March 23, 2009

My nudges toward faithfulness often come in prayer. They may spring from a psalm or another bit of the reading or may arrive unbidden. The call may be as simple as ‘he only has thee’ or very precise.  Either way it dangles in my soul reshaping itself, an amoeba always the same and always different, ultimately changing the lens through which I look at the world around me.  Sometimes the tiny nub grows into a profuse forest of undergrowth and brambles and I am lost. Then, frequently during worship, a path opens.  The way forward often seems too silly or too difficult or too removed from my daily life to even contemplate.  Having formed, though, it won’t let go.  Pushed aside, it waits and reemerges.   I am invited to yield.

The idea of submitting is counterintuitive and full of angst for me. Obedience is, though, what God requires. Sometimes I am given a quiet witness, meant to go largely unnoticed. Other times it is a leading that needs to be tested:  traveling under my continuing concern for unity among Friends or my growing concern for traditional Gospel Ministry, opening myself to being a bit more public. Submitting to God is hard; submitting to my to meeting is something I would absolutely avoid left to my own devices but together they bring a gift of witness to full bloom.  It becomes a leading that belongs not to me, but to us.

In a cadence as old as time God whispers—we answer—God whispers—we answer, or not.  God whispers.  I answer.  God whispers.  I answer, or not.  There is no coercion, no impatience.  I answer with the one thing I have—myself.  God murmurs and offers a doorway, a threshold to step through— a place where obedience and faithfulness merge.

"Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you….When you're joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant..” (John 15:4-6 The Message)  —cdw

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February 20, 2009

Meditations:  Musings and Gleanings

John Camm was one of those first Friends eager to spread the Quaker interpretation of the Good News.  With John Audland he founded a number of meetings in Bristol and with Francis Howgill he visited the seat of power in England, Oliver Cromwell the Lord Protector.  Things must have seemed exultant, all nice and crisp around the edges.  Then he felt God’s call to go to Oxford.  Oxford was, of course, the home of the university that trained the clergy that Friends so vocally and vehemently opposed.  Imagine this successful mature farmer standing on a corner in Oxford being taunted and the target of rotten vegetables by a bunch of rich college kids.  It was several weeks before he felt released. I can only imagine that his trip home was a combination of joyous relief and abject failure.  His time in Oxford, unlike his time in Bristol, led to only one person’s convincement—a merchant named Thomas Loe.  Camm died in 1656 so would have had no way of knowing that Thomas Loe later helped an admiral’s son—William Penn—come to Friends’ understanding of the Truth, and so had a hand in the founding of Pennsylvania and the phenomenal growth of Friends in the early years of the colonies.

When we think about those first Friends—the Valiant Sixty—it’s hard to imagine them feeling lost or unsure (they were, after all, by definition brave and fearless). It’s easy to make them cardboard cutouts that we stand against some classic conflict in which the Truth always wins out.  But it cannot have felt that way to them.  Those women and men put their livelihoods and their children’s safety and their lives up to God and said, “Here I am, send me.”  (Isaiah 6:8)

Though times are different, many of us live lives as comfortable as John and Mabel Camm.  Most of us are asked to be faithful in small ways.  Some of us are asked to witness, others to be God’s lips.  Most of us are asked to be God’s hands and to offer up small kindnesses and gifts.  Each day God says, “Whom shall I send?” Each day we answer, not with our words but with our actions. We never know where our faithfulness may lead.     —cdw 

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 December 20, 2008

A meditation:
“… when … the bell rung upon a market-day for a lecture, and it struck at my life; and I was moved to go to the steeple-house. And when I came into it, I found a man speaking; and when I stood among the people the glory and life shined over all and with it I was crowned. And when the priest had done, I spake to him and the people the truth and the light, which let them see all that ever they had done, and of their Teacher within them and how the Lord was come to teach them Himself, and it set them in a flurry and under a rage. And some said I was mad and spake to my outward relations to tie me up, and set them in a rage, but the truth came over all.”  George Fox, Journal Chapter 2

George Fox never seemed to hesitate speaking forthright and bluntly. There is a certain audacity speaking to an audience you know will reject you, a certain gumption to speak in the presence of those who ‘knew you when,’ when you know they will think you’ve gone wacky.  Most of us aren’t called to this witness, but to a more quiet witness of letting our lives preach, of putting in a word or a thought—of sowing seeds and than hoping to be present to water and nurture them as they grow. A different witness, but both, I suppose, are necessary in our jobs as God’s voice.

