I leave the windows open

During the summer I leave the windows open in my upstairs apartment. Instead of the forced air and low hum of air conditioning, I listen to my neighbors’ voices float in with the evening breezes – sometimes late into the night. But in the early mornings, an hour or so before sunrise, it is quiet. This is my favorite time of day, presenting as it does so much silent space for thinking and for waiting. A kind of hushed and almost, tinged with creative expectancy. And almost every morning at this time I open a book of poetry and read from wherever I last left off until I find a line that moves me, something to hold on to and repeat, especially in the stressful moments that always come just before lunch or late in the afternoon when I’m tired and hungry.

This morning I started in a second time on Nancy Thomas’s new collection, Close to the Ground. And I stopped at the end of the first page – just like I did my last time through – in order to read it again. And then once more. Because that first poem describes so perfectly what mornings have always been for me. Because that first poem describes so perfectly what it is to live sacramentally. Because that first poem describes so perfectly – for me – what it is to hope.

Morning Watch

William Stafford, that kind poet,
once told me how he got up
at 4:00 every morning
to sit in the quiet and wait for a poem.
It always came. Stafford filled notebooks
with the fruit of his attention and freely
shared it with the world. I’m grateful
to have been included in that world.
So here am I, sitting in my own
quiet spot by a window. The morning
grows light before me. Trees emerge
and the far hills. Like Stafford,
I’m waiting. Waiting.

What are you waiting for?

Eric Muhr

Are you willing to go?

In this morning’s Fruit of the Vine, Ron Woodward focuses our attention on Paul’s selection of Timothy “as a member of his itinerant team of gospel proclaimers.” Ron points out that Paul’s message for Timothy (1 Timothy 4:12-16) is a message for us: “As you continue to learn while serving, be an example of what it means to live a consistent Christian life.”

That word – are you consistent? – introduces a question of integrity. It is also a question of perseverance. As you move along this journey of life, how is it going? And how are you going?

But Ron wants us to consider another question as well: Are you willing to go?

As a twenty-one-year-old seminary student, Ron received a phone call from Dean McNichols at Bell Friends Church, asking “if I would consider being a part-time youth director.” Ron had no experience, and he would be following in the footsteps of “much-loved C. Peter Wagner, then a student at Fuller, and later the author of a number of popular books on church growth.” 

In spite of all this, Ron said yes, and his three years in service at Bell Friends were “an experience of learning while serving.”

Have you said yes? How’s it going?

Eric Muhr

My favorite kind of question

Some questions are easy to answer. Some questions take work. My favorite kind of question, though, is the kind that challenges my thinking, that opens up new possibilities precisely because it doesn’t have an answer. At least not yet. 

I received an email last week, asking that third kind of question: “Any chance you have any ideas here?”

No. I didn’t have any ideas. And I almost responded with that as my answer. Easy question. Easy answer. Done. But this question wasn’t that kind of question.

The question came from Shawn McConaughey, Associate Superintendent of Global Outreach & Pastoral Care at NWYM. He had forwarded an email from Robin Mohr, Executive Secretary at FWCC. Robin was looking for help compiling a list of resources “talking about how Friends need to learn how to talk to people who are like us and people who we think are not like us.” 

Resources on racism. Resources on xenophobia. Resources on equality and diversity and empathy. Resources that might help us bridge social and cultural divides within our own communities.

So I did some research, and I found some resources. (I’ll list those below.) I also identified a need. Precisely because we don’t have resources that speak directly to Robin’s question, Barclay Press also has an opportunity to create and distribute those kinds of resources. And this is where I could use your help. Do you know of work being done - locally and/or globally - among Friends and along these lines? I’d like to hear from you.

Here are the resources I found:

• Let’s Be Friends youth curriculum has a lesson on equality available for free, digitally, on request.
• Becoming Friends children’s curriculum has a lesson on equality available for free, digitally, on request. This lesson pairs well with chapters 2 and 8 in the book Eight of a Kind by Betty Hockett.
• The Evangelical Friends History CD includes an essay, The Indians’ Friends: Quakers and Native Americans in the Seventeenth Century by James D. Le Shana.
• Missions by the Spirit by Ron Stansell highlights the importance of equality, the value of all human beings, in making a lasting connection with other people groups.
• Unlocking Horns by David Niyonzima and Lon Fendall considers the reconciliation process in Burundi and how that redemptive work reveals the work of God.
• Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship by Vanessa Julye and Donna McDaniel demonstrates that racism has been insidious, complex, and pervasive among Friends. The book documents the spiritual and practical impacts of this discrimination in the expectation that understanding the truth of our past is vital to achieving a diverse, inclusive community in the future.
• When the Rain Returns describes the experiences and analyses of an International Quaker Working Party, composed of eleven Quakers and three friends-of-Quakers, who visited Israel, Palestine, and neighboring countries. It includes their deliberations on what they saw and learned in discussions with more than 90 individuals representing a range of personal histories and political views.

Eric Muhr