The Presence in Our Midst: Christ in Commonlife

"And she gave birth to her first born son..." Luke 2:7
(top photo)
"Is this not the carpenter..." Mark 6:3
(bottom photo)

When I was in seminary, I continued my interest in photography by incorporating into various theology or Bible classes. One project I developed, in lieu of a formal paper, was for a class on the gospel of John. Based on John 1:14-18 (And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. (John bore witness to him, and cried, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, for he was before me.’”) And from his fulness have we all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known. RSV, italics mine) it was a presentation on the life of Jesus as incarnate in God's people today using scripture, music, and slides projected on a screen.

That then morphed into the idea of a book project that never materialized, but which I came across the other day while cleaning out an old file cabinet. It's working title was Christ in Commonlife and was going to combine photography with scripture and some meditative thoughts. The photographs, two contact prints of which are on this post, were ones I took of people I  encountered in daily like -- including family. Like the two here -- the top one is of my son Benjamin a day after he was born and the bottom one is of my dad building his garage behind the house where I grew up.

As I wrote in the book proposal

The central concept of Christ in Commonlife is that it is in every day encounters we me Jesus. Imagination is imperative since many of the photographs contain no specific Christ figure. To find Christ -- in these images as in life, you must allow your imagination free reign. Become a dreamer. Just as you used to be, before you put away dreaming and other such childish things. It is my hope that in the uniting of word and image, you will be open to really seeing again -- and in that awakened state you will find yourself encountering Christ in places and faces fresh and new. And ordinary. Like these photographs. Like life.

Jesus rides the subways today -- and the county school bus. He puts in his time in factories, office buildings, farms, and homes across the planet. He is wherever people are -- doing the things they do; eating, sleeping, laughing, crying, working, living, dying. 

Well, as I said, the project never came to fruition as a published book. But still it helped me to put into daily practice the Quaker concept of looking for that of God in every person that I encounter. Some days I'm better at it that others. But still, I try.

The book was to end with a poem. Now I've never claimed to be a poet -- I know my limitations. But this one still feels good and true and seeking to me:

Looking into faces

young or old

we catch glimpses of

ourselves, or

the people we could be.

Then we

stop, reflecting on

the beauty that lies

within.

Wonderment.

It may be

We should spend more

moments

gazing at

God in

us all. Finally

free. Ourselves. Are

you there,

Jesus?

 

Christ Came Juggling: An Easter Sunday Poem

Christ came juggling from the tomb,
flipping and bouncing death's stone pages,
tossing those narrow letters high
against the roots of dawn spread in cloud.
This Jesus, clown, came dancing
in the dust of Judea, each slapping step
a new blossom spiked with joy.

Hey! Listen -- that chuckle in the dark,
that clean blast of laughter behind --
Christ comes juggling our tombs,
tossing them high and higher yet,
until they hit the sun and break open
and we fall out, dancing and juggling
our griefs like sizzling balls of light.


-- Eugene Warren, from The Risk of Birth, poems selected by Luci Shaw

Following the Living Christ --Or a Committe?: A Response to IYM Proposal

I've resisted, of late, addressing any of what's going on in Indiana Yearly Meeting and its apparently impending separation. But after reading Chuck Fager and Stephen Angell's pieces in Quaker Theology and Doug Bennett's "Update on the Schism in Indiana," I feel led to add my voice to this issue. I commend their pieces and links there-in to all who wish a deeper understanding (or any understanding!) of what's going on there. 

First, let me say that I first came to Indiana (and Indiana Yearly Meeting) in late 1978.  I have served as the released minister of two congregations in IYM and was recorded as a Friends minister there in 1980.  I have a deep love for IYM and the people there -- many of whom have been instrumental in my spiritual growth over the years.  And that's people on both sides of the current issue.  My current membership in Western Yearly Meeting has not changed how much I care for IYM and the good people there.  It has, however, given me a different perspective allowed by both geographical and emotional distance.

Second, my concern is not with the good, kind, thoughtful, faithful people of IYM.  I know a good number of people serving on the task force.  I believe they have served well and faithfully.  They have labored long in an attempt to find a way forward that will speak to the conditions present among Friends in Indiana Yearly Meeting and its member congregations.  I am grateful to them for this work.

My concern is with is the task force's continued attempts at pushing for a solution.  This has nothing to do with my disagreement over the solution they propose.  The solution seem rational and well considered.  It makes sense in an intellectual way and offers a way to resolve many issues.  I trust that these good people offer it as coming from their best collective wisdom and after much prayer and worship.

