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I am restless these days, and less able to create the sustained attention in silence that we liberal Quakers enter for worship--that is, waiting on God in a silent meeting, drawing close in community focus. Occasionally there is a message for me or through me to others, and faithfully, I stand to deliver it.
I am restless these days, and find it easier to focus in small groups than in the large weekly meetings. I'm in two small groups: Experiment with Light and Building Beloved Community. Experiment with Light was created by Rex Ambler, a British Quaker. In the experiment, worship is guided so that we each isolate a concern to focus on amid the many we carry; we focus on it and interrogate it in stages; then find a phrase or image that helps us each move forward with solutions or with more clarity. Those of us who wish to, share what came to us during the guided worship.
Building Beloved Community was first a group called Dismantling Systemic Racism. We function as a support group rather than a worship group, though silence is one of our tools. Early on we realized that all our verbs and terms were negative, and so we changed our name from Dismantling to Building, Building Beloved Community. We want to see how positive framing adds to our understanding and ability to change. We come with our stories and experiences of moments when we are racist or witness racism (with or without intervening). We discuss both to understand and to find appropriate and positive follow up if any is possible.
I am a Jewish Pagan Christian Quaker, a fluid identity that grew over time. As a child I was at home in the woods of the Northeastern USA where I felt the friendship of trees, plants and small animals. In the woods, I felt protected, and I made sense of many nursery rhymes, fairy tales, and myths. Next, I lived my father's Judaism for a while, in love with the language and the holidays. My family celebrated Easter, Passover, Channukah, and Christmas, and I absorbed the stories. Eco-feminist circles of belonging to Gaia and planet earth followed. I participated in circles of drumming and ritual that some call Wicca.
When one day I felt the guidance of God through Jesus, it grew in these rich fields of experience. I experienced it first at the Women's Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice back in the early 1980s. I had met Quakers there for the first time, and came to admire their steadiness in the face of controversy. Controversies included whether or not, and how, to accommodate men and boys, whether to hang the American flag of military fame, and how to stop the erasure of each others' beliefs when it came to pentacles and crosses. The challenge was to learn how to accept each others beliefs. I started attending Quaker Meeting and took workshops in Alternatives to Violence. It became clear to me that the Quaker peace testimony comes from the belief that God is in every human being, a truth implied in all the religions I've experienced. I recognized that my studies and life work were based on true leadings from God, and I began to seek this clarity in decision making and meeting for worship.
Since the Women's Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice, my vision of Beloved Community has grown to include most peoples of the earth. I often ask myself "What would Jesus do?" This practice helps to stop my racing brain from impulsive responses stemming from old learned patterns. To me, the church is not a place, but a people. The doors are open.
Open Door Vignettes
