Personal Statement

[This is the personal statement I wrote as part of my application for Candler School of Theology.]

"See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland."  Isaiah 43:19.

My name is Ashley Wilcox, and I am a Quaker minister, a lawyer, a writer, and a beloved child of God.  I am a gospel minister in the prophetic, Friends tradition; my message is, “Turn toward God, in whatever language you use for God.”  For the past few years, I have carried a concern for supporting ministers in the Religious Society of Friends.  I am now feeling called to seminary, which I believe will give me some of the tools I need to support those ministers.

Friends believe that all are ministers and God can speak through anyone.  We also believe that some are called to sustained, public ministry.  I first felt that call to ministry in the spring of 2008, at the Pacific Northwest Quaker Women’s Theology Conference.  The purpose of the women’s conference is to bring evangelical and liberal Friends together to try to discover the best of our tradition through the use of narrative theology―telling the story of how God is at work in our lives.  Over the four days of the conference, I felt like God was holding up parts of my life that I had been unwilling to face, and asking me to deal with them.  I felt broken open and very tender.

By the end of the weekend, I had agreed to be co-clerk of the planning committee for the next conference.  I was exhausted and ready to go home when we entered into our final open worship.  Then, out of the silence, God spoke to me.  God said, “It’s not always going to be this easy.”

I said, “What?”  Of all the words I could think of to describe my experience at the conference, “easy” was not one of them.

God responded, “Yes, this is the easy part.  It is going to be a lot harder after this.  But I will be there too.”*

At the time, I felt shattered and overwhelmed.  But those words and the deep sense of calling I felt have gotten me through some very difficult times, and I am grateful for the sense I have of God’s presence with me.

Within a few months of the women’s conference I began to do traveling ministry.  I traveled to Friends meetings and churches to worship with them and share about the women’s conference.  I was not raised in the Religious Society of Friends―I became a “convinced Friend” while I was in law school―but I found that my childhood in the evangelical church was a great benefit in my ministry.  As a child, I had grieved that I could not speak in tongues like my classmates in our charismatic Sunday school, but I suddenly found that I could: even though I was a member of a liberal, unprogrammed Friends meeting, I knew the songs and language in the evangelical, programmed Friends churches.  I could act as a bridge between the two, and feel like I was part of both.

Since graduating from law school, I have worked as a judicial clerk for two state courts of appeals, in Washington and Oregon.  I spend most of my time as a clerk researching and writing judicial opinions.  I have enjoyed many things about clerking: it is good work and my colleagues are wonderful.  I have had opportunities to improve my writing, editing, and research skills.  One of the best things about working at the courts has been the 40-hour workweek, which is very rare in the legal profession!

While working for the courts, I have been able to do traveling ministry, participate in the School of the Spirit Ministry’s program On Being a Spiritual Nurturer, organize retreats and conferences, serve on committees, give talks, write articles, and serve as clerk of my meeting, Freedom Friends Church.  I am grateful for the flexibility and support I have received from my bosses and coworkers over the past several years.  Now, however, I feel that God is calling me to transition away from full-time legal work.

Applying to seminary right now feels a little like stepping off the boat.  As I said, I feel called to support ministers in the Religious Society of Friends, but that is not a job that currently exists.  There are a number of things happening right now though that give me the sense that there are big changes coming for Friends and Christianity as a whole, and I want to be in the best position I can be to nurture these changes.

First, a large number of women across denominations are being called into ministry.  This is a relatively new phenomenon in the church in general, but Friends have had women ministers for over 350 years, and I believe that Friends offer a unique perspective on women in ministry.  Second, an unprecedented number of Friends are being called to seminary.  It is not clear yet why God is calling so many to formal theological education―there currently are not enough positions for them―but I believe that there is a reason that Friends (and young Friends in particular) are being equipped for ministry in this way.  Third, there is a generational shift beginning in the Religious Society of Friends.  Until recently, the leadership was mostly comprised of people who came of age during the social activism of the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War.  Many of them were drawn to Friends because of the social causes Friends supported.  The rising generation of leaders may also be involved in social justice issues but, at its core, this generation is calling Friends to faithfulness.  Young Friends are seeking renewal, asking all of us to listen deeply to what the Spirit is calling us to do, individually and as a community.

A degree is not necessary to be a minister among Friends.  On the contrary, if all goes according to plan, I will most likely have finished the recording process (the Quaker version of ordination) and be a recorded (ordained) minister before starting seminary.  However, I believe that a Master of Divinity will give me useful tools for sustained public ministry.  I tend to give ministry everything I have, and I hope that seminary will help me develop better boundaries and self-care in doing ministry.  I am also interested in learning systematic theology, to give me perspective on the biases I unconsciously bring to texts and ministry.  I know that I have much to learn from the faculty and from my peers in the context of seminary, and I am eager to make connections with others who are called to ministry.

I am applying to Candler School of Theology because it seems like the best place for me to hone my skills in leadership and ministry.  I am impressed by how Candler explicitly supports denominational leadership, which is something that I would like to bring back to the Religious Society of Friends.  I look forward to the opportunity to spend two years doing contextual education, and I am particularly interested in the possibility of serving in a women’s prison during my first year of seminary.  I am also drawn to Candler because of its programs to support women in ministry; I am interested in exploring the certificate in Women, Theology, and Ministry.  It is clear that Candler is a place where people not only study theology, but worship together, practice their faith, and put that faith into action in the world.  I want to be a part of that kind of community.

