9-4-22 - Prioritizing Our Passions

Prioritizing Our Passions

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

September 4, 2022

Job 37: 14-16

Hear this, Job.
        Pause where you are, and ponder the wonders of God.
Do you know how God orchestrates these marvels?
        How He makes the clouds flash with lightning?
Do you know how those same clouds are hung up in the sky or how they move?
        Do you know the wonders of God, who is perfect in His knowledge of such things?

Last week, I preached on the query, “What is your why?” and we also looked at the Japanese term, ikigai, which translated means “a reason for being.” I said the inspiration was Beth’s sermon the week prior on the difference between passion and obsessions.

I believe exploring our why is a first step in looking at our passions. This week, since we were supposed to be out in nature and in a different setting, I wanted us, like Job in our text, to be encouraged to “pause where we are and ponder the wonders of God” – and to realize the importance of getting a new perspective on helping us explore our passions, beliefs, and purposes.

Just being in the meditational woods (or an outdoor setting) can provide for us a new perspective, I hope sometime later this week you will get take the opportunity to step outside and ponder this message.    

Most of us at First Friends live in an urban environment instead of a rural one, and technology or our jobs keep us indoors most of the time. This means we are simply less healthy due to our withdrawal from the great outdoors. 

The good news is that by taking even the smallest steps (like reading a book on our patio, or taking a stroll around the local park, even worshiping outside once and a while) we can improve our body, mind, heart, and soul. 

Also, whether we’re the ‘outdoorsy type’ or not, nature has a lot to teach us about pursuing our greatest life, outside or otherwise.

I know for me, when I am stuck on a sermon, or some project I am working on, I head out and take a walk around my neighborhood. I don’t put my Airpods in my ears to listen to a book or music, and I turn off the ringer on my phone.

As I walk, I allow nature to speak to me. I allow my mind to be cleared, and seek to see things that I might not when just taking a walk.

I might watch the ducks in our pond or the majestic gray heron trying to catch a fish, sometimes I watch the playfulness of a squirrel or the slow pace of a turtle. I love to take in the cloud formations, the changing leaves, and even how the wind blows through the trees.

Different perspectives inspire me, offer me new opportunities, and even introduce me to new possibilities. Often after my walk, I can come back to my work with a new clarity and purpose. 

Also, during the summer we learn that what we choose to do on our off time or vacation, and what we think about while on holidays, indicates what we are passionate about in life. It often takes getting out of the routine of our lives and the spaces we frequent to see and experience new perspectives.

This is why as a family, Sue, me, and the boys have always loved road trips – short weekend ones or longer vacation road trips. When the stress of life, school, ministry, and teaching would get the best of us, Sue would often say, I think we need to get out of town.

In Oregon we lived about an hour from the coast. Often after church we would drive to the coast simply to walk the beach and watch the sunset before heading into a new week. I think that is one thing we miss the most from our time in Oregon. 

But we do similar things here when our weeks get stressful. For me, I like to take a break during my week and head out into our meditational woods. I love to sit and listen to the waterfall, the rustling of the trees, and watch all the wildlife.

On the weekends, Sue will research a place for us to go take a walk, this past week we drove to Zionsville to Starkey Nature Park and took a 2 mile walk through the beautiful woods and along the river.

Nature or the wilderness clears our minds, get us off our phones, and reconnects us with our breathing and listening – and it also encourages us to remember our purpose and rejuvenate our passions.   

What I have found is that when we are relaxed, in new surroundings, or observing life from a different perspective, we find that many of our interests and dreams easily surface. Some of Sue and my best conversations, decisions, even plans have come during road trips or walks in nature. 

A few months ago, Eric Baker started a group that does “walk and talk meet ups.”  They take walks in green spaces specifically to dialogue and discuss current issues. There is a beautiful connection to nature and working through our struggles.

All this kind of reminds me of things we see happening in the bible. Take for example the biblical character of Moses. He had a passion for helping the suffering Hebrew people, but to accomplish his passions he first had to spend time in the desert where God would get him ready to go to their rescue. God thought Moses needed a different perspective to be the most effective. 

As well, the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness where he was challenged to hone his passions and establish his purposes. When he came out of the wilderness, he began preaching and teaching his message of hope.

This morning, I was hoping to be out in nature, and getting a different perspective just by being out there, but that may have to come later.  Let’s be flexible this morning and continue the following exercise I had planned.   

We started last week in looking at our why or ikigai, and this week, I want to challenge us to take some more time in doing what is called “passion-prioritizing.” 

Beliefnet.com offered the following exercise that has helped me, and I would like to share it with you this morning. 

Beliefnet.com believes the end-of-summer is the perfect time to get our passions in order. Warm weather makes us either wilt in the heat or chase after every dream we ever had because the back-to-business seriousness of fall and winter are coming.

So here is the exercise. (Take out the green insert in your bulletin,)

1.     Start by making a list of your current passions. 

One might be a hobby.

One might be a relationship.

One might be a dream.  

2.     Next to each passion, write down whether or not you think you have to suffer for it. 

Are your fingers nicked from failed attempts to accomplish a perfectly julienned carrot? 

Does your significant other drive you crazy? 

Are you wrestling with the title for the short story you’ve been sweating over?  

3.     Ask yourself if each passion is worth it. 

Looking at your list, are there any that no longer give you that spark of excitement, curiosity, drive, and life force that they once did? 

Passions that once consumed us might suddenly no longer rank. That’s ok, letting go of an old passion can free you up for a new one.

I’m curious to know what’s left on your list, and why you still endure your passions. Or, do you disagree with the notion of passion’s inherent connection with suffering? 

Are your passions more purely joyful than deliciously difficult? 

These are some good queries for us to ponder this morning.

So, as we head into waiting worship, take this time to gain a new perspective. Take this time to answer the queries I just posed and see what passions arise in your hearts and which you may want to let go.

If you feel led to share or God puts something on your heart for the Meeting, please step up to one of the microphones at the front or back of the Meetinghouse.

Let’s take this time this morning.

8-28-22 - What Is Your Why? Ikigai

What Is Your Why? Ikigai

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

August 28, 2022

Good morning, Friends and welcome to Light Reflections. The scripture passage for this morning is a short one – again it is one of the proverbs from the Old Testament, Proverbs 20:5 from the New Revised Standard Version.

The purposes in the human mind are like deep water,

    but the intelligent will draw them out.

A few weeks ago now, I preached on the query that Gene Siskel gave Oprah Winfrey in 1998 – What do you know for sure? And we have had a great deal of rich conversation and dialogue around that query. It has really spoken to the condition of some in our meeting and I personally have benefit from the ongoing exploration with you. 

Today, I want to introduce another query that I have heard a great deal, lately. It was prompted by Beth Henrick’s excellent message last week on the difference between passion and obsession. As Beth talked about St. Francis’ passion I began to wonder, “How St. Francis would answer this query?” But better yet, I think we all need to ask this query of ourselves to really know where our beliefs, values, passions, and purpose come from. 

So, let’s ponder the following query this morning – What is your why?  

Maybe grab a pencil or pen and write that down on a piece of paper this morning - What is your why?

In Japanese they have a term for this query. It is the term “ikigai” (yes, that sounds strange, but that is how it is said) – which translated means “a reason for being” and is anything that gives a deep sense of purpose to a person’s life and makes it worthwhile. It could be considered what you get up for every morning.

I first was introduced to ikigai by Rob Bell in his book, “How to Be Here” where he says, “Your ikigai is a work in progress because you are a work in progress. Knowing your ikigai, then, takes patience and insight, and courage, and honesty.”

Someone once suggested that we can begin to explore our why or ikigai, by going back and looking at our favorite movies when we were kids. What was your favorite movie as a kid?

I know for me, I liked Star Wars and still do, but one of my all-time favorite movies while I was in high school was the 1987 hit, “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” starring Steve Martin and the late John Candy. Some consider it the quintessential Thanksgiving movie. I know in the Henry household we watch it almost everything Thanksgiving.

During high school, my friend Rob and I loved this movie so much we wrote out the script and had most of the lines memorized after hundreds of viewings.

Looking back, today, I find it almost weird that this movie captured us, because there is very little a high schooler should relate to or even be drawn in by this movie. 

Just listen to the description on Google:

Easily excitable Neal Page (played by Steve Martin) is somewhat of a control freak. Trying to get home to Chicago to spend Thanksgiving with his wife and kids, his flight is rerouted to a distant city in Kansas because of a freak snowstorm, and his sanity begins to fray. Worse yet, he is forced to bunk up with talkative Del Griffith (played by John Candy), whom he finds extremely annoying. Together they must overcome the insanity of holiday travel to reach their intended destination.

That same year was the The Lost Boys, Dirty Dancing, Princess Bride, Adventures in Babysitting, Robocop, and so many more, but somehow, I gravitated to a humorous story about two middle-aged men trying to get home for the holidays. 

As our kids were being raised, I took some years off from watching Planes, Trains and Automobiles, but when I thought they were old enough to enjoy the movie, I shared it with them as almost a rite of passage. We laughed together through the “Those aren’t pillows” and “You’re going the wrong way – how do they know which way were going?” scenes just like I did throughout high school. 

But then came the end of the movie where Neal Page has finally rid himself of Del Griffith and is headed home to celebrate Thanksgiving with his wife and kids. As he sits looking exhausted on the L-train in Chicago from his crazy road trip from hell with Del, he begins to put the pieces together and realizes Del Griffith was actually a homeless man, whose wife had died a long time ago, and he had no home to go to for Thanksgiving.

