The end of some things and the beginning of more

I woke in the morning in a room of straw. Sunlight glanced through the wide window, and I rose, rested and glad of the day. The last day of my last Young Friends camp for the rest of my life.

I should feel sad but I just don’t. I don’t even feel quite the sense of completion I thought I might. I simply feel content, sure and happy with the experience having unfolded exactly in the way it did.

This path I began in 2004 has filled my life with love I had never envisaged or expected. The connection to these people has become not so much an experience, or something I posses, but just part of who I am, part of the fabric of this wonderful life.

To me this camp felt gentle, warm, calm as a slow moving river in the middle of summer. We sang, ate, worked and worshiped. I laughed with these beautiful people in the springtime of their lives.

Meeting the son of my first love and getting to know him as a friend was an unexpected pleasure. Seeing him instantly accepted by others as if he’d been coming for years filled my heart with a sense of joy I find it difficult to describe.

Even as some things come to an end new things begin.

Meeting Emily from Canberra and realizing we have a whole lifetime of Quaker events, conversations and sharing ahead of us made saying goodbye the start of something rather than the end. It seemed fitting that she was the last person I said farewell to at the airport.

I know now that ending my participation in YF business and YF camps doesn’t mean ending these friendships, or being in some way part of this community as it flows into the wider Quaker world.

When YF Camp finished four of us cycled to the train in Masterton. The day shone as we rode through the rolling hills, and I could think of no place I would rather be. Riding with friends in the sun, sharing our journey for a way, and knowing that in time we will share it again.

Small and simple acts

Whenever I’m walking in Christchurch or Wellington my rule is that if I can see a piece of litter and a rubbish bin at the same time I’ll pick up the former and put it in the latter. Sometimes I extend this if I can’t see a bin but am fairly sure there’ll be one soon.

When I was in Sydney last week I found this was much harder. There was so much litter it would have taken me twice as long to get anywhere. I ended up not picking up any as it just didn’t seem like I’d be making any sort of dent in it. Over a couple of days it faded into the background and I stopped noticing it at all.

Another thing that was different from the NZ cities I spend time in was the number of homeless people. Not just in the parks but lying down on footpaths, sitting in gutters, shaking and bereft while hundreds of people walked past them every few minutes.

While out for a run it struck me that the problem is the same. While there are probably a similar number of homeless people per capita in Christchurch and Sydney, in a densely populated city you just see more of them every day. Because they seem more numerous a type of ‘learned helplessness’ sets in among the people that could help. There are just so many homeless people, what difference could one act of kindness really make? So people go about their busy days, and before too long the people lying in the gutter just fade into the background.

People are not litter. They do not deserve to be cast aside, forgotten and alone. What can we do to pick up those whom others have dropped? What are the small things we could do everyday? What would the world be like if even one in every ten people picked up a few pieces of litter, and did something to help the less fortunate among us?

In all your honesty

Thomas looked at me, his warm smile showing quiet confidence and nervous anticipation at the same time. We stood on a slightly raised concrete platform, a foot above the grass of the clearing, beneath a mighty totara, decorated with a wooden cross. The wedding guests slowly filled up the clearing, seating themselves on the forms and chairs arrayed in rows like a church.

I welcomed them and asked them to sit in silence while we waited for Rhea to be escorted in by her father. The musician played, the birds sang in the trees high above, and the wind wafted forcefully around us. Thomas and I stood, smiling at each other and the group. As the seconds drew out, and the tension grew I said silently in my mind to Thomas, “relax my friend, she’ll come”.

With a collective breath out of relief, heads turning, and admiring smiles the guests watched as Rhea walked in slowly, well supported by the steady right arm of her father. He carefully led her up onto the platform, Thomas took her hands, his eyes shining, and they stood facing each other.

I addressed the assembled group and explained how the ceremony would unfold. It felt good to be there, confident and sure, speaking strongly so my voice would carry over the wind and the noise of the swaying trees. The words I spoke were both Thomas’ and mine, his poetry held within my structure. I described the silent worship part of the ceremony:

“After the exchange of vows, as in a Quaker Meeting, we will wait in silence until we may feel compelled to speak. If you are moved to speak, please leave some silence between yourself and the previous speaker. Everyone is welcome to share, however this is not speech-making time, there will be plenty of time for that later on. Rather this is a special and sacred space for a deep and soulful pondering on the nature of love and commitment, and on Rhea and Thomas as a couple. We ask that if you do feel called to speak, or sing, or pray, or recite, that you do so from the heart, and in all your honesty.”

I concluded my introduction, sat down in the front row, and silence fell. Rhea and Thomas looked at each other, and I could see the emotions pass over his face. Excitement, trepidation, and a rising calm as he let go and he waited for the spirit to move him. Dappled sunlight fell upon them, the wind stilled, and the wings of a kereru beat the air above. Thomas spoke his vows to Rhea, love welling up on his face as he passionately committed his life to hers. The honesty with which he spoke, the integrity of his love, and the sureness of his voice moved me deeply. Rhea spoke next, more quietly.

