A Friendly Letter, The Blog.

I - Blocking the View, Blocking the Road

That morning, I was too tense to eat. Keyed up and ready, my thoughts were full of armies marching to battle.
It was February 1, 1965. I was part of a nonviolent “army” – or at least a battalion – set to march in Selma, Alabama that day. Our objective, the territory we hoped to occupy, was downtown, the Dallas County jail; we planned to capture it by getting arrested.
I had been in Selma less than a month. Perhaps because I was raised on military bases, comparing the movement to an army was came easily to me: Dr. King was the general; I, white and fresh from college in Colorado, was a private, a grunt.
Although our commander had just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, his ragtag force was ready for combat and bent on conquest. For us, victory meant nothing less than the overthrow of centuries of black exclusion from public office, the ballot, and the jury box in most of the American South.
Of course, the military parallel is wildly inexact: for one thing, we aimed at a bloodless coup; more mundanely, even in 1965 a real army private earned considerably more than my pittance of $25 per week. One didn’t join the movement to carry a gun, or get rich.
On the other hand, the comparison was not wholly fanciful; after all, both groups demanded real discipline, and suffered real casualties.
Our ostensible destination that morning was the Dallas County Courthouse downtown, to renew a demand that the county voting rolls be opened to all its citizens. No one expected to get that far, however. Everybody knew we wanted to provoke arrests: the staff knew it, black Selmians knew it.

Dr. King’s Alabama mugshot & rap sheet.
The cops knew it too; and presumably the Klan, along with some of the people who kept sending Dr. King death threats, threats that came in practically every day, by mail, phone, and other media. I had seen a few of the threatening letters, and knew that many of them were quite credible.
In the years since Dr. King’s murder, I have been bemusedly tolerant of the plethora of conspiracy theories offered in explanation, tending to believe and disbelieve them all, in equal measure. The CIA? The Klan? The Mafia? A redneck hit squad? A lone bigot? All are plausible. Yet I’m evenhandedly skeptical too, because while one of the conspiracies finally succeeded, I know well enough that there were numerous others which were foiled only by chance, by timely police intervention, or –
– or, well, because someone like me was walking near Dr. King at just the right moment, and blocked a sniper’s aim.
That was one of my early tasks as a rookie civil rights worker: to stay close to Dr. King when we filed through the Selma streets. There were three or four of us who shared this duty, and we kept him pretty much surrounded.
We were the point men, his bodyguards. Unarmed, of course, and in my case at least, no great physical threat to any direct assailant. But without weapons and muscle, how were we supposed to provide protection?
Simple: our bodies were visual obstructions, blocking the aim of any sniper crouched on nearby rooftops, trying to draw a bead on Dr. King through the scope of a high-powered rifle.
The job was explained to me by big James Orange, who had been around the movement a lot longer. I grasped its function at once. But I also had a question: What if the sniper fired anyway, hoping for a lucky shot, and hit me instead?
James Orange answered my query first with a characteristically broad, hearty grin. Then he shrugged, slapped me on the shoulder and said, “Hey, don’t worry about it, Chuck. If you get killed, we promise – Dr. King will preach at your funeral!”
“ Hey, thanks, Jim,” I retorted, “that makes me feel so much better.” But the comeback took a couple seconds longer to come up with than I wanted.
(Five years later, researching my book Selma 1965, I found references to a police report which said that on one of our marches there very likely was a rifleman on a rooftop, poised to do just what I was there to prevent. Dr. King, it turned out, learned of this much sooner; he had spoken calmly about it to reporters a few days later. Reading in a quiet library about the report made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. But I wasn’t really surprised.)
Barely nibbling breakfast that morning, frightened and exhilarated at the same time, I donned my movement uniform: still-stiff denim overalls, a matching jacket and, incongruously, a yarmulke. Another staff member, who understood the importance of Jewish support to the movement, had passed them out to us not long before. Knowing little about either Judaism or black Baptist Christianity, it was all the same to me. Properly decked out, I headed across town for Brown Chapel AME Church.
Brown Chapel was red brick, with two squat steeples. It sat on Sylvan Street in the middle of the George Washington Carver Homes, Selma’s neat, generally well-kept black housing project. People were milling around on the steps, and inside the benches were full.
There was a “mass meeting” underway, led by various key staffers, to get everybody into the right frame of mind for the day’s events. Even at that early hour of the morning, the crowd was ready; and the intensity and fervor of such meetings are beyond my powers to describe.
The elements were basic and familiar: preaching, praying, singing, clapping; but the combination, in those days, in that place, produced an uplifting energy that was unique, unforgettable, and overwhelming. I have known nothing quite like it, before or since.
Our marching orders were boomed from the pulpit, along with reminders of the need for strict nonviolent discipline, and reassurances that going to jail or being hurt in the cause of justice was nothing to be ashamed of. There was tension in the church, because we knew anything could happen; but there wasn’t the cold fear I knew on other days, when violence hung in the air like heavy mist.
After a concluding prayer and a round of “We Shall Overcome,” we were soon lining up outside, watching our breath in the chilly morning air, then stepping off, clapping and singing, headed up Sylvan Street toward the courthouse, about ten blocks away.
As planned, I ended up near Dr. King, at the head of the column. We hadn’t gone far, barely a block, before we were stopped by a white man in a light raincoat and a fedora hat, standing in the middle of the street with his hands in his pockets.

This was Wilson Baker, Selma’s Public Safety Director.

Next: The Clash of the Titans

II - The Clash of the Titans

Baker was a good and smart man, a worthy opponent to Dr. King. If we had faced him alone in Selma, it’s a fair guess that he would have routed us.
Baker would have beat the movement not with force, but with brains. He was a disciple of Police Chief Laurie Pritchett, his counterpart in Albany, Georgia, who had outsmarted and outmaneuvered a vigorous protest campaign there three years earlier.
Albany’s movement had had everything: marches, protests, new freedom songs, and many arrests. Dr. King had come too, and even faced jail. But in the movement’s still-fresh folklore, Albany was the archetype of disaster.
This was because Laurie Pritchett had figured out how to handle the pack of Yankee reporters who showed up wherever Dr. King entered the fray. Told of a crisis bedewing, they swarmed into southern towns with their cameras, microphones, notebooks and expectations. Above all, they expected to see crude redneck cops and club-wielding sheriffs beating up and brutalizing peaceable, noble Negroes.
Pritchett understood the reporters’ stereotypes, and was careful not to reinforce them. Instead, he spoke politely to the reporters, and made sure that when his police arrested the marchers, they did so quietly and without fanfare. (There were, of course, stories of beatings inside the jail. But those happened out of sight; Pritchett stoutly denied them, and the allegations could not be confirmed.) Instead of officially-sponsored mayhem, what Pritchett served up looked like a model of seemingly civilized southern restraint, upholding law and order against a disorderly crowd of black insurgents.