In coming to this realization, Neal’s heart changes and he takes the train back to where he left Del, only to find him sitting there alone in the station. Neal proceeds to take Del home to celebrate Thanksgiving with his family.   

As I was watching the movie with my boys, I began to cry almost uncontrollably. Not once had I ever cried while watching this movie in high school, except maybe tears of laughter. Yet, I sense somewhere deep down, when I was watching that movie with my friend in high school and with my family later on, I had actually been connecting to my “why” all along.  

Maybe ask yourself this week - What was my favorite movie growing up? And what might it be saying about my “why”?

Now, I am sure looking at the movies isn’t all we will need to do to find our “why.”  We might also want to ask ourselves some more queries. Like, Why do I do the things I do, in my work (or retirement) and in my personal life?

I’ll be the first to admit it. For just over a decade of my adult life, I didn’t really stop to think much about why I did what I did. In ministry it seems almost a given.

Yet, I was also often in survival mode as is the reality for those in ministry trying to raise a family. Although I have enjoyed many things about my life and ministry, I was kind of living, on many occasions, on autopilot and never really taking the time to stop and reflect on what the point of all of it was.

That is why several years ago, I began going on personal retreats (weekend or week-long retreats) where I often work through some queries that both remind me and challenge me to get to the “why” behind my passions. Sometimes I need to be reminded and sometimes I need to learn new reasons and new aspects of my “why” to keep me going. 

Take for instance, last year, on my personal retreat I explored my “why” by looking at my doubt – something that for many pastors is almost a forbidden subject. On the second day of my week-long retreat, I began to dig deeper, I wrote in my journey the following query:

Who am I without God, without Jesus, without the Holy Spirit, without Christian faith? Would there be a recognizable me left if I lost my faith?

For the next four days I wrestled with the very core of “What is my why?” I came away both challenged, inspired, and renewed. 

I think Howard Thurman said it so well. He said, “Cultivate the discipline of listening to the sound of the genuine in yourself.”  We all need to listen to what is genuinely us – not what someone else put in there for us, or that our environment has produced.

As I dedicated time cultivating that discipline of listening deeply to my own soul in that personal retreat, I found myself where Brian McLaren says doubt leads us: to the crossroads of bitter and better. This is a crossroad where I must make some personal choices. Where I choose whether my “why” will be shaped by breakthrough or break down, love or despair, being hollow or holy, and by choosing to listen to cynics or sages.    

I would be more than willing to share more of this discovery with any of you over lunch some time – or you might want to pick up Brian McLaren’s book, “Faith after Doubt.” I highly recommend it. 

But let’s get back to the present moment, without going on a retreat, how can we begin to explore “What is our why?” right now? 

Leadership Coach, Sarah Kreischer says we can start by honestly exploring these queries (they are on the back of your bulletin),

·       Why do you do what you do? And why is that important to you?

·       Why do you get out of bed every day?

·       What do you believe at your very core?

·       What is the one reason you keep coming back to, regardless of what you’re doing or how you’re doing it?

She then says, “When you think about the answers to these questions, which answer makes you feel most alive? Which answer would you be the most excited to share with someone else?”

Again, it sounds a lot like Howard Thurman when he said, “Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

A few years ago, as I was doing research for a sermon, I came across a lecture on the number of questions Jesus asked in the Bible. Did you know that there are 339 questions of Jesus recorded in scripture. 

In Matthew Jesus asked 109 questions.

In Mark Jesus asked 68 questions.

In Luke Jesus asked 107 questions.

And in John Jesus asked 55 questions. 

That totals 339 questions in all.

I believe that Jesus knew that asking questions was not only a far more effective way to connect and engage with people, but it was a better way to help them discover their purpose, to help them come to their own conclusions, to make their own decisions, and find their “why” - than it ever would be to simply tell them what to do and why to do it!

Or as Kerry Dearborn, a professor emerita of theology at Seattle Pacific University said,

“I’m convinced Jesus used questions and stories as a means of connection and transformation — to awaken us, to whet our appetites, to invite us to draw nearer, that we might open up more fully to God and to God’s purposes in and for us.”

As we explore “What is our why? May it awaken us, whet our appetites, and invite us closer to the God of the Universe and to one another. 

Now, as we enter waiting worship, I ask you to return to those queries I read earlier.

·       Why do you do what you do? And why is that important to you?

·       Why do you get out of bed every day?

·       What do you believe at your very core?

·       What is the one reason you keep coming back to, regardless of what you’re doing or how you’re doing it?

8-21-22 - Passion or Obsession - What Is the Difference?

Passion or Obsession – What is the Difference?

A Pilgrimage to Eternity

Timothy Egan

Sermon 08-21-22 by Beth Henricks

Our scripture reading this morning is Matthew 23:13-15 NRSV – from the teachings of Jesus 

“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.

I looked up the word passion in the Merriam dictionary this week as I have always had a strong attachment to this word and how it plays out in our lives.  There are a few definitions –

A strong liking or desire for or devotion to some activity, object or concept, an object of desire or deep interest, ardent affection, sexual desire, emotional, an outbreak of anger (like a crime of passion) the state or capacity of being acted on by external agents or forces and when capitalized means the sufferings of Christ between the night of the Last Supper and his death.  Wow, I never thought about the diversity of how this word has come to be used in our culture. 

I’ve always thought of passion as an energy force that gets one excited, gets one motivated to do something and comes from the heart.  When I was younger, I thought more about passion between two people that were falling in love.  It seems like everything the other person does is wonderful, and our passion feels intense and deep.  As couples age together the intensity of that passion might dwindle a bit but in the best of relationships the passion might manifest itself more in acts of service and devotion to the other person. 

The passion that Jesus had for humanity connects with many of these definitions.  Jesus desire for each of us to be whole and healthy, loving ourselves and our neighbors and enemies.  He was willing to sacrifice his life out his passion for us and showing us a different way to respond to oppression and violence.  I think Jesus was the ultimate passionate person in his devotion, his ardent affection, his deep and abiding love for us. 

I started thinking about the difference between passion and obsession as I have been reading the book by Tim Egan, A Pilgrimage to Eternity ( a borrowed and recommended book by Phil Goodchild).  It’s been a fascinating journey that Tim recorded over a number of months on his physical and spiritual pilgrimage along the Via Francigena, (Fransigena) once the major medieval trail leading the devout from Canterbury England through small towns in France, Switzerland and Italy to finally make it to Rome.  Many have walked this path or a part of this path for the last 800 years.

Egan shares a chapter as he enters the monastery that St Francis founded above San Miniato in Italy about eight hundred years ago.   Most of us have heard something about St Francis and are familiar with his prayer –

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.

We might know a bit of his story and it is quite a story.  Francis was born into a well to do family in 1182 in Italy.   He would have a comfortable life  to follow in the footsteps  of his successful merchant father. Francis in his 20’s was quite the wild man and would party all-night, sleep-in till noon, and wanted to be a knight.   Probably typical of most 20 something young people back in the 13th century.  To prove himself, he goes to war against his neighboring town of Perugia.  He was not successful and was beaten, captured and sent to a dungeon and was only released because his father had the money to pay his ransom.   When he returns home, he still wants to be a warrior, but this experience has changed him.  He becomes depressed and yet joins other Christians traveling to the Holy Land as the Pope promised absolution for any participation in war.  On his first night on the trip Francis had a dramatic dream that he can’t dismiss.  The next day he meets a leper on the road that is a person living in the shadows.  He gets off his horse and grabs the man’s hand and kisses him because he is so moved.  This encounter changes his life.   He is incredibly taken by the encounter and begins to fast and pray.  He heard Christ SAY TO HIM, ‘”repair my church, it’s broken, corrupt, run by charlatans and hypocrites.” Francis goes home to tell his father of his mystical experience and his desire to shed himself of all outward trappings of wealth and privilege and to serve the poor and oppressed.  His father is not happy and in fact tries to force him to remain at home, but Francis knows his calling and takes off  with no possessions, no status, no home and yet this is when his depression lifted.  Townspeople thought he was crazy, he lived in a cave, begged for his food, sang with the birds, and had a joyous spirit.  He once said, “It is not fitting, when one is in God’s service, to have a gloomy face or a chilling look.”    Francis began attracting followers to this way of life and he and other travelers traveled to the Pope to ask if they could establish a new religious order. The Pope informally granted them approval and established the Franciscan order in Italy.  These converts lived simply, had no possessions, offered help to the poor and oppressed and shared the message of Jesus.  Francis became more well known throughout Italy as time went on. 

During these times, the Pope and the Church were persecuting heretics, Jews and looking for new war with Islam.  Francis goes to visit the Pope and convinces him over a 7-year period to allow him to travel to meet with the Sultan of Egypt offering an alternative to killing each other.  They listen to each other and learn about their respective religions, their shared religious history, and each offers admiration of  certain things about the others religion.  The experience had Francis urging his followers to open their hearts to those that his pope wants to hate and kill. 

Francis attracted more and more followers and within 10 years of his death at age 45 there were 5,000 Franciscans.  While the Franciscans wanted reform of their church, they never left the church but tried to influence it from within.  Today, we all know St Francis, the Franciscan religious order is the largest one in the Catholic church and St Francis is embraced by people of faith trying to live by his words, “preach the Gospel at all times.  When necessary, use woods.”

