I've been hesitant to tell my spiritual story through my Quaker experience; partly because so much of my path away from my evangelical worldview and identity has only been intertwined with Quakerism for nine months. And, partly because I am annoyed that in my quest to dis-identify from a religion, I have found a religion. I am also averse to use the word spiritual because it might communicate to non-theists that
they can't identify with my story, even though most non-theists I know
find meaning and purpose in life (which is how I understand spirituality). I also feel tentative about spiritual because it sounds overused and generic to me at times. I think if there was a word that encompassed identity and spirituality, I would feel more comfortable, something like…identuality. There it is: Identuality. My spirituality has long been intertwined with my identity as a pastor and a Christian. Gradually letting go of my pastor-ness and evangelical Christian-ness has yielded a process of redefining and reaffirming my whole self. So much of this metamorphosis has happened over many years, inside and outside of religion, and only recently has it included Quaker thought.
Uncomfortable as I am telling my identuality (I wonder if my new word will get added to the dictionary) story through Quakerism, my experience with the Religious Society of Friends has unexpectedly and profoundly provided the context for me to continue to work this all out for myself. Not just to work it out, but to continue living with intentionality and awareness when it comes to moving forward through life.
Last week I was perusing the books in the Boulder Friends’ library. The library is a small room, but one of the centerpieces of the Meeting House, a wonderful fact considering I am a book nerd. There are a variety of books lining the east, south, and west walls, with a floor to ceiling glass wall on the north side. The library is naturally lit, with sunshine aimed directly at a table in the center of the room. It also serves as the waiting room of shame, for those of us who arrive past 10am and have to wait until 10:15 to enter the Meeting room.
Over the months, a few Friends have helped Bob and me find books that would help us learn more about Quakerism, which has allowed us gluttonous amounts of time in the library. I found a children’s book a couple of weeks ago called What is God? I loved the question proposed in the title. All of my experience/education has taught me to ask, Who is God? In more recent years I have been leaning more toward What is God (and, Is God)? As I looked around last week, paying more attention to the titles on the shelves, I continued to realize why I am finding a home in The Religious Society of Friends. [I should pause here and say that I've been learning that the Boulder Friends Meeting is not representative of American Quakerism in general. Most Quaker Meetings in the U.S. are programmed and/or evangelical in nature. The Meeting we attend is unprogrammed-liberal-universalist in nature, and includes both theists and non-theists. And yes, I know the words liberal and universalist might be loaded words for some readers, but more on that some other time. Mostly, I did not want to misrepresent the majority of Quakers out there].
On the east wall of the the library, I found books on eating local, emotional well-being, cultures of peace, economics, and an entire shelf dedicated to Boulder Friends authors! As I moved toward the south wall, there were numerous books on Quaker history, Quaker practices, and the biographies of Quakers and other peace activists. There were also sections of books on world religions, universalism, spirituality books written by Quakers, personality theory, social commentaries, indigenous peoples, art & literature, aging, death & dying, living simply, peace & war, peaceful careers, religion & philosophy, and children’s books as well. I was enamored by the variety, by so much of life that was included in this collection--and not just from a Quaker point of view.
Books tell me a lot about someone. Aside from my observation that this library reflected Quaker values of "peace, simplicity, equality, community, and integrity," I also noticed that it included authors, stories, and biographies by and about women, and other historically oppressed groups and people. Quaker history has included women from the start; women were not and have never been a problem. They were preachers, leaders, and worked with men in the early Quaker movement. Their stories are on the shelves, not just chapters in a book. In Quaker tradition, women and men are functionally and spiritually equal; women were and are leaders, and don't need a book to explain why that is okay.
The books that are not included in a collection also tell me a lot about someone. I was starkly aware of one particular set of books that did not exist in this library: Books on apologetics. There are no books that painstakingly attempt to prove that the Quaker way is the right way. No books that defend the faith. No books that, point by point and proof text by proof text, trumpet the fallibility of all other religions. Though there are Bibles (and other sacred religious texts), there is not one book on Biblical inerrancy or infallibility.There is no Biblical authority.
When I write the words, there is no Biblical authority, I hear a clamor of voices and see a myriad of faces, I am haunted by a caucaphony of conversations, imagined and real, I've had as I have s...l...o...w...l...y "come out" over the years. Trying to explain why I think the Bible is not the perfect word of God and that Christianity isn't the mono-explanation to everything, has been one of the hardest things I have ever done (sans childbirth, working as a youth pastor in San Diego, depression, and finding a seat on the westbound BV bus after the Broomfield park and ride). This idea of no authority dismantles everything about evangelical Christianity, and perhaps dismantles my good reputation and trustworthy faith in the eyes of others. These are not conversations I have sought out, and I've spent quite a bit of energy avoiding them altogether. Inevitably, the question comes up about where I'm going to church*, and it has gotten increasingly difficult to hem and haw and come up with some disingenuous response and try to divert the conversation to another topic.
