That Big Question

Quaker Bloggers, does this question look familiar?

Perhaps in a future post you could explain to those ignorant of your readers what you consider to be the central tenets of Quakerism? My brother in law is from a quaker family, and I've tried to have him explain it to me, but all I get is 'pacifism' and a lot of fuzziness - his community seems to have contained both vague deists and definite Christians, and variations on just about every other thing I've always thought of as 'Quaker', and I would love to know what are the non-negotiable central tenets common to all Quakers - or are there any?

Kate, a Catholic, left this Query on my blog. I just stared at it for a minute and then rolled up my sleeves. I think it's the question that we're all always more or less threshing on these Quaker blogs. Kate stated it in wonderful Plain fashion:

what are the non-negotiable central tenets common to all Quakers - or are there any?

Though there's the tired old joke that if you ask three Quakers "What is a Quaker" you'll get four answers, it's true that the most confusing thing for everyone is that there's no Creed or Catechism. A lot of us are really hung up on that, for varying reasons. Given the huge variety of theological diversity among Friends, this question becomes enormously difficult to answer. As a compromise, people often go into long historical lectures, or simply state their own particular set of beliefs.

There is an extraordinary essay called The One Testimony that Binds Them All Together. In it, Friend James Healton says:

To an outside observer, and indeed, many people inside the Society of Friends, there is little rhyme or reason to the assemblage of doctrines and practices historically emphasized by Friends. Frankly, it does look as though the founders of the Friends movement collected together all the most eccentric beliefs and practices ever dreamed of, and some not dreamed of, among Christians, put them into a hat and then drew out nine or ten of them at random and decided that would be Quakerism!

But, in fact, there is a powerful unity and purpose underlying all the elements that go together to make the basic contours of Quaker theology and practice.

Now, Friends who debate or question the exact nature of the unique divinity of Jesus will find a lot to waggle eyebrows at in the essay. But the central importance is that Christ has come and changed the world forever. Friends believe that the Kingdom is here. Friend James says:

(T)raditional Christians accepted that Jesus fulfilled the prophecies concerning His death and resurrection, but there was much more that they either entirely overlooked or postponed until after death or the "Second Coming."

James Healton gives a biblically-based list of things the Quakers believe are possible here and now, not in Heaven or a "New Earth" or at a "Second Coming", but now, because of the Presence of God in the world. He prefaces each item with with "Because Jesus is the Christ". Other people may quibble. Others will want to argue the exact meaning of "Christ." I myself would say "Because of Christ". For example,


Because of Christ:

"God's people beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks and no longer prepare for war. They are secure, knowing that the day long foretold by the prophets has come and that ultimate triumph over evil will be achieved through following their victorious King."

Because of Christ:

"God now rules His people directly, rather than through prophets, priests and kings. As the prophets foretold, "a king will reign in righteousness" and the fruit of His reign will be righteousness and peace. He will be their shepherd to guide them in the paths of justice and mercy. God's people will not be ruled by one man or a few, or even by the majority, but by God Himself, present in all and leading all together."

Because of Christ:

"The Spirit has been poured out upon all flesh so that all God's people are prophets. Women as well as men may prophesy, one by one, in order that all may be encouraged and all may be instructed by what all have learned from the Father."

The whole list is very extraordinary, and I originally posted it here because although I obviously cannot speak for all Quakers everywhere, and some (many) of them might (would) have (many) issues with the language, I think that this list of beliefs is a solid representation of "what Quakers believe". But it made the post so long I feared it was becoming unreadable. So I urge you to go read them yourself in James's article.

So, what do I think is the "powerful unity and purpose underlying all the elements that go together to make the basic contours of Quaker theology and practice."?

God is here, now, in his Fullness. There cannot be More God or Less God anywhere. God is everywhere at all times, available to all people at all times. All of the prophecies can be fulfilled, here, now.

"It is accomplished."

We believe that not only is God here, but that there is that of God in each person, which makes them Holy, and Precious and Sacred, which can lead them into the fullness of expression of Divine Love. If we believe that God is in others, we can do them no harm. If we believe that God is in ourselves, we must discipline ourselves to be faithful to his Inward leading and teaching.

Because of the Good News of Christ, we must now go about the work of fulfilling all that the Presence of God makes possible. Which is everything. We sit in silence and still our hearts and listen for the leadings of God that will bring us to our part of this work. We sit in silence and we offer up our hearts and minds and hands to God to do this work. We sit in silence and we offer thanks for the gift of Christ, God in our midst. We sit in silence and rejoice that God is with us.

We bring the fruit of our silent worship into the world. All of the testimonies, practices, queries and disciplines of Friends spring from the belief that God is here, that God is living, and above all, that God is living within us.

We follow this commandment and strive to take it to its extreme logical conclusion:

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Matthew 22:37-40 and Mark 12:30-31, Luke 10:27.

Our whole lives spring out of a desire to be faithful to the promise of the Good News: that the kingdom is now. That the kingdom is here. That the kingdom is among us. That the kingdom is within us.

There's also a lot of confusion on why we don't have creeds or outward sacraments. I'll do my best here.

No Creeds: This is what gives birth to the whole question. How are you defined if you don't have a Creed?

Friends worry that written creeds can never express the truth about the infinity of God which we experience, and that they can lead seekers to passively accept “truths” that they do not know experientially to be true. Because we believe in the urgent immediacy and reality of God's Presence in our lives, we believe that the personal experience of God is the foundation of faith. There can be nothing passive about our belief.

“You will say Christ saith this, and the apostles say this,
but what canst thou say?

Art thou a child of Light and hast thou walked in the Light,
and what thou speakest is it inwardly from God?”

Margaret Fell, quoting George Fox

As Quakers, we believe in Continuing Revelation. We don't believe that God is ever finished revealing Godself to us. We are continually being taught more. We learn from the richness of past revelation and measure new insight for consistency and coherency with what we've already been taught, but to codify doctrine or creed, to freeze it at one point in time, is foolhardy and dishonest.

No Sacraments: Though there is nothing wrong with outward expressions of faith and Grace, we believe that Grace is never limited to one time, place or occasion. While we believe that we are all agents of Grace to each other, no human intervention (i.e. outward baptism) is required to call down the Presence and Grace of God. We believe that we are in communion with God every time we turn our hearts to him, because God is already present.

A good way to get an idea of how Friends try to go about this work is to read our "books of discipline" known these days as Faith and Practice. Each Yearly meeting has its own and though they differ substantially in their wording, they all express the "how" of living our faith.

I feel like everything I've said here is well expressed in the section of New York Yearly Meeting's Faith and Practice entitled "Seeking the Spirit":

My faith is firm in the blessed, the eternal doctrine preached by Jesus and by every child of God since the creation of the world, especially the great truth that God is the teacher of his people himself; the doctrine that Jesus most emphatically taught, that the kingdom is with man, that there is his sacred and divine temple.
--Lucretia Mott (1793-1880),
in "Margaret Hope Bacon, Valiant Friend", 1980

There is that of God in everyone. This principle of the Inward Light, the Christ Within, illumines for us every corner of religion, philosophy, ethics, morals, daily living, social relationships, and international relations.

Before we can express this faith to others, whether in words or in deeds, we must first experience the reality of the Inward Light in our own souls. Then we are released to be faithful to this Spirit. The corporate and personal disciplines Friends have used are the means by which we have found and experienced the presence of God. Through these disciplines we have been able to remain faithful in our witness to the world.

Cast aside, now, thy burdensome cares and put away thy toilsome business. Yield room for some little time to God.

--Anselm (1033-1109), Proslogium

"Seek, and ye shall find," said Jesus. From the beginning Friends have emphasized the search. We do not have the whole truth. But we can search diligently for understanding and use some of the guides that help us grow toward the Light.

Okay, Friends. My gosh, that was huge. Pile-on time. How did I do?

As if this is not long enough, I do feel the need to disclaim...I've seen everything I've here attributed to Quakerism lived out by people of all faiths, Catholics included. Most of the faithful Catholics I know do not passively swallow their creed but strive to make it live for them, and their faith transforms their lives. They work faithfully to improve the world and spread God's love to their neighbours. And what I've described is the ideal of Quakerism. We're all in here paddling together in the Ocean of Light and Love, and we all fall short of what God has opened to us.

Quakers and Catholics share a belief in the literal Presence of God in the world, though they express it very differently. In this way Quakers are closer to Catholics that to Protestants.

I'm not sure if there is anything else I need to say, but just a blessing of Love to all of you reading this.

People, look East.

This First day Jeff and I went to Fresh Pond Meeting. I've been once before that, and I just love it. It's small and full of children and everybody seems to know everybody else without being clannish or cliquey. Every community has its quirks...I'm not starry-eyed on that account. But my soul was fed in worship there, and I know I'll be back.

A Friend gave ministry on the topic of "Sing and Rejoice". Often in worship my mind isn't passively quiet, but silently humming away at any of the dozens of hymns I internalized as a child. I was in the middle of a verse when he stood to speak. One that's been with me as the year turns is an advent hymn. Though as Quakers we believe that the Kingdom is among us, that Christ is here, there are still many powerfully moving themes that have to do with the themes of Waiting and Fullfilment, themes that have been resonating with me deeply.

People, look East. The time is near
Of the crowning of the year.
Make your house fair as you are able,
Trim the hearth and set the table.
People, look East and sing today:
Love, the guest, is on the way.

