Speaking Truth To Power

Recorded 2/5/14 
A note from the author:  I would not like to see the structure of our meetings dissipate.  I feel that our structure is in progress and it is held carefully by anyone who chooses to find refuge in the Quaker Way.  It seems counter intuitive to practice speaking truth to power within our own system.  Quakers mostly are a humble bunch of folks willing to look honestly at our own shortcomings.  That Friends give space for this woman to speak is amazing to me.  It is also concerning that she doesn't know the other more appropriate ways to express this kind of message.  

The following is a vision I had of a woman who stood to share her struggles in vocal ministry at a silent un-programmed meeting for worship with the Religious Society of Friends. 


"This Friends meeting speaks to me of the Inner Light.  People share how they can feel it, that it leads them to good places if they follow. I feel it, too. 

The light we are seeking has long been against the darkness in Abrahamic Theology.  The dark is what hides our ugliness.  It is the place where the beasts are waiting.  Darkness is the blanket of mystery before the dawn of understanding.   It is the original sin, that was eating of the tree of knowledge.  Imbedded in this story is a theology that blames the cravings of the human body for violence, separation, suffering, and death.  Worshiping the night, the Earth, and all that comes from it and returns to it, is considered Pagan.  For Pagans, the sin is not in the flesh or in the earth.  It is in our disconnect from the earth and the forms of living elements  without which we cannot exist.  

I Love You: Morning at the Grotto, Portand Oregon, 2013, by Glee 

I would like to see Friends come closer to this notion of earthly experience and the goodness of this connection as a spiritual practice.  Many un-programmed Friends practice expectant waiting worship.  To do this, we often still our bodies and minds together.  Our bodies, our flesh, is our connection to this Kingdom, it is the open vessel giving space for the light to shine.  Our bodies and our communities and the meetinghouses where we worship cannot exist without the ecosystem in which we live.  Our bodies and our ecosystem feels sacred to me.  

Shall we stand up right now, quietly, speaking, all as One, doing, and convinced, that taking coal, and oil, and natural gas from the Earth in the way that we are is hurting our own bodies? Shall we stand up and express how dirtying our water and our air, waisting resources, hurting human bodies, raping women for war, torture, bombs, military defense, and the denial of the rights of children are all connected to how we see The Body, our Earth, us?

Speak directly to corporations and to the people who continue to buy things from them.  
Make space for the voices of those who are rarely heard. Share the vision we have of a world without war.  And tell the world that it can be gentle.  We all know how we would like to be treated.  Witness to this and ask people to consider it quietly.  Answer questions lovingly.  Create challenging conversations and use our peace keeping skills to show it can be done.

And the woman sits down.  Calm.  Relieved. 

                        Learn More: 
                        Read Something You Wouldn't Normally Read: Jeremiah Project
                        George Fox (An Interesting Take)
                       James Turrell "Spirituality" (Art 21 Video Segment)
                       

Being Friends (A Poem)

Birds of a feather

Be not silent!

Flock together

In a kaleidoscope of chaotic interconnectedness    

Sink into the comfort

Of your mother’s arms

Birds of a Feather, Chalk Pastel, gesso, india ink, on brown paper, 36X40"
1-10-14 by Glee Lumb 

And sing the body electric

Carry your limbs lightly

Upon the hard stones

Down into the cold water

Of your deepest fears

And listen for the quiet song of your awakening

1-10-14

by Glee Lumb

The Suspension Of Disbelief

My father is an atheist.  I'm not sure how his beliefs differ from the Quakers I just spent the week with, some of whom call themselves non-dious.  I do know that I have enjoyed listening to my father's recent musings about the nature of humanity's fascination with some entity other than ourselves, to whom we give some power of external inspiration or control. 

He took time to share his theory that bacteria in our bodies (hens forth referred to as the Bacteria) are actually leading us in all directions of development, evolution, and societal structure.  We exist simply to keep them alive. He and I discussed the need that humans have to identify a sense of being lead by a greater force other than our ego or self-will.   We were, I think, teetering on a theological discussion about religion being the opiate of the masses, an opiate keeping us unaware of the Bacteria.  I don't want to go into great detail on this, because he is writing a book about it and I want you all to read it with new eyes.  He just may be on to something. Though I don't think they will be teaching it in science classes in Kansas. 

