A Rose by Any Other Name

A number of you were interested in this question.

What do we mean when we say “God”? Who is God?

Here are some possibilities:

1.

a. The Merciful,

b. The Source of Peace

c. The Protector

d. The King, The One with the complete Dominion

e. The Great Forgiver

2.

a. Defender against Evil

b. Fate, Destiny

c. Seasons, Law, Good Order, Peace

d. Beauty, Adornment, Dancing

3.

a. Master

b. Creator

c. Resurrection and Life

d. Judge of the Living and the Dead

The groups above are from different religious traditions. Maybe you guessed that already. Maybe not.

The links below show where I got these names of God from. A challenge: maybe seeing the names of the links, you’ll be able to tell which tradition each group (above) comes from. Maybe not. Maybe you can learn something about God from these names-for-God. Maybe you can’t.

Are these different faith traditions talking about the same divine spirit? About something completely different from each other?

Pantheon of Greek Gods

100 Biblical Names for Jesus / Names_and_titles_of_Jesus_in_the_New_Testament

99 Attributes of Allah

A Procedure for Love

In our culture, we might start to think we can find a rule for every situation. The way we approach our legal system (are we a "litigious culture"?) and the way Quakers habitually approach problems of "process" have something in common.

But there are situations we can't cover with a pre-set plan and procedure. Rules come with loopholes to exploit, and there are always ways to break rules in secret.

There are people who seem to approach every problem with the question, "how can we make a procedure that permanently solves this problem?"

Among Quakers, we try to connect our souls and hearts with the divine... with Love, with God.

Do we let procedure take over the role of human care, human connection, as a way to solve problems? Do we think we can make a pre-planned process that'll accomplish what love can accomplish?

We can make habits that bring us closer to God, but there isn't a rule that'll make people have love in their hearts.

Deep Life in our Hearts

deep life in our hearts

the things that go beyond words

friendship and community

being who we are

sticking to our word

the things that are forever

is that what the spirit of love is?

Quakers and Ministry

With thanks to my friend Amy Kietzman and the description of ministry at the Quaker Information Center site.

During our meeting for worship, we hope that ministers will only speak if their speaking will deepen the worship. We hope there will be a sense of power and energy in what they have to say, and that when that power isn't there inside them, they'll be silent.

We hope for ministry that has enough depth to cross the distance between us, to touch not just the person speaking but everyone who's there.

We hope for ministry that has a depth to it that'll stand the test of time - that next week, or next month, or next year, it will still have relevance, power, importance in our lives and our hearts.

We hope for ministry, and worship, to be present not only during one hour of scheduled worship, but also in our meetings for worship for business, in our committee meetings, and in our other times together. We hope that what we say and what we do not just on Sundays, but for the rest of the week too, will be touched by a sense of the depth that we look for in our worship together, that our words and actions will be meaningful for more than a tiny moment, and will have have meaning that goes beyond ourselves, alone, alone.

A Quaker Way of Doing Business

With thanks to my friend Maggie, whose joyful spirit played a part in inspiring this message.

When we go to business meetings, do we focus on being what "God / Love / Integrity" is calling us to be? Do we live up to our potential to make the meetings a kind of worship, to speak only when we can speak from deep love, passion, and a shared sense of community? Do we try to make it possible for everyone to get what they need, rather than turning ourselves into adversaries? Do we direct our thoughts towards the ways that deep energy and passion within the whole group will be brought out?

Would you be willing to participate in lovingly trying to help the people we meet with, focus on what excites our energy and passion,

what brings us together,

what draws a sense of love into us?

Quakers and Hurrying

So the ideas for this blog post have been bouncing around in my head for a couple months, but I just didn't get around to writing them down.

So I've been thinking about how it's so easy to never do today what could be done tomorrow instead... like writing a blog post about procrastinating, right?

Or like trying to help folks in Haiti be prepared for hurricanes.

The trouble is, when it comes to preparing for acts of God, isn't so useful to wait until afterwards to prepare.

So, feel free to say that I'm looking at things through rose-colored glasses way too much here, but I think there's a good side to "acts of God" or whatever you want to call them - the good side I'm seeing is that if life throws challenges at us, we often rise up to meet them and we really enjoy the process of learning to overcome them, too. Mind you, I could live without any challenges the size of hurricanes.

