Today I returned to the Murray Quaker Meeting. I walked into a far more crowded Meeting room than I had ever seen. "How time has wrought change here!" I thought, and wondered how many were visitors.
The Meeting for worship was good. I had been nervous to go. I journaled about the nervousness.
1. Part of it stemmed from the fact that I hadn't seen these Friends for months, and hadn't communicated about why I hadn't been at Meeting. I felt embarrassed. But this hangup seemed only part of the issue, since I knew in my heart of hearts that everyone would simply say "Good to see you!", which they did.
2. I kept writing, and wrote this sentence: "I am afraid to go to Quaker Meeting because I can't pretend to be perfect there." It's true that in most church services, it's pretty easy for me to come off as doing perfectly fine. I can sing, I can read along with a prayer, I can listen to an intelligent sermon and understand it. I can make enjoyable conversation with friends and new acquaintances at coffee hour.
At Quaker Meeting, two things threaten this mirage. The first is the silence. I cannot pretend for an hour of silence in communion with others that I am doing enough to align my life with God's will for me. That idea is untenable after just a few minutes of silence, and certainly dissolves after the first instance of vocal ministry.
Today's ministry brought up such discomfiting subjects as "the seeds of hate" and "power and control - who do I want to control? How can I stand up for those who are being controlled by abusers?" These questions probe deep, and unlike sermons, don't portend to offer solutions or conclusions. These questions linger in the mind and heart all week if not longer. The silence threatens my own perception of my perfection.
The second thing that threatens the mirage is the form of community in Quaker Meetings. It's on us. There is no paid staff to make new people welcome, or to talk to people about what's going on in their lives. We embark on the joyous and unpredictable errand of living in community at the end of the silence. We figure out, together, how to live with those among us that maybe we don't like, or who don't live the way we live.
Once I had enumerated both of these aspects of Quaker Meeting as being the seat of my discomfort, I closed my journal, jumped into the car, and drove with alacrity toward the Meeting house. These very things were the hallmarks of the kind of religious community I wanted to be a part of. Suddenly I was eager to lean into the discomfort they engendered.
I was not the only one led to the Meetinghouse this morning. During the introductions round three groups of people said it was their first time to Quaker worship and that they were navigating "faith transitions" and looking for genuine faith communities where they could feel as though they had something to offer.
It was also a joy to fall back into conversation with (F)riends who I discovered this morning were more dear than I'd realized when I left in January. I heard wonderful accounts of Intermountain Yearly Meetings annual sessions in Ghost Ranch, NM, and am already eager to claim my own place there next year.
Ahab's Wife continues to minister to my spirit with each chapter. Una's spiritual journey includes many turns which my mind's eye has contemplated, even if my mind's feet have not trod it. She seems to me the best kind of Quaker, untethered by the thinking of her time, and ready to let her own experience inform her understanding of the divine and of the world.
Here she takes on both "that of God in everyone" (the inner life) and the silliness of our concept of marriage.
"And suppose the universe itself is but some greater globe where it is possible to travel through rather than on its curving surface. Or suppose that - that we are only on the surface of a dark expanding globe - then where is the journey to the place that is limitless? I find it within. Last night I found it within me - independent and single. No, I do not unmarry Ahab. But I marry myself. I take my fate as within."
She, a woman who is not afraid of love, and who gives her own love without fear of hurt or rejection, finds that her spiritual journey is independent. No matter how a woman is wed to a man, and she and Ahab are wed in what seems indeed a divinely ordained sense, she is still her own being as far as her spiritual journey is concerned.
One aspect of Una I found impressive was her resilience and adaptability. I was surprised, late in the novel, to hear that she considered this a potential fault in herself. Her opinion becomes clear in a conversation that starts with her characteristic deviations into childishly grand statements, which I found endearing and the sign of a confident woman, not afraid to say what was on her mind.
"When we were all dry and changed and the boys had gone outside to play, Mary and I sat beside the hearth and chatted. I felt wonderfully fresh and happy. 'Sconset, I told Mary, was far better in its simple isolation than town with its bustle. I had never lived in a town before Nantucket, and, I claimed, if I had more people about me th an could compose the crew of a ship (about thirty on a whaler), then I grew restless.
'No, Una,' she said, 'you are a person who can adjust to anything. If you prefer 'Sconset, it is only that you choose it.'
Always, I have felt uncomfortable with such a remark - it implies I have no true core, no essence - but I knew Mary did not mean to imply that I was lacking She must have seen the shadow pass over my face, for she reached out and took my hand.
'I meant only that you are always your own true self. Every time I see you I am but more impressed by that.'"
To have friends like Mary! Who can speak so simply and well about a friend's character. I agree with her - Una's strength is that she is herself in every setting. That self is not consistent through the book - do we not all change as we journey? - but it is always genuine.