Dear God, as you call me to share your Truth in my words and in my deeds, help me to find gumption when I need it, and to find gentler words when that is what will open ears and hearts to your experience, and to embrace the wisdom of when to do which. —cdw

November 28, 2008

A meditation:
“Conduct is more convincing than language.” —John Woolman, The Journal of John Woolman Chapter IV, first published in 1774

The Kingdom of God—the experience of God—is here and is now.  That is, if I stop talking about it and start doing it in the day-by-day ways God asks of me. I’m not sure weather its my job as a teacher, or being the oldest child growing up or what, but I’m given to talking about things.  I need to stop talking so much about peace and live peace; stop talking about loving my enemies and start loving them.   I confess when I feel a failure at changing the world (by Tuesday as I said in college) I tend to do less and talk more.  But it’s not my job to be successful at the tasks God gives me, it’s my job to be faithful in doing them.  Dear God, help me put my deeds before my words, to be loyal to your call and devoted to the tasks you put before me whether small or large, silly or serious. —cdw

November 20, 2008:

A meditation: 
Ultimately, I suppose, we are all strangers in strange lands—called away from our culture in fundamental ways. As Friends we’re committed to live close to the Presence and to be open to the call of God’s leadings.  Hard, and often lonely, work that.  Sometimes—even at my age—I wake in the middle of the night, overwhelmed. The sense of myself as a stranger in a strange, strange land is palatable.  I am unworthy. God has made an error in judgment calling me to much of anything.  My inadequacy spills from one area to another—from my spiritual life, to my family life, to my professional life, broken-ness a monotonous throb in my soul. 

After spending a couple of long dry weeks facing my frailty, I come to worship.   I sit, and pray.  I wait.  I open my Bible randomly:

 “I will lift up mine eyes unto the mountains: From whence shall my help come? My help cometh from Jehovah, who made heaven and earth.
He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: He that keepeth thee will not slumber.
Behold, he that keepeth Israel Will neither slumber nor sleep.
Jehovah is thy keeper: Jehovah is thy shade upon thy right hand.
The sun shall not smite thee by day, Nor the moon by night.
Jehovah will keep thee from all evil; He will keep thy soul.
Jehovah will keep thy going out and thy coming in From this time forth and for evermore.  — Psalm 121

Grace abounds.  God abides.  —cdw

October 25, 2008:

“They that love beyond the World,
 cannot be separated by it.
Death cannot kill what never dies.
Nor can Spirits ever be divided
 that love and live in the same Divine Principle…
If Absence be not death, neither is theirs.”
—William Penn, abstracted from Some Fruits of Solitude, 1682

For me one of the biggest proofs that God is a loving Presence in our lives is the gift of our relationships and that, while we may be separated from each other by death, those relationships continue.  While shared experiences end, the affection and caring and learning we’ve come by in relationship continues to nurture us.

Death has ended none of my relationships.  I’ sit with a problem or a decision and from the nether reaches of my soul something my grandfather did, or something my father said will come to me.  When I’m feeling frustrated or misunderstood an expression of my grandmother will pop into my inner vision, or an aunt’s turn of phrase will make me smile.  When I’m feeling put upon the protectiveness of a cousin will embrace me.