Rings followed, silence, and ministry from Thomas’ sister, Rhea’s father, and two friends. That they felt confident to share, each moved according to their own fashion, and conveying the full emotion of their feelings, made me very glad. In the absence of a priest Thomas gave himself permission to kiss Rhea. I declared them married, and the musicians sang a beautiful song as the couple walked off the platform and down the aisle.

Rhea and Thomas, you blessed me greatly in asking me to facilitate your marriage ceremony. It is an experience I will never forget. Seeing the strength of your love for each other, and the unfettered honesty with which you voiced it is an example to us all. May your life be filled with joy.

Living Dangerously

During the holiday period between Christmas and mid January I generally lose track of what day of the week it is, and rely on dates. At Summer Gathering I lose track of dates, and just go by which day of the gathering it is, or how many days there are still to go.

So, the day after SG ended, I was very pleased to realise it was a Sunday, and we were staying in Mt Eden, just minutes from the Meeting House. When I walked in to Meeting that morning, I saw people I had hugged goodbye the day before, not expecting to see for weeks or months.

At Summer Gathering I ran a session entitled ‘Dangerous Quakers’. This was inspired by a blog post by Peggy Senger Parsons, a Friend from the US. The session was about the way Quakers are often dangerous in the sense they are disruptive to the forces of oppression and inequality. They are dangerous to those who promote war and injustice as solutions to the world’s problems. This often involves Friends placing themselves in danger, in terms of their income, their liberty, their safety or even their lives. This willingness to sacrifice (aspects of) oneself for a greater truth has a power that Ghandi described as satyagraha, or ‘truth force’. I was very interested in how people tell whether they are being dangerous in this sense, or just reckless. How they tell whether what they are feeling is a calling from the Spirit, or just a ‘bee in their bonnet’.

During the session the importance of the people and Meetings that support those called came up several times. This is both in helping individual Friends listen to and discern their leadings, and in supporting their resulting actions. Coming into Meeting for Worship in Mt Eden made me realise yet again that it is the everpresent community of Friends that enables some of our number to head the call of the Spirit and do things that are dangerous.

12 Days of Christmas

At Meeting yesterday we had carols and some readings. This was led by the resident Friends, one of whom explained one of the reasons she’d heard as to why Quakers don’t generally sing during worship. Apparently because they weren’t prepared to say things they didn’t believe, and a lot of the conventional church hymns had phrases that fell into that category for many early Friends.

I must admit there were a few phrases from the carols we sang that I hummed along with rather than sang out loud, in particular references to the virgin birth, and Jesus as ‘Lord’. There was one fantastic carol that I was very happy to sing right through though, a modern interpretation of the 12 Days of Christmas, called “12 Days of Christmas in New Brighton”.

“On the 12th day of Christmas we all shared together peace and goodwill for all to share, 11 excited children, 10 dancing pirates, 9 carol singers, 8 local artists, 7 sausages a sizzling, 6 sand castles, 5 expressions of love, 4 moments of joy, 3 vigils for peace, 2 messages of hope, and a great love for all to share. “

Jesus for the Non-Religious

Today I listened to this podcast from National Radio’s Spiritual Outlook programme*. I listen to all the episodes of Spiritual Outlook as they come out, but it’s only rarely that one inspires me to blog about it.

This one was an interview with Bishop John Spong. He is a liberal theologian and has written many books, including recently Jesus for the Non-Religious. His views resonated very closely with mine.

Historically agreed facts he cites:

1. Jesus lived between 4 BC and 30 AD
2. The gospels were written between 70 and 100 AD
3. The gospels were written in Greek, a language that neither Jesus nor his apostles spoke
4. The gospels were written by people who had never met Jesus, and were going on two or three generations of stories passed down by word of mouth

Bishop Spong argues that the literalist interpretation of Jesus as a supernatural figure in the Bible, capable of performing miracles, leaves people today with only two alternatives (at least from the point of view of the Christian tradition) . To be hysterical irrational fundamentalists, or to give the whole thing up as a lost cause and be secular. He thinks it’d be nice if there was something in between that was possible. An interpretation of Jesus that sees him as a man who was so open, so fully human that he was able to be so utterly filled with the energy of the Universe, the ground of being, the divine spirit, what Quakers call the inner light.

This is the Jesus I want to believe in. I want to believe that it is possible for any human to be as filled with the spirit as Jesus. To me it is so much more impressive that he did this as a man, rather than as a supernatural being with special powers.

Bishop Spong also talks about prayer, critical of prayers that are ‘adult letters to a Santa Claus God’. Rather, he sees prayer as a way to become more human, more open to the spirit.

Again, this is very close to the way I see prayer and worship, a way inward, to walk on the journey toward being more fully human. To me the historical Jesus is a guide on this path, someone who walked it with integrity, insight and love.

* if the podcast is gone by the time you read this it’s because National Radio only keep their podcasts up there for 3 months or so. If you’d like a copy of it just email me.

