Feed aggregator

Move Toward the Suffering

Friends Journal - Thu, 2024-02-01 02:50
Confronting Economic Injustice Head-On

Recently, I returned to visit the Salinas Valley, the “salad bowl of the world,” in California’s central coast, where I had lived prior to the pandemic. As I drove past its fields, the precise symmetry of crop rows grabbed my eyes like an optical illusion; the straight rows converged on the hills that rose in the distance. Periodically, people and trucks filled the empty geometric spaces, shattering the illusion. Farm workers hunched over while gathering strawberries. Then, with their boxes full, they ran at full speed under the heat of the midday sun to deliver the goods that would eventually make their way to supermarkets around the world. Thus they fulfilled their roles in a global supply chain. Years ago, I began to wonder how I could be in right relationship with these workers, and I wondered the same thing about the people I was on my way to meet.

I was driving to a prison in Soledad, California, and had often passed such fields and workers before. I was volunteering with the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP), a 20-hour experiential workshop rooted in affirmation, community building, and play. In my previous job in the mental health field, a senior coworker impressed me with this advice: move toward suffering. For example, if you see someone struggling, find a way to move toward them; don’t just leave them to suffer alone. For as long as I could remember, whenever I saw an unhoused person sitting on the sidewalk with a sign asking for change, it had been all too easy to turn my head away and walk past. That visceral aversion was something to investigate.

My goal to move toward suffering led me to live in a Catholic Worker community in Salinas, where I spent time with unhoused people. The people incarcerated in prisons soon showed up on my radar as well. While living at the Catholic Worker, I found grounding and spiritual growth at Salinas’s Live Oak Meeting, which provided me with an opportunity to spend time with incarcerated people through AVP, and I soon began facilitating workshops in prison alongside incarcerated facilitators.

Previously, if you asked me to share my spiritual autobiography as Friends do, I might have described a trajectory of growing up without religious or spiritual community, exploring different faith traditions, serving with various Catholic Worker communities, living in Buddhist practice centers, and eventually making my way to Quaker meetings. Spiritual practice carried a sense of cultivating healthy thoughts, speaking kindly, and loving my (immediate) neighbors. Now the narrative of participating in particular communities and working on my individual growth has shifted to recognizing and being called to work with wider material concerns, including the ecologies within which we are enmeshed. Prior to my “spiritual” life, I received an undergraduate degree in economics. Over time, my attention has moved back toward learning about topics like global debt structures and monetary policy, as they’re deeply related to material and ecological concerns. More recently, I began working for Right Sharing of World Resources, a Quaker nonprofit that shares these interests. The etymological root of the word economics means “the way to run a household,” so economics isn’t so remote from these concerns: we’re all a part of the global household, including those working the fields and incarcerated people, who are also often performing some kind of work.

Migrant workers picking strawberries in a field. Photo by F Armstrong Photo.

When I facilitate AVP workshops, I don’t come in as an expert on conflict but as a fellow traveler. Hearing others’ stories and finding they resonate with my own, I experience a great sense of aliveness and growth in the AVP space. Workshop attendees that day expressed their appreciation, so I suppose I was of help to them, though I mostly processed my own emotional history and the mental narratives that I had, mostly unwittingly, gathered and labeled as my “self.” This suffering that I experienced, I would find, wasn’t just about this “me” but was intimately connected to the lives and contexts of those around me. Despite finding their hearts “beating with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine” (as written by Lloyd Stone in the poem turned hymn “This is my song”), incarcerated people and I had come together in prison under very different circumstances. A trend became obvious. Incarcerated participants often had histories of poverty and material misery, and they experienced traumas that can accompany such conditions, conditions that contrasted greatly from my own upbringing. I grew up with everything I needed. The differences in poverty and wealth or the inequities in society that lead people to be incarcerated—strawberry fields or corporate boardrooms—mirror dynamics on the world stage. On a larger scale, rich and poor nations have their own histories of development or underdevelopment.

Eduardo Galeano elaborated on the economic histories pertaining to Latin America, the home or ancestral home to many of the farm workers in the Salinas Valley. He began his 1971 book Open Veins of Latin America with a stark description of such divisions:

The division of labor among nations is that some specialize in winning and others in losing. Our part of the world, known today as Latin America, was precocious: it has specialized in losing ever since those remote times when Renaissance Europeans ventured across the ocean and buried their teeth in the throats of the Indian civilizations.

Underdevelopment has its basis in power: who has power and who doesn’t, and how power is used. “Common sense” these days is to use what power one has to maintain and increase power. Imperial powers use their might to subjugate other peoples or, as Galeano describes, use economic might to enforce terms that continue the plundering. On a smaller scale, individuals who have money make investments to “make” more money. While seemingly innocent on the surface—at least as far as current legal structures go—the mechanisms through which this is done include realities in global supply chains that make exploitation possible. The recipe has been followed again and again. Countries’ markets are opened to Western capital, whether it be by the force of the gun (a famous example being China in the nineteenth century as a result of the Opium Wars, which led to what they call their “century of humiliation”) or by other means (a coup or other form of external pressure). If money is a form of power and a market opens to foreign capital, democratic decision making loses meaning and average people have less power over their lives and their communities. Whose economy is it? We might say “the economy” is doing well, but that often reflects the well-being of those with the most power rather than the bulk of the population. Respect for human rights and ecological health are also integral to the health of the “household” an economy comprises.

When George Kennan, the first director of policy planning for the U.S. State Department, died in 2005, the New York Times described him as “the American diplomat who did more than any other envoy of his generation to shape United States policy during the cold war.” Kennan wrote a 1948 report that clearly showed how decisions are made in the higher echelons of power in the United States, and then become disguised by the language of public relations. He wrote that the United States has “about 50 percent of the world’s wealth but only 6.3 percent of its population,” and advised that it should maintain this imbalance:

This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction.

To borrow vocabulary from world-systems theory, the movement of wealth and resources from the world’s “periphery” to the “core” countries continues, where peripheral countries serve as resource colonies for the core, and through myriad economic devices, a relationship of dependency and power asymmetry is maintained.

It’s easy to think suffering doesn’t happen when we don’t see it. But we can see it. In the past, news of violence often gets garbled as if in a long game of telephone, where people whisper a message into their neighbor’s ear in a line and see how confused the message becomes at the end. The global game is mediated by people, organizations, and news media each with their own interests. More recently, people on the ground are able to upload videos to the Internet, more easily and directly sharing their experiences with those around the world, as is happening with the current suffering of people in Gaza. Thanks to the Internet, it’s more and more possible to see what is happening, and move toward others in this interconnected world.

A provocative thought experiment is to place ourselves in the past and think how we might have responded during those times. In Quaker lore, these times might be that of the early Friends or during the antebellum period in the United States. The fantasy is that we would have acted heroically, fully living out the values that we espouse. Whatever the case, the world we live in now is not much different than it was then. Tens of millions of people are living enslaved lives shrouded behind global supply chains. Slavery helps produce our clothing, our food, our technological devices. And then there are the myriad forms of exploitation that are a regular occurrence. There’s walking by the unhoused person on the sidewalk and driving by the people picking strawberries. If I were in a history class in the future, how might I fantasize that I acted now? Would I want to be the person who just walked by? Understanding how these relationships came to be is central to learning how to end them and to establish new kinds of relationships. I don’t write this in judgment of others or myself but to ask: What are the kinds of community we need in order to best live out our aspirations? How can we support individuals and communities to live in ways that aren’t accommodating to the status quo?

RSWR gives grants to women’s groups that use the money to fund microbusiness ventures. Here a group member from Sama Village in the Eastern Province of Sierra Leone demonstrates her fishing haul. Photo by Jon Watts.

For me, it hasn’t been enough to engage economic relationships on an airy kind of spiritual basis that I used to believe: one that is disconnected from material realities. Individual-focused transformation and liberation are important but are incomplete without societal liberation. Nor is this just an intellectual undertaking. It has to be a journey, as Stephen Jenkinson put it on an episode of the End of Tourism podcast, of “translating what has been done in your name by your predecessors into a way of life that’s not self-serving and doesn’t prolong the dilemmas that have brought you to this crisis of conscience.”