Still, it seems, from the documents I've read (Angell and others) that there is no clear sense of unity among the ENTIRE membership of IYM about the way forward.  In the face of that, it seems (I humbly submit) that IYM task force should decline of offer a solution.

We Friends say we believe that Christ is our present teacher and the God's will can be known and obeyed -- in community.  Where is the trust that God will lead God's people Himself?   Why the persistence in asking one group of wise, seasoned Friends to come up with a solution?

Perhaps the task force should take another tack.  Maybe it's time for them to say, "We have labored faithfully at the task with which we were charged. You other good people across this Yearly Meeting all hear the tension and concern expressed by our members  on all sides of this matter. We, therefore, as servants of the living Christ, will not offer any more solutions/ideas. We have discharged our duties. We return the matter to the Yearly Meeting and its members. Let us endeavor to listen to the voice and will of God and labor until we have unity."

What would it be like, then, for the Yearly Meeting to commit every time it gathers over the next year (including Yearly Meeting) to sit as a people and labor together.  Everybody!  Let committees do their Christian education, evangelism and outreach, and more.  But let the times when people come together be set aside solely for worship and prayer together, listening for and to the voice of the Jesus we profess to love and follow.  That includes Representative Council and Yearly Meeting.  Clear the agenda.  Have no reports.  Gather in worship. Sing together.  Pray together.  Listen in love to each other. Trust Christ!

What greater spiritual exercise, and model of Christian discernment and faithfulness, could there be?

"'Have you anything to declare?' is a vital challenge to which every one of us is personally called to respond and is also a challenge that every meeting should consider of primary importance. it should lead us to define, with such clarity as we can reach, precisely what it is the Friends of this generation have to say that is not, as we believe, being said effectively by others. What, indeed, have we to declare to this generation that is of sufficient importance to justify our separate existence as part of the Christian fellowship?" -- Edgar Dunstan

Well, in this Friends humble (and I say that with all sincerity) opinion, the Quaker assertion that we are the Friends of Jesus is something we cannot truly declare if we are not willing to put all our trust as a community of faith in Christ's ability to lead us.  What have we to declare to a world that needs the peculiar proclamation of the Quaker message of immediate, personal encounter with the God who is present with us and leads us into truth and righteousness if we don't practice that ourselves?

With sadness and hope in my soul,
-Brent

Christmas -- A Poem for this Season of Wonder

Though crowded be the inn, although God’s son
Is lying in the hay, my soul may enter.
There’s need, on man of flesh, of thoughts that centre
On fleshly things today: here cryeth one.

Who’ll cry one day for us, compared to whom
A queen’s newborn is but a worthless plaything.
This child in manager will fulfil our waiting
Whenas the times are full and ease our doom.

God resteth in our flesh, here fatherless,
In heaven motherless. Word co-creative,
God, Father of the virgin and her native,
Lies in the hay. Rest here and cease thy stress,

My soul, cease rhyming without rhyme or reason.
A mute humility is here in season.

-- by Constantijn Huygens

Birthing -- A Poem for this Season of Wonder

How does one birth peace. . .
in a world that seems to prefer the profits of war?
How can one birth hope. . .
in a time when devastation is born of poverty and pandemic?
How does one birth love. . .
in a world whose heart is captive to fear?
How can one birth joy. . .
How can one birth joy?
The plastic manger scene on the front lawn
just doesn't do it!
Birthing is so much more!
It is, and requires. . .
radical intimacy,
prolonged patience,
the coming together of pain and ecstasy,
the joining of our deepest hopes and fears.
Face it,
birthing is a messy business.
And yet this process occurs every moment of our lives:
as our bodies birth cell upon cell,
as our minds birth ideas and dreams into the world,
as our spirits birth. . .
in the midst of labor and pain. . .
as our spirits birth.. JOY!

-- by Mark Unbehagen

Christ Came Juggling: An Easter Poem

Christ came juggling from the tomb,
flipping and bouncing death's stone pages,
tossing those narrow letters high
against the roots of dawn spread in cloud.
This Jesus, clown, came dancing
in the dust of Judea, each slapping step
a new blossom spiked with joy.

Hey! Listen -- that chuckle in the dark,
that clean blast of laughter behind --
Christ comes juggling our tombs,
tossing them high and higher yet,
until they hit the sun and break open
and we fall out, dancing and juggling
our griefs like sizzling balls of light.