Thank you for your time and consideration.


* I shared this story in the message I gave at the 2012 Pacific Northwest Quaker Women's Theology Conference, which was published in the July/August 2012 issue of Western Friend as Inviting Grace: Letters and Lessons from the Apostle Paul.

Easter Message

[This is the message I gave during fifth-Sunday programmed worship at Freedom Friends Church yesterday.  In our programmed worship services, we have talked about some of the different ways of reading the Bible.  This worship was in the style of lectio divina: we read the scripture aloud three times―twice before the message and once after, followed by a time of open worship.  The worship began and ended with beautiful music by Seth Martin.  I highly recommend his new CD and, in particular, the song Fireweed Mountain, which he played at the end of open worship.] 

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.  They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them.  In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’” Then they remembered his words.

When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others.  It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles.  But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. 

Luke 24:1-11 (NIV).

As many of you know, I have a godson named Simon who is five.  Last year, something sad happened to Simon.  Simon would like to have a dog, but he can't because his mom is allergic. He got really attached to his aunt and uncle's dog, who was very elderly.  Last year, that dog passed away.  Simon was sad and had a lot of questions about death.  

One day, Simon went to his dad.  He was really excited.  He said, "Dad, I have a great idea!  Why don't we pray to Jesus to raise Max from the dead?"  And Simon's dad had to explain to him that, although we believe that Jesus could raise Max from the dead, he probably wouldn't.

And that is what usually happens when people die: we don't see them again.  

In the scripture we read today, Jesus has died and no one knows what is going to happen.  The women follow their tradition; this is what they do when someone dies, they prepare the spices and go to take care of the body.

This is one of the stories that we tell over and over.  We tell it every year around this time, and other times of the year as well.  I think one of the reasons that we tell this story so often is because it has to do with death, something we all experience.  We are all going to die, and we will all have people that we love die.

So I am going to tell the story of the first time I experienced death.  This happened when I was 19.  It was not the first time that someone I knew died, but it was the first time death really touched me.

In my family's neighborhood, there were two families with three children.  One had three sons and the other had three daughters.  The kids were about the same ages as the kids in my family, and our families were close.

One Sunday, very early in the morning, my mom woke me up to tell me that there had been a car accident.  The middle son had been in a car that was hit by a bus, and it looked like he was not going to make it.  He didn't.  It was devastating for my family.

Then, less than a week later, we got a phone call, saying that there had been another car accident.  Two of the daughters in the other family had been in the car, and the oldest daughter was killed in the accident.

I think there is a special kind of grief when young people die unexpectedly.  No one knew what to do.  Our church's youth pastor came to my family's house to talk to us, but I don't remember what he said.  I didn't want to hear about God.  I was too angry.

What I do remember from that time is my mom.  Every day for two weeks, she made muffins for the families.  She would wrap the muffins up in a basket and leave them on the doorstep for the families.  During that time, I would wake up in the mornings and watch my mom make muffins, and that is where I saw God.

At North Seattle Friends Church, they have a practice on Sundays of sharing what they call "God stories"―stories of how they see God at work in their lives.  This is one of those stories.

In this Bible story, when the women come to the tomb, they find the stone rolled away and encounter two men who look like light.  These men say to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead?"

I always used to read that as the men chastising the women, but now I read it as true.  We find the living among the dead.  God is especially present in times of death.

These men who look like light say to the women, "He is not here; he has risen!  Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 'The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.'"  

Jesus had said those things to the women, but when he said them, they didn't understand.  It seemed like nonsense to them.  But when the women heard them again, they understood.  

These women―Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others―went back to tell the Eleven and the others what they had seen and heard, but those men did not believe them because they had not experienced it yet.  To them, it seemed like nonsense.

My message this morning is this:  Tell the stories of how God is present in your life, however you see God in your life.  Even if, to others, it seems like nonsense. 

Recording

"You'll be ordained before you start school in the fall, right?"  Inger asked me as we were standing in line at a coffee shop.  

I'm generally not a superstitious person, but I quickly looked around for some wood to knock―sort of a shorthand for "if it is God's will."  

I said, "If all goes according to plan, I will be recorded as a minister by my meeting over the summer."

I have now mentioned a few times on this blog that I am in the recording process at Freedom Friends Church, but I haven't felt ready to write about it directly.  Even though I have actually been in the process for years now, it still felt tenuous.  But the process is going forward, and I don't feel like I can avoid writing about it any longer.

First, some definitions and background.  Friends do not ordain ministers.  That is because Friends do not believe that people can make ministers, only God can give gifts of ministry.  Instead, Friends observe and record the gifts of ministry.  As section 4-5.1 of Freedom Friends' Faith and Practice states,

We recognize that God gifts and calls some individuals to sustained and public service. We recognize that God ordains these individuals. Friends can only recognize and record their gifts and calls. The purpose of this recording is to nurture and hold accountable these individuals and to give them the benefit of community discernment in the exercise of their gifts for the benefit of Friends and the world.

There are many yearly meetings around the world that still record ministers, but most liberal, unprogrammed Friends lay down the recording of ministers during the 20th century.  There were a variety of reasons for doing so, but my sense is that most of those Friends felt that recording ministers was inconsistent with the testimony of equality.