AVP engages with power on the personal level through the idea of “Transforming Power”: practicing the skills that each of us has in order to change unhealthy relationships and behavioral patterns into healthier ones. Health, in this instance, might indicate mutually beneficial relationships that are fair and equitable. Working on ourselves affects our wider relations, such as our families and workplaces. Relations of power exist at these levels just as on the international level, depending on how decisions are made—if they are egalitarian or more authoritarian in structure—and who accrues the most benefits. Right sharing follows the testimonies and works with power on these levels: from establishing consensus decision-making practices in our communities and engaging with our governing institutions to challenge violence and exploitative practices to directly giving money and resources to those in need. The organization I work for, Right Sharing of World Resources (RSWR), follows the testimony of stewardship as it engages powers on a global level, supporting with grants those who are often most vulnerable because of the existing structure of global economic relationships.

Working with AVP and RSWR has been a meaningful, joyful way for me to engage with this crisis of conscience that characterizes our times. We have a clear way to help people’s lives, well-being, and destinies. It is readily evident with the farm workers sweating in the fields under the gaze of mansions perched on the adjoining hillsides. As a society, we’ve been bombarded with centuries of rationalizations and stories that normalize the current state of affairs. It’s understandable: we want the best for ourselves, our families, our communities, our countries. We use what power we have to help ourselves. But when we set out to benefit certain people without attention to the whole, others get left out. My parents wanted the best for me, which entailed love and care, and they also worked to set me up to more easily fit into a particular part of a global hierarchy of power. Through ignorance, we set the stage for some to live well and others to live poorly. Just as we can identify those forms and patterns of support on the familial level, we can also understand those patterns of relationships that play out on the global stage.

Through meeting with people inside prison walls and building community with them, the mental narratives that justify the status quo have slowly lost their power over me. RSWR, working toward right relationship (and thus change) within these structures, is transforming the material foundations of our societies by shifting the power dynamics of the world we live in. Mexican Friend Heberto Sein wrote in a 1976 Friends Journal essay titled “Toward a New World Order”: “Both rich and poor nations have respective roles to play in an enlightened, mutually beneficial process to create a new economic order. Right sharing is an essential part of that process.” How can we cultivate the clarity to see our present circumstances and discern skillful responses? Keep moving toward the suffering.

The post Move Toward the Suffering appeared first on Friends Journal.

Gathered Together

Friends Journal - Thu, 2024-02-01 02:45
Of Friends, Bees, and Virtual Meetings

When I enter the apiary, I carry my smoker, hive tool, and usually a veil, for though I no longer mind stings, I do not like getting stung on my face. I crack the first hive and wave the smoker over the top of the crowded frames, like a priest swinging the censer, and then I pull frames one by one, checking the state of the colony: whether they are in a good mood or not, whether the queen is laying, whether the colony is growing or contracting, whether they have enough food.

In fact, now that I think of it, the ritual of entering the hive begins a little earlier when I am preparing to visit the bees. There is the matter of checking the weather, for it is best to visit on a warm, sunny day. And I consider my intentions: Am I simply seeing to their health, or do I want to add or remove honey supers, or should I treat the hive for varroa mites or other pests that afflict so many bees these days?

Depending on the answers to these questions, I need different equipment. So I go down to the basement, which serves as my honey house, and gather whatever I need. The basement sits above ground, so I can go directly out the back to the hives. I use an old recycling bin to carry it all.

Then there’s the matter of lighting the smoker. (I use aspen wood shavings that I get at a pet store.) It’s important that it be well-lit and stay lit, so I test it by working the bellows vigorously until they belch forth a great cloud of white smoke, like an old-time locomotive. The smoke smells like a campfire.

Smoker lit, veil on, tool in hand, I step over to the apiary, turn off the bear fence (around here in the Blue Ridge Mountains, without electric fences, black bears would ravage the hives), and enter. Then I go from hive to hive; taking care of business; looking at bees; and, yes, even talking to them.

As I do all this, a shift occurs. My mind grows quiet. My heart slows. I become more focused than usual, aware of myself and what is near. The bees, I have learned, do not like a distracted beekeeper. I feel the way I feel when I am sitting in meeting for worship.

Keeping bees is not simply a matter of taking their honey. We beekeepers have a reciprocal relationship with our bees. And bees are remarkably attentive. They know what the beekeeper does and what the beekeeper smells like. There is even science to indicate that bees recognize individual people by sight. Beekeepers also come to know the personalities of our different hives. We know the behaviors, the sounds, and even the smells of healthy and sick, strong and weak, peaceful and agitated colonies.

Being together, we come in time to know each other.

I have come to see my work with bees as a form of worship. Writing about bees is an opportunity to reflect on what worship means to me, and it has helped me to explain why I much prefer in-person worship over worshiping on Zoom or other virtual platforms. Our meeting, like many others today, is partly on Zoom and partly in person, and there’s great and understandable interest in unifying us, but there is also resistance from some, including me, to the use of technology in meeting for worship.

I’m not alone in thinking that we encounter the Divine when we work with bees—not that they are more divine than anything else but that they are a window into everything else. I suspect that given the nature of the universe, we encounter divinity in infinite ways: anywhere, anytime, anyhow. But the idea of doing so with bees is many thousands of years old. Some of the earliest paintings in existence depict honey gatherers on rope ladders foraging honeycombs high up rocky cliffs. The care they took to paint these scenes so long ago gives them the aura of holiness.

Much later, apiaries were attached to monasteries and churches, not so much for honey but for the beeswax for candles: the bees delivered light! The old monastic tradition of hesychasm also comes to mind. Hesychastic worship, or prayer, is continuous and quotidian: one prays in the sanctuary and also while one sweeps the floor, washes the dishes, makes the bed, sows the wheat, keeps the bees.

The idea that life itself is worship appeals to me. It seems Quakerly: why should worship be one place and not another? This is related to the more fundamental question of why the Light should be in one person and not another. We are called to see the Light in others always, not just on First Day in the meetinghouse. We are called to witness the Divine in everything. Surely that act is a form of worship.

The author inspecting bees on a frame of honeycomb.

My father was a beekeeper and one of the most Spirit-led individuals I’ve ever known. For much of my youth, he was a Presbyterian minister (though he descended from old Quaker families in upstate New York), but even after he left the church for matters largely theological, he continued to regard the world, all of nature, as holy. I used to help him with his bees. When he died ten years ago, I carried on his beekeeping, and bees became a sort of conduit through which I accessed nature and, I like to think, divinity.

Beekeeping, of course, is associated in my mind with memories of my father, and my father is associated in my mind with notions I have about God or Nature or Spirit, in any form. Worship is not a simple thing. It is hard to pin down exactly what it is, let alone what it isn’t. One relies on what one already knows, and for me that begins with my parents and those early times in sanctuaries with and without pews.

What I learned from my father and mother, attending Presbyterian churches and Quaker meetinghouses, and walking in the woods and visiting beehives, was that there is something important about doing all of this fully present with our bodies: about showing up in person, about worship as embodied encounter. One cannot sweep a floor virtually; one cannot keep bees virtually; one cannot pray virtually . . . not really. One has to do it with one’s whole body and mind. 

We can pray anywhere, and I suppose that means we can worship anywhere, even on Zoom. But while it may feel like I’m gathering with others online, it is a paler, thinner form of gathering than what I experience in person with others. I feel this way for the same reasons that viewing a forest via a photograph in National Geographic magazine is a paler, thinner experience than visiting it in person.

I have Jewish friends (and Friends) who remind me that Orthodox Jews may not use a car or electronic device on the Sabbath. One reason for this, among others, is that the prohibition of technology holds the community near to one another: one must live close enough to one’s shul to walk there on the Sabbath, and that means people not only worship together in community but must also live together in community.

Now, I know that most of us have left behind the time when we were willing to set aside work, cars, computers, and light switches for the Sabbath. I am willing to drive and turn on a computer on First Day. But there is a kernel of an idea here that is worth keeping in mind. Worship is not simply an abstraction, or even what happens in a meetinghouse. It is a continuum of practices that involves bodies, minds, and spirits coming together, just as inspecting bees starts long before one cracks the lid on a beehive.

