Traveling Minute

July 1, 2012

Dear Friends at NCYM-Conservative and everywhere:

This letter is an introduction to and a travelling minute for Ashley W. She is a member in good standing of Freedom Friends Church, and is also our presiding clerk. Ashley is a beloved member of our community and we commend her to your good and gracious care.

Ashley will be traveling in July and attending North Carolina Yearly Meeting (Conservative) annual sessions, which will take place from July 11-15 at Guilford College in Greensboro, NC.  While she is there, she will be performing in a play named "The Call," written by Charley B, about a young woman who experiences a call to traveling ministry.

She will be doing visitation and various ministry activities while there. Please greet her with love, care and share with her how God is with you.

If Ashley needs assistance, please assist her as if she were one of your own family or community. She is dear to us and we look forward to her safe return to us. She will bring us word of how God’s good work is flourishing among you, about how you love one another and serve each other in the light of God. We are praying for you, and look forward to hearing news of you.

Thank you, and may the God of all Creation bless and encourage you through Ashley and through each other.

Alivia B, Pastor
Freedom Friends Church

Epistle

Epistle of the 2012

Pacific Northwest Quaker Women’s Theology Conference

June 13-17, 2012

Corbett, Oregon

Greetings to Friends everywhere.

Grace permeated our days and wove the variegated fibers of our lives together into a tapestry of light and love much like the quilts that surrounded us in our meeting space at the 2012 Pacific Northwest Quaker Women’s Theology Conference. We gathered on June 13, 2012, at the Menucha Conference Center above the Columbia River near Corbett, Oregon, around the theme of Inviting, Contemplating, and Enacting Grace. Prior to the conference each participant wrote a short essay in response to the theme. The conversation among us began as we read each other’s papers online and throughout our time together.  We came with differing experiences among Friends and other faith traditions, some excited, others tentative about what we would hear, and feel, and do together. We came yearning for community, a place to feel at home. We came knowing we would be challenged to listen deeply, to learn to open and stretch, hoping the effort would yield deeper understanding and add new patterns and textures to our tapestry of grace as we were woven together. 

Thursday morning we received a message from Ashley Wilcox on Inviting Grace.  Ashley opened with her admission of love for the Apostle Paul. Drawing from Acts 9 she showed us that sometimes we invite grace through doing the completely wrong thing.  We can also invite grace into our lives by accepting and giving loving acts and living words. Darla Samuelson taught us how to use specific disciplines to create a space for grace to touch the pain of shame that is common in human experience.  

Friday morning Cherice Bock led us through a contemplation of grace through a word study.  She asked the provocative question, “Do we have to feel guilty to receive grace?” In answer to her own question, she proposed that grace is an undeserved gift with no strings attached. Cherice concluded that grace is active, social, and enduring. 

As stewards of grace when we extend grace to others we receive grace into our own lives and are further called to extend grace in this world. Christine Hall continued by saying that in contemplating grace we are swept up in a love that connects us to God, one another, creation, and divine mystery.  She finished with a quote from Thomas Merton stating that through contemplation we “see through the illusion of our separateness.”   

Saturday, responding to the theme Enacting Grace, Carol Urner challenged us to say “yes” to leadings even when we do not know where our “yes” will lead us.   In that “yes” there is a river of light that will flow through us and sustain us.  Elenita Bales followed and reminded us that that the word “enact” contains “act.”  She encouraged us to develop a rhythm of faithfulness in speaking the truths that emerge from our souls, and to risk vulnerability that we may become a channel of change.  Quoting historic Quaker Ann Wilson, Elenita asked, “What wilt thou do in the end?”

Afternoon workshops presented a variety of ways we can nourish our lives and create an opening for grace. In Writing as Spiritual Practice we explored several ways to begin and be faithful to our own spiritual writing.  A workshop on the Bible revealed that in spite of feelings about Scripture, ranging from anger through love, the group had an interesting and respectful discussion.  In a session entitled Speaking Holy Boldness participants considered viewpoints and experiences that made clear that prophetic witness is alive and well in our yearly meetings.  Another group shared the different practices, such as movement, meditation, prayer, and visualization they use to hold others in the Light.  In a session entitled The Hard Stuff women from different yearly meetings responded to questions that had been submitted in writing earlier. Participants engaged in respectful discussion that acknowledged our differences while encouraging understanding and acceptance.  One workshop focused on listening and care committees and offered guidelines and tools on how to support others through suffering. Judy Maurer shared her experiences and reflections on teaching, listening, worshipping, and working on social justice issues in Russia. Christine Hall introduced Way of the Spirit, an opportunity to engage in contemplative study through a new program in the Pacific Northwest.