Laurie Pritchett & Dr. King in Albany Georgia

Pritchett’s strategy succeeded brilliantly, on two fronts: with no exciting violence to film and write about, the Yankee reporters were thrown off-stride. They quickly became bored, and moved on to some other, more exciting event. As they did so, the divisions in the local black community – there were always divisions in local black communities – flared up into recriminations and sapped the movement’s morale and momentum.
The defeat of the Albany campaign made Pritchett something of a hero to many southern officials. He traveled the region giving speeches about how he had whipped the agitators and sent Dr. King packing.
Among his hearers, none had been more attentive than Selma’s Wilson Baker.
Baker had the Pritchett mild-mannered demeanor cold, right down to the non-threatening title of Public Safety Director he had chosen himself, and his civilian-style suit and fedora, which matched and blended with Dr. King’s typical attire.
As the march approached, it was evident that if King was now determined to get arrested, Baker was ready to accommodate him – but he would also make sure that the crowd of reporters hovering and getting chilled, saw nothing more exciting in the process than a lot of colored people milling around outside the back entrance to the three-story City Hall, where the city and county jails occupied the upstairs floors.
Yet Dr. King had learned from Albany too, and he planned both to outmaneuver Baker and use him at the same time. He wanted Baker to make the arrests, because King would feel safer in Baker’s city jail. And at the same time, Baker’s own restraint, however successful with the Yankee media, would work against him with a crucial local constituency.
Selma, fortunately for us, was not Albany. Here, for all his outward composure, Baker lacked Laurie Pritchett’s control of the situation in white Selma, as we knew well enough. In particular, Baker couldn’t afford to let us get past him to the courthouse, because his rival, Dallas County Sheriff, Jim Clark, was waiting there.

Wilson Baker & Jim Clark in Selma: colleagues and rivals

Sheriff Clark was a walking stereotype: a tough-talking, head-cracking Deep South lawman, who had no patience with civil rights protests, or with Baker’s “coddling” of agitators. Further, besides his deputies, Clark was backed by a volunteer posse. The posse had first earned notoriety for helping beat up and banish labor organizers in various parts of this so-called “right to work” state. Just the year before, they had been turned loose on earlier civil rights marches, with predictably bloody results. But Dr. King wasn’t there then, and the beatings attracted only minor outside notice.
All of us who were marching had seen the possemen on earlier days, hefting long unpainted homemade billy clubs, and looking anxious to get at us. Their uniform consisted mainly of various shades of ill-fitting khaki work clothes, and white plastic hard hats bearing small metallic foil “Posse” stickers. Most possemen also had a large pistol hanging from one hip, and an electric cattle prod dangling from the other. These latter were battery-filled cylinders, like overlong flashlights, with metal prongs at one end. The cattle prods produced a nasty shock; the longest ones were said to sear bare flesh.
No question about it: the posse looked feral and dangerous. Compared to them, Baker’s black-uniformed policemen seemed like pillars of professional restraint, protecting us from the sheriff’s troops more than they were protecting white Selma from us.

Possemen in Selma; if they don’t look dangerous, clean your glasses.

When Clark and the posse broke up the marches a year earlier, they had gotten away with it. Then in November, 1964 a young appliance salesman named Joe Smitherman won a very close mayoral election, promising to bring in new industries and jobs. But Northern companies weren’t interested in Clark’s version of law and order, so Smitherman hired Baker to polish up the town’s image.
Ever since, Baker and Clark had been jockeying for control of the city’s streets and image. When Dr. King announced his plans to come to Selma, their struggle was ratcheted up several notches.
With the usual retinue of reporters and cameras in his wake, Dr. King had been playing on this tension and planned to raise it carefully but relentlessly to a fever pitch. That struggle would keep the Yankee press interested, and maintain movement solidarity. The fact that on this February morning the tension between the two law enforcement units was almost palpable suggested that Dr. King’s plan was working at least as well as Baker’s
Our earlier marches had stayed on the sidewalks. This time, though, we were proceeding brazenly down the middle of Sylvan Street. That made us a parade, and a parade without a permit. Baker couldn’t ignore this challenge. It would look to Clark’s supporters as if he was giving in to the country’s most notorious agitator, and bolster the sheriff’s contention that white Selma was being sold out to lawless black invaders.
Baker followed the script, testily reminding Dr. King that he didn’t have a permit, and warned that if we didn’t return to the sidewalk immediately, he’d have to arrest us.
Taking his cue, Dr. King quietly demurred. Baker stepped aside, and we resumed walking. Two blocks up, we turned the corner at Alabama Avenue. Ahead lay City Hall, and a few blocks further south, the courthouse.
But this was as far as we could be allowed to go. Black-uniformed police fanned out across the street ahead of us, and Baker drove up, got out of his patrol car and announced our arrest.
Dr. King asked if we could pause for a prayer, and we all knelt on the cold, nubbly asphalt.
Everything was going like clockwork.

Next: The First “Quaker-Type” Meeting

III - The First “Quaker-Type” Meeting

There were about 250 of us in the march, and it took hours to book us. The police herded us into the parking lot behind City Hall, and we stood there shivering in the cold, waiting our turn to go inside.
Eventually I was led in, fingerprinted and had a mug shot taken. Then I filed upstairs to the third floor, to what I now learned was the county jail. The city jail, too small to hold us all, was on the second floor.
Here the cells ran along two walls; above them, out of reach, was a row of small windows. Across from the cell block was a large day room, bare except for a couple of steel tables bolted to the floor, and a toilet in the corner. The marchers were crowded in the day room, and I moved in to join them.
There wasn’t much for us to do but mill around, talk, and try to rest on the steel floor. We were all waiting for Dr. King to arrive, and tell us what to do next.

