A Friendly Letter, The Blog.

Some thoughts on Quaker musician Jon Watts and his interview in the Fifth Month issue of Friends Journal . . . .

John Watts & FJ quotes marked as JW; Chuck Fager’s comments marked CF . . . .

JW: I went through Baltimore Yearly Meeting’s camping program and Young Friends program, and I also regularly attended the Friends General Conference summer gatherings. The attitude that I picked up in these programs taught me to mostly reject popular Christian theology (Jesus as Savior; the afterlife; anything resembling mainstream Christianity, really).

CF: I get that, and the general indictment is completely correct. But at least as far as the camps are concerned, that’s not all there is to it. I’m in the second generation of watching-shepherding my progeny go through the BYM camping program, and my conclusion is that it has more Quake-ish impact than one might think. It seems to tie many who have Quaker backgrounds to the Society in ways that last, tho they may also take a lot of time to sort out. Same goes for Friends Music Camp, which has a similar “no-Christianity-please-we’re-Friends” ethos, yet turns out fiercely loyal alumni.

All four of my kids went thru such camps, and now two grandkids. It’s left lasting marks on all of them; and two of my four kids have stayed with the RSOF explicitly; the other two have let me do my best to Quakerize their kids. I call that a good investment in Quaker formation, tho incomplete.

JW: After graduating from the Quaker Leadership Scholars Program at Guilford College, I had more of an understanding of the fundamental role of Christianity in shaping Quaker practice and so less of a knee-jerk rejection of anything Christian. I came to feel a bit under-tooled or misled by the Quaker institutions that had brought me up. I still share and respect a certain level of skepticism but generally feel that by rejecting Christianity altogether, we are throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

When I asked God what to do with the angst and rebelliousness I was feeling against the Liberal Quakerism that had raised me, I was given the song “Friend Speaks My Mind.” It is an anthem for Liberal FGC Quakerism—a love song, really.

CF: Again, without minimizing the “under-tooling” you were subjected to, I feel a need to point out that there is a “minority stream” in recent Quaker thought that has been grappling with this “baby-bathwater” thing for a good while. I’m an example of it, with a paper-trail going back more than 30 years. There are others. It’s been a disappointment for me that your generation, so far as I can discover, has not seriously engaged with this substantial body of work. I wouldn’t mind at all to see it critically examined, pointing up where it may fall short.

The lack of engagement here is not for me a sign of “rebelliousness and angst,” tho. Quite the contrary. It shows you all are in this respect almost fully socialized into and accommodated to this “under-tooling” Quaker culture. That’s because one of its most salient features is a rock-hard anti-intellectualism about religion, especially its own. That’s strange, given the level of multi-degreed folks among us. But it’s true. And the Guilford QLSP, for all its many virtues, doesn’t seem to make much of a dent in this attitude/culture.

The few YAFS who are making the trek to the Dandelion doctoral program in the UK may become the exceptions, but those who prove the rule. Not that everyone needs to become a major scholar of Quakerism. But when so many ignore the stacks of relevant writing and thinking on the shelves (and the net), and then complain that no one is helping them sort out their (and our) plight — well, frankly that looks more like slackerism to me than productive religious seeking and witness. Just sayin’.

JW: FRIENDS JOURNAL: How did that conversation [About your “Dance party” video] go? Were there any techniques you found to transform a conversation?

JON: I think this is a great question for modern Friends: how are we dialoguing on the Internet about our faith? When you read the comments on YouTube, you’ll often find that they dissolve into bitter bickering. Quakers aren’t really the exception online.

CF: You’re right, but my experience with Facebook, the other major platform, is more positive. Yes there are flame ups, clashing stereotypes, wandering threads, some messes and too many cute cat photos (of which I’ve uploaded my share). But I’ve also had many good conversations there across lines of both theology and generation with thoughtful Friends, not only in the US but as far away as Australia. And some have involved actual information exchange, not just “I FEEL this” or “I FEEL that.”

I don’t know where all this talk is going. It’s not a “program” started by some well-meaning “ministry” (thank god). But it feels good and promising. So I resonate to your comment that

JW: I’m trying to be patient with it, because I think that we should be dialoguing between branches. We have something to learn from one another.

