About Me

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Quaker, French-speaker, educator, anti-racist; Southern-born & raised, and talking enthusaist.

2009-09-24

Ex gay?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-J5T6wsnEQ

One of the worst things gays and those who support our rights can do is bash or dismiss bisexuality. One, it flies in the face of both anecdotal and scientific evidence that it is real and even possibly the dominant sexual orientation (to varying degrees) even if one's gender preference is same or opposite gender. Even if that's not true, those who are "Ex-gay" are either 1) heterosexual to begin with and had identity issues, (I knew a guy like that at Guilford) 2) gay and running from one or more sub-cultures that exist in the GLBT community, having identified said cultures as "gay lifestyle" or 3) they are bisexual and they are able to satisfy themselves with persons of the opposite gender. Time to wake up and call these people out. Cured of being gay? Perhaps not gay to begin with!

2009-09-20

Openly gay in Baltimore

P.D.A. could save your life-- but in Baltimore?


You know they’re a couple. They have to be. You’ve seen them (or someone like them). Two guys, each in his 50s, wearing jeans and leather vests with the sun glasses walking in very close proximity to one another somewhere around Mt Vernon. You can just tell that they belong together. Most likely you’re right. Why aren’t they holding hands, though?

Think about it: how often do you see two women in love, sitting in Mt Vernon park on a bench, snuggling and hugging by the flowing fountains while dogs frolic on the green? How many gay couples do you pass in a day in the so-called “Gayborhood,” holding hands while they admire the architecture, looking in the windows of the new stores or restaurants, and generally enjoying the beauty that is Mt Vernon?

I don’t know about you, but I don’t ever see any of that. My boyfriend often wants to hold hands, but for some reason I resist. I don’t feel comfortable in most of this city holding hands with another guy. I don’t feel safe. I don’t trust that the police would side with me if I were assaulted, that the city prosecutors would push for a strong punishment. I don’t trust that the average Jane or Jamal would actually defend me if they saw me being harassed or attacked by thugs who want to “jump my faggot ass” (as I’ve heard guys say numerous times on the street or MTA buses). About the only place where I’ll consider holding hands with my beau is in Mt Vernon, and only sometimes.

The truth of the matter is that according to recent study at UNC Chapel Hill, a short hug and about ten minutes of hand holding can reduce one’s heart rate and blood pressure. AOL – Health also refers to studies that show that stress is significantly reduced by hugs and handholding. I suppose this includes holding hands in the privacy of one’s own home, as someone emphatically suggested to me is the most appropriate place for showing affection, but have we become such a callous, unromantic society that any public display of affection is frowned upon?

If Baltimore is serious about marketing the city to queer tourists, then business owners, residents and queer people in general who come into Mt Vernon need to do what they can to really make Mt Vernon seem safe and welcoming. Why on earth would gay couples come to Baltimore, as gay tourists, if there is no place where they can enjoy their vacation with a hint of romance? The argument that creating a gay ghetto is passé ignores the truth that assimilation has become another form of the closet. We say that not showing our affection publicly is actually a maturation of our community. I believe it’s a cop-out. I think that queer Baltimoreans generally do not feel comfortable enough to hold hands and snuggle for fear of Baltimore’s rampant homophobia going beyond insults and turning violent. I think many of us have run to the suburbs as an escape.

Luckily, Mt Vernon is turning around quickly. It’s now becoming a nice, family-oriented neighborhood. Mind you, we’re talking heterosexual families who take their children to the new children’s park on Calvert (which used to be where homeless and prostitutes lingered). Crime is lower here. However, it’s becoming even less “gay.” I think it’s great that gays are moving all over the city to neighborhoods where they may never have once dreamed of choosing to live. I also think, though, that we have become so diluted as a community, so introverted, that it has affected the health of Gay Baltimore as a whole.

So, you may see me strolling around Mt Vernon hand in hand with my beautiful, biscuity-brown boyfriend. It’ll be an exercise for me. In truth, if I don’t think about what butthole may be lurking around the corner (ok, by that I mean “jerk”) then I can relax and enjoy the love. It does feel nice to enjoy the outdoors in the arms of a hottie who I adore. If only I can get over the fact that I feel alone in doing it, wishing that more of gay Baltimore would love more openly – for their own sake, as well as our community’s.

The Veil was thinner . . .