As our author continued his travels along the Via Francigena, he came upon the town of Florence.  Some of you have been to Florence to see the statute of David, many other beautiful statutes, frescos, paintings, and all sorts of art.  It has come to be known as the city of art.  But in 1482 a devout man of God by the name of Girolamo Savonarola came to Florence.  His background was very similar to St Francis.  He came from a privileged home and denounced his wealth and position and entered a life of self-denial and devotion to the Catholic Church.  Like Francis, his family denounced him, and he slept on a hard surface in a cold room.  Both of them saw the excesses of the Catholic church and wanted reform.  But when Savonarola became the abbot at the San Marco monastery outside of Florence, he became obsessed with the literature and art that Florence was enjoying.  He thought it was pagan, evil, sensual, and exuberant.  He focused on the darkest parts of the book of Revelation and thought the people wicked and God would soon punish them.  He said, “I am the hailstorm that shall smash the head of those who do not take cover.”  He was hell bent on rooting out corruption and punishing those that did not follow God including leaders in the Catholic church.  During his time, the Church remained very corrupt, and Savonarola became angry and obsessed with destroying anyone who opposed him.  He denounced the wealthiest family in Europe the Medici family and when they had to flee the country Savonarola became the de facto ruler of Florence.  He had a youthful mob of people in service to theocracy, carrying out his vicious acts.  They went home to home confiscated art, literature, perfume, playing cards, musical instruments, fine clothes etc. and lit the Bonfire of the Vanities in 1497 in the main plaza of Florence.  He wanted Florence to become a “City of God”  Many were tortured and killed as heretics.

The next winter, crops were in short supply, money disappeared because there was no free trade and people grew hungry.  Another mob of the people turned on Savonarola, not understanding why God would do this to them when they had become the city of God.  They now went after Savonarola and his disciples, and had them arrested, tortured, and killed. 

Two men with similar backgrounds, devoted to the Gospel of Christ yet one allowed passion to turn into obsession and the other let his passion flourish and fly towards the Light.  How did Savonarola start out with such good intentions, searching for the divine end up a violent man that was swollen with his own sense of pride and power.   He just could not see God in poetry, art, music, and laughter.  It wasn’t about the Spirit for him it was about sin, punishment and believing the right thing. 

So here we have a man, St Francis that is as beloved today as 800 years ago.  His legacy is large and the path he showed us is one to follow into God’s love and light.  Then there is Girolamo Savonarola, who no one has ever heard of, has no legacy or following  and gave us an example of how devotion and self-denial to God can turn into an obsession with destructive consequences.   Egan makes this comparison in his book, “The dichotomy of these two men is the dichotomy of the Christian faith, one side struggling against the other, an open heart against a fist.”

We can see this play out today in our churches and denominations.   Adherence to right belief can go from passion to obsession.  Holding on to anything too tightly can turn something with energy, with purpose and with passion into something that is small minded, ugly, and not full of God’s light and love.  One of Francis’s core beliefs with his followers is that they were inferior to all and superior to none.  This is the staying power to Francis’s message – humility.   May we embrace this attitude of St Francis and live by this phrase from him “Start by doing what is necessary, then do what is possible and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” That is where passion should live.  

As we enter our time of unprogrammed worship, I offer a few queries for contemplation  -

Have any of my passions become obsessions?

Do I live in humility and not hold my passions too tightly?

How do I more passionately follow the path of St Francis?

8-7-22 - Valuing Education

Valuing Education

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

August 7, 2022

Welcome to Light Reflections, this week our scripture is one of the many proverbs in scripture.  It is from Proverbs 18 verse 15, and I am reading it from the Message Translation.

 Wise men and women are always learning,
    always listening for fresh insights.

This week, many of us are thinking about school – especially as most children, youth, teachers, educators, and administrators headed back to the classroom this week in Indy.  While I was growing up, the first day back always entailed a lot of anticipation, anxiety, stories of summer trips, and yes exhaustion from usually sleeping in until noon for the prior two months. 

Thinking back, most of my memories from the first days back to school are rather boring.  I remember having typical issues with my locker combination, going to the wrong classroom one time, and in jr. high deciding to wear way too much of my new school clothing on the first day of school and almost over heating since it was in the upper 80s and we had no air conditioning – but boy was I styling in my Coca-Cola long-sleeve shirt, jeans and new denim jacket on the last week of August in Indiana. (Most of high school our son, Lewis wore shorts, even when it was 23 degrees and snowing.)    

But not all First days of school are typical, let me read you some stories people shared from allmomdoes.com.   

“When my son started first grade, he forgot to get off the bus on his way home. When the bus driver finished his route, he asked him where he lived and he said he didn’t know!”

“My first day of kindergarten had been such a fun and exciting day, and I’d met a little boy who was my new friend. I was so wound up and excited on the way home on the bus that I threw up on him… In my favorite striped tights!”

“On my son’s first day of riding the school bus, he fell asleep and didn’t get off the bus! The bus went back to the garage! I called the school to let them know that he never got off the bus and the bus driver went to the back of the bus and found him sound asleep!”

“I remember my mom always telling me to wear underwear in case you got in an accident. So, when I started grade one or two I didn’t wear any and decided to play on the monkey bars! The teacher brought me in to ask me why I wasn’t wearing any and I told her that I didn’t want to get in an accident and miss school.”

As I was reading these stories, I was struck by a memory I had tried to forget from my first day of high school. The first day of high school is full of so many anxieties, but I was confidently going to take my new high school by storm. I dressed up for the first day as a freshmen, looked very preppy – as we said back then, had my backpack and tennis bag for practice after school, and was determined to get to my locker and hang out with some friends for a while before my first class.

But as I was heading in, I decided I better use the restroom before starting my day. Thinking on my feet, I chose to use the restroom across from the counseling services and the Vice Principal’s office since it would be low traffic.  I proceeded in and found it completely empty.  Never being in this restroom before, I was taken-a-back by the round trough-style urinal in the middle of the room (please note: I was completely unaware of the wall-style urinals on the wall directly behind me).  As I am taking care of business, the Vice Principal of all people comes in, gives me the weirdest look, and simply steps on the bar on the floor around what I thought was the round urinal and begins to wash his hands.

In my horror, I finished, looked around and realized there were no sinks. The Vice Principal smiled and said, “First Day of High School?” I answered “yep” and ran out as quick as possible.         

Now, let’s get a bit more serious. Education is vitally important in our world, today. It has always been vitally important to Quakers as well.

Even though Quakers would never say that education alone was sufficient to make anyone a minister (which we all are), it has always had an important role in the Society of Friends. 

In many ways, early Quakers were blazing a trail for providing education for all people. George Fox advised in his day that schools should be provided for both “girls and young maidens” as well as for boys, “in whatever things were civil and useful in the creation.”

William Penn also held and expressed at length advanced views on the importance of right methods and aims in the education of children.

Private Schools were opened in Pennsylvania as early as 1683, but with Penn’s work Friends opened public schools in Philadelphia as early as 1689 for all people, even girls, Native Americans, immigrants, and former slaves. They believed from the outset that schools could nurture ‘that of God’ in everyone and should therefore be available to all. 

But I would be remiss, if I did not say that not all schools had the intentions that Penn wanted, some became elitist, others became anything but public, and some were no different than the Native Boarding Schools Pope Francis has been asking forgiveness from among the Native Americans and Indigenous people of Canada. This was wrong, and we too must acknowledge our involvement.      

Yet, Penn’s original intentions and his public schools put Friends on the cutting edge of the development of educational opportunities and standards in the United States. Actually, the Quaker elementary and secondary schools in several states are still today considered the forerunners of the public school system. My wife, Sue, a public school teacher, often goes to conferences where she learns about the Quaker influence and foundations for Public Schools right here in Indiana.  

One of the reasons, I believe this is so important, not just because I am married to a public school teacher, is because education to Quakers was originally intended to be holistic, to teach critical thinking, to help people engage with the planet, their communities, their neighbors, and their experience with God.

For the last week, I have been putting together our Fall Sermon Series. While looking specifically at the set of queries offered to us in our Faith and Practice, I turned to a section titled, “Education.” I rarely quote from our Faith and Practice for multiple reasons, but this day, I was drawn to a quote under the sub-heading the “Aim of Education.”  It begins with this line from London Yearly Meeting in 1924:

The aim of education is the full and harmonious development of the

resources of the human spirit.

This sounds much like what Nobel Prize in Literature winner Rabindranath Tagore said almost the same year Quakers wrote that statement in London.  He said,

“The highest education is that which does not merely give us information

but makes our life in harmony with all existence.”

Let’s be honest, education is about way more than taking tests, getting degrees, and for that matter it is more than a vocation or even a career.  As the London Yearly Meeting concluded,

“The person whose mind is many sided has a special contribution to make to the solution of the complex personal and social problems of modern life.”

Now, obviously, we are a Meeting and not a public school, but I believe First Friends is dedicated to developing that “many sided mind” for the sake of our neighbors and world. 

From early on, the Quaker understanding of education has had some common characteristics that I believe we need to return to, embrace again, and even instill in our lives and in the lives of our children (and adults), today.

To become people with “many sided minds” that can contribute and make needed changes to the complex personal and social problems of current times, we need to be people who are willing to

Learn through inquiry – this begins with what I talked about last week in my sermon – asking ourselves and our neighbors queries that prompt us to go deeper and even wrestle with our beliefs. One of the best people I know at this is Beth Henricks, our associate pastor.  She is always asking questions in meetings and conversations.  Sometimes, it surprises me, but it always leads to more knowledge.