Evening activities provided opportunities to further be woven together in our tapestry of community. Thursday evening Roena Oesting, dressed and speaking as Elizabeth Fry, recounted major events from “Betsy’s” life as written in her journals.  We expressed gratitude for the way Elizabeth Fry’s work in prisons started a pattern of prison reform work among Friends that continues today. On Early Friday evening we listened to the experiences of those who attended the FWCC Sixth World Conference of Friends in Kenya. Their exchanges were fruitful, rich and full, though sometimes difficult. As we heard their stories we could sense that there, too, they were held by grace. Later, we danced, sang, played Hearts fiercely, worked on a HUGE puzzle, and created art.  All these allowed for new openings into one another’s hearts and connections through joyful exchanges.

Throughout the conference threads of conversations at meals, home groups, over the puzzle, or on hikes further wove us together in beauty and grace. It was an amazing gift to sit at a meal and turn to a stranger and feel no awkwardness. On Sunday morning we were gathered together for a final hour of worship in which Nancy Thomas brought us the challenge to carry gratitude with us in response to God’s grace.  We came here to be ourselves and left affirmed in our appreciation for and joy in the deepening cross-yearly meeting friendship; that is grace.  Borrowing a sentiment from Carol Urner, we have to finish, but we have not yet begun.

Home Again

I returned from the ninth Pacific Northwest Quaker Women's Theology Conference this afternoon.  Before I left, I said that I was going to the family reunion of Quaker gatherings.  That is true for me in many ways.  

The women's conference brings together women from all the branches of Friends here in the Pacific Northwest, and the relationships are deep and true.  At the same time, newcomers to the conference are welcomed with joy.  It is a blessed community of women who challenge each other, laugh together, and listen deeply.  The presence of God is palpable.

The theme of this conference was "Inviting, Contemplating, and Enacting Grace."  The past four days were a rich and full time, and the conversations and messages have left me with a lot to ponder.  Right now, I am exhausted, so instead of writing more about it, I am going to post a (short) poem.  

I woke up a couple weeks ago with three lines of a poem in my head.  At the time, I thought that it was the end to a longer poem, and I wondered what the rest of it was.  Now I think I just needed a title and, after the conference, I have one.

Grace-filled

Like Rebekah's laughter,

    Jacob wrestling, and

Abraham saying, "Yes, yes, yes!"


.

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.

Deep Worship

"Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me."  Psalm 42:7.

I have had several conversations recently with Friends who are longing for deep worship.  In my experience, deep worship is a rare and powerful thing, impossible to fake. It is a gift from God, which can be nurtured by Friends who live deeply in the Spirit, but is not something you can manufacture.

Many Friends say that they want deep worship, but we are not always good at saying what that means.  For me, it is a corporate experience of the presence of the living God―a time of worship that is so drenched in the Spirit that everyone can feel it and we are all changed by the experience.  

I have most often experienced deep worship in silence, but unprogrammed Friends do not have the monopoly on it.  Sometimes the singing, prayer, and prepared messages in semi-programmed or programmed meetings for worship bring all of our hearts together so that we can better listen to the voice of God out of the silence.

Expecting to have deep worship every week at meeting may lead to disappointment, but we can always hope for it.  Here are a few of the things I have learned that can encourage deeper worship:

• Keeping a daily spiritual practice.  There are many spiritual practices and it is important to find the right one for you―one that you can do on a regular basis.  Spiritual practices keep the embers of worship alive throughout the week.

• Worshiping regularly with others who are seeking the same depth of worship.  In the School of the Spirit residencies, we spent an hour each morning in worship together.  On the first day, the worship was good, but could be a little superficial.  By the fourth or fifth day, the worship was deep and rich.

• Coming to worship with the expectation that you will hear from God.  In our meetings, God speaks through us, directly and through the vocal ministry of other Friends.  We must prepare for that possibility each time we gather together and know that we may be changed by it.