Furrows, be glad. Though earth is bare,
One more seed is planted there:
Give up your strength the seed to nourish,
That in course the flower may flourish.
People, look East and sing today:
Love, the rose, is on the way.

Birds, though you long have ceased to build,
Guard the nest that must be filled.
Even the hour when wings are frozen
God for fledging time has chosen.
People, look East and sing today:
Love, the bird, is on the way.

Stars, keep the watch. When night is dim
One more light the bowl shall brim,
Shining beyond the frosty weather,
Bright as sun and moon together.
People, look East and sing today:
Love, the star, is on the way.

Angels, announce with shouts of mirth
Christ who brings new life to earth.
Set every peak and valley humming
With the word, the Lord is coming.
People, look East and sing today:
Love, the Lord, is on the way.

There are a lot of things I love about the song. I'm not bothered by theological or historical inaccuracies (What? God wasn't born in a snowsorm?!) because the truth it holds is fresh, and the hope and cheerfulness and good will in every line is apparent. When was the last time you heard the word "Mirth" in a hymn?

Even the hour when wings are frozen
God for fledging time has chosen.

I've known that to be true in my own soul!

I'm digging the church calendar a little this year. A lot of things that I once recoiled from when I was asked to believe them literally I can now warm to and love as full and beautiful illustrations of the journey of the soul to God, and of God to the soul. I like seasons, and I like this cyclical story of change and growth, of laying down and renewal.

In other news...I'm moving in with the Quakers in January! Yep. I'll be a Friend's Center Resident at Cambridge. In return for scrubbing and mopping and swabbing the deck, I get a room right beside the meeting house, a short walk from work. It will mean that I can pay off my student loans for my one unsalvageable (in terms of getting a degree) year of college as I start up a new one. I won't have to worry about how many hours I am or am not getting at work, and I can afford to visit my family more often. It's a wonderful blessing. I'm really going to miss my posh Davis Square dwelling, but it's really worth it. Pray for me!

Remembrance.

Here in the States, it's Veteran's Day. In Canada, it's Remembrance Day.

re·mem·brance
n.
1. The act or process of remembering.
2. The state of being remembered: holds him in fond rememberance.
3. Something serving to celebrate or honor the memory of a person or event; a memorial.
4. The length of time over which one's memory extends.
5. Something remembered; a reminiscence.
6. A souvenir.
7. A greeting or token expressive of affection.


Either way, it is a day for sorrow. A day to count and mourn our dead, to hold tenderly the boys (and now girls) we sent away to be mangled inside and out, whether they came home or not. To cry out for the end of war, and the end of blood.

When I was a little girl in Canada we handed out and pinned little red felt poppies to our coats. They still do that there. I'd see all the people go by with the festive red spot on their lapel and know it was solemn, but not quite why. At school we learned by heart and recited this poem:

In Flander's field, the poppies grow
between the crosses, row on row,
which mark our place - and in the sky,
the larks, still bravely singing, fly
scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago,
we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset's glow,
loved and were loved, and now we lie
in Flander's field.

Take up our quarrel with the foe
to you, from failing hands, we throw
the torch - be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die,
we shall not sleep, though poppies blow
on Flander's field.

I guess I've never really thought about the poem until now. As a little girl, I felt a cold shiver at "We are the Dead." I trembled with sadness at the thought that short days ago they loved and were loved, and now, they're dead. The words seemed weighty with importance and grief. Though it was heavy, I'm afraid that the sorrow I felt for the poor Dead soldiers wasn't actually all that different from the sorrow I felt for the Velveteen Rabbit or Old Yeller. Deep, but largely imaginary.

When I read the poem again this year, remembering, I was startled at what sounded like a call for revenge. At what seemed like a threat.

I was shaken for a moment. How could this poem that my heart thrilled to recite at 8 years old be so blood-thirsty? And then I was quiet and listened, and I felt a deep sadness in understanding. It was not a threat. It was a promise.

The foe is the dehumanizing of our fellow children of God. The foe is the hideous disregard that we as a nation have felt for the precious souls of God that we mow down in the interest of our own "interests" and our callous turning away from the sufferings of the "collateral damage".

Tonight I realized that the souls in the poem have kept their promise. The Dead are swelling their numbers every day, and they do not sleep.

I've been opened tonight by the realization that I can only look at death in old black-and-white photos (that's a real, dead man up there. Why don't I wince?), and I turn my face from images of the real-live horror of the Dead. The babies with eyes full of flies dying of AIDS in Ethiopia. The Sundanese mother wasting with intestinal parisites, unable to feed her shrivelling newborn. The Afghani child with two bloody stumps where her feet once were. The trembling, desperate Iraqi teenager with a vest full of vengance, ready to die for what's "right". The trembling, desperate American teenager from South Carolina, with an armful of M-16, ready to die for what's "right".

And I'm sick at the thought that this useless little blog post sounds like just another cliche Quaker squalling about peace. That I had to wait until the arbirary date of 11/11, to be stirred by a dusty old worn-out poem, to think very much more about it than pinning a little plastic poppy to my coat. Tonight I don't know what God wants me to do about it, besides remember. What happened then, but mostly, what's happening right now this very minute.


Then the Lord said to Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?" "I don't know," he replied. "Am I my brother's keeper?"

The Lord said, "What have you done? Listen! Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground.

Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand.

When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth."
Gen 4:9-12

The Wrong Sort of Saint

There were many thoughtful responses and questions left in the comments of my last post. We could have several interesting conversations around them, especially about the Original Sin bit. Kate wrote a very good post about one take on original sin. Reading her post will probably give some further context to this one. I did want to clarify that when I said "I backslid into a steaming pile of original sin", I meant that I backslid into my old thinking about original sin. These days, Kate's conception of it is much closer to the way I feel.

But a comment of Liz's called out to me, and I've been sitting with it a bit:

it is hard for me to get a sense of how much you truly lament your plain-dress (in which case, you may wish to test the good order of laying it down) and how much you are just having fun

It startled me, because I didn't mean to give the impression that I lament my plain-dress.

The question that was disturbing me in my post wasn't so much the question of "Oh gosh, must I be so drab?" but a much bigger and older one: how much of becoming "good" has to do with transformation, and how much has to do with becoming your authentic God-created self? And are the two mutually exclusive? Are we supposed to replace ourselves with God? Scoop out the juicy Amanda-Pulp and pack in the Christ?

It is not I who live, but Christ in me

My current leaning (not necessarily leading) is to remember that we are all in the image of God, and to take that very seriously. Each of us posesses a unique and irreplacable reflection of God. I know that God is One, and that God is Infinite, and all of the billions of differences in every thing on the planet are still not enough to show all of the facets of God.

But we're supposed to try, and that's what we're here for. Being faithful has to do with being true to that facet of God it's been given to us to reflect.

Grey Jumpers vs Rainbow Socks sounds a bit silly in the context of these important questions. But of course, plain-dress is supposed to be the outward sign of an inward process. The process of becoming Godly.

My old pattern for being a Saint was very limited. There was a particular template, and my job was to pattern myself after that Master Copy. I felt that to become a faithful servant of God meant trimming away all the parts of myself that didn't fit the template of "Godly".

I've also been thinking of, God help me, Harry Potter.

"Dark and difficult times lie ahead, Harry... says Dumbledore "...soon we must all make a choice between what is easy, and what is right"

Well, duh, right? There are lots of times when being good is difficult. It's not easy to keep from snapping at highly irritating people, but it's right. It's not easy to give up your spare time to serve a good cause, but it's right. There are a lot of challenges inherent in doing the right thing. So when the stubborn or lazy or irritable parts of me get in the way of doing right, then it's proper to struggle against them, and "trample and thunder down" all that is contrary to good.

When it came to the question of plain-dress, I started re-examining this policy of trampling down and sanding off and trimming away. As I said in my post, I used to feel "That there are parts of me that...that must be stripped away, pruned, weeded, burned" and I realized that I'd been reverting to that idea. And not only that, but I wondered if I was taking the weeding and the sandpapering too far, trying to get rid of parts of myself that weren't sinful or wrong, but that just didn't necessarily fit this outside pattern I was holding myself up to.

Maybe I've been being too literal about the sorts of ways I am supposed to emulate the Master Copy. Maybe I've been confused about just what the Master Copy is. Maybe I've been looking at a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy, and things have been getting blurred.

I've been savouring this John Woolman quote.

"As Christians all we possess are the gifts of God...to turn all the treasures we possess into the channel of universal love becomes the business of our lives.

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about why I do the things I do, thinking of Aristotle, and how he said "virtue" is found doing a "good" thing because it is "good" and for no other reason, which of course begs the question of what is "good", and automatically it becomes a bit self-indulgent and time-consuming after a while, sorting out the sheep from the goats. I am tired of trying on this or that second-hand set of ethics, which will supposedly help me judge what is good or what is virtuous or what is Godly. And whenever I sit in worship and ask God "is this-or-that "good"?" I get the same question in response, every time "Is it loving? Does it further the cause of Love?"

When I've examined my behaviour and my belongings in the past, I've been examining them against these outside measures of "good"...which ever measure of Good I happen to be nearest. Is this Baltimore Catechism Good? Is this Secular Humanist Good? Is this Pragmatically Good? Is this Liberal Conservative Hicksite Plain Quaker Good?

And each of those "Goods" have had large dollops of Loving in them, and in the barest essentials, a lot of the "Goods" have been the same in each case.

