Power, Proximity & Peace

(This was the 2021 Quaker Lecture presented at Western Yearly Meeting Sessions. It is long. Consider it bedtime reading!)

Friends—thank you for the invitation to be with you again for your annual sessions. I used to believe in our Quaker testimony of good discernment, but the fact that you asked me back for the second year in a row calls this into serious question!

If I were to boil down last year’s Quaker Lecture into a more coherent and succinct thought, it would be this: God not only calls—but God empowers us to be the Children of Light in the communities we inhabit. To do this well, we must live into our identity as the Friends of Jesus with courage and integrity. We need to know whom we are called to be and focus on learning and practicing this life together. Part of our integrity and courage is demonstrated in the willingness to reach out to those on the margins who are ignored by others. This is how Jesus lived—and if we take the call seriously to walk in His Way—these realities will be at the forefront of our lives and life together.

Tonight, I want to build on that message, looking at some specific challenges and opportunities we Friends face—if we are to thrive in the future. In particular, I want to consider three realities that keep surfacing for me. These three include power, proximity, and peace. I am not suggesting these are the only things that need our attention—but they seem crucial as I watch, listen to and pray for our Quaker fellowship.

Power

By power, I don’t mean exercising authority over others or who gets to make decisions that affect the community. These are essential questions—and they complicate our life as Friends. Many of us, especially in this culture, struggle with authority. I’ve been in several meetings over the past few years where I have heard Quakers say, “No one can tell me how I ought to think, believe or live!” And, of course, that is practically true and rings with an element of spiritual truth. If we do not welcome the influence of others, no amount of coercion or loving direction will matter to us. We will do our own thing. And, I am ultimately responsible to God for the shape and character of my life. And so are you. Unfortunately, what often gets lost in this radical and, at times, out-of-proportion focus on individual experience and authority is the gift of authentic community, the blessing in a shared and unifying spiritual life, and the benefits that come through mutual submission and interdependence.

I don’t know about you, but given my track record of decision-making, it is hard to argue that I am the best person to trust when discerning what is good, true, and right for my life! I need the influence of others. I need a community of Friends to help hold my life together and keep it within the bounds of God’s good will. But we don’t talk like this much anymore. Instead, we all are on our separate paths. We lift up our diversity as the highest good rather than imagining how it may become an even greater good when held in tension with an equally beautiful vision of unity. 

Sometimes, I feel we are little more than a collection of individuals. We have lost a sense of being a people, a Body, a community of faith, so integral to the Hebrew and New Testament experience. A weak sense of shared identity diminishes us. It hinders our ability to join together in mission, raise funds needed to carry out that work and invite others into a coherent communal life.

While some people love it when we misguidedly say, “As a Quaker, you can believe or do anything you want,” I would argue that most people find that non-sensical and ultimately frustrating to those seeking a spiritual home. The vast majority of people want to know what a community stands for, believes, and practices. The most significant reason people choose to give to an organization is that they connect with the stated and practiced sense of mission. Sometimes we struggle mightily to articulate what it means to be a Friend. But enforcing a shared identity is not what I mean by power.

The kind of power I see as crucial to our future connects to the question I posed to you last year. It is the query George Fox raised so often among early Friends and one that has honestly haunted and hounded me for much of the past year: Are you living in the life and power the apostles and prophets experienced in Acts? Are you? Am I? As I continue to sit with this question and consider what it means for me, it is sharpened to this: Am I truly walking in the life and power of the Risen Christ?

When I think about the heart of our Christ-centered Quaker experience–this is it. It is the acid test of authenticity. And the truthful answer to the query is made evident not simply by what we say with our words but by how it gets fleshed out in our day-to-day, moment-by-moment existence. Is my life—is our life—in harmony with the Spirit of Christ? And is my life—is our life—directed, animated, and empowered by that same abiding Presence?

