What happened on Saturday: Extended worship

Extended Worship came to Portland Friends this weekend. This is a traveling ministry started by two New England Yearly Meeting Friends interested in what happens when Spirit's work among us is not cut off at the 58 minute mark in time for announcements. 

How does it work? 

Five times a year, Friends gather to worship for three hours. There is a break for a brown bag lunch, then we reconvene for worship sharing about what our experience of worship was like. 

I'll share two reflections from Saturday. The first is the role hospitality plays at these gatherings. The second is how the inner work and the outer service of a faithful life overlapped on Saturday. 

First, hospitality. 

Jean Zaru was the first Quaker who illustrated the importance of a hospitality ministry. She was clerk of Ramallah Friends Meeting when I was teaching at the Friends School. She cooked frequently for Quaker gatherings at her house. She had an enormous kitchen table and a lovely home which she maintained meticulously for guests. Her meals shared Palestinian culture (I watched her turn out a maqluba, and watched Americans fail to do the same). Her meals allowed friendships to arise, conversations to be had. I had a less lonely experience in Ramallah because of experiences in her warm kitchen. 

Jean said many times she identified with Martha in the story of Mary and Martha, the sister who cooks and cleans instead of sitting at Jesus' feet. Someone has to prepare the food!

Because I'm working part time, I was free on Friday. I had time to make a soup, a pumpkin bread and a batch of apple sauce for Saturday's program. Other brought other lovely offerings. So even though the invitation said "Bring a brown bag" there was lots of food to share. This felt really important. We also set up tables and chairs outside the meeting for our lunch gathering. Where we gather matters, and having food to share on the table matters. I feel very lucky this year to have time and capacity to continue Jean's work!

Second point, about inner and outer work existing side by side. In this case, inner work was out extended worship and particularly rich vocal ministry.  The outer work was direct community support of homeless folks. Here is what I perceived. 

While we were worshipping, the clerk of our homelessness committee got a call from another committee member. One of the unhoused folks who camps in the cemetery behind the Meetinghouse had called in crisis. Another homeless person, a friend of the camper's, had arrived and needed a place to stay. 

Not our cemetery. Google image.

The clerk of our committee wanted to uphold his commitment to the Meeting not to allow additional campers on the property. He also didn't want to leave this woman out in the cold. He brought camping gear from his own home and helped the campers set up the new person in some nearby location, not ours property. 

He then went to Walmart and got tenting supplies for her to use longer term. I learned these details after Meeting on Sunday from the clerk of the committee. 

One point of interest and tension for me is how much energy I should devote to outward acts of service and faithfulness and how much to devote to worship, study, and cultivating inner life. This Saturday showed me that the beauty of our community is that we meet different wordly and inner needs at the same time. While many sat waiting on God, one committee clerk was setting up a tent. Others were elsewhere giving in their divine ways. 

My watercolor sketch

Another gift of Saturday's longer worship: I enjoyed watching the shadows from the windows move across the meeting room in ways I had never perceived before. 

What happened on Sunday: Singing together

Yesterday was the first Sunday when I had care of worship. 

Since the spring I have had several opportunities to hold Care of Worship. At Sessions there was an invitation for people interested in CoW to hold various Meetings and programs in prayer. I volunteered to hold the Bible half hour in worship, and having that role ended up being the best part of Sessions for me. 

I arrived to Bible half hour about 20 minutes early and sat facing the group, eyes closed, holding the container (with other CoWers) so that Friends walked into a held and worshipful space that invited them to sink down.

I have been joining another M&C member in arriving early to Meeting on the weeks they have CoW. But until yesterday I was not in the official role. 

Takeaway: official roles matter. It was qualitatively different for me to know that, although there were many people holding the meeting and holding me in prayer, I was the primary CoW person. 

When I was very young I remember my sister telling me of research that showed that praying for people is more powerful when the people know they're being prayed for. This was true of my experience yesterday. Confusion on Saturday about who was on CoW for Sunday's worship led to a back and forth with all the members of M&C. One result of this was that everyone on M&C was very aware that I had CoW and that it was my first time in that role. I felt very held by the whole committee -- an amazing feeling. I knew people were praying for me and the body. 

Perhaps CoW should always be a team effort?

Let me describe the worship experience. 

The room was full -- hardly any empty chairs. It was raining lightly, and the room felt damp and warm. 

I came into the room at 9:40 and the singing group sang hymns for about 15 minutes. I didn't stand with them but was often drawn into the song, either singing the words I knew or humming the familiar tune. 

It struck me that humming the melody of a song was similar to the role of CoW -- not doing the harmonizing, not even performing the lyrics of the song. But providing the undergirding musical structure that the lyrics and harmonies relied on for musical integrity. 

Silence commenced, and lasted more than thirty minutes, though I wasn't looking at the clock. 

Someone rose and spoke about September 11th and an interfaith gathering of local spiritual leaders that had happened shortly afterward. The end of the message was "Thank God for the leadership, thank God for the courage." 