But when it comes down to things like choosing the colour of my socks or the length of my hair, I could get a different answer from anyone's set of ethics. And when it begins to seem as though applying the question "Is it loving? Does it further the cause of Love?" is ending up with a shrug, I start thinking: "Well, then why do I feel guilty about this? Is this something that I need to prune out of myself so that I can be more like God?"

I think, well, maybe it's that I'll be more humble, and that will make me more loving.

Maybe.

I think, well, maybe the time I spend thinking about my socks will be better spent loving people.

Maybe.

And then I think, well, maybe I am just trying to cut myself to an outside pattern for reasons that have nothing to do with love.

Maybe.

I've wondered about the difference between ego and individuality. I've read about "losing yourself" in God, about being immolated by the Spirit until there is nothing left of you but God. And I've wondered about the deeper meanings of these ideas. How much has to burn away before it's just God? What exactly is it that remains?

All we possess are the gifts of God

I don't want to sound like I'm haggling with God..."You can have this, but I want to keep that. You can have that, but then I want two of these..." because it's not that at all. Turning all of my treasures into the channel of universal love probably doesn't mean destroying or obscuring or defacing them. If all I have is from God, then what am I doing taking a power-sander to it? As Kate said:

God does not want you to be smaller or less than you are now, but more, and larger.

Can it be that some of the things I've been trying to hack away at are the very things that God gave to me to be put to use in the service of universal love?

And of course...I'm not really talking about socks here. I'm talking about the possibility that one of the reasons I struggle so much in my spiritual life has been because I've been working against what I've been given, contorting and distorting myself into a pattern for the wrong sort of Saint. And maybe that does absolutely nothing to make me more loving. Maybe when I try to diminish myself, I'm diminishing the God in me.

In the meantime, the smaller plain-dress question is pretty moot. I'm not in the market for anything new, and the plain and not-so-plain clothes that I have are serving me well. It wouldn't be loving for me to own any more than I already do.

I'm also giggling because I was mocking myself a little about "precious precious unique little snowflake" and then, envisioning myself trimming all sorts of bits off myself to fit each set of ethics, I thought of the paper snowflakes I used to make as a kid. I'm sure there's some exhausting illustration in that which completely contradicts all I've just said. :)

Wherein Amanda talks about witchcraft, deception, trickery, striped socks, and other things that might have her burned/read out of meeting in 1700.

Yeah. Halloween.

It's been my favourite holiday for a long time. I am desperately bored with the history behind the whole thing, how it went from a Feast Vigil into Satan's playground, and I'm sure you are, too, so I won't go into that. I am intensely uninterested in that particular set of moral dilemmas.

It's enough to know that around the age of 8, Halloween in our house turned into All Saint's Day. I can't say I was thrilled. There are not very many Rainbow Brite Star Wars Polly Pocket Fairy Princess Carebear My Little Pony Saints in the catalog. But I still managed to work around the restrictions. I'd pour over Lives of the Saints, choosing mostly by the pictures, and by who had the best outfit. Sometimes we'd stretch the boundaries and label anyone that showed up in the bible (except Satan) fair game. I got to go as an Egyptian Queen, (the chick that found Moses), a queen, (St. Helena), a queen, (St. Elizabeth of Hungary),a grotesque burn victim (St. Lawrence of Rome), and a zombie..er...leper...er...St Lazarus. All scoffing aside, it was always a fun time, and it's probably why I can tell you the lifestory of many obscure saints.

As soon as I could, though, I trekked my way back to the evil door of Halloween. I've worked for three different costume shops. I have three professional books on stage makeup. One year I was paid $100 bucks to design the make-up for a low-budget horror film revolving around Demented Clowns. That was the same year I set up a little side business attaching those gross latex things to people's faces. Right now I am costume mistress at the Ballet Theatre. I'm the chick everyone comes to for help planning their costume for any costume event. Before I went plain, half my closet was devoted to "this will come in handy for someone's costume".

Oh yeah.

I went plain.

I'm still dressing up for Halloween. I'm going to be a DooWop Vampire. Yes. I am.

Last night I was discussing Halloween costumes with Rachel. I noticed Jeff looking utterly ambivalent, but I tried to ignore him. Later, we walked the dog.


"I am a frivolous beast." I declared.

"What? Why do you say that?"

"I just am."

"????"

I explained that pretty much everything I like most is "pointless" and does not "further the glory of God". It's true. I like brightly coloured underpants. And tutus and pointe shoes. Also useless miniature figurines like the ones that come in Monopoly. I like movie musicals and muppets. I like theatre and opera and sketch TV. I'm not crazy about the Carebears any more but I sure do like Smurfs. I eat gummi bears from Germany. I like ultra-amoral back-and-white French New Wave art films. My favourite t-shirt of all time was from Old Navy and it was 100% rainbow striped. I enjoy eating peppermint flavoured lifesavers by the dozen. Once I was a ren-faire dweeb. I enjoy reading websites about cryptozoology, and I watch shows on The Discovery Channel like "The Half Ton Man" and "I Am My Own Twin". I eat Sugar Daddy lollipops. I miss fishnet stockings in several colours and getting my picture taken in fours in the pub photo booth. I like scotch and I even sometimes drink "Bitch Beer". I read Science Fiction and all kinds of novels, and I adore poetry. I giggle when people teach me a new obscenity and practice it to myself in the mirror. I've always wanted to play paintball, just once. I like Bollywood. Sequins are fun. I still read the American Girl Catalog. I was happiest with my hair when my hair was cut like Ringo's and dyed a nutty auburn. I like brightness and shininess and things that are red. Especially if all those three qualities are found in a shoe. I love blankets and wasting time lying in bed. Also, I like kittens. Puppies. Rabbits.

And I love, love, love to dress up.

"How," Jeff asked "can you be plain and celebrate Halloween?"

"It's...it's...it's play." I said.

We had a long and fairly thoughtful conversation. Jeff came up with a few good answers to his question, though he said he still couldn't see how it was to the glory of God. But all I could think was, "It's play! I'm still allowed to play, dammnit, grey socks, black shoes, and white underpants notwithstanding."

(I don't really wear white underpants.)

And I felt something very like panic rising up in me. Also something very much like pouting. I felt horrible. Again and again I have given up things that I loved because I couldn't see how they were in service to God. Like that fateful time I gave up the opportunity to get my BFA in acting and last minute threw myself into a religious school I knew nothing about, all because it seemed somehow likelier to please God.

I said something to the effect of all this to Jeff, and he asked:

"Well, did you ever think that maybe a life of monasticism and plainness is not for you?"

It felt like a slap in the face, though I knew it was said in love. Without thinking, I reacted with a flash of self-hatred.

"It's not meant for my corrupt fleshy bits. It's meant for my good bits. My saintly bits. And for now the crappy frivolous beasty bits out-number the rest. Okay?"

I backslid right into a steaming pile of Original Sin, an idea that has always curdled in my soul. A feeling that I'm somehow tainted, wrong, off. That I must do violence to myself, cutting off my hand or eye. That there are parts of me that are rotten and putrid and that must be stripped away, pruned, weeded, burned. Choose your illustration.

As I stewed in these thoughts, I began to wonder, "Well, what is this will of God I am always supposed to be sacrificing things to? How does this or that bit of denial "Glorify Him" more? What does God want? What Glorifies God?"

Well, the answer's pretty familiar. We were created to love. We were created perfectly to love. We are created in the image of the Lover. That's what we are, that's what we're here for. In the absence of any other evidence, with the presence of a thousand "X-factors", this is the only Will of God we know or have any way of knowing. Love is the glory of God. And if we're created in Love, by Love, and to Love, then the only things that need to be stripped away are the things that are not us, that are foreign to us, that have been added on after the fact. Anything that comes between us and our created ability to love has got to go. God requires from us authenticity....to be our true, created selves--the selves that are perfectly tuned for Loving.

Jeff was talking about the fundemental difference between Simplicity and Plainness. From what I gathered it had to do with Plainness being a sign of a religious witness/committment. To dress for the glory of God.

As I've been struggling with my plainness in the past few months, I've found this division difficult. I went plain because I didn't want to be the rich young man who went away sad. I had several issues at hand...I felt that I used fancy clothes as a way to be other than my Authentic self...the self who was created to Love. I also felt that consumption and materialism have real, measurable effects on the world around me. Abusing my fellow creatures, who labour in sweatshops, and abusing my home the earth, which staggers under the weight of landfills and poison, is not Loving.

But the grey, and the long skirts, and the kerchief?

I don't know. In the beginning I wanted them to connect me to Quakerism in some sort of tangible ways. I wanted a feeling of kinship with the long-dead Friends who taught me in their books. I also wanted a feeling of togetherness with the plain people I ran into online, who all seemed to think like me. These people, I felt, called out to my more authentic self, and I wanted to honour that, to make myself as palpably a part of that as I could.

I have found that greatly restricting my wardrobe has led to much less consumerisim on my part. The ideas about clothes have spread to other areas of consumption. Freeing myself from every-day makeup was a revelation. I didn't feel that I had to "fix" myself so much anymore to be ready for people to see me. Not spending $40 to $120 (yes.) dollars on haircuts every two months was another important step. I can't live like that when the world is starving and call myself a Lover of God.

I have found that the grey, the long skirts, and the kerchief do often help me to "act holier". I move more cautiously and gently through space, and I feel a bit more meek. I never flirt with counter-help or grin at someone across the subway when I am in a long black dress the way I might in a cute pair of cords. I don't shoot whiskey in a bar with my head covered. I think a lot about "what kind of image I am giving?" when I look "holy". And this is, I think, for the better.