There is something about the physical act of rising from bed, preparing my body, eating and anticipating, then getting to the meetinghouse, greeting Norma or whoever is waiting at the door, finding a seat, shaking hands, nodding to others, smelling the smells of the room, seeing the light shine in through the windows, hearing the rush of the river outside, settling into silence, and waiting. . . . All of that and not any one thing in particular—not only the sitting in the silence—but all of that together is worship. At least for me it is.

I am a Friend and an anthropologist. I have spent much of my life, as many humans do, thinking about what it means to be human. I have not figured it out. We are too mysterious and complex and variable. But one principle my discipline has landed on is that in order to be truly ourselves, we must interact with other selves. In a strange alchemy, we must internalize them as we externalize ourselves, and as we are in turn internalized by others. To be our true selves, we must be or at least have been involved in interactions with others. In fact, to be ourselves we must, in a sense, be other selves, too.

Such exchanges are necessarily embodied. Despite what some think—particularly in the West—there is no split between mind and body. Our minds are our bodies, and our bodies are our minds. Meeting for worship starts with our bodies as we check in with our internal and external states. And our tradition involves doing this in the company of other bodies doing the same thing.

Yet we live in economic and technological times that promote the illusory mind–body divide. Social media, electronic gaming, artificial intelligence, and all sorts of other technological conveniences keep the metaverse at our fingertips. They market the allure of virtual life. They preach that our bodies don’t really matter, that we can (or will soon) do business together in a “meta” world.

All of that may in fact be our future. It certainly looks like a trend, but as Quakers, we have an obligation to step outside our society’s trends, norms, and expectations—just as we eventually stepped outside our society’s acceptance of slavery and war—and wonder whether such practices are wise, Spirit-led, humane, enlightened.

Yes, I know that some Friends cannot physically make it to meeting. That is the most common argument I hear for Zoom worship. It is not a new phenomenon. It did not begin with COVID. Friends (and members of other faiths) have wrestled since time immemorial with some Friends’ inability to attend worship. One of the distinctive features of our humanity is our care for those in need. How much more meaningful is showing up at each other’s doors and gathering those who cannot drive and bringing them in body and spirit to meeting? Or going in person to worship with them in their homes?

In many cases, it seems that the turn to Zoom is a turn to convenience, expedience, and efficiency. It began as a public health necessity. Now I fear that it is a too-easy acquiescence to the values promoted by the world’s tech giants. Don’t we lose something when we no longer do business with a person at a cash register? Don’t we lose something when we call an office and cannot speak to a person? Don’t we lose something when we buy on credit and do not pull bills from our wallet or trade goods for goods?

I know all too well that life is more complex these days, that a yearning for old exchanges is nostalgic and futile. Times have changed. I accept that.

But I also think that in these times we are called upon to wonder, to ask questions, to decide in the Light what sorts of change we can abide and what we cannot. We must decide for ourselves.

A Friend on Zoom recently associated Zoom and hybrid meeting with inclusivity—an open door—and suggested that those who resist the hybrid format were closing a door. The spirit here is right: keep the doors open, but the implication in this case is unfair. The door at our physical meetinghouse has remained open. Zoom Friends seem to want in-person Friends to consider hybridity: the inclusion of technology during worship, to welcome it in the spirit of inclusivity. I have spent a lot of time considering the question. But I have not felt much reciprocal consideration by Zoom Friends to return to meeting in person—where the door has remained open—or even to name the terms of such a return. 

There has been little, if any, recognition of the ways technologies such as Zoom intrude on worship. I remember when meetings prohibited photography during worship, even at wedding ceremonies. As much as the impulse has been to unify Zoom and in-person worship, the effect of hybrid worship is divisive, at least for me. True, all of the passengers on a commercial airline are flying on the same plane, but first and coach classes take fundamentally different flights. They are not gathered together.

What does technology like Zoom do for worship? There seems to be an assumption that it helps, or aids. But even its advocates suggest it is a compromise, a next-best thing: better than the utter absence of contact with each other but less than preferred. It seems to be a substitute. When does the stopgap end and the return begin? Are the alternatives—visiting shut-in Friends at their homes for worship, or gathering them up and bringing them to the meetinghouse—too inconvenient or impractical? And those who live far away, why do they not worship in person with nearby Friends? Divisions in meetings are as old as the Society of Friends: they are embedded in the difference between monthly and yearly meetings. We now have the technology to worship year-round as one congregation with yearly meeting, with the general conference, with Friends all over the world. Why don’t we do that? Because we worship with those at hand.

What if the inconveniences of carrying ourselves as well as other Friends across town or county were an integral part of the worship experience? What if one of the crucial factors of Spirit is our actually gathering together in the presence of one another, as a prayerful minyan, as it is known in the Jewish tradition: a practice that insists first on community with each other as a means to our communion with God. Have we really reflected on the effects of technology on our communities?

There is no virtual beekeeping. There is, I venture, no virtual community. Not really. There is, as there has always been, a community in flesh and spirit. It would be reassuring if I sensed that the question of virtuality was being threshed with consideration of its effect on gathered worship and our encounter with God.

Now I’m going to gather up my tools and step back out into the bee yard, risk the stings and anticipate the sweetness of honey, and hope that the bees accept me in person into their company.

The post Gathered Together appeared first on Friends Journal.

Welcoming Joy and Spirit through Accessibility

Friends Journal - Thu, 2024-02-01 02:40

To sit in waiting worship is to have legs bouncing, fingers tensing and relaxing, nails picking off polish of other nails, mind not settling but looping through ideas and half thoughts, body occasionally slightly rocking and twitching, face grimacing, and eyes fluttering to create sensation.

All is just energy tamped down and contained.

For what?

Effort spent to conform.

For what? More frustration and continual reminders that I am different?

Messages swirl in my mind, but no words can come out.

Is that being tamped down, too? A casualty of the attempts at conformity?

I am an autistic Quaker with obsessive compulsive disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, generalized anxiety, and speech and movement disorders. I wrote the passage above as part of a two-page running commentary during a realization of why I had not been attending meeting for worship. During my lamenting, I realized the accommodations I successfully used elsewhere were not available at the meetinghouse. At work and at home, I use accommodations such as clear directions, lists, and agendas for meetings, and I schedule flexibility and opportunities to move and take breaks as needed. In addition, I have multiple avenues of communicating and coworkers who understand that my ability to focus fluctuates greatly. I was unclear if suggesting these sorts of accommodations at Quaker worship would be welcomed or if they went against what the community expected for worship, since no one talked about these things. So after writing about my observations of my spirit and body, I took a big leap and shared this work with others, including a Friend named Angie.

We have been friends for five years. After reading my letter, Angie lamented that she had noticed not only my absence but the absence of others as well. She felt sad and a bit guilty that she hadn’t known the reasons for my not attending worship, but was extremely grateful that I could trust her with these ideas. I hadn’t shared these needs and the depth of emotion before, and my vulnerability struck a chord. The most common question I received was this: “If a meeting becomes inaccessible to its current or changing membership, how does the community take action to address the true needs of all who are present?”

This query, like many queries in the Quaker world, spurred great conversations that aligned with larger conversations already taking place. Recently, North Columbus Friends Meeting in Columbus, Ohio (NCFM), came into unity on the topic of the inaccessibility of the meetinghouse and agreed that major repairs would not fully address physical accessibility needs for bathrooms, doorways, and entrances. The meeting began an ongoing search to secure a location that would fit the needs of our diverse community.

While NCFM acknowledged the physical accessibility issues as well as it could before relocation, there seemed to be an opening to expand how we traditionally talk about accessibility to include that of neurodivergence among Friends. After sharing the letter with the Ministry and Nurture Committee, everyone agreed it was important to meet to talk about this. Angie attended as a support person for me. We were both excited for the opportunity but unsure and nervous about how it would be received with people who are not as close to me socially.