3/8/05
Last night I had a dream: I was at a party, or maybe a club somewhere. Russell was there and I was so excited to see him. It was weird b/c I was cruising and yet searching for him. I oversaw him writing a letter talking about how we were wed in Christ or something like that and that he truly loved me but basically settled for certain things. I felt my heart sink. There were times when we hugged and I felt so elated, so excited to see him. But, he wasn’t particularly happy with me and that broke my heart too. Then, completely out of no where, this knowledge came into my head. I can’t remember specifically if he told me this directly or it was just there. It didn’t seem to be part of the dream at all and yet it was: He said once, "Wake up, Kevin, my parents are in town." He yelled it the last two times and I woke up expecting to see him right there in bed where he normally lay. I wrote off the dream as a result of eating too much too close to bed. Still, I had a feeling that the dream was awfully real. Then this afternoon, working at home, I get two emails from former employees of Russell’s at Center Stage: Russell’s parents stopped in at Center Stage this morning. They are in Baltimore “on business.” I’m freaked. I’m also very excited about the possibilities. I’m also threatened by their presence.

(I was told by a friend to write this down or I'd rationalize the experience away, so here it is).

Ministry

This I wrote 8/18/04 to my meeting's M&W. I won't go into the result of it, but perhaps others can relate.

Dear Friends on Ministry & Worship and Clearness & Counsel:


I hope this letter finds you well in the Light. I pray that your work blesses you so that you may do the work as the [current] elders of the meeting.

Over the past several months, and especially since FGC Gathering, I’ve had an increasing leading to look inward and consider what God may be calling me to do in Gospel ministry. In the past it seemed almost always to include vocal ministry in meetings for worship and the chance Opportunities that would come about with individual Friends and other people.

I thought that, when I left Earlham School of Religion, my ministry was over. I had not been able to fight the spiritual and psychological demons that came before me, nor was I nearly mature enough to enter into any professional sort of ministry. Since then God has not given up on me, though I do know experientially what Paul meant when he wrote that from being weak and broken God could build us up to how God wants us.

At Gathering I had several conversations, one with a fellow member of Ministry & Counsel (FLGBTQC) who is called to Gospel Ministry. She is a recorded minister in Southeastern YM (a liberal YM like ours). She encouraged me to be faithful and suggested that God is calling me to be active in the ministry. Other Friends, involved with Traveling Ministries, and others who I’ve met through traveling in our wider Religious Society have likewise affirmed my gifts and provided positive eldering.

With the situation between Friends United Meeting and Baltimore Yearly Meeting, I’ve been feeling a particular leading to turn to Christ and be open to what he is telling me to say and do. I’m not clear as to what, if anything, my calling to Gospel Ministry may have to do with the situation, but I know the calling to be a minister for the Cause of Christ, for the Prince of Peace is increasingly strong. I also have a great feeling of love and genuine concern for GLBT people . . . . that they not run from God because of the rejection they find in so many organized religions. While I don’t sense a particular ministry to any one group of people, that concern remains.

Unfortunately, the committee that was set up to meet and worship with me has met but twice. The first time was pleasant, as members seemed to be trying to grasp what it means to be “called to ministry” and how it pertains to our Religious Society. The second meeting seemed more of a committee to assure those present that I was not going to broach the topic of being recorded in the ministry. I assured Friends that it was not an agenda of mine, but I admit I was severely troubled that there would [apparently] be no openness to such a suggestion if it were to come from another Friend.
As you know, in our tradition, a person called to ministry generally does not announce himself to the meeting saying, “I have a gift!” Rather, the elders of the meeting (in our case one of you) would be sensitive to those in the infancy state of ministry. That is to say, the elders seek out those who God seems to be calling to some form of ministry and offer the pastoral care. (I would add that the same goes for the role of Nominating Committee which should appoint people to committees based on observed gifts and that own person’s sense of being called, not merely filling slots so that Friends get a universal sense of the different aspects of the life of Homewood). I know that I came to Homewood somewhat in the middle of such a process – my gifts were recognized elsewhere and I began my walk in the ministry a long time ago. Still, West Knoxville did write in my introductory letter (when we first arrived to Baltimore in the Summer of 2000) that whatever meeting we chose to call home would need to continue the work of helping me in my call to ministry.

I am a bit discouraged that there are few Friends in these parts of Quakerism who are familiar with Gospel Ministry, and how to nurture and care for those of us who are called. Friends have wanted to know when I speak of my calling to ministry what concern I carry (Such as Stan’s Population Concern). Perhaps for some, their ministries take a particular form or shape in a social way. Mine is one of speaking, of ministering in somewhat the traditional sense of the word – being a disciple of Christ. All of us called to ministry need our elders. There are Friends who have gifts of eldering, but who would help them to realize their own gifts? I fault no one, if anyone it would be the Friends who had this knowledge who died without passing on the tradition first! And we do evolve, and we have many new to Friends, so I am not naïve to the developments in liberal Friends meetings over the past 60 or so years. It doesn’t change the fact that we need elders in our meetings – those who recognize their gifts in discernment and pastoral care and who can nurture those called to ministry with their spiritual wisdom and insights.