When have you experienced deep worship?  What have you learned about how to encourage and prepare for it?

Recording Accounting

[I am in the process for being recorded as a minister at Freedom Friends Church.  There are several steps in this process and the most recent one was for me to meet with the Ministry and Oversight Committee to talk about my call to ministry and for all of us to consider a list of queries.  We met yesterday.  In preparation for that meeting, I wrote the following report, documenting the ministry I have been doing over the past few years.]

When people ask me to describe my ministry, I usually say that I have one message:

 Turn toward God, in whatever language you use for God.

 I have found that I have a lot of room to do ministry that is in line with that message.

My spiritual gifts: prayer, faith, writing, prophecy, and knowledge

I began attending Freedom Friends Church in November 2004 and have been a member of the meeting since October 2005.  I served as assistant clerk in 2010 and have been presiding clerk since January 2011.  I was a sojourning member of University Friends Meeting from November 2008 to July 2010.  During my time at University Friends Meeting, I served on the Steering Committee for University Friends Meeting’s Year of Discernment as well as various clearness committees and an ongoing care committee.

I have been a Public Friend since April 2008, the time when I became co-clerk of the planning committee for the Pacific Northwest Quaker Women’s Theology Conference and when I began my blog (the two occurred within a few weeks of each other).  I began traveling in the ministry within a few months and continued to do so regularly for three years.  For travel in the ministry and travel to gatherings, I have carried three traveling minutes and one minute of service from Freedom Friends Church, and two letters of introduction and one traveling minute from North Pacific Yearly Meeting.

In 2009-11, I participated in and graduated from the School of the Spirit Ministry's program On Being a Spiritual Nurturer (eighth class).  During that time, I attended eight residencies in Durham, NC and completed two research projects: one on the spiritual nurture of young Friends traveling in the ministry and one on the spiritual nurture of women who are recorded ministers.  I was a member of the panel on Being Other in Community (my focus was on the other as a prophetic role) in September 2010, and led semi-programmed worship in the style of Freedom Friends Church in November 2010.  I also wrote a final reflection paper, which included a statement of faith and a statement of my spiritual gifts.  As part of the program, I met with a spiritual care committee once a month.

Traveling Ministry

• Visited Capitol Hill Friends in Washington, DC for worship, meals, and opportunities to meet individually with Friends (5/11)
• Visited meetings and churches in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington to share with Friends about the Pacific Northwest Quaker Women’s Theology Conference and lead educational programs about working across the branches of Friends (6/08 – 4/10)
• Visited Northwest Yearly Meeting annual session in 2009 and 2010 as the North Pacific Yearly Meeting visitor
• Served as an elder for Friends leading workshops and giving messages at Pendle Hill, Multnomah Monthly Meeting, and the School of the Spirit (5/10 – 4/11)

Workshops

• Led a thread group at the FWCC World Conference of Friends called “Convergent Friends: worship and conversation” (4/12)
• Co-led a workshop at Northwest Yearly Meeting annual session with Wess D about Convergent Friends and the language we use to talk about the divine (7/10)
• Co-led a workshop at North Pacific Yearly Meeting annual session with Dorsey G and David W on University Friend Meeting’s Year of Discernment (7/09)

Friends Organizations

• Pacific Northwest Quaker Women’s Theology Conference: co-clerk of the planning committee for the 2010 conference, Walk with Me: Mentors, Elders, and Friends (4/08 – 6/10)
• Friends World Committee for Consultation, Section of the Americas: served on the Local Arrangements Committee for the FWCC Section of the Americas 2009 annual session in Canby, OR (9/08 – 3/09)
• Western Program Oversight Committee: served on a committee to envision a program similar to the School of the Spirit on the West Coast (12/09 – 6/09)

Publications

• “Walking the Labyrinth,” in Friends Journal and “Gifts to Share: Stories of Women Who are Recorded Ministers,” on the Friends Journal website (October 2011)
• “Leadings,” “How I Became a Quaker,” and “Reclamation,” in Spirit Rising: Young Quaker Voices (Angelina Conti, et al, ed. 2010)
• “An Argument for Tithing,” in Western Friend (Kathy Hyzy, ed. February 2010)
• “My Only Hope,” in Enlivened by the Mystery: Quakers and God (Kathy Hyzy, ed. 2009)
• “Semantics” and “The Reluctant Convergent,” in Writing Cheerfully on the Web: A Quaker Blog Reader (Elizabeth A. Oppenheimer, ed. 2009)
• Blog: A Passionate and Determined Quest for Adequacy (224 posts, 4/08 – present)