And it’s the same with my spiritual family—meeting is full of relationships and learning and nurture that continues from Friends long gone, separated by the seeming impenetrability of death.  Sometimes worship is full of them— full of Betty Gilson’s ministry, didactic and at the same time visceral, and Alan Walker’s wonderful open smile; Dick Hathaway cleaning out his wallet and Corrine Elliot quietly unwrapping a throat.  And now Mike joins that group.  One of my lasting images of her will be, on an early morning one summer when the meetinghouse was only a hole in the ground, driving up and seeing Mike surrounded by a dozen clotheslines strung between the trees full of shingles she had dipped (dipped shingles last significantly longer than painted shingles is something we all learned when we built the meeting house.). Much of her quiet giving, her “Martha,” her theology is wrapped in the image for me.  Her warm care and concern will outlast even the baking she did for us over the last few years. While there was never any doubt that you were being eldered by Mike, it was so tempered with love I was always grateful for it.  So steeped in Quaker tradition, in the Hicksite understanding of life and the world, every conversation with her—every exploration of an issue—was a chance to learn more about Friends' ways.  I’ve learned so much from these Friends.

I don’t know if its psychological or spiritual, normal or a little idiosyncratic, but I’m so grateful, so blessed.  cdw

May 2, 2008

Metaphors, part I

The idea of an ever-present ever-unfolding Divine Pattern in life is, I suppose, a matter of faith. I know this experientially:  a Divine Presence—too big to wrap your mind around connects all things in ways seen and unseen. But how can I think about something as huge and all encompassing as God. There are many metaphors that help me embrace and understand God.  One of them is God the tree—

God is a growing Seed— ever nurturing, ever nourished—bthe most holy part of my life. God, ever growing and expanding, is ever reaching too. Some time ago I carelessly dropped the seeds of a grapefruit into a houseplant next to where I sat. A few weeks later there it grew, a piece of Florida in my wintry dining room. As this grapefruit tree matured it has become an image of that of God in my soul. I didn't ask for it, but there it grew, a gift now more than six feet tall. From the start it seemed destined to flourish, to reach for the sky in its own way. When I forget to water it for a while, it droops and sags. I remember and in minutes it begins to perk. Twice it has become root bound. The leaves have turned yellow, and until I have replanted it in new pot and fresh soil, it languished. When my soul becomes root bound, a new leading takes me to fresh experiences and deeper learning.

Take a leaf from the grapefruit tree and crumble it in your hand—the aroma transports you. Nurtured and watered it grows. Neglect it for a while and it waits patiently. It is much like that of God in me, so much like my soul. When it needs to expand it waits for the call, for the new pot to make it's direction known. Let it alone, give it daily attention. It is a gift —in me, but not of me—not created by me. It's beauty and fragrant leaves are there for the enjoyment, it accepts all love, only needing nurture.

God is a paradox, contradictory images filling needs and leading us in different ways. God is a mystery—staying constantly the same and constantly changing. The Divine is present in our lives when we look, waiting when we don't. Our images of God, our understanding of the Divine, are interconnected and important. God as grapefruit tree grows and spreads its branches and leaves, filling life and leading to growth. The experience of God brings each of us to the brink of joy, of responsibility and of yield. What celebration, what grace it brings to life. Does it make you smile? It should. —cdw   

April 18, 2008

Sanctuary

There is an oft-sung verse at New England Yearly Meeting sessions—sometimes sung boldly in rounds, other times quietly hummed.  Sung in greeting and sung in farewell.  Sung in harmony to the children, whispered to Friends on their departure from sessions.  It is one of my favorites, frequently stuck in my head playing over and over and over.  It's meaning, though, had faded in my mind, like a dried flower, pleasant but without freshness or any brilliant color:

Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary
 Pure and holy, tried and true
 With thanksgiving, I'll be a living
 Sanctuary for You

And than a month or so ago I received an email from a friend whom I love dearly but haven't seen in a long, long time.  He wrote, in part,  " 'Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary.'  I like this.  I will live to this, for this…."

Those sentences caught me.  It happens sometimes when something you know too well is presented unexpectedly, clearly without all the clutter and layers time sometimes creates.  Meaning opens. Significance broadens.  It is a wonderful experience.
 