His theory meanders the lazy river along the shores of belief and the meaning of life.  I do not claim to possess any certainty about the nature of his purely mental explorations.  Nor do I feel sure of his true feelings about the existence of a higher being.   The Bacteria do sound a bit like "that of god in everyone".  This unity stuff reminds me of his notion of matter being energy.  I feel akin to this notion of "energy" being the grand unifying theory in physics, specifically quantum physics.  Also that this energy may be the life force, the light of god, what animates the Chakras. 

From a bathroom wall in Portland, Oregon

For me, all of this is more about the analogy or the allegory than it is about the truth.   What matters is that my father and I can talk about spirituality.  There is very little about this "energy" that can be tested and quantified, like testing gravity by falling down.  I'll let the physicists do that.  I use my five senses to note its significance in my life and I listen for its significance in the lives of Friends.  The sense of oneness I feel may be better than any drug ever discovered by humans, with the exception of love, which very well may be the same thing.

So, what does this have to do with bacteria, besides the fact that, according to my dad, we might be killing god by washing our hands?  (Title of the editorial headline in response to his book)  There is something about this mortal coil that brings on a craving for survival.  Even at its worst, life is hard to leave.  My dad loves life and thinks it is beautiful, even if humans are only an appendage of the bacteria in our bodies.  He loves life so much that he believes in peace, love, and that we are all connected. 

As a Friend, I occasionally meditate on the story of Jesus.  In it, I discover a sense of relief that god would manifest a living being here among us to prove that being human does not mean we must give into the urge to participate in a desperate competition for survival, by vying for the failure of "others". So, my dad and I agree on these points.  There is an energy that enlivens our existence.  And that life is beautiful.  

Bacterial Bonanza: Microbes Keep Us Alive (NPR):  

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129862107 

The Quantum Activist:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDi24IfILZ0

More Than You Wanted To Know About Quakers:
http://rachelheldevans.com/ask-a-quaker-response

The Midwife of Christmas

Old Black Crow

And Young White Dove

Their raspy voices calling

To the deep of space

And darkness of our oceans

Believing we are not drowning 

As we are born into our first breath

His light pulling our pupils

Into tiny dots achingly

We’ve travelled

Below the thin crust

Of our Earthly existence

Beyond the strength that moves our minds

Constantly

For the truth of our hearts

Is molten and too hot to touch

Old black crow knows this well

And sings of the urges

That pull the water, magma, gasses

To the surface, over exposed,

And scabbing with the blood of our fears

Young white dove celebrates

This hope of healing

For our darkness is the salve

Upon our aching souls

Old black crow and young white dove

Lay down

And quietly,

Gently

Take their first breath together

From the ONE that is ours to share

Crossing Over (A Christian Translation)

Mary, in her flesh of existence, accepts the spirit into her womb, the spirit whose light is growing within her darkness, which is nurturing and pure.  The darkness of her womb is everything Jesus needs to grown into the world.  The world is waiting for the prince of peace, yet we have no idea what that means and kings are moved to bring their riches and earthly treasures to the celebration.

Yet, empty, and without riches we come to this holiday, nestled in the darkness of our doubt.  We are searching, achingly, for the light of our hope.  Oh, to have this hope reborn with the light of each bright day. 

Multnomah Friends Meeting House
Worship Hall by Glee 2013

For Friends, hope is indeed born out of each day.  It is continuing revelation.  In silent worship, we center down into the depths of the truth of our hearts.  We settle into the flesh that beats our hearts, breaths our breath, nourishes our hunger for existence.  We are Earth, bodies born out of the darkness that nourishes us.  We cannot deny our mother in search of the light, the hope, the external spirit, when the light is undeniably indwelling. 

