Convergent Friends

I actually have been writing quite a bit lately . . . just not here.  In addition to the legal writing I do every day for work, I have been doing the kind of writing that is important, but not necessarily for a wider audience: personal statements, scholarship and grant applications, a workshop description.  

As you might imagine, I end up writing about Quakers a lot.  One paragraph that is part of a longer essay seemed worth posting, a description of convergent Friends:

One of the growing edges in the Religious Society of Friends is a movement called “convergent Friends”: Quakers coming together across the branches of Friends to try to discover the best of our tradition.  This is a movement toward reconciliation.  It is not based on the idea that we all have to worship the same way or believe the same things, but on the conviction that there is still life in the Religious Society of Friends, that God is still speaking to and through us, and that we can learn about the Spirit among us―however we name that Spirit―by sharing our experiences of the divine and listening deeply.

I will be heading down to California tomorrow evening to interview at Claremont School of Theology on Tuesday.   I would appreciate your prayers for safe travels and for clarity and grace while I am there.

A Sign

You can make your own sign on the Friends Committee on National Legislation website.

Three Meetings

"For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them."  Matthew 18:20.

Over the four Sundays this month, I have worshiped at four different meetings.  In addition to one week at my home meeting, Freedom Friends Church, I had the opportunity to visit Friends at Multnomah Monthly Meeting, Oakland Quakers, and Salem Friends Meeting.  I felt warmly welcomed at each meeting, and they were all different, so I thought I'd share a little about those experiences.

Multnomah Monthly Meeting

Some friends and I got tickets to see The Book of Mormon in Portland on January 6, so I stayed at their house the night before.  The play was at 1pm, so I knew I would not have time to go to 10am worship, but I kept feeling a nudge to go to Multnomah Monthly Meeting that day.  I asked my friends if I could borrow their car to go to early worship, and they said that I could.

The Multnomah MM meetinghouse, from the meeting's website.

Early worship at Multnomah begins at 8:15am, and tends to be a relatively small and quiet group compared to 10am worship.  When I arrived, there was only one other person in the room, and we ended up with about a dozen.  I was happy to see my friend Joe S, and we sat together in companionable worship.  There was no vocal ministry, but the worship had a warm feeling to it.

After worship, we went around the circle twice.  The first time, we shared our names and anything that arose for us during worship.  Most people spoke.  I said that I don't get a chance to worship at Multnomah very often, but as I sat in worship, I remembered other times I had been there; I was grateful for the opportunity to visit and spent some time in prayer for the life of the meeting.  The second time around, we were invited to share anything that we wanted Friends to hold in the Light.  A young man who was worshiping at Multnomah for the first time―he had recently moved from a meeting in California―said that he thought the practice of going around the circle twice with these prompts was wonderful and he wished every meeting did it.

As we were getting ready to go downstairs for tea, Joe mentioned that he had seen Christina R walking by, and she would be giving a talk about Quaker Voluntary Service after 10am worship.  I was thrilled.  Christina and I have known each other for years online, but had never been in the same place at the same time.  I went downstairs and introduced myself, and we were both delighted to finally meet in person and have some time to talk before she went up for worship.

Oakland Quakers

A couple weeks later, I went down to Oakland for a long weekend to visit family.  A number of young adult Friends that I know have recently moved to the Bay Area, so I suggested a small-scale YAF invasion of Oakland Quakers, a worship group hosted by Pam C and Helen H in their living room on Sunday evenings.  (I met Pam and Helen at a Convergent Friends workshop at Ben Lomond Quaker Center a few years ago and had wanted to visit Oakland Friends ever since.)  So on Sunday night, I picked up my former housemate Eric B at a BART station, and we met up with Suzanne F for worship.

Again, there were about a dozen people gathered for worship, though that felt like a lot more in a living room than it did in Multnomah MM's large worship room!  The meeting was almost completely silent.  Near the end of worship, I felt led to read God's call on Samuel in I Samuel 3:1-11.  After reading, I held the Bible in my lap, waiting to hear if God would lead me to give a message as well as the reading, but I did not feel led to speak further, and that was the only vocal ministry.

At the end of worship, we all introduced ourselves and Pam asked me to say a little about Freedom Friends.  I described our independent, inclusive, Christ-centered meeting and then asked Suzanne if she would talk about New City Friends, the meeting she was a part of in Detroit, which sounds similar to Freedom Friends.  Friends from Oakland Friends shared how they had read through the entire Bible together and said that they do not often have vocal ministry in their meetings. 

