"Do not think time long, nor your sufferings long, for the Lord will lay no more upon you but what you are able to bear; yea, upon his faithful people. I know it, and am a witness for God in all my sufferings and imprisonments, and haling before magistrates about sixty times, about these thirty-six years.
George Fox ala Rex Ambler, again.
I am not a patient girl. I am a twitcher and a fidgeter and a ripper up of napkins. "Wait upon the Lord"? I can barely wait upon the email. Refresh is my favourite command.
I am beginning this post without much of a sense of where it is going, just a sense that I have a post and that little quote from George Fox. And the idea of impatience.
I spend a lot of time waiting, patiently or not. I am good in lines--lines do not bother me. There is knitting or reading or people-watching to be done. I am hardly at a loss to occupy my time in lines. But I spend a lot of time waiting for things to become clear, or to be revealed, or to happen.
Babble. I am impatient with myself and with my slow comprehension, apprehension of whatever bits of the divine are vouchsafed me.
And it's this: I am a Quaker who has a very hard time being still. Often this is not much of a hardship outside of Meeting for Worship. God is on the move and so am I. God is a movable feast, if ever there was such a thing, and no apologies to Hemingway because I've never been to Paris. I have little trouble meeting God on the run. In fact I would say that mostly I experience God as I walk and look out . . . walking in NYC is/was a distillation of that. There is a Presence, and it runs . . . runs through the world, and especially when one can apply a few moments of thought as one goes the Sacramental life sprouts up everywhere, (no waiting) instantly at hand to offer some glimpse of the Divine. But these glimpses of God remain that. I don't feel very far from God because God is always a glance away.
But a communion with God is a little further off.
I am waiting for some Big Things in my life. Events which (it seems from this perch in time) once I finally get to them will change everything, fix most things. My daily challenge and prayer is not to suspend motion until then, to keep living actively without holding my breath, and also not to fill up the interval with noise and nonsense to drown out the wait--to make this time matter, because it's just as real as the time to be, after the Big Things. And my spiritual life echoes the same pattern. I am waiting for some Big Thing to come from God, and it has become clear to me that until it does I am certainly either holding my breath or filling the time with noise, and that is not faithfulness.
"Wait" is a verb, and it lies somewhere in between those two.
Of The Best Stuff, but Cracked
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Loneliness
"The loneliness thou speaks of I know. For do not think, darling, that it is confined to unmarried people. It is just as real in lives that have plenty of human ties, husbands, and children, and friends. It is the loneliness of this world life, the loneliness of hearts that are made for union with God, but have not yet fully realized it. I believe it is inseparable from humanity. I believe God has ordained it in the very nature of things by creating us for God's self alone. . . . Thee will accept it as a God-given blessing meant only to drive thee to God. Thy loneliness is only different in kind but not in fact from the loneliness of every human heart apart from God. Thy circumstances are lonely, but thy loneliness of spirit does not come from these, it is the loneliness of humanity. Therefore, nothing but God can satisfy it."
Hannah Whitall Smith, 1882
Last night nothing could make me sleep. I was staying the night with Pugsley at Jeff's house while Jeff was away at a retreat. Pugsley's dejection when Jeff is away is a terribly pathetic sight. His concept of time is limited. If Jeff is not home for dinner, Jeff is never ever ever coming home. A melancholy dog at the best of times, the pug spent his evening alternately staring imploringly at the door, begging it to let Jeff in, or imploringly at me, begging me to materialize Jeff, and draw him out of whatever hiding place I'd obviously stashed him. So I comforted the pug, who snuggled uncomfortably close to my substitute-for-Jeff form, and I stared at the ceiling, trying to sleep. I remembered believing when I was younger that insomnia meant you were needed, that you were being kept awake to pray for someone or something. I tried to pray.
There was a destructive and miserable relationship in my life, long severed, which has been brought into my daily existence again by unavoidable necessity and circumstance. This person injured me grievously, and I still feel the ill effects of that time in my life deeply and daily. They've simply been raised to the forefront of my consciousness and kept there, and can not longer be repressed at will (as they have been for years). All this time, I've hated them--not a big angry burning hatred, but a small, cold, quiet hatred, an almost invisible hatred--one that could pass most times for mere indifference.