More silence.

A woman said aloud, "We're still here." For a moment I thought that was the whole message, but then she continued. Her message was poetic and abstract. Eventually it became clear that she was not really giving a message, but was saying a lot on her mind. 

Two members of the Meeting approached her with smiles and care, held her hands, and accompanied and witnessed her in her ongoing mumblings. 

Eventually our Clerk stood and said, "Friends, let's hold this friend in the light. We are all concerned with the state of the world, and we express it in many ways." She sat back down. The woman continued speaking. The clerk then started singing "Dear Friend, Dear Friend, let me tell you how I feel, you have given me such treasure, I love you so." 

The whole meeting joined in, and we sang and hummed this song softly until the woman decided to leave the room. Three Friends followed her out and, we were told at business meeting, got her a glass of water, a cup of coffee which she requested, and bus passes to get to the grocery store. She was a homeless neighbor. 

It was pretty amazing to experience the singing meeting. Not just singing for the normal length of time of a song -- two or three verses. But singing ongoingly, until the purpose of the song had been met. Until God working through us had effected the change in our group needed. 

We had joys and concerns, introductions, announcements, then went downstairs for the best attended potluck before business meeting that I've ever seen at PFM.

What happened on Sunday: Pastoral Care

 Portland Friends organizes faithfulness groups -- clusters of three or four people who get togehter outside of worship to 

- socialize

- build community connection

- be present for and encourage our faithfulness to the guidance of Spirit in our lives

I am new to faithfulness groups. The trio that I'm part of started getting together in May of this year. We try to meet twice a month. I'll use random initials to refer to my faithfulness friends.

Yesterday we met at one of our houses and sat outside. C had made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and brought out a colander of need-to-be-eaten-grapes. A food element makes a huge difference at a gathering like this.  

We have developed a habit of checking in, on items that are new but also on updates from past conversations. During yesterday's check-in E shared about their cat's recent illness and vet visits. It had been a stressful month for E because of the care the cat needed. 

C said, "I'm on the pastoral care committee. It sounds like you could use some support."

We talked about what pastoral care looks like, and how it can be given, or how to signal that it's needed. 

I find it hard to ask for pastoral care. The best case scenario seems to be what C did for E yesterday: noticed a need, and offered to fill it. 

In this way, faithfulness groups, or a small group of people who know my life better than the rest of the Meeting, seems important if our community is to support its members in a substantial and practical sense.

At our past gathering, C had said it's hard to attend the pastoral care committee meetings on Zoom when her toddler is right there with her. I asked if I could come over and offer a sort of "Mother's helper" child care during those meetings. C said yes, and our first session will be on Thursday. 

I'm struck that my being part time at my capitalist job has enabled several community connections in the past few weeks, including this offer to take care of C's child while she does other important community work for the Meeting. 

Community requires time.

Do we need to reference early Friends?

 Recently a Friend said, "I'm get so annoyed when the first sentence of anything references Early Friends and what they did!" Do we have nothing today we can draw on? Nothing since them? 

Beacon Hill Friends Meeting

This resonated with me though I had never thought about it before.

Reading Faith and Practice has been a reminder that modern Friends have rich experience and wisdom. 

In the section on the inward Christ, this quote from Richenda Scott indicates we can experience God through our friendships: 

"Perhaps for many of us, particularly for those of us who are younger, the way to the knowledge of the meaning of Jesus Christ lies through human friendship and affection and love. Then there may come the moment when we are carried out of ourselves, far beyond what we have hitherto known and clung to." 

                            -"Love and Discernment," The Friend, Dec 5 1975.

I find that affection and love is born of vulnerability. And this I found in Beacon Hill Friends Meeting last Sunday where I worshipped after an airport run to Logan. 

The ministry was varied -- it didn't feel like those who spoke were necessarily "touching the same thing," but there was a feeling of sharing what feels profound among f/Friends. 

One person shared that their housemate had put their pet bird to bed the night before, which involved rolling the birdcage into her bedroom. The large old metal cage had four ball caster wheels "which all have different opinions" she told us.  

Sometimes as you push the cage, it doesn't go straight. 

Sometimes it shakes as it rolls.

Sometimes it crashes into the wall despite careful driving. 

And sometimes, it moves smoothly for a few feet.

This is perhaps my favorite kind of ministry, and it relies not at all on references to Early Friends. 

I love stories of how life teaches us when we pay attention.

This cage -- how different is it from my life projects? 

- Reliant on many things going well, not all of which are in my control. 

- Unpredictable in its movements. 

- Sometimes provides a period of smooth sailing which doesn't last more than a few feet. 

- Requires frequent recalibration. 

This was not the only message that felt like something said between friends that would awaken affection and love. Maybe I can rely on this idea of Meeting as a place where we share the food of human friendship: presence, witness, listening and a willingness to see the divine in (sm)all things.