The search for proof is our listening in earnest and with faith, in silence, for the voice of God.  Not always does it urge us to put forth the words of that which cannot be defined.  We are eager to know personally that which connects us all internally and externally.  But the hunger we feel for this connection is what sustains us.  It is our proof.  Our empty vessel surrendered to the knowing and us wanting to feel the pouring in of the light of certainty. 

But, alas, over and over again we will return to the emptiness with faith and wonder of when, if ever, the lord will speak to us in our flesh and give us proof. 

Grotto Evergreeens  by Glee 2013

If this is you, or I, I say “let it go”.  Let it go to the darkness of our souls, to our doubt, and let not the doubt overcome us.  This is the journey we are destined to make as our birth becomes eminent.  Walk into the wilderness, into the darkness of the womb of the mother that protects you as you form into the perfect you for which the world is waiting.  As Christ is born into the light, we are born into the light.  Let the Earth be a symbol of your darkness, your womb, your doubt, your emptiness, waiting for the light, ever present. 

The light cannot exist without the darkness.  Light and dark are involved in a continuous dance of discovery, of love, of acceptance.  As God is love, so is our experience in the silence together, as we brave the light of our surrender, of our listening, of our constant questioning. 

Celebrate!  Another year has passed through the seasons of our Earth, our home, our mother.  Let the faith of Christmas bring us closer to the healing of our love of the Earth, of our darkness.  Healing this love is the work that has been laid before us.

It is imperative that we, as humans, no longer punish the flesh for its darkness.  For our flesh is the Earth and we have been forgiven for our relationship to the darkness.  There must be another way to set a person to the light within/goodness of all things that does not include torture of the body to get at the spirit. 

Learn More: 

A Temple To Sophia 

http://www.sophiastemple.com/goddess-sophia/

 Thomas Merton and Hagia Sophia 

http://eternalfeminine.wikispaces.com/Merton+-+Hagia+Sophia

 The Gnostics 

http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/nhlintro.html

July 2013 Journal Entry

Wilt Thou Go On My Journey?: On Being Fiercely Friendly

On being authentically Quaker.  When I say to a person outside of my Quaker community, “I am a Quaker,” I do not want to apologize for the actions of another branch of Quakerism to which I do not ascribe.  I do not like to defend the fact that Quakerism is based in Christianity.  I do not want to witness to the story of Jesus to ask that his words and actions in history be gentle, peaceful, inclusive, loving, and compassionate.  I do not enjoy the feeling of shame and apologetic tone I take when talking about Christ risen, the holy ghost, and the violence and judgment humans have committed in the name of God.  I want to be able to communicate and worship with all branches of the Religious Society of Friends.  I want to be led by the spirit/God to be whole and to act in the world in ways that witness to peace and integrity in the good name of the kind and gentle people called Quakers.  I don’t know if this is the complete notion of the Convergence effort in Quakerism, but it is one vision to which I am called to witness, as I am led by the spirit. 

I would like to call together a group of Quakers whose spiritual journey is sourced in Buddhist, Universalist, or Non-Deist beliefs and ask them to consider how the convergence effort effects the future of their Quaker faith. 

 

Statue of Buddha in my back yard with chalk drawings
drawn by my children. 

I am realizing that in an effort to find peace among the branches of Quakerism in the NW, I have been inauthentic in my expression of faith.  I have been holding back.  I hold my tongue and search for words.  I often find a way to describe the spirit in Quakerese or by using Christian language, though it is not what comes naturally to me.  I listen carefully to the ministry of others and fit the words, meaning, and syntax into my own framework of understanding so as not to allow my hackles to be raised. 

It is not anger I feel when I hear the authentic words of others in a Christocentric vein, it is fear of oppression I feel.  I am terrified that this Quaker spirituality I have found will no longer accept me, that I will be ushered to the door and told to find another community or stay and conform.  I fear it will no longer define me or my lifestyle.  I want to be accepted. 

