Checking In

I noticed yesterday that I had only posted once this month.  That's not a whole lot of blogging, even for me, but a lot has been going on, so I thought I'd check in.

The biggest change is that I moved to Salem, Oregon almost a month ago.  This was not a sudden move (I'd been planning it for years, actually), but moving tends to take a lot of time and energy regardless of how long I know about it in advance.

My new home is a lovely little cottage, which is right down the street from Alivia and Peggy's house.  I think it's going to be a lot of fun living near the two of them.  Peggy has been in Africa the whole time I've been here so far, so Alivia and I have been hanging out quite a bit.

Being in Salem also means that I am back at my home church, Freedom Friends Church.  It has been wonderful to see everyone at Freedom Friends and they have all been welcoming me home.

I started a new job just about two weeks ago.  So far, it has mostly been orientation, but I am starting to work on real work.  I think it will be a good place to work and everyone there seems very nice.

I think the next few weeks and months will be mostly more settling in, getting used to new people, places, and systems.  There are a few things coming up that are noteworthy, though.

The second week of September, I will head back to North Carolina for the fifth School of the Spirit residency.  After so much change, I am looking forward to seeing my classmates' familiar faces!  I will also be participating in a panel during the residency and, God willing, will be speaking on "the other" as a prophetic role.

On October 23, Marge A will be leading one-day workshop called Supporting and Grounding One Another In Our Ministries: Committees for Clearness and Support, Peer Groups, and Spiritual Friendships at the Multnomah Monthly Meeting meetinghouse.  I will be serving as Marge's elder for the workshop and I think it will be really good.

I think that's all the news for now.  Thank you to everyone who has been holding me in prayer during this transition.  I am glad to be done moving and I hope to write more after I have had time to get used to all of these changes!

Released

As I have traveled to various Quaker gatherings this summer, a lot of people have asked me what I do.  Or the people who know me ask, "What are you doing other than this?"  My answer is an unusual one in Quaker circles: I have been financially released for ministry this summer.  So this is what I am doing.

Back in April, it became increasingly clear that I had to quit my job.  I had been working off and on for months, and I thought that my current stint at work would end on its own.  But my boss kept adding on to it and asking me to stay a little longer.  For a while I said yes, then I knew I had to stop.  It was scary because I didn't have a lot of money, but it felt right.

Around the same time, I sent an email to Noah M and mentioned that there were several gatherings I wanted to attend over the summer, but I wasn't sure if I could afford them.  Noah asked if I had heard about the Margaret Fell Fund.  I had not.  The Margaret Fell Fund is a grant administered by Friends General Conference's Traveling Ministries Program, which provides "grants to monthly meetings in need of financial support for releasing their members for travel in the gospel ministry among Friends."  The grant covers the minister's living expenses while she is traveling in the ministry.

At the end of April, I quit my job, worked with my meeting to apply for the grant, and started traveling.  Near the end of May, I learned that my application was approved, and I was financially released for ministry for three months.

I was so relieved.  I had already planned my travels and had a clear sense of where I needed to go, so that didn't change, but now I could focus on what God was calling me to do without having to worry so much about money.  

Over the summer, I went to Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Montana, and Oregon to worship with Friends.  While I was attending yearly meetings, I could focus on just being there, instead of worrying about "going back to work on Monday."  The fact that others took my ministry seriously enough to support it financially made me take it more seriously too.

My summer had a very different rhythm than my usual working life.  Between times of intense fellowship, I had weeks to decompress and focus on self-care.  I spent a lot of time listening: to God, to others, and to myself.  

I had to figure out what a life of ministry looked like on a day-to-day basis.  Frequently, it involved waking up, going for a run, having breakfast, spending time in prayer, and catching up on emails and phone calls.  I planned events and workshops, spent time reading and writing (though not as much as I expected!), and took a lot of naps.  Some days my life of ministry included a visit to the farmer's market or a long walk with a friend.