Busted: The author’s Selma mugshot

Finally, after what seemed hours, he and his right hand man, Ralph Abernathy, appeared. Later we found out that Wilson Baker had kept them till last, hoping they would decide not to be arrested after all. We greeted Dr. King with applause, expecting something like a resumption of the mass meetings at Brown Chapel.
But Dr. King was very subdued. He told us he was feeling hoarse, and would rather not preach. He suggested, instead, that we have “a Quaker-type meeting,” in which people would speak simply “as the spirit moved,” and he would listen along with the rest.
This was the first “Quaker-type meeting” I was ever part of, and it was like none of the thousand-plus Friends meetings I have attended since becoming involved with Quakers a year or so later.
It was, for one thing, much noisier. The spirit not only moved some of us to preach that afternoon; it also moved all of us to sing, several times, both freedom songs which I knew and gospel hymns which I didn’t.
Being in jail added a special intensity to our voices and rhythmic accompaniment; the result was more than just music. Those of us pressed up against the walls soon found that if we slapped them in rhythm, they resounded like muffled calypso drums. When enough of us did it, the whole floor began to vibrate, as if the building itself was rocking and reverberating in time with us. And perhaps it was, because through the walls we soon heard an answering chorus from the other end of the third floor, where the women were being held. How I wish someone had recorded us!
Another intriguing feature of this meeting was that, notwithstanding Dr. King’s invitation to anyone so moved to speak, the spirit nonetheless seemed to move rather directly and carefully down the local status hierarchy, until all the local dignitaries and preachers among us had had their say. Finally ordinary folks chimed in, and I even spoke up at one point, though I can’t recall my message.
This meeting also went on longer than any “regular” Quaker meeting; two to three hours, it seemed. But finally, after one more heartfelt chorus of “We Shall Overcome,” sung in muffled, echoed harmony with the women in their cell block, the meeting finally broke up, and we sank into a happy, exhausted disorder within the confines of our pen. Glancing up, I noticed that the windows above us had all been steamed over by our lusty exhalations.
As the group relaxed, Dr. King reverted to his pastoral role, and began moving along the edges of the day room, speaking through the bars to the regular county prisoners in their cells. Our coming had deprived them of access to the day room and the little chance to stretch that they had. Dr. King talked with each of them, listening sympathetically to their tales of woe and injustice, which carried a special poignancy on this afternoon.
He was still, I think, making these rounds when there was a clanging at the far end of the cell block, and the heavy barred door suddenly rolled back a few feet. We turned at the noise, and recognized Sheriff Clark’s grim visage.

His eyes swept over the group, and then he began pointing and calling out: “You – King. Abernathy. Over here.”
He peered some more and pointed again, first at another staff worker. Then he pointed at me. “You.”
All at once I felt cold. It was safe in that crowded day room. Where would they take us now? We had all heard stories of people who disappeared from southern jails, never to be seen again, unless to turn up floating in the river.
I moved reluctantly toward the door, aware of the suddenly sober expressions on the faces of the men I passed.

Next: What’s Gandhi Got To Do With It?

IV - What’s Gandhi Got To Do With It?

In the hallway the sheriff said gruffly, “Follow me.”
We did, down the stairs.
Emerging on the second floor, we were led to a cell in the city jail. In it were two sets of steel bunk beds, and another small window up high. The door rattled shut behind us, and Clark retreated back to his own turf somewhere else in the building.
Then I understood. Clark was removing the “leadership” from the group upstairs, isolating the local men from the “professional agitators,” in hopes of maintaining better control over the rest.
The realization made me smile. It was flattering to be included among those who threatened his status quo. But it was also a stretch. True, I was indeed a “professional,” with minuscule paychecks to prove it; and certainly I was an outsider, but one still just beginning to find my way around in a bewildering new world. A “civil rights agitator”? Hardly.
Oh well. I took this implicit designation as a compliment. In any event, there in the cell I was as close as I had ever been to Dr. King, without dozens or hundreds of other people around as well. I began to hope there might be a chance to talk one-on-one, get to know him better, and maybe become better known to him as well.
Nothing like this happened immediately, however. Dr. King was not only hoarse, he was also bone tired, as he always was in those days. After some quiet huddling with Abernathy, he soon lay down on one of the bunks and dozed off.
I was too excited to follow his example, even though I’d been up early and it was now late afternoon. The winter daylight was turning gray in the slit of the small high window. I noticed how quiet the cell was.
Then I also noticed the growling in my stomach. I hadn’t eaten much breakfast, the march and waiting had taken hours, and no one had brought lunch to our shouting, singing crowd upstairs. In fact, I was starved. Would they bring us anything here?
After another hour or so, when the cell was dim in the dusk, there was a sudden noise in the hallway outside. A door banged, a light went on in the hallway, and metallic wheels squealed. A pungent aroma floated toward us as a voice called, “Dr. King! Oh, Dr. King! Ah got dinner for Dr. King!”
I turned to the cell door. Behind me Dr. King stirred.
A trusty appeared, a dark specter in kitchen whites, pushing a cart. “Dinner,” he repeated. “Ah got dinner for Dr. King.” I looked at the cart and identified the aroma.
Collard greens. A single plate, piled with a mound of them, sat in the center of the cart. Were they steaming, or was it only my imagination?
I had never heard of, never mind eaten collard greens before coming to the South a few months earlier. But by now I knew them to be a humble southern vegetable, found in the more modest homes and establishments. Their odor was strong, the taste faintly bitter, though it mellowed somewhat after long simmering with chunks of fatback pork and salt. While collards were said to be very nutritious, I had not liked them much.

But now they looked succulent, and their fragrance set my mouth to watering.
The trusty had stopped, almost right in front of me. “Dr. King?” he called one more time, tentatively.
I heard motion from the bunks. Dr. King came past and reached through the bars to shake the trusty’s hand. “How you doin’?” he asked, with a smile that was almost a grin, ready to make some small talk. “What you got there?”
I tuned out their quiet banter. My attention was drawn magnetically back to that steaming plate. As I gazed, it seemed to grow in size, til it looked as big as a platter, large enough to feed all of us in the cell, with some left over.
But I knew this was illusion. It was merely a plate, and only one, and it was meant for Dr. King.
I reflected on this melancholy fact, then told myself sternly to buck up. The image of the army came back to mind: Dr. King was the general, I was the private. Armies win wars as much by the quality of their generalship as by the courage and luck of their grunts. Maybe more.
In our army there were 250 others like me upstairs, and many more than that outside, in the dark and edgy town. But there was only one of Dr. King, and even here he could still think, plan and give orders. It was, I considered, essential that he have a clear head, to calculate our next pivotal tactical and strategic moves. Thus it was quite proper that he maintain the energy and vigor needed to face whatever awaited him here in this jail, as well as the many hazards hovering beyond it.
So what if I was I hungry, even ravenous? I was young, relatively strong, temporarily out of action and in any case expendable. I could wait, while Dr. King did what was needed.
My gaze wandered back to the trusty. There I saw consternation was now woven into the creases of his weathered face, and began to listen again, as Dr. King said,
“– And that, my friend, is why I cannot eat your greens. I’m sorry.”
What?
I peered at Dr. King. Was he sick? Had I heard wrong? What had I missed? The trusty came to my rescue.
“Say what?” he murmured, as if he hadn’t heard it either.
In reply, Dr. King began to explain.
The exact words are gone now, but the substance of what became a discourse is still as clear as if it were yesterday:
“You see,” Dr. King began, “not long after I got involved in the mov-e-ment [he always said the word as if it had three syllables: “move”– an unvocalized “ah”– “ment”], I had the opportunity, with the help of the Quakers, to visit India and study the work of Mahatma Gandhi, who had freed his country from British rule through campaigns of nonviolent resistance.”
The trusty’s face added a frown of incomprehension to the furrows of confusion. I got the distinct impression he had no idea who Mahatma Gandhi was; for that matter, I barely did myself.
“And we found that Gandhi had gone to jail many times, sometimes spending long periods in prison with many of his followers. After he had been in prison only a few times, Gandhi decided it was important to make the time count.
“So when he was in prison with a large number of people, he would organize them into a small representative democracy. ‘We Indians say we want to be free and rule ourselves,’ he told them. ‘But if we are ever to make that happen, we need to learn and practice the tools of representative government.’ So they held mock elections and practiced parliamentary procedure and all that.”
I stole another look at the plate. Were the greens cooling? Did the trusty know what “parliamentary procedure” was?
“But that was not all,” Dr. King went on. “Many Indians were illiterate, and so Gandhi asked those who could read to teach those who could not. And others who knew trades like carpentry, or professions like law and medicine, held classes to teach their fellows about practical skills and legal rights. Gandhi turned the British prisons into great schools of independence, right under the government’s nose.”
The trusty rubbed his chin and blinked. Was he, like me, wondering what any of this had to do with collard greens?
“Gandhi also worked to make the time in prison a unifying experience culturally,” Dr. King explained. “In India there were two great religions, Hinduism and Islam, and the British schemed ceaselessly” [again the almost measured beats: “cease..less…ly”] “to sow discord and conflict between them, with much success.