It also means being willing to learn new things – like our friend, Kent Farr who told us last week he ordered a text-book on dinosaurs.  You and I need to be continual learners, constantly asking questions, wanting to know what, when, how, and why, instead of blindly following people, especially politicians, authorities, yes, even your pastor. I know you don’t always agree with me, but when you don’t I hope you take the time to inquire about why? 

We also need to be people who learn through reflection.  This also has something to do with last week’s message. To reflectively learn means to take time to analyze your own beliefs and experiences. To test what you know and what you think you know. Taking time for reflection may happen through waiting worship, or through times of silence and solitude, retreats, even moments of pause.  I know for me; I like to turn off the car radio on occasion and reflect on my commute.  

As well, we need to learn through collaboration or working together. Often Quakerism can be seen as a very individualistic society. Yet, I believe our greatest learning opportunities arise when we interact and collaborate with people, especially those different than us – and let’s admit it – EVERYONE is different than us.

We all have differing views, beliefs, and experiences. Sure, we have similarities and at time stark contrasts, but when we take the time to really get to know our neighbors and fellow friends, things begin to change. It is part of that harmonious aspect Quakers sought. We must admit that part of the process of educating ourselves is being able to acknowledge our differences AND challenge one another to new possibilities.   

We also need to learn through service. As I was reflecting about my high school days this week, I also remembered all the service events I took part in during high school. From drywalling apartments in South Carolina for the Daughters of the Confederacy with my youth group after a hurricane destroyed their homes to building a playground at our church camp that still is standing today for families to enjoy. Each time we serve, make a meal for someone, drive someone to an appointment, clean the snow off someone’s driveway, serve at the food pantry, you name it, we learn something about ourselves and about others.       

This then leads to one of the most important aspects - building a culture of respect for all people. I continue to hear that America has lost its culture of respect and when I turn on the news and watch what is going on around me, it is hard not to agree. 

Yet, when I see something lost or missing in our world, my first response is we need to teach this again. This also I believe is the Quaker Way.

Building respect takes time, and as a society of friends we need to lead by example in our world, today.

To learn a culture of respect begins with being willing to, at the least, listening to one another.

And to grow that respect will also take learning to care for people and help them.

And as one of my mentors taught me – respect comes when you encourage people to be themselves instead of trying to change them into what you want.

Too often the church has done just that, and it has left us asking for forgiveness one too many times.   

I sense that if we committed to just those three things this week – listening, caring, and encouraging people to be themselves, we would begin to see the change needed in our world, today.

Let me stop there this week and let’s take some time to ponder how we can continue to educate ourselves and be an example to our world.  Ask yourself:  

What questions do I need to be asking about life?

When do I find time to pause and reflect?

Who could I work alongside and collaborate with? 

Who should I be serving, caring for, and helping?

And how am I helping create a culture of respect at First Friends, in my family, and in my community?

Let us ponder these queries as we enter waiting worship this morning.

7-31-22 - To Have an Interrogative Soul

To Have an Interrogative Soul 

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry 

July 31, 2022

Psalm 26:2 (The Voice):  

Put me on trial and examine me, O Eternal One!    Search me through and through—from my deepest longings to every thought that crosses my mind.

Last Sunday morning, I was at home still feeling horrible from whatever bug I had caught at the Yearly Meeting Sessions. After joining the Zoom for morning worship, I decided to take a brief nap, since I had not slept much the night before. 

When I awoke, I did not feel like reading or writing, so I began flipping through the TV channels. Most Sundays, I do not watch TV around the noon hour - because I do not get home until 2 or 3pm after worship, fellowship, and lunch.  

Soon I came across the OWN Channel and airing that morning was a Special Super Soul Sunday hosted by Oprah Winfrey. On many occasions I have watched Super Soul Sunday where Oprah has interviewed many of the people, I have found helpful in my own spiritual journey – from Richard Rohr and Rob Bell to Elizabeth Gilbert and Marianne Williamson.  This special, last Sunday was a “Best Of” show based around a set of queries Oprah asks each of her guests.  

I found the Super Soul Sunday special almost Quakerly in nature because of its focus on queries. Listening to different people respond about everything from what sustains them during difficult times, to what it means to be spiritual. Close to the end of the special, after many great answers and deep thoughts from some of the greatest thinkers today were shared, Oprah revealed a query that she once received that literally altered her world. A query that she said stopped her in her tracks.  

The query was presented to Oprah at the end of a live television interview with the famous film critic, Gene Siskel. Most of us probably remember “At the Movies” with Siskel and Ebert where they would give their famous thumbs up and thumbs down sending movies on to box-office success or failure.  At the time, Oprah was concluding the live interview with Siskel about her upcoming movie, “Beloved,” when, to her surprise, he asked Oprah one last question. He said, “Tell me, what do you know for sure?”  

Oprah recalled that the question completely threw her.  She stumbled to answer it and even felt embarrassed on live television. She says she went home and for two full days could not stop pondering the query.  

What do you know for sure?

The Super Soul Sunday special I was watching took several minutes showing her guests wrestling with that query.  I quickly grabbed a piece of paper and wrote it down, “What do you know for sure?” For the rest of the afternoon, this query haunted me a bit.  

I found myself going back through the years and reminiscing about all that I thought I knew for sure yet through experience and maturity have learned I don’t know at all.  

I thought of all the things that the church I was raised in told me were for sure and how I don’t believe many of them anymore.  

I even thought of the things that people I once trusted said were for sure that I have found were simply lies. 

It was weird how a query that asks about what I know, has me quickly delving into the opposite and thinking about what all I really don’t know.  

I think this is the power of good query.  Probably the reason Quakers found them a central part of the Quaker Way.  My friend, author and fellow Quaker minister Phil Gulley wrote this about Quakers and queries in his book, “Living the Quaker Way.”  Phil says, 

“The queries are a series of self-directed questions we employ to evaluate our emotional, spiritual, and relational health. Some of the queries are centuries old, others of them newer, speaking to more modern concerns and insights. They vary from one yearly meeting to another, though there is often overlap. Some friends write personal queries to aid in their own development. Many Friends use them as a guide in worship and daily reflection. Ideally, they are read one at a time, in an unhurried manner, allowing the question posed to be absorbed and considered. I have known some Friends to keep a single query at the center of attention for an entire year, allowing it to gradually modify their behavior in a desired direction…

Phil then concludes by saying, 

“The point of the queries is simple: to encourage honest self-evaluation in light of our Quaker values and priorities. They focus scrutiny on ourselves and away from others. We do not use the queries to assess anyone’s life other than our own, casting light on those areas of our lives that we need to develop.”

For Oprah, that query presented to her by Gene Siskel became almost a life query – a query she has wrestled with for many years now and has continued to both ask herself and those she meets.  In each issue of her magazine “O” she has a column where she writes what she is discovering about this query. This one query even helped prompt her to start the Super Soul Sundays interviews where most times she asks her guests to answer, “What do you know for sure?”  

Did you know Oprah is following a tradition that goes back at least as far as Socrates and is considered the beginning of what we label critical thinking, today. Socrates had created a tradition to reflectively question common beliefs and explanations and include logic, reason, and experience in the process. Socrates maintained that for an individual to have a good life or a life that is worth living, they must be a critical questioner or must have an interrogative soul. I like that terminology – having an interrogative soul.  

This was clearly at the heart of the matriarch of Quakerism, Margaret Fell’s spiritual journey. Listen to these strong words she once uttered about having an interrogative soul: 

“Now, Friends, deal plainly with yourselves, and let the eternal Light search you, and try you, for the good of your souls. For this will deal plainly with you. It will rip you up, and lay you open, and make all manifest which lodges in you; the secret subtlety of the enemy of your souls, this eternal searcher and trier will make manifest. Therefore, all to this come, and by this be searched, and judged, and led and guided. For to this you must stand or fall.”

If you were wondering how long queries have been part of the Quaker faith, let me explain further. The first reference to queries among Quakers comes in George Fox’s journal in 1657. There he writes of queries that he posed to local professors and priests to challenge their spiritual insights. The first official recorded Quaker queries were used in the 1660’s as the Quaker movement began to be more organized: It was London Yearly Meeting that first used them to gauge the health of the Society and provide specific information about their leadings. 

365 years later, each week we still offer queries to help explore the depths of our souls.  

So, I ask you this morning some queries pertaining to this message: 

• As Quakers do you and I have interrogative souls?  

• Are we allowing the Spirit to use the queries presented to us to rip us up, lay us open, and make manifest what is truly in our souls?  

• Are we utilizing the gifts we have been given to critically think or are we simply blindly following those in leadership before us? 

• Do we spend more time scrutinizing others instead of first scrutinizing our own souls? 

For me, that query Gene Siskel presented to Oprah Winfrey, “What do you know for sure?” had me interrogating my soul. For the last week, it has ripped me up, laid me open, and made me manifest and tap the deeper aspects of my soul.  This one query has had me critically thinking more than I have in a while and it has challenged me to consider those I have been blindly following. And as I have begun to take the focus off what others are doing, or lacking, or misunderstanding, I am able to sense in a much deeper way the Spirit within me and how it is leading me to make difference in this world. 

I might unpack some of what I am learning from answering this query in the coming weeks, but until then, all I ask of you is to join me this morning in simply pondering that one query, “What do you know for sure?” and seeing where the Spirit leads you. Let us now enter a time of waiting worship where we allow the Spirit to interrogate our souls and bring Light to our conditions.  

7-17-22 - To Nurture the Growth of Something Growing Within

To Nurture the Growth of Something Growing Within

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

July 17, 2022

Good morning, Friends and welcome to Light Reflections.  The scripture reading chosen for today is from Romans 8:22-28, the Message Version. 