-- Eugene Warren, from The Risk of Birth, poems selected by Luci Shaw

Quaker Wisdom for Today

"I saw that the grace of God, which bringeth salvation, had appeared to all men, and that the manifestation of the Spirit of God was given to every man to profit withal. These things I did not see by the help of man, nor by the letter, though they are written in the letter, but I saw them in the light of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by His immediate spirit and power..."

-- George Fox

Quaker Wisdom for Today

“There is a spirit which I feel, that delights to do no evil, nor to avenge any wrong, but delights to endure all things in hope to enjoy its own in the end. Its hope is to outlive all wrath and contention, and to weary out all exaltation and cruelty, or whatever is of a nature contrary to itself. It sees to the end of all temptations. As it bears no evil in itself, so it conceives none in thought to any other: if it be betrayed, it bears it; for its ground and spring are the mercies and forgiveness of God. Its crown is meekness, its life is everlasting love unfeigned, and takes its kingdom with entreaty, and not with contention, and keeps it by lowliness of mind. In God alone it can rejoice, though none else regard it, or can own its life. It is conceived in sorrow, and brought forth without any to pity it; nor doth it murmur at grief, and oppression. It never rejoiceth but through sufferings; for with the world's joy it is murdered. I found it alone, being forsaken. I have fellowship therein with them who lived in dens, and desolate places of the earth, who through death obtained this resurrection, and eternal holy life.”

-- James Nayler

Quaker Wisdom for Today

"It is time that Christians were judged more by their likeness to Christ than their notions of Christ. Were this sentiment generally admitted we should not see such tenacious adherence to what men deem the opinions and doctrines of Christ while at the same time in every day practise is exhibited anything but a likeness to Christ."

-- Lucretia Mott

Quaker Wisdom for Today

"He was holy, humble, harmless, meek, merciful, etc., when among us; to teach us what we should be when he was gone: and yet he is among us still, and in us too, a living and perpetual preacher of the same grace, by his spirit in our consciences."

-- William Penn

Quaker Wisdom for Today

To be "made perfect in love" is a high state of Christian excellence, and not attainable but by the Love and sacrifice of selfish passions. No degree of resentment can consist with this state. Some persons are apt to profess that they can forgive those whom they suppose to have injured them, when such are brought to know and acknowledge their fault. But that is little else than a disguised pride, seeking for superiority. The love which Christ commanded to his Church goes further than that. "This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you."

-- London Yearly Meeting, 1806

Quaker Wisdom for Today

It is not necessary that we should know all mysteries before we begin to follow Christ. To some of us much that is taught of His person and His work may not yet be clear, but so it was with the early disciples. They did not understand at first the mystic union with their Master to which they were called, but they followed Him, and as the followed,there was gradually unfolded to them the fullness of His love and life. If we begin where they began, and follow and they followed, we shall end where they ended, in adoring love.

-- London Yearly Meeting, 1909

Quaker Wisdom for Today

"…, oh, how sweet and pleasant it is to the truly spiritual eye to see the several sorts of believers, several forms of Christians in the school of Christ, every one learning their own lesson, performing their own peculiar service, and knowing, owning, and loving one another in their several places and different performances to their Master, to whom they are to give an account, and not to quarrel with one another about their different practices. For this is the true ground of love and unity, not that such a man walks and does just as I do, but because I feel the same Spirit and life in him, and that he walks in his rank, in his own order, in his proper way and place of subjection to that: and this is far more pleasing to me than if he walked just in that track wherein I walk."

-- Isaac Penington

Quaker Wisdom for Today

This central affirmation, that the Light of the Christ-like God shines in every person, implies that our knowledge of God is both subjective and objective. ... But it is an equally important part of our faith and practice to recognise that we are not affirming the existence and priority of your light and my light, but of the Light of God, and of the God who is made known to us supremely in Jesus. … It is further checked by the fact that if God is known in measure by every person, our knowledge of him will be largely gained through the experience of others who reverently and humbly seek him.

--L Hugh Doncaster

Sacred Compass -- Leadings Fit Our Teachability

Christ, our Inner Teacher, knows our teachability. The Spirit works with us where we are and within our own capacities for growth.Yes, God might stretch us. We will probably feel such spiritual stretching most when we’re lead in a way that others are not. But as the Psalmist says, “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you for your own good, who leads you in the way you should go.” You. In your way. God will not teach anyone else in your way; everyone is taught differently. Here's a reading on that subject from Sacred Compass.

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Enjoy--
Brent