Some of you may be familiar with the 17^th-century writer Blaise Pascal. Pascal was a French philosopher, mathematician, inventor, physicist, and theologian. By the time he was 16 years old, this prodigy had developed some of the first prototypes for later mechanical calculators. As a boy, many of his mathematical formulations were so advanced that several people hinted that his father was responsible for the work. By contrast, I was still figuring out how to turn on my calculator when I was 16 years old.

Though I taught moral philosophy a couple of different times at a university, I don’t consider myself enough of a philosopher to outline Pascal’s thinking. And I promise we won’t even get started talking about math. As someone once said: “I never did very well in math. I could not persuade my teachers that I never intended them to take my answers literally.” I was a creative writer…not a math expert.

Regardless of my weaknesses in philosophy and math, I bring up Pascal because he was more than any of these roles. Who he was at his core was a person of deep faith and transforming spirituality. Just before he died in 1662, Pascal was working on a book he intended as an apology—a defense—of the Christian faith. This unfinished collection of essays and notes was eventually published in a book titled—Pensees—or “thoughts.” It is a remarkable and influential piece, deeply loved and tremendously helpful for many spiritual seekers.

Among the many, many words and brilliant arguments found in the text, the most important word is located in the back of the book, contained in a collection of fragments not found in the original jumble of papers that form Pensees.

As it turns out, several years before his death, Pascal had a transforming experience with the Living Christ. It was a near-death episode in which he was engulfed and enflamed by the Presence and Power of Jesus. On a piece of parchment sewn into the lining of his jacket and carried with him at all times close to his heart, Pascal captures that experience most fully in one word:  Fire! 

He says more—about the joy, peace, and freedom of falling into the hands of the Living God and his utter abandonment to Christ—but the singular word that captures the experience itself is Fire! It was a ground-shaking event that ultimately reshaped him and changed the trajectory of his life. And it defined who he was far more than what he did with his life. Students of Pascal suggest Pensees is nothing more than his struggle to express this life-transforming experience—one that can never be fully exhausted or adequately expressed in words.

Fire!

God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of philosophers and scholars.

Certainty, certainty, heartfelt, joy, peace.

God of Jesus Christ…

My God and your God.

Thy God shall be my God.

The world forgotten, and everything except God…

Everlasting joy in return for one day’s effort on earth.

I will not forget thy word.

Fire! Do you know it, Friends? Have you been refined by its searing heart? Warmed by its overwhelming intensity? Renewed by its blazing energy? Is the Fire of the living God kindled in you?

As we talk about the power of God at work in our lives, I want to distinguish between Fire and smoke. The Fire—that consuming, life-transforming experience of the risen, living presence of Jesus the Christ—gives rise to the outward expressions of our faith, shapes and informs our practice, and gives ultimate meaning to our theology and sense of identity. One is the Source—the real experience that shapes, empowers, and directs our lives. The other is the manifestation or evidence that reality is alive and at work in and through us.

Sometimes, when I hear Friends talk about the source of our life together, they focus on one of three things—our doctrine, our testimonies, or our practice. Regarding “practice,” Friends can make a compelling case that the way we do business, gather for worship, and utilize time-tested resources like care committees and meetings for clearness—these practices make us essentially Quaker. And if we would hone these practices, they will deepen our shared life and draw us together. Now, I think there is something to this. It would help. We are notoriously lazy at training people in the ways of faith. We expect newcomers to learn by osmosis rather than by teaching, mentoring and offering practical hand-holds that enable familiarity, create a shared language, and develop an understanding of what we are doing and why. Our practice matters—but I suggest it is not sufficient. And it is not the power that makes us the Children of Light.

Others focus on our testimonies as being the heart of the Quaker faith. Again, there is truth in this emphasis. Faith is ultimately a verb—the lived expression of our inward loyalty to God. If we will agree on and act on a shared social agenda—it is sometimes suggested—this will clarify for ourselves and others what it means to be Friends and can inspire us to greater work.

As followers of Christ, we are called to walk in his ways—and the testimonies, mostly helpfully understood, are the outward expression of this inward relationship. And so, they matter. But when we focus on SPICES—apart from that internal reality that gives them their meaning and transformative power, they are easily co-opted by a social/political agenda with little resemblance to God’s Kingdom and far less transformational impact.  

Another group of Friends suggests we need to clarify our doctrine. This is the answer we need. If we make our belief statements more precise and universally held, God can use us more fully. Now, some will immediately object because we are “non-creedal.” We don’t put much stock in theological formulations and point to our long history of questioning the value of doctrinal statements. And yet—theology matters. Our ultimate beliefs shape our self-understanding and our ideas about God and play a huge role in our sense of what faithfulness looks like on a practical basis.

Seeking to be “orthodox” in its best form—that is, understanding what is true and right and good—can be immensely useful. These truths can become a means to live into “orthopraxy”—that is, truthful practice or a good and beautiful life. But orthodoxy often gets reduced to getting the right answers for an eventual test to get into heaven or a litmus test by which we size up others. This shift in emphasis is sad because theology and doctrine can be a means to liberate us rather than restrict us—if we don’t muddle our thinking about why it matters. And so, doctrine and theology can be useful—but it is not sufficient, nor is it the power of God at work in us. It is only our best attempt to describe it.

I believe these three areas—practice, testimonies, and doctrine—are smoke rather than Fire. The overwhelming experience of the Living Christ ultimately gives each of these meaning and enables them to add value to our lives. Apart from that transforming experience—that passionate love, intimate surrender, ongoing immersion into Spirit, and the relentless communion in Christ and one another—these things have little meaning. Over time, they become nothing more than a mildly intriguing theology, a somewhat interesting set of ethics, and one more social/political agenda that serves to divide us more than it unites us.

The heart of the Quaker experience is the profound reality that Jesus, the Living Christ, can be experienced in the lives of individuals and groups. God can be known—intimately and immediately in the communion between the human soul and the Divine Presence. Similarly, but not incidentally, the Living Christ can be followed. Not only can we discern the teaching and leadership of Jesus, but we can also be empowered to act faithfully in ways that are in harmony with the will of God. This message reverberates throughout the writings of the earliest Friends.  

For our foremothers and fathers in the faith, entering into a life of intimacy and obedience with God necessitated a complete overhaul—a total re-orientation of one’s life. It is a process that happens in particular times of visitation and throughout one’s entire life. We live conversion—as individuals, as a community of faith, and in the hope of a world renewed and being reconciled by God through Christ.

There is a dunamis—God’s energizing and animating power available to us. It is the foundational grace that enables us to live truthful, bold, courageous lives drenched with love and compassion, graced with divine endurance and might, rooted in liberating joy and freedom. It is the power to walk in unhindered union with the God we’ve come to know and love in Christ.

Does this describe your life? Are you energized and animated by the living Spirit of Jesus? Does it sound like the life in your Meeting or church?  I am not asking if you know who Christ is or if you claim to be a Christian. I am not asking about an experience you may have had in the past. I am asking:

• Do you abide in that Life and Power that is renewing you into the image of Christ today?
• Do you live in that Life and Power that sets you free from all entanglements, fear, and anxiety?
• Do you live in that Life and Power that not only takes away the occasion for all war and violence—but all hatred, cynicism, apathy, selfishness, and willful sin?
• Do you experience that Life and Power that gives you a place to stand, direct your feet, binds and loosens your tongue to speak truth to power and hope to the hopeless?
• Do we walk in the life and power of the one we claim to know as Savior, Teacher, and Lord?

If not, and if the Fire is not present in us, maybe all we are really doing is blowing smoke.