Next week, I will be going back to full-time, paid legal work.  While part of me is sorry that my summer of ministry is ending, it feels right to be going back to that kind of work now.  I am so grateful to the Traveling Ministries Program for the opportunity to focus on ministry for the past few months, and I know that when I do go back to paid employment, I will try to be more intentional about bringing the rhythm of prayer and listening to my daily life in that work as well.

Letter of Introduction

Dear Tom

It is with pleasure that I commend Ashley W to the care of  Northwest  Yearly Meeting.  Ashley is attending your yearly meeting as the official representative from North Pacific YM.  She enjoyed her experience from last year so much that she reapplied and was once again accepted to represent us and bring our greetings to you. 

Many Friends in NWYM need no introduction to Ashley, but to those who do, she currently lives in Seattle Washington and is very active in University Friends Meeting and in the Seattle area Young Friends group.  Ashley is a bridge builder, working to connect Friends in the NW into one Quaker Family.  In addition to attending University Meeting she is a member of Freedom Friends Church in Salem, OR.  This past year she has been active on the planning committee for the NW Women’s Theological Conference which happened at the Seabeck Conference Center on Hood Canal a few short weeks ago.  This conference unites women of Freedom Friends Church, NPYM and NWYM through worship, play, and sharing of their spiritual journeys. She also helped plan the FWCC regional gathering that met at Canby Grove Conference Center in March 2009. 

Our annual session will precede yours by a few days this year so we will not get an immediate report back from Ashley.  We look forward to hearing from her about her time with you and hope that one or more Friends from NWYM will be moved to join us next year when we meet at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, July 13-17, 2011.  Information about our yearly meeting including annual session is available on our web site, NPYM.org. 

May the Spirit of Christ be with you for your annual session and throughout the year.

In Friendship

Janet J
Clerk, NPYM

Traveling Report to NPYM Coordinating Committee

Since receiving a traveling minute from the North Pacific Yearly Meeting Coordinating Committee at annual session last summer, I have visited the following meetings and churches to share about the 8th Pacific Northwest Quaker Women’s Theology Conference:

• Northwest Yearly Meeting annual session, with Sarah P
• Camas Friends Church (NWYM), with Sarah P
• Anchorage Friends Meeting (Alaska Friends Conference), with Inger H
• Spokane Friends Church (NWYM), with Sarah P
• Eugene Friends Church (NWYM), with Sarah P
• Eugene Friends Meeting (NPYM), with Sarah P
• Bellingham Friends Meeting (NPYM), with Sarah P
• Sandpoint Friends Meeting (NPYM), with Sarah P and Leann W
• North Seattle Friends Church (NWYM), with Sarah H

All of the churches and meetings I visited were extremely hospitable.  Although the women’s conference was the official reason for these visits, it often did not feel like the reason I was there.  Sometimes something else seemed important, and sometimes I felt like I did not really know why I was there (though I trust there was a reason).  There were several people who came to the women’s conference for the first time this year and I think that was a result of the visits.  It also felt like Sarah and I were planting seeds for Friends to come to future conferences, consider traveling in the ministry, or interact with different kinds of Friends in other ways.

In this report, I will give a more detailed description of each of the visits (the format varied), followed by some general thoughts about the experience of traveling with the minute from NPYM.

My primary role in visiting Northwest Yearly Meeting annual session was as the NPYM visitor, but I did have several informal conversations about the women’s conference while I was there.  Sarah P, my co-clerk on the women’s conference planning committee, and I met with the NWYM Administrative Council (AC) to talk about the women’s conference and ask for a traveling minute for Sarah, like the one I had received from NPYM.  The AC approved giving Sarah a traveling minute and the women of the AC offered support and guidance for Sarah as we discerned where to travel.

During our visit to Camas Friends Church in early October, Sarah P and I stayed with Wess and Emily D.  It was wonderful to spend time with them and we had an opportunity to worship with them in their home.  On Sunday in programmed worship, Sarah gave a prepared message.  We met with several women from Camas after lunch to talk about the women’s conference.  Women shared their experiences in going to the conference in the past as well as times when they had encountered different kinds of Friends. 

One thing that was surprising to me on this visit was learning more about the central role of the pastor in NWYM churches.  Sarah stepped into this role as the person preaching on Sunday and I felt more like a support person.  Sarah and I encountered some difficulties in traveling as two ministers without an elder, as well as in balancing our friendship and the different kinds of work we were doing together.  We continued to work on these issues between this visit and our next official meeting visit together, which for a variety of reasons did not take place until the end of February.

My visits to Anchorage Friends Meeting and Spokane Friends Church were informal visits while I was traveling for other reasons.  I visited Anchorage Friends Meeting while I was staying with my family for Christmas.  My friend Inger H, who is not a Quaker, accompanied me and agreed to hold me in prayer if I felt led to speak.  After worship, the Friends there asked me to read my minutes aloud and speak briefly about the women’s conference.  I enjoyed worshiping with these Friends again after visiting them the previous year.  I visited Spokane Friends Church while spending the weekend with Sarah P.  Sarah and I attended programmed worship together and Sarah made an announcement introducing the women’s conference and me.

Sarah P and I visited Eugene Friends Meeting and Eugene Friends Church in late February.  We stayed with Tom and Vicki S, who were wonderful hosts.  On Saturday evening, Tom and Vicki hosted a potluck with about a dozen Friends from the meeting and the church.  I felt like the potluck was the reason we were there; Friends from the meeting and church really enjoyed spending time together and suggested getting together regularly and having official visits to each other.  The next morning, Sarah and I attended 8:30 a.m. programmed worship at Eugene Friends Church, and made announcements about the women’s conference at two Sunday school classes there.  We then went to Eugene Friends Meeting for singing and attended 11 a.m. unprogrammed worship, making announcements about the women’s conference at each.

Sarah and I rescheduled our visit to Bellingham Friends Meeting at least once before our trip in late March.  We also ended up driving up on Sunday morning instead of staying overnight because we were too tired to make the trip after clerking a committee meeting all day.  We sang and worshiped with Friends, then led the adult religious education hour after meeting.  In adult religious education, we began with worship and then asked Friends to name all of the words they could think of to describe the divine.  We wrote the words on the white board as they spoke and ended up with about 40 words.  It was a good visual and opened up the conversation.  We talked about the women’s conference and I gave an example of narrative theology by telling the story of how Sarah and I met.  Friends shared many stories about encountering different kinds of Friends.

Before Sarah and I visited Sandpoint Friends Meeting in April, Leann W offered to come with us as an elder.  We really appreciated her offer and enjoyed having her with us while we traveled.  Leann met with Sarah and me on Saturday afternoon for some worship and singing.  During worship, we noted that we were all in times of transition in our lives (jobs changing, coming to the end of traveling/working on the women’s conference).  On Sunday, the three of us went to Sandpoint Friends Meeting for unprogrammed worship.  After worship, Sandpoint had a potluck, then we led a discussion session.  We talked about the women’s conference, narrative theology, and different language for God.  Friends there asked us to talk about the different kinds of worship at our meetings and churches: Sarah described programmed worship at Spokane Friends, I described semi-programmed worship at Freedom Friends, and Leann talked about her Friday night worship group.

My visit to North Seattle Friends Church was fairly informal, though it was planned in advance.  Sarah H, who is on my care committee, agreed to come with me as an elder.  I made an announcement about the women’s conference during their “God stories” time, but my old fears about public speaking returned and I did not say everything I had hoped to say about the women’s conference.  Fortunately, Jan W added on to what I said and talked about the work of reconciliation the women’s conference is doing in this part of the country and the impact that it has beyond the Northwest. 

After this visit, I realized how tired I was from all of the travel and work on the women’s conference.  Travel in the ministry was physically, spiritually, and emotionally exhausting for me in general.  I needed at least a day to recover from each of these trips and ended up using quite a bit of sick leave from work.

Something that surprised me about these visits is that I did not feel led to speak in worship in any of the meetings I visited.  This felt like a learning experience for me on when not to speak.  I did speak in each meeting and church outside of meeting for worship, either by giving an announcement or leading a presentation.  Public speaking does not come easily for me and this gave me an opportunity to practice.  I also found that it became easier to talk about the women’s conference the more I did it.

Traveling with Sarah P was good and sometimes challenging.  We found that we had to work on our relationship in order for the ministry to work and at times it was very difficult.  Spending this much time doing ministry together was very good, though, and I think it helped us when we had to work together all the time during the women’s conference.  I felt that we were yoked together in ministry and made a deep spiritual connection through this work.

Over the past year, I have met with a care committee as part of the School of the Spirit program I am doing.  They were very supportive of my ministry and helped me through some of the more difficult times.  Other than my meetings with them, I felt pretty disconnected from University Friends Meeting.  At the time I requested the traveling minute from NPYM, I did not look at the section on traveling minutes in NPYM Faith and Practice.  I recently read it and learned that the process for granting a traveling minute is for it to first go to the member’s home meeting’s Oversight committee (p. 80).  Although this would have taken longer, I think going through this process and having the minuted support of University Friends Meeting would have made me feel more connected to the meeting while I was traveling.

Faith and Practice also says, “When a meeting grants a minute of travel, it should take care that, as far as possible, the service is not hindered for lack of funds or other resources.”  Fortunately, I received a grant from FWCC and spiritual support from my care committee, but it would have been nice to have more interaction with Friends from NPYM regarding whether I needed funds or other resources.

Thank you for giving me this traveling minute and the opportunity to represent NPYM while visiting meetings and churches in the Pacific Northwest.  Please let me know if you have any questions or would like any further information about my time traveling in the ministry.

Wrestling

This morning in worship, I felt very unsettled.  I could feel myself preparing internally for the upcoming yearly meetings and strong emotions were going through me.  On Tuesday, I leave for Missoula, Montana for North Pacific Yearly Meeting annual session.  I return the following Monday, spend about a week at home, then go to Newberg, Oregon for Northwest Yearly Meeting annual session as the NPYM visitor.

I did the same thing last year and I don't know whether it was better to not know what I was getting myself into.  Yearly meetings may look like a vacation from the outside, but they are hard work.  Last year, I spent NPYM fighting with God about a message I felt led to give.  And on the last day of my time at NWYM, I wrote in my notes that my heart was broken and that this is "hard work, harder than anything else because it requires everything."

In addition to all of this, I will be moving to Salem a few days after I return from NWYM.  I have been fighting with God a lot about this move lately.  I felt a clear call to move to Salem and I have arranged my life around that call, but at times it feels like too much.  I don't want to give up my home, University Friends Meeting, or my friends here.  I am sad to leave my godson, who just started to be able to pronounce my name.  And I am not thrilled that even though my moving date is less than three weeks away, I still don't know where my new home will be.

Worship this morning gave me time to sit with all of this, and to cry.  Friends on either side of me gave me silent support as I grieved all that I am giving up as I attempt to follow God's leadings.  

I think I sometimes unintentionally give the impression that this faith stuff is easy for me.  It's not.  It is very, very hard.  But I committed to try to make God the center of my life, and I shouldn't be surprised when God moves in and disrupts all of the ideas I have about how my life should go.

A Bible story that I return to frequently is the story of Jacob wrestling with God.  This story speaks to me because that is how I often feel about my relationship with God: I am angry with God and we fight.  At some point, God usually breaks me, but I know God also blesses me.

I probably won't have a lot of time to post here in the next few weeks as I travel and pack.  I will be out doing my best to follow the Spirit, though, and I would appreciate it if you would keep me in your prayers.

Women's Conference Epistle

Here is the epistle from the 8th Pacific Northwest Quaker Women's Theology Conference, written by our fabulous epistle committee: Iris G, Aimee M, and Erin M.

To our Quaker family,

Surrounded by the waters and wildlife of Hood Canal and the snowy peaks of the Olympic Mountains, sixty women gathered in Seabeck, Washington from June 16-20, 2010 for the eighth Pacific Northwest Quaker Women’s Theology Conference. Begun fifteen years ago to promote dialogue and build relationships among different Quaker traditions, this conference continues to be deeply Spirit led and enriches the lives of women who attend.

Though we represent different backgrounds and branches of Quakerism, the lines between these seemed very thin and blurred. No one avoided talking about her home meeting or church, but our membership didn’t have as much weight as our personal experiences shared in love. Even as we attempted to be open and accepting, at times we misstepped and unintentionally hurt each other. Many of us felt broken open and left this conference changed.

Through reflection papers we wrote, plenary sessions, home groups and discussion, we each connected personally with the theme, “Walk With Me: Mentors, Elders, and Friends.” Each plenary brought us back again and again to the awareness of the need for support and mentorship in our lives. We identified places in which we are being accompanied and are accompanying others and places where we feel the absence of that loving presence. Many of us made commitments to seek those relationships in our meetings, churches and beyond.

Despite colds, more serious illnesses and concerns for the health of loved ones, we drew strength, support, and encouragement from one another. Many think of the Women’s Conference as a reunion and newcomers found they were welcomed into the family with open arms.

In keeping with the testimony of community, we opened ourselves to another group, Interplay, also staying at the conference center. We described the kind of work that we each came to do, invited them to join us in worship, and likewise were invited to experience their ministry and we shared grace together before meals.

We celebrated the gifts of many through plenaries, workshops, singing and readings by several published authors. During one plenary session, several young adults shared personal experiences of their ministries in relation to the theme of the conference. We were thrilled to hear stories of women being supported and held sacredly in their ministry. However, we were deeply saddened to learn that some are not empowered or recognized in their ministries. We were thus reminded of the reality of sexism in the Society of Friends. Encircling the young adult women, we joined together in heartfelt prayer and were moved by its healing and supportive power. This experience deepened our worship and fellowship together. We challenged ourselves to be aware of internalized sexism, as well as the sexism in our churches and meetings, and to work toward true equality.

During business meeting on Saturday, we reaffirmed the work of this body of women and our leading to continue meeting together as an intra-faith group. We look forward to the next opportunity to join in fellowship.

And Be Glad

For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.  (Matthew 18:20).

Tomorrow evening, 60 or so women will gather in Seabeck, Washington for the 2010 Pacific Northwest Quaker Women's Theology Conference.  I have been living and breathing this conference for so long now, it is hard to believe it is actually almost here.

In a couple hours, I will go to the airport to pick up Sarah P, my co-clerk on the planing committee.  She and I have been working on the women's conference for over two years now, longer than I have had this blog.  I am glad that she will be here soon, because I am having a hard time focusing on anything today.  I don't know that she will be in any better shape, but it seems good for us to be together.  We are planning to go to a yoga class in the morning and then, God willing, head downtown for the ferry and over to Seabeck.

I keep thinking that I will get a call or have a sudden realization that I forgot something big, something crucial.  So far, that has not happened.  I am trying to let go, to know that we have done as much as we can do, and need to leave the rest to God.  

Over the past several weeks, a song has come to me in a variety of contexts.  We used to sing it when I was a kid, repeating each line:

This is the day
That the Lord has made.
I will rejoice
And be glad in it.

Regardless of what happens, I am doing my best to remember that this is the day that the Lord has made, and to rejoice and be glad in it.

Please keep us in your prayers as we gather together to spend time listening to God and each other.