“So Gandhi worked to heal these divisions, by holding religious services in prison every day. He used both Hindu scriptures and the Muslim Koran, showing respect and even reverence for these two ancient traditions. It worked too, while Gandhi was alive.”
I glanced at Dr. King. There was a smile on his broad face; he had warmed to his subject.
“And not least,” he said, “Gandhi decided that imprisonment was to be for him a time of religious retreat, with a regular routine of spiritual meditation and practice, to free and purify his spirit while he worked to free and purify his country.”
Dr. King spread his hands out between the bars, gesturing as if in a pulpit. “I was very moved by what I learned in India,” he said, “and when Dr. Abernathy and I realized that we were likely to face arrest and jail repeatedly in our own struggle here, we agreed that we would follow Gandhi’s example, to the extent that we were able.”
Did this, I wonder, mean a literacy class in the morning? Or readings from the Koran? The trusty looked equally confused.
“Long ago,” Dr. King resumed, and it sounded as if he was winding toward some kind of punch line, “Dr. Abernathy and I resolved that whenever we went to jail, we would try to be placed together, and together we too would make our prison sentences times of spiritual retreat and religious refreshment, with a regular routine of prayer, meditation and study.”
Not to mention, I thought, some preaching now and again.
“And to put ourselves into the proper frame of mind for these times of retreat,” Dr. King concluded, “we have always made it our practice that for the first two days we are in jail, we will fast.”

Next: The Conclusion

V - Conclusion

So there it was, finally.
As I say, these were not his exact words, but the cadence and content are all there. In any case, when the trusty heard the word “fast,” his mouth dropped open. Mine did, too.
The trusty frowned more deeply, and turned his head slightly, as if he was working up to ask a question, perhaps something like, “Say what?” Dr. King headed him off.
“And that, my friend, is why I very much appreciate the effort you’ve gone to,” he said, “but I’m afraid I am unable to eat your greens.”
“You mean – ?” croaked the trusty. Much of the rest of the disquisition may have gone over his head, but this last was sinking in.
Dr. King nodded.
The trusty looked genuinely confused.”You mean,’ he repeated, “you can’t – ?”
Now Dr. King shook his head slowly.
The trusty looked at Abernathy, who had moved to Dr. King’s elbow. He smiled apologetically, but shook his head also.
The trusty blinked and turned toward the other staffer, who had hung back silently through this whole exchange. His head shook too.
The trusty stood there for a moment, without a clue as to what to do next.
And then, he looked at me.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, I have always thought the key to the story is in verse 33 of Luke’s Gospel’s tenth chapter, where it says of the Samaritan who found the robbery victim, wounded and abandoned, that “his heart was moved with compassion.”
I think I can say, with some humility, that when I saw the sense of loss and confusion on the trusty’s face, my heart, like that of the Samaritan, was moved with compassion. (Or if not the heart, then an organ just under it.)
After all, it was easy to imagine what kind of life this man had, standing by the squeaky cart in the worn white uniform of a kitchen helper. We had heard similar laments from the county prisoners upstairs. I guessed he was probably a habitual drunk, petty thief, or some combination of the two.
He probably had no job, like so many other black men around Selma, or couldn’t keep one; perhaps he was among the many farm laborers who had been pushed out of the cotton fields by mechanization. Not dangerous, probably, except to himself or when drunk; otherwise, why would the police have let him work in the kitchen, where there must be knives and other potential weapons?
This was his bleak present, and probably his dreary future: helping prepare the Spartan prison fare for men, and perhaps a few women, slightly more wretched than himself, all wasting their lives in the obscure cells of a provincial city jail.

