I am) to the needs and wants of others. And not only in times of distress: in good times we need affirmation, approval, even applause that can bolster our sense of OK-ness, so that when times of disaster come (as they must), we’ll be more psychologically capable of survival.
Part of our collective problem may be that we’ve become so inured to constant doses of “bad news” that we don’t even listen any more. I’ve heard friends comment that they no longer watch or read the news because it’s “too depressing.” So instead of our hearts becoming tenderized, they become insulated and isolated. Under the general rubric that prayer changes the pray-er, what might happen if each of us, instead of turning a deaf ear and a blind eye to the trials and tribulations of our sisters and brothers, were to take even a little time each day consciously to hold in the Light all those situations that are brought to our attention, where Creation in any form is in pain? What if we were to hold ourselves consciously available for God’s use, even for just a moment – I don’t think God requires a huge opening! – and be willing to be shown what we can do? What part of the Great Work “belongs” to me, individually; what can I do this day to collaborate with what Holy Unity is already doing in the situation? Some days, maybe most days, all that’s required or possible is the moment, the intention. In human terms, it may take a really long time of increasing willingness for me to become fit to be used: for my eyes and ears to be opened enough to get the message. We’re not being asked – and we’ve been promised that we won’t be asked – for more than we’re able and willing to give.
So my prayer, and my intent as I make the dozens of choices involved in my daily activities, is to become more tender, more available, more willing, and more conscious of how Holy Unity might use those choices to teach me to “weep with those who weep, and rejoice with those who rejoice.”
Jean Jones Andersen
by WebPost | Sep 16, 2005 | Archive, Writings - RFM
Responding to
The Baltimore Yearly Meeting
9th Month Query
by Ron Lee, RFM Ministry and Worship Committee
Do you promote social justice and make your life a testimony to fair dealing?
The growth I am currently experiencing with this area relates to feeling the need to be more thorough in my thoughts, words, and deeds. I give financial support to organizations that advocate for social justice and I strive to “live simply, that others might be able to simply live”. One of my principal concerns is about the amount of resources that we consume as American citizens, as compared to the rest of the world. In our home life, we are currently taking an inventory of the number of things that we acquire, in excess of what we really need. We are also striving to support businesses and vendors that practice fairness in hiring, compensation, and treatment of employees. It has been rewarding to take time to worship on these ideas, and to lay out concrete actions to promote social justice. These are simple actions that could have a great impact if the numbers of practitioners were to grow. Write letters to legislators encouraging the support of laws to increase fairness and social justice. Write letters to businesses that commit offenses against social justice and appeal to the leadership to review their practices. Notify businesses and organizations that you are avoiding spending money with them, if they are committing offenses against social justice. My deeper involvement in RFM has enhanced my awareness of resources for social action, within and outside of Meeting.
Do you seek to understand and appreciate differing cultures and social values?
If this query were an academic class, I would like to believe that I have an advanced placement. By personality trait, I have always been enthralled and fascinated with those who are most different from me, socially and culturally. I think it is a blessing and a source of my fascination with the diversity in the global village. Despite the smugness of that tidbit of personal revelation, I do realize that I am still growing in this area. Being a person of color and a gay person, I want to believe that I am completely steeped in tolerance and acceptances of varying cultures and social values. However, my prevailing condition (human) can lead me to indulge in fear of the other. My current exercise with cultural tolerance is related to the Neo-Conservative/Religious movement in politics, which feels focused on devaluing my personal existence. I have been coping by creating a journal of Forgiveness and Understanding. In this journal I write the names of people who are advocating for discrimination, hurt, and divisiveness. I also write letters of forgiveness, with the intent being to seek the light in that person, with no plan actually to send the letters. I do believe that there is that of God in people that I do not agree with, in those who scare me.
Do you support fair treatment of all regardless of race, gender, age and other differences?
I strive to live in this truth by preparing myself to speak up whenever I hear statements indicating unfair treatment. This can be as simple as letting my relative or co-worker know that they are inflicting harm by making a race, gender, or age related joke. I don’t believe that there is any such thing as harmless jokes, when it comes to hurtful thoughts about race, gender, age or other differences. I like to speak up in my calm and caring voice. I also like the concept of celebrating diversity.
I believe that nature proves this truth in so many realms beyond the human experience. I also believe that diversity is the source of our spiritual strength in Friends’ Meeting.
Are you concerned for those in our society who are disadvantaged?
I would like to think that I am off the hook on this one since I worked as social worker/public servant for 15 years. However genuine my intent, though, I don’t take it for granted that my employment experience can be the full measure of my care for those less fortunate. I am going to take the personality default again, and say that I have always loved helping others. I truly get a thrill from being there for someone in trying to get to where they want to go. I could surely do more. I strive to grow my concern for the disadvantaged by expanding my awareness of how my life-style may adversely affect others. Once again, back to living simply, that others may simply live. I must work harder to drive my car less. I need to say “yes” to more cries for help. The odd thing about this awareness is that I have previous experience to prove that giving more and taking less brings greater joy. Some my best lessons on joy came from my previous social work clients. People with nothing left to lose are often able to find more joy in conversation, fellowship, and the ministry of presence.
Do you take your full share of civic responsibility by voting and giving service?
I have always enjoyed my right to vote. I give moderate attention to lesser elections on the local level, but am seeking to improve on this, as I grow more involved with issues in my local community. My current effort in taking full civic responsibility comes in the form of participating on neighborhood teams and writing to my government representatives. In the coming year I have plans to become more active in Friends’ organizations that strive to effect positive social change. I have a great interest in Friends’ social action processes.
Do you oppose the use of land, labor, technology and capital for human exploitation or in ways destructive to other living things?
I grew up in a rural area of Virginia and hold great respect for the land, as a resource and as a place of beauty and wonder. I strongly oppose over-development, urban sprawl, and human exploitation. The news constantly covers so-called immigrant programs, referring to fellow human beings as if they are pests invading our land. The real issue is our culture’s demand for the cheap labor that is deemed necessary for the development and expansion of our excessive consumption. In our daily home and work life, we strive to avoid pollution, waste, and exploitation, by making mindful decisions. We apply this line of thought to our choice of where to live, where to work, and what to buy. Lately we are using much care in selecting grocery purchases, trying to buy as much locally produced goods as possible. I believe that small cumulative efforts can begin to reverse the trends of overusing natural resources.