A Diplomat is Born

This last week I was asked by the Willamette Chapter of North Pacific Yearly Meeting, a Quaker group, to be on a panel at their Quarterly meeting discussing the future of Friends and to hold an interest group on the discussion. I am asked to go as a diplomat, at first from Multwood, a cross yearly-meeting group of radical women I am a part of, and also, when they heard I am a member of Freedom Friends Church, from that group as well. I am also throwing in my status as an Editorial Board member for the Quaker Youth Book Project – there are only nine of us around the world so it’s a great opportunity to bring that to them as well.

The panel is to be a type of discussion you would watch on a TV talk show, hopefully without the throwing of chairs, a kind of threshing session with a possible open question period afterward. I am really looking forward to it. It’s the first weekend in October and it’s at a camp in Mt. Hood so you know I will be bringing my camera along as well.

One of the other panelists also asked me a question this week (unrelated to the panel). She is the editor of Western Friend and also in Multwood. She was wondering if she could interview me after our meeting this Sunday about the Quaker Youth Book Project. Of course I said yes.

It’s kind of strange and funny at the same time. This is the kind of stuff I have always wanted to be involved with, to be doing. It’s funny to find myself really living it, to live the life I’ve wanted. So thank you to all those who have helped me do it.

These are my answers to the questions I’ve been asked as a kind of “get to know you” beforehand. I thought you might enjoy reading them as well.

What meeting or meetings are you in contact with?
I discovered the Quaker world through Reedwood Friends in Portland with Carole Spencer. I loved the church but it was an hour away, too far to go every Sunday. When I decided to leave the Foursquare church I had been attending, not my style, and find a Quaker church a while later, I went to Silverton Friends for several months. They were a great church and very kind but it wasn’t what I was looking for and frankly, I was tired of “church” by that point. I couldn’t sit through the services anymore, any Christian services. So I had a talk with God on the beach one day and we agreed I would just stop going. I was very happy with this and wasn’t even thinking about finding a church or meeting when God dropped Freedom Friends Church onto my path. There was no way around it, so I decided to just check it out one Sunday. (I made God wake me up on time, I refused to set my alarm.) I liked their style, a little framework but pretty much open to whatever you are looking for. It was also a place I could contribute to so I have been there for over a year now. At Freedom Friends, I am the Assistant Recording Clerk, and am a member of the Ministry and Oversight Committee and the Faith and Practice Task Force. I still go up to visit Reedwood Friends.

How long have you been connected to Friends?
I made the choice to start attending the Quaker meetings in October of 2006. I was at a retreat led by Carole Spencer at Twins Rocks and sitting at the tables with all these Quakers, I felt like I had found the place where my spirituality was recognized, encouraged, and shared. As I had grown extremely frustrated with where I was attending, it was an easy decision to make. Before this though, I had studied Quaker theology and spirituality at seminary for different projects and throughout those studies, I had realized Quakers believed some of the same conclusions I had already come to on my own. The retreat was more a push over the edge I was already hovering around. Though now I have a more realistic view of Quakers, I still hold to these first images.

Do you have any aspects of Friends’ faith and practice which are particularly near and dear?
The thing I love the most about Quaker theology is there is that of God in everyone. Everyone has God within them, everyone holds that light We are not worms as the revivalists put it, and we are not the saved and the heathens, we are each an image of God, we each know the Divine. I also like the Quaker belief that the Bible is not the highest authority. It’s important, but listening to God, and knowing God will speak to you directly, is better still. I’ve also always appreciated simplicity. We don’t need to have the fanciest new technology, the big screen HD TV, or the best car. I would rather invest my life in my writing, my friends and family, the things that will never go out of style. I want to invest in things that make my soul sing, not the cash register clang.

What is your outlook on the future of Friends?
I think my outlook, or hope, for the future of Friends would be what I would tell every person, no matter their beliefs. I hope we become more open to each other, to having relationships with people who are very different from us, who don’t agree with us, but that we could love them. Not love them as in the mushy, political correct way, but to walk beside them, encourage, uplift, get down in the dirt with them if you need to, that kind of love them. Knowing that Quakers are as different from one another as could possibly be, that sometimes the only thing we share in common is our name, I think it’s important to think about relationships between ourselves as well as the wider world. We also can’t go around thinking we have the only real “truth”, but that there are lots of ways to experience the truth in all kinds of faith walks. I think if I could push the Quakers in one direction in the future, this would be it – seeing ourselves a piece in the larger picture.
At the same time, I think it’s important to remember the unique gifts we have to offer. Perhaps not as unique as we think, or as new, but always important. We need to remember what makes us Quakers and uphold that flavor. The world needs to hear some of things we have to say. Quakerism is an important flavor to have, to know it is one worth having, as long as we know it’s not the only one worth tasting.
But the simple fact you are looking to have this discussion, to have people like me come as ambassadors to discuss it, shows that Quakers are giving an honest look at themselves and are thinking about how they will look in times to come. That is encouraging in itself.