 The author preparing a table with fidgets and drawing tools. Gathering

In the gathered space with the Ministry and Nurture Committee, Spirit seemed to move differently from how it did when I shared the letter and my needs with others in my immediate circle. It was emotionally and physically exhausting to have to re-explain and describe the ways that worship has been inaccessible. Thankfully, Angie assisted by reinforcing and summarizing points that I had already expressed, or she phrased them in different ways. Having an explicit support person there, was a great asset in relieving the stress of being the sole experiencer. I wasn’t alone and my needs were important.

During the process, everyone agreed to some updates to the meeting for worship facilitator’s welcoming speech (this is a short introduction to worship in our meeting in which we briefly explain why we’re gathered and what to expect). These changes acknowledged that those in attendance are all human and have different needs, that people are welcome to move and fidget, to share messages in a variety of ways, and to engage in quiet activities that help some settle and center. However, many in the Adult Young Friends (AYF) group, myself included, were concerned about the perfunctory nature of these changes and how they lacked a sense of joy and welcoming. So together, we crafted some queries. AYF wanted to draw attention to how these accommodations could bring new Friends to meeting, encourage old Friends to return, and reduce stress of those powering through their own discomfort. AYF did want to acknowledge that engaging in quiet activities or using fidgets might disrupt others’ settling. However, it was essential to try and explore the root cause of these requests: that humans have different needs and there are many ways we can worship together.

Queries

In The Disabled God, Nancy Eiesland draws on the themes and advances of the disability rights movement to identify people with disabilities as members of a socially disadvantaged minority group rather than as individuals who need to adjust.

  • How might a bonus meeting for worship contribute to the liberation of disabled people in our community?
  • How can the joy of an additional meeting for worship help shape our lives in the Light?
  • What can we learn from this additional meeting for worship? What practices might be carried over to the morning meeting for worship?

The new welcome speech was a start but was not holistic enough to truly create a space where I felt fully supported, so I still did not attend, much to my dismay. Meanwhile, Angie had crafted a proposal for an afternoon meeting for worship, designed with disabled attenders and differing needs at the forefront, not as an afterthought. This stood in contrast to how many meetings and systems were set up and still operate.

The proposed meeting would start at 2:00 p.m. to accommodate parents with young children, folks who had to work a morning shift, or college students who are more available in the afternoon. This meeting for worship would last 30 minutes instead of 60 and skip any announcements or long introductions. Finally, it would specifically celebrate the many ways Friends need to settle on their own terms, such as by fidgeting, coloring, changing locations, taking breaks, and utilizing a variety of seating. Feeling hopeful and satisfied with how the afternoon meeting addressed the needs of many Friends, Angie took this proposal to Ministry and Nurture.

In-person space during meeting for worship with Angie facilitating. Deep Listening

With the full support of the Events Committee and AYF group, Angie met with Ministry and Nurture. Initially, the committee shared concerns that adding another version of meeting for worship might create separate groups within the meeting. Some thought that the adjustment to the worship facilitator’s script was enough and showed that NCFM was sensitive to the needs of disabled people. One member expressed a desire for Friends who needed accommodations to “meet halfway” since NCFM had already done so much work regarding accessibility. It took a lot of discussion and discernment, but eventually Friends were able to see that accommodation is an ongoing process, that just as we would make adjustments for Friends’ physical needs, we should make adjustments for their neurological, sensory, communication, and cognitive needs.

I still had lingering concerns, but I was not yet able to articulate that something about all of this didn’t yet speak to my heart. After being open to Spirit and listening during the final meeting with the committee and before the presentation at meeting for worship with attention to business, I realized what was off and what had been the difference all along: it was lacking joy and a spirit of true welcome. When I initially shared my letter with my close friends, it created much hype, dreaming, and wonderment. Most in my circle were disabled themselves or shared experiences with someone who is disabled. We were all working on recognizing internalized ableism and thus no longer had strong biases against the disabled state of being. We dreamed about what a fully accessible meeting for worship could look and feel like. The joy of being free with Spirit could be astonishing only if accommodations were in place and others were invited to join us as whole humans.

During that final meeting, Spirit compelled me to share this hope: a hope that others could also see the joy and unbounded depths of love that this afternoon meeting for worship could cultivate. The clerk of the committee then rephrased his proposal speech, outlining how the community can recognize the wide and varied needs of people and that this was a time to raise up those among us who have expressed needs and to marvel at the ways we can gather. Finally, I felt assurance and optimism.

Sense of the Meeting

Overwhelmingly positive! That was the reaction during the meeting for worship with attention to business. After hearing the proposal, many Friends expressed appreciation for spearheading a different version of meeting for worship that met the needs of all Friends. Those in attendance remarked that it could be an opportunity to bring in more Friends and attenders, to bring back Friends who had not felt accommodated at morning meeting, and to open the door for new ways to gather in worship.

To start promoting the event, I shared it online, steeling myself for the unknowns that online comments can bring. More surprises! I posted it to Reddit’s “r/Quakers” community and positive comments rolled in. In six weeks the post received over 2,300 views and a 95 percent positive rating. One user commented: “As a disabled person . . . I think the idea for the shorter afternoon fidgety meeting sounds so fun and powerful! I would love to get to experience a Quaker space with such beautiful and plentiful neurodivergencies!” Another said, “This is amazing. Most faith leaders just go ‘deer in headlights’ if you even mention these kinds of needs.” Now we just needed to host the first afternoon meeting for worship.

Library space available for those who need to be on their own for a moment or whole time Ongoing Adaptations 

Angie and I were motivated by the positive responses, both online and from Friends in NCFM, and started to prepare for the first afternoon meeting for worship. Using my knowledge as a special education teacher, I created a picture schedule and a picture version of the expectations outlined in the facilitator’s welcoming speech. Angie, along with AYF, gathered fidgeting and other supplies, and we talked about ways to rearrange the room to facilitate and encourage movement.

Finally in May of last year, eight months after coming forward with my letter, I attended meeting for worship again. Being able to pick my seat, fidget, wiggle, experience tics, and draw in a space where I wasn’t alone—I wasn’t different—was freeing. I brought along my iPad that has a speech app on it. Sometimes words get stuck in a traffic jam in my mind and can’t come out, so writing them out is easier. Having all this in place helped me settle more easily. Although I have not used it yet to share a message, I do treasure the knowledge that the message read out loud via an iPad will be listened to on par with a message shared verbally.

The session was well-attended both online and in person. Angie acted as worship facilitator and encouraged folks to worship in any way they felt led. Some Friends in attendance sat as they would at morning worship; some read; some colored; some sat on the floor and played with slime. It was what everyone needed that day, according to their own needs, with no judgment.

Afterward, attenders shared their feelings about finally being able to be a human at meeting for worship. Reactions ranged from being delighted to use the accommodations to being grateful to have the option to use them, and some Friends noted that just being in company of others who appreciated accommodations alleviated stress and allowed them to settle. One Friend shared:

This meeting was the first time I’d ever worshiped in the manner that feels most authentic to me outside of the privacy of my apartment. Looking around the room, I was struck by the idiosyncratic ways in which each Friend’s inner teacher guided them, and the gift allowing our inner teachers to teach and learn from one another in turn.

North Columbus Friends Meeting will continue to adjust and be open to changes. Those involved in supporting Angie and me learned that Quaker process can be a great source of compassion to allow room for Spirit without letting biases and fear of change get in the way. All involved hope that others connect with what was shared so openly here: to contact the authors and share resources so that the community can thrive and grow and so that others can experience compassion and support from a loving Society of Friends. That’s a disabled person’s life: ever changing due to ever-changing needs; relying on others; having others rely on them; and, in essence, being human. I encourage all of us as Quakers to look inward and see the ways we limit ourselves and others. How do we actively increase accessibility in all of the spaces we inhabit in some way? How do we open up those spaces? How do we engage without judgment, unless we actively inquire into what, who, and how we judge? Respecting and responding to disability needs is respecting and responding to humanity. Strengthening community and being there for someone during their highs and lows, trusting others, and being aware of biases are ways that this community will persist.

Afternoon meeting for worship visual schedule (left) and first page of expectations with pictures (right); both were created using Boardmaker, a software program for augmentative and alternative communication.

