Finding the Way Forward

It seems that real growth in ethics, justice, and other sorts of human advancement comes like a forest fire. First there’s an initial spark--not more stirring of cold, dead ashes of past events and forms--

and then a patch of ethical flames, and finally, a roaring forest fire of change--of a new movement toward truth.

To whimsy this profound reality versus the conservative tendency to hideout in past achievements:
That was then,
zen is now:-)

Consider this adapted Zen story:

A well-known professor from George Fox University went to visit a Quaker human rights activist. As the friendly activist got out a bottle of spiced rum2 and a large glass for the tired traveler, the brilliant Professor Kno described his ideas of what Quakerism was,
is,
and ought to be. He explained its treasured historical forms, committees, and meetings. But then rung his hands, as he spoke, because Friends as a movement was seriously declining in attenders, and experiencing a severe loss of adherents. Kno pulled out charts and statistical analyses and waved them, considerably upset.

Yet the activist remained quiet so Professor Kno spoke on and on with more erudition and vast knowledge. Meanwhile, the activist poured more liquor into Kno’s untouched glass.

Even when rum reached the brim of the Professor's glass, the activist kept pouring. Alcohol overflowed, spilling onto the tray, table, and down onto the carpet and their shoes, until the professor could no longer stand it.

“Stop!” Kno almost shouted. “Can’t you see my glass is too full?”

“This is you,” said the activist. “How can you find new insights, new truths, until you first decant some of that glut and surfeit in your glass--your own excessive assumed opinions, speculations, and conclusions?

“How can we find new ethical insight, more clarity and Light unless we first clear our rigid forms from our glutted, surfeited, stained glass?”



Side Note: 2See the video: Quaker Speaks
Did the early Quakers drink alcohol?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ2kPDjojPE


In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Important Guest Post on Same Sexuality

See below past the brief intro. for the guest post: "A Man with No Past" by Fernando Alcantar

Brief intro:
There are so many Christians and other theists who have recently come out as same sexual. Has this always been true--that many spiritually concerned and focused people have hidden their same sexuality?

And there are so many churches and denominations including Friends arguing over same sexuality, even splitting up as Indiana Yearly Meeting did, and North Carolina Yearly Meeting and Northwest Yearly Meeting are doing now.

Check A Friendly Letter, Chuck Fager's recent blog articles for the details:
http://afriendlyletter.com/breaking-split-over-lgbt-planned-for-northwest-yearly-meeting/
http://afriendlyletter.com/another-day-another-split-attempt-new-target-north-carolina-ym/

Even the huge United Methodist Denomination may split over the ethical issue. Other major denominations have in the recent past.
Etc.

So much division and misunderstanding and sorrow!

But the worst tragedy of the current controversy is that, too often, the very real individuals who are at the center of the controversy get left in the wreck:-(

Think of the loving couples who only wanted to get marriage licenses in Kentucky, but the clerk Kim Davis wouldn't let them.

Remember when Marsha Stevens of the music group Children of the Day announced that she was a lesbian and thankful for being same sexual. What a storm of trouble.

And remember when it came to the news that Lonnie Frisbee, the famous Calvary Chapel assistant minister, was same sexual.

Etc.

I wonder why.

I wonder what all of this controversy says about theism, about Quakerism, about the Christian religion, human nature, human psychology, life, and reality.

Do you have any thoughts about this huge topic?

GUEST POST:

A Man with No Past by Fernando Alcantar

"Fernando Alcántar was born and raised in Mexico and immigrated to the United States as a teenager. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology and a Master’s Degree in Organizational Leadership from Azusa Pacific University, one of the top Christian Universities in the nation.

He is an author, activist...He worked at APU's Mexico Outreach for eight years as Senior Coordinator of North American Partnerships. There, he oversaw hundreds of churches in Mexico and helped mobilize over 9,000 missionaries a year from all over the United States and Canada.