And then, like a breath of the divine, this day brought an astounding break in this routine: a flood of respectable citizens into the cellblocks; our thundering, rhythmic chorus of defiance and spirit which must have reverberated through these halls as well as our crowded warren upstairs. Even more amazing, from out of this inchoately marvelous mass, emerged the modern Moses, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., freshly back from Oslo and the Nobel Peace Prize, right into the hallways of his own tiny, godforsaken wasteland.
Why wouldn’t he want to seize this moment of light, this trembling interval of grace, and do something, do his best, for this apparition? I had heard about the anguished letters Dr. King received from black people across the country, people who thought he could work wonders, cure their diseases, or those of their suffering children, just by the laying on of his hands.
The trusty, though, had made no request, had asked for nothing. Rather, he had exercised his meager skill, and probably coaxed and begged his white keepers for leave, this once, this only once, to do for Moses the little he could do, bring to him a token of gratitude and honor, a sign of the exaltation that Dr. King, though all-too-human, had had laid on him for the benefit of us all, and especially for the least of them, of whom this trusty was a fitting embodiment.
He had made Dr. King a plate of greens. And now Dr. King had gently, but firmly, refused it.
What were homilies about someone named Gandhi compared to this?
How could I not be moved by this spectacle?
How could I not, in the face of it, make my own gesture, my own sacrifice?
I spoke:
“Um,” I said, “you know, I’m really kind of new to this nonviolence business, and I never heard all this stuff about Gandhi before. So I – well, I haven’t made any vows about fasting or praying or, um, anything like that.”
The trusty blinked and listened to me bungle my sentences.
“So,” I stumbled on, “what I mean is – I’d hate to see you go back to the kitchen , um, empty-handed, as it were.”
I was losing him. “What I really mean is,” I said, trying to get the lead out, “I mean, if it’s all right with you, and Dr. King, well – I-I guess I’d be willing, um, willing to eat your greens.”
The trusty blinked at me again. His gaze shifted questioningly to Dr. King. I followed, half afraid to look. But we both saw Dr. King give a slight nod and shrug, as if to affirm the innocence of my ignorance.
The trusty then looked at Abernathy, who nodded as well; the other civil rights worker followed.
Thus confirmed in the awareness that I was his fourth choice, I watched him slowly pick up the plate. He balanced it carefully, so as not to spill the collards’ copious pot liquor, deftly opened the narrow slot in the door with the other hand, and slid it through. The plate was still warm in my hands. He passed me a plastic fork and knife.
I half-turned away from the others, all too conscious of their eyes on me. I was almost ready to cry out: oh god, forgive me! But the greens looked so good, the smell was intoxicating, irresistible.
I jabbed the fork into the heaped greens. But the tines sank only half an inch before sticking in something firmer, almost solid.
What the –? Suspicion welled up. Could there be something sinister hidden in the chlorophyll? I scraped the greens to one side.
And there, beneath the facade of dull green, was not some toxin, nor another vegetable. Instead I found meat. Thick pink slices of fine country ham, a food of shameless luxury.
My mind raced as I cut and wolfed the chunks. This could not possibly be the everyday menu in this establishment; what cunning had he exercised to get them? The concealing arrangement of greens, which had seemed so random, suddenly took on an aspect almost of art.

What a dinner I had that night. It has nourished me ever since.

- - - - - - -
Adapted from: Eating Dr. King’s Dinner, A Memoir of the Movement, 1963-1966. Kimo Press, 2005.

The Progressive Friends were a group that hasn’t yet got their props from Quaker historians. There isn’t space here for an outline of their fascinating history, except to say you can find out more here and here.

But in sum, they started as liberal rebels in mid-1800s America, who took on a hidebound Hicksite Establishment. And they ended, invisibly but unmistakably, as the seedbed and founders of modern US liberal Quakerism. The fact that almost nobody knows this is a shame, but no surprise given the general ignorance of Quaker history among Quakers. (I’ll rant about that some other time.)

One of the Progressives’ big issues was abolition of slavery, which the Establishment wanted kept in a quiet, secluded corner, visited only occasionally. The Progressives couldn’t sit still for this. So another of their issues became a protest against the reality that Quakerism in those days was a two-tier group, with Ins ruling over Outs.

Thus in the course of time, there was a peculiar kind of a split among some Hicksite groups, and in 1853 the rebels in Pennsylvania formed their own Pennsylvania Progressive Friends Yearly Meeting.

PA Progressive Friends & their Meetinghouse in Kennett Square PA, in 1865.

But the Progressive “split” was a peculiar one. In PA they abolished what were called “select meetings” (The official In-crowd), but they didn’t go around disowning all the folks who differed from them, as had happened in earlier splits.

In fact, they never got around to setting up much of a formal structure, and some of the best of the Hicksite activists came and went among Progressive circles, without ever formally quitting their Hicksite home meetings. My hero Lucretia Mott was perhaps the most effective of such double agents, and you’ll find more about that here.

Lucretia Mott, Double agent

Anyway, at the Pennsylvanians’ founding session in 1853, they wrote and issued a manifesto, a document with a clunky title, The Exposition of Sentiments. But if the title was clunky, the Exposition could knock some Quaker socks off — I know because it completely disappeared mine when I read it 150 years or so later.

So look it over; but in the meantime, back to their founding session. Among the attenders was Sojourner Truth, the rough-hewn but singularly eloquent advocate for abolition.

She is what moved me to cobble together this post. Here’s what the minutes say:

Sojourner Truth, an emancipated slave mother, after uttering few impressive sentences, expressed herself as being deeply moved to sing, and she accordingly sung the following lines:

“I pity the slave mother, careworn and weary,
Who sighs as she presses her babe to her breast;
I lament her sad fate, all so hopeless and dreary,
I lament for her woes, and her wrongs unredressed.
O who can imagine her heart’s deep emotion,
As she thinks of her children about to be sold ;
You may picture the bounds of the rock-girdled ocean,
But the grief of that mother can never be told.

The mildew of slavery has blighted each blossom,
That ever has bloomed in her pathway below;
It has froze every fountain that gushed in her bosom,
And chilled her heart’s verdure with pitiless woe:
Her parents, her kindred, all crushed by oppression,
her husband still doomed in his desert to gay;
No arm to protect from the tyrant’s aggression.
She must weep as she treads on her desolate way.

O, slave-mother, hope! see — the nation is shaking!
The arm of the Lord is awake to thy wrong!
The slaveholder’s heart now with terror is quaking,
Salvation and Mercy to Heaven belong!
Rejoice, O rejoice! for the child thou art rearing
May one day lift up its unmanacled form,
While hope, to thy heart, like the rainbow so cheering,
Is born, like the rainbow, ‘mid tempest and storm.’”

Thank thee, Friend Truth.
Of the Progressive Friends, there will be more to say in future posts.

The bulletin below is from News.Aus.com (Australia):

Buy grifulvin V Update — No Rapture” />

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

I’m probably the last white guy in America to discover this. But this dude . . .

Christian Lander, Prophet of God for White People of Today.

. . . who says he’s originally from Toronto has delivered the most revealing message about white people, especially that sub-sub-sub-tribe of WPs that are called Liberal Quakers, that I ever saw. I’m not worthy to loosen the strap of his Birkenstocks, but here are a few quick tributes.

A bit of context for the rest of the half dozen of us who, like me, didn’t get the memo til this week: “Stuff White People Like” started out in 2008 as a blog, which drew millions of hits, and led quickly to book deals. It was early recognized as the Scripture of Snark, one of the few kinds of holy writ universally acknowledged by white people.

Just a sample from the first book:

“White people love diversity, but only as it relates to ethnic restaurants.”

There are 149 more similar entries in the book; I’d quote them all, but the publisher would probably sue me, so just a few more fair use snippets.