Grants and Scholarships

• Susan Bax Fund, Friends World Committee for Consultation: $620 grant to visit North Carolina Yearly Meeting (Conservative) annual sessions (2012); $975 grant to visit churches and meetings in the Pacific Northwest to share about the Quaker Women’s Theology Conference (2008)
• Philadelphia Yearly Meeting International Outreach Granting Group: $300 grant toward the FWCC World Conference of Friends (2012)
• Individual donations for travel to the FWCC World Conference of Friends: $1,140 and 90,000 frequent flyer miles
• Youth Opportunity Fund, North Pacific Yearly Meeting: two $500 grants toward tuition for the School of the Spirit (2009 and 2010)
• Lyman Fund: $2,000 grant toward tuition for the School of the Spirit (2009)
• Sandra Cronk Memorial Scholarship Fund: $3,000 scholarship toward tuition for the School of the Spirit (2009)
• Margaret Fell Fund, FGC Traveling Ministries Program: $3,800 grant to release me for Gospel Ministry for the summer (2010)

Spiritual Practices

• Designated time in the morning for prayer (9/08 – present), read the Bible at night before bed
• Meet with a spiritual director once a month (8/11 – present)
• Met with a spiritual care committee quarterly, then once a month (7/08 – 7/11)
• Exercise with intention: running, walking, yoga

Eldering II

". . . the signals we give―yes or no, or maybe―
should be clear; the darkness around us is deep."

William Stafford, A Ritual to Read to Each Other

I have written in the past about what is like for me to work with a minister as an elder.  This post is about what it is like for me to work with an elder as a minister.

In doing ministry, I have had the opportunity to work with many different elders: young and old, women and men, and Friends from liberal, conservative, and evangelical yearly meetings.  They have all been wonderful and gifted in different ways.

At one of the School of the Spirit residencies, I was asked to speak on a panel about Being Other in Community, and I asked my classmate Margie D to elder for me.  She had never eldered before, and had a lot of questions about what that would involve.  That was good for me―I had mostly worked with more experienced elders, and Margie's questions made me think about what I really needed.  Afterward, she said she was glad that I was the first person she eldered for, because I was so specific.

In a few weeks, I will be bringing a message during one of the plenaries at the Pacific Northwest Quaker Women's Theology Conference.  I am very fortunate to have Ann S as my elder for this talk.  Ann was on my support committee for three years and has served as my elder in the past; we know each other quite well.

Still, each ministry is different, and I had to spend some time thinking about what kind of eldering would be helpful for me this time.  Over the weekend, I sent Ann the following email:

Here is what I have in mind for eldering:  I would like to meet for worship at some point before the plenary (preferably that morning, but the night before would be okay if that works better).  I would like you to sit near me when I speak and hold me in prayer.  During the break, I would like you to make sure I am eating a snack and drinking water, and, if possible, keep people away from me.  After the plenary is over, I would like to walk with you to lunch (you don't have to eat with me, just make sure I get there!).  And, finally, I would like to get together at some point later that day to debrief about the plenary.

Even though Ann is a dear friend, I was nervous sending the email.  It is hard to ask for what I need!  But Ann responded that she was touched and impressed that I had thought it through so carefully.

The next day, I received an email from Jane S, another woman attending the conference, who is organizing a panel to speak about the FWCC World Conference.  I wrote Jane back and said that, because I would be speaking in another plenary, I would not be able to be on the panel.  That was hard for me too―it is always hard to say no, even when I am clear!

Jane wrote back quickly and thanked me for my prompt and helpful response.  Then she asked, "Do you have support planned for your time of speaking?"  I was so grateful that she understood, and grateful that Friends here have a shared understanding of the kind of support we need for ministry.

I am curious to hear from other ministers and elders:  

• Elders, what do you do to prepare for ministry?  What kinds of things are helpful to know from the minister in advance?  

• Ministers, what do you ask your elders to do?  What have they done that has been especially helpful?