He innovated dozens of new ministries and developed unprecedented partnerships with government officials, nonprofits, schools, businesses, and churches. He has spoken in front of thousands sharing his faith and motivating people into Christian ministry, and traveled around the world serving marginalized communities."
--

Fernado Alcantar:

"I am a man with no past. And you are probably one too.

When I was born, my family put the seal of Catholicism on me and taught me that since I was Mexican, I was Catholic just as much.

The rest is a story I’ve shared on the book To the Cross and Back: An Immigrant’s Journey from Faith to Reason. A story of how as a teenager I converted to Protestant Christianity trying to escape loneliness and seeking healing from childhood trauma.

I then became a state leader for the Foursquare denomination in Baja California...a globetrotting missionary for Azusa Pacific University—one of the largest evangelical colleges in the nation.

And then became head of youth and young adult ministries for the almost 400 churches in the Southern California-Hawaii region of the United Methodist Church.

For about 30 years I obeyed the rules of the Bible as best as I could, including hiding the darkest secret—even from myself—the fact that I am gay. For at least a decade I fought a depression anchored in a never-ending doubt. What happens if I lose faith?"

Read the rest of Alcantar's powerful, sorrowful article at http://fernandoalcantar.com/man-no-past/

What are your thoughts on Alcantar's crisis?

What are your thought on this whole issue?


In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Part #2: Review of Meetings by Chuck Fager

from Amazon's website:
"Chuck Fager’s transition from a conservative Catholic, pro-military youth to an active peace witness and a lengthy period of “spiritual formation” among progressive Quakers...a special religious coming of age in the mid-1970s...in a continuing time of tumult and change."

"The result is both a compelling story of our time, and the narrative of a unique personal quest for meaning, transcendence, and a useful life."

Yes, no, and maybe not.

I've finished the book. Chuck does deliver some intriguing stories from his life as he promised. Kudos for that.

And at times, stories of his intellectual quest do come through clearly. His account of professor Milton Mayer of the University of Chicago is powerful and moving.

Furthermore, Chuck's recounting of those radical days of the late 60's and early 70's, and his involvement, will bring back many memories of that best of times, worst of times.

But overall this book appears to be at first-read weaker than some of his other books. Unlike those, this one seems fragmentary, more of a starting outline. There are key stories like wall pegs; now hang deep personal reflections on them.

Yes, the book has up appealing and shocking stories, but Chuck doesn't show how they relate to his interior life, doesn't put them in the context of his personal life, and doesn't reflect on them in relationship to his spiritual belief and life.

The reader feels unconnected and is filled with many questions unanswered.

For instance, there is the fascinating story of his discovering a missal like the ones of his childhood.

But after the very detailed nuanced narrative of how he comes across the book at the Saint Vincent de Paul thrift store, he just leaves the aged ritual book stuck on a shelf in a plastic bag.

We don't know how he felt and thought about religious ritual, and Catholic ritual especially, about how filled with superstition it seems, about it relationship to Church history, about cannon law, about hell and purgatory in relationship to himself and all humans.

This is so unlike his recent posts on the same sexuality controversy in North Carolina Yearly Meeting, where even in those brief blog posts, Chuck ferrets out the motives, reasonings, etc. of the not-so Friendly leaders in that tribulation, that ocean of darkness.

Here's another particular example of a disconnected story from Chuck's book:
Suddenly, half way through his autobiography, we learn that his wife, Tish, has a severe drinking problem, and he moves out. Then he speaks of his own "sin."

Wait a minute!

We readers didn't even know he had met a girl, gotten married, had a kid, developed relationship problems, etc.

We have no idea about his views of sexuality.

Or his coming of age as a teen guy in the late 1950's.

Or how his wife developed her alcoholism, and why they couldn't work this out.

Meetings is a short autobiography so Chuck didn't have time or space to go into great detail, but a short 2-page lead-in on his youth and girls, his views on sexuality, and his life relating to women was very necessary.

And we get only a very brief glimpse of his relationship with his mother. And we learn nothing of his relationships with his siblings. We don't know about his views, his ethical and spiritual wrestlings.