Ways to Increase Accessibility
  • Update your meeting’s online presence. Disabled people need to know an event’s details in advance in order to plan and see the space through pictures and video via an accessible website and social media.
  • Use unambiguous speech about what accommodations you have in place and why. Be proud that your meeting has accommodations for disabled people and that you are prepared to work with people if needs are not yet met.
  • However, if an accommodation is not possible such as making stairs accessible for a wheelchair user, acknowledge your meetinghouse’s shortcomings and apologize. Consider offering hybrid meetings until the meetinghouse can be made fully accessible.
  • Work with disabled people in your meeting and local disability advocates/consultants. Your meeting’s needs are unique; address them.
  • Be open to change and improvements. Find ways to host educational events to help build understanding in the community. This education drives openness, confronts biases, and helps continue conversations.
  • When implementing solutions, use clear language to say that this is an ongoing process, and it may be messy and different from what was before. Appreciate the wonder and joy this can bring.
FJ Author Chat

The post Welcoming Joy and Spirit through Accessibility appeared first on Friends Journal.

Lending Their Hands

Friends Journal - Thu, 2024-02-01 02:35
Friends Across the United States Welcome Refugees and Migrants

Quaker testimonies of equality and community can motivate Friends to reach out to refugees and immigrants new to the United States. Some Quakers have a long history of helping newcomers adjust to life in a strange country. Others got involved in resettlement support in response to anti-immigrant rhetoric before and during the time of former President Donald Trump’s administration in 2017–2021. With the support of their meetings, as well as partnerships with other faith-based organizations, Quakers are lending their hands to people who have fled dire circumstances in their home countries and sought refuge in the United States.

In response to the Trump administration’s promotion of vigorous enforcement of deportation laws by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Ann Arbor (Mich.) Meeting formed the Quaker Sanctuary Committee, according to Johanna Kowitz, the committee’s convenor. The committee met weekly for six months to work on a minute that stated the meeting would help  immigrants avoid deportation. Many cities, including Ann Arbor, declared themselves sanctuary cities. Police departments in such cities said they would not do ICE’s work by deporting undocumented immigrants. Thirteen churches in the Ann Arbor area declared themselves sanctuary congregations.

Five years ago, Ann Arbor Meeting got a call about a man from Guinea who collapsed due to end-stage kidney failure as he was being deported, according to Kowitz, who is a member of Ann Arbor Meeting.

“The response from our meeting was, ‘How can we not do this?’” said Kowitz.

The man from Guinea, who requested anonymity, has since lived in the guest room of a house owned by the meeting, an arrangement negotiated with members of the intentional community who also live in the home. When the resident guest faced the threat of deportation, volunteers went to the house in three eight-hour shifts per day to support him in case ICE agents came to the door. Volunteers underwent training in which they learned not to open the door to ICE agents but to instead ask them to slide their warrant under the door. Volunteers also learned about the signatures needed to make warrants valid. Volunteers from the meeting collaborated with those from the other 12 sanctuary churches. One of the volunteers established a phone tree that would enable a supporter on-site to immediately notify all others if ICE agents arrived at the house.

The resident guest required dialysis three times a week, so volunteers drove him to the clinic. Although the clinic was a designated sanctuary, the man was not protected from deportation during the ride to it. The Quaker Sanctuary Committee arranged for clergy members to drive him in hopes that ICE stopping a person of the cloth would create bad publicity, according to Kowitz.

The resident guest could not go shopping, so volunteers bought his groceries for him, including the halal meat he required. He is proficient in speaking English, French, Wolof, and Susu but does not read or write, according to Kowitz. Congregations donated money to pay for his groceries, phone, medicine, and cable television bills. One volunteer handles the man’s insurance, and another donates bookkeeping services. The immigration law clinic at Wayne State University in Detroit provided pro bono assistance in exchange for allowing law students to observe legal proceedings.

The resident guest eventually attained a legal status that led to his being able to leave the house. He still needed dialysis but could do his own shopping as long as a volunteer drove him to the grocery store. His new legal standing enabled him to get on a list of expedited potential recipients for a donated kidney. After a year on the list, he received a kidney in late spring of 2022, according to Kowitz. Volunteers helped with his recovery by driving him to medical appointments. He no longer requires dialysis.

Supporting the resident guest during his serious health journey enriched volunteers spiritually.

“To the volunteers involved, for sure, it’s almost as if one sharpens a little match flame that says, ‘This is the right thing to do,’” Kowitz said.

Xenophobic public statements inspired Quakers in other parts of the country to do similar work. In the lead up to Trump taking office, members of churches in southeast Minnesota became concerned about anti-immigrant rhetoric, so they formed a sanctuary network, and two churches remodeled their buildings to house migrants. Rochester (Minn.) Meeting joined several smaller churches that established themselves as sanctuary support congregations.

Michael Resman, a member of Rochester Meeting, volunteers to mail appeals to raise money for Southeastern Minnesota Interfaith Immigrant Legal Defense, an organization that provides attorneys to people in ICE detention and at risk of imprisonment and deportation. The lawyers screen about ten immigrants per month and offer legal advice to many more. Non-detained immigrants who do not have lawyers have a 7 percent chance of being released, but those with attorneys have a 68 percent chance of being freed, according to Resman, who cited a fact sheet from the nationwide anti-incarceration group Vera Institute of Justice.

“It’s quite sobering to realize the effects that this kind of work can have,” Resman said.

If parents are deported, it is likely that their children will never see them again, according to Resman. Advocates say migrant children are apprehensive about returning home after school because they fear they will find their parents deported.

Resman considers it God’s will for Quakers to help refugees and migrants, saying, “What I work to keep in mind always is ‘What does God want?’”

Reflecting on the living conditions of those fleeing their home countries to come to the United States prompted other Friends to welcome newcomers. Rebecca Richards, a member of Gunpowder Meeting in Sparks, Maryland, developed a concern for addressing the needs of refugees and migrants when she heard of new arrivals to the United States living in hotels with up to 15 people staying in one room. At meeting for business, she raised the issue of her meeting furnishing apartments for families new to the United States.

About 20 people from the meeting volunteered. Members of Richards’s meeting participated in the Welcome Home Project of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) by moving furniture and finding needed supplies. Richards and her wife contacted their fellow activists in the peace movement and other community organizations. They sent letters to friends who responded with donations of money and furniture as well as kitchen and bathroom items. Eventually, donated items filled Richards’s den and half of her son’s garage.

“I had a porch that was jam-packed end to end,” said Richards, who oversaw the meeting’s participation.

Meeting members and other volunteers provided apartment setups for nine or ten families, including a new mattress for each person. They purchased mattresses for around five more people, helping 15 or 16 families in 18 months. Volunteers put flowers on the tables of each apartment and provided grocery store gift cards. One woman gave her set of china to a refugee family. The IRC asked helpers to purchase two weeks of fresh food and staples for each family they welcomed. Participants in the resettlement activities appreciated caring for people who had been traumatized by losing their dear ones and homes.

The spiritual benefit to volunteers is akin to the satisfaction one feels when giving a perfect gift to a loved one, according to Richards. “It’s kind of a gift to the universe kind of thing,” Richards said.

 Photos documenting apartments set up by volunteers for refugees outside Baltimore, Md. Apartment photos courtesy of Rebecca Richards.

Reports of events from earlier eras motivated other Quakers’ refugee support activities. Concerned about stories of people leaving Vietnam by boat after the Vietnam War, Nancy Mellor became interested in supporting refugees and migrants as a new member of Oxford (Pa.) Meeting. Having been a child during World War II, Mellor had a lifelong sensitivity to the needs of displaced people. She shared with the meeting her leading to sponsor a family.

Mellor and other Friends collaborated with Baltimore-based Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) because it works in the same region as the meeting. The organization settles refugees and immigrants in communities nationwide. LIRS sent Mellor’s meeting bios and photos. The meeting community selected a family of six people.

“We made the decision in November, and they were with us in January. The whole meeting was involved,” Mellor said.

The family lived with members of the meeting in the early 1980s. In 1984, Mellor moved to California, and the family also moved to live with her and her husband.