Anyway, one of the things that I think God sometimes does by giving me difficult circumstances in life, is tell me to get off my lazy duff and do something. You know, so I don't spend my whole life laying in bed thinking about how bored I am and how nothing that I do really matters to anybody anyway...

Bet I'm not the only person who needs a good kick in the butt to get up and do something useful. Wish it weren't quite so big a kick in the butt as, a bunch of people I know and like live in a village that could potentially be wiped out by hurricanes and flooding. D'oh! Well, at least there's a possible solution. Best estimate I've heard so far says that saving the village from erosion will require a wall that costs some $50,000 US dollars - well within reach for a well-organized fundraising campaign, especially since we've already got money lined up to cover about half this cost. Wanna help make the rest of it happen? Contact julianbrelsford //at'\\ gmail.com

Quaker Worship and Children

I've been thinking about the way children often can't sit still in a Quaker meeting. They're often fidgety and sometimes they like to ask, "are we almost done yet?" And adults sometimes, too, you know.

And you know how Quakers got the name, Quaker? You probably do - people would "quake" or shake, because God was telling them to get up and do something, and they just couldn't hold it in. Or God didn't want them to hold it in, at least.

We often don't even think about the possibility that fidgety young Quakers, the ones who don't sit still in Quaker Meeting, might be unable to sit still because of some kind of Quaker ministry they're called to share.

Now, I'm not saying that every fidgety kid has something to say during meeting that all of us ought to hear.

But I wonder if every fidgety kid has some kind of "ministry" that we ought to be helping them express - it could be speaking, drawing, painting, cooking, fixing stuff with wrenches and hammers...

Stillness, Rising, Falling

So I was thinking about stillness, and how stillness is one of the things we look for in Quaker meetings, partly as a retreat from our crazy world, a place where we can feel safe.

And I was thinking about the joy and excitement that I think has been felt at the birth of new religious movements, including the beginning of the Quaker faith.

I guess both of these - looking for steadiness and retreat, and the looking for excitement - are healthy.

But I think the loud-and-excited side of faith is what's often caused dramatic growth in different religious movements, like early Christians or early Quakers.

I've also been thinking about the worry some folks have, about declining numbers of people participating in unprogrammed Quaker meetings. Maybe we'd really like the numbers to be steady.

Often, though, sameness is not really something the world does. Things rise, they fall, but they don't really sit still that well. Do our meetings for worship sit still well? Do we rise and fall? Do the numbers of Quakers rise and fall?

Often we don't feel safe even saying that we might like the numbers of Quakers to rise. And religions that let excitement take over are dangerous.

I don't know. Not like the number of Quakers "on the books" matters that much anyway, but I guess I'd like to see more of us be excited about our faith, and I think that'd have an impact on how many people come to worship with us...

Energy, More or Less?

It's easy to feel tired and overwhelmed in our busy American society today. Some of us respond to the feeling of tiredness by seeking out opportunities to be alone, maybe even to the point of feeling lonely and "cut off" from other people.

Some of us respond by trying to put everything that's "good" into our lives - helping out with good causes, being on committees, working, rushing from one activity to the next. Even with all of this busy-ness, it's possible to feel as though you haven't made much of a real connection with the people you've been around.

But this isn't the whole story.

I invite you to look at which activities in your life leave you feeling refreshed, ready to really take on whatever life has to offer next. Some of the things we do leave us feeling drained, while others feel like the require a lot of energy and yet leave us excited to keep going!

What kinds of things (in your life or the life of another person) have you seen that seem to bring energy out from nowhere, in a person?

Worship Every Hour?

I'm told a great spiritual teacher said that on days when he was extremely busy, it was important to spend twice as much time praying. Don't know if it's true. But I've been considering ways to arrange my activities and life around what feels connected to the divine. A Christian social/prayer/bible-study group weekly. Quaker worship weekly on Sundays and once or twice during the week too. A meeting for singing each month that feels very spiritually grounded. Participation in a practice called "5Rhythms" that amounts to a sort of "prayer through dance". But some of my favorite and most spiritually powerful experiences have been just sitting around sharing a deep conversation with friends, too. Let me invite you to be attentive to the ways that you connect with Spirit. Does "connecting with something deeper" as a regular habit, make each of these kinds of activities more powerful or fulfilling in your life?