The second book, “Whiter Shades of Pale,” nails us regarding the current chief executive:

“Though technically only half-white, Barack Obama is America’s first truly white president. Jimmy Carter came close, but he expected people to make real sacrifices and white people aren’t really into that. No, Obama is the first white president for the following reasons: he went to law school, he attended an Ivy League school, he drives a hybrid, he planted an organic garden at the White House, and he has the one accessory that all white people long for: black children.”

He’s also invented a sidebar travel game, called “White travel Bingo. Here’s one sample board:

The trick is to look for white people exhibiting the telltale characteristics while driving from one white people’s destination (e.g., a film festival) to another (the farmers market).

and why do I say this book is particularly relevant to my liberal Quaker clan?? Dig it:

“White people will often say they are ’spiritual’ but not religious. This usually means that they will believe in any religion that doesn’t involve Jesus. . . .For the most part, white people prefer religions that produce artifacts and furniture that fit into their home or wardrobe. They are also particularly drawn to religions that do not require a lot of commitment or donations.”

“Awareness”

An interesting fact about white people is that they firmly believe all of the world’s problems can be solved through ‘awareness’–meaning the process of making other people aware of problems, magically causing someone else, like the government, to fix it. This belief allows them to feel that sweet self-satisfaction without actually having to solve anything or face any difficult challenges, because the only challenge of raising awareness is getting the attention of people who are currently unaware . . . .”

I’m going to take up the invitation offered by young Friend Paul Christiansen, in a comment to his article in the Western Friend, “Younger Blood, Older Eyes.”

The article opens well:

Western Quakers seem tired to me.
Those of us on committees feel it most clearly, I think, especially people on Nominating like me: a sense of how important our Society’s work is, and a sense of the limited energy we have for it. There are fewer of us to carry on larger tasks; our strongest and wisest have been carrying us for a long time, and when they lay down their burdens, the work is not taken up again with such vigor or skill. Some have life left, but it seems that many feel stretched, weary. Not enough coffee and too many cups.

The decline of volunteerism in the U.S. is not a new topic. The pressures on the middle class, where it now takes two incomes to sustain a typical household, leaves many people plumb wore out, and more likely to surf or sit in front of the TV.
Friends meetings are no exception; Christiansen speaks of Nominating Committee difficulties with filling slots. Been there, done that, and have no easy solutions. The East is no better off than the West in this regard.

Christiansen invokes the mass movements of the Sixties, notes that there are still plenty of big issues facing us today, and wonders why there is no comparable groundswell today, at least among Friends. Why not? Because, he suspects,

. . . . we’re tired.

Maybe so. But all of us? From here, my response to the piece, which was touted on Facebook as a revealing look at “generational dynamics,” gets mixed. How many similar articles have I read that take one or a few persons’ experience (be they young or old) and then proceed to diagnose “Quakerism” at large, especially to conclude that it’s in dire straits?

Too many, and their insight quotient tends to be pretty small.

Does this piece escape that fate? Not entirely. “So, where are Quaker youth?” it asks — “There are a few of us, scattered thinly . . . ”
But are they really so few and so scattered?

In the Comments following the article, one YAF reports firsthand that in Multnomah Meeting, a few hours south of Seattle, there are lots of them; and then from Austin Meeting we hear that there are lots more, active and vocal. (Austin Texas is still “in the West” as far as I’m concerned.)

This data doesn’t fit with the opening premise, and personally I think the larger answer to “where are the Quaker youth?” is mixed: some meetings have a good number of active YAFS, some don’t. And in some places there are thriving inter-meeting networks; other places, it’s sparse. Does that amount to a crisis? Count me not convinced.

Christiansen acknowledges that some YAFs from smaller meetings seek out larger gatherings, such as Yearly Meetings, where they find enough of their peers to have the sustaining community experience. Such “oases” of community have long been of great value to many younger Friends (and, hello — lots of us older ones too) who are seeking to live in a somehow Quakerly way amid a largely hostile environment. My experience is that this “oasis” plan can be a viable survival strategy; at least, I’ve been following it for most of forty years. In this connection he mentions an annual New Years gathering:

. . . which has alternated between Oregon and California for decades. It is entirely run by young people, which adds a vital sense of ownership that’s quite attractive to youth who feel unwelcome elsewhere in the Society

[Memo to the Western Friend: Wouldn’t it be much more useful to take a closer look at the New Years Gathering? How has it managed to survive the coming and going of several generations of YAFs through its doors, who then moved on into their post-YAF lives?

Indeed, my partner, the fair Wendy, has very fond memories of these same New Years events from back in -- well, let's just say Back In The Day before Christiansen's generation was even in diapers. Finding out what has made this event viable for so long, and whether any of its secrets might be portable -- now THAT would be a signal contribution to the YAF survival and retention efforts in many places.]

Mention of the New Year’s gathering moves Christiansen to the nub of the dissident YAFs’ complaint:

[The New Years event] adds a vital sense of ownership that’s quite attractive to youth who feel unwelcome elsewhere in the Society.
Mark that: there is a feeling common among Quakers under thirty, or even forty, that Friends over forty have been in charge so long that there’s no way for us young people to contribute. When my fellow youth attend their home meetings, they are usually still thought of as children; when they go elsewhere they are outsiders. It is not intentional exclusion, but long memories and unspoken traditions shut people out— also true among younger Friends, I admit. Quakerism, a Friend said, is “Like a game of Mao,” Mao being a game in which the rules are never explained, and new players learn the rules when they’re punished for breaking them. It is a game designed to frustrate; the Society of Friends can be similarly hostile.

The “Mao game” part is real enough, yet it is not only a generational issue: I’ve seen plenty of older new attenders scratching their heads and wondering, “What did I do wrong??” This point is reinforced by a comment on the article from a recent attender who’s still struggling to figure it out: he’s 50-something.

As for the “no way to contribute” and YAFs being “shut out” by hidebound elders, this may be a real problem, but are you aware that it’s not a new one? How many have read about Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in its “classic” years of dominance over colonial Pennsylvania — when YM Clerks served for decades, and then passed the post on to their favored sons?

Or consider this sardonic cartoon from 1828, which showed how the reigning PYM Clerk so favored the insiders and “shut out” the mass of members that the resulting resentments exploded in the Great Separation:

A new problem? Friends being excluded, shut out, and treated with hostility, circa 1828.

This image deserves some thoughtful reflection: if issues of being closed and shutting out non-favored members are recurrent, or even abiding Quaker problems, maybe there is experience and insight to be gained from former generations. Today’s young inquirers may have to dig it out themselves, but maybe they don’t have to re-invent it.

Christiansen shows some sensitivity to this. In a comment on the piece, he says,

The challenge as I see it, however, is to work *with* the “old guard” and not against it. . . . It’s worth remembering that while Quakerism may be opaque to younger eyes, youth culture can be similarly opaque to the generations that came before. Wiser, I think, to have the conversation, and trust that the leading of the Spirit will make itself known.