If the grey makes me more loving, I'll keep wearing it. But I'm not sure if I am more loving in grey or in a pair of rainbow-striped kneesocks. I'd hope that as long as neither the grey nor the rainbow was made in a sweatshop, and the rainbow kneesocks were not a sign of me trying to be other than I am, then I'd be equally loving in both.

Am I called to a life of monasticism and plainness? I don't know. I'm called to life of love and authenticity. Every choice I make, from clothes up, should reflect and further those ends. Because those ends are the only Will of God I am likely to ever know. I can't claim to know what God's fashion sense is. I don't know if that puts my clothing/practice into the "plain" corral. To be honest, I'm not sure that that particular tag is so important to me anymore.

Whatever happens with all of the above, is authentic of me to play, and dress up. Play and imagination and fantasy are a large part of who I am.

I will have it be known that have never been less loving when I was wearing fangs.

Aliens and slurpy sounds. And dish-pan hands.

Well, I fixed the "I am a Vegetarian" link in the last post. It's about Turducken. You want to know about Turducken? Yeah? Are you sure? Then click on the link!

Here's a brand new link for you, from a very dear donor:

Jeff Hipp Loves Klingons. And the Word of God.

(ps. he didn't make it. he just found it. if he'd made it then I'd probably have to kidnap him and keep him in my sock drawer for sheer cuteness/dorkiness. And for his own safety.

...might have to do that anyway.)

Okay, onto serious things. Wellll...I seem to be malingering

(ma·lin·ger
intr.v. ma·lin·gered, ma·lin·ger·ing, ma·lin·gers

To feign illness or other incapacity in order to avoid duty or work.

[From French malingre, sickly.])

with some sort of sub-par psychosomatic, hypochondriac grumbling bug. I woke up this morning and asked myself if I was feeling ill or just lazy. I decided that if I had to ask, I knew the answer. But then my boss told me I looked sick, that I have "fever eyes" (Yikes! Fever Eyes?) and should rest. So they are all enabling me.

For all that I am working and geting lots of stuff done. I've cooked myself up a little mess of shrimp Ramen

(I guess I am not a vegetarian. I am no-warm-blooded-creatures-arian)

and am taking this work-a-day pause to sip Ramen and watch the boxing match inside me. The feelings of luckiness that the trees on my street are turning pink, that the rain has called in sick, that an astonishing array of astonishingly wonderful people care about me, that I have good health insurance and time-shared cats are at war with the snotty-nosed whiny cry-baby feel-sorry-for-myself feelings that have grumbles about work and money and how much I prefer my bed to my desk.

I think I should have brought popcorn instead of Ramen.

What does all this have to do with my spiritual life? Well, it IS my spiritual life, I'm realizing. I often wish I could take the day off to be a good Quaker. Bah.

Lately I've noticed that a lot of the (very relative. suffering is relative.) trials and tribulations I've been going through recently have left me feeling wrung out. It's a weird feeling, not a pleasant one. I'm sort of damp and scrunchy and full of holes. Like...like...

A Sponge.

Only perhaps a bit more square.

Let's try again.

A Sponge.

Hey kids, it's a whole new metaphor for Amanda to flog to death! But really, it's true. Things I've always known, like, Life is Not a Dress Rehearsal, God is in Your Daily Work, Carpe Diem, etc, are slowly seeping in. I've been squeezed, brothers and sisters. I've been twisted and compressed and squashed and drained and left to drip-dry. I know I was holding one heck of a lot of greywater

And now that it's gone, I've been floated on a puddle...a pool...a stream of living water?. Things are seeping in. I'm trying to learn how to make my damp and squishy days into days that still somehow further the purpose of God. I sat in an office, during a pause in dictation this morning, and looked out the window with my Fever Eyes at a tree that has leaves like ferns. I looked at the leaves and watched the wind, and thought about all the students I type recommendations for. Some of their gifts are catalog-able. I thought about all the different gifts I've tried on for size in the past. None of them have fit right. I looked at the tree, and asked idly, "Well, I am not up for any amazing awards or fellowships. What I am here for?" and I knew the answer was love.

Which again, we know. But it's seeping in.

It seems that a big part of my work is learning how to love from my mudpuddles. Learning how to further the cause of love when I feel damp and wrung out and the thought of sopping up anything else makes me tired. Or how to be tender to the people I meet on the days when I am dried out and crusty and molding on the edge of the sink. How to be loving when it rains for ten days, or when I'm staring at the heating bill, or when...whatever. When I have Fever Eyes. When my metaphor is tangled.

And not learning how to love in spite of all of the aches and pains and little moments of misery and wrath that I collect, but how to love IN them, and THROUGH them, and DURING them. Doing anything in spite of anything takes too much energy. Or at least, it's not efficient. I'm not going to stop falling into my little potholes any time soon, so I have to figure out how to be good in the middle of them.


Back to Aliens. I just read The Sparrow, which I can only describe as Sci-Fi with God in it that doesn't suck at all. I enjoyed it very, very, very much. It's fun to read something from this century. Or the 90s. Whatever.

Oh yes, and:
I may be a no-warm-blooded-creatures-arian. But woah. Awesome.
(thanks, Sol!)

This Blog Entry has been brough to you by the Number Ramen and the Letter Diet Coke.

Are you SURE it is not Monday?

So, this morning I was doing work-study at the ballet theatre. The revered blind pianist, Rosie, comes in. I help her to her seat.

"Is Bridgette around?" she asks.

"I'm not sure." I say "What does she look like?"




Just as I realize what I've said and am choking back my howls of humiliated despair, without missing a beat she snaps:

"I said Richard, not Bridgette! What, are you deaf?

Auuuuuuugh.

AAAAUuuuuuuuuuugh.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh!

Through the various tribulations of today, this link from my much loved office-mate has helped a lot:

Just Click. Now.

Also,

I am a Vegetarian. But woah.

One more...

I know it's totally self-indulgent and has nothing to do qith Quakers, but I am bored and this is fun. Also, I like getting other people to do this, because then I get to learn tidbits about them.

What I was doing 10 years ago:
Ten years ago I was twelve. We were all still living in Canada. I was already somewhat depressed and struggling a lot. It was a very hard time for the whole family. But we had our little farm, and we lived on a lake where we could go fishing in a leaky boat. I had my own flock of geese. We learned how to chop wood and make strawberry jam and pickles. We tried sewing our own dresses with the help of Mrs. Stanistreet. I think it was that year that I got the chickenpox so badly that I hallucinated. We went to Latin mass. I had a monster crush on a blond 15 year old altar boy named Jeff and couldn't concentrate on my prayers when he was serving.

5 years ago:
I was seventeen. I was cast in my first-ever production, Cinderella (that's the same theatre but a different year). It was one of the very happiest times of my life. That's really all I have to say. I can't believe that was 5 years ago!

1 year ago:
I was living in NYC, and had been attending 15th street meeting for a few months. I was working as a florist for a "big name" shop, doing flowers for the Ritz, but pretty miserable with the working conditions. I'd made friends at a nearby piano bar and was singing there about once a week.

Yesterday:
really, really wanted to go to ballet, but there was only an elementary (higher than my level) class. I really debated going, even though I just intended to take the barre. But finally I decided to go. I asked the teacher's permission first. She was sweet, and the barre combinations she was giving were lovely, even though they were too hard for me. It wasn't that they were too hard, but just too fast. I didn't have time to pay attention to my knees and my chin and my ribs and my heels, etc. I also kept losing my place...they were obviously a lot more complicated than I am used to in my intro class. I was freaking out a little bit, and embarassed to be beside some of the good dancers in the class. This teacher is a favourite who I'd heard amazing things about and many intermediate people were taking the class. So, my cheeks were burning with shame, but even when I was feeling hopeless I at least tried to finish the exercise in good form.

After the barre, during the break, I went up to the teacher to thank her for letting me try it, and to tell her I'd give it a few more months before I came back. but before I could say anything she said that I did a good job out there, and that she'd love to have me come back, and that as long as I don't get frustrated, I'll find myself picking up something new each week. I think I'll wait, though. I felt like I wasn't able to work thoroughly at that speed.

5 snacks I enjoy:
a chocolate Odwalla bar
dates
a pomegranate
sunflower seeds
salt and vinegar chips


5 songs I know all the words to:
In My Own Little Corner
What Child is This
Love Hurts
Matty Groves
Part of That World (yes. from the Little Mermaid)


5 Things I would do with $100 million:
Buy a farm for my family
Set up a college fund for the sibs
Pay off the debt of myself and everyone I love
Live off it and devote all my time to Quakers, ballet, and travel
Buy a farm for myself


5 locations I would like to run away to:
Nova Scotia
Pendle Hill
Argentina
Scotland
Narnia


5 bad habits I have:
I interrupt people when they are talking
I misplace and leave behind important things
I talk about myself too much
I chew my nails
My intentions are always much better than my follow-through

5 things I like doing:
Reading
Dancing
Playing the Zombie board game with Jeff
Camping
Napping

5 things I would never wear: (We need visuals!)
Beast master!
But what if it gets cold?!?!
My saddlebags--meet the world. World--meet my saddlebags.
The poor kitty cat!
Aaaaagh!

5 TV shows I like:
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Gross surgical "Medical Mysteries" shows on the Discovery Channel
The long-dead Firefly on DVD (going to see the movie, finally, tomorrow!
Animal Cops (shut up!)
Growing Up... a show on Animal Planet about baby animals. (shut up!)