I know of no formula to experience this Power. No six easy steps to being consumed by Fire. Instead, it comes through our ongoing yielding—individually and communally—to God. It occurs in the countless daily acts of intentional faithfulness—in abiding, obeying, discerning, turning, and trusting God—through which we are kindled and enflamed by the very Presence and Power of Christ.

Issac Pennington offers this advice in his pamphlet, Some Directions to the Panting Soul :

“Give over thine own willing, give over thine own running, give over thine own desiring to know or be anything, and sink down to the seed which God sows in thy heart and let that be in thee, and grow in thee, and breathe in thee, and act in thee, and thou shalt find by sweet experience that the Lord knows and loves and owns that, and it will lead it to the inheritance of life.” 

Friend Pennington voices what Paul said centuries earlier—that our work is to yield to the power of Christ alive in us and seeking expression through us. And I remind myself, and you beloved Friends, that this life and power are as available to us as the characters we read about in the Scripture or remember from our Quaker history. May the Power of the Holy Spirit make us restless until it rests fully upon us.

Proximity

One of the blessed realities emerging from the pandemic has been our enhanced use of technology. We have learned, albeit some of us kicking and screaming, to navigate digital platforms and virtual spaces. These virtual ways to connect have been lifesavers for the immune-compromised, shut-ins or those who have not felt free to be in person with others. It has allowed us to reconnect with old friends and welcome new and distant people into our online worship.

And—we increasingly recognize the limitations of virtual relationships. Before Covid, 60% of people in the US described themselves as being sometimes or always lonely. This loneliness has worsened with the pandemic, especially among young adults experiencing high rates of anxiety and depression.  Despite the hoopla saying we are more connected than ever through our many gadgets, a spirit of loneliness grips our world. A few years ago, the World Health Organization identified loneliness as one of the most significant social issues facing Western societies—and it is on the rise.

In the UK, the government named a “minister for loneliness” to combat the rising number of isolated individuals and to stem some of the $3.5B loss to the economy attributed to this problem. A  comedian recently joked that maybe Jesus’ greatest miracle was being a 33-year-old male and having 12 close friends—none of whom were his wife’s best friends’ husbands!  It is hard to make friends as an adult nowadays—especially if you are male. A recent study says only 27% of men have six or more close friends—down from 55% a few years ago. And the number of men who say they have no close friends has risen from 3% to 15%.

The truth is that we need one another. We need close, intimate, in-person friendships that sustain and strengthen our lives and life together. This is one reason “proximity” matters as we think about how we will go about being the church in the future—and where we can make a crucial difference in the lives of others through the kinds of gatherings we offer.

I think it is great that we are moving to a hybrid kind of worship. I know many congregations do creative outreach through digital gatherings, groups, and workshops. FUM has been growing our use of virtual meetings—and they save money and travel and allow for the possibility of different people to connect with one another. Many congregations are grateful to have former members join in, or guests from other places around the country and even the world participate in their gatherings for worship. And—I  wonder, in our rush to outfit our meetinghouses with the latest and greatest virtual technology, whether some of this may diminish over time when returning to in-person gatherings becomes entirely safe. I think hybrid gatherings are here to stay—but they may not be everything we imagine.

But more than the immediate practical value offered through virtual connections, I am mindful that our life in the fellowship of faith is rooted and nurtured in proximity to others.

We all know how increasingly divided our world is becoming. Politically, ideologically, racially—you name it—some people now refuse to interact with those outside their worldview or experience. Sociologists note a physical migration taking place in the US—a reclustering of similar, more homogeneous communities in different parts of the country. This reality doesn’t bode well for the future of a fractured society and will be more than half people of color by 2050. 

Digitally, we are often segmented into social media bubbles that reinforce our values, stereotypes, and biases. Now, I am not saying all these things are inherently bad, but they impact us, often in how or whether we will engage others. A recent WSJ article suggests that the same issues that have divided us still divide us at roughly the same rate and intensity over many decades. What has changed exponentially is the degree to which we now hate each other. That’s way up! I am convinced that part of what drives this growing hatred is our fear of what and who we no longer know.