For those Friends who continue to record ministers, the recording processes vary greatly.  A few years ago, I interviewed a number of women from different yearly meetings who have been recorded as ministers.  That paper is available on my blog under the tag Gifts to Share.  

Last year, a task force at Freedom Friends looked at our Faith and Practice section on recording and created an annotated outline of the process.  They wrote, "This list presumes things going forward, it is possible at any point for the Friend, Clearness Committee, M and O or the Monthly Meeting to lay down or pause the process."  The task force also noted that the list is intended as a gentle framework with lots of room for flexibility and individuality.  The framework is:

1. Ministry is observed and/or the Friend feels led towards ministry.
2. Ministry and Oversight minutes step 1.
3. The Friend Meets with Ministry and Oversight for prayer, guidance and first set of queries.
4. Ministry proceeds.
5. The Monthly Meeting is notified that a Friend is being advised.
6. Ministry Proceeds
7. Ministry and Oversight recommends that the Friend is entered into a season of discernment, possibly leading to recording. The Monthly meeting is asked for its blessing of this.
8. A Clearness Committee is formed by M and O and the Friend with at least one member of M and O.
9. The Clearness Committee meets with the Friend and considers the second set of Queries, the CC and Friend design a support and accountability framework, including a timeframe for meeting and reporting.
10. Ministry proceeds.    
11. CC occasionally reports to M and O and M and O reports to the meeting.
12. When the CC feels that the Friends is ready to be recorded they let M and O know.
13. M and O recommends recording to the monthly meeting
14. The MM discerns the recording. 
15. If approved, a certificate will be made and a celebration would be appropriate.

I have now met with a recording committee twice, so I think that means I am on step 10 of the process.  

My recording committee is made up of three Friends, two from Freedom Friends and one from Multnomah Monthly Meeting.  Our first meeting in November was mostly organizational: how often the committee would meet, what the structure of the meetings will look like, how long we expect this process to take, etc.  We agreed to meet once a month, with the hope that the committee will bring a recommendation to the monthly meeting by June.  In our December meeting, the committee listened patiently for about two hours as I recounted a time when my ministry went particularly badly.  The topic for our January meeting is "power."

I have had a number of clearness/support/care committees over the years and they have all been wonderful.  This committee is no exception.  I have been nervous each time before we have met, but I don't need to be.  These Friends listen deeply, ground our meetings in worship, and ask good and challenging questions.

As noted, it is possible at any point to lay down the process.  I almost did last summer.  I had received the meeting's blessing to go forward with the process and the next step was to ask Friends to be on my recording committee, but I was dragging my feet.  

It is always hard to ask people to be on a support committee, but the real reason I was stalling was that the Faith and Practice states that recorded ministers can "arrange for nurture and accountability through other means that they desire, such as requesting elders, clearness or care committees, or spiritual direction."  It seemed like, at the end of the recording process, I would be in the same position as at the start, and wondered why I should subject myself to a recording process.

But then I spoke with a friend from an FUM yearly meeting who casually mentioned in our conversation that she was in the recording process, but was not meeting the benchmarks. Friends tend to be pretty quiet about these things, so I hadn't even known that she was in the recording process.

For the next few days, my heart felt lighter when I thought about our conversation.  I realized that, although I know a couple young women who are in the recording processes through their yearly meetings, and I know a lot of young Friends who are gifted and active in ministry, I do not know a single recorded minister who looks like me.  That feels deeply wrong.  If Friends truly believe that God gives gifts of ministry to people of all ages, races, and genders, our recorded ministers should reflect that belief.

Of course, the deep question when it comes to recording (the question that runs through my mind and seems to be out in the world, even if people don't usually say it directly) is this:

Who do you think you are?

 Or, what makes you so special?  Why should you be recorded as a minister?

When I hear that voice, I take a deep breath and try to remember who I am.  My name is Ashley Marie Wilcox.  I am 31 years old. I am a member of Freedom Friends Church of the Religious Society of Friends.  I am a beloved child of God.  

I believe that God has entrusted me with gifts of ministry and that those gifts are not for me alone, but for my meeting and for the Religious Society of Friends as a whole.  I need my meeting to support me and hold me accountable in using those gifts, and I have found through (sometimes painful) experience that my ministry bears more fruit when I go through the processes my meeting has put in place to provide support and accountability.  

So, I am going forward with the recording process.  I am sure there will be highs and lows along the way, but I trust my meeting to hold me in this process and I have faith that all will be according to God's will.


[For more information about the recording process at Freedom Friends as well as readings about recording in general, see the Resources page on the Freedom Friends website.]

On Outrunning Your Guide

[An edited version of an email I sent to a Friend recently, posted with permission.]

Dear Friend,

When we spoke, you said that you were worried that you may have outrun your guide in giving vocal ministry.  I have a number of responses to that.  As usual, take what is useful and leave the rest!

First, I have not had any sense of you outrunning your guide when I have heard you speak.  Your messages have felt grounded and encouraging and have spoken to my condition.

As for whether you have outrun your guide elsewhere, I don't know.  Here are some things that have been useful for me when I have been worried that I spoke in error.

One is that we never know who the message is for, even when we think we do.  Giving a message is like tossing out seeds, which fall on all sorts of soil.  The question, as always, is whether you were faithful with what you were given.