5 biggest joys of the moment:
Being with Jeff
Pictures of my sibling
Updates on my mum's blog
Break-throughs of inspiration
Fall and the wind


5 Favorite toys:
My computer
My library card
Fancy stationary
...
uh, I'm out of toys.

5 Next victims:
My mum...
and whoever else want to do it.


Okay. No more from me for a while!

Taps

No, no, no...no bugles involved. We still don't know what meme actually means in the context of the blogging world, but I like them. Because usually they involve talking about me. Me. ME.

I've been tapped with two recently and I figured I'd better get them out!

Okay, first, Beppe wants to know 5 idiosyncrasies about me...

id·i·o·syn·cra·sy
n. pl. id·i·o·syn·cra·sies

1. A structural or behavioral characteristic peculiar to an individual or group.
2. A physiological or temperamental peculiarity.
3. An unusual individual reaction to food or a drug.

Well...this has turned out to be harder than I expected. This list is very random. Honestly there aren't that many things that are peculiar just to me. In fact, I bet nothing on this list is. As for unusal reactions to drugs, some antibiotics make me throw up. But that's not unusual. It's just gross. Here goes.

*I've been on an informal ice-cream strike ever since "Jerry's Jubilee" a flavour that was half Cherries Garcia and half Chocolate Fudge Brownie was discontinued. I've been relenting, lately. And the Cherries Garcia frozen yogurt is not bad. I've been tempted several times to make my own Jerries Jubilee...but it seeems so indulgent...

*I twitch and shift my legs, hands, feet, fingers all day but somehow manage to sit (mostly) still in meeting. Proof of the existence of God?

*I wait anxiously for the cold weather to arrive so that I can sleep under my 30 lbs of blankets. I sleep so much better that way!

*When I cook, I have to be very, very careful to scale things down, but still hardly ever manage to make the right amount. After making spaghetti a thousand times for my family, I can't wrap my mind around the tiny amount you need for one or two people.

*I honestly know I'm not as weird as I think I am, and so I can't think of anything cool or weird enough to fill out the fifth spot?

Was that lame?


Next,
Seven Things

(This feels a litle like answering paegent questions!)

7 Things I Can Do:

* Train a dog.
* Raise kids. (Well, I'm pretty sure that I could. I've had practice.)
* Read between 2-5 whole books a week.
* Milk a goat.
* Remember my dreams when I wake up.
* Remember inane little things from before the age of 2.
* Obsess over irrelevant details until you run screaming from the room.


7 Things I Can't Do:

* can't do any decent jumps in the center portion of ballet class.
* can't skip rope double dutch. I used to be able to, but no more.
* can't find anything I need when I need it.
* can't swear to be on time.
* can't sleep if there's anything to look forward to tomorrow.
* can't do algebra.
* can't remember to do my laundry before I run out of underpants.

7 Celebrity Crushes:

Okay, not all of these are current. I don't think I could sustain seven crushes at once anyways. And I don't think that I've really crushed on all of these people, but they're ones I've thought were cute at one point or another. Plus, no particular order.

* Harrison Ford, but only if George Lucas is involved.
* Liam Neeson, but only as a painfully noble IRA leader.
* Jake Gyllenhaal, but only in October Sky.
* Rob Thomas, but only because I was fourteen. (shut up!)
* Nicole Kidman, but only as Virginia Woolf.
* Ewan McGregor. All the time.
* Erm, I'm out of celebrities.

7 Things I Find Attractive (changed from "Attract Me To the Opposite Sex"):

* Height. I know it's shallow, but it's fun to tip your chin back for a kiss.
* A strong sense of silliness.
* A bit of a baby face.
* Nice eyebrows.
* Big eyes.
* Nerdiness.
* Patience.

7 Things I Hope To Do Before I Die:

* Live on a farm again.
* Dance en pointe.
* Achieve zero gravity!
* Adopt a baby.
* Become fluent in French and Spanish.
* Visit Argentina and meet my father's family.
* Scuba dive and do that thing where you tickle a clown fish under the chin and give the camera a thumbs-up.

7 Things I Say Often:

* "Oh, expletive, I left my purse ___________! Aaaaaaaaaargh!"
* "Oh, expletive, I'm supposed to be there in five minutes!"
* "Pugsley, you smell horrible."
* "Pugsley, please stop licking your nose."
* "Whoops, sorry."
* "Hmmmm. I don't know."
* "I love you."

7 Bloggers I Would Like To Infect With This Meme:

*Twink
*Claire
*Rob
*Beppe
*Kate
*I'm embarassed to ask most people their celebrity crushes, so that's it for now.

Also, I found this on Polly's blog, and it's funny. You google your name with the word "needs" after it and find out wat you really need. Here are my best ones:

*Amanda Needs Herself A WIDESCREEN TV.
*Amanda needs your help building her bike! (no, Jeff, seriously, it was there when I googled!)
*Amanda needs to know: Why?
*Amanda needs wisdom & strength to do what is right.
*Amanda needs to relax.
*Amanda needs to chill out.
*Amanda needs to suck on a pacifier to clear her ears

Not Alone

I was read this touching blog and came across this:

"...in that short span of time when it was just me and the prayers, me and my struggling through the Hebrew, I was suddenly Not Alone inside my heart. In that way I remember from the Rosh HaShanah service of eight years ago that was my first glimpse into the world I was missing and knew I was meant to be a part of. And that feeling is....ah, well, beyond expression. But one aspect of it, is that all that resentment---why me? why this? why now?---drains away, and I am full of sorrow and hope and the full knowledge that I do not carry the burden of this life alone. I am both more fully in reality about my failings, my sins, my mis-shots, and in full and total belief as solid as reality, even more so, that I am in partnership with Someone/Something in my journey toward reparation. So fully aware of my imperfect human-ness while knowing a perfect Holiness exists and holds me as I stumble.

I wish I carried that feeling around more often, could reach in and find it when I need it. But to have touched it again, when I haven't in so long it seems, was....ah, I don't have words."

and I was nourished by the Truth and Sameness of the experience of God.

Universal Reconciliation

I've been feeling a blog post creeping up on me. I hope nobody has been feeling too alienated by my bursts of poetry. I've quoted Emerson before, and I shall again: The young man reveres men of genius, because, to speak truly, they are more himself than he is. They receive of the soul as he also receives, but they more. Sometimes poets are very much more myself than I am, and I am grateful to lean on their understanding for a while.

Meeting at Cambridge was almost silent this First day, but very full. I'd been reading a bit of the book If God is Love, which I am finding very moving, as I read it snatches at a time. I'll buy it soon. In the introductory chapters, the authors talk about the fear of God. Though the book is written by two Quaker ministers, one who grew up Roman Catholic and one who grew up Evangelical Christian, it is written in first person. I feel that it suffers a little bit in this as it tends to lean towards the Protestant experience, but I'm still finding myself struck. The narrator speaks of growing up in a loving church, with loving parents, teachers, and preachers, and yet growing up to fear an abusive God. One quote struck me through the heart:

“Fear and love are incompatible. . . . A child trembles when a parent threatens, `If you don’t behave, I’ll send you away.’ A wife is terrorized when a husband warns, `If you leave me. I’ll kill you.’ Human beings cower when God commands, `Serve me, or I’ll damn you to hell.’ Where fear is encouraged, love withers.” “Fear indicates our distrust of the one who claims to love us.” (IGIL, p.26)

As I sat in meeting, my mind was filled with memories of pain and rejection and fear and loneliness that touched on all of those examples. I was deeply shaken, reliving each moment, and seeing how they were all connected. I was a loved child, but every childhood brings its challenges. I have experienced and witnessed abuse between partners. And I have lain awake at night wondering who of the people that I loved might be going to hell, and how I could save myself and all of us. I used to have recurring nightmares where, hysterical, I rushed around our property frantically trying to get all of my little brothers and sisters into the house before the Three Day Darkness.

Even when I wasn't worried about the literal Three Day Darkness, there were so many people I knew that might not make it to heaven. My religious training was very thorough, and it was made clear to me that we never know the final destination of any soul, that only God can know the true heart of anyone. It was made clear that God didn't send anyone to hell, people sent themselves there. When I got older, I read Screwtape and the rest of C.S. Lewis. I read Aquinas and Augustine. I studied the catechism, and I realized that the Three Day Darkness was not a doctrine sanctioned by the Church. It wasn't the literal event I'd grown up believing it to be, but it still held deep hold over my soul. However you wanted to frame it, some of us would be destroyed in the end. God was merciful, but he was also just, and held to the laws of justice. I understood it all intellectually. I knew it was so, and why. Cross-referenced.

It still hurt, though, to look around me at all the souls in the supermarket...my human brothers and sisters, and know that some of us weren't going to make it. I often wondered...if I am made sad by the temporal suffering of those around me, how could I ever be happy in heaven knowing that some of the Communion of Saints were missing, disowned, burning in unquenchable fire as I moved into my mansion? And as for justice, I wondered, how could a temporal act ever merit eternal punishment? My blood often ran cold. I pictured a family around a table eating a holiday meal, one child missing, unable to be mentioned, his existence wiped away. I felt the loss. And I wondered. I am a lowly human being, full of faults, and my love is broken and impure, and yet, I am horrified by the thought of someone suffering like that. And God, so infinitely greater and more loving...how could He stand it?