All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.

Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

If there is one thing I have noticed lately, which has seemingly become worse in our world, it is the lack of patience.  Most of the world seems simply reactionary these days.  I know I have been impatient on many occasions, especially as things in our world seem to spin out of control, but I am starting to recognize my condition needing more patient waiting.  

I think if the pandemic has taught us anything, it IS having to patiently wait on the outcome. Many struggled and continue to struggle with patience coming out of the pandemic. To think we waited over a year for a vaccine seems almost crazy in our instant society, yet, I think there is much more we can learn about patience that may even be supported and encouraged by our Quaker Faith. 

Just before the pandemic, Dr. Judith Orloff wrote an article entitled “The Power of Patience.” To me, it has been wisdom for our frustrated and impatient ways. I continue to come back to it both as a reminder and as a vision for hope. Here is a snip-it of what she had to say,

We need a new bumper sticker: FRUSTRATION HAPPENS. Every morning, noon, and night there are plenty of good reasons to be impatient. Another long line. Telemarketers. A goal isn’t materializing “fast enough.” People don’t do what they’re supposed to. Rejection. Disappointment. How to deal with it all? You can drive yourself crazy, behave irritably, feel victimized, or try to force an outcome--all self-defeating reactions that alienate others and bring out the worst in them, or, you can learn to transform frustration with patience.

Patience doesn’t mean passivity or resignation, but power. It’s an emotionally freeing practice of waiting, watching, and knowing when to act.

I want to give patience a twenty-first-century makeover, so you’ll appreciate its worth. Patience has gotten a bad rap for the wrong reasons.

Too many people, when you say, “Have patience,” it feels unreasonable and inhibiting, an unfair stalling of aspirations, some Victorian hang-up or hangover. Is this what you’re thinking?

Well, reconsider. I’m presenting patience as a form of compassion, a re-attuning to intuition, a way to emotionally redeem your center in a world filled with frustration.

I like what she is getting at, that when we look at patience as a difficult thing, or something to get over, patience becomes problematic instead of helpful.

Wouldn’t it be life-altering to look at patience as a form of compassion, a re-attuning to intuition, a way to emotionally redeem one’s center?  I sense it would be greatly beneficial, and I could see how it immediately would make a difference in our personal and corporate lives.

I don’t know about you, but what I believe Dr. Orloff is talking about seems very Quakerly in orientation and process.

Early Quakers were known to discover what they called a “third way” to respond to “the presence of darkness” within their own hearts and in the surrounding society. They wanted to find ways to move toward the Light. They also did not want to hide from the truth, nor wallow in their own issues.

Early Quakers clearly knew that playing the “blame game” was not going to help move them toward the light, so instead, they embraced “patient waiting,” to help them be more compassionate to their neighbors, to help re-focus themselves on seeking after truth, and to ultimately center themselves before making decisions.

If you notice, Dr. Orloff’s makeover is simply taking us back to our Quaker roots.   

In many religions, as well as Quakerism, darkness and light are the metaphors used to help one see the stark contrast of the good and bad parts of life and even the Divine. 

It still is being engrained in our culture, the number one series on Netflix, Stanger Things is all about two worlds of darkness and light.  And just as in the series, our “darkness" comes both from within and from without.

When working to acknowledge the “darkness” within and around us, the  frustration we sense, and the externals pressures of this world, waiting in patience is what Dr. Orloff says, “draws us inward to a greater wisdom….” It connects us to, what we Quakers call, our inner light and to how we are to respond to the world around us.

Thus, patience leads us to being enlightened, as well as learning how to take appropriate action.

Quaker Doug Gwyn says “Patience is an active condition of the Spirit... It can survive the long haul of transformation. But it is not fed on the bitter fruit of resentment.” 

Patience is the tool, or maybe the conduit to help our transformation and action to take shape.

Dr. Orloff adds, “…patience doesn’t make you a doormat or unable to set boundaries with people…Rather, it lets you intuit the situations to get a larger more loving view to determine right action.”

Thus, patience is what helps us love and act in ways that are beneficial to our community.

For the last couple months, I have been challenging myself to take moments of pause, to intentionally wait to respond to emails, texts, and phone messages, and instead of quickly responding allowing myself to think through things before answering.  I am sure it has bothered other people as much as it has bothered me on occasion.

I will be honest, this is not easy for me, personally – especially since I like to process out loud and dialogue about things in the moment.

It continues to be a discipline for me to seek patience, first. I know this is true for others as well. Often as I am meeting with members or attenders, we land on discussing impatient behaviors and the negative impacts or “darkness” impatience is creating in their lives.

Often it takes some queries to help explore in more depth our struggle. Maybe you too can take a moment this morning and consider these queries – ask youself: 

●       In what sort of situations do I find myself most impatient?

●       Why am I impatient, and how do I deal with my impatience?

●       What groups, people, organizations, etc. cause me to be impatient? 

I believe these queries begin our journey into what those early Quakers considered the “darkness” within and around us.  When we start to address this “darkness,” this frustration that seems to grip us, the external pressures that we, our work, our families, our politics, our media, our surrounding world put on us, we begin to notice the impatience that is or has been growing within and around us.

When we begin to practice patient waiting… 

●       We become aware of the lack of compassion we have shown to our neighbors and their situations (as well as the lack of compassion for ourselves).

●       We notice our “short fuses” and where we have become irritated by little things.  

●       We notice where we are no longer as intuitive and willing to try and reason or understand or work to see what is actually going on, or take time to understand the back story.

●       Or where we are quick to make assumptions and think our views are the right and only ways.

●       And then as part of our struggle and impatience, we begin to notice where we lose control of our emotions, where we go inward in negative ways, and where we even become inwardly depressed emotionally or outwardly reactive emotionally.

Folks, there are many ways we express our struggle since we are all so unique in our makeup.

Henri Nouwen seems to sum it up well, when asked to define a patient person he explained:

"A waiting person is a patient person. The word 'patience' implies the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us. Patient living means to live actively in the present and wait there. Impatient people expect the real thing to happen somewhere else, and therefore they want to get away from the present situation and go elsewhere. For them the moment is empty. But patient people dare to stay where they are. Waiting, then, is not passive. It involves nurturing the growth of something growing within."

I love how Eugene Peterson translated the scripture text for this morning. He articulates well Nouwen’s “nurturing the growth of something growing within.” It  reads,

“That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.”

May that be true for us as we practice patient waiting this morning and this week.

Now, as we enter a time of patient waiting worship, I want us to take some time to center down and return to those queries I shared. Allow me to repeat them for us, now:

●       In what sort of situations do I find myself most impatient?

●       Why am I impatient, and how do I deal with my impatience?

●       What groups, people, organizations, etc. cause me to be impatient? 

7-10-22 - The Greatness or Every-thing-ness of God

The Greatness or Every-thing-ness of God

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

July 10, 2022

Good morning, Friends and welcome to Light Reflections. Our scripture reading for this morning is from Acts 17:24-28 from The Voice translation.  

24 This is the God who made the universe and all it contains, the God who is the King of all heaven and all earth. It would be illogical to assume that a God of this magnitude could possibly be contained in any man-made structure, no matter how majestic. 25 Nor would it be logical to think that this God would need human beings to provide Him with food and shelter—after all, He Himself would have given to humans everything they need—life, breath, food, shelter, and so on.

This is the only universal God, the One who makes all people whatever their nationality or culture or religion.

26 This God made us in all our diversity from one original person, allowing each culture to have its own time to develop, giving each its own place to live and thrive in its distinct ways. 27 His purpose in all this was that people of every culture and religion would search for this ultimate God, grope for Him in the darkness, as it were, hoping to find Him. Yet, in truth, God is not far from any of us. 28 For you know the saying, “We live in God; we move in God; we exist in God.” And still another said, “We are indeed God’s children.”

A week ago, I spent each evening with our children teaching, learning, and even questioning with them about the Greatness of God. We explored some “monumental” aspects and attributes of God – from God’s love to God’s surprising nature, but as I went home each night, I often would reflect on what I personally have learned about God over the years, from my earliest days at VBS (when my mom was the VBS director) to doctoral level debates in grad school.  

The one thing I know is personally my view of God has changed radically over the years. 

Most people who seek to be spiritually formed find a lot more out there than even what can be contained within one’s own mind just by stepping out into a place of questioning. 

This past week, I turned on several occasions to teacher, lecturer and progressive theologian Gene W. Marshall, along with some of the greatest theologians of our time, to help me wrestle with and clarify some of my evolving views of God.  I am going to utilize some of their thoughts this morning to help us wrestle together.

Let’s consider this sermon more like a “VBS Lesson for Adults” on God.  

I am often challenged by theologian H. Richard Niebuhr. He has help me consider “God” a devotional word, much like calling someone your “sweetheart.” He says, 

“Sweetheart” points to a particular person, but it also expresses a quality of relationship. Similarly, the word ‘God’ includes the meanings of loyalty, commitment, trust, friendship, and passionate devotion.

At the same time, ‘God,’ as used in the Bible, points to an actual experience, an actual encounter with, how shall we say it, the Ground of our Being; the Mystery, Depth, and Greatness of our lives; Final Reality; Reality as a Whole; the Mystery that will not go away.

For some of you, those descriptions may be new, expanding, or even confusing. 

That is why theologian Paul Tillich used the word “God” sparingly in his work because he realized how many misunderstandings circle around this word.