If there is a particular time that you feel you may have outrun your guide, it may be useful to find someone who was there, who you trust to be honest with you, and ask how that message felt to him or her.  Afterward, sit with the Friend's response and see how it feels to you.

The minister does not have sole responsibility for the message.  It is the responsibility of the meeting to hold the space, support the minister, and receive the message. That is one of the reasons I try to leave space before and after I give a message―to invite Friends to help me.  Sometimes I explicitly ask for that help.

Finally, even if you have outrun your guide, that's okay.  Ministry is messy!  The sense of outrunning your guide means that you are using your gifts at the edge of your ability, which is a way to grow.  God forgives us every time we make mistakes, and those mistakes give us an opportunity to forgive ourselves.  Then we pick ourselves up and try again at faithfulness.

That was probably much more of a response than you had in mind!  It was helpful for me to write it out, though, so thank you for giving me the opportunity.  I am grateful for our talk and I look forward to talking with you again soon.

Blessings,
Ashley

Letting Go

About a month ago, I had a difficult conversation with a friend of mine.  The next day, when I checked my email, I had a message from him with the subject line, "Let it go."  I laughed out loud, then wrote him back and told him that it made me laugh.  I have been getting lots of lessons on letting go this summer, but that was the most explicit.

Writing is a process of letting go, and it is one that I don't feel particularly good at.  This summer, I had two articles come out at almost the same time because the magazines were on different publishing schedules.  The first was Rising Up: Ministry at the World Gathering of Friends in Friends Journal.  The second was the message I gave at the Pacific Northwest Quaker Women's Theology Conference, published in Western Friend as Inviting Grace: Letters and Lessons from the Apostle Paul.

After they came out, I thought I would feel great, but I mostly felt anxious.  Publishing in print is very different from writing on my blog.  It takes a lot longer, and by the time the article comes out, I feel removed from it.  The editors at both Friends Journal and Western Friend were fantastic, but I was also aware that the final product was not completely mine.  And the magazines reach a much wider audience than my little blog.  So I had a hard time letting go.


I used to feel similarly after giving vocal ministry.  I would pick apart the things I had said, and feel embarrassed about the way I said them.  But I eventually came to the conclusion that, if I believe the message comes from God (and I do), it is not my place to question the content.  I don't know who the message is for and I just have to trust that the person who is meant to hear it will receive it in the right way.

Today at lunch, I got another lesson in letting go.  I went to the farmers' market during my lunch break, and somewhere between there and work, $9 fell out of my pocket.  After getting upset and looking around a little, I hoped that whoever found the money needs it more than I do.  And I remembered a bad day when I found $20 on the ground and decided I was just repaying a loan.

I am trying to let go.  I hope I am getting better at it.  And I hope I don't need too many more lessons!

Vocal Ministry

I usually know ahead of time when I am going to give a message in open worship.  Occasionally a message will come to me in the middle of worship, but more often, I have some advance warning.  This can be as much as a month in advance or just a few hours.  

When I first wrote here about knowing that I would have to give a message in meeting, a Friend asked why I was so certain I would have to speak.  My immediate response (not what I wrote) was that I knew because I felt terrible.  What I actually wrote was that I have spoken in meeting enough times to be able to recognize certain physical signs when it is likely that I will have to speak.  All of those things―my heart racing, a tightness in my stomach, difficulty breathing, and shaking―happen when I get a message ahead of time, they just last much longer.

Sometimes I will know that I am going to speak because a certain word, phrase, or image comes into focus, like a pinpoint of light, and that is all I can see.  Other times, I feel like I have the message in its entirety, but a clear sense that now is not the time to give it.  The hardest thing for me is having the feeling that I will give a message, but no words―no sense of what that message will be.  Trying to figure out the content of the message just makes things worse.

The benefit to knowing that I will be giving a message in advance is that it gives me time to prepare.  I can look up Bible verses or quotes so that they are ready, and I have time to find support in the form of an elder to ground me, information about the schedule, or water and a snack to keep me going.  Sometimes I write down a few notes.

The downside is that I have time to freak out and question everything.  Just before worship is usually when what Jane Fenn Hoskens called "the reasoner" shows up.  Call it what you will―the forces of darkness or my own insecurities―this is the voice that tells me that I do not have a message and that I never have.  It says that I am delusional and self-aggrandizing―what makes me think I am so special that God would speak through me?

This voice is very convincing for a while, but one thing I have learned is that it makes mistakes and goes too far.  Eventually, it will say something like, "You know God isn't real."  And that makes me laugh.  Because I know that God is real and that the voice is desperate.  This helps me to find my center again and focus on the task at hand: delivering the message.

Then, finally, it is time to give the message.  I am always surprised by the messages I give.  Even when I think I know what the message will be, it changes.  Sometimes the messages that come before it shape my message.  Other times, I am led in a different direction than I expected as I am speaking.  I try to leave space before and after I speak, to make sure that I am following my guide.

Afterward, I almost always feel better.  It is a relief to have given the message.  I usually feel tired and vulnerable, and very hungry and thirsty―empty in every respect.  I feel both terrified that I will have to do it again and terrified that I will never be asked do it again.  

It is an awesome thing to speak on behalf of God, and I am grateful to be a part of a faith community that believes that we can.

Another Way (LGBT)

"And, having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they went home another way."  Matthew 2:12.

The World Conference of Friends took place at Kabarak University, which is a 4-5 hour bus ride from Nairobi.  On the bus ride there, I admit that was tired and over-stimulated, so I put my headphones on and slept for most of the trip.  Fortunately, the person sitting next to me woke me up to see some of the sights, including the Rift Valley and a chapel built by Italians during the second world war.

On the way back to Nairobi after the conference, the driver went a different way, and we got to see several things we had not passed by on the drive in, including a tea plantation and various parts of Nairobi.

Since getting home from the conference, I have spent a lot of time walking.  I don't have the energy to run as much as usual, so I have been walking in the evenings in addition to on my lunch break.  Salem is gorgeous this time of year―everything is in bloom.  I keep meaning to take my camera along with me.

One evening when I was walking in my neighborhood, I felt a nudge to take a different path than I usually do.  I am a creature of habit and tend to stick to the same routes, but I felt like God was telling me to go a slightly different way.  

But then I saw that I would have to pass by a bunch of teenage girls if I took the other path, so I ignored the nudge and continued on my way.  The nudge stayed with me though, so on my way back, I gave in and went on the other path.  Then I saw it: a beautiful, flowering purple tree―one of my favorites―that would have been directly visible from the other path.

It often takes something big, scary, or life-threatening to make us choose to go a different way, but I believe that sometimes God wants us to change just to show us something beautiful.

About 15 months ago, I (fairly quietly) came out as bisexual.  Responses were supportive, skeptical, and chagrined (or some combination).  I am grateful for the people who supported me; it hurt when people I loved told me that I had strayed from God's path.  The skepticism was understandable: I had always identified as straight, sometimes quite adamantly.

[SIDE NOTE: In my defense, when I wrote way back in 2008 that I was "as straight as humanly possible," that was intended as an inside joke for my friend Andrea, because it is something she used to say about me in college.  I knew that she would read the post and she knew that I was attracted to women.  I had no idea at that point that my blog would last so long or that it would reach such a wide audience!]

Since coming out, I have (also fairly quietly) been on a lot of dates with both women and men, which has been pretty fun.  I am still single, but I think that has more to do with the fact that I still have things to learn from being single than my orientation.  I am loved by many and I have lots of relationships that are important to me.  I know that I would not have the same energy to put into those relationships if I were focused on a primary partner.

As I mentioned in my report, there was some controversy at the World Conference when the the epistle by Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Concerns was taken down.  The first time I heard about it was when it was raised in early worship.  My immediate impulse was to leave the room, because I didn't want to deal with other people's emotions around the topic, but I knew that walking out could be misconstrued.  Instead, I sat down on the floor for the rest of worship, trying to stay grounded.

Although the issues came up throughout the day, Friends mostly addressed them in their home groups, which I missed.  But that night, as I was waiting in line for dinner, a Friend asked me if I had a good Bible verse to respond to the passages saying that homosexuality is a sin.

When people ask me this question, my immediate response is no:  Proof-texting doesn't work.  For anyone.  Pulling out another Bible verse to respond to attacks is never going to change anyone's position.

After giving it a little more thought, I said that I only had one verse:

"By their fruits you will know them."  Matthew 7:20.

This is not original to me, but I am not sure where I got it (possibly Liz O?).  The point is that it is only by waiting to see what kind of fruit these relationships bear that we will know whether they are good or not.  The Bible also tells us that

"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.  Against such there is no law."  Galatians 5:22-23.

It takes a while, but relationships do bear fruit.  And we can be changed by them; I know this experientially.

• It is because I had friends in high school who were out as gay and lesbian that I came to believe that their love was not a sin.

• It is because I have worshiped and worked with transgender people that I understand a little better the struggles that they face.

• It is because I had brave examples of how to live faithfully as a bisexual that I was able to be honest about my own sexuality.

But this is not a one-way street.

• It is also because I have relationships with people who honestly believe that homosexuality is a sin that I know those people are doing their best to live Godly lives.

We can change.  I have seen it.  It takes relationships and love and time.  

And then, suddenly, you see people who formerly voted for an exclusive definition of marriage at Williams-Sonoma, buying something off the registry for their friend's daughter's lesbian wedding.  Not because they have changed what they believe, but because they love their friend and her daughter, and they want to celebrate with them.

Maintaining a position is easy; relationships are hard.  But that is the work.  And I have faith that we can all go home another way.

Paying Attention

[My reflection paper for the Ninth Pacific Northwest Quaker Women's Theology Conference, which will take place June 13-17, 2012.]

“On my good days I find grace in any number of places . . . .  On bad days, I don’t find grace anywhere, but that usually means I’m not paying attention.”  Nancy Thomas, preface, The Secret Colors of God: Poems by Nancy Thomas (Barclay Press, 2005), p. xiii.

About a year ago, I started getting a message.  The message was, “When they ask you to speak, say yes.”  I had no idea who the “they” was, or where I would be asked to speak, but otherwise the message was clear.  I don’t get specific instructions from God very often, so when I do, I try to pay attention.

Soon after, I got an email from the women’s conference organizers, asking if I would be willing to consider being a plenary speaker at the conference.  That seemed like the question I had been waiting to hear.  But as I read the rest of the email, I saw that the theme of the conference would be “Living in the life and power:  Inviting, Contemplating, and Enacting Grace.”

Despite growing up in the evangelical church―or maybe because I did―grace has never been a very meaningful concept for me.  It is a word I have heard my entire life, but I had never given it much thought.

Around the same time, I had a conversation with my friend Betsy.  I told her that I was trying to discern whether to volunteer as a plenary speaker for the women’s conference.  I said that I had felt a leading to speak, but I didn’t know what I would say about grace.  She responded, “I think grace is a wonderful thing for you to live into for the next year.”

So I told the planning committee that I did feel led to be a plenary speaker, and I asked to speak on the topic of “inviting grace,” because that was what I would be doing!

Since then, grace has appeared everywhere.  Once I started paying attention, I noticed how often it comes up in conversation.  I also began asking others what grace means to them and how it has affected their lives.  Slowly, I began to get a sense of the message I might give at the conference.

Grace is still a vast and mysterious concept for me, but I have enjoyed the perspectives on it that women have shared in their papers, and I look forward to the time we will spend together in June sharing our experiences of grace.

Little Children

And Jesus said: "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."

Matthew 18:3

I never liked the verse where Jesus tells his disciples to become like children much.  It was a verse that I heard a lot growing up, and it always seemed to be one of those verses that people quoted to put others in their place.  Or one that inspired people to write creepy "Jesus is my daddy" contemporary worship songs.

But then, at one of the School of the Spirit residencies, my friend Judy G gave a message during worship that changed how I felt about the verse entirely.  

Judy said that she was at her meeting one Sunday when a young girl, maybe four or five years old, came in with her parents.  The girl was wearing a lovely dress and seemed quite proud of it.  

A Friend approached the girl and said, "You look so pretty in that dress today!"  

She responded, "I know!"

That is how little children are.  They haven't yet learned what adults have―to respond with false humility or with very real self-loathing.  They are joyful in their beauty.

With that in mind, I think Jesus was right to say what he did.  Be like those children.  Know that you were made in the image of God.  You are beautiful to God.  And the love of God that comes through you makes you beautiful to others as well.

Setting Captives Free

"The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
   because the LORD has anointed me
   to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
   to proclaim freedom for the captives
   and release from darkness for the prisoners."

Isaiah 61:1

I have an occasional ministry of liberating moths.

In general, when insects get into my house, I do my best to escort them outside.  Freeing moths is different, though.  I have set moths free on two occasions (so far).

The first time was a few years ago.  When I lived in Seattle, I worked on the 26th floor of one of the very tall buildings downtown.  Each day, I would take a very fast elevator up to the 26th floor, walk through the lobby, and use my key card to let myself in to where I worked.  We had a lovely view of the Puget Sound from that height but, of course, none of the windows opened.

One day, I walked out of the elevator into the lobby and saw a moth flying around.  Oh, no!  I thought.  There was no way that it would be able to survive in that sterile environment.  So I pushed the elevator button and got back on.  The moth got on with me.  We rode down to the ground floor, where the door opened, and the moth flew out.  I rode the elevator back up alone, feeling like a hero.

The second time was just last fall.  I was taking the train up to Portland to visit some friends and I realized just before I got to the station that I had forgotten my water bottle at home.  It was a warm day and I was thirsty after walking to the train station, so I decided to buy a bottle of water from the vending machine.  

I was kicking myself for forgetting my water bottle―I was annoyed at having to spend money on a bottle of water and I always feel guilty about using plastic bottles―but I bought it anyway.  As my bottle of water thumped to the bottom of the machine, a moth flew flew out.  Who knows how long it had been trapped in there, but my spontaneous purchase set it free.

Sometimes, setting captives free feels like being Moses―leading those who are trapped out of bondage and into freedom.  Other times, it can feel like a mistake, like forgetting to bring a water bottle.

Walking the Labyrinth

[This article first appeared in the Friends Journal special issue on Quaker Women in Ministry in October, 2011.  I wrote it as my final reflection paper for the School of the Spirit.]

“This is the message we have heard and declare to you:  God is light; in God there is no darkness at all.  If we claim to have fellowship with God and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.  But if we walk in the light, as God is in the light, we have fellowship with one another . . .”  I John 1:5-7.

I find walking labyrinths comforting.  I begin by standing at the entrance and setting an intention, then go.  Even when it seems like I am going the wrong way, I know that I am on the path that will lead me to the center.  And, as the sign by the labyrinth at Ben Lomond Quaker Center reminds visitors, there is no wrong way to walk a labyrinth.  I sometimes stomp my way through.  When I reach the center, I often cry, releasing the emotion of whatever it was that brought me there.  I sit and spend time holding my intention in prayer.  Then, eventually, I stand up and walk back through the labyrinth and out into the world.

The world outside of the labyrinth seems much more complicated.  As a woman who is called to ministry, I sometimes feel like a mess of contradictions.  I am small and soft-spoken, but I often feel led to give strong, prophetic vocal ministry.  I am afraid of everything, but I jump into things with both feet.  Biblical language is my first religious language, but I am easily upset by gendered language about God.  I am attracted to both men and women, but I feel clear that, at least for now, God is asking me to be celibate.  I am a homebody who craves local community, but I have felt a clear call to traveling ministry.  As an introvert, I find people draining, but I love them fiercely.  And my primary relationship is with a vast and personal God, but I spend a lot of time angrily fighting with God.