But other times, I've accidentally found myself wishing this person dead, not through any direct malice, but just because I wish I could have the weight of them off my soul. I've repented immediately, but the evil thoughts have left their mark on my heart.
"Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him."
1 John 3:15
There have been times when I've been able to forgive a little bit, and times when the hatred softens and gives way a little bit. I pray about it when I'm able.
Last night I was given the gift of prayer, and I was able to pray for this person with sincerity, and that was good, and my hate receded again, further than it ever has before. I prayed that they would find healing and guidance and love, and I meant it.
Today I received a communication from them, which along with the necessary business contained an admission of their pain and their guilt regarding this history. And as soon as I was done reading it (it was very short) I instantly felt such a sadness that I thought my bones might break.
There can be no reconciliation with safety--the best to be hoped for in this case is a quiet absence of hate and a quiet hope for their well-being. But once upon a time this person, capable of such destruction and malice and fury, was the person I held nearest to my heart, the person all of my hopes and prayers were for, even as the abuse mounted. The whole affair was misguided and ill-directed and blighted and should never, ever have taken place. It was a terrible time.
I don’t think there are any tears left to be shed over this matter, and soon the immediacy of it will be over and I can lay it by again. But while I am being purged of my hate I am being left with the dregs of some different and painful emotion. Being forced to see your monster as human is to share in God’s own wound, formidably painful.
And I’ve been feeling so lonely since last night, and lonelier since I read that note from them--not because I miss this person--God willing when this present time has passed they will never be in my life again--but I am feeling very lonely. It is almost as if I had stuffed the hole this person made in my life with that quiet gauzy hatred and now that it's being pulled out I'm left with an empty space inside, needing God to fill it.
Hannah Whitall Smith, 1882
Last night nothing could make me sleep. I was staying the night with Pugsley at Jeff's house while Jeff was away at a retreat. Pugsley's dejection when Jeff is away is a terribly pathetic sight. His concept of time is limited. If Jeff is not home for dinner, Jeff is never ever ever coming home. A melancholy dog at the best of times, the pug spent his evening alternately staring imploringly at the door, begging it to let Jeff in, or imploringly at me, begging me to materialize Jeff, and draw him out of whatever hiding place I'd obviously stashed him. So I comforted the pug, who snuggled uncomfortably close to my substitute-for-Jeff form, and I stared at the ceiling, trying to sleep. I remembered believing when I was younger that insomnia meant you were needed, that you were being kept awake to pray for someone or something. I tried to pray.
There was a destructive and miserable relationship in my life, long severed, which has been brought into my daily existence again by unavoidable necessity and circumstance. This person injured me grievously, and I still feel the ill effects of that time in my life deeply and daily. They've simply been raised to the forefront of my consciousness and kept there, and can not longer be repressed at will (as they have been for years). All this time, I've hated them--not a big angry burning hatred, but a small, cold, quiet hatred, an almost invisible hatred--one that could pass most times for mere indifference.
But other times, I've accidentally found myself wishing this person dead, not through any direct malice, but just because I wish I could have the weight of them off my soul. I've repented immediately, but the evil thoughts have left their mark on my heart.
"Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him."
1 John 3:15
There have been times when I've been able to forgive a little bit, and times when the hatred softens and gives way a little bit. I pray about it when I'm able.
Last night I was given the gift of prayer, and I was able to pray for this person with sincerity, and that was good, and my hate receded again, further than it ever has before. I prayed that they would find healing and guidance and love, and I meant it.
Today I received a communication from them, which along with the necessary business contained an admission of their pain and their guilt regarding this history. And as soon as I was done reading it (it was very short) I instantly felt such a sadness that I thought my bones might break.
There can be no reconciliation with safety--the best to be hoped for in this case is a quiet absence of hate and a quiet hope for their well-being. But once upon a time this person, capable of such destruction and malice and fury, was the person I held nearest to my heart, the person all of my hopes and prayers were for, even as the abuse mounted. The whole affair was misguided and ill-directed and blighted and should never, ever have taken place. It was a terrible time.