I feel as if I cannot continue to be a Quaker Mystic if I do not have the body of Friends to support me and with which to worship. It is more than having commonly held beliefs and ideals that connects me to Friends.  It is the unspoken experience in silent communal worship.  It is the Quaker Way of listening, waiting, being led by spirit and truth telling.  I have made my faith impersonal for the sake of the greater good.  At least this is the story I am telling myself.  All the while, I have many mystical experiences leading me to a mind-blowing unifying direct experience of god.  It is often wordless, but I am able to describe it using a mishmash of several different faith systems, like Sufi, Christian, Taoist, Hindu, and Dr. Bronner. 

I have begun to understand why some experiences of god, or Quaking before sharing a message, rattle me to the core.  It is about the truth.  When god asks me to speak and gives me the words to speak, it is without the filter of my fear.  I want to speak the words that are best heard by all.  The energy of the one, the spirit, of God wants us to hear one another.  It allows us to listen.  It is a physical experience for me.  To be completely inhabited by the whole and to speak truth is not frightening.  I trust this expression of faith beyond all others.  I know it is without fear.   Yet, it brings up a fight or flight response in my body.  I want to run, but I am held fast by loving arms. 

Photo of sculpture of life of Jesus at The Grotto

I committed to these experiences when I became a convinced friend.  Or should I say these experiences confirmed my faith.  I have chosen to be a part of the whole of the Quaker faith.  One name, one experience, one trunk, one root system, one peace.   When I became a member, I did not know the depth of the splits.   I have a sense of Quakerism that brings us into a place of unity the world needs to see now.  It is greater than our differences.  Our faith experience may be in a unique position to tip the balance in the direction of peace, prosperity, and connectedness with our Earth environment, and our human existence.  How can we, as a witness to peace, see beyond that which separates us at a time when the Earth and its inhabitants needs us most? 

I have spent the last couple of years discovering the Bible and Christian roots of Quakerism.  There have been times when I have felt unsafe in these words that define the very foundation of Quaker faith.  And I have grown into them.  Quakers for convergence of the branches have taken my hand and allowed me to experience my fears and doubts and I have never once felt unwelcomed in the world of Quakerism.  It is after all, a faith based on authenticity. 

I have heard the words of Noah Baker Merrill, Marge Abbott, Julie Peyton, Joe Snyder, and Jesus.  In these words and in the silence, I experience love.  I experience a place where seeing the living dream only requires a moment of being awake to know it is already here and waiting for us.   This everlasting life, this living water, this light, is constant.  It is patient.  It is gentle.  It is all things.  It is much larger than any definition of a deity.  It is inside of us in our connection to one another, and to all living things.  I hear this in the words of Jesus.  I hear through the words others have put in his mouth.  I hear with my body. I feel his love.  It is complete joy.  It is complete sadness.  It is authentic, whole, and safe. 

Wall of Crosses, made from flotsam and jetsam by Bob Dix 

I also hear the words of Rick Seifert and other Non-Dios Friends, who know the spirit of life cannot be defined in such narrow terms.  They are Universalists.  They are Buddhist in practice and Quaker in faith.  They see that the light of god is only one way of describing a shared notion that our knowing is beyond definition.  Our love of the all one is inseparable.  All is one and it is beautiful.  It is a detriment to give words to such an experience of beauty.  And this knowing brings ultimate peace and connectedness of all things.  The Earth, the person, the universe, time.  There is no reason to fight if the person or thing one is fighting is the self.  God is within us.  God is all.  God is love.  God is not the word God.  But, yes, if that is your knowing, so be it. 

I can no longer even act as if Jesus ever wanted us to stick to the book.  I hide my knowing because with it I look down on those who use the Bible to find a practical application of our faith.  My sense is that we already know how to be one with all things.  The knowing is in our body and it is eternal.  Jesus came to remind us of that. 

Cut Flowers

Ministry: 9-15-12

After an email from a member of Worship and Ministry

I started shaking and crying when she reminded me of the image of a lovely flower in a vase cut off from the root- from ministry to Meeting For Worship for Healing last month.  It concerned our holding people, places and things in the light without recognition of our presence as physical bodies of the light. 