As I sat with the verse and the notes during my prayer time for several days my friend’s message propelled me beyond the verse echoing in my head. In Exodus God tells Moses to “let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them “(25:8).  It’s a building for God is that is being talked about.  In the last two millennium the physical necessity of a building has changed.  For me it’s part of the good news—we each are a sanctuary.  We are a sanctuary for God.  We are a sanctuary for each other.  Every place is holy, we don’t need to set one aside from all the others.  We each are a child of a loving God who’s presence carries us through the ordeals of life, and offers us the lessons (sometimes sweet, sometimes bitter) we need to learn.

Divine Presence, transform me into a sanctuary that you may dwell within me:

• Allow my communities to take me for granted that they feel safe and know I will be present.
• Make me a place of comfort to my family that they come to me from affection and not obligation.
• Allow me to be strong for my friends that they will seek me out when they are in need.
• Make those folks who don’t like me know that I won’t take advantage of them.  Accept their manipulations and harsh statements about me as my sacrifice to you.

Help me grow into a safe haven for all your children.  Dwell in me, transform me—change me to your likeness, dear God.       —cdw

February 22, 2008

“And… [Elijah] was afraid and arose and ran…into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree…. He lay down and slept...and behold, there was an angel touching him, and he said to him, ‘Arise, eat.’  Then he looked and behold, there was at his head a bread cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. So he ate and drank and lay down again.  The angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, ‘Arise, eat, because the journey is too great for you. So he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to… the mountain of God.’”  1 Kings 19, 3-7

Rush and run and don’t stop.  Our culture can feel like such a merry-go-round of busy-ness, that it becomes trite to mention it.  Often I find myself trapped into worldly ways, trying to do several things at once, and knowing it unlikely that I’ll make anyone happy.  So I try instead to at least make everyone equally unhappy. Silly, isn’t it?  It is one of the traps of the world, one of the challenge in living “in the world and not of it.” Elijah is a good model.  Even fleeing for his life, he rests and is nurtured.  I cannot be faithful to God in hurried-ness.   How often I must learn and relearn and learn again this.  To do God’s work, to be faithful, I must also rest and be nurtured!  Prayer and worship are my juniper tree in the wilderness.  My nurture comes from God.  The intermediaries are the angles of my life— friends and family, students and colleagues.                    —cdw

January 27, 2008

 "I arise today, through the strength of Heaven:
 light of Sun, brilliance of Moon, splendor of Fire,
 speed of Lightning, swiftness of Wind, depth of Sea,
 stability of Earth, firmness of Rock.

 "I arise today, through God's strength to pilot me:
 God's might to uphold me, God's wisdom to guide me,
 God's eye to look before me, God's ear to hear me,
 God's word to speak for me, God's hand to guard me,
 God's way to lie before me, God's shield to protect me,
 God's host to secure me."
—from Fáed Fíada (also known as the Lorica of Saint Patrick or Saint Patrick’s Breastplate)

For some time now, I’ve committed to live close to the Spirit: to make every action a prayer, every word a celebration of God’s presence.  I entrust my being; I surrender to God’s plan. When I began this part of my journey I thought it would be finite—that I would practice some skills, that I would adapt to looking at the world through this lens and than I would be done.  Ha!  I falter all the time.  I backslide, and “yeah, but…” myself and get sidetracked.

I never seem to completely arrive at the destination.  I’m no Brother Lawrence or John Woolman, that’s for certain.  Don’t get me wrong I’ve come to accept it as just what is.  I’m lucky it’s organic, because if there were a final exam—a kind of driver’s test to living in the “Life of the Spirit” I’m sure I’d fail miserably.  In some kind of huge enigma I’ve come to understand the journey is the arrival, walking the path the destination.

Seeking God I need God to show the way (there’s that enigma again).  I need to use my will to surrender my will (and again!)  Each day begins with God knocking on the door or my heart and me responding.  I strive toward faithfulness, sure of the Presence, sure like Patrick, that I am protected, I am nurtured. So each morning, before I put my feet on the floor, I take a moment and know.  I know God’s presence, knocking at the door of my heart.  I know that today I can be faithful.  I know the kingdom of God—the experience of God—is here and now.         —cdw