Beginning about a year ago, two members of Mellor’s current meeting, Sacramento (Calif.) Meeting, furnished an apartment for recently arrived Afghan refugees and paid one month of their rent, according to Mellor. One of the Afghani refugees who was a practicing Muslim grew to see Mellor as a second mother.

“The spiritual growth that came from that was just a sense of trust that this was the right thing to do,” said Mellor.

A child at the shelter (left); guests at Colores United shelter (middle); a car full of donated items for the shelter (right).

Some Friends’ work experience leads them to assist people who have recently arrived in the United States. David Henkel, a member of Santa Fe (N.M.) Meeting, brings donated clothing and other supplies to shelters for refugees and migrants in Deming, New Mexico, and Puerto Palomas, Mexico, just across the border. Henkel’s meeting donates money and supplies in support of his work. Henkel also partners with the local Unitarian Universalist church as well as Border Partners, a nonprofit that helps border residents in Puerto Palomas, according to its website. Refugees and migrants especially need shoelaces and belts because such items are confiscated, as they’re considered potential means of dying by suicide. Henkel also delivers menstrual hygiene supplies as well as over-the-counter medicine. Last year he transported 40 winter coats, in addition to stuffed animals, clothing, and books. He also delivered ingredients for “go bags,” which are intended for traveling and include toiletries, bottled water, energy bars, cashews, fruit gummies, tuna packets, and jerky.

Henkel previously worked as a staff member for American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in Hawaii, Southeast Asia, and New Mexico. His work with AFSC included draft counseling and advocating for Indigenous land rights. Volunteering to support refugees stems from the same sense of interpersonal connection that inspired his previous work.

The Friends interviewed wished for a more welcoming attitude toward people who come to the United States as refugees or migrants. Henkel suggested that elected officials could learn from the example set by Canada where the government offers programs to help newcomers integrate into society. The United States does not currently provide adequate support for the many migrants and refugees who arrive, according to Henkel. He explained that people who fear for their own economic survival reject newcomers because they see them as competitors for jobs, which leads to less political will for assisting them.

“I look for a more coherent way of understanding who’s coming and trying to help them be here rather than punish them for having come,” Henkel said.

The post Lending Their Hands appeared first on Friends Journal.

Belief

Friends Journal - Thu, 2024-02-01 02:30

In ancient Rome, those who would inherit the land
were given an amulet, complete
with the family seal. Called the Bulla,
this medallion symbolized a child’s
unalterable place in the family’s future. 

How did the felt figures of very Anglo-Saxon looking
Jewish-Palestinian shepherds
and the magical Sunday School stories
of my tender years harden
into a belief so ardent, I can almost feel its weight
hang down as I tie my son’s shoes and set
to rest upon my chest as I rise again
to greet the day with him?

I could give it away
or lose it. But I would awake
to find this amulet of belief reaffixed
around my neck, restored in the night,
the way a father drapes the fallen
blanket over his sleeping child,
the way my aging father would when
I would arrive jetlagged and red-eyed
to collapse on his sofa.
The blanket’s settle over me
was as comforting as those Bullas
must have been. I leaned in-
to that tenderness the way a child leans
into a rainbow parachute
which reassures them that they are loved.

The post Belief appeared first on Friends Journal.

The 5:23

Friends Journal - Thu, 2024-02-01 02:25

At 5:09, 14 minutes to train time
corner of 34th and 7th
a voice shouts
“One penny! One penny for the homeless!
Just one penny!”

From my suit pocket
I pull a dollar coin
Drop it into
his battered plastic jug
crowds pushing and streaming around us.

“Thank you, Beautiful!” the man calls, then
renews his cry, “One penny for the homeless!
Just one penny!”

I hurry into Penn Station
buy my bargain 50 cent Times
make the 5:23 with time to spare
and head home.

The post The 5:23 appeared first on Friends Journal.

Abraham

Friends Journal - Thu, 2024-02-01 02:20

Not every child you choose chooses you back.
But I heard only what I longed to hear. Sons.
I, stooped and leather-skinned, would yet
father a tribe. Grains of sand, He said. A pour
of desert stars. I didn’t tell myself, negotiate.
Ask Him, not how many, but how good.

Lot was my first. I loved him as my brother
and my son. A slender boy, smooth-talking
and sleek-muscled. Just a snake, skilled at
shedding skins. He could not help himself—
he struck whoever laid a hand on him. 
There are gifts you cannot give away.

Then my boy Ishmael took me by storm.
Spike-haired as lightning, thunder voice.
Wildness flickered in his eyes. A black
wolf from his birth, to the wrong mother.
I packed him off and threw away my heart.
There are gifts you are not meant to keep.

Last came my Isaac, my unluckiest. Such
a silent child, a watcher, pliable. In short,
a sheep, not a man. Wouldn’t you want to
shake him up, strike him to make him act?
Go ahead, laugh, that’s how I lost him.
There are gifts you get in name alone.

The post Abraham appeared first on Friends Journal.

Forum, February 2024

Friends Journal - Thu, 2024-02-01 02:15
Plagiarism

The poetry publishing world has been in an uproar in recent weeks over the revelation that a serial plagiarist named John Kucera (aka John Siepke) has had stolen poems published in a number of print and online magazines. We regret to report that our August 2023 issue included a poem named “Glaciers” mistakenly credited to him.

The poem we published was written by John Minczeski and published in ONE ART magazine in April 2022 under the title “In the Fifth Month of Lockdown I Plant Clematis.” We contacted ONE ART’s founder/editor, who, upon investigation, discovered that they, too, had published plagiarized poetry attributed to Kurcera.

You can read the poem in its original form on the ONE ART website, where it appears with two other poems by Minczeski: Oneartpoetry.com/2022/04/10/three-poems-by-john-minczeski/

We are sorry to have published this under Kucera’s name and will take extra care to verify poetry originality in the future.

—Editors

How to arrive at forgiveness

As I read the Forgiveness issue of January 2024, I am reminded of what works for me when I need to forgive my parents. I have found it effective to pause and reflect on what they went through in their lives. They were toddlers during World War I, so would have been exposed to the fear and anxiety of the adults around them. Next was the lead up to the Great Depression when they were in their mid to late teens. After this they lived through the Great Depression while they were trying to pay for college. Then WWII started right after college graduation, and they served in Civilian Public Service (CPS) camps. During their CPS days, before the existence of health insurance, their first child was born disabled and one of their parents told them they must have committed some great sin to have birthed such a child. This child needed 12 major surgeries by the age of 14.

By the time I remind myself of all this, I feel compassion for them instead of blame. This is how I arrive at forgiveness anytime the tendency to blame arises.

Ellen Swanson
Minneapolis, Minn.

The call and response of prayer

Thank you for Welling Hall’s essay, “A Prayer of Blessing and Forgiveness” (FJ Jan.), a vivid story of God and synchronicity. Your essay resonates with my own prayer work in healing my relationship with my late mother, who suffered mental illness. I love that your forgiveness of your mother, and then the letter from your young self, formed a sort of call and response!

Abigail Burford
Madison, N.J.

Thank you for this beautiful healing story!

Marcelle Martin
Chester, Pa.

Time to clean out the spice cabinet?

I have now for many years felt what is described in Marty Grundy’s review of Paul Buckley’s pamphlet Quaker Testimony: What We Witness to the World (FJ Jan. Books). As far as I am concerned, we need to move away from the simplistic creedal declaration of “the SPICES” [a modern acronym for Quaker values] and find other words to express how the Spirit moves in our lives and how we get in touch with this spiritual guidance. This powerful connection grounded in our silent worship is the power that we Quakers have to offer to the world! Thank you for starting this discussion!

Maybe we have left out the source of the power of the Holy Spirit that resides within each and every one of us! We seem not to be able to talk about this Source—so SPICES is an easy way out.

Wanda Guokas
Asheville, N.C.

This should be a mandatory read for Worship and Ministry committees in every Quaker meeting. Clean out the SPICES cabinet!

Signe Wilkinson
Philadelphia, Pa.