After worship, Eric and I went to Suzanne's house for dinner.  Suzanne is another Friend that I had known for quite a while online, but had never met in person, and I am glad that we had the opportunity to meet and worship together. 

Salem Friends Meeting 

Although I am a member of Freedom Friends, it is not actually the closest Friends meeting to my house.  Salem Friends Meeting is in my neighborhood, less than a 10-minute walk away.  The two meetings have a good relationship and I try to visit a few times a year.

This past Sunday morning was drizzly and cold, and as I ate breakfast, I debated about whether I should go to worship at Freedom Friends or Salem Friends.  I was leaning toward going to Salem Friends, but felt guilty about missing worship at Freedom Friends two weeks in a row.  I was praying about it when suddenly this message appeared in my head:  

"God doesn't care where you go to meeting this morning.  You could stay home and read a novel, and that would be fine with God.  Go where you want!"

I laughed and headed out the door to walk over to Salem Friends.

Like Multnomah and Oakland Quakers, worship at Salem Friends is unprogrammed, and there were about a dozen people gathered for worship that day.  The worship was mostly silent, with one Friend sharing a message about her work with the Alternatives to Violence program at a local prison.

At the rise of meeting, we all introduced ourselves and then it was time for Salem Friends to decide where to give money.  Salem Friends owns their building and are committed to giving away extra money that they take in.  I believe they do this quarterly, and I always seem to be visiting on the Sundays when they discuss where to give!

Friends recommended some local charities―a women's crisis center, a halfway house, the humane society, which recently got a larger influx of dogs than usual―and Friends allocated amounts for each.  When the discussion seemed to be winding down, I asked if I could suggest something.  Friends were happy to listen, so I told them that, earlier that week, I had received a message from QuakerQuaker saying that the site was in need of money to continue.  I shared that QuakerQuaker has been an important community for me, and encouraged Salem Friends to contribute, and they did. 

Afterthoughts 

I am never quite sure what the distinction is between traveling ministry and intervisitation.  I think these visits were probably more like intervisitation than traveling ministry―I did not travel with a minute or under a concern, and any vocal ministry I gave felt somewhat beside the point.  But I did feel led to visit each of the meetings and I am glad that I followed those leadings.  And, as Lloyd Lee Wilson says, you never know why you are there.  I am grateful for the connections with Friends and the opportunities I have had to gather for worship.

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.]

Ashley Applying to Seminary FAQ

Hey Ashley, I hear you are applying to seminary?

It's true, I am!

Are you applying to a Quaker seminary?  Are there Quaker seminaries?

There are Quaker seminaries, but no, I am not applying to a Quaker seminary.

So where are you applying?

I am applying to Candler School of Theology, in Atlanta, GA, Drew Theological School, in Madison, NJ, and Claremont School of Theology, in Claremont, CA.

Why those schools?

Honestly, one of the biggest reasons I chose those three is financial considerations―they all offer excellent financial aid.  I still have a significant amount of debt from law school and I am going to need quite a bit of financial aid if I am going to go to seminary.  

Additionally, these three seminaries seem great.  They are different from each other, but each one has aspects to its program that convinced me it would be a good fit for me and an excellent place to continue my education.

But why go to seminary at all?  You know you don't need to go to seminary to be a minister in the Religious Society of Friends, right?

I know.  As I have mentioned before, I am currently in the process to be recorded as a minister by my meeting, Freedom Friends Church.  If way opens, I will be recorded before I begin seminary.

The primary reason that I am applying for seminary is that I feel like that is what God is calling me to do.  I have felt this call for the past few years and tested it with people I trust to listen and be honest with me.  Throughout this time of discernment, I have felt clearer to go ahead and now feels like the right time.

But if you don't need to go to seminary to be a minister, why go?

A few reasons.  For a while now, I have carried a concern for supporting ministers in the Religious Society of Friends.  I believe that seminary will give me some of the tools I need to support those ministers.  I also think that a Master of Divinity will help me develop skills for sustained public ministry.  I tend to give ministry everything I have, and I hope that seminary will help me acquire some better boundaries and self-care in doing ministry.  Finally, I am interested in learning systematic theology, to give me perspective on the biases I unconsciously bring to ministry.

What do you plan to do after you graduate?