What's in a Name?

I'd like to explain the name for this blog. I had kind of wished for a name that'd need no explanation, but "What did he say?" is a reference to a couple of things that many of you probably don't know about my life.

The more clear meaning is probably that I've often felt like the things I say make no sense to the people around me. Sometimes I'm off in my own space-case mental world, focused on what's going on inside my own mind. I guess it's easy to assume that the mental connections that happen in my own mind will happen for other people, too, and I'm sometimes prone to assuming people will know more about what I'm talking about than they actually do. Clearly, some of the things I say come across as bizzare, nonsensical, or irritating.

The bigger reason I chose the name for this blog, though, was the sort of revelation I had early in 2008 about what Jesus Christ said. To me, regardless of whether any historical person said quite what is written in the bible, the parts of the bible attributed to Jesus Christ directly have a deep ring of spiritual truth to me. They are simple, brief, and somewhat repetitious.

Consider the possible interpretation, that Jesus Christ is no more and no less than the Spirit behind these words:

"Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me" (Mark 10:21).

"Love your neighbor as yourself." (Galatians 5:14)

For me, that's what he said. Who is the "me" mentioned in Mark 10:21? The spirit that says "love your neighbor as yourself".

Quakers and Equality

It appears to me that many Quaker communities are facing a bit of a "chicken and egg" challenge in obtaining the participation of people who are new and people who, on the surface, are "not like us". I'd like to paraphrase some ideas folks have had about this challenge. I hope you'll consider how you might see yourself and people like you, in the "us" and the "them".

• "if their perspectives are listened to and if they participate in the leadership of the community, it will help create a community they will love to participate in"
• "if we invite them, and invite them persistently and lovingly, to participate in our community, then they will participate".
• "if we contribute money we'll feel more invested and participate more"
• "if we contribute our time as a service we'll feel more invested in the community and participate more"
• "if it's difficult for us to find a way to participate, we might not participate"

It strikes me that participation from various groups such as young adults in...

• leadership,
• financial support of the community,
• membership,
• worship,
• service,
• community life,

... that these forms of participation feed off of each other and each is needed for all the others to work out.

I hope you'll consider the possibility that neither you nor the Quaker community is "bad" or "wrong" for not having already looked at this more, or not having created more age/race/social class diversity. I hope you'll also consider that our faith community has a lot to rejoice in, in terms of the stand that we have taken for equality and the ways that has influenced us.

If you've read this far, I'd like to make this request of you:

Would you be willing to invite people to participate in ways that will help our community's base of support* include people who are new or whose age, social class, or race is different from your own?

*by that i I mean our membership, leadership, worship, etc.

Facetious Guidelines for Quaker Messages

Note to people with no sense of humor: This blog post is a joke!

In Quaker Worship, there are a couple of guidelines you should follow in order to discern whether what you are considering saying should be shared with the people you are with. It is fortunate that they are very simple and easy to remember. I discerned these guidelines today after reading one prominent Quaker's facebook status, which said : "(name) should not be on facebook during business meeting."

Guideline 1: The message should come from God.

Guideline 2: The message should be un-boring enough that people don't quit listening and go check facebook.

I encourage you to speak during a Quaker meeting for worship, or a Quaker meeting-for-worship-for-business if (and only if) what you have to say follows both of those guidelines.

Sharing Your Experience, Skills, and Abilities

"You will say Christ says this, and the New York Times says this, and National Public Radio says that, but what can you say?"

I was at the celebration of new book, Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship, and one of the most striking insights shared at that celebration about the relationship between Quakers and African Americans or other people of color was, "many Quakers have been willing to have people of color be around them, but they have not been willing to change anything about themselves or their ways of doing things in order to make people of color welcome."

Quakers are struggling with ways of ensuring that people younger than age 40, people of color, and in general people who are somehow outside of the Quaker norm will participate in Quaker communities. (As compared to the population as a whole, Quakers in the USA are much more likely to be Caucasian, come from a family with far above average income, and be much older than the general population.)

Willingness (or lack thereof) to change and respond in order to fully welcome people who are different into our communities will play a big part in changing this.

Another factor in this challenge Quakers face is one that might not be intuitive at first. We as Quakers need to ask ourselves not only, "what can I do to accomodate and welcome people who are different into our community", but "what can they do for us?"