I don’t think there are any tears left to be shed over this matter, and soon the immediacy of it will be over and I can lay it by again. But while I am being purged of my hate I am being left with the dregs of some different and painful emotion. Being forced to see your monster as human is to share in God’s own wound, formidably painful.
And I’ve been feeling so lonely since last night, and lonelier since I read that note from them--not because I miss this person--God willing when this present time has passed they will never be in my life again--but I am feeling very lonely. It is almost as if I had stuffed the hole this person made in my life with that quiet gauzy hatred and now that it's being pulled out I'm left with an empty space inside, needing God to fill it.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Signing up.
Well, look who's blogging two days in a row? (shock/awe/applause)
For the first time in my two years of Quakerness, I may be feeling a leading stirring to actually commit. A little bit. Perhaps.
I'd been doing a bit of complaining about the lack of leadings in my life.
In the summertime, when I was a kid, my harried mother (needing some quiet-time in a house brimful of children) would push us all out the screen door with a plate of peanut butter sandwiches, latch it, and say "Play in the yard! Entertain yourselves! Unless someone is bleeding or throwing up, I don't want to see you back here 'til supper!"
And beyond that, she would not tell us what we were supposed to be doing. In a way, this freedom was great. While we were outside we weren't being asked "please wash the dishes", "please change a diaper", "please clean your room", "please do four pages in your math workbook". But it was also a little unsettling. After running around the yard a few times, catching ants in the compost pile, lying on the grass until we were covered in grass-prints, and hitting each other with sticks, we would run out of things to do. Then we'd go sit on the porch and look wistfully at the screen door. We'd examine our scratches and pick scabs to see if any of them counted as "bleeding". We'd imagine ourselves into stomache-aches.
I was kind of at this point just a few weeks ago. Like, "God! Please! Give me some homework! I'll load the dishwasher! Just let me inside!"
So then God says, "Fine, then. Why don't you start thinking about membership."
So I am. By the time I'd been at 15th Street long enough to think about joining, I moved. I've been very resistant about joining my current meeting because it's so big. And Big Meetings come with lots of opportunities for grumbling and a bad attitude, so meeting for worship is always an exercise for me, even if I feel I've spent the hour of "silence" listening to a lot of talking and I haven't been able to hear a peep out of God. It's give me a lot of opportunities to see my own shortcomings and petty impatiences and preferences/prejudices. Sometimes I visit another meeting that is not so big, and I really love that meeting. But I live at the Big Meeting. And moving into the third floor of Big Meeting has been an amazing thing. I'd kind of hardened my heart a little against the Big Meeting when I first came to MA. I decided quickly that this was not the kind of meeting I wanted, and I'd attend, but I'd hold out for something better before I signed up.
Living in the middle of the meeting, I've had a lot of fly-on-the-wall experiences, and a lot of conversations, and I've been extremely humbled to see all the powerful things that go on in the Big Meeting, and what life and stirrings of the Spirit there are all week long--that the Meeting is more than the sometimes frustrating First Day MFW. And I've become a part of the community, whether I really intended to or not. And I care about it now as a part of Quakers, and I like helping to take care of it by washing its toilets, so why shouldn't I want to help take care of it in other ways? And, as arose in a deep conversation with Friends last weekend, why shouldn't I let it help take care of me? It's already lending me a physical roof. Why not a spiritual one?
And there's some big message in here about larger connected issues but I don't feel led to plot it all out right now.
I don't think I am quite ready for the clearness committee about becoming a member. I want to think and pray about it with myself first. Sometimes a clearness committee for membership just looks like a welcoming committee, and that's good and important, but I want something a little more searching and testing. After all, I've been waiting and waiting for a leading, and now that I might actually have one, I'd like to do it justice. I want to find out exactly what this leading is asking me to do and if I'm hearing it right. I don't want to join a meeting just because I get a case of the fuzzie-wuzzies at coffee hour one day.
So may I please hear stories from you guys about joining meetings, not joining meetings, and stuff like that?
Thanks.
For the first time in my two years of Quakerness, I may be feeling a leading stirring to actually commit. A little bit. Perhaps.
I'd been doing a bit of complaining about the lack of leadings in my life.