Many of you have read Bryan Stevenson’s book, Just Mercy. It is the provocative story of how his understanding of race, incarceration, and the death penalty was transformed by being with and listening to young, black inmates. What he found, and so many of us find, if we are fortunate, is that concerns of this magnitude are not simply a social issue to fix or a political problem to be solved. Whether it is incarceration, immigration, sexual/gender violence, clean water, hunger, poverty, or evangelism—what we find when we get involved, beyond our debates and ideological positioning—is a person. A Person. A Name. A Face. A Child of God. 

Stevenson urges us to get close to others we don’t know and maybe fear. To hear them, to know them, and be known by them. Something profound and powerful happens when our work for justice, peace, or any cause is consistently grounded in living, breathing partnerships with others.

Real people with stories and experience and perspectives and wisdom impact the narratives we tell ourselves about the nature of problems. Real people keep us from losing sight of what ultimately matters or hope when issues are slow to change. Real people help us remember that the caricatures often created are usually false. Real people remind us that humans are far more complex and nuanced than issues of good and evil. Real people are often a mirror by which we see something of ourselves and where we discover more in common than we would otherwise have imagined.

Most of all, we arise from a spiritual tradition rooted in proximity. As I reminded us last year, John 1 declares that God moved into the neighborhood when the Word became flesh and made a home among humanity. Last year’s focus was God coming close to us in Christ. Jesus modeled proximity by being among the people. He went to those on the margins. Jesus was near to those who followed. He shared wine and bread with those hungry for a day’s meal and thirsting for the Living Water that is eternal. Jesus even lingered with those ambivalent crowds, whom one day cheered his compassion and called for his crucifixion the next day. Our Lord modeled proximity in remarkable and relentless ways.

This closeness to others is not a metaphor or analogy to ponder. It is the incarnational reality we are to continue in our time and place. We are to be light in the darkness—not simply shining at the darkness or for the sake of the darkness. Instead—the work is to be in, close, and near to others so they might see the Light and give glory to God.

Think about the meaning found in the Christian practice rooted in proximity:

• In the laying on of hands—as an act of healing, commissioning, and sending.
• In the kiss of peace—as an act of forgiveness, reconciliation, and solidarity.
• In foot-washing—as an act of service, humility, and hospitality.
• And though we don’t generally practice it in this way—the communion meal—where we drink from the same cup, eat from a shared loaf, and gather around a common table—as a potent reminder and reenactment of our unity in Christ and one another.
•  And lest we forget maybe our most important work: “I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me in. I needed clothes, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you looked after me. I was in prison, and you came to visit me.” —– “Truly, I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

Our spirituality is one of nearness and proximity. God, help us relearn what this needs to look like in a post-pandemic world!

Peace

Finally, I want to spend a few minutes focusing on peace. And by peace, I don’t mean our significant and central commitment to non-violence or work to end warfare and injustice. These commitments are crucial to our witness as Friends—and part of what drew me to this faith. As a relatively new follower of Christ, I was overjoyed to find a community that takes the gospel so seriously that we dare to practice peacemaking with our enemies. I was thrilled to make a home among those who trust the reliable force of a love more powerful than any weapons of war humans can create.  

This is important work and a vital witness—but not the kind of peacemaking I’d like to focus on tonight. There is another kind of reconciliation crucial for our day if we have a significant future as a Religious Society. It is the peace that is practiced herewithin the fellowship of faith.

Doesn’t it seem ironic that people who talk so much about peace have so much trouble getting along? We often brag about how great we are at listening to God together—and yet our history is full of splits, divisions, and “reconfigurations.” We attack one another, label one another as “not really Quaker,” and tend toward passive-aggressiveness and conflict avoidance. There are times when the tension is so high and the resentment is so poisonous that it quenches the Spirit. Over the years, I have walked into numerous meetinghouses where unresolved issues and animosity feel like a blanket smothering the life out of the fellowship. Many Friends I know are at the forefront of conversations and projects related to racial reconciliation and demand our nation take action NOW to resolve these divisions. But often, there is little interest or hope in reconciliation here. Other Friends insist we focus all our effort on the need for reconciliation between God and humanity—but reconciliation here? Not so much.

