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Waiting worship
alpha and omega
are not
yet completion
because
there is a
huge
gap
in the middle.
the life which spills
from the wound
does not satisfy
but increases
our hunger.
therefore
we are not ready
to eat
at that table.
instead
we want to
dance.
dancing hungry
is
sometimes
better than
eating
another man’s
bread.
if we
sat in the trees
and waited
perhaps
manna would fall.
even so
it would taste
stale
and dissolve into
rust
on our tongues.
so
we go on
dancing.
not joining
the table
even though
we
dearly love
the
host.
Two simple metaphors to enrich the meta-conversation about faith and practice across the boundaries of religious language.
In the first, Hystery on Plainly Pagan writes about why she “resists theism”:
For me, what some might call “God” is that which is both intimately real and even commonplace and wholly Other and Ineffable. If I use the word “God”, people think I mean what I do not mean.
The butterfly is pinned and people think I mean wings and legs and antennae when what I meant was flutter and delight and tenderness.
The essence of the butterfly cannot be pinned. The Essence of the Divine also cannot be described. To me, this is the real meaning of idolatry, to settle one’s faith in any given word or concept.
In the second, Siegfried Goodfellow crafts a tale called “Trickster and the Tree” on Heathen Ranter. Here is a piece of that tale:
So Trickster was out and about walking through the world of people as he often did, and he came upon a group of people in a meadow, and he went up to one person and he said, “Would you like to know what kind of tree the world hangs in?” And the man naturally curious wanted to know, and Trickster told him, “It is an ash tree in which the world hangs”. The man was interested, and Trickster then went on to the next man and asked, “Do you know what kind of tree the world hangs in?”. The man asked, “What kind of tree is that?” And Trickster said, “It is the yew tree,” and then went on his way and found a third man, and said, “Do you know what kind of tree the world hangs in?”, and the man asked, “What?”, and Trickster said, “It is a giant ficus tree.”
Then Trickster just laid down on his side in the sun beneath the lazy shady tree and watched the events unfold…
Be sure to read both blog posts in their entirety. They have much to say.
And so it is.
Blessèd be,
Michael
Note: I deleted an earlier version of this post (see comment on “Apology to Quaker Quaker and its host”).
In recent years I’ve been reading and corresponding with a whole spectrum of individual Quaker bloggers, folks who share, in their own posts and in their comments on each other’s posts, an on-going meta-conversation about Quaker faith and practice across the boundaries of religious language.
These Friends write about their efforts to do something highly peculiar: to self-identify as Evangelical Christians or Universalist Christians or Jews or Pagans or Buddhists or Nontheists, and yet to say, “Clearly we are all Friends sitting in the same Circle.”
Coinciding with this meta-conversation is a growing enthusiasm (I use that word in its original sense, “inspired by god”) among people who have come to identify themselves as “Convergent Friends.”
For a while I mistook the Convergent movement as being identical with the larger meta-conversation. I hope I now have a fairer and more accurate appreciation for Convergent Friends as a movement within Christianity.
I’ve been helped by looking at the Convergent Friends blog hosted by C. Wess Daniels, and, in particular, by reading Daniels’ article, “Convergent Friends: Passing on the Faith in the Postmodern World” (originally published in the July/August 2006 issue of Friends United Meeting’s Quaker Life).
As a child of at least ten generations of German Lutherans on both sides, I have Christianity “in my genes.” It is my “native religion” and my “native religious language.”
I can well remember times of spiritual and emotional excitement with other Christians. I have experienced from the inside that powerful sense of coming home to something new, one’s own religion rediscovered, reinvented and reinvested in as a living faith and practice.
“The empty day” speaks from the heart of that homecoming experience.
Given the centrality of Jesus in my life, I appreciate and lift up the experience of Convergent Friends. I welcome what they are giving witness to.
However, as I’ve written elsewhere, by the time I reached Lutheran seminary myself in the early 1970s, the Christ had shown me a larger circle. It is one with him as the center, yet with an infinite circumference.
This circle includes all people of faith—including secular faiths which do not call themselves faiths. What centers us is that Unnameable which confronts us with the kinship of all people, all beings.
