I appreciate your comments.

I’ve been following the “convergent Friends” conversations for most of this year, printing out pieces, making notes, drafting comments…and waiting for the leading to write. This piece arises from that waiting.

The matter of stereotyping is a crucial one. It occurred to me recently that stereotyping had to have evolved as a pre-human survival technique.

The quickest way for an animal to recognize safe (“my clan”) versus possibly unsafe (“not my clan”) individuals, in time for the fight-or-flight response, would be to have an almost instantaneous response to a few cues of similarity/dissimilarity (sort of like the face recognition response described in Walhydra’s “The Virgin of Hollywood, Florida“).

But here we are, human beings, trying our best to care for each other through the means of Quaker faith and practice. A “tooth and claw” survival response, operating unrelectively at the visceral level, is not the best to which the Light can lead us.

So…how do we do this?

Somewhere in one of your own comments on Zach’s blog, you wrote about the difference between the sometimes ruthless (my word) interactions on the blogosphere, contrasted with the loving acceptance you experience face to face in Quaker Meeting—even from folks who don’t necessarily agree with you.

That is obviously a key cue for all of us. We need always to behave online as if we were face-to-face.

Walhydra has a line inspired by years of observing hubby Jim argue with fundies on the AOL message boards: “In cyberspace, no one can hear you reason.”

I don’t think it has to be that way…and I’m glad that the Quakosphere is aspiring to something higher.

You help that process.

Thank you,
Michael

I think I almost appreciate as much your thoughtful synthesis of different Quaker blog threads as I do your exploration of your own evolving understandings.

I’m struck by your phrase about your membership in a meeting in which you found both “weightiness and diversity. In retrospect I know that the members range from Christocentric to Nontheist.” I think that one of the more persistent and (I think) pernicious ideas about Christ-centered and other Friends is that non-Christian Quakers are heedless lightweights, running amok in local meetings which provide no meaningful eldering or oversight.

That’s not been my experience, as a non-Christian Friend from another very diverse and (I think) spiritually weighty meeting.

Sometimes I have to work very hard not to respond on every blog in which I hear such things said–especially since the quote from me that ran in the religious wire service. Just the fact that I claim to be a Quaker and a Pagan, and said so to a reporter, clearly convinced some Friends that they knew all they needed to know to sit in judgment on me. Harumph!

But knee-jerk responses don’t promote growth when they come from me, either, and I realize that Christ-centered Quakers are wrestling with their own feelings of discomfort–that they won’t even recognize the Religious Society of Friends in a few years… or that simply saying the word “Jesus” will get them judged, too, as narrow minded and intolerant.

We’ve got some nice stereotypes developing, that’s for sure. Non-Christian = fluffy and self-absorbed Quaker with no regard for Quaker process or corporate discernment… Christian = rigid and narrow-minded Quaker who wants to toss out those who don’t agree with their interpretations of Scripture and/or Quaker history.

There’s some basis to both stereotypes, but plenty of distortion. And Richard M’s advice is probably the best I’ve heard on the subject:

“All the advice I can offer is for Friends to be brave. If someone’s language feels like a slap, turn the other cheek and try to respond lovingly to this Friend. Listen to them carefully for signs that Love speaks back through them.”

It’s hard to stay open and loving as we listen, here in the blogosphere, to one another. But with brave models (like Zach, often, and you, especially here) I think it’s possible. And lately, I know that Friends I love and trust in the 3-D world have been commenting on how productive the discussions in the Quaker blogosphere have been of late–that differences that can be so hard to see beyond do seem to melt away around a common experience, even when it’s so hard to find words we can all hear together for that experience. So the word is getting out: the open-hearted writing going on in blogs like this really is helping us open to one another.

Gotta believe that’s what Spirit–by whatever name–is looking for among us…

Sorry to get wordy like this! With the school year back in swing, there’s so little time to write. I guess, the one night I get a chance, I get carried away.

Peace.