One of the problems with reading the Bible long enough and deeply enough is that you often find it says things differently than you may expect or even like. One example is how the call to peacemaking is more complex, more glorious, and far more terrifying than simply being anti-war. In some ways, being anti-war is for beginners.

As it turns out, the Bible actually says very little, at least in a straightforward way, about spending too much energy to be “against war.” And while the Scripture indeed imagines us engaging in the healing and restoration of all society, the vast majority of the focus is here. Our most significant witness emerges in the everyday grunt-labor peacemaking within our families, fellowships, and neighborhoods we inhabit.

We are to be at peace with one another, with those who have hurt or wronged us, with our enemies, with people from that political party, the brother or sister whose theology we know is suspect, at best. Goodness—we are even supposed to be reconciled with that person in the pew behind us (No—don’t look! He will know you mean him!). Yes, that person—the one who loves Jesus, and we are pretty sure Jesus loves him—but, good Lord, we don’t know why. He is so hard to love.

Our local communities—and groups like Yearly Meetings—are laboratories where we learn sacrificial love, forgiveness, humility, and how to die to self. To paraphrase Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the local church is always where we meet the person we struggle most to love. But it is also through that person who most gets under our skin that we learn what gospel love is all about. And though it may feel like a severe mercy or unwelcome grace at times, this can be a channel through which we start learning to love others as Christ first loved us.

But only if we are willing.

When I first became a Christian, I was disappointed to discover this overwhelming emphasis on loving one another in the church in the Bible. I kept thinking, “Isn’t that a given? Shouldn’t we be focused on a needy, hurting world? This should be easy, right?!?”  I was so naïve—so very, very naïve.

Of course, we are called to love all people—but the lion’s share of the biblical text focuses on these relationships. By this—the practical, sacrificial, patient, forgiving, persevering grace and support and love enacted here—we bear truthful witness that we are Jesus’ disciples and belong to Him.

Or—we don’t.

Jesus places great weight on the priority of unity and the practice of reconciliation. In Matthew 18, that often-quoted passage “where two or three are gathered, there is Christ in our midst”—what is the context? It is not worship. In fact, it is when brothers and sisters reconcile their differences with each other that Jesus promises to be present. Go home and reread it; you will see it fall in a passage about reconciliation and forgiveness. Now, I am not so bold to say that Jesus is more present when forgiveness and reconciliation occur than in worship—but Scripture might be.

Paul, of course, comes along later and says in Ephesians 4 —in that great passage about what a community formed into the image of Christ can look like—says: “I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.”

It grieves me to say—that I am not sure we Friends always make every effort…

In some ways, I fear we have grown content in our disunity. We have allowed our unresolved mistrust, past hurts, bitterness, and pride to rob us of more vital and authentic fellowship. We work around one another—rather than with one another. I hear far too many of our leaders excuse and explain away conflicts rather than making every effort with one another to find that unity that transforms and transcends our differences. I am not talking about sweeping issues under the rug or discounting the seriousness or weight of issues that divide us. Instead, I am reminding us that we can choose to live in the God who speaks to us, promises to lead us, and calls to unity and peace with one another—for the sake of our souls and the credibility of our witness.

I manage to irritate several Quakers because I bring this issue up often. They complain that I am a Pollyanna or don’t understand all they have been through or why their conflict is different. And maybe I don’t. So perhaps we can comprise and place a moratorium on saying, “we are great at listening to God together” and such stellar examples of peacemaking. At least then, it would feel like we had greater integrity.