CF: You add, correctly, that

JW: Quakerism has always been a microcosm of the wider culture, which is currently bitterly divided between religious folks and secular humanists. So imagine how powerful Quakerism could be for modeling a loving conversation between those who deeply believe in Christianity and those who have been deeply hurt by it or feel dismissive of it! This is God’s invitation to us: to be witnesses to abundant love by letting it flow in the most difficult circumstances— when our house is divided.

CF: Yet I think this diagnosis, while good as far as it goes, is significantly incomplete. Our culture is also divided in another way that I think crucial: between those who remember, and those who are accepting of the amnesia that our media culture invisibly enforces. (An example: this morning’s paper has a piece by a columnist who told some buddies about plans to go to Normandy in France for a commemoration of the US invasion there during World War Two. His buddies didn’t know what he was talking about. Many other examples could be cited.) This is evident every day among my Quaker contacts.

This pervasive amnesia is a key to our present plight: on one side, it leaves us at the mercy of the false, oppressive narratives of the Establishment and its media. On the other, it deprives us of access to the alternative stories of our tradition, which can challenge and undermine the Official Story. That happens, though, above all via the retrieval and claiming of memory, in our case especially that of our Quaker subculture.

This amnesia runs the spectrum from left to right, Christian and secular, but I’m most concerned with its impact on the RSOF in its various manifestations.

The struggle against this amnesia, and for our Quaker memory, proceeds on many fronts. And it takes WORK. I’m grateful for your efforts in this direction (Solomon Eccles, I’m looking at you!), and hope they continue.

But good grief, here’s the silliest question in the interview:

JW: FRIENDS JOURNAL: Should we be avoiding the Internet?

CF: WTF?? They might as well say, “the air is polluted, so should Friends stop breathing?” Your response that Friends need to get into it as “content producers” (an ugly phrase that; but we’re stuck with it, I expect) is right on, with the precedent of early Friends exploiting (I use that term without shame here) the new medium of printing backing you up.

I’m much more ambivalent about your additional comment that,

JW: Those of us with ministries on the Internet aren’t acknowledged by our meetings. We’re left to our own devices as individuals: no support, no accountability.
This is dire indeed . . . .

CF: I’m not so sure it’s dire. Maybe we need to have a conversation about this.

When I look at RSOF history, I see the era of the most “support and accountability” (late 1600s to about 1865) as being an era largely characterized by stifling, smothering, enforced conformity. (I’m not alone in this. Geoffrey Kaiser, in the latest version of his huge wall chart history, speaks frankly of the “Quaker police state”. Rufus Jones said much the same thing, more elliptically.) Yes, there were some good things — antislavery, women ministers; but the list is a lot shorter than one might think. and culturally, I don’t hesitate to say it was mostly a desert.

Finally there was a rebellion (several, actually), and things Quaker got interesting again. But the uprisings also ushered in the era of “ministry-on-your-own,” which we’re still in. That has its drawbacks too (especially financial); but that’s my take on the whole era of what some call “Quietism,” and I’m sticking to it. So personally I’m very uneasy about efforts to reconstruct these old arrangements, even piecemeal.

JW: FRIENDS JOURNAL: But what does [Solomon] Eccles’s story have to say to us today?
Reply: My whole generation right now is asking: “Why Quakerism? What does Quakerism have to offer me?” I think it’s the wrong question. You’re going to the get the most out of something that recognizes your gifts as vital. That’s when you’re going to feel the most full of Spirit.

CF: My experience is somewhat different. In my Bible study, I note that many of the most important spirit-filled and eloquent voices there (prophets especially) were not “recognized and nurtured” by their communities in any formal ways. Quite the opposite. They said what they had to say, often doing so with great art, because the Spirit left them no option, and in the face of stiff opposition from their key audiences, especially those in authority. That’s not just dusty history. Much of my life experience and observation reinforce these models, I regret to report.

But then again, it’s true that they were “held accountable.” Yeah, sure: jail, attempted murder and exile for Jeremiah; Isaiah supposedly killed; Amos banished. And don’t get me started on that guy from Galilee, whose complaint in Matthew 23:29-39 about the prophets’ experience with “accountability” was soon enough followed by a repeat of it.

Support & accountability, biblical style: Jeremiah the prophet, rescued from being drowned in mud for his messages

And I just had a flash: I wonder if what your lot isn’t yearning for is a warm-fuzzy Camp Catoctin setting for what is basically a sacrificial, cross-carrying vocation. There may be days where you’ll get that good feeling; but overall, they don’t compute. They’re karmically mismatched, one might say. Too much campfire, not enough Bible and Christianity.

This affects my response to your rousing conclusion:

JW: So I say: “Prophets! Activists! Visionaries! Come back! Warriors and assholes and rabble-rousers! Abrasive, contrarian punks! Come back! Quakerism needs you!” 

CF: You’re quite right; bring them on. But those “assholes and rabble-rousers” who come back and expect to be met with flowers (or joints) and offers of gigs with regular paychecks to do these things — well, they’re in for a serious round of disappointments. Even in better times, there were mighty few such slots that I ever heard of. Those who carved out a viable niche did the carving pretty much by themselves. BTDT.

JW: Many people in my generation feel that we’ve inherited a Quakerism that we’re not satisfied with. We have all this analysis about what’s wrong with it. I think it’s good for us to analyze and even sometimes to complain about it, but at some point we need to take ownership and move Quakerism into territory that feels more vital for us. . . .

CF: A-fucking-men. Here’s what I’ve decided is one of the key markers for adulthood, especially among Friends: when one quits blaming us geezers for things not being the way you want them.

I mean, hey — so I got a little busy trying to cope with four major wars and three recessions plus one actual depression in my adult lifetime, not to mention my own stumbling effort to grow up, while raising a family, trying to pay the bills, and learn how to be a writer. Okay, so maybe in the process there were a few things that got shorted — like remaking Quakerism to you-all’s specifications, which BTW you didn’t give us til a few years ago. You want ownership? Come and get it. Seems like thee and me are in agreement on this; hope the idea spreads.

JW: There are many Quakers who have vital things to say about Quakerism and who risk confronting the empire that surrounds and permeates us. I want everyone to have access to these incredible resources, and I’m tired of waiting for someone else to do it.

CF: Now you’re talking (singing). What about a punk/hip-hop Quaker video opera that features Jim Corbett starting the Sanctuary movement in the 80s; Elizabeth Watson insisting on being a minister when everyone told her women couldn’t do that; Bill Kreidler creating a ministry from addiction and AIDS and rediscovering the saints, which was so rich that his life couldn’t hold it all; and Tom Fox . . . .

Maybe your new project is a kind of equivalent to that. Good luck with it.

If you’ve stopped by this blog in the past ten days or so, you may have seen my lament about being invaded by Zombie posts that refused to die, or be deleted.

Here they Come! AArrgghh!

A few days ago, when I got some expert help to examine why, it turned out there was some very bad code hacked onto the site, which we hope is now rooted out. A salutary reminder that it’s an internet jungle out there, and hacking our way out was a tough fight. But at the moment, this blog seems to be Zombie and virus-free. (Cross fingers.)

One additional effect of this invasion was that the Comments feature was somehow disabled, and for the past two month, no reader replies ever got through to be moderated and posted.
Thus if you sent a comment and are miffed because it never appeared or was even acknowledged — my apologies, but I was NOT ignoring or shunning you — I never even saw it. ( I believe the Comment feature is now working again.)

And so back to business. One of the last posts was entitled, The Gospel According to YAFS: Are Friends “Tired”?? Plus: Fix It With “The Seven UPs”.

This post was a detailed response to a piece in the Western Friend by YAF Paul Christiansen of Seattle’s Salmon Bay Meeting, “Younger Blood, Older Eyes”. In it I noted a voiced concern about some YAFs feeling left out and shut out by OFFs (”Old Fart Friends,” of which your humble servant is a specimen, but not near Seattle).

In response I recommended a recipe for YAFs (and anyone else so moved) to consider for helping remedy some of the perceived shortcomings of American Quakerdom, 2011 edition. The snappily titled list was called “The Seven UPs,” to wit:

Show Up.

Read Up.

Speak up.

Ante up.

Smarten Up.

Toughen Up. And

Don’t Hurry Up.


For details, consult the previous post.

Anyway, Paul was good enough to answer, by email after the blog comments section didn’t work. And we’ve had a bit of back-and-forth since.
This conversations as meant to be shared, so I’m posting it here, in only slightly edited form. I would have done it sooner, but — well, life and work intervened, as they have a way of doing.
To begin with, Here’s Paul’s initial response to my blog post:

Paul Christiansen wrote:

Chuck,

I feel like there’s a better way of contacting you but I haven’t found it, so I’ll take the roundabout method. Here’s my (2nd try) response to your blog post
responding to my article…

Overall, I appreciate your response, Chuck. However I will note that I never intended this to describe all of Quakerdom, and I’m not even sure if it accurately describes what’s going on in my own North Pacific YM. Hence all the qualifiers in my first sentence. But I talked with a variety of people for about
a year before publishing this, and what you saw is mostly what I heard.

I’m concerned that your “Read Up” leaves a little out. Obviously there’s a huge amount of literature out there, but sometimes I’d like to learn the history of my yearly meeting’s decisions over the last 20 years (the parts that didn’t make it into the minutes!), and sometimes I want to hear what my elders at Eastside [Meeting] have to say, and sometimes I want stories I can use to help teach the generation after me. Handing Barclay or Jones to a five-year-old won’t do much… but we’ve got to tell the five-year-olds something.

Also, the “cause” part wasn’t actually in my article, just the comments over at Western Friend, because it’s not at all fully seasoned. And you’re right, although I’ve lately been considering the interconnection of many causes. (My most recent blog post says more.)

Lastly, you advise us to speak up and toughen up…

A) Does that mean you’re absolving your generation of responsibility?
B) There’s a reason I wrote this article!

Paul

A Welcome opener. Here was my reply:

Hi Paul–

. . . As for your particulars, your points carry more weight for me if they’re qualified, as to time and region, for instance.

And I’m totally with you on your desire to learn more about NPYM than what appears in the minutes. Having done some historical work, I join with the other Quaker historians who have lamented that formal minutes are typically almost useless for real understanding. In fact, I’ve come to the conclusion that the customs of minute-taking for Friends add up to a big disservice in too many cases, not only leaving us I’ll-informed, but actually disempowered.

There’s a piece in Friends Journal for May 2011 (”The Task of the Recording Clerk: Spiritual Exercise and Ministry” - not online) about being a recording clerk, which repeats all these errors, and I need to take it on. Also, I have a book coming out next month that addresses some of these issues from another angle: turns out early Friends were not always such paragons of truth-telling, especially when it came to foundational Quaker history. Some shocking stuff, at least it shocked me.

So what to do when minutes are opaque? I can’t think of a catchphrase for it using “up,” but doing some research (”Study Up”??) and asking lots of questions, especially of older Friends, seems very much in order. I’ve learned a lot from quiet older Friends (older than me, mostly now dead) who were persuaded to talk (sometimes We had to use waterboarding, but it was worth it). I also learned a lot, too late, from long memorial minutes; if you don’t already, I’d urge you to
read the ones in both WF and FJ regularly.

And don’t take my questions about “causes” as a complaint. If that needs to be explored and threshed, so be it. I’ve heard similar comments before, and while I may not understand them entirely, that doesn’t mean I dismiss them.

As for absolving my generation from anything, this is where “Read Up” could also come usefully Into play. I’ve spent much of thirty years’ work tackling the manifold screwups of my cohort of Friends. There are 134 issues of my gadfly Quaker newsletter now archived online, which put actual investigative reporting skills to work on the Quakerism of my time, early 1980s thru early 1990s–and never ran out of material. (They’re linked to the blog-look at the link listing in the right column; read ‘em for free.)

Yes, it was actually on paper!

A couple of books, too: “Without Apology,” on liberal Quakerism generally, and “Quaker Service At The Crossroads,” about AFSC and some of what came home to roost there a couple years ago.

Other work looked further back, at the early days and issues of American liberal Quakerism, by no means uncritically, and a collection, “Shaggy Locks and Birkenstocks.”

One piece there might be particularly relevant, which points to and decries the “Age of Amnesia” that’s reigned among liberal Friends for most of a century, and which too many in your generation seem ready to both perpetuate and cavil about.

Interrogating us geezers is one way out of it, but not to the neglect of the “Read Up” admonition. I strongly suspect that a great deal of what you’re looking for (yes, even much of the inspiration regarding possible causes) is already there and available, but it won’t speak itself from the pages; younger Friends will have to dig it out. That includes what you need to clean up the mess me and mine are leaving behind . . .

Peace,

Chuck

Then Paul came back:

Chuck,

Yes, sorry about the wrong email, but I truly couldn’t find any other!

I’ll definitely do some digging — I majored in history at Earlham, surely I can do some research. And thanks for the tip about the memorial minutes, I’ll start reading those.

I’m concerned, however, that your original post is starting to draw some ire from some Young Adult Friends. If you’d mentioned talking to elders in the “Read Up” section it might be a different story, but I’m already hearing from some in my circle that as it stands, “Read Up” comes across as rather dismissive.

And “Toughen Up” in particular is drawing some flak. I don’t expect Quakerism to be an easy faith. Quite the contrary, it’s probably among the toughest out there. But there is an enormous difference between our faith being an uphill climb and being a wrestling match.

As a teacher, and not long ago as a student, this is how I see it: if a student is struggling with a subject, a teacher can be supportive or leave the kid to flail. The subject remains a challenge regardless, but the approach the teacher takes can make all the difference. And to say, “Go do it on your own” or “Just tough it out” will probably come across as leaving the kid flailing.

I’m sure it was not your intent, and I don’t think it’s serious yet — but there’s a real danger some my age will start to see you as part of the problem.

I do thank you for the tips, and for your conversation; in fact I was a bit stunned and delighted that “a known name” was taking such note. 

In Light,

Paul

And my reply:

Hi Paul,

         Very interesting, and you said the magic words: “a wrestling match.” However, my take on the phrase is different; I DO expect Quakerism, and serious religion generally, to be a wrestling match. In fact, one of my all-time favorite religious books is “Godwrestling,” by Rabbi Arthur Waskow; and I commend it (the first edition more than the later revision) to your attention. (An Interesting discussion of Waskow’s concept is here.) The impact is laid out in the early part of my book “Without Apology,” and explored further in another, “Wisdom & Your Spiritual Journey.” But I’m happy to talk about it too. 

         The notion comes from two sources: Genesis Chapter 32, where Jacob wrestles with God all night, fights God to a draw so that God has to cheat to beat him, and extracts a blessing –but the blessing turns out to be a change in name from Jacob to “Israel,” which means “the God-wrestler.” And this name (and its motif) becomes the name, the paradigm and signifier of the people Jacob/Israel fathers, down to our very day. (The implications of the motif is supplemented and expanded by most of the rest of the Hebrew scriptures, particularly Job, Ecclesiastes and some of the Psalms.)

Two Generations of Early Friends engaged in “deep discernment”; aka Jacob wrestling God

         The other source is my experience, as a Friend and as a person. Life may not be ALL struggle, but an awful lot of it is, especially when it come to the things that matter about religion. That’s how it’s been for me, at any rate. Much more could be said about that, at another time; for a sample, check this link, “A Letter to the Next Director of Quaker House”

         And yes, this frame of struggle applies within Quakerism too; one of my complaints about formal minutes is that they are designed to squeeze almost all evidence of this out of the record, which to me is not simply an error, but a sin against future generations of Friends.

         For that matter, it is very common in religions for there to be processes of “formation” which include rites of passage, often taking the form of various sorts of ordeals or tests from vision quests by Native Americans to young Mormons going off to spend two years riding bicycles in neckties (now THERE’s an ordeal). One of the great weaknesses of liberal Quakerism, in my view, is our lack of same. (I don’t think the Evangelicals do a lot better, but that’s another story.) 

Hmm. Is there something here Quakers could learn from??

         It begins to appear that for some in the rising group, looking askance at elders may be part of an improvised passage. And if it could be that working up the gumption to beard an often grumpy old man can serve a bit of that function for some, then I will not have lived entirely in vain; if that’s a contemporary form of our religious struggle, so be it.  Of course, it could also just reinforce the received habits of passive aggression and conflict avoidance. (Sigh.) 

         The upshot for me is that if some take “Read Up” as dismissive, well, sit with it a bit, because I’ve no inclination to dial it back. It’s not a substitute for talking; I’ve done plenty of that (e.g., twenty years of week-long workshops at the FGC Gathering), and will do more. But I’m mindful of a shortcoming of talk, which is that it isn’t much use to those who weren’t present to hear it.

And yeah, I am biased toward those who do serious homework. Busted. Guilty. In that sense, I think of full-fledged Quakerism somewhat the way I think of urology or plumbing: when one of them is called on to mess around with my pipes, I want them to know their stuff, and no fooling, which takes time, study and practice.

        I’d like to hear more about the misgivings regarding “Toughen Up.”  If it’s interpreted as suggesting all younger Friends are a bunch of wimps, that was not my implication. Nor was it a charge to “Shut Up” and “Put Up” with an unsatisfactory status quo. Quite the contrary. I’m all for stirring the pots and upsetting applecarts, and have a track record of that. The point was that doing this for real, rather than for pretend, often involves grit and guts and results not only in the change we want, but also in scars and losses. Yes, even among Friends. 

        One incident, of which I read a reliable account somewhere, but don’t have documented online: Philadelphia Orthodox YM refused to have any official contact with Philadelphia Hicksite YM until a session in the 1920s, when a prominent Orthodox elder rose and made an impassioned plea that the body repeal this ban. The elder was challenging the entrenched practice of nearly a century, supported most by many of his weightiest peers. Yet as he did so, he was suffering from a terminal illness which was to kill him within the year, a fact known (but not spoken of) by his key listeners.

This “last stand” reversal of his own long history turned enough stone hearts (perhaps only temporarily) to flesh that his request was granted. Need I add that this drama was not reflected in the minutes? (This story has a happy ending; not all do.) Here is a short description of the process.
        And a thought about teaching. There are different styles. Mine will be applied in a workshop at the FGC Gathering this summer, and here is an excerpt from the description:

             << High-content: will include Bible, history, and serious thought. Not for those allergic to talk of God or war. 
             The workshop will be 100% worship, mostly programmed; see Mark 12:28-30.*
Lecture: 60%
Discussion: 40%
Experiential Activities: 0%
Worship/worship-sharing: 100% >>

*NOTE: Mark 12:28-30: 28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
29 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’  

[Emphasis added.] I also explain that in these sessions we will be attempting to worship with our minds, which is why I describe it as 100% worship, mostly programmed.]

         It should be evident from this that the workshop is not intended for everyone. In my experience, a large segment of liberal Friends (by no means all of them “young”) gives a wide berth to “high-content,” intellectually serious explorations of their religion. Many are similarly allergic to mention of God, the Bible or conflict in “warlike” terms. 

         I don’t have much to offer these Friends. So the description is both truth in advertising, and a qualifier: if this isn’t your cup of tea, there are lots of other options. Call it elitist or exclusive or arrogant or whatever; but it’s not biased by generation, and there’s plenty of room for interchange and challenge. (Godwrestling, I hope.)  And those who have been at similar ones have mostly found the sessions both unique and highly satisfying.

Your humble servant at work

         But an important footnote: it’s sad that I had to struggle (that word again) long and hard to establish the legitimacy of this “high-content” approach within FGC: there is an anti-intellectualism in its corporate/spiritual culture that is very deeply entrenched (and deeply subversive, I believe, of our ability to meet the needs of serious YAFs among others). And if this style does not appeal to many, well, let it be. (Different strokes for different folks; I don’t like sushi.)

        So if << there's a real danger some my age will start to see you as part of the problem >>, all I can do is laugh and say, “Christ, I certainly HOPE so.” It will be a sign that there’s something in my “legacy” that’s worth deconstructing or improving upon. 

         Besides, if I’m the worst that YAFs have to overcome, you’ve got it much easier than some think.

Chuck