Part of what young people, people of color, and all of our other visitors are looking for is a community where the things they can contribute are not only treated with respect, but treated as something truly needed and wanted by the community. It's okay to tell us that some of our contributions to the community are not helpful, but that needs to be balanced with help and encouragement in making contributions that are helpful.

Quakers, Enthusiasm, Youth, and Money

A couple people have mentioned that a lot of the money needed to keep our Quaker organizations afloat is coming from elderly quakers, and not so much from young adults. Some ask, "How can we get our young adults to give money?"

Looking at the behavior of today's Quakers, another question comes to my mind. How can we create Quaker communities our young adults, and everyone else, will care deeply about? For a lot of people, the experience of being with Quakers today does not inspire intense devotion, powerful spiritually enriching experiences, etc. If it did, I would not be able to go to a meeting with over 100 members and hear that it was a good day when 29 people show up for meeting for worship (not all of them members). Is there anything we can do to make meeting for worship better for ourselves? Is there anything YOU can do to make Quaker meeting for worship a deeper spiritual experience for yourself and others? A good number of Quakers do feel compelled to spend upwards of 5 hours per week participating in our communities in one way or another. If we can get more people to have this greater connection to Quakers, the money problems will sort themselves out.

One Quaker mentioned to me that one successful way to fund-raise is to treat the "thank-you" as the most important thing.
What is it that young adults offer us that we are thankful for?
What is it about Quaker communities that we're thankful for?
Can we present those things that we're thankful for in a way that helps other people seek & find them?

A Friend once shared a message that went more or less like this: Our job is to build a community so vital and filled with joy and spirit... that when we ask people to give money, they, being good, skeptical Quakers, will think "why should i?" And then they'll think to themselves that the answer is obvious, and that answer will be in the benefits and support and deep spirituality that our community offers.

This last is a message that, to me, felt truly spirit-led. I have felt something of a call to see that this message gets the follow-through that is due to it.

This is not just the work of the person who spoke those words, but the work of everyone who wants the vitality and beauty of the Quaker faith to thrive.

Ministry and Obligation

Ministry :The act of ministering; ministration; service. "With tender ministry."

Ministration : relief: assistance in time of difficulty; "the contributions provided some relief for the victims"

When a person sees a situation that is in need of some improvement, and feels she or he might be the person most able to help, maybe he or she should feel an obligation. I'd say this applies to ministry in Meeting for Worship, other sorts of ministry, and things that are usually not thought of as ministry.

From an old Quaker book about how to live as a Quaker*: (language changed slightly to make it clearer)

"Each local Meeting should appoint a group of its members to serve as a 'Meeting on Worship and Ministry' whose function is to give continuing thought to the religious life of the meeting and its individual members and attenders.... They should encourage others to be ready when the call comes to speak or pray during worship, as a minister.

"... There is a responsibility to give sympathetic encouragement to those who show promising gifts, and to give loving guidance to those whose ministry is not helpful. There's also a responsibility to open the way for those who are timid and young in the ministry.

"... From its earliest days, the community of Quakers has emphasized the importance to the human Community of a living ministry, freely given in the service of God and man..."

"... it is urged that all Friends, whether recorded ministers or not, continually feel their responsibility for the meeting for worship."

*"Faith and Practice," Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1955 edition

Communities of Quakers in Philadelphia

There has been some discussion about the young adult Quakers in Philadelphia and what's going well, and what's not going well.

One thing that's going well is that the young adult community here is a place where we can focus on the fun side of being with a Quaker community. We enjoy each other's company, we meet folks with similar interests and values, and of course we conduct the all-important teaming up of our forces to eat good food.

Whatever we want, it's up to us to put in the work to make a spiritual community that works for us, fulfills us, or gives us joy. Or as one friend put it: some assembly required... kind of like furniture you get from IKEA.

In Quaker communities, each of us needs to pitch in, if we're going to put together a community that takes care of all of us. Each person should think about what she can do to help the group care for all of its people. Each person also ought to think about what she wants to get out of participating in the community, what kind of nurture or help or friendship or sharing of fun, or whatever, she wants to get from it. Whaddaya like? Whaddaya want more of? Probably good questions to ask in any community.