I want to comment on what I witnessed yesterday at Cincinnati Friends Meeting. It was a “called meeting” about a pivotal decision that the community freely decided to open up to all concerned members in order to discuss, articulate and codify a consensus decision about a way to go forward as a body out of a diversity of possible ways to do so. My experience of what happened yesterday (whimsically recounted here, but also in earnest) is that it was not only a meeting for decision-making but also a kind of friendly group-counseling session conducted in the presence of the Spirit, or divine counselor, whom we invoke and believe is present with us.
For me, at least, there truly was a felt presence, especially as I and others gradually let go of self-limiting defensive postures towards one another or, I mean, towards others’ ideas that differ from our own. Our concerns are often, and understandably, based on our experiences from the past projected onto an unknown future. Gradually and mercifully, I sensed, and I think many others sensed, once again, our mutual human kinship, which is so much deeper than our differences. Maybe a moving moment in good marriage counseling would come close to describing this event, this experience. If that image doesn’t resonate with the reader, perhaps it can be replaced by another moment when you experienced a coming to greater clarity, and a renewed sense of love therefore, in relation to another person in your life.
One of the main themes of this counseling process was how to balance individual Equality with our need for effective group Unity in our desired actions as a ministering body of love towards the world. This is just one way of describing it, but I ask the reader to please consider it as a possibility. Equality and unity were invited to stayed married to one another without coercion or murmuring in the ranks. It is a lofty ideal. It is also, I think, a never-finished product. In fact, our modern penchant for finished products is probably a temptation leading to disappointment here as in other meetings of the minds. Patience is at the heart of this process. This is what I am slowly (oh so slowly!) discovering. It is supposed to be never-ending! I think that the acceptance of this reality will reduce the pressure and the anxiety we often feel in these kind of proceedings. Might it even be possible to feel joyful when approaching an event like this? As in the psalm, might we learn from those who sow in tears while carrying seed for the sowing as they also come back, over and over again, joyfully carrying their sheaves?
Our CFM group of human beings is no more perfect at decision-making than any other group, but yesterday we showed each other (and perhaps, in a small way, our world) a noble ability to keep trying and to keep applying ourselves to “see what love can do.” I’m sure there was much prayer going on before and during this pivotal meeting. I prayed for the Holy Spirit to help us to have mutual understanding and compassion towards our individual and group weaknesses and, even more so, towards our potentially dangerous strengths.
Having grown up in the Roman Catholic tradition, I had no experience with such a meeting prior to joining CFM. The tradition of my ancestry had never worked out such a concern for equality of persons in decision-making processes, or at least not at the point in its history that I was born into. Yes, there is a notion that goes way back in Catholic tradition (and for a time was encouraged after a renewal movement mid last century) of what is called “a sense of the people,” which is the notion that the body of the people has within it a great wisdom regardless of the leadership. Unfortunately, in actual practice, this idea usually takes a back seat to a more traditional method of leading.
This other method looks a lot like a common architectural method known and practiced all over the world, in both ancient times and today because of its seeming efficiency and despite its frequent disregard of innocent victims as it powerfully bulldozes its way towards a false and brutal sense of unity. This method was rejected by our ancestors’ story of the Exodus from the worldliness of Egypt and was alternately re-accepted, of course, as seen in the many stories about their kings.
I’m referring to the method of, or the almost religious belief in, hierarchy - whose origins are the burial mound or pyramid schematic, which, no matter how beautifully constructed on the surface, always stands atop some buried body. I’m wandering off my topic, but I want to have us recall that when ancient peoples stoned someone to death, the end product was a mound of stones which sat over someone who was excluded from the decision-making process. Needless to say, Jesus’ version of the kingdom of God, what we often refer to as the home of the beloved community, wants to have nothing to do with such mound-building or pyramid preservation.
I want to affirm that we at CFM have not made a decision to return to pyramid schemes or to hierarchy. The very process proves the point, and the fact that our decisions always are in process, rather than irrevocable, finished products, like beautiful mounds erected over dead bodies, gives me hope that we may meander in our walk together as beloved community towards our decisions, but we remain community along the way. I could probably say much more given time, but this must suffice. I beg pardon for whatever was unskillfully communicated here. I am grateful for you, my friends.