Maybe what bothers me the most is the cost our lack of reconciliation brings to us—in vitality, spiritual maturity, and empowered witness within a fractured world. I can’t help but grieve over how we ignore the benedictory blessing and prayer of Jesus in John 17, where he says:

“I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.    

What have we lost, and what have we failed to offer the world by not living into this vision?

In the New Testament, the kiss of peace was central to the worship experience. It was a greeting and spiritual practice to encourage authentic reconciliation in the community. It was challenging being in community with one another back then—especially as Jews and Gentiles began to mix, as they struggled to live faithfully in a religiously and morally diverse culture, and as they dealt with increasing persecution and inevitable human failings. Before they celebrated the eucharist—a meal, not a wafer and grape juice—the community would share the kiss of peace as a symbol of their reconciliation and for the ongoing maintenance of their unity. But what happens if Dan Carter and I are out of sorts with one another when it is time for the kiss of peace? What then? Well, this was our opportunity to make things right with one another and, if needed, get the help of the elders to work things out before joining in the common meal, symbolizing our peace with and in Christ.

This was not like the 30-second handshake just before the announcements are read. No, this was a central and sacramental act in worship. These Friends of Jesus believed that authentic prayer and worship arise from faithful hearts and lives, including that most basic command to love and forgive one another. They took literally and seriously that Sermon on the Mount passage that says, “if you are offering your gift at the altar and remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First, go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.” These relationships, it turns out, genuinely impact this relationship.

The use of the kiss of peace lasted many years. Later, groups like the Mennonites continue(d) to practice variations of it. A few years ago, I spoke at a Mennonite peace gathering and reminded them of their practice of elders asking the congregation in the weeks leading up to a communion service, “Are you at peace with one another?” The question was asked with the expectation that the sisters and brothers would do what was needed to be reconciled–before communion Sunday. A few older attendees said this practice could sometimes feel coercive or superficial—which is true of all our spiritual practices. But when I asked whether it was a good discipline when practiced authentically, all agreed it offered help in the holy work of forgiveness, reconciliation, and unity-building.

As Friends, we either don’t believe in communion or practice communion all the time, depending on whom you ask. I value and affirm our understanding of true communion—and I wonder whether we have lost something by not creating worship practices that nudge us toward reconciliation and nurture our unity. What might it look like on a local church and Yearly Meeting level? Can we come up with something more creative and more hopeful than continuing to split, divide, and realign into smaller and smaller groups that diminish our effectiveness and hinder our witness to a watching world?

“Mind the light of God in your consciences”—George Fox said—“which will show you all deceit; Dwelling in it guides us out of the many things into one Spirit, which cannot lie, nor deceive. Those who are guided by it are one. For God is not the author of confusion but of peace. All quarrels, all schisms, all rents are out of the Spirit, For God has tempered the Body together, that there should be no schism in the Body, but all worship Him with one consent.”

May God so temper this Body—that you may, we may be One.

I have no illusions of a reunited Religious Society of Friends at this point. I do, however, hold out hope that some groups of Friends—including Western YM—might do more than tolerate one another or remain formally organized but informally disintegrated and disinterested in working together. We need—that is, the rest of Quakerism and the world that watches and wonders how or if Quakers actually practice what we profess about ourselves—a vibrant, Christ-centered community passionately ablaze with God’s power. We need a community that embodies proximity and models ministry—a life-giving, life-changing, life-saving ministry—that makes a difference now and for eternity. We need a community that is both reconciling and reconciled—that is, drawing people into the Beloved Fellowship where Christ is loved, known, and followed, and where it is made evident by brothers and sisters who are knit together and when necessary restitched, in the bond of peace and fellowship.

I hope and pray you will be one of those groups of Friends—because, I believe, our future depends on it.

As always, FUM is your willing partner in this work. We love and appreciate you and will do all we can to support you in your life together. I carry this community in my prayers.  Peace to you!