Brian Drayton writes about a weekend at Pendle Hill: "We were talking about the many passages in the old Quaker journals in which the writers described their inward states, using words and phrases that were both puzzling and full of implication." Drayton said that a friend, Bill Taber, called it "a language for the inward landscape," a kind of technical language for "Quaker spirituality that is too little known among Friends."
Bill passed away in 2005, but in a book released this month, A Language for the Inward Landscape: Spiritual Wisdom from the Quaker Movement, Brian uses Bill's work to introduce a uniquely Friend-ly way of doing theology experientially. "Friends refuse to subordinate spiritual experience, and the transformation of personality, to intellectual formulation" providing, instead, in their writings, a uniquely "Quaker theology of the narrative, pastoral, or prophetic."
Barclay Press produces guides for individual and small-group devotional experiences, and we publish a handful of books each year. We also sell books through our online bookstore - part of our work to help connect Friends to each other and to some of the best resources on what it means to be part of the Friends movement.
One of our ongoing projects is a study from T Vail Palmer on reading the Bible with empathy, a study whose first volume we hope to release later this year. In the meantime, this book from Brian helps to put into words why we do what we do at Barclay Press, why we do what we do as evangelical Friends, seeking to enter into "an encounter with the living God . . . [dwelling] in watchfulness, maintaining an inward attention on our condition, not far from the threshold of prayer, and becoming increasingly sensitive to the little hints and motions of the Spirit."
Eric Muhr
When God loosens the soil of our lives
Barb Mann writes of her "thinning year" in this morning's Fruit of the Vine: "I . . . broke my foot, had a rollover car accident with my young son in the car, and my purse was stolen at church." Barb adds that she was in a new job and "under so much stress I couldn't eat without feeling sick." It was a year in which Barb experienced "the soil of my life being loosened by the removal of confidence, security, and comfort."
I wonder how many of us have experienced times in which everything that can go wrong does. I wonder how many of us have experienced a "thinning year." Or years.
Last week, working through old files, I came across a staff photo from 1968. I posted it to our Facebook page. Harlow Ankeny is standing, leaning against the mantel. Dan McCracken, seated on the hearth (second from left), is only a year over half my age in that photo.
I can't help but note how much smaller our current staff is now. And older.
Maybe you've had a similar noticing. Results from the National Congregations Study (2015) show that the median size of a local church declined from 80 people in 1998 to 70 people in 2012, while the average age of its congregants increased.
That doesn't seem like good news. But Barb reminds us that there is still room for hope. During that "thinning year," God taught Barb "that I cannot make everyone like me. He helped me to guard and value my time by saying 'no' more often. . . . God helped me grow more into the person he created me to be."
When God loosens the soil of our lives, it can feel like we're losing ground. Barb suggests that we learn to pray, "God, when life gets disturbed remind me that you are the gardener helping me to grow and thrive."
Eric Muhr
Where we might be invited
Dan Cammack writes in this year's EFM Easter Offering materials that "we've been sending missionaries to the Republic of Ireland for about two decades," but "in terms of evangelical Friends churches planted," we have very little to show for that investment. So what are we doing in Ireland? In his letter, Dan lists four parts to that answer, one of which is the lessons Ireland can teach us about planting churches in North America "because we, too, live and minister in an environment that is increasingly post-Christian."
Barclay Press is a long-term partner with Evangelical Friends Mission - designing and helping to disseminate materials for Easter and summer offerings that tell the story of how God is using EFM around the world. This year's focus - To Ireland with Love - is on the work of Kathi Perry, the Howell family, and Molly Morton.
Kathy writes beautifully of her learning, over the years, that her job "is to be in a position where I'll be invited into the lives, conversations, joys and sorrows of people around me.... Whether I am teaching a Bible class or washing baby spit out of toys and duvets, it's important to do whatever I do with joy." Because "sometimes, loving people takes a long time." David and Tricia Howell recount how the events of the Easter Uprising, when Ireland claimed its independence, have shaped "these amazing people" who, "time after time, . . . have faced heartbreak." In response, David and Tricia find their hearts breaking for their Irish friends. Molly writes of her work, bringing teams of students from Azusa Pacific University to partner in ministry with Dundalk Community Church and to join "in service with the staff at The Birches Alzheimer Care Centre in the same town."
These Easter Offering materials won't start to show up in local churches until next month, but you can find them online and learn more about the ongoing work in Ireland, not to mention what we're learning from that work - how to join in service with others, the importance of letting the heartbroken break our own hearts, and what it might mean for us - long term - to become a people who put ourselves in positions where we might "be invited into the lives, conversations, joys and sorrows of people" around us.
Eric Muhr