What? Youth culture opaque?? He must be kidding. I’m hip; I think the Beatles are just fine. (But that stuff called “hip-hop”? Just a fad. It’ll be gone by year’s end. Also, I know perfectly well that “LOL” means “Living On Love.” Totally.)

So how do we “work *with*” various generations? Honestly, I’m not sure that’s the key question.

Yes, there are generational cohorts, with somewhat distinctive outlooks and experience. Yet I’m persuaded there’s much more going on, and seeing the problems of Quakerism through a generational lense misses a lot of important points, which are not rooted in an age grouping; otherwise, why haven’t they gone away as I’ve grown older?

Instead, I want to suggest that dealing with generational (and most other) difficulties in the Religious Society of Friends today calls for learning and applying some specific skills, or what might also be called virtues. Pardon the clunky mnemonic, but I call them “The Seven Ups”.

Yep. The seven ways to fix Quakerism, whether you’re young or not. They are:

Show Up.
Read Up.
Speak up.
Ante up.
Smarten Up.
Toughen Up. And
Don’t Hurry Up.
Permit me a brief explanation:

Show Up: Quakerism belongs to those, of whatever age, who stay around, attend the meetings, and do the grunt work. If The Society doesn’t bring Light for you, find another path. But if it does, don’t expect to mail it in and get anywhere beyond the fringes. There’s a reason liberal Quakers generally don’t believe in hell: because we have committee meetings instead. (What? Did you think I like them any better after forty years worth?)

Read Up: I grow weary of those, young or old, who complain that nothing about Quakerism is explained. Sure, many of us elders may be too diffident about speaking of it; in fact, he’s quite right about that — but before you leave in a snit, have you looked over the meetinghouse library? Many Friends over many years have done their best to distill the explanations into writings long and short, old and new, enough to fill many shelves. (Your Meeting lacks a library? No excuse: lots of it is now online.) Make use of them.

This is a key point for me. Quakerism may be young among the world’s religions, but it has still produced a rich deposit of faith and experience.

So if Talmudic scholars pursue their studies for decades, and Quranic jurists do likewise; if a Jesuit priest invests a decade learning his craft, and my friend Sarah who is becoming a nun has spent six years in fulltime study and preparation — please, why should anyone expect understanding Quakerism to involve no more than a couple of pamphlets, or an hour or two in group discussion?

Frankly, such insinuations are unbecoming. No, that’s not plain enough: they’re demeaning.

But are we all supposed to become rabbis? Well, as an occupation, no. But Quakerism abolished the rabbinate, remember? And the bishops and the priests and the mullahs too. So who does that leave ultimately responsible for my “faith seeking understanding”? It’s me, that’s who. And where, Friend, does the responsibility lie for yours?

And having learned something, then Speak Up. Christiansen cops to this in a Comment on the article, when asked for suggestions about how to open doors for YAFs.

My next suggestion for young people of all ages is to speak out, respectfully but firmly. Conversation between equals is the rock that we have to build on.

Young people of all ages; I’ll drink to that (root beer, of course, which was popularized by a Quaker). Effective speaking up is greatly enhanced when the speaker has done some serious reading and is beginning to know what they’re talking about.

And as this happens, many will be surprised to discover that much of the over-forty reluctance to speak about Quakerism is based on a failure to do likewise. Yes, all too many of my generation of American Quakers don’t talk about it because we don’t know diddly about Quaker history or thought, beyond a couple of pamphlets and whatever certain social action groups say it is. This fog of ignorance, dubbed “the Age of Amnesia” by one observer, is among our least attractive features, and quite frankly deserves no deference because it is largely based on laziness and timidity.

Yet a bit of learning can be dangerous, especially if it obscures what is the equally or even more important mandate to

Ante Up. I didn’t realize this until it happened, but I ceased being a “Young Adult Friend” and turned into an “Adult Friend,” not on my 35th birthday, but on the day I sat down, after many years of attending and membership, pulled out my check book, made a donation to my Meeting, and then followed it up each month thereafter.

That was when I began to “carry my weight,” and before long, to realize I was “gaining” what those older Friends called “weight.”

How did it happen? The answer was a bit unsettling, but no less true for that: I was now concretely invested in the meeting.

Yes, I know we older Friends rattle on endlessly about how money should not be the measure of anyone’s value to a Meeting, or inhibit participation therein. And mostly, we mean it.

Mostly.

But there’s another side to the coin: Quakerism, like just about every other institution, has a material base: bills have to be paid. Meetinghouses require lights, heat, maintenance, sometimes costly. Scholarships to camp or yearly meeting don’t fall from the sky. Religious Education materials are not all given away free. The joyous community of yearly meeting or whatever require groceries, rent, insurance and fees. And if there are staff, salaries don’t magically appear.

This is probably the most closely guarded of older Friends’ secrets, and I may get in trouble for spilling it, but what the hell? – money counts. Our only excuse for concealing this fact, and it’s a lame one, is that we didn’t invent it: such doubletalking hypocrisy about money is practically ingrained in the Quaker DNA; it would take another long post even to begin to explore why.

The Latest from Quaker Wikileaks: Money Matters!

So if you’re a YAF and you don’t feel taken seriously in your meeting, consider this advice, hidden away under the heading “Stock” in the oldest printed Discipline: “A stock [i.e., treasury] having been generally kept, and by experience found useful, for the necessary occasions of the society, it is agreed, that the same be occasionally renewed by a collection from each quarter . . .” Or this, from Query 4 of the North Carolina Yearly Meeting (Conservative) Discipline: “4. Do we assume our rightful share in the expenses of our Meeting?”

Eventually I came to see that this was not simply a worldly question, but also a spiritual one; for “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also,” is a true statement, even if it is in the Bible (Matthew 6:21).

So far, so good. Still, I admit there will be times and places where none of these habits will be enough. There are meetings and organizations with entrenched establishments which will take your money, let you do the grunt work, and still keep you and others at arm’s length, patronized and on the back benches. (Yet this too is not only a feature of advanced age; I realize it may not be so visible from your standpoint, though; us geezers look so much alike, after all.)

Christiansen writes of this:

When young Friends are welcomed to participate, we often wind up as the token young person on a committee. This can exhaust and deaden, for committees are not designed for action or vitality; Quaker tradition moves slowly. Tradition guides, but tradition grows comfortable, and change grows hard. When we young folks try to act, we’re told “We don’t do it that way,” and we’re never told why. Older Friends must talk with us about Quaker traditions and history, or we won’t learn them; only by trusting and supporting us in our ideas can we become part of the life of the meeting.

Older Friends need to talk, and do so plainly; absolutely right. But remember the cartoon from 1828? Sometimes those in charge refuse. So what then?

Well, in the early 1890s, after an evangelical autocracy had ruled (and stifled) London Yearly Meeting for decades, a band of young insurgents gathered and discovered that they were well and truly fed up, religiously as well as generationally. So they planned a coup. And to bring it off, they went underground. That is, they

Smartened Up.

What? You mean they schemed and connived?

Yes. if you believe such things do not and cannot happen among Quakers, Friend, it’s time thee woke up and smelt the fair trade organic shade-grown roast arabica.

In this particular case, which has been well-documented, they proposed to hold a “Home Missions” conference, on matters of “current concern” — which were left deliberately quite vague and innocuous-sounding, and obtained a pat-on-the-head green light from the dozing elders. Then they stacked the program committee with their own kind and generation, and quietly, so quietly, put together a program which, in 1895, started a revolution. The old farts didn’t discover what the whippersnappers were up to til the conference was actually underway; and then, by golly, it was too late. Freaking brilliant.

The Elder Establishment personified: J. Bevan Braithwaite, dominating minister in London YM for decades; he had no clue til it was too late.

Many other examples could be offered; but I encourage you to look them up yourselves.

So sometimes, in dealing with us elders, you’ll find that you may have to wait for a Quaker funeral or two before taking your rightful places among the in-crowd. But often enough, if you get together and Smarten Up, this process can be speeded up.

Finally, the time may come when passive aggression doesn’t cut it. Now and then you may have to actually push your way into the charmed circle, and even engage in open conflict. Yes: the zero-sum game does get played among Friends, more than we care to admit. [At this point, you may insert your favorite platitudinal quotes about how conflict is good and avoiding it is bad, etc., etc. Don't worry; we will not mention them again.] In Ecclesiastes (the Bible again), we are told there is a time for everything, including “war.” That applies to Friends too, so when that time comes, Toughen Up, do what has to be done, and thank God for the peace testimony.

In a usually milder form, this last injunction has a special applicability to younger Friends: The Society of Friends is not, as you are discovering, always a warm fuzzy, welcoming, ever-safe, nurturing and generous place. (What human institution is?) Sometimes, if you want in, you’ll have to Toughen Up and push your way in; politely, if at all possible. Or with an elbow here and there if need be.

And don’t be put off by this penultimate of my lugubrious Seven Ups. It doesn’t come into play that often. Usually, if you’re among those who Show Up and Ante Up, the experience is more like what happened to me in the Meeting I attended from the late 70s to the early 90s.

There was definitely an “entrenched establishment” of elders there when I arrived. I don’t say they were “oppressive,” but there they were, and why not? They had created this meeting, found the meetinghouse, raised money to renovate it, and kept it going, so I could come and fumble along and find my way.

But then one First Day — it was literally like this — I looked around the meeting room at the scattering of what I had been thinking of as “Younger Friends” (i.e., like me), and had a shocking double realization:

First, that almost all the Establishment Elder Friends were now GONE (death, retirement, the usual); and

Second, that OMG! — it was now OUR TURN, including MY turn, to see if we could continue what they had started. One by one, fairly quickly, we stepped into all the big slots: Clerk, Treasurer, etc.

It wasn’t a power struggle. Quite the opposite: it was more as if someone next to me had dropped a precious vase, and it was up to me (or someone like me) to catch it before it smashed on the floor.

Nobody announced this, or asked if we were ready, or now felt included. It’s just what happens when the calendar flips over enough times. Still, somehow I felt surprised, as if I’d been riding on an escalator, lost in a daydream, then -bump- there I was at the top, or rather, the next level. (A third realization came later: I wasn’t a “Younger Friend” anymore.)

And when the “bump” comes for today’s YAFs, I hope they’re not all “tired” already, as Christiansen suggests.

In his quick list of suggestions for dealing with YAF discontent, his article concludes with something very striking:

Lastly — and I admit this is really tenuous at the moment, but I think it’s really going to be the key — we need something to really believe in. Call it a cause. What that cause may be… well, that we need to work out. But I suspect we need something to act on, a rallying cry.

I found that both very interesting, and a bit troubling. Interesting because it might — maybe — be a goad to some serious seeking, which is all to the good.

But troubling, because I’ve heard it before, and it left me scratching my graying head. There’s still lots of wars, our constitution has been shredded, the planet is crashing, etc., etc., and yet somebody can’t find a cause? What’s up with that?

Except here again, I’m not persuaded: some YAFs I’m acquainted with do have causes or leadings they’re dedicated to and developing; so it doesn’t apply to all. Another aspect is that, for those of us who are old and have been working for “causes” and leadings for awhile, it raises a challenging question: how does that kind of involvement get transmitted to the next generation? Can it be?

Is it a matter of inviting YAFs to more committee meetings? (Somehow I doubt it; but go anyway.) Where and how do people get “inspired”? I could tell you my story about that, but part of it is that my story isn’t necessarily The Way To Do It.

But maybe one quick snippet: I didn’t really have a clue as to my “cause” or “leading” (vocation was my term) until my mid-thirties; and then it took another decade-plus to feel as if I was getting on track with it; we’re talking late forties here. Yeah, I think I was pretty dense. And along the way I stressed about it a lot. But I can look back and see that God was working on this denseness. (Still is, one hopes.)

So if this experience has anything to offer it is the charge to keep seeking and threshing, but Don’t Hurry Up, that is, don’t be surprised if it takes awhile; because the Spirit “is like the wind, it blows where it wants to, and you hear the sound of it, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it’s going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (Yeah, another Bible quote: John 3:8)

So Christiansen is right: that one needs some working out.

Another thing: if he was looking for ONE cause that everybody would get behind, here’s one old Quaker ready to say of that: BEWARE. The world is complex; God is mysterious; real problems are many, and so are true leadings. In my time, the people who wanted us all to line up behind their Cause were generally best avoided.

Well, I’ve tried to follow Paul Christiansen’s advice to “young people of all ages . . . to speak out, respectfully but firmly” here. And I’ll close by quoting one of the YAF comments on his article, which I think does the same:

Quakers have a valuable, unique, and vital message and approach badly needed in this world and if the “old guard” aren’t interested in working with young friends it will be their loss. I don’t plan on going anywhere (unitarianism, ugh) and I have the wherewithall to stand in my meeting and demand change. I hope other adult young friends realize the power they have in their youth and energy.

Okay, so that was from my daughter Guli, in whom I am well-pleased; so I’m hardly unbiased here. But I think she kicked it.