In the summertime, when I was a kid, my harried mother (needing some quiet-time in a house brimful of children) would push us all out the screen door with a plate of peanut butter sandwiches, latch it, and say "Play in the yard! Entertain yourselves! Unless someone is bleeding or throwing up, I don't want to see you back here 'til supper!"
And beyond that, she would not tell us what we were supposed to be doing. In a way, this freedom was great. While we were outside we weren't being asked "please wash the dishes", "please change a diaper", "please clean your room", "please do four pages in your math workbook". But it was also a little unsettling. After running around the yard a few times, catching ants in the compost pile, lying on the grass until we were covered in grass-prints, and hitting each other with sticks, we would run out of things to do. Then we'd go sit on the porch and look wistfully at the screen door. We'd examine our scratches and pick scabs to see if any of them counted as "bleeding". We'd imagine ourselves into stomache-aches.
I was kind of at this point just a few weeks ago. Like, "God! Please! Give me some homework! I'll load the dishwasher! Just let me inside!"
So then God says, "Fine, then. Why don't you start thinking about membership."
So I am. By the time I'd been at 15th Street long enough to think about joining, I moved. I've been very resistant about joining my current meeting because it's so big. And Big Meetings come with lots of opportunities for grumbling and a bad attitude, so meeting for worship is always an exercise for me, even if I feel I've spent the hour of "silence" listening to a lot of talking and I haven't been able to hear a peep out of God. It's give me a lot of opportunities to see my own shortcomings and petty impatiences and preferences/prejudices. Sometimes I visit another meeting that is not so big, and I really love that meeting. But I live at the Big Meeting. And moving into the third floor of Big Meeting has been an amazing thing. I'd kind of hardened my heart a little against the Big Meeting when I first came to MA. I decided quickly that this was not the kind of meeting I wanted, and I'd attend, but I'd hold out for something better before I signed up.
Living in the middle of the meeting, I've had a lot of fly-on-the-wall experiences, and a lot of conversations, and I've been extremely humbled to see all the powerful things that go on in the Big Meeting, and what life and stirrings of the Spirit there are all week long--that the Meeting is more than the sometimes frustrating First Day MFW. And I've become a part of the community, whether I really intended to or not. And I care about it now as a part of Quakers, and I like helping to take care of it by washing its toilets, so why shouldn't I want to help take care of it in other ways? And, as arose in a deep conversation with Friends last weekend, why shouldn't I let it help take care of me? It's already lending me a physical roof. Why not a spiritual one?
And there's some big message in here about larger connected issues but I don't feel led to plot it all out right now.
I don't think I am quite ready for the clearness committee about becoming a member. I want to think and pray about it with myself first. Sometimes a clearness committee for membership just looks like a welcoming committee, and that's good and important, but I want something a little more searching and testing. After all, I've been waiting and waiting for a leading, and now that I might actually have one, I'd like to do it justice. I want to find out exactly what this leading is asking me to do and if I'm hearing it right. I don't want to join a meeting just because I get a case of the fuzzie-wuzzies at coffee hour one day.
So may I please hear stories from you guys about joining meetings, not joining meetings, and stuff like that?
Thanks.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Inner Light. Like, way inner.
Hearken to the light within thee, and it will let thee see the secret places...; and as a prison without thee, so there is a prison within, where the seed of God lies; and as there is a threshing without thee, it will let thee see threshing within thee; chaff without thee, chaff within...
For the Lord hath a seed...if ye in patience all of you wait, and not matter the weather, the storms, the wind, the hail, the rain, when ye are to sow the seed, nor the rough ground that is to be tilled. For the husbandman waits patiently after the seed is sown; there is a winter before the summer comes...
Keep your meetings, and ye will feel the seed of God among you all, though never a word be spoken among you.
George Fox, excerpted by Rex Ambler and then further exerpted by me.
I've been thinking a little bit about "letting your Light shine before all men" and about the differences between my given share(s) of Light at different times. Inner Light Vs. Outer Light. About the Seed that might be rattling around in a prison inside me, or sleeping in frozen ground, or in my hand ready to be broadcast, or sprouting all green and misty...about everything in its season, a time to sow, a time to reap, a time to settle back in an armchair with seed catalogs, a time to blaze and a time to glow, a time to put up firewood and a time to clear away brush...the differences between hibernation or gestation or stagnation.
(There is also a discussion to be had another time about the difference between "The Light" and "The Seed", because I have a feeling they are often confused in people's minds (including my own.) For the purpose of this post when I say "Light" I mean, The Sense of the Presence of God in My Life and the things that go along with it--leadings, learning, growth, inspiration, movement etc.)
But things I am thinking about:
Exhibit A:
The big sparkly campfire of my Light in my first days in Quakerism, where anything was good fuel, when the light would blaze up with every new addition, every new message, every new book, every new idea, roaring and crackling and visible and giving off a great heat and wonderful for making hotdogs and s'mores. It attracted people, and there was a great deal of fun to be had feeding this fire and watching it. It would take a fire hose to put it out.
Exhibit B:
The current state of my Light, which is more like a small glowing ember. I sit close by it and warm my heart over it, and I have to be careful with it--if I heap too much stuff on top, it gets smothered and starts to smoke, and then the smoke gets in my eyes and lungs, and I cough and sputter and can't see, and I have the fear that if I heaped even more stuff on it, it could be put out. If it begins to rain it is necessary that I crouch over it and protect it, or it could be put out. I need to clear away the ash on a regular basis, or again, it could be put out.
If I hold something close to it, that thing may ignite, and will either burn off in a flash or if I am careful and the thing is good fuel, it will start to smolder alongside the first ember and can be added to the fire. I might be able to cook a potato with this fire, but I'd have to wrap the spud up first and bury it with the embers--and be ready to wait a good long time. The glow it gives off is hidden. You need to get really close to experience it.
I am for the most part not disturbed by the change--in many ways is it a natural progression like the one from First Date to Long-Term-Relationship. I do wish that my current light was less fragile, had more of the stability and strength one might expect at this stage, but I think I am learning from the careful tending such a fragile thing requires. My lesson is to stay low and close to the ember, and love it, and wait to learn when and how it's to be used, and guard it, and share its warmth when I can, and not to envy other people's blazes and scorn my own measure of light. I do miss the campfire sometimes--I sometimes wish I was burning brighter and was better able to share my light with others. I don't want to keep the ember under a bushel. I want to make sure that I'm not hoarding it, and that I am open enough that the Spirit can blow it into flame at any time the Spirit's feeling into that. I feel the call to continue to increase my embers until I have a good solid bank that won't always be in danger of being extinguished, but I know I can only do this slowly and can't rush it. Giving into the temptation to rush it--to try heaping paper and pine needles on the fire because I miss the blaze and crackle (or, worse, because I miss the attention the blaze and crackle used to get me) would be deadly.
For the Lord hath a seed...if ye in patience all of you wait, and not matter the weather, the storms, the wind, the hail, the rain, when ye are to sow the seed, nor the rough ground that is to be tilled. For the husbandman waits patiently after the seed is sown; there is a winter before the summer comes...
Keep your meetings, and ye will feel the seed of God among you all, though never a word be spoken among you.
George Fox, excerpted by Rex Ambler and then further exerpted by me.
I've been thinking a little bit about "letting your Light shine before all men" and about the differences between my given share(s) of Light at different times. Inner Light Vs. Outer Light. About the Seed that might be rattling around in a prison inside me, or sleeping in frozen ground, or in my hand ready to be broadcast, or sprouting all green and misty...about everything in its season, a time to sow, a time to reap, a time to settle back in an armchair with seed catalogs, a time to blaze and a time to glow, a time to put up firewood and a time to clear away brush...the differences between hibernation or gestation or stagnation.
(There is also a discussion to be had another time about the difference between "The Light" and "The Seed", because I have a feeling they are often confused in people's minds (including my own.) For the purpose of this post when I say "Light" I mean, The Sense of the Presence of God in My Life and the things that go along with it--leadings, learning, growth, inspiration, movement etc.)