We are all immigrants

There is mounting geological evidence that at one time, the whole landmass of New Zealand was completely submerged. About 85 million years ago, the continent ‘Zealandia‘ broke away from Gondwanaland. It was about half the size of Australia. Over tens of millions of years it slowly sank beneath the waves until it was completely under water. About 23 million years ago, due to the movement of the tectonic plates, it emerged from the sea, and slowly became the shape and size it is today.

This makes the legend of Maui fishing the North Island up from the sea seem to ring very true. It also means that all life on this land arrived here, rather than evolving from the beginning of life on Gondwanaland. The seeds of plants would have arrived by dispersal on the wind, and carried by migratory birds. Those birds over 20 million years evolved to the flightless moa, kiwi, and many other species that are here today. Lizards travelled on floating logs over the sea (almost every rock in the sea is covered by lizards, they are such hardy mariners). Even the ancient tuatara, for which there are 100 million year old fossils in New Zealand, have more recent fossil relatives (35 million years) from South America, and it seems likely our tuatara came from there. The theory would also explain the complete lack of ‘native’ terrestrial mammals, for they would have had no way of surviving the journey across the sea.

I like the idea that all living species in our country are travelers, all immigrants. Some of us arrived 20 million years ago, some 1,000, some a few human generations ago, and some very recently. None of us ‘own’ this land. Some, perhaps by arriving earlier, have a greater claim to the right to exist here. The right to live, in freedom, without the threat of physical or cultural extinction by those arriving later. But all of us are descendants of travelers, the courageous, the hardy. Those willing to chance a journey into the unknown, across the oceans.

I hope that this knowledge will help us to see each other (human and non-human) as equals. All valuable, unique and alive with the spirit of adventure. I hope that it will help us to respect and love each other, and to share what we have. A canoe is a small vessel, and we must take care to get along, if we are to stay afloat.

Last words

At JYF camp Pearl told me that the last words that her Grandmother could say (due to a stroke) were “I love you” and “thank you”.

I think that if you could only say two things, those are a pretty good choice.

Moonshadows

4am in the morning the rooster crowed. I woke and went outside the cabin. The grass was damp and cold. I looked up, directly over the trees, my eyes drawn to the brightest moon I have ever seen.

Full, large, and shining in the night sky. I looked around me and there were distinct shadows cast by the clothesline, maypole, trees and me. No wonder the rooster thought it was dawn.

In the chill air I was struck by the clarity and beauty of things. Little colour, but near light as day. Life seemed simple and pure.

Cat Stevens sings about Moonshadows. To me the song is about gratitude and acceptance:

I ever lose my eyes
If my colours all run dry
yes, if I ever lose my eyes
oh if …
I won’t have to cry no more.

It’s a calm and gentle acceptance of suffering and loss. It also implicitly conveys gratitude for what we do have, in a pure clear way like the shadows cast by the moon, darkness against darkness. This verse though is the one that struck me the most:

Did it take long to find me
I ask the faithful light
Ooh did it take long to find me
And are you going to stay the night

To me the faithful light is like the inner light, perhaps cooler and less distant that sunlight. Sunlight either is, or isn’t. Dark and light are more distinct during the day. The ‘faithful light’ is more tolerant, dark and light coexist, merging at the edges. That’s like suffering, gratitude and love. They’re all part of the same life.

Walking in the light

The theme of JYF camp this year was ‘Walking in the light’. We did a lot of activities focused around understanding our Quaker values in the modern world of technology, fashion and media. We didn’t do very much that was explicitly focused on matters of the spirit. I did make a big effort to make sure we had Meeting for Worship every day though (we did miss one).

I was never quite sure whether the JYFs got something out of Meeting, or were bored or annoyed by it. Because JYF (and YF) Meetings for Worship have much less spoken Ministry it can be harder sometimes to sense the feeling of the Meeting. Near the end of the camp we had Meeting for Worship outside. We sat on chairs on the grass, in the sun, with the warm wind blowing and the birds singing.

Later that day I found a poem on a couch, written anonymously, and left for people to read. It was as follows:

I walk in late.
The worship has started without me.
I get looks from people.
I can feel the thoughts.

My mind begins to wander among my
memories, picking up conversations, thoughts
jokes, relationships, people who I didn’t
know existed or had forgotten.

I remeet with my past.
I feel as if I’m walking along
a road, with neon lights (similar
to last night’s throwies…)
and I’m trying to pick the best one.

Ironic, because when you think of
someone during M4W, it’s called
‘holding someone in the light’!

If you choose to keep your
eyes open, you see the people
The couples, the bored ones,
The ones that stay silent
and sit perfectly still.

If you close your eyes,
you see you.
You take a trip
inside yourself and however
cheesy that sounds it’s
true.

We are all so different
But I see now why
We are the same.

Reading this brought tears to my eyes. It validated all the effort I had put into creating a time for worship during the camp, it made it all seem worthwhile.

I later learned that it was Pearl who had written this. She read it in the concert on the last night. I publish it here with her permission, and thank her deeply for making me feel that the spiritual aspects of the camp were appreciated. It meant a lot to me.