When I became convinced as a Friend, I again experienced from the inside that powerful sense of coming home to something new. I found a communion of practical faith and practice, intent upon nurturing kinship above belief.
In the previous post, I shared some gentle guidance from other Friends about transcending the imaginary boundary between “Christians” and “non-Christians.”
What this age needs more than anything is genuine, kinship-centered conversation and communion across that boundary.
I am neither a Christian nor a non-Christian. I am in between.
In between is a comfortable, blessèd place, because God is there. In between is where Jesus lives, both as a historical man and as a son of God. This I know experimentally.
The traditional Christian metaphor is that the Christ reigns from within the walls of the Holy City.
Jesus, however, lives out here in the present, in between, with the dogs and the sorcerers (Revelation 22:15).
And so it is.
Blessèd be,
Michael
Friends,
I have removed my “In between” post.
A correspondent has convinced me that I created an unfair situation by publicly criticizing actions of the host of Quaker Quaker without giving the specifics which would have allowed a response.
I was engaging in a self-deception, pretending to be writing about a general situation.
I apologize.
Michael
Within the past few weeks, I have witnessed too many cases of misunderstanding and hurt feelings over language and the unreadiness to listen beyond language.
Overtly, the struggles are framed as being between “non-Christians” and “Christians,” between “secular” and “religious,” between “liberal” and “orthodox.”
They are framed as being over who has been hurtful, disrespectful, hostile or even exclusionary toward whom.
The sad irony is that all of these people are passionate about lifting up loving kinship as the highest principle for human behavior—whether it is framed in terms of humanistic ethics or of divinely established covenants.
We stumble.
We each have our own private languages for naming to ourselves what we believe.
We gather, when we can, with others who seem to share that same language.
We attempt to extend our kinship boundaries to still others, who share our passion for loving kinship, though they seem to speak a different language.
We stumble again.
Our differing languages get in the way. They get in the way because they are not about the present. They are about where we came from, what we believe blessed us, what we believe hurt us.
We react to languages and labels and categories, instead of to individuals.
Then, even in our attempts to make peace or to confront unthinking hurtfulness, we find that our languages, our labels and our categories interpose themselves between us.
Here are two “spoken ministries” for listening beyond language.
The first is from Hystery, posted recently on her Plainly Pagan blog:
Here are some questions for Christian Friends
1. Is this person a non-Christian? If so, do they have a Christian background or do they come to us from an entirely different spiritual or philosophical background? Do I truly know enough about their background to make judgments about their intentions?
2. If this person is a former Christian, do I know why they now no longer call themselves Christian? Which Christian perspective (out of the multitudes) is in their past and how does that affect their relationship to christ-centered language? Was their experience with their version of Christianity predominantly positive or negative? What care and sensitivity does this individual require to encourage their best gift of love?
Here are some questions for non-Christian Friends
1. When you hear Christian language, are you overlaying your own frustrations with judgmental Christians onto your interpretation of the current speaker’s words? Can you take the time to hear this speaker as a precious individual ? Are you remembering that there are many Christian perspectives or are you making stereotyping judgments?
2. How familiar are you with scriptural language as it is often used by Friends? Can you make better interpretations of their meaning if you delve more deeply into this poetic language as a foundational aspect of historical Friends’ witness or are you confusing this language with the usage of Christian language from other historical traditions?
For all Friends encountering someone whose background differs from your own
1. Can you, like the Native American man who was moved by John Woolman’s ministry, hear where their words come from? Can you discern kindness and good intention in this speaker even when their words offend or confuse? ( William Penn said, “Men are to be judged by their likeness to Christ, rather than their notions of Christ.”)
2. Do you really want to injure or reject this person before you who wants to belong in your society and who has exposed their difference to you in trust?
The second “spoken ministry” is from Wendiferous, who does not blog but sends marvelous, loving emails to practically everyone on the planet:
I confess, I enjoy experimenting with loving my enemies. I plumb my heart for enemies to love.
And, I don’t say (when asked) whether or not I’m Christian. I say: “That’s for you to figure out.”
And so it is.
Blessèd be,
Michael