All of those aspects are very important in understanding the sudden split, of his moving out to a friend's.

And how did he meet Tish, and their marriage?
Was it a Roman Catholic wedding?
Was she a practicing Catholic?
What were their views on birth control?

And most importantly: What are his reflections of how his spiritual and religious experience relates to his sexuality and marriage?

Then there is a girlfriend, called Sylvia. Again, we have no idea who, why, when or how this relates to his religious life.

Even more importantly, he fails to reflect on all of this and other unexplained vague statements about "sin."

And he mentions having sex after his wife and him split? Does he mean he engaged in fornication?

Does he go to confession? Or not? Why or why not?

At another point in the book, Chuck states that his class ring, "the red and gold band" is much more important than his wedding rings!!

He wrote that the ring took on "much more important" meanings.

Again, as a reader, I am left confused.

We readers don't need lots of private details, but we do need to understand--to feel and experience and think what he did.

I don't expect an autobiographical writer to completely bare his soul or his very private life, but without some details, some description, and extensive inner reflection, the reader is left confused and unmoved.

If Chuck does a revision--
I did about 7 on one of my book after its first edition--
he needs to keep in mind the old very truism of writing:
Show, don't tell.

And in a religious autobiography, REFLECT on your motives, your inner directions, your shadow, and how all parts of your life relate to the spiritual.

And Chuck needs to remember that in many cases, he didn't even tell.

He's right, "any religion that's worth it is built around stories."

And he ought to have added, any religion that's worth it reflects on its stories.

Shows potential.

Evaluation: C-

Tempest in a Quaker's Thumb, While the World Burns

Disclaimer: The issues dividing North Carolina Meeting and Northwest Yearly Meeting are serious, heartbreaking, and tragic. What I am about to say doesn’t deny that. Concerned people do need to reflect, reason, and discuss controversial issues in order that they may come together to bring hope and change and healing to those in need.

HOWEVER,

Meanwhile the world burns.

The United Nations refugee agency: "Nearly 60 million people have been driven from their homes by war and persecution, an unprecedented global exodus that has burdened fragile countries with waves of newcomers, and littered deserts and seas with the bodies of those who died trying to reach safety."

"The new figures paint a staggering picture of a world where new conflicts are erupting and old ones are refusing to subside, driving up the total number of displaced people to a record 59.5 million by the end of 2014, the most recent year tallied. Half of the displaced are children." (New York Times, June 18)

Of undocumented children detained in Australia for more than one year, 100 percent suffer from some form of mental illness because of their detention.

Think of all the excessive time and energy that is being spent on whether or not meetings can or can’t be part of two regional Friends Yearly Meetings, and how much valuable time and resources were wasted in Indiana Yearly Meeting for several years when it split.

What if instead of focusing on bureaucratic procedures from Faith and Practice, Friends INSTEAD took all that time, energy, and resources to start helping those 60 million people?! And got involved with the millions of other outreach needs--malnourished people, injustices, needed reconciliations, and the giving of hope.

Like so many religions, Quaker history has been rife with hairspitting;-). Shall I list all the controversies and splits?

How much did those thumb studies do to change the world, to rescue the perishing, care for the sick, minister to the suffering?

And what if instead of religious wrangling--spiritual gunslingers--Friends had heeded the call for empathy, compassion, and justice in 1688 when a few Friends protested slavery in 1688 in Germantown, Pennsylvania?

Instead, Friends put off that issue for almost 85 years! How much sorrow, injustice, and tragedy happened while Friends twiddled. And, then again in the 1800's when a few Friends rescued escaped slaves, meetings generally didn't want to get involved.

No, instead the petition against slavery by Francis Daniel Pastorius and three other Friends got lost in the meetings’ monthly, quarterly, and yearly meetings. Religious bureaucracy.

No action was taken!

How much different and better might American history have turned out?

Don’t we learn anything from our past?


In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox