When I was first got sick some years back with an autoimmune disease, my life went topsy turvy for awhile. I could no longer backpack or hike, my aerobic exercise regimen was sharply curtailed, and I was dreadfully tired, foggy in the mind, and hurting all over, all of the time. Eventually I went on medical leave from my job.
During that time I was presented with what seemed to be impossibly contradictory promptings. One day I would be led to believe with all of my being that I would be healed, completely. On the next I would be led to accept the fact of my illness with grace. These two positions seemed diametrically opposed, the "either/or" of my health crisis.
To believe without reservation that there was a Power in the universe that could actually heal me was tempting – I so wanted to be completely well again, to get my old life back! I knew and believed in the power of the healing stories in the New Testament: especially the stories of the Gerasene demoniac, the leper at the well, and the woman whose bleeding stopped when she touched the robe of Jesus. But there was also something about the act of believing without reservation that felt false to me – as if I was refusing to accept the reality of this diagnosable disease that was having such a huge impact on my life.
On the other hand, if I accepted the disease as my teacher and constant companion in life, wasn’t I shutting the door on being one of the few for whom the disease mysteriously disappears, never to return? Was I saying “no” to a possible miracle? In the midst of the inner turmoil, I felt as if I was being torn apart, while needing to figure it out now so I could get my old life back.
One day a vision came to me. I saw myself walking carefully along the narrow ridge of a Lake Michigan sand dune. To the left of me fell the slope of Absolute Faith. To the right of me fell the slope of Acceptance. I heard the Inward Teacher tell me that my task was to walk along the ridge, keeping my balance, falling neither to the right nor the left. I was to walk between Absolute Faith and Acceptance.
Over the years, as I have learned to be there, in that liminal place between, my vision has widened. With the eagle, I can sometimes look down on myself from above, and I see a world in which the slope of Absolute Faith and the slope of Acceptance touch above and below. They are one – two halves of a singularity, the yin and yang of healing, if you will. They are not opposites but complementarities. Together, as I am learning to walk between them, they are healing me, and healing me well.
It seems to me that all spirituality comes down to this, to paradox. Our seemingly natural desire to understand, to create discrete labels and containers for all the details of our world and experience is at mortal odds with the Divine Reality in which All is One. There is no Truth to know and own. There is no Way that is the Only Way. Having once tasted the complex bouquet of Paradox, the simple palate of Either/Or no longer satisfies. Once touched by the finger of God, there is no way to get back to the old, comfortable, predictable life. And perhaps that is the point.
Perhaps this is also why Rainer Maria Rilke wrote, in his Letters to a Young Poet: “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
August 2, 2009
July 13, 2009
Sinking Down Again to the Seed
In meeting today I was thinking again about “sinking down to the seed.” I remembered that, one summer when my children were young, I planted a row of sunflowers. They were the giant kind, growing 10 to 12 feet high with faces about a foot across.
It had been a difficult summer, with quite a bit of inward seeking and anguished wondering about the next steps I was about to take in my life. As I pulled into the driveway on that late summer day when the light was buttery golden and the air moved warm on my skin, those sunflowers greeted me as if singing their own Hallelujah chorus!
And suddenly something opened in me. I remembered placing those relatively small seeds in the moist ground, and now here were these impossibly tall, impossibly glorious flowers with heads so heavy with seeds of their own that they were beginning to droop. They hadn’t seemed to work hard to become sunflowers – they had just become. They hadn’t sprouted up roses, or violets, or oak trees. They had sprung effortlessly from God’s template of a sunflower. I imagined that they had followed the sounds of their souls, and so had become completely, thoroughly, utterly, beautifully, and effortlessly themselves. And not only were they themselves, they were lush with new life, abundant with promise, full of the future. Heavy with seed.
So I sat in meeting thinking about this vivid image of the sunflowers of my past. I remembered how freeing it felt to realize in that moment in the driveway that I did not have to effort in order to live an authentic life. That all that was needed was to follow the sound of my own soul, and that I would be led to the self that God had created in love and care and joy.
This was a revolutionary thought for me at the time. I had been struggling with many other people’s expectations of me, with confusion about who I was in the world and whether I was entitled to take up space in it, with a serious conflict between who I wanted to be and who I thought I should be. So the idea that there was an authentic part of me that, like the sunflower, could be trusted to become itself, reaching up through the dark earth of my messy life for the sunlight – this was a kind of birthing experience.
Now, 25 years after the driveway epiphany, I look back on my life and I know what a slow learner I have been. I see that the plans, the visions, the hopes and the dreams I have consciously held for myself and my family over the years invariably started out much too small for the seeds that were and are in us. The things and experiences I desired began more often than not with some idea about what I thought would make me or us more comfortable, or happier, or more secure. Too infrequently did they begin with nurturing the seed deep within. Too infrequently were they a reflection of the soul’s deep longings. Too often I had to be dragged kicking and screaming, "But THIS isn't what I asked for!" into the promised land.
I can say, with gratitude and humility, that has changed as I have gotten older. I was somehow given the grace to more easily accept the inevitable adaptations that my preferences have had to make in the face of the realities of my life. I am grateful that I was given the grace of courage to change the things that I could change, and finally the grace to accept the things I could not change. (I’m still learning to know the difference.)
Spirit has been pretty relentless in shepherding me back to the seed of my being. So it’s a good thing that I have been learning to give in, to sink down, to give up, to let go. To let God. And the life I am finally coming to live is much more beautiful and suited to my talents and needs than any I could have engineered.
Blessed be and hallelujah.
It had been a difficult summer, with quite a bit of inward seeking and anguished wondering about the next steps I was about to take in my life. As I pulled into the driveway on that late summer day when the light was buttery golden and the air moved warm on my skin, those sunflowers greeted me as if singing their own Hallelujah chorus!
And suddenly something opened in me. I remembered placing those relatively small seeds in the moist ground, and now here were these impossibly tall, impossibly glorious flowers with heads so heavy with seeds of their own that they were beginning to droop. They hadn’t seemed to work hard to become sunflowers – they had just become. They hadn’t sprouted up roses, or violets, or oak trees. They had sprung effortlessly from God’s template of a sunflower. I imagined that they had followed the sounds of their souls, and so had become completely, thoroughly, utterly, beautifully, and effortlessly themselves. And not only were they themselves, they were lush with new life, abundant with promise, full of the future. Heavy with seed.
So I sat in meeting thinking about this vivid image of the sunflowers of my past. I remembered how freeing it felt to realize in that moment in the driveway that I did not have to effort in order to live an authentic life. That all that was needed was to follow the sound of my own soul, and that I would be led to the self that God had created in love and care and joy.
This was a revolutionary thought for me at the time. I had been struggling with many other people’s expectations of me, with confusion about who I was in the world and whether I was entitled to take up space in it, with a serious conflict between who I wanted to be and who I thought I should be. So the idea that there was an authentic part of me that, like the sunflower, could be trusted to become itself, reaching up through the dark earth of my messy life for the sunlight – this was a kind of birthing experience.
Now, 25 years after the driveway epiphany, I look back on my life and I know what a slow learner I have been. I see that the plans, the visions, the hopes and the dreams I have consciously held for myself and my family over the years invariably started out much too small for the seeds that were and are in us. The things and experiences I desired began more often than not with some idea about what I thought would make me or us more comfortable, or happier, or more secure. Too infrequently did they begin with nurturing the seed deep within. Too infrequently were they a reflection of the soul’s deep longings. Too often I had to be dragged kicking and screaming, "But THIS isn't what I asked for!" into the promised land.
I can say, with gratitude and humility, that has changed as I have gotten older. I was somehow given the grace to more easily accept the inevitable adaptations that my preferences have had to make in the face of the realities of my life. I am grateful that I was given the grace of courage to change the things that I could change, and finally the grace to accept the things I could not change. (I’m still learning to know the difference.)
Spirit has been pretty relentless in shepherding me back to the seed of my being. So it’s a good thing that I have been learning to give in, to sink down, to give up, to let go. To let God. And the life I am finally coming to live is much more beautiful and suited to my talents and needs than any I could have engineered.
Blessed be and hallelujah.
July 6, 2009
Guidelines for Conduct in Friends' Committees
I adapted these guidelines to help a monthly meeting committee discuss and get clear about conduct during their meetings. They are based on the guidelines posted below, and continue to be a work in progress. See the previous post for background. ++++
Committee meetings are microcosms of the Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business, providing an opportunity for Friends to practice several of our testimonies as we carry out the practical work of maintaining our faith community. We seek to be Spirit-led in our work, with as much efficiency as possible, achieving a sense of what Friends call “right order,” and so ask that you use the following guidelines.
Committee meetings are microcosms of the Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business, providing an opportunity for Friends to practice several of our testimonies as we carry out the practical work of maintaining our faith community. We seek to be Spirit-led in our work, with as much efficiency as possible, achieving a sense of what Friends call “right order,” and so ask that you use the following guidelines.
- When you are led to speak, ask the clerk to recognize you by raising your hand.
- To affirm something someone has said, simply nod or use the phrase, “This Friend speaks my mind.” Please don’t ask to be recognized so that you may express the same thought in other words.
- When you speak, keep your comments plain and to the point.
- We are seeking the sense of the group as a whole, using the processes developed by Friends, rather than lobbying for a personal viewpoint.
- When the recording clerk is developing a minute, sit in worship, and hold him/her in the Light. Please refrain from conversation with your neighbor.
- When a person speaks in the meeting, receive the words as you receive vocal ministry in Meeting for Worship – with an open heart and calm mind. If you have a strong reaction to something someone has said, sit with it until way is clear for you to speak with patience and compassion.
- Abide by the agreements that the group makes regarding decisions, actions, schedules, agendas, etc. If you feel something needs to be changed or varied, please bring it forward as a new agenda item.
Guidelines for Conduct in Friends' Meetings for Business
Here is a revised version of the guidelines used recently at the Annual Sessions of Lake Erie Yearly Meeting. They were taped to the backs of all the chairs in the meeting room, and the clerk discussed them at the beginning of the first session of business, following our typical worship and reading of an Epistle. The spiritual environment of our business session was deeply helped by these reminders, and it was so much easier for me as clerk to discern Spirit's leading! We were helped by the fact that there were several Friends among us who were familiar with Quaker conduct in MfB. Had this not been the case, I doubt that a list of reminders would have been enough. Perhaps a session on Friends business practice would have needed to precede it, in that case.
As it was, I experienced our sessions as a blessing, rather than an exhausting drain; as a three-part partnership between Spirit, clerk, and the YM. I will post separately the guidelines as I have revised them since for use in committee meetings. They continue to be a work in progress.
These guidelines come from a number of sources: Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice (which is the F&P that my monthly meeting, Red Cedar, and LEYM currently use), Britain Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice, and some Quaker clerking books that have been published by FGC including "Where Do I Stand? A Resource for Monthly Meeting Clerks." They were shared with and refined by some Friends whose insight and experience I trust. And they are briefly stated so as to fit on a half sheet of paper as reminders for Friends who have already been exposed to Friends' practice. ++++
As it was, I experienced our sessions as a blessing, rather than an exhausting drain; as a three-part partnership between Spirit, clerk, and the YM. I will post separately the guidelines as I have revised them since for use in committee meetings. They continue to be a work in progress.
These guidelines come from a number of sources: Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice (which is the F&P that my monthly meeting, Red Cedar, and LEYM currently use), Britain Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice, and some Quaker clerking books that have been published by FGC including "Where Do I Stand? A Resource for Monthly Meeting Clerks." They were shared with and refined by some Friends whose insight and experience I trust. And they are briefly stated so as to fit on a half sheet of paper as reminders for Friends who have already been exposed to Friends' practice. ++++
Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business provides an opportunity for Friends to practice several of our testimonies as we carry out the practical work of maintaining our faith community. We seek to be Spirit-led in our work, with as much efficiency as possible, achieving a sense of what Friends call “right order,” and so ask that you use the following guidelines.
- When you are led to speak, ask the clerk to recognize you by raising your hand.
- To affirm something someone has said, simply nod or use the phrase, “This Friend speaks my mind.” Please don’t ask to be recognized so that you may express the same thought in other words.
- When you speak, please stand, speak to the clerk’s table, and keep your comments plain and to the point.
- Friends will not generally be recognized to speak on any given issue more than once, except to acknowledge a personal change of perspective during the meeting. The clerk may not call on everyone if there is a clear sense of the meeting. We are seeking the sense of the meeting.
- When the recording clerk is developing a minute, sit in worship, and hold him/her in the Light. Please refrain from conversation with your neighbor.
- When a person speaks in Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business, receive the words as you receive vocal ministry in Meeting for Worship – with an open heart and calm mind. If you have a strong reaction to something someone has said, sit with it until way is clear for you to speak with patience and compassion.
- If you need a break simply leave quietly when no one is speaking and return, waiting until no one is speaking to take your seat.
July 5, 2009
Why "Sink to the Seed?"
When I would hear the old Quaker phrase, "sink to the seed," I used to imagine a roomful of old-timey, plain Friends in a wooden meeting house, sitting quietly, and practicing "sinking down." They become quieter and quieter until there is not a sound except for what floats in through the open window on a lush, sunny, early summer day: buzzing of honeybees, snuffle of waiting horse, singing of robin. What an idyllic scene, based almost entirely on what I imagined the outward experience of "sinking down to the seed" would look like. But what was happening inwardly?
Here is what the experience of "sinking to the seed" means to me now, and why I am naming this blog after it. Let me trace the three strands of my woven faith using the pattern of this metaphor.
When I am close to Jesus and think "sink down to the Seed," I can't help but to think of the parable of the Sower and the Seeds (Mark 4:3-9). We have all heard the story. The Sower broadcasts his seed. Some falls on the path, where the birds come and eat it up. Some falls on rocky ground, springs up quickly, but cannot set down a deep root and so withers quickly in the hot sun. Some seed falls among "thorns," perhaps an aggressive, invasive species of plant, and the thorns choke it out, and it yields no grain. But some seed falls upon good soil, and it sets down deep roots so that it can draw up the water of life into itself, and it is able to grow strong. So it bears a great deal of new seed, sometimes as much as a "hundredfold." (One hundred new seeds grown from a single plant, which was produced by a single seed. Think of it! God gives and gives and gives some more!)
It seems to me that my inward spirit is a complex terrain, and that all of these kinds of soil exist within me. When I feed the good soil and tend the garden, so to speak, the Seed of Christ can set down deep roots within me. When I sink to that deeply-rooted Seed in the garden of my soul, I am immediately in the place of Life and Goodness and Abundance. I am in the kingdom of God, which Jesus assured us was among us at all times. And it has a wonderfully fresh smell.
When I am in touch with my experience of the Light, "sinking down to the Seed" leads me to what Isaac Penington called "the true peace, the true righteousness, the true holiness, the true rest of the soul, the everlasing habitation which the redeemed dwell in." (19.14 in Britain Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice) This is the innermost room of the soul that is both full and empty, the still point, the place where the authentic One lives, where the Light shines continually and the dark, velvet night holds it tenderly, where all is revealed and all is acknowledged and all is forgiven. It is the center where my human limitations and destructive errors (sinfulness) are revealed, where I can acknowledge and move through the brokenness, where I admit that I've been guilty of a god-awfully painful imitation of the Wizard of Oz! And it is also the place where my unique soul is also revealed, where I get a glimpse of what it is that Spirit sees in me, and this gives me a sense of both awe and peace, that this wondrous Spirit has found a home in me, and expresses itself uniquely through me. When I sink down to the Seed, as a child of the Light, I go to the place where I cannot avoid seeing either my human limitations or my original and blessed beingness, and I am reclaimed by the Spirit.
When I am in the experience of being a child of Mother Earth, "sinking down to the Seed" is very like all of the above. But in this case, that part of me which is original -- the part of me which can never be hurt or deformed by the plagues of the world, the part which holds the Creator's original intention for me, the part I sometimes call "big I" as opposed to "little I" -- is the seed, and I drink deeply from the water of the Mother. I plump up, break the now-too-tight bounds of the seed case, send forth a green, juicy shoot, shoot up to the light (Light?) and find freedom in the heady excitement of new growth under the blue sky. In this case I am not so much in touch with my brokenness and healing but with my soul's original template. I am in touch with that aspect of myself which I believe is most like the Creator, that part of me which is made in the likeness of the Creator, which still resides in the garden of the Mother, and which is Green and Growing.
No doubt my experience of “sinking to the seed” will change as I use this gift of blogging to explore the limits of my soul. I look forward to the transformation.
Here is what the experience of "sinking to the seed" means to me now, and why I am naming this blog after it. Let me trace the three strands of my woven faith using the pattern of this metaphor.
When I am close to Jesus and think "sink down to the Seed," I can't help but to think of the parable of the Sower and the Seeds (Mark 4:3-9). We have all heard the story. The Sower broadcasts his seed. Some falls on the path, where the birds come and eat it up. Some falls on rocky ground, springs up quickly, but cannot set down a deep root and so withers quickly in the hot sun. Some seed falls among "thorns," perhaps an aggressive, invasive species of plant, and the thorns choke it out, and it yields no grain. But some seed falls upon good soil, and it sets down deep roots so that it can draw up the water of life into itself, and it is able to grow strong. So it bears a great deal of new seed, sometimes as much as a "hundredfold." (One hundred new seeds grown from a single plant, which was produced by a single seed. Think of it! God gives and gives and gives some more!)
It seems to me that my inward spirit is a complex terrain, and that all of these kinds of soil exist within me. When I feed the good soil and tend the garden, so to speak, the Seed of Christ can set down deep roots within me. When I sink to that deeply-rooted Seed in the garden of my soul, I am immediately in the place of Life and Goodness and Abundance. I am in the kingdom of God, which Jesus assured us was among us at all times. And it has a wonderfully fresh smell.
When I am in touch with my experience of the Light, "sinking down to the Seed" leads me to what Isaac Penington called "the true peace, the true righteousness, the true holiness, the true rest of the soul, the everlasing habitation which the redeemed dwell in." (19.14 in Britain Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice) This is the innermost room of the soul that is both full and empty, the still point, the place where the authentic One lives, where the Light shines continually and the dark, velvet night holds it tenderly, where all is revealed and all is acknowledged and all is forgiven. It is the center where my human limitations and destructive errors (sinfulness) are revealed, where I can acknowledge and move through the brokenness, where I admit that I've been guilty of a god-awfully painful imitation of the Wizard of Oz! And it is also the place where my unique soul is also revealed, where I get a glimpse of what it is that Spirit sees in me, and this gives me a sense of both awe and peace, that this wondrous Spirit has found a home in me, and expresses itself uniquely through me. When I sink down to the Seed, as a child of the Light, I go to the place where I cannot avoid seeing either my human limitations or my original and blessed beingness, and I am reclaimed by the Spirit.
When I am in the experience of being a child of Mother Earth, "sinking down to the Seed" is very like all of the above. But in this case, that part of me which is original -- the part of me which can never be hurt or deformed by the plagues of the world, the part which holds the Creator's original intention for me, the part I sometimes call "big I" as opposed to "little I" -- is the seed, and I drink deeply from the water of the Mother. I plump up, break the now-too-tight bounds of the seed case, send forth a green, juicy shoot, shoot up to the light (Light?) and find freedom in the heady excitement of new growth under the blue sky. In this case I am not so much in touch with my brokenness and healing but with my soul's original template. I am in touch with that aspect of myself which I believe is most like the Creator, that part of me which is made in the likeness of the Creator, which still resides in the garden of the Mother, and which is Green and Growing.
No doubt my experience of “sinking to the seed” will change as I use this gift of blogging to explore the limits of my soul. I look forward to the transformation.
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