Tillich believed that God is not a thing among other things or a person but the Ground of Being that is beyond all beings, beyond all persons. This Ground of Being is an inescapable over-all-ness with which we have a relationship, whether we relate to this Ground as our God or not.

For many years among the Anglicans, I learned to talk about the Great Mystery, but it makes sense to take that mystery and make it even grander – the Ground of Being which is beyond all beings or persons.

I remember one of my professors in my doctoral work saying as we were beginning his class, “If you came with God neatly in a box, get ready to have the box shredded because God can’t be contained in a box.”  And boy was he right.  I left that day with a headache, kind of holding the shredded pieces of my box and dropping some of them on my walk back to my room.  

Gene Marshall explains this Great Mystery or Whole of Reality in a helpful way, he says, 

“We can understand having a relationship with our pets, our spouse, our children, or our garden. We also have a relationship with the Whole of Reality. This Whole, this Mysterious Whole is a Master Process moving toward us in every moment, challenging the depths of our being. And we are responding to this challenge, either in flight, fight, or openness. This active, often fierce, process is our relationship with God, the ‘God’ that Jesus worshiped, and the ‘God’ that the Bible insists is our only appropriate worship. This biblical God is not a being among other beings, not a supernatural being among other supernatural beings, not a being at all – not a person nor an inanimate thing or collection of things, but BEING-AS-A-WHOLE.”

So “God,” as this word is used in the Bible, does not mean something located within some larger sphere called “Reality.” It is misleading to speak of “the reality of God,” for “God” is a devotional word for Reality Itself, for Reality as a Whole. Using the word “God” in the biblical sense means being devoted to the EVERY-THING-NESS that transcends every thing and yet is present in every thing. Each and every thing is contained within this EVERY-THING-NESS. I am using the word “thing” in a very broad sense, including Jesus, including you, including me.

A few years ago, I was first introduced to this thinking by Rob Bell in a video I used to share with my students at Huntington University which he called “Everything is Spiritual.” In it he said,

“God is not a question about what may or may not be up there or above or out there— God is what we’re unquestionably in.” 

And Rob goes on…

“There’s a line in the Bible about the God who is above all and through all and in all. Just one line, but so massive. Above all and through all and in all.” 

I remember sitting with those thoughts for quite some time – “God is what we’re unquestionably in.”  And I knew that scripture, Ephesians 4:1 that reads “There is one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.“

It was this enlightenment that made my transition to Quakers possible and even inviting. God was no longer just out there. But I am part of what I call “God” or as we Quakers say, there is that of God within each of us.”

Gene Marshall says,

“Each of us is a specific and distinguishable finite being, yet each of us is also a being that is inescapably related to the EVERY-THING-NESS in which all things cohere.” 

See, here is where we get confused, most Christians tend to see God as a supernatural being – a being alongside other beings – a super-being in another world of beings, a being that can interfere in this world and help us handle the things we want to arrange differently.

Marshall says,

“This view is not the biblical view of God. When the Bible and other Christian classics seem to refer to an otherworldly person, we need to remember that these writings are poetry, ancient poetry. The biblical writers were using mythic language. People who lived in pre-modern times had no difficulty using mythic language. It was their way of talking about their life experiences. They were not literalists who believed that they could visit this super-place and pull-on God’s beard…When we use personal language to talk about God, we are talking mythically about our own personal relationship with that Infinite EVERYTHING-NESS that cannot be contained within any human imagery, personal or impersonal.

This means, when you and I step out and begin asking questions, when we become curious, when we build relationships, and open ourselves to the creation or natural world around us, or our neighbors and the cultures around us, it is then we begin to experience this Mystery, that we call God, in new ways.

For the last year in Seeking Friends we studied Richard Rohr’s book “Every Thing is Sacred” – again he focuses on the “Everything-ness.”  Actually, the first book I was encouraged to read of Richard Rohr’s was his book “Everything Belongs.”  The irony and connection in all of this was stunning as I contemplated it this week.

Rohr takes this one step further and this is where I want to end this week. He says,  

Here is a mantra that we might repeat throughout our day:

“God’s life is living itself in me. I am aware of life living itself in me.”

We cannot not live in the presence of God. We are totally surrounded by God, even as we read these words. This is not some New Age idea.

(Rohr says) recall St. Patrick’s blessing,

“God beneath you, God in front of you, God behind you, God above you, God within you.”

Once I can see the Mystery here, and trust the Mystery even in this piece of clay that I am, then I can also see it in you. We are eventually able to see the divine image within ourselves, in each other, and in all things.

Finally, the seeing is one. How we see anything is how we will see everything.

Folks, I spent a great deal of my life trying to find God, define the Great Mystery, even encapsulate the Light (as we Quakers would say) in the pages of scripture, in theological texts, even in the Church itself.

Yet often that led me to a much narrower understanding, at times, even a box to contain my views.  But when I am willing to open my eyes and allow my curiosity to be piqued by the God, Mystery, Light around and within me, I can then see that of God more clearly in All of Creation including my neighbor. 

Don’t get me wrong – I am still daily wrestling with seeing the Everything-ness of God, but I have come to realize that is exactly what this life is all about.

So, I walked away from VBS this year challenged to see the GREATNESS of God and I hope by sharing it, I have piqued your curiosity as well. 

Let us end by speaking that mantra from Richard Rohr one more time.  Repeat after me:

“God’s life is living itself in me. I am aware of life living itself in me.”

Now, as we enter a time of waiting worship – ask yourselves the following queries:

Have I ever considered God being “what I am unquestionably in”?

How has my interest and curiosity been piqued, today, and where in nature and my neighbor will I seek God this week?   

7-3-22 - A Meeting for Worship for Lament and Hope

A Meeting for Worship for Lament and Hope

A Time to Lament

Lament, a practice given to us by our faith tradition through the ages.

As Sarah lamented barrenness,
As Hagar lamented being cast out,
As Moses lamented his people’s oppression,

As Amos lamented the fall of his people from God’s covenant,
As Jesus lamented over broken systems of religion and government,

We too cry, as we experience communal trauma
and share in our sorrow for God’s people and all of creation.

Lament, a practice given to us by examples of those working for equity and justice.

As Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta lamented the treatment of their fellow Mexican American farm worker,

As Bayard Rustin lamented the need for a group of angelic troublemakers,
As Audre Lorde lamented the ways in which silences do not protect the marginalized,
As Grace Lee Boggs lamented the inclusion of her people in the shaping of the society in which she lived,

Lament, a practice given to us by our own ancestors, family, and friends.

Today, we too lament.

A Moment to Center Down and Silence our Hearts

Psalm of Lament - Psalm 38:9-16 (MSG)

9-16 Lord, my longings are sitting in plain sight,
    my groans an old story to you.
My heart’s about to break;
    I’m a burned-out case.
Cataracts blind me to God and good;
    old friends avoid me like the plague.
My cousins never visit,
    my neighbors stab me in the back.
My competitors blacken my name,
    devoutly they pray for my ruin.
But I’m deaf and mute to it all,
    ears shut, mouth shut.
I don’t hear a word they say,
    don’t speak a word in response.
What I do, God, is wait for you,
    wait for my Lord, my God—you will answer!
I wait and pray so they won’t laugh me off,
    won’t smugly strut off when I stumble.

A Prayer of Lament for the Role of Women (Adapted from Psalm 13)

Oh Lord, how long will you allow women and girls to be unseen and forgotten?
How long shall they be left with deep sorrow, anguish, and travail?
Oh Lord, how long will women and girls be viewed as second-class citizens?
How long before women and girls will be able to make decisions 
for their own health and wellness as well as for their families?
Oh Lord, how long shall they be persecuted by those who have tormented them and taken away their dignity?
How long will they continue to be exploited by those who do not share in their burdens, 
nor carry the weight of their collective pain?

Oh Lord, help all to remember that everyone is created in the image of God. 
Help all humankind to know that we are of equal value in your eyes.  
Dear Lord, we long for the day when reason, not power, 
when love, not indifference will lead us to create a more equitable society. 

A Time of Silent Reflection for Prayer and Listening

A Prayer of Lament for Our Divisions

Lord our God, our world is flooded with hatred, division, distrust. Arguments tear apart families; communities split along political lines; violence feels far from the last resort. We live in fear and suspicion of others who look or think or act differently. We are weary of conflict and hostility, but peace and harmony seem out of reach.

God, have mercy on your troubled world. Drive away false assumptions with your truth. Reconcile enemies through your transforming grace. Heal the hurts of slander and violence with your patient love. Amen.

A Time of Silent Reflection for Prayer and Listening

A Prayer of Lament for the Hungry

God of abundant riches, many in our world have plenty, and many have far from enough. Children go to bed with empty bellies, and drought makes food scarce. Yet at times the controlling and corrupt disrupt relief efforts, and in other places spoiling food is thrown away because there is too much to eat. Father, our world is broken; we need your love and justice. Why must crops fail? How long must people made in your image starve and wither away?

Give us hope that this is not the way things have to be. Restrain greed, waste, and selfishness. Feed the hungry and provide for the needy. Produce abundant harvests of food in our lands and rich harvests of generous compassion in human hearts. Bless those who use their power and resources to bless others for your kingdom. Amen.

A Time of Silent Reflection for Prayer and Listening

A Prayer of Lament for those Abused

God, we take refuge under the shelter of your wings. Why must any person you have created suffer through abuse? How long must those you love live in fear? Hear the cries of spouses beaten and bruised by those who have pledged to love them. Look upon children belittled and neglected by trusted caretakers. Come to the aid of those who are sexually abused and violated. Show your love to those who have been threatened into silence. We lament, too, that women and girls are especially targeted by such evils.

Defender of the weak, break the power of abusers so they cannot harm anymore. Protect the survivors of abuse; bring them safety and healing. Don’t let anyone turn a blind eye or deaf ear to their pain. Restore their sense of dignity and worth through your unfailing love. We pray to God who has compassion for the harassed and helpless. Amen.

A Time of Silent Reflection for Prayer and Listening

A Prayer of Lament for Refuges

Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. We cry out to you on behalf of all those who have had to flee their homes. How long must your people suffer the destruction and devastation of war and violence? Why must oppressive governments and brutal cartels deprive those you care for of safety?

Look with mercy upon those who endure persecution, those who seek to escape the carnage of natural disasters, those who do not have a place or nation to call home. Be their rock of refuge, to which they can always go. Bring them to a place where they can settle. God, hear our cry for peace, Amen.

A Time of Silent Reflection for Prayer and Listening

A Prayer of Lament for the Forgotten, Overlooked and Dismissed

God who knit us together in our mothers’ wombs, why do you sometimes feel so far away? Where are you when people made in your image are told that we are worthless, a mistake, a waste of time? How long will you allow human beings to be forgotten, overlooked, and dismissed—even by those closest to them?

We cry out to you on behalf of those who have been made to feel that their lives don’t matter, that their voices don’t count, that they have nothing to contribute. Let your face shine on us when we suffer rejection, when we’re told we can’t do anything right, when we think everyone would be better off without us. Show us your favor and love. We look to you because of Jesus, who was born in humility and weakness just like us, who welcomed ALL people, and who calls us His friends. May we live his example in our world, today. Amen.

A Time of Silent Reflection for Prayer and Listening

Prayers of Lament were written by Brian Hoffman or the General Commission on the Status of Women (UMC)

6-26-22 - Monumental Dreams

Monumental Dreams

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Pastor Bob Henry

June 26, 2022

Good morning, Friends, and welcome to Light Reflections.  For those in-person this week, this is VBS Sunday.  Our scripture for this morning is Genesis 37:1-11 from the New Revised Standard Version of Scripture. 

37 Jacob settled in the land where his father had lived as an alien, the land of Canaan. 2 These are the descendants of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was shepherding the flock with his brothers; he was a helper to the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives, and Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. 3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children because he was the son of his old age, and he made him an ornamented robe.[a] 4 But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peaceably to him.

5 Once Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. 6 He said to them, “Listen to this dream that I dreamed. 7 There we were, binding sheaves in the field. Suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright; then your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf.” 8 His brothers said to him, “Are you indeed to reign over us? Are you indeed to have dominion over us?” So they hated him even more because of his dreams and his words.

9 He had another dream and told it to his brothers, saying, “Look, I have had another dream: the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” 10 But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him and said to him, “What kind of dream is this that you have had? Shall we indeed come, I and your mother and your brothers, and bow to the ground before you?” 11 So his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.

This morning, we are celebrating our VBS Kickoff.  This year’s theme is “Monumental: Celebrating God’s Greatness.”  The Bible character we are going to study throughout the week is Joseph from the Old Testament. Some call him “the Dreamer.”  As I was considering what I was going to say this morning, another dreamer came to mind.  

And speaking of monumental, his speech about his dream is considered by many as one of the most important speeches ever given. To give it some context for what I am going to talk about let me set things up a bit. 

At the time, Martin Luther King Jr. was already widely recognized as the spiritual leader of the American civil rights movement. The podium set up in front of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963 would be his bully-est pulpit ever.

Multitudes had traveled to our nation’s capital to join the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, co-organized by the National Association for the Advancement of the Colored People (NAACP) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The eyes of the nation were on the keynote speaker.

Dr. King had prepared his text carefully. He had asked for suggestions from his trusted advisors. He’d gone through several handwritten manuscript drafts which was unusual for him because he rarely used speechwriters and often spoke extemporaneously, from only a few jotted notes.

Originally, he had titled his speech, “Normalcy, Never Again”—but even after he had finished multiple edits, the papers he clutched in his hand were still not what he wanted them to be. 

The most famous line from the speech, “I have a dream,” wasn’t even written anywhere on his notes. That ringing refrain had been a feature of several speeches he’d already delivered in other places—most notably at Booker T. Washington High School in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, nearly a year earlier, and in Detroit two months previously.

The beloved gospel singer Mahalia Jackson was sitting behind Dr. King that day as he struggled to find words to connect to the audience. “Tell them about the dream, Martin!” she said to him. He heard her, and so he did. He told them about the dream.

Dr. King’s riff on the phrase, “I have a dream,” has truly gone down in history. Arguably the most famous and monumental of those improvised lines is this: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

If you have any doubt that this was a monumental God-moment, as well as, a deeply religious address, a sermon, really, or that the civil rights movement was a deeply religious movement, then just listen to what Dr. King said just a few lines later: 

“I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.” 

He was, of course, quoting the prophet Isaiah. King continued, 

“This is our hope. This is the faith that I will go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.”

Well, in the waning days of the 20th century, a poll of more than 100 scholars of public addresses ranked Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech as the most significant or monumental speech of that century. 

In 2013, Jon Meacham wrote in Time magazine, “With a single phrase, Martin Luther King Jr. joined Jefferson and Lincoln in the ranks of men who’ve shaped modern America.” 

But folks, that is not what everyone thought at the time.

An FBI agent named William Sullivan, head of the Bureau’s domestic spying operations, wrote in a memo to Director J. Edgar Hoover that, 

“In the light of King’s powerful demagogic speech yesterday he stands head and shoulders above all other Negro leaders put together when it comes to influencing great masses of Negroes. We must mark him now, if we have not done so before, as the most dangerous Negro of the future in this Nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro and national security.”

Yes, he was a dreamer, and, as a dreamer, things did not go well for him. Then, as now, dreamers make the powers that be—powers like William Sullivan at the FBI, the powers that fear change—deeply uncomfortable.

Visionary leaders do not hesitate to dream of a better tomorrow for all God’s children. As a result, those who fear change sometimes do desperate things to try to bury the dream. 

This is where the Bible character, Jospeh. that we will be studying this week in VBS comes into play.  Dr. King’s story is very similar to Joseph’s. 

Yet, Joseph didn’t have just one dream, but several, extending over his lifetime. His early dreams foreshadow a time when his family will bow down to him and serve him. It is a dream he rather foolishly shared with his brothers. Their response was,   

“Here comes the dreamer [again]! Let’s kill him and throw him into one of the pits; we’ll say that a wild animal devoured him, and we shall see what becomes of his dreams.” 

Joseph’s brothers think better of those words. In the end, they don’t kill him, but they do throw him down a cistern, then sell him into slavery. To cover up their heinous deed, they stain his multi-colored coat with the blood of a slain animal, so Joseph’s heartbroken parents will believe a wild beast killed him.

Of course, we know how the story turns out. Through a series of amazing adventures, Joseph ends up in Egypt, in prison. His dreams while he is in jail foretell a future of both plenty and famine in the land. 

Eventually, Joseph is released from prison and is elevated to an administrative position high in the government and is soon running the entire country as Pharaoh’s chief of staff. 

In a time of terrible famine, the sons of Jacob come and grovel before this Egyptian bureaucrat, begging for food so they will not starve, thus fulfilling the very dream they’d found so offensive all those years earlier.

Only then does this mighty Egyptian official reveal his true identity. He is their brother Joseph, who has every right to exact a terrible revenge upon them, but whose heart has only forgiveness for these brothers who have so grievously wronged him. 

Please note: Joseph was not a complainer; he was a dreamer.

Reflecting on Dr. King’s speech, Jim Wallis of Sojourners, makes this same point about complaining. Looking at the speech, he has observed that something is missing from it. It’s the phrase, “I have a complaint.” 

Wallis points out that, “there was much to complain about for black Americans, and there is much to complain about today for many in this nation. But King taught us that our complaints or critiques, or even our dissent, will never be the foundation of social movements that change the world—but dreams always will. 

Just saying what is wrong will never be enough to change the world. You must lift up a vision of what is right.” 

That is a word that is as ripe and right for us today as it was back in 1963. 

In our homes, in our Meeting, in our lives we need to dream, and to dream big.  We need to have monumental dreams!  

And we need to teach our children to dream, monumental dreams of justice for all people. We need to remind each other that the dream that is needed is not so much the American Dream of individual achievement, but to dream God’s dream for the human race, a dream of a world made new through God’s grace and mercy. This has been the Quaker Way from the beginning. 

It’s a dream expressed by the apostle Paul who writes to the Corinthians: “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new.” (1 Corinthians 5:17)

I don’t know about you, but I think we need more dreamers like that today. We don’t need complainers. There are plenty of those already because of a culture of complaint in our country which is a quick and rather ugly way to build community.

It’s easy to point out everything that’s wrong and needs to be fixed, but the problem is that the kind of unity that is built on the negative, on complaint and hostility, has no staying power. 

For that, we need dreamers, visionaries who focus not on how bad things are, but on how good they can be. We need dreamers who can outline concrete ways, the small, incremental steps that can be taken, to achieve worthy goals. 

This week in VBS, I believe we are going to work hard to instill this in our children.  They are going to be looking at these monumental points: 

• That God loves you no matter what.

• That God is with you everywhere.

• That God is in charge.

• That God is stronger than anything, and

• That Good is always surprising.