A priest sternly told me I was not to judge God. That His ways are not our ways. But my heart protested. I am made in His image, and all that is good in me, my compassion, my love, my mercy, my gentleness, my tenderness, came from God. It can't contradict His being. I've been told of the theological errors implicit in this belief, but it is something that goes much deeper than dogma. This is not theology. This is Truth.

“Human transformation comes when love casts out fear, assuring us we’ll never be disowned, abandoned, or destroyed. Only in the rich soil of unconditional love can we truly grow. Believing in God’s desire to save every person calms our fears of acceptance. Grace gives us the freedom to live boldly.” (IGIL, p.27)

This was not meant to be a post about why don't believe in a literal, eternal Hell, but that's what it's turning out to be. For anyone interested in the deeper theological reasoning, I reccommend the books of people like Philip Gulley and Jim Mulholland (who wrote If God is Love and also If Grace is True) and Philip Yancey, who wrote another book I've been dipping into, called What’s So Amazing About Grace?, and Thomas Talbott who wrote The Inescapable Love of God, which I have not read (beyond an excerpt) yet, but have on my list. They are all more articulate than I. I don't mean to build up and defend a stance of apologetics, but instead to share what I have been shown.

So I sat in meeting and I thought of all this, and I leaned forward in my bench and I tried to shush myself, but as soon as the room had settled I cried, full on and unquenchably, like a baby. It took me a good long time to be calmed. Finally, I was still and felt my mind and heart moved in worship. The last lines of a poem I love dearly came to me, over and over again,

You gave me
in secret one thing
to perceive, the
tall blue starry
strangenesss of being
here at all.

You gave us each in secret something to perceive.

Furless now, upright, My banished
and experimental child

You said, though your own heart condemn you

I do not condemn you.

And over and over again,

though your own heart condemn you

I do not condemn you.

again

I do not condemn you.

and again

I do not condemn you.

And I knew at least for a moment, that it was true. As I rested in this little moment of peace, in the silence that still bathed the meeting room, my face hot and flushed against the cool wood of the bench before me, a small, wavering, crackled old voice from a bench somewhere behind me began to sing:

How could anyone ever tell you
You were anything less than Beautiful?

How could anyone ever tell you
You were less than whole?

How could anyone fail to notice
That your loving is a miracle?

How deeply you're connected to my soul.


-----------------------------------

“There is nothing we can do that will make God love us more. There is nothing we can do that will make God love us less.” -Philip Yancey

Waiting

by John Burroughs

(I thought I should edit this to add: I loved that this poem seemed applicable to so very many things, not the least of which could be a Divine relationship. It made me smile warmly to think of these as God's sentiments. Yes, this from me, the one who wrestles with my concept of Personal God. I know it's overly sentimental of me, and I know it shouldn't quite fit the conventional idea of God's "personality"...I mean, it implies that God once did rave 'gainst time or fate. And if that was true, then the unchanging God would be admitting change. In fact, the poem has more to do with time than we might ever assign to God, unless we think that by mixing Godself up with humans, God has been commtited to dealing with our pesky delays. I have to admit, it is a huge bit of poetic license, (whether on my side or on the poet's) which I find incredibly delightful. And so, the poem.)

SERENE, I fold my hands and wait,
Nor care for wind, nor tide, nor sea;
I rave no more 'gainst time or fate,
For, lo! my own shall come to me.

I stay my haste, I make delays,
For what avails this eager pace?
I stand amid the eternal ways,
And what is mine shall know my face.

Asleep, awake, by night or day,
The friends I seek are seeking me;
No wind can drive my bark astray,
Nor change the tide of destiny.

What matter if I stand alone?
I wait with joy the coming years;
My heart shall reap where it hath sown,
And garner up its fruit of tears.

The waters know their own and draw
The brook that springs in yonder height;
So flows the good with equal law
Unto the soul of pure delight.

The stars come nightly to the sky;
The tidal wave unto the sea;
Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high,
Can keep my own away from me.

Instant poetry

I got this sweet idea from Polly, whose blog I read in one sitting. I'm so enchanted by her family and her little farm...that's exactly what I hope to be doing with myself one day. I spent enough of my growing-up time on farms and milking goats and waiting up in the hayloft all night with a friend while her sheep lambed to know all the dirty, boring and difficult bits, but I still love it, and I feel my soul tug towards it when I read her blog.

Anyway, here's the idea:

"I saw this little formula for creating instant poetry. One just completes the sentences.

I am
I wonder
I hear
I see
I want
I am

I pretend
I feel
I touch
I worry
I cry
I am

I understand
I say
I dream
I try
I hope
I am"

(make sure you read the lovely poems from her sons!)

I'm not convinced that the jaded self-conciousness of a me can make "poetry" from this like the poetry Polly's little 9 year old made, but I'm just going to fill out the blanks with what comes into my head. I'm also going to take out the paragraph breaks. Also, for no particular reason but that your names popped into my head, I tag Rob and Kwake.

I am often very tired when
I wonder too much what will become of me in the end
I hear less than I should because when I stare over your shoulder
I see my fresh-bought $2.79 orange dahlia bloom and
I want more and more dahlia blooms
I am often twitchy at work and so
I pretend, still, that I am secretly royalty
I feel as though I should still be twelve
I touch as many leaves as I can when I walk by a shrub and
I worry about my family all the time
I cry more than I like to admit but
I am not as strange as I like to pretend
I understand that often
I say too much about the things
I dream every single night and most of my days
I try to come back to earth without a bump and
I hope to be graceful but instead
I am eating peanuts and making a mess of the carpet

More Whitman

With the parts I love best in bold.

--------------------------------------------------------
O VAST Rondure, swimming in space,
Cover’d all over with visible power and beauty,
Alternate light and day and the teeming spiritual darkness,
Unspeakable high processions of sun and moon and countless stars above,
Below, the manifold grass and waters, animals, mountains, trees,
With inscrutable purpose, some hidden prophetic intention,
Now first it seems my thought begins to span thee.

Down from the gardens of Asia descending radiating,
Adam and Eve appear, then their myriad progeny after them,
Wandering, yearning, curious, with restless explorations,
With questionings, baffled, formless, feverish, with neverhappy hearts,
With that sad incessant refrain, Wherefore unsatisfied soul? and Whither O mocking life?

Ah, who shall soothe these feverish children?
Who justify these restless explorations?
Who speak the secret of impassive earth?
Who bind it to us? what is this separate Nature so unnatural?
What is this earth to our affections? (unloving earth, without a throb to answer ours,
Cold earth, the place of graves.)

Yet soul be sure the first intent remains, and shall be carried out,
Perhaps even now the time has arrived.
After the seas are all cross’d, (as they seem already cross’d,)
After the great captains and engineers have accomplish’d their work,
After the noble inventors, after the scientists, the chemist, the geologist, ethnologist,
Finally shall come the poet worthy that name,
The true son of God shall come singing his songs.

Then not your deeds only O voyagers, O scientists and inventors, shall be justified;
All these hearts as of fretted children shall be sooth’d,
All affection shall be fully responded to, the secret shall be told,
All these separations and gaps shall be taken up and hook’d and link’d together,
The whole earth, this cold, impassive, voiceless earth, shall be completely justified,
Trinitas divine shall be gloriously accomplish’d and compacted by the true son of God, the poet,
(He shall indeed pass the straits and conquer the mountains,
He shall double the cape of Good Hope to some purpose,)
Nature and Man shall be disjoin’d and diffused no more,
The true son of God shall absolutely fuse them.…

Passage indeed O soul to primal thought,
Not lands and seas alone, thy own clear freshness,
The young maturity of brood and bloom,
To realms of budding bibles.

O soul, repressless, I with thee and thou with me,
Thy circumnavigation of the world begin,
Of man, the voyage of his mind’s return,
To reason’s early paradise,
Back, back to wisdom’s birth, to innocent intuitions,
Again with fair creation.

O we can wait no longer,
We too take ship O soul
Joyous we too launch out on trackless seas,
Fearless for unknown shores on waves of ecstasy to sail,
Amid the wafting winds, (thou pressing me to thee, I thee to me, O soul,)

Caroling free, singing our song of God,
Chanting our chant of pleasant exploration.

With laugh and many a kiss,
(Let others deprecate, let others weep for sin, remorse, humiliation,)
O soul thou pleasest me, I thee.

Ah more than any priest O soul we too believe in God,
But with the mystery of God we dare not dally.

O soul thou pleasest me, I thee,
Sailing these seas or on the hills, or waking in the night,
Thoughts, silent thoughts, of Time and Space and Death, like waters flowing,

Bear me indeed as through the regions infinite,
Whose air I breathe, whose ripples hear, lave me all over,
Bathe me O God in thee, mounting to thee,
I and my soul to range in range of thee.

O Thou transcendent,
Nameless, the fibre and the breath,
Light of the light, shedding forth universes, thou centre of them,
Thou mightier centre of the true, the good, the loving,
Thou moral, spiritual fountain—affection’s source—thou reservoir,
(O pensive soul of me—O thirst unsatisfied—waitest not there?

Waitest not haply for us somewhere there the Comrade perfect?)
Thou pulse—thou motive of the stars, suns, systems,
That, circling, move in order, safe, harmonious,
Athwart the shapeless vastnesses of space,
How should I think, how breathe a single breath, how speak, if, out of myself,

I could not launch, to those, superior universes?