But things I am thinking about:
Exhibit A:
The big sparkly campfire of my Light in my first days in Quakerism, where anything was good fuel, when the light would blaze up with every new addition, every new message, every new book, every new idea, roaring and crackling and visible and giving off a great heat and wonderful for making hotdogs and s'mores. It attracted people, and there was a great deal of fun to be had feeding this fire and watching it. It would take a fire hose to put it out.
Exhibit B:
The current state of my Light, which is more like a small glowing ember. I sit close by it and warm my heart over it, and I have to be careful with it--if I heap too much stuff on top, it gets smothered and starts to smoke, and then the smoke gets in my eyes and lungs, and I cough and sputter and can't see, and I have the fear that if I heaped even more stuff on it, it could be put out. If it begins to rain it is necessary that I crouch over it and protect it, or it could be put out. I need to clear away the ash on a regular basis, or again, it could be put out.
If I hold something close to it, that thing may ignite, and will either burn off in a flash or if I am careful and the thing is good fuel, it will start to smolder alongside the first ember and can be added to the fire. I might be able to cook a potato with this fire, but I'd have to wrap the spud up first and bury it with the embers--and be ready to wait a good long time. The glow it gives off is hidden. You need to get really close to experience it.
I am for the most part not disturbed by the change--in many ways is it a natural progression like the one from First Date to Long-Term-Relationship. I do wish that my current light was less fragile, had more of the stability and strength one might expect at this stage, but I think I am learning from the careful tending such a fragile thing requires. My lesson is to stay low and close to the ember, and love it, and wait to learn when and how it's to be used, and guard it, and share its warmth when I can, and not to envy other people's blazes and scorn my own measure of light. I do miss the campfire sometimes--I sometimes wish I was burning brighter and was better able to share my light with others. I don't want to keep the ember under a bushel. I want to make sure that I'm not hoarding it, and that I am open enough that the Spirit can blow it into flame at any time the Spirit's feeling into that. I feel the call to continue to increase my embers until I have a good solid bank that won't always be in danger of being extinguished, but I know I can only do this slowly and can't rush it. Giving into the temptation to rush it--to try heaping paper and pine needles on the fire because I miss the blaze and crackle (or, worse, because I miss the attention the blaze and crackle used to get me) would be deadly.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Good ways to spend a weekend.
Jeff's parents came for a visit and we went to the Cape. It rained and rained and until Sunday, and then we had to pack all the beaching into one day. But it was a lovely weekend anyway.
This is apparently a very common facial expression of mine.
She of little chin and he of much beard, and both of long legs manage to share the couch.
I bought a pirate kite and Jeff named it Prince Bonny Cutthroat. Our first attempts at flying him were not super successful.
I think this may be the beginning of a tantrum.
There was not enough water in the cove to float the canoe, (I told them boating at low tide was silly!) but it's a good picture anyway.
I decide to illustrate my point. No, the water doesn't get any deeper.
I rub it in a little more. Water still not getting any deeper! Also--safety first! Lifejackets in 4 inches of water! Go us! But seriously you guys, I would have had to lie face down and pay someone to stand on my head if I'd wanted to drown in this cove.
The Prince goes up!
And up!
I think we look a little too much alike in this photo. But this outfit seems like good default beach-wear for the plainish. I only got my face sunburnt!
Jeff shows Prince Bonny who's boss.
Backseat kite-flying is hard work.
This is apparently a very common facial expression of mine.
She of little chin and he of much beard, and both of long legs manage to share the couch.
I bought a pirate kite and Jeff named it Prince Bonny Cutthroat. Our first attempts at flying him were not super successful.
I think this may be the beginning of a tantrum.
There was not enough water in the cove to float the canoe, (I told them boating at low tide was silly!) but it's a good picture anyway.
I decide to illustrate my point. No, the water doesn't get any deeper.
I rub it in a little more. Water still not getting any deeper! Also--safety first! Lifejackets in 4 inches of water! Go us! But seriously you guys, I would have had to lie face down and pay someone to stand on my head if I'd wanted to drown in this cove.
The Prince goes up!
And up!
I think we look a little too much alike in this photo. But this outfit seems like good default beach-wear for the plainish. I only got my face sunburnt!
Jeff shows Prince Bonny who's boss.
Backseat kite-flying is hard work.
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