I am not sure, and that is scary!  As of now, there is not a specific, paying job for what I am feeling called to do.  But my experience of leadings is that I only get one step at a time.  Right now, I feel that God is leading me to apply to seminary, so that is what I am doing.

When will you know whether you got in?

At this point, I am hoping to get all of my applications done by mid-January.  I should hear back within the next few months.

What about being a lawyer?

I am a member of the Washington Bar Association; if I go to seminary, I will go on inactive status.  After I graduate, I will have the option of going back to being an active member of the bar if I choose.

How do your friends and family feel about this decision?

Everyone has been really supportive!  My close friends and family have been watching me over the past several years as I have felt called to ministry, and me going to seminary has seemed like a natural next step for many of them.  I am grateful to have so many wonderful, supportive people in my life.

Is there anything I can do?

You can pray for me.  I can always use prayer and especially in this time of transition.  I would also appreciate any information about scholarships I might not know about.  And if you feel led to support me financially, that would be great.

Any other questions?

Here and There

As usual, when my life gets busy, my blog gets quiet.  After a pretty low-key October, November has had a lot going on.  Fortunately, it's all good.

Early this month, I went to the FGC Traveling Ministries regional retreat for ministers and elders.  The retreat was hosted by Salem Friends Meeting, which is within walking distance of my house!  After spending so much time traveling long distances to get to Quaker events, I was thrilled to have a retreat so close.

About half of the Friends from the traveling ministries retreat.  Photo by Deborah F.

Deborah F and Kristi E did a wonderful job leading the retreat, and it was great to be able to catch up with Friends from the Pacific Northwest who I don't get to see often enough.  One of the highlights for me was leading Friends on a walk after lunch around the capital and the campus.  The leaves were beautiful and I got to show Friends some of my favorite places, including the statue of the Circuit Rider across the street from where I work.

Then last week, I used the long weekend for a trip to Seattle.  It was fun to go just to visit, and my adventures included a three-year-old's birthday party, vodka tasting, worship at University Friends Meeting, and lots of really good food.  The best part was being able to spend time with so many people that I love.  I hope to visit again soon!

Godson Simon granting my wish.  Photo by Emily W B.

Over the last several weeks, Friends United Meeting has engaged in 40 Days of Prayer for the future of Friends.  Even though Freedom Friends Church is not a member of FUM, I have been praying along.  I have really enjoyed joining in prayer with Friends around the world, and I look forward to seeing the fruit of this time of discernment.

And now I am grateful for a quiet weekend at home.  I will be meeting with my recording committee for the first time tomorrow afternoon.  I have been in the recording process for a while now, and meeting with a committee for discernment is the next step.  At times, I have really wanted to be recorded as a minister, other times I really have not.  Right now, I am feeling pretty ambivalent.  I have written before about how fraught recording is, especially for women, and it feels a little like putting a big target on my back.  But I do feel that God is leading me to go forward in the process, and I trust the Friends on my committee and in my meeting to hold me in prayer as I do.  If you feel so led, I would appreciate your prayers as well.

Just a Psalm

When I was little, my dad would read a chapter of the Bible to me and my sister every night before we went to bed.  Usually, we would read through one of the gospels or the stories from the Old Testament, but if we were late getting to bed, dad would tease us and say there wasn't enough time.  We would beg him to read to us, and he would relent, saying, "Maybe just a Psalm."  It became something that my sister and I would say jokingly, when we were up too late―just a Psalm.

Thinking about that makes me laugh now.  I still read the Bible before I go to bed, and I probably read the Psalms more than any other book.  There is so much to them!  The imagery is amazing, and I love how the writers reflect all of the emotions they are feeling: giving thanks, praising God, feeling abandoned, alone, or in despair―sometimes all in the same Psalm!

I also love how familiar the Psalms are, not just because I read them so often, but because I learned so many of them set to music in my childhood.  I will be reading along, then come to a phrase or even a whole chapter that brings back a melody and a time and place I had forgotten.

I memorized a lot of Bible verses as a child, but the first entire chapter I learned by heart was Psalm 100.  My travel Bible says that it is a psalm for giving thanks, which seems like a good place to start.  [Note: I generally try to use nongendered language for God, but because I learned this Psalm with male pronouns, I am leaving it that way here.]

Psalm 100

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.

Serve the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful song.

Know that the Lord is God.  It is he who made us, and we are his; 

we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; 

give thanks to him and praise his name.

For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;

his faithfulness continues through all generations.