Nothing could be a proper coda to the splendor of this book. So I'm going to reread Pride and Prejudice next.
The Meeting for worship was good. I had been nervous to go. I journaled about the nervousness. 1. Part of it stemmed from the fact that I hadn't seen these Friends for months, and hadn't communicated about why I hadn't been at Meeting. I felt embarrassed. But this hangup seemed only part of the issue, since I knew in my heart of hearts that everyone would simply say "Good to see you!", which they did.
2. I kept writing, and wrote this sentence: "I am afraid to go to Quaker Meeting because I can't pretend to be perfect there." It's true that in most church services, it's pretty easy for me to come off as doing perfectly fine. I can sing, I can read along with a prayer, I can listen to an intelligent sermon and understand it. I can make enjoyable conversation with friends and new acquaintances at coffee hour.
At Quaker Meeting, two things threaten this mirage. The first is the silence. I cannot pretend for an hour of silence in communion with others that I am doing enough to align my life with God's will for me. That idea is untenable after just a few minutes of silence, and certainly dissolves after the first instance of vocal ministry.
Today's ministry brought up such discomfiting subjects as "the seeds of hate" and "power and control - who do I want to control? How can I stand up for those who are being controlled by abusers?" These questions probe deep, and unlike sermons, don't portend to offer solutions or conclusions. These questions linger in the mind and heart all week if not longer. The silence threatens my own perception of my perfection.
The second thing that threatens the mirage is the form of community in Quaker Meetings. It's on us. There is no paid staff to make new people welcome, or to talk to people about what's going on in their lives. We embark on the joyous and unpredictable errand of living in community at the end of the silence. We figure out, together, how to live with those among us that maybe we don't like, or who don't live the way we live.
Once I had enumerated both of these aspects of Quaker Meeting as being the seat of my discomfort, I closed my journal, jumped into the car, and drove with alacrity toward the Meeting house. These very things were the hallmarks of the kind of religious community I wanted to be a part of. Suddenly I was eager to lean into the discomfort they engendered.
I was not the only one led to the Meetinghouse this morning. During the introductions round three groups of people said it was their first time to Quaker worship and that they were navigating "faith transitions" and looking for genuine faith communities where they could feel as though they had something to offer.
It was also a joy to fall back into conversation with (F)riends who I discovered this morning were more dear than I'd realized when I left in January. I heard wonderful accounts of Intermountain Yearly Meetings annual sessions in Ghost Ranch, NM, and am already eager to claim my own place there next year.
Ahab's Wife continues to minister to my spirit with each chapter. Una's spiritual journey includes many turns which my mind's eye has contemplated, even if my mind's feet have not trod it. She seems to me the best kind of Quaker, untethered by the thinking of her time, and ready to let her own experience inform her understanding of the divine and of the world. Here she takes on both "that of God in everyone" (the inner life) and the silliness of our concept of marriage.
"And suppose the universe itself is but some greater globe where it is possible to travel through rather than on its curving surface. Or suppose that - that we are only on the surface of a dark expanding globe - then where is the journey to the place that is limitless? I find it within. Last night I found it within me - independent and single. No, I do not unmarry Ahab. But I marry myself. I take my fate as within."
She, a woman who is not afraid of love, and who gives her own love without fear of hurt or rejection, finds that her spiritual journey is independent. No matter how a woman is wed to a man, and she and Ahab are wed in what seems indeed a divinely ordained sense, she is still her own being as far as her spiritual journey is concerned.
One aspect of Una I found impressive was her resilience and adaptability. I was surprised, late in the novel, to hear that she considered this a potential fault in herself. Her opinion becomes clear in a conversation that starts with her characteristic deviations into childishly grand statements, which I found endearing and the sign of a confident woman, not afraid to say what was on her mind.
"When we were all dry and changed and the boys had gone outside to play, Mary and I sat beside the hearth and chatted. I felt wonderfully fresh and happy. 'Sconset, I told Mary, was far better in its simple isolation than town with its bustle. I had never lived in a town before Nantucket, and, I claimed, if I had more people about me th an could compose the crew of a ship (about thirty on a whaler), then I grew restless.
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| View from Siasconset ('Sconset) |
Always, I have felt uncomfortable with such a remark - it implies I have no true core, no essence - but I knew Mary did not mean to imply that I was lacking She must have seen the shadow pass over my face, for she reached out and took my hand.
'I meant only that you are always your own true self. Every time I see you I am but more impressed by that.'"
To have friends like Mary! Who can speak so simply and well about a friend's character. I agree with her - Una's strength is that she is herself in every setting. That self is not consistent through the book - do we not all change as we journey? - but it is always genuine.
Nothing could be a proper coda to the splendor of this book. So I'm going to reread Pride and Prejudice next.
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