*the fact that I don't go to church inevitably leads to questions of why
As I've worked to become an integrated person, living without shame and confident in who I am, being covert about my identuality is no longer an option. I have not yet found the most ideal way to have these conversations, and I often find that when they are had, they come up at awkward times, and I bumble through an explanation that makes me feel like I'm speaking Melmackian. For instance, during my parents' 40th wedding anniversary party, a good family friend and I got into this discussion 10 minutes before I was supposed to emcee for a group of 100 my parents' friends. When my friend asked me about church, and with good intention reassured me that Jesus is not afraid of liberals, stating that it is not about religion, that it's about a relationship with Jesus, I wanted to walk away and avoid revealing my true self. I stopped myself mid-escape-stride and told my friend that I would have this conversation if she was really willing to listen and not bash me. What I wished I said instead of bash, was that I wanted her to listen to me. Really listen. And not listen for holes, and points where she could use the Christian theological framework to attempt to disintegrate my point of view. This kind of conversation often ends up being about the other person's fear and need for self-reassurance than it is about understanding another perspective. She did her best and was more respectful than I expected, and I did my best to explain that I don't think Jesus is the only answer. I don't think she understood, and I think I could have explained it better. Her lack of understanding had nothing to do with intellectual capacity, and everything to do with belief. Most of the time, I don't think there's anything anyone can say to make us see or think differently when our identualities are intertwined with our belief. After talking with my friend, I felt unexpectedly thankful. Thankful that my assumption was wrong about her and that she really seemed to want to understand, and thankful that I didn't walk away from the conversation.
Though I am pining to be more articulate in these conversations, my aim is not to wrangle others out of their own belief system and convince them of mine. In fact, I don't want to. I was at that party, celebrating my parents' marriage, celebrating two people who would, without a doubt tell you that they are who they are because of Jesus in their lives. My parents are amazing people and I would never want to talk Jesus out of their lives, because he is part of their identuality.What I want in these conversations are acceptance and openness, and at the very least, to be able to accept myself when others are uncomfortable with me.
Surprisingly, the dismantling of my
core, defining, foundational personal beliefs, has not bred a crisis. You know, that crisis of faith that so many fret about? The one where the woman who loses her religion goes on a drunken, sex-laden, Christian/Church-hating, loose-morals binge? That crisis where no one recognizes the faithless one anymore, and wonders if she ever really knew Jesus? I never had that kind of crisis. Yes, I have been angry and bitter, and needed to go through those seasons in order to heal and move forward.
For me, the real crisis has been around letting people know the whole me. The
crisis has been in the "coming out," in the telling the truth about myself. The crisis has been in lacking a "defense."I spent years mentoring and being in community with others based on my Christianity. The majority of my undergraduate and graduate education, as well as my first career, were about learning and teaching why my way of living and believing were the best way, learning all the language and apologetic tactics in order to have influential conversations with non-believers, hoping that my life would be example enough to help them change. All of those tactics made sense within my evangelical worldview, and at the time they came from what I perceived as a a genuine and loving place.
As I have been interpreting the world through multiple lenses, seeing things from others' perspectives, and trusting my own vision, the evangelical framework doesn't fit for me anymore, and all of the arguments to prove my that faith is best no longer make sense with an expanded worldview. The crisis for me is knowing that I might be dismissed with descriptors like: relativist, postmodernist, secular humanist, being summarily discredited with tidy labels that help others forget who I am. The crisis is risking that others will think negatively of me, or think I need prayer, or that I am lost, or that the liberals got a hold of me, or that it's Boulder's fault, or perhaps the Debil (read: Devil, as pronounced by Bobby Boucher's mama) did it, or simply have pity or feel bad for me when the reality is I feel more myself than ever.
"I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me. " Hermann Hesse
The nature of the Religious Society of friends is not about proving anything: the existence of God, the rightness of Quaker belief, the wrongness of everyone else’s beliefs, or anything along the lines of "we have the answer, the best theology/exegesis/hermeneutics, and the rest of you are misinformed and lost." I continue to learn that Friends are staunch respecters of my process, my perspective, my intellect, and my experience.
I just read a story about a conversation that happened between the Quaker founder, George Fox, and a Quaker convert, William Penn (the William Pennsylvania Penn). Early Quakers were rabble rousers and quite divergent from traditional Christian practice in their day. In fact, they were much more "in your face" than modern Quakers--they would tell you you're wrong, and their way is the right way, then slam a volleyball into your face (see last post). Their aggressive proselytizing is an embarrassing piece of history for today's Quakers because it is so different than the way they have lived for most of their history. In Fox's time, Quakers were spreading the word around London that every person could know the Divine and define it for themselves. This greatly disturbed the powerful Church, it was the 1600s after all, and Quakers were routinely arrested because of their views.
William Penn was seriously considering joining the Quakers, but did not want to stop wearing his sword. Remember, it was the 1600s; wearing a sword was like carrying a cell phone. Quakers were non-violent and swords were incongruent with their way of life. Penn's sword had saved his life at one point and he was struggling to let it go. He shared this concern with George Fox, who responded: “Wear it as long as you can.” Not long afterward, when they met again, Penn did not have his sword, and Fox asked him where it was. Penn replied, “I wore it as long as I could.”
Quoting directly from Being a Quaker:
‘Wear it as long as you can’ is advice still offered by Quakers. Old ways are hard to give up, but if we accept the difficulty and live with it, we discover—sometimes after many years—an ability to move on. We incorporate the change by finding it increasingly impossible to live in any other way…By wearing much loved religious practices as long as we can, we give it the respect it needs before discovering little by little, the capacity to let it go.
That quote, and the library, in a nutshell are why I keep returning to Quaker thought as I let go and move forward. I don’t have to hate or demean my past identity. And, I did indeed, "wear it as long as I could." It has taken many years to shed my evangelical wardrobe. In the letting go, I have learned that I am still me at the core. Evangelical belief fit me well for a long time; it suited me. In many ways it made me who I am today. Who I am today continues to grow and change. The Quaker Way has allowed me to continue to become myself without having to consent to a correct set of values, worldview, or theology. For me, this is a big deal. It is the story I continue to write.