I didn't know what I had said. 

I have no idea why it makes me cry.  When I spoke with my massage therapist yesterday[1], we talked about how a metaphor for life is watching a flower wither in a vase. I was reminded that it is natural to delight in its beauty but fear its death[2]. Oh, to be the flower in full bloom!  We want to take it and possess it and give it a glass of water, a poor substitute for its plant, its legs, its arms and its connection to its mother.  Only the seeds are meant to fly away or to drop.  We must know that it will fade regardless.  Look at us, as humans; with all of our compassion we throw cut flowers onto the body of the dead.  Flowers to celebrate our transition into the confirmation of life by considering our eventual death.  What do we have but the Way[3] to confirm that this life is precious?  Part of this is living in the light of our passing and of our birth and of our growth and bloom and eventual death.  This may be recognition of our existence. 

We live with a certainty that more seeds will come.  What returns to life is in the seeds.  The DNA is ever changing, ever random, ever knowing when to reproduce.  It is awe inspiring to see the evolution of earth's seeds to survive the drought, the flood, and ideal weather is our deepest knowing and the essence of hope[4].    It is what returns even after death.  The flower dies in order to cast the seeds.  It dies for good purpose, lives for good purpose. 

Why is the flower beautiful to us?  Is it beautiful because it is like us, and it peaks in wonder, fresh, electric, putting all of its life force into this one part of itself? Because it carries the fruit?  We, as humans, eat of the highest energy in the plant.  All of our senses are attuned to know when the height of energy and vitality are reached.  It is at the sweetest moment for the fruit or the flower when we want to pick it and consume it. 

Universally, as humans, I feel we know something of the sweetest moment.  We know and crave it like we crave the foods we need when we are pregnant, ill or perfectly centered.  This sweetest moment is like when we live in the peak of romantic love, whole, complete, physically attuned and in full blossom of our goodness and we don't want this feeling to die.  Our entire body expresses this height of energetic existence[5].  When we feel/sense/express/the divine, we are in this state of awareness of craving that which is most alive; what is most life confirming.  When all of our senses are expressing the truth and there are no barriers to our awareness of these truths[6].

I am reminded of humanity's faith that life will always return.  And how detrimental this vision can be when we reap the harvest of nature without reverence to the whole.  It seems that we cannot destroy that which is contained in seeds of life.  The energy of our deepest knowing will always be present[7] and waiting to return to full bloom.  I wonder if, for Friends, if full bloom or the lushness of the Garden of Eden can symbolize our Heaven on Earth, The Kingdom of God[8]?  We will always be looking for confirmation of life in this awareness of that which cannot be named.  There is something that which is beyond words but yet we know[9] Yes! This knowing is there, but perhaps we are afraid of its power because it is WE!  It is like how a group, a civilization set apart from other civilizations, calls itself "people" in their own language.  The word for the self isn't needed until we must define the other to ourselves and become other to someone who does not recognize our oneness. 

Seeds of Hope, 2013, Acrylic, Pastel, Ink, Charcoal
on paper  By Glee Lumb 

So, our constant awareness of the flower and a need to see it in bud, in full bloom, and death as it withers in a glass, vase or even in the dirt is a confirmation of life.  We cut it in order to consume it in its fullness, to control its audacity to continue on[10]. 

Are we, as humans, symbolically cutting ourselves off to our roots by ignoring our bodies and our bodily existence?  Is the water of the Earth our blood, the wind our spirit, the sun love, the earth our flesh?   Life, all living things, is symbolic of change.   We are ever changing, ever living, and life can be so hard to extinguish that we must destroy it to confirm our hope that it will return.   Some of life is easy to destroy.  Other life is harder to destroy.  This too confirms our hope.  We are suffering from knowing some will survive and some won't.  It only confirms that in order to continue hope, we must allow life and what makes life all one to do what it does naturally[11].  It is all part of a whole.  The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  This is the witness of silent worship together that I feel as a Friend.  It feels as if we are equal in wonderment of the whole.  We somehow know that what goes on to flourish will also eventually die, but leave something behind that is in the seed of existence that is the hope.  The shell protects it until conditions are right for it to risk coming forth with the life contained within it[12]. 