When I am feeling overwhelmed by these seeming contradictions, it is helpful for me to remember who I am.  My name is Ashley Marie Wilcox.  I am 29 years old.  I have lived in the Pacific Northwest nearly my entire life.  I am a member of Freedom Friends Church, of the Religious Society of Friends.  I am a beloved child of God.

Over the past three years, I have spent a lot of time traveling in the ministry among Friends, primarily in the Pacific Northwest.  At the same time, I have participated in the School of the Spirit program On Being a Spiritual Nurturer, a two-year program, with residencies four times a year at a retreat center in Durham, North Carolina.  Between the two, I have traveled a lot.  At times, I just kept a suitcase out, ready for my next trip.

I think from the outside, all this travel seems glamorous and exciting.  I can get caught up in other people’s excitement as they ask me where I am going next.  And it is exciting.  More than that, it has felt deeply right.  It is different from anything else I have done.  Although there is usually some reason for my visit, such as sharing news about the Pacific Northwest Quaker Women’s Theology Conference, I know that’s not really why I am there.  Traveling ministry is an exercise in listening to God and to others, to try to be faithful in responding to whatever happens.

At times when I am traveling, I feel like an excuse for others to do things that they want to do―to talk about their experiences of God, in whatever language they use for God, or to get together with people that they want to see.  The time I spend traveling in the ministry feels out of time―the hours seem longer and I lose track of the days.  It is intense and amazing, and strange and miraculous things happen and seem ordinary.

But traveling in the ministry is also hard and can be very draining.  As my friend and traveling companion, Sarah P once said, “Travel in the ministry is eight-tenths drudgery and two-tenths spiritual stuff.”  To others, it may seem like I just appear at their meeting on a Sunday; they may not see all of the work and care that went into getting there.  For me, the traveling ministry usually begins months before the actual trip.  I feel led to visit a particular place, and spend time in prayer about that leading.  I meet with my care committee and talk with Friends from my meeting about my sense of leading.  When I feel clear, I get in touch with someone from the meeting or church, to talk about whether it feels right to Friends there, and what they might expect me to do during my visit.  I prefer to visit Friends in a spirit of openness, to spend time in worship with them and see what arises.  I also find that shared meals are a good time to learn how Truth prospers among them.  Sometimes Friends want a prepared message or a more formal workshop.  It is important for me to know what is expected in advance.

As the time approaches, there are a lot of logistical details to work out.  Because I do not have a car, transportation is always an issue for me.  Over the past few years, I have traveled by train, airplane, boat, bus, and rental car to get to meetings and churches.  I have been blessed with grant money for these trips, without which, they would not have been possible.  I have slept in a lot of different beds and eaten breakfast with many Friends, and I have found that breakfast is a time when people are quite open and generous.

Coming home is even harder.  After giving ministry, I am tired and tender and I need time to process and decompress.  But much of the ministry takes place on Sunday, and I have a full-time job where I am expected to be on Monday.  Those are hard things to balance and I have tried to do so in various ways:  by taking sick leave the day after ministry, which always makes me feel guilty, by cutting back on traveling ministry, and once, by quitting my job so that I could be released for ministry for the summer.  I have not found a perfect solution.  Coming home is also hard because I have experienced so much in a short time.  It is disorienting to come back to life the way it was before when I feel so different, and I don’t always have words to describe what has happened or how I feel I have changed.

In the middle of all of this, I felt led to move from Seattle, Washington to Salem, Oregon to become clerk of my meeting, Freedom Friends Church.  Becoming clerk was a hard transition for me.  Freedom Friends Church is a small and young meeting.  I have been attending since 2004, a few months after the meeting started, and I became a member in 2005.  The day that I became a member, our membership grew from three to six.  Now we have over 20 members.  Before I became clerk, there had only been one clerk, Alivia B, one of the founders of the meeting.  I felt intimidated stepping into her shoes and inadequate for the job.

Even though the meeting is small and young, it has had an impact on Quakerism that belies its size.  Freedom Friends is famous or infamous, depending on who you ask.  This is partially because it is both explicitly Christ-centered and inclusive, which is unusual for a Friends meeting in this part of the world.  We also have a surprising number of people who write Quaker blogs and travel in the ministry.  And we have written and approved our own Faith and Practice, which has spoken to people far and wide.

It has been disorienting for me to go back and forth between public ministry and being at home at Freedom Friends, because I feel like the reputation my meeting has is very different from its reality.  The truth is that most of the people who come to Freedom Friends have no idea that the church is famous.  Week to week, it is a church that struggles.  We struggle to pay our rent and a high number of members struggle with mental illness and physical disabilities.  For many, it is a victory just to make it through the door on Sunday.  But it is a place where God’s love is tangible, in worship and in the ways that we love each other.

One evening at a School of the Spirit residency, I found that I had an hour of free time.  That was surprising because the days at the residencies are very full.  I felt drawn to the retreat center’s labyrinth.  When I got there, I was alone.  It was a cool November evening and the moon was out.  I was struggling with the idea of becoming clerk of Freedom Friends, and set my relationship with my meeting as my intention for walking the labyrinth.