These are some of the same points that Martin Luther King Jr. and Joseph were trying to instill in the lives of their followers.  Because both were rooted in the fact that their dreams were monumental because they were bigger than just their dreams. Because their dreams were actually God’s dreams for us and they were faithful in sharing those messages even through the tough times.   

When we are determined, persistent and share the dreams God puts on our hearts, we can help create a positive vision of what can be with God’s help.  We can sow seeds of joyous enthusiasm that has the power to transform and change our lives for the better. 

I hope you would agree that we need more godly dreamers in this world. 

We’ve been given the vision of God’s intent for our world, a purpose that God started at Creation and that Jesus continued by inaugurating his kingdom. Then God sent the Holy Spirit to launch the Church that we might continue to dream and work for this vision of a new world of justice and peace for all peoples. This is the call to each of us who consider ourselves followers of Christ. 

It is our monumental task as the church.  And sadly, if we don’t do our job, someone will fill in the void with a vision that is unworthy, that will not treat all people with dignity and respect as God does, that will point people not to the kingdom of God but instead, towards their own small, self-centered kingdoms. 

God calls us to a bigger, more monumental dream than that. As the early Quakers acknowledged, God calls us to dream and work for the kingdom of God to come on earth—now, in our lives, in our work, in our families, in this Meeting, today. And that means change and struggle will be part of it, and sometimes it means that we will be uncomfortable. But, I believe that is a dream, a vision, a call that is worthy of our lives.  It’s truly Monumental! 

Now, as we enter waiting worship, please take a moment to ponder the following queries: 

Am I more of a complainer than a dreamer? 

What Monumental Dreams has God put on my heart for the world?   

6-19-22 - Is God Our Father? - Beth Henricks

Is God Our Father?

Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting

Beth Henricks

June 19, 2022

II Corinthians 3: 17-18

17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.

Good morning friends and Happy Father’s Day. Today we are celebrating our fathers and other men in our lives that have been role models, offered care, support and unconditional love through the journeys of our lives. I am reminiscing about my dad today whom I lost 17 years ago (hard to believe he has been gone that long) and miss him every day. The things I miss most are his laugh, his candor, the adoration, and respect he had for my mother, his love of all sports, the prioritization he made of family in his life, how he could eat 13 ears of corn in one setting, I could go on and on. I know many of you sit here and remember the big and little things about your father and other men in your life. I am incredibly thankful that I had a dad that did give me a glimpse into the nature of God and a hint into who God is.

Growing up in a fundamentalist tradition, we talked about God as Father a lot. I have heard many messages on Father’s Day talking about God as Father, about what kind of fathers we need to be, the trinitarian concept of God as father, son and holy spirit and a wholehearted endorsement of many male characteristics of God. Growing up in a home where my mother seemed to “be in charge” I never quite understood the obsession with describing God in masculine terms to convey strength, power, and control.

However, all of my language of God was male, and God was always termed as a “he” and everything I read was primarily male vocabulary. I just accepted this as normal. About 15 years ago I attended a conference at Anderson University and spoke with a woman who changed my perspective on this. She shared in a meaningful way that she had a dad that was a terrible father and identifying God as father or in a male pronoun sent her running in the opposite direction. It was only when she came to terms that God is not male or female that she could step into a relationship with the Divine. She shared that my using male pronouns to identify God was painful for her.

I never thought about this in the terms she presented to me. It makes sense that many people have a negative idea of father in terms of an earthly father and to identify God in these words is offensive and hurtful. Ever since that conversation, I have tried to be careful to not identify God in male terms.

But describing God in male terms is very common among Christians. It became the standard language when Christianity became established as part of the Roman Empire under Constantine. The Apostles creed institutionalized this male language to describe God – I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and in Jesus Christ, His only son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended into Hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead….

The identification of God as Father in the Old Testament was less common than in the New Testament. Maybe it was based on a belief and limited understanding of God as a cosmic entity outside of our intimate world. When Moses encounters God in the burning bush God has Moses turn away and describes Godself as I am that I am. There were no human characteristics to describe Yahweh that day.

In Judaism, the use of the "Father" as a title is generally a metaphor, referring to God’s role as Life-giver and Law-giver, and is one of many titles by which Jews speak of and to God.[3] The Jewish concept of God is that God is non-corporeal, transcendent and immanent, the ultimate source of love,[68][69][70][71] and a metaphorical "Father".

Jesus utilized the word Father quite a bit to describe his relationship during his 3 years of active ministry. In the Gospels, Jesus calls God “Father” more than 165 times. As an example, Matthew 18:19 says “Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.” Maybe in Jesus’ radical way, he was trying to personalize God, to bring God into our direct lives, to help us understand more of the characteristics of God. As humans, language is a way for us to describe something to give it texture, context, and visibility. But the words that describe something should never be considered as the object. There are always limitations to the words we use. Human words can never describe God’s fullness in any adequate way. Identifying God as father or mother are just human characterizations of God shaped by belief and background.

 We know Jesus was a radical and turned all of the established norms upside down so his utilization of God in father terms may be a way to help us understand God in a personal way.

The Christian Church has always had a bit of a problem with God's gender. God doesn't have one, but it's hard to talk about God without giving God a gender. To talk about God, we have to call God something, and avoiding pronouns altogether is cumbersome and it seems a bit rude, talking as if God was an impersonal force like gravity or inflation. So, we call God a "He" or "She", and in a patriarchal society there's no contest to how the dominant gender will be. God as father in the Bible and throughout Christianity is shaped by a predominately ancient patriarchal society. Men wrote the books of the Bible, and it makes sense they used the language of the day. However, it does seem like these patriarchal dominance ideas permeated most Christian congregations and in many of them continue today. As The Catechism of the Catholic Church says: "God is neither man nor woman: he is God".

There are other Christian groups that have gone further than this though. A church in third-century Syria seems to have been in the habit of praying to the Holy Spirit in female terms. One of their holy books, the Acts of Thomas, tells of St Thomas presiding over a communion service, and calling on the Holy Spirit, saying: "Come, she that manifests the hidden things and makes the unspeakable things plain, the holy dove that bears the twin young. Come, the hidden mother… Come and communicate with us in this eucharist".

We know that God also has female imagery in the Bible. As we try to imagine and begin to have some minute glimpses into our understanding of God, we humans, we need something concrete to help in our comprehension and the mother/ father characterizations give us metaphors as humans. Here are some examples

·         “You deserted the Rock, who fathered you; you forgot the God who gave you birth.” (Deuteronomy 32:18)

·         “The LORD will march out like a champion, like a warrior he will stir up his zeal; with a shout he will raise the battle cry and will triumph over his enemies. For a long time I have kept silent, I have been quiet and held myself back. But now, like a woman in childbirth, I cry out, I gasp and pant.” (Isaiah 42:13-14).

·         “As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you; and you will be comforted over Jerusalem.” (Isaiah 66:13)

These human metaphors and descriptors can help us gain a deeper understanding into God but too often they have become concrete and limiting. As John 4:24 says God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. This sense of mystery and awe is one of the reasons that I have embraced Quakerism for the past 30 years. The descriptions the early Quakers said of God were with words like Light, Inner Seed, Christ within, that of God….And Quakers embraced women in ministry right from their start and honored inspiration from all. Both men and women were valued and honored as instruments of the God we can’t adequately describe. The patriarchy that has dominated so many Christian denominations was limited with the Quakers. I want to replace the male/female descriptions of God with words like these.

I have been rereading the classic book of Thomas Merton, The Seeds of Contemplation. While Merton uses male pronouns to describe God reflective of his time, he puts so beautifully the inexpressible and mystery of God, a mystery that we begin to experience in contemplation. I share some of his words with you.

“Contemplation reaches out to the knowledge and even to the experience of the transcendent and inexpressible God. It knows God by seeming to touch Him. Or rather it knows him as if it had been invisibly touched by Him…. Touched by Him Who has no hands, but who is pure Reality and the source of all that is real1 Hence contemplation is a sudden gift of awareness, an awakening to the Real within all that is real. A vivid awareness of infinite Being at the roots of our own limited being. An awareness of our contingent reality as received, as a present from God, as a free gift of love…. It is also the response to a call: a call from Him who has no voice, and yet who speaks in everything that is, and Who, most of all, speaks in the depths of our own being: for we ourselves are words of His.” (pg 4-5) “in the end the contemplative suffers the anguish of realizing that he no longer knows what God is. He may or may not mercifully realize that after all this is a great gain, because God is not a what, not a thing…There is no such thing as God because God is neither a what nor a thing but a pure Who. He is the I Am before whom with our own most personal and inalienable voice we echo I am.”

“In all the situations of life the will of God comes to us not merely as an external dictate of impersonal law but above all as an interior invitation of personal love. Too often the conventional conception of God’s will as a sphinx-like and arbitrary force bearing down upon us with implacable hostility, leads men to lose faith in a God they cannot find it possible to love. Such a view of the divine will drives human weakness to despair and one wonders if it is not, itself, often the expression of a despair too intolerable to be admitted to conscious consideration. These arbitrary dictates of a domineering and insensible Father are more often seeds of hatred than of love. If that is our concept of the will of God, we cannot possibly seek the obscure and intimate mystery of the encounter that takes place in contemplation. We will desire only to fly as far as possible from Him and hide from his Face forever. So much depends on our idea of God! Yet no idea of Him, however pure and perfect, is adequate to express Him as He really is. Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about Him.” (pg 15)

Friends, as we enter our time of waiting worship, I ask you to consider these queries –

Do I limit God to fit my boxes?

How might I expand my understanding of God?

In what ways do I need to deepen my contemplative practices to experience God more fully?