The radical integrity of Quaker witness

To “bring the full weight of Quaker process to bear where the issue is not foundational to our faith and it’s doubtful that the Spirit has much of an opinion” is an expression of the radical integrity that has marked Quaker witness from its inception (“​​Stewarding Our Time” by Kat Griffith, FJ Dec. 2023). Even judges faced with early Quakers in the docket for not tipping hats decried how trivial the issue was. Dedication to discernment of the Light and its expression of gospel order in all details of life is the practice that begets clarity in the larger issues that require faithful response. When practiced faithfully, the first statement to follow “We took action for the following reasons” should always be that to do so was led by the Light, and was ours to do, regardless of how consistent the issue is with broad Quaker principles.

What is presented are very admirable organizational principles and effective, streamlined pathways to action. However, it is not a modification of Quaker process but an alternative to it.

G Hoagland
Asheville, N.C.

American Sign Language’s twiddling thumbs for Quakers has amused me for years. When I think back on the best examples of Friends I have known, a fitting sign for them might be right hand touches heart while left hand touches forehead, then both hands come forward, palms up, in an open gesture to the other. Those Friends lived their faith by acting with love and thoughtfulness and addressing that of God in each person.

Alyce Dodge
Honolulu, Hawaii

The author responds: I wish to apologize for causing offense and misunderstanding in my article. It was never my intention to suggest that we could or should somehow change the American Sign Language sign for Quakers (twiddling thumbs). How the Deaf/Hard of Hearing community chooses to portray Friends is entirely up to them, not hearing Friends. My invitation was only for a thought experiment: what is a gesture that you, as a reader, think would convey the essence of Quakerism as you experience it? I thought it would be interesting to embody our essence in this way—rather like coming up with a logo, but as a gesture rather than a two-dimensional image. I received a few suggestions—thanks for those! I truly regret causing offense or misunderstanding through my lack of clarity.

Kat Griffith
Ripon, Wis.

Bayard Rustin continues to inspire

I thoroughly enjoyed Rashid Darden’s insightful review of the movie Rustin (“Unsung No More,” FJ Nov. online, Dec. 2023 print) and totally agree that it is a first-rate biopic about a gifted Quaker civil rights leader who didn’t receive the recognition he deserved because of his homosexuality.

I’d like to add a historical note about what happened to Rustin in Pasadena, Calif., the city where I currently reside, which was mentioned several times in the movie, and not in a good way. As the movie reveals, Rustin was arrested in Pasadena in 1953 for having sex with two men in a parked car. He had come to Pasadena to lecture on anti-colonial struggles in West Africa and ended up serving 50 days in jail, forced to register as a sex offender. In 2020, Rustin was posthumously pardoned by Governor Gavin Newsom.

A few years ago Pasadena’s Orange Grove Meeting was approached by a transgender librarian from UCLA who wanted us to ask the Pasadena City Council to support a commemorative stamp honoring Bayard Rustin. The meeting agreed to do so, and I went to the council meeting to speak out on Rustin’s behalf. I was thrilled that a 12-year-old student from our Quaker school also spoke out for Rustin. The city council ignored us at this time, but our efforts weren’t in vain. In 2022 a gay lawyer named Jason Lyons was elected to the city council and was able to persuade his colleagues to pass a resolution in 2023 honoring Rustin and supporting a commemorative stamp. I am glad that my city took this step to make amends for the damage it inflicted on one of the great peace and justice advocates of our time. As Darden says in his review, “May [Rustin’s] story continue to inspire and change us for the better.”

Anthony Manousos
Pasadena, Calif.

Part of the whole

When Quaker worship becomes settled or centered, I have the sense of being part of an indefinable whole that exists whether I am part of it or not (“I Pour, I Drink” by Mary Gilbert, FJ Dec. 2023 online). In a sense this whole is always there waiting for us to connect with it. We do this more effectively as a collective than as a lone individual, hence the power of Quaker meeting for worship compared to prayer on one’s own. I like to think that is how Jesus worked together with his followers, and his disciples in particular, although we are not told any of this in the texts handed on to us.

Rory Short
Polokwane, South Africa

I understand the sentiments expressed by Gilbert. However, I am more sympathetic with the sentiments in the canticle (song) of St. Francis of Assisi in which he refers to the Sun, the Moon, and other aspects of nature as brothers and sisters, not as being in an “I–I” relationship with himself.

On a more mundane note, I am loath to associate myself too closely with nature, for, as Alfred Tennyson once noted, nature is red in tooth and claw. Stream water is notorious for carrying giardia, so why would I want to serve that to myself?

William Marut
Glastonbury, Conn.

Supporting work through donations

I love Judith Appleby’s call for intentionality, integrity, and accountability (“God Loves a Cheerful Giver,” FJ Dec. 2023). I would, though, like to put in a plug for automatic monthly donations (with proper due diligence). As a career nonprofit fundraiser and executive, I know the deep value of a steady income stream to sustain programs, pay staff, and keep the lights on. Constantly having to invent and reimagine programs so that they are shiny and attractive to new donors is exhausting and can compromise the core programs that truly accomplish the mission. By all means, research the organization for mission fit, find out how we pay and treat our employees (how much we pay frontline workers, not just the executives), what true impact our work has, etc. Then if it’s the right fit, and if we’ve earned your trust, the best support you can provide is that steady monthly contribution (with the occasional bonus chunk thrown in, of course!). And please do continue to read our newsletters and annual reports, engage with the organization, hold us to account, enter into relationships with our people and our work. Automatic donations do not have to mean lack of engagement.

Rick Juliusson

Slavery and weapons

While we are feeling justifiably distressed about our forebears’ participation in slavery and Indian boarding schools, we could also take a hard look at the current situation. Our tax money is being allocated to the Pentagon, in obscenely high amounts, to build weapons that are designed to kill, maim, and destroy. This is in addition to maintaining a very large number of military bases, which often have a detrimental effect on nearby communities, and a nuclear capacity that could end the world as we know it in a matter of minutes. Is this the nation and world we want? We could do something about it now, in the form of vigils, rallies, communication to Congress, letters to the editor, social media campaigns, or tax refusal, so that our grandchildren won’t be distressed about us.

Judith Inkseep
Gwynedd, Pa.

A militant hymn reimagined

I have long been bothered by the militancy of words in hymns, etc. So I composed alternate lyrics for a particularly militant hymn and sang it at our Swarthmore (Pa.) Meeting as my testimonial. You will quickly recognize the tune. One member suggested that Friends Journal might be interested in publishing it for similar readers. So I include the lyrics below:

Onward, Quaker soldiers,
marching toward the Light;
We fight hate and violence,
Love our only might.

Other souls may join us,
walking arm in arm;
If we follow Spirit’s highway,
we will do no harm.

Onward, Quaker faithful,
you’re stronger than you think;
We can reach the world’s poor children,
give them food and drink.

Onward, Quaker soldiers,
though the ground be rough;
We can save the lost and wounded,
if we just stand tough.

(The last two words are sung strongly on the same note to signal the end of the hymn.)

Patricia Brooks Eldridge
Swarthmore, Pa.

Forum letters should be sent with the writer’s name and address to forum@friendsjournal.org. Each letter is limited to 300 words and may be edited for length and clarity. Because of space constraints, we cannot publish every letter. Letters can also be left as comments on individual articles on Friendsjournal.org.

The post Forum, February 2024 appeared first on Friends Journal.

Jharna Jahnavi: Emerging Leader for Liberation

Jharna Jahnavi, a medical student at the University of Vermont Larner School of Medicine, and the first in her family to pursue medicine as a career, credits much of her success to receiving a lot of mentoring throughout her journey. “I would not be where I am today without the support of the countless mentors and advisors in my journey. I want to give back and mentor the next generation and make sure they get the same support I did.”

When she moved from Philadelphia, a city where a majority of the population are people of color, to Burlington, Vermont, where more than 80% of the population is white, Jharna felt the change in environment acutely. Jharna found an opportunity to engage with the community and support medical education mentorship through her medical school’s Area Health Education Centers (AHEC) program and was an AHEC Scholar for the summer of 2022. Through AHEC, she was able to join their efforts of building a mentor network and providing opportunity to local high school students interested in healthcare and become deeply involved in the Health Education Resource Opportunities (HERO) program, which is designed to prepare high school students for careers in medicine.  