As I began to walk, I noticed that I had two shadows­―one long shadow, cast by the lights coming out of a nearby building, and another, more solid, short shadow, cast by the moon.  When I turned in one direction, I could see one shadow, and turning in the other direction, I saw the other.  Seeing these two shadows seemed to reflect the differences between how others see me and how I see myself, and how others see my meeting and how it sees itself.  Reaching the center, I sat and spent time in prayer.  After a while, I felt like I could see steps forward for myself and for my meeting.  I stood to leave, following my shadows back out of the labyrinth and into the world.

Recently, I have had the sense that the shape of my ministry is changing.  I am feeling called to lay down traveling ministry and spend more time at home, with my meeting.  This is really hard for me because I love traveling ministry.  I have never felt so alive as I have when traveling among Friends.  It is also hard because I am realizing how much being a traveling minister has become a part of my identity.  But I know that, whether I travel or not, I am still a minister and a beloved child of God.

Laying down traveling ministry feels a little like walking out of the labyrinth and into the wilderness.  As hard as traveling ministry can be at times, at least it is familiar.  And in addition to laying down traveling ministry, the School of the Spirit program is ending.  I am in a liminal space again, unsure of what will come next.  But even when I feel afraid of the changes, I am convinced that nothing, not life nor death, nor language nor theology, nor men nor angels can separate me from the love of God.  I know that God uses everything, especially the hard things.  And when I keep my focus on God, my entire life feels like a labyrinth―although I may sometimes feel like I am walking in the wrong direction, I am always on the path to the center.

Ashley M. Wilcox is presiding clerk of Freedom Friends Church in Salem, Oregon and a graduate of the School of the Spirit Ministry's program On Being a Spiritual Nurturer, class of 2011. She carries a concern for supporting ministers in the Religious Society of Friends, and writes regularly about her spiritual journey on her blog: www.questforadequacy.blogspot.com.

 © 2011 Friends Publishing Corporation. Reprinted with permission. To subscribe: www.friendsjournal.org

Still

"Where is God when you're lost?  God is there, where am I?"

Lauren F. Winner, Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis (31)

A few years ago, I read Girl Meets God, by Lauren Winner, and I was disappointed.  It wasn't Winner's fault―her writing is lovely.  The problem I had was that I felt like the book's title was misleading.  At the time, I felt like God had completely turned my life upside-down.  I was having shattering mystical experiences and I hoped that Winner's book would help me make sense of some of what I was going through.

Really, I think Winner's first memoir should have been called Girl Meets Religion.  Raised in a Reform Jewish home, Winner first converted to Orthodox Judaism, then became an Episcopalian.  Though she was clearly a spiritual seeker, it seemed to me at the time that she spoke much more about the rituals in each of the religions than about her experiences of encountering God.  But she was a bright and thoughtful writer, and I appreciated reading about the spiritual journey of a young woman close to my age, even if the book was not what I expected it to be (I later learned that Winner did not choose the title, her editor did).

Like many converts (and I include myself in that category), Winner became very passionate about her new faith and what it meant to call herself a Christian.  After her first book, she began focusing on chastity and declared that she wanted to change how Christians have sex. 


I was not interested.

After growing up in an evangelical culture where everyone I knew told me that sex was for marriage, period, and True Love Waits―I signed the paper, I had the ring―the last thing I wanted to read was one more person telling me about how Christians should be having sex.  So I stopped paying attention to Winner's writing for a while.

Then Winner got married, and her marriage was an unhappy one.  On top of that, three weeks before her wedding, her mother died.  Winner's new memoir, Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis, is about her relationship with God through those hard times.

I couldn't put it down.

Just as so many books and movies end with a wedding, many books about faith end with a conversion, as if, by accepting the tenets, a person has arrived.  But even though I have never been married, I know that the wedding is only the beginning and marriage can be hard work.  I believe that being in a relationship with God can be just as challenging and rewarding, and Winner's book talks frankly about what happens after the initial glow of conversion fades.

In many ways, Still is the book that I hoped Girl Meets God would be.  In short chapters, Winner describes how she experiences God's presence, often unexpectedly, and how that presence is fleeting.  In a chapter where she talks about her struggles with prayer, she writes,

"I do not know why things shift.  I've shown up for chapel at school, and there I stand, reciting a psalm.  I must admit I have never much liked the psalms, they have never prayed easy to me. . . .  [I]n fact I have found them dull for many years and mostly an occasion for woolgathering, and then in a moment I can only call mystery, I am standing there in chapel reciting Psalm 25, "Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted," and the words still me―there at Morning Prayer, those words are my words; they are the most straightforward expression of anything I might ever have to say to God, or to myself.  For the space of eighteen syllables, I have, it seems, prayed. 

I leave the chapel hoping this will happen every morning now, that this is the start of my completely new and different, totally fiery relationship with the Psalter. . . .  Of course, that is not what happens.  The next morning the psalms are dull again, and I am not even really paying attention; except their dullness is enlivened slightly by the small new knowledge that once (and so maybe again someday, maybe this day) the psalms prayed me."  (65-66)

As I was reading, I appreciated how honest Winner was about her doubts.  It was also refreshing to read about a person going through a crisis of faith who continued to go to church.  The book chronicles the small things that helped Winner find her way back to faith―not the same faith she had before, but a different, more mature relationship with God.

I enjoyed this memoir very much and I hope that Winner will continue to write as her faith changes and grows.