When do you Worship?

"Blessed are they who have not seen and yet believe." Jesus says this to Thomas, after he has allowed him to touch his wounds. Doubting Thomas does not possess this essential element of faith. Do you?

In Helen Hole's 1962 Pendle Hill Pamphlet, "Prayer: The Cornerstone", Hole posits the position that a flourishing spiritual community depends on prayer as its foundation and nurture, the meeting's life blood.

Contrary to modern approaches, which often cite action (Faith without Works is dead), Ms Hole purports that prayer is the singular most important element of a faith community.

Early Christians did not exist in isolation. Always they were together as a loving worshipping community. Never was that community together that they were not in prayer. Through corporate prayer their faith grew vibrant and powerful, a source of creativity and strength. These people knew each other to the depth of their souls. Sharing the experience of knowing Jesus drew them to a level of love and trust that was clearly visible to those around them.

I have had the experience of knowing some Friends who had that level of knowing the inner Christ in such a way. I have known born-again Christians among all denominations who, in my estimation, have experienced that same knowing. There is a quality to their faith life that I do not always see among Friends. (I am not speaking of blind followers, eyes glazed over in total surrender.) I'm speaking of the people we meet who are clearly living life as Jesus would. Many of these people are the elders in our communities. They are most certainly the people who are happy where they are, at any moment, living life fully.

I'm conscious of the absence of prayer from many meetings for worship I attend, and of the strained, brief silences before committee and business meetings, that barely allow time for one to center, much less seek the will of God. I'm refreshed at Yearly sessions, when I enter the meeting room which is already prayerfully silent, and am encouraged to sink into that deep seeking from which my inner direction flows.

I love knowledge, and I seek it actively. I'm an avid reader, listener of NPR and PBS, and I seek out fellow life-long learners. I'm never at a loss to find these people in my Quaker community. I'm surprised however, how many of these people I observe to be uncomfortable with silence. I have watched as people sit uncomfortably with the silence before our Meeting for Worship for Business, impatient that we get on with it. I've watched committee meetings wind out of direction when not started in the silence of centered worship. I've listened to countless discussions about Quaker Process, all attending to the human part of the process, some without even acknowledging the Presence that guides us in all things.

I've had my own journey with this over the years. I've had to struggle to develop a life of daily spiritual reflection, and still I lose it at times when stress is high or illness looms. I lean back on my intellectual self, bolstered by ego-confidence into believing it has all the answers. At such times, it is only in desperation that I return to the silence.

And what does the Lord require of you? To do justice, love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8

Lately I've been thinking of early American Friends, and of the time before phones and email and blogs. Much of what we know of our Quaker ancestors comes from the letters found in attics, that Friends wrote to each other and to their families, apprising them of life in what was often a newly discovered wilderness. Through these reports, we came to understand how inextricably tied were their community, worship and prayer.

Seeking was not a separate task, separate from the activities of one's life, another task on the daunting list.

Friends worshipped when they came together for meals, with prayer and silence; they formed whole communities around the meetinghouse, as they settled in new areas; they worshipped as they worked together to build each other's homes, harvest fields, fell trees and celebrate life and death together. Their experience of worship was daily and ongoing. It is something many of us seek today, and many of us set aside in lieu of the 'business' of daily life. When do you worship?

When I read the blogs of others, I find that many are seeking this fullness of a life lived in worship and prayer. The mysticism that is inherent in Friends' religious experience is not one that requires cloistering or monasticism; instead our mysticism is found in the life lived in prayer and daily devotion, and in the sharing of that life in community with others.

Slowly I come to see that faith is not sought, it is lived. It is a paradox. One must believe to see the fruits of one's faith, yet one must act faithfully in order to come to belief.

Early Christians had the amazing experience of living in the time of Jesus' message and life. Even if they did not meet Jesus directly, they undoubtedly came in contact with people whose lives had been directly touched, and then they, seeing this, were touched themselves. Evangelism was not a sales pitch, it was a direct result of living one's faith and helping others see God through one's life.

Early Friends had the experience of seeing George Fox' and others' experience of knowing intimately the inner Christ, the Light, and they were touched by this significant yet simple outpouring of faith to seek that personal relationship themselves. Friends knew that only through living their faith could they show others the value of coming into direct relationship with God.

Nowadays, we civilized and educated Quakers have sometimes even been scornful towards those who are of too simple a faith, those who believe too readily and fall back on the Bible too easily. We sometimes feel foolish thinking of standing to pray in front of others. We are squeamish of telling others we have a leading, or taking an unpopular stand in Meeting, even when that inner voice is whispering fervently to us to do so.

Here is the gift of faith: that each of us is doing the very best that we can do to be the very best we can be. There is no wrong way, if one takes one's leadings to their faith community. In the loving community, we are praying and seeking and guiding and always turning to listen, seeking in the silence the ever-present Teacher.

Much of my life, I, living in the shadows of the judging God I was taught about, haver shrunk from my leadings, fearing doing the "wrong" thing. Here is the gift of faith: that in living in community, with an ear always turned to God, we may be supported, loved, uplifted, guided, eldered and nurtured.

This is the meaning in Isaac Penington's quote: "Our life is love, and peace, and tenderness; and bearing one with another, and forgiving one another, and not laying accusations one against another; but praying one for another, and helping one another up with a tender hand."

This gift is freely given, yet we must be willing to receive. When do you worship?

Grant us Light for our Path

This morning another email arrived about the task before Baltimore Yearly Meeting, to take back to each monthly meeting the concerns over the FUM hiring policy, for their consideration.

We are trying to arrive at a baseline of material to distribute and carry with us, as we endeavor to help monthly meetings to find unity about our position on the hiring policies of FUM that exclude homosexuals in committed relationships. We have continued without any clear sense of how to proceed, for several years, and the issue weighs heavily on many of us.

This brings me to a concern that weighs on my own mind: how sometimes in the midst of a dire concern, and in the midst of our current hasty culture, we are driven more by the desire to solve a problem, rather than raise an issue to the Light for worshipful consideration.

It's something I have personally had experience with, having at least once seen my own leading dissolve into self-defensiveness and erratic problem solving. At the outcome of this I was initially oblivious, although my own clinging to my own position should have told me I was no longer laboring in the light. Only as considerable time passed, was I able to see, with the gentle eldering of my Ministry and Counsel committee, how my own position was affected by my defensiveness.

The heart of the conflict with FUM has appeared to me at present to be a theological one. It will never be solved, as I see it at present, by weighing the policies and procedures, or even by weighty discussion between various groups of Friends. Certainly knowing each other better can only help, as far as trusting that each of us brings to the table our best selves, desiring true kinship with each other in the Light.

I do, however, have complete faith in the Light that illumines all things. I believe that the solution rests in worship and prayerful consideration of this matter. We are at an impass because various individuals and even some whole groups of people differ greatly in their theologies: one group sees the inerrancy of Biblical text in defining what is sin and who can serve as a result, and the other defines who can serve directly as a belief that there is the Light of God in everyone and therefore anyone can and will have a leading to serve.

Certainly everything is not quite so black and white as that, but I think this defines the ends of the spectrum. My own position is somewhere in between, and not totally clear to me as yet. I want to respect the theologies of the different people involved. I am concerned that one group (and many more might follow, if one defines who can serve on the basis of sin and what it is) can be excluded when I have seen the leadings personally. I am concerned that someone who feels so clearly led to ministry might feel that the only way they could serve would be in holding secrets from the greater Meeting (as in the case of other denominational churches).

Perhaps God is leading us to a new place? Perhaps the act of holding the picture of such great theological differences up to the light might show us the way to this new place? Are we as a group of modern Friends, capable of such deep worship? Can we consider that we might be led by God to shed off some of this modern clothing, to return to the place of deep leading, such as George Fox and other early Friends were led?

I am sure that it was no easy task to shed off the physical practice of the sacraments as depicted by the Anglican and Catholic churches, yet early Friends did just that. Was this not against the Word as depicted in the Bible? What about the practice of keeping slaves or carrying weapons? Each of us must listen, truly listen to where God is leading us. Perhaps it is not so clear as we wish it would be.

You might be thinking that I have my own sense of leading, or my own agenda behind this writing. But I truly do not, beyond the fact that I believe when we bring two seemingly irrefutable issues together in the Light, there is the possibility that God may reveal or even create something new that is beyond what we humans can see.

I welcome comments or discussion on this. I am trying to expand my own understanding of the power of worship and prayer.