First, Jharna served as a HERO mentor, a fulfilling learning experience. “Being a mentor let me provide students with the kind of support I have been so lucky to receive. It also gave me more opportunity to connect with and work with young people, which is what I hope to do in my career, potentially as a pediatric physician.”

After participating in the Emerging Leaders for Liberation program, Jharna stepped up to take over one of the leadership roles from the previous students. She recruited for, coordinated, and implemented the HERO program on her medical school’s campus. Her biggest area of emphasis and drive for the program has been ensuring the program helps to empower students who might face accessibility barriers to the medical field. This includes students of color, first-generation students, students from low-income backgrounds and rural communities, and students who have immigrated or are part of immigrant families. Of primary focus in her various educational modules are social justice and social inequities in medicine. 

As Jharna prepares for the clinical component of her program, she knows that, short-term, she’ll have less time to be involved. But she’s focused on leaving it in good shape for the next student leaders, including developing age-appropriate curriculum for critical topics such as social determinants of health and social inequities in medicine, which she hopes will be in use for years to come.

 Jharna sees what she has learned as part of a lifelong commitment to mentorship, and to social justice in medicine. “I hope that I can be involved in HERO again in my career but regardless, this type of mentorship work is something I want to be working on throughout my career.” 

Madeyson Dyce: Emerging Leader for Liberation

For Madeyson Dyce, a student at Guilford College and a participant in the Emerging Leaders for Liberation program, art creates a sense of possibility and solidarity. “When people are creating together, they’re learning about each other and connecting. When we use art to express our vision for a better world, we’re taking the first step to making that world real, and we often realize just how much we have in common.”

Madeyson has had an interest in the power of art since she was selected as a Futurist Fellow, a program that supports emerging leaders to make change through an Afrofuturist lens. When she joined the ELL program, Madeyson saw an opportunity to build on what she had learned in the fellowship and to develop opportunities for community art-making.

She also saw possibilities for social action, a way to foster solidarity among different social identities, a means of empowering marginalized people, and a way for a group to learn together about connection and intersection in social justice.

Madeyson’s first project – organizing a group of 12 students to draw a racial justice-themed work on campus on October 20 – was a major learning opportunity. “Planning was stressful. There were so many details to worry about, but seeing people working in community and growing together, it was really worth the stress. And, now we have this powerful creative work that reminds us of the work we have to do.”

As the drawing emerged, Dyce witnessed powerful learning, with the participants sharing and reflecting on what their identities, and what racial justice, meant to them. “I think this gave students a chance to seek control of their own lives and stand up against injustice.”

Dyce was particularly grateful for the support that AFSC gave her throughout the process. ELL Program Director Mariana Martinez helped Madeyson think through the project from the start, and overcome the obstacles she faced in bringing it to life.

The piece stands on the Guilford campus as an affirmation of Quaker values, like struggling for equality and working in community. And Dyce sees it as just the beginning of her work. She’s looking for new ways to embed liberatory creativity into the Guilford campus. “We have a regular paint and sip event, and I want students to think of that as an opportunity to express themselves on deeper issues. Painting flowers and clouds is nice, but what if we were expressing our identities, or painting our just and equitable future instead?” 

Lucas Meyer-Lee: Emerging Leader for Liberation 

If Swarthmore College student Lucas Meyer-Lee has learned one thing from his Emerging Leaders for Liberation project, it’s just how dehumanizing a prison sentence can be. 

To help people understand what life is like for people living behind bars, Lucas wanted to deepen the work of Prison Radio at the nearby SCI Chester prison facility, creating connections between students and people incarcerated there. If successful, the work would give a platform to incarcerated voices, deepening relationships between those on the inside and the outside. Having previously met people like Kenjuan Congo, Jr., who is incarcerated at SCI Chester, Lucas understood that people at the facility would have plenty of stories, poetry, and political commentary to share, if he could help to get it out.

The concept was simple: the students would record the stories and perspectives of incarcerated people, then share them through existing platforms, building on Prison Radio’s existing model. However, Lucas knew that, for it to work, he needed to develop trusting and respectful relationships with people locked up at SCI Chester. 

He has faced administrative barriers every step of the way. The phone systems break. Individuals are transferred between facilities or moved between cell blocks, disrupting schedules and conversations already underway between people in SCI and Lucas. Even with incredible effort by his partner on the inside, Kenjuan, the project has been slow-going.

“Growing up a Quaker, I’ve always been opposed to U.S. mass incarceration,” said Lucas. “But now, seeing the prison-industrial complex up close, I realize all the ways it isolates people and makes them jump through hoops. I think about how frustrated I feel, struggling to maintain contact. Then I think about their families and loved ones, and how hard they must be working to stay in touch. It’s heartbreaking.”

Still, Lucas is undeterred. Inspired by some of the powerful conversations he’s already had, and with Kenjuan’s tireless work, Lucas is searching for new ways to help these individuals get their stories out. In some instances, he has used email to gather written statements; in others, he records conversations piecemeal and has individuals respond to each other’s thoughts serially. The complications have even spurred a bit of innovation: to broaden the conversation, and to show interviewees that people are paying attention and value their perspectives, he now plans to have listeners email questions. 

Strong allies have facilitated Lucas’s progress and helped him navigate the system. Prison Radio and War News Radio help people behind bars share their stories with the world; they’ve lent Lucas audio equipment, counseled him on the project, and put out audio on it. Knowing that these organizations, AFSC, and Kenjuan are standing with him has helped Lucas stay committed to the project, even in the face of all the roadblocks.

As the project grows, Lucas is excited to grow and evolve beyond Swarthmore. “Students have been integral to so many movements for change throughout history, but we have to move beyond campus to engage the broader community.” Lucas knows that it won’t be easy, but he’s ready to put in the work. 

Molly Dorgan: Emerging Leader for Liberation 

Molly Dorgan’s relationship with her hometown of Waynesville is complicated. Growing up in the town of 10,000 people, nestled between the Great Smoky and Blue Ridge Mountains in Western North Carolina, she loved the community. But, she knew she would have to leave Waynesville to chase her dreams. She worried, for herself and for her friends, that the local schools didn’t have the resources to prepare them for the journeys ahead.

Through the Emerging Leaders for Liberation program, Molly is creating educational pathways for the next generation of young people from the region. With support from AFSC, and in partnership with schools across Western North Carolina, Molly organized the Field Summit this fall to help local students overcome the financial barriers, inadequate educational structures, and cultural differences that might keep them from college.

Molly understood growing up that she had an advantage. Her parents sent her to science and math summer camps where she not only sharpened her skills but also learned how to pick a college and then apply to it and reduce the cost through scholarship and support. As she headed off to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill supported by a Morehead-Cain Scholarship, her peers in Waynesville were never far from her mind.

Molly spent her first two years at UNC putting Quaker values into action, making the campus more welcoming as an UNC DEI Fellow and diving into public service as a Buckley Public Service Scholar and a member of Pi Beta Phi Fraternity for Women. She also studied the factors that keep students in places like Waynesville from getting to and succeeding in the best colleges.

When she learned about the ELL program, she saw it as an opportunity to make an impact on these issues by sharing her experiences with the young people back home and helping them chase their own dreams. The event, hosted on October 22, was attended by 25 young people, and included conversations and workshops that prepared them to get to, and thrive in, college. Students gained practical knowledge and skills on building their resumes, interviewing, volunteering and mentorship, and telling their stories in college essays.

Planning the event was a learning experience for Molly, too. She was surprised by the number of professionals throughout the community who were eager to pitch in when asked. And she gained a newfound appreciation of and understanding of their career paths.

She sees the event as the spark of something that can grow in the years to come. Starting with the curriculum that she developed and the relationships she built for the event, she’s considering how to build out a local mentoring initiative and virtual library of college access and success resources for students in underfunded rural schools.  Molly says, “I want every young person in the area to know that people want them to succeed and can help them succeed. Together we can build a network that supports them.” 

Syndicate content