That which never flourishes contributes that energy back into the whole and returns again and again, like water.  It can never go away, never be wasted, only transform.  It is constantly changing.  So, let it go!  Let it go to the wholeness.  The spirits and awareness of others around us will open when they are ready.  The flower is telling us not to cling so tightly to that which does not flourish that we don't see the fullness of the whole that is the biggest vision of life[13].   Know that eventually it will be a part of that which peaks and flourishes.  We, and all of life, are a part of that which can never be destroyed. 

So, we baptize our transformation with tears, the water of life, physical proof of surrender to feelings of truth.  The tears of awareness pour freely when we are acutely aware of the truth.  Our bodies speak to this with gut wrenching tears, elation, laughter, and screaming, even quiet exhaustion when all of this comes forth.  It is so confirming of life that it must come forth!  It is so confirming of life that it must come forth and then we can pass into the peaceful, quiet stillness of night, the place of rest and the time of dreams.  We wake refreshed from sleep to grow, bloom, fade, and rest again each day.  Our physical existence is what we have to symbolize the flower.  The cut flower is a child, adolescent, full bloom, and old age all at the same time. 

Perhaps we are forever craving the confirmation that the flower, in slow increments, in stillness, in its suffocation, is a shallow expression of life in full bloom.  Perhaps it is really an ever-present reminder that we are constantly transformed.  I quote The Gathering of Spirits[14], a song by Carrie Newcomer: 

Let it go, my love. 

My truest.  Let it sail on silver wings. 

Life's a twinkling, that's for certain,

but it's such a fine thing. 

There's a gathering of spirits. 

There's a festival of Friends. 

And we'll take up where we left off when we all meet again.

As I was rocked in the arms of grace, I surrendered to the words on this page knowing it comes from us all and that is for all of us. 

-Glee Lumb

Member of Multnomah Meeting of Friends, Portland Oregon

---

[1] [It came up while talking about the roses she had decided to cut and bring in from her rose bushes.  She describes the bud that had not bloomed and one that was in full bloom and what a shame they were all on the same stem.  She decided it was too beautiful not to share.  She said it was the most wonderful smelling rose. ] [We talked about seeing flowers slowly die as confirmation of life.  We talked about how people in America don't like to see that process happen.  It came also from a talk with Ed Alletto in Program Committee meeting with Friends two days ago concerning death and letting go.]

[2] [From Orlando, "do not fade" doomed to everlasting life until all is realized]

[3] (Marge Abbott from To Be Broken And Tender)

[4] (Story from Jeff and a Man at Friends Music Fest about organic farms growing big green fields of corn while GMO corn wilts and fades in the fields around it for miles and miles)

[5] [Story of Ann Druyan and Carl Sagan falling in love and recording Ann's biorhythms to send into space on a voyage to communicate to other life in the universe]

[6] [Ally Good: Healing Mantra Chanting Group 9/14/12].

[7] [WALL-E the movie with the single surviving robot on Earth who finds life and knows it's preciousness]

[8] A hierarchical term used to describe the Way, when it works in unison humanity has true peace, compassion, and equality, from the Bible.

[9] (Book Blink)  [Total intuition of Jill Bolte Taylor's Stroke of Brilliance from TED talks.]

[10] (The Promise, child's book about at dandelion and a small creature who loves it and must let it transform into the field of flowers it will produce the next year if the bunny helps the flower and blows its seeds into the wind)

[11] From the Permaculture Movement

[12] [The Seed Of Hope...Quaker/Woolman?  Quote from an ad for Marge Abbott's book Broken and Tender in Western Friend]

[13] A reaction to parable of the sewer from bible study at MMM with Joe, Marge, John, and Maryann, and others. 

[14] Song by Carrie Newcomer and Alison Krauss [A song given to add to my music for morning inspiration by Noah Merrill in March of 2011]