Swiftly I shrivel at the thought of God,
At Nature and its wonders, Time and Space and Death,
But that I, turning, call to thee O soul, thou actual Me,
And lo, thou gently masterest the orbs,
Thou matest Time, smilest content at Death,
And fillest, swellest full the vastnesses of Space.

Greater than stars or suns,
Bounding O soul thou journeyest forth;
What love than thine and ours could wider amplify?
What aspirations, wishes, outvie thine and ours O soul?
What dreams of the ideal? what plans of purity, perfection, strength?
What cheerful willingness for others’ sake to give up all?
For others’ sake to suffer all?

Reckoning ahead O soul, when thou, the time achiev’d,
The seas all cross’d, weather’d the capes, the voyage done,
Surrounded, copest, frontest God, yieldest, the aim attain’d,
As fill’d with friendship, love complete, the Elder Brother found,
The Younger melts in fondness in his arms.

Passage to more than India!
Are thy wings plumed indeed for such far flights?
O soul, voyagest thou indeed on voyages like those?
Disportest thou on waters such as those?
Soundest below the Sanscrit and the Vedas?
Then have thy bent unleash’d.

Passage to you, your shores, ye aged fierce enigmas!
Passage to you, to mastership of you, ye strangling problems!
You, strew’d with the wrecks of skeletons, that, living, never reach’d you.

Passage to more than India!
O secret of the earth and sky!
Of you O waters of the sea! O winding creeks and rivers!
Of you O woods and fields! of you strong mountains of my land!
Of you O prairies! of you gray rocks!
O morning red! O clouds! O rain and snows!
O day and night, passage to you!

O sun and moon and all you stars! Sirius and Jupiter!
Passage to you!

Passage, immediate passage! the blood burns in my veins!
Away O soul! hoist instantly the anchor!
Cut the hawsers—haul out—shake out every sail!
Have we not stood here like trees in the ground long enough?
Have we not grovel’d here long enough, eating and drinking like mere brutes?
Have we not darken’d and dazed ourselves with books long enough?
Sail forth—steer for the deep waters only,
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me,
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

O my brave soul!
O farther farther sail!
O daring joy, but safe! are they not all the seas of God?
O farther, farther, farther sail!

Who has seen the wind?

This little poem was introduced to me by someone (I don't remember who) when I was very, very small, maybe 4 or 5. It might have been at my Episcopal Montessori school. Poor Christina Rossetti. Nobody really likes her that much. Her poetry pales in comparison to her brother's creation, and it's true that much of it is infected with some of the most cringe-worthy attributes of Victorian sentimentality.

But this little poem stays with me. I remember the slowly dawning understanding as I took in what may have been my first experience of metaphor, as well as what might have been my first intellectual "understanding" of God.

Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you.
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I.
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.

Today, we've got a wind advisory. My office has a huge window - so tall that if I stood on the sill and raised up my hands I still couldn't touch the top. Through the opaque blind (I'm not really supposed to open it) I mostly see a bus stop. But there are two trees with their trunks out of my eye line, one on either side of the window. Their branches meet right in the middle of the frame, and the wind is rattling them pretty briskly.

It's fairly common knowledge that the etymology of "Spirit" comes from words for "wind" "breath", etc, from several languages. So it's not new. Wind is a good, old, tested metaphor for God, the Spirit. The bible's bursting with it.

"The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit."
John 3:8

At least, before meteorology. Now we sort of know where it's coming from, and we sort of know where it's going, and we kind of know why it's doing what it does. But the physics of wind are fascinating and opaque to me. Where does all that energy come from? even if I understood the physics I still lack a Prime Mover.

Wind is very good for me. As soon as it starts up I feel better. That little Rossetti poem starts to hum in my head - it's like a spiritual lullabye. I always hear it and feel a little more okay about dealing with the existence of God. If I can believe in wind, I say to myself, then I can believe in God. And it's easy to believe in wind. I am not the least bit conflicted about it. As soon as it's windy, every moment I spend in it starts morphing into a small Sacred experience. Or at least, everything that happens to me in the wind transforms without protest into a metaphor for some part of the spiritual experience, and so I understand and experience things spiritually much more naturally than usual. I like watching what it does to trees, and to water, and to street trash. I love to stand in the wind. I love especially wind that's strong enough to make me doubt for a second my ability to stand upright. I like to lean forwards and backwards into gusts, and feel myself slightly buoyed up. I like fighting it for my clothes and papers and hair and umbrella. I like it when it wins, and snatches things away from me. I've never forgotten a bit of G.K. Chesterton I once read:

For instance, there is a current impression that it is unpleasant to have to run after one's hat. Why should it be unpleasant to the well-ordered and pious mind? Not merely because it is running, and running exhausts one. The same people run much faster in games and sports. The same people run much more eagerly after an uninteresting; little leather ball than they will after a nice silk hat. There is an idea that it is humiliating to run after one's hat; and when people say it is humiliating they mean that it is comic. It certainly is comic; but man is a very comic creature, and most of the things he does are comic - eating, for instance. And the most comic things of all are exactly the things that are most worth doing - such as making love. A man running after a hat is not half so ridiculous as a man running after a wife.

Now a man could, if he felt rightly in the matter, run after his hat with the manliest ardour and the most sacred joy. He might regard himself as a jolly huntsman pursuing a wild animal, for certainly no animal could be wilder. In fact, I am inclined to believe that hat-hunting on windy days will be the sport of the upper classes in the future. There will be a meet of ladies and gentlemen on some high ground on a gusty morning. They will be told that the professional attendants have started a hat in such-and-such a thicket, or whatever be the technical term. Notice that this employment will in the fullest degree combine sport with humanitarianism. The hunters would feel that they were not inflicting pain. Nay, they would feel that they were inflicting pleasure, rich, almost riotous pleasure, upon the people who were looking on. When last I saw an old gentleman running after his hat in Hyde Park, I told him that a heart so benevolent as his ought to be filled with peace and thanks at the thought of how much unaffected pleasure his every gesture and bodily attitude were at that moment giving to the crowd.

At the risk of being crass, having never suffered horribily at the hands of a tornado or hurricane, I appreciate that the metaphor continues there, in the awesome, fearsome, old-testament ferocity and mercilessness of a Yahweh -- how the very same phenomenon that lightly ruffles a baby's hair, that's described as "caressing" is the same one that shatters lives into splinters. I appreciate that it's easy and natural to anthropomorphize the wind. I used to talk to it, and think it was "playing" with me. As I said, poems talk about the wind "caressing" something. Reporters talk of the "angry" and "punishing" winds. We name storms. I appreciate that this process helps us to deal with the phenomenon in ways we can understand, that it's the human way, irrelevant as our psychology may be to the wind itself. I don't necessarily like it, but it's true, in a solid, undoubtable way, and that's hopeful and comforting to me.

The metaphor doesn't properly account for the personal relationship with God part of the Sacred experience. One I talked about here and with which I have struggled constantly through my journey. I've seen it work too strongly through many deeply grounded people to dismiss it entirely as "naming hurricanes". It always comes down to the conflict between the tender personal relationship-having God (Jesus?) and Yahweh, the seemingly irrational, unfathomable phenom-like force of nature that blows through the Old Testament. Job shudders at his power:

"Indeed I know that this is so; but how can a mortal be just before God?
If one wished to contend with him, one could not answer him once in a thousand.
He is wise in heart, and mighty in strength-- who has resisted him, and succeeded?--
he who removes mountains, and they do not know it, when he overturns them in his anger;
who shakes the earth out of its place, and its pillars tremble;
who commands the sun, and it does not rise; who seals up the stars;
who alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the Sea;
who made the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the chambers of the south;
who does great things beyond understanding, and marvelous things without number.
Look, he passes by me, and I do not see him; he moves on, but I do not perceive him.
He snatches away; who can stop him? Who will say to him, 'What are you doing?"

Again and again, Yahweh thunders "Don't even TRY to understand me!" Are these warnings setting us up for the important lessons I soaked my head in here and here?

I dunno. And I've entirely lost track of my metaphor. For us to actually have a "relationship" with wind, (ie, wind power, etc) we do have to be able to understand it. I think I could pick up the thread here a bit. Something to do with practical understanding, a social gospel, etc, but by now you are thoroughly bored with it. In the meantime, it's windy. And I'm taking every opportunity I can to stand in it and mutter Victorian doggerel to myself.

Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you.
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I.
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.

Say a little prayer for little Emma

Emma, (the monkey in the middle of this photo) is almost 3, and she's pretty sick with a kidney infection. I'm worried about her, and wish I could give her a hug. (but she's far away in NC with the rest of the kidlets) I hope she feels better soon.

"Funky little fifth sentence meme"

I got this from Badger who tells you where she got it.

Rules:
1. Go into your archive.
2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to it).
3. Find the 5th sentence (or closest to it).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.


My sentence:

I cried anyhow.

Oh dear!

Some Walt Whitman

On the beach, at night,
Stands a child, with her father,
Watching the east, the autumn sky.

Up through the darkness,
While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,
Lower, sullen and fast, athwart and down the sky,
Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east,
Ascends, large and calm, the lord-star Jupiter;
And nigh at hand, only a very little above,
Swim the delicate brothers, the Pleiades.



From the beach, the child, holding the hand of her father,
Those burial-clouds that lower, victorious, soon to devour all,
Watching, silently weeps.

Weep not, child,
Weep not, my darling,
With these kisses let me remove your tears;
The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,
They shall not long possess the sky—shall devour the stars only in apparition:
Jupiter shall emerge—be patient—watch again another night—the Pleiades shall emerge,
They are immortal—all those stars, both silvery and golden, shall shine out again,
The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again—they endure;
The vast immortal suns, and the long-enduring pensive moons, shall again shine.


