B-more Seeking in Richmond

Interbranch communication and liberal Friends—what do we get out of it?

LauraG — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 20:49:15 +0000

So, it looks like I won’t be able to make it to the inter-branch Young Adult Friends Gathering in Wichita in a month, mostly because of financial considerations. But in considering whether to go, I’ve been thinking more about what I, and perhaps by extension some other liberal Friends, get out of interbranch dialogue and community.

For me, the primary benefit of interbranch gatherings such as the Wichita one is that I learn about new (to me) ways to find, deepen, and practice relationship with God and other Friends. The first time I attended a semi-programmed Meeting for Worship (at an intentionally somewhat “cross-branch” FLGBTQC Midwinter Gathering near Greensboro), I experienced how some programming is helpful for me in being prepared to center and listen during waiting worship. I have friends for whom being around Quakers who are explicit in naming their understanding of God was liberatory for them in being able to name their own understandings more publicly. And on a much more practical note, it’s helpful for me as someone who has tried at times to build local young adult Friends community to talk with folks about their successes and struggles (and since there’s been a limited number of local liberal Quaker young adult groups in recent years, getting together with other branches gives me a wider pool from which to learn).

Learning is not, however, the only benefit of interbranch gatherings for me. I think liberal Quakerism has a lot to teach other Friends, and I crave opportunities to demonstrate through my faith and actions some of the stuff we do right (IMHO). I’ve had a Friend from another branch of Quakerism tell me that my example of talking openly about ways I struggle in my faith and fall down in my life prompted them to reexamine how they feel pressured to present themselves in their church, and how they could shift the atmosphere to be more open to such struggles. And I’d like to believe that when folks get to be in community with me, if only for a weekend, and to talk with me about faith and activism and all the stuff we have in common, they are more able to picture* being a part of a faith community where queer people are full participants without apology.

I’m certainly not arguing that all liberal Friends should make attending interbranch gatherings their top priority in life—there’s a lot we all “should” be doing, and not possibly enough time/energy/money to do it all—but I’m very glad the Wichita gathering is happening, will be praying for its fruitfulness, and will look forward to hearing reports back. Learning from and being in community with more people doesn’t weaken us or make us less who we are; rather, gives us more tools to become the best possible version (or, rather, versions) of ourselves.

* Or, considering that most folks who come to interbranch gatherings are already somewhat liberal with regard to participation of queer people, become more convinced of the need to move their meetings/churches into a public position of being welcoming.

Meeting as imaginary community

LauraG — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 12:42:12 +0000

I was talking this weekend with some other young adult Quakers and the topic of our Meeting memberships/attendance came up (as it does often). I’ve been attending Meeting here in Richmond off-and-on for about two years and regularly for almost a year, but my Baltimore meeting still feels like my spiritual home and is where my membership resides, despite that I haven’t lived in Baltimore in about three years. The problem is that I think it’s an imaginary version of that Meeting that I think of as my spiritual home, not that Meeting as it really exists or even really existed when I lived in Baltimore.

All of us obviously imbue everything in our lives with different meanings and identities depending on our particular lens, but I think it is particularly easy for different folks to see our Meetings in radically varying ways, for our imaginary Meetings to have very little in common, because we spend so little time with Meeting folks and doing Meeting activities compared to the significance of our Meetings in (many of) our self-definitions, spiritual lives, and hopes/fears. With just an hour of week of worship, plus perhaps an hour of social time and another hour or two doing Meeting work in committees, most of us don’t actually have a ton of data points on which to base our various judgments and pronouncements about whether folks in the Meeting are interested in spiritual friendships, want to challenge themselves on their privileges, etc. It’s easy to create an image of the Meeting in our heads that may not look much like fellow Meeting members/attenders’ images.

I’m not sure there’s anything I can or should do about the fact that my “spiritual home” is with an imaginary Meeting community that may be quite different from other folks in the Meeting’s imaginary Meeting communities (and that many of the folks who I was closest to are no longer attending that Meeting), but it feels a little awkward, particularly when reality intrudes. For example, my Meeting just made a decision that I don’t know anything about or understand, which makes sense since I wasn’t there to go through the process with my community. Or when I talk to people and they have a radically different vision of the Meeting than me.

And this is not to even get into the main problem, which is that it’s difficult to form spiritual friendships and mutual accountability with people and an institution you never see.

An “urban” Friend?

LauraG — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 22:05:47 +0000

A few weeks ago, I joined a facebook group called “Urban Anabaptists and Quakers.” I did so because the tension between Quakerism as I at least believe it was practiced for much of its history in parts of the United States–tight-knit communities of Friends who were perhaps the majority of the population in their little section of farmland–and Quakerism as a minority religion of individuals in highly transitory urban areas–is something that I think haunts many of our contemporary struggles within at least liberal Quakerism. While we often talk about the very earliest Friends as our role models, when we bemoan the loss of community, mutual accountability, and mutual aid it within liberal Quakerism it feels to me that we are often consciously or unconsciously hearkening back more to the quietist period and strains within Quakerism, rather than to those earliest Friends. On some level, we’re aware of the challenges introduced by being essentially urban, but rather than embracing this challenge and envisioning/experimenting with how to build uniquely urban types of community, we’ve either thrown up our hands and given up or sought through physically proximate housing, shared meals, etc. to re-create the same sort of forced community that can exist in rural areas.

All of which is leading me to my real point, which is that the facebook group creator, a self-identified “Urban Friend” Gil G., asked us “What are the key distinctions that set you apart as ‘urban’ (other than living in a city)?“ Neither I nor anyone else answered the question on facebook, but it’s stayed with me these last few weeks.

For me, being an urban Friend is about embracing and seeing as opportunity the fact that we are called to be in the world, albeit not of it. Rather than removing ourselves from the “other” and living, working, and worshiping all with the same set of co-religionists, we are forced to grapple with far more complicated and shifting choices around who is our community, to whom are we mutually responsible and accountable. Yes, this means we often fall down and fail to establish communities of mutual responsibility and accountability with anyone, but the alternative of removing oneself from meaningful interaction with “outsiders” seems almost as bad. And when we are in communities with “outsiders,” the command to be “not of this world” becomes far more of a challenge and a witness–we are challenged to live according to G-d’s will even doing so in concert with those who might have a different understanding of what G-d wants, or even organize their world-view around a different concept.

All of which has ended up seeming awfully arrogant–to make it clear, I totally fail to do any of this well and am describing my ideal type of an urban Friend, not urban Friends as we really exist. And without the example of rural and/or cooperatively housed Friends and fellow travelers, I suspect I would not have the longing for mutual accountability that leads me to envision such an ideal type.

Anyway, if you are an urban Friend, what are the key distinctions that set you apart? If you are a rural Friend, what sets you apart?

What this is about

LauraG — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 12:43:28 +0000

This blog is part of my attempt to be more disciplined and consistent about writing and sharing on topics that are important to me. The content will likely be a mix of my personal journey and my comments about what’s happening in my Quaker communities. Over the last several years my spiritual life has been immeasurably enhanced by Quaker bloggers, who have infuriated, challenged, and most of all inspired me to get serious about faith and community. It seems like it’s time for me to join the conversation.