Then, dearest child, mournest thou only for Jupiter?
Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars?

Something there is,
(With my lips soothing thee, adding, I whisper,
I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,)
Something there is more immortal even than the stars,
(Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,)
Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter,
Longer than sun, or any revolving satellite,
Or the radiant brothers, the Pleiades.

A quiz!

Oh, you know you love them. I found this one on Kate's blog, and I got the same score as she did. It's a little transparent, but then maybe I just know a little too much about saints. Anyway:


You are Julian of Norwich! It's all about God, to
you. You're convinced that the world has a
happy ending. Everyone else is convinced that
you're a closet hippie, but you love them
anyway.

Which Saint Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Which is cool. Except, generally, it is all about me. ;)

Julian of Norwich is just about my favourite female mystic, anyway. If you click on the link you'll find a brief biography and a few snips of her writings. One in particular that always moved me is:

Because of the great,
infinite love which God has for all humankind,
he makes no distinction in love between the blessed soul of Christ
and the lowliest of the souls that are to be saved . . .
We should highly rejoice that God dwells in our soul
and still more highly should we rejoice that our soul dwells in God.
Our soul is made to be God's dwelling place,
and the dwelling place of our soul
is God who was never made.

Also, there is a little song about Julian's message that always makes me smile.

Loud are the bells of Norwich and the people come and go
Here by the Tower of Julian I tell them what I know.

Ring out! Bells of Norwich, and let the winter come and go.
All shall be well again, I know.

Ring for the yellow daffodil, the flower in the snow.
Ring for the yellow daffodil, and tell them what I know.

Ring out! Bells of Norwich, and let the winter come and go.
All shall be well again, I know.

Love, like the yellow daffodil, is coming through the snow.
Love, like the yellow daffodil, is Lord of all I know.

Ring out! Bells of Norwich, and let the winter come and go.
All shall be well again, I know.

It's interesting to be reminded of her today. I was just thinking of posting a little something about the ways I try to escape the worst feelings and moods of my depression, when they come. There was something fuzzy there that I couldn't quite explain, but it boiled down to a little Zen-and-Christ-and-Daisy stew which sounds a lot like Julian's idea that nothing has any true existence but God's love, and that gosh darn it,

All shall be well
and all shall be well
and all manner of things shall be well.

Sometimes to me, faith, and the requirement to be like a little child manifests in a strange way, almost a stubbornness of optimisim, a pig-headed refusal to "face facts" about the world being a great big mess. Instead, a simple-minded "it'll all be okay" goes a long way.

I don't mean being an ostritch exactly, but something else. Oh, bah, this is not making sense. I mean, in a spasm of unhappiness or grief, sometimes you just need to cover your head with God's blanket. There's a disclaimer I should paste in here somewhere about this not being the only way or even a very good idea most of the time and that yes we've all got chances to pull up our bootstraps and do what needs doing, indeed, and we'd better do it soon.

But other times what's right is to close our eyes for a minute and think about daffodils. I remind myself that this wave of bad emotion is entirely unreal and has no substance when compared to the love and power of God.

And later I will roll up my sleeves and pull up my bootstraps and go about making sure that all of this unhappiness and pain is even less real.

Hello...

Lunchtime, and I'm alone in the office, keeping an eye on the front desk while some departmental meeting or other goes on. I work IN the department, but I'm not OF it, so that means I get to miss departmental meetings. Yay.

I haven't been posting...I haven't had many urges to post, and those that I have are soft and weak and usually crumble by the time I log on. But I've gotten several kind and concerned e-mails, and I "miss" all of the interaction of the Quaker blogging circle, though I'm still faithfully reading my ever-growing list.I have yet to do the blog-rolling thing, which would make it all a little more streamlined. Either I am lazy, or I kind of enjoy the moment of suspense when I click a link...will there be a new post, or won't there?

My struggles with depression have lightened somewhat, with a little help from Big Pharma. It's an industry I loathe almost as much as Big Oil, but there are some compromises you have to make, and a Christian Scientist I am not, even if I find Mrs. Eddy's tomb a peaceful spot for reflection. It is not perfect, and I still feel a bit weighed down at times, but the debilitating, crushing feelings have become much more rare, and that is a huge blessing.

Spiritually, things are quiet. Meeting has been difficult lately...the usual war between the sacred and the profane, and the profane is winning. Remarkably, I've been unable to get worked up about this. Normally I could participate in any number of overwrought conversations and posts about the struggle, but lately I just feel quieter about it, with a strengthening of my feeling that I must become as tender to members of the meeting as I can.

I've started studying ballet, the long-belated continuation of a dream that was put on hold by family circumstances a long, long time ago. It turns out there is a very good school a block from my work, and they have a generous work-study program, so I can take class for free, in return for a once-a-week shift. Once upon a time, I was fixated on ballet with the same sense of religious fanaticism that I brought to church. Idolatry? Certainly. But maybe more.

I'm afraid of tumbling into cliches, but I'm noticing the thousands of parallels between ballet and religious practice. Moreover, I'm learning a lot about the way I relate to the world, and especially to the spiritual world, by observing the way I am reacting to ballet. The metaphors of religion have often been used to describe ballet, and it's a familiar dichotomy, so I was somewhat aware of this going in. However, I have been surprised to see how personally these parallels have come into play for me.

There's a part of me that wonders if my embracing ballet is a bit of a substitute for the sense of sacredness that I am missing in meeting. Coincidentally, my ballet studio is housed in an old church...a huge, famous stained glass window makes up most of the back wall of our studio. But even the plainest serious ballet studio has obvious similarities to a sacred or holy place. You take off your shoes before you go in. There are vestments and habits...clothes reserved for this one activity. There are earnest acolytes. There are Masters. There are rules, and rituals, and routines. Dedication, discipline, perseverence, humility, fortitude...so many classical virtues are required to advance along the path. The perfection of a classically trained professional dancer seems as unattainable and desirable to a wobbly beginner as the perfection of a great saint and mystic seems to a humble sinner. There is no question about it. Ballet is High Church.

And in my passionate, bumbling love for it, I am learning a lot about my relation to Church and Sacredness.

If you asked a ballet dancer if the list above "was" ballet, they'd say, I am sure, "no." They would talk about how it was so much more...about the transcendence of movement, of becoming one with the music, of speaking the unspeakable through gesture. But if you asked them next, "if you took away the list of rules, etc, and left behind just the becoming one with the music, transcendence part, would it still be ballet?" I think the answer would also be "no." It might be dance, but it wouldn't be ballet.

And so I sit and stretch and think, do I love dance? Or do I love the legalistic formality of ballet? Or something else?

I don't know, exactly. It is this part of the metaphor that starts to get very uncomfortable for me. It requires more reflection. Many dancers will speak of the relief they feel in coming into the studio, a place that is literally sacred--"set apart" for one this thing of beauty and effort, where all the petty problems of "outside" melt away. And yet the same dancers will tell you how much they bring out of the studio, back to the world, when class is over.

There is no reason that sacredness need come only from forms. I believe this. But I've been in a "free movement" class where everyone was there for a different reason, and doing a different thing, with different levels of dedication, and it didn't have the same feeling of sacredness that a formal ballet class has for me.

Which has me examining how much I am relying on outside things/people for my sense of "sacred space". I can't seem to find the words for it, but what Liz wrote certainly has something to do with it. As I said, there is much more reflection to do.

But in a more micro-sense, I find it's not only my attitudes and thoughts about religion that are mirrored in ballet class, but also my experience in striving for faithfulness. As always, the spirit is willing...sometimes achingly willing, but the body remains pitifully weak. There are so many things to keep track of at once. Eyes front, chest up, shoulders down, knees stretched, hips turned out, elbows up, wrists down, heels forward, toes pointed, thighs pulled up, ribcage held under, stomach in, tail bone down, foot rotated...and every time you fix one thing, the next one breaks.

How many days do I start out with a similar list? Be kind. Be strong. Open your mind. Guard your lips. Follow the Spirit's leading. Don't outrun the Spirit. Don't say No to God. Don't say Yes to your self. Ego in. Heart out. Be humble. Be gentle with yourself. Don't let yourself get away with anything. React with wisdom. React with tenderness. Be discerning. Be open. Keep your brain quiet. Proclaim the Good News...

And yet in both cases, the minute you begin to strain to do all these impossible things at once, it all becomes twice as hard. And as soon as you can let go a bit, things begin to fall into place.

When I'm struggling to get a pliè right, I think, why do I want this perfect? Am I doing this for its own sake, to seek perfection and faithfulness in this one movement? Am I doing it because I want to be noticed by the teacher? Am I doing it because I feel insecure next to the girl in front of me, who does it better? Am I remembering that mastering this movement will lead me on to hundreds more, which all build on the perfection of this one "simple" bending of the knees?

When we move across the floor, and I've pictured the motion a thousand times a thousand times, but halfway through I turn the wrong way, why do I stop with shame and waste time berating myself? What am I getting out of a little performance of apologizing? Does it really help the class, or my improvement as a dancer?

And stretching...a good old Quaker metaphor. You lean just a little farther, lift just a little higher, and it hurts, but bearably, and it makes such a difference in everything else.

As I sweated and trembled through class last night, full of mixed feelings and deep concentration, these were some of the things that were dancing in the back of my mind.