I want to share with Friends a bit more about my calling to ministry and what it has entailed so far inwardly. I mentioned already some of the outward forms. What I feel generally is a love for people but especially for Friends. All Friends. I’ve studied extensively the history of our Society out of a passion for our version of the Christian faith. The lives of previous Friends have served as more of an inspiration to me than the characters of the Bible! My concern is indeed for the souls of people that they may come to the Light and know God, and that they may be grow in relationship with the Divine.

A passage in one of my Bibles that I highlighted when I was an teen at West Knoxville Meeting reads: “In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage – with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 2 Timothy 2:12.

I suspect that this passage was probably political and may have even been directed at the various “heretical” Christian bodies of the time. However, I read this personally. I saw this as a reminder for me to remain faithful to Christ, and to stay centered in the Spirit, not straying too far from the doctrines that Friends have so clearly and faithfully tested. To Friends beliefs I try to remain faithful, without believing them for their own sake.

No gift, if not based in love and community, can ever be made to benefit others. Without love, a gift is not shared but displayed. Without a healthy, dedicated community, the seed cannot be nurtured and will die or not sprout at all. What I do have is an unconditional love for the Religious Society of Friends and the Friends Church – it is this love that has kept me in worship these past 16 years rather than leaving to another Christian faith (and I’ve tried a few times to leave). My faith in Christ is the reason for this love. It is in Christ that I’ve been justified and for missing the mark time and time again I’m forgiven. I know the wages of sin are death and despair – I know this experimentally. I believe in the power of the spoken word as it has brought me closer to the Spirit and I have witnessed it bring others closer to the Spirit through me. My greatest fears are to outrun my guide so as to be a hindrance to others coming to know the love of Christ or to not be faithful and let an opportunity pass to speak when God leads me.

In the past 7 years I’ve had several losses in the “Lamb’s War.” That is to say, where Christ has called me to fight for truth and purity I’ve turned my back on him and even myself. Yet Christ remains faithful, even to this day. He does indeed “stand at the door and knock” and lately he’s been knocking incessantly.

I don’t know that I’ve been sanctified in the Spirit, and this is of great concern to me. My own spiritual and psychological battles get in the way of the necessary qualification to being a Gospel Minister. I know that this probably all sounds foreign and strange, but what I mean to say is that my soul aches to be free of the bonds that hold it. It craves to be low before God and silent so that it may grow and do the will of God. However, I can choose wicked ways that would keep the ministry from speaking to the condition of others. I do not have the experience and understanding to know the fullness of my own gifts and keeping to it.

I need those who are gifted in hearing who tend to their own gifts to be there at worship and listen. I need Friends who are tender who will neither set me up nor pull me down. I need Friends who are willing to help me try the spirits to see if they are of God, who will worship with me regularly. Those who are spiritual will see where I am better than myself.

So, I’m asking Friends to weigh heavily these queries. Depending upon the clarity of Friends, I would like a different committee who would be willing to meet with me and worship with me regularly, and who would also be willing to consider reading the book A description of the qualifications necessary to a Gospel Minister by Samuel Bownas. This book is helping me and is also helpful to elders chosen to work with a minister in his infancy. I have certain Friends that I would like to see on that committee, and I’d prefer the committee be quite small.






· What do Friends understand 'ministry' to be?
· Do Friends find something of God in me that answers to my gift?
· Does my way of ministering seem to be of God or myself?
· Are there Friends who rashly judge Friends who regularly speak in meeting, tending to greatly discourage vocal ministry overall? Does there exist at Homewood a censorious and critical temper that could hinder some from coming forth in their gifts in ministry, putting into silence those who have had insufficient time to make or give full proof of their ministry?
· Does my zeal sometimes stretch beyond my authority?
· Do Friends spiritually sense my love for the Society?

I hope that Friends receive this letter in the love in which it was written. I know I seem to ask much, and often, of this meeting.

In the Light,

Kevin-Douglas Olive

On being Christian

I wrote this 5/29/08.

Do you believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Personal Savior? I’ve never easily handled that question without a truckload of baggage exploding in front of any one who may be nearby. I didn’t have many pleasant experiences growing up gay, in the South, in a secular family and being friends with Roman Catholics (Pastor Hagy, anyone?), surrounded by Christians whose first questions to newcomers were that one and “Welcome to the neighborhood, do you have a church home?” Nor does the former intrusion into my spiritual experience have any real meaning to me. I realize, though, that by responding with questions of clarification (What do you mean by “Lord” or Savior?”) or philosophy (Define, “to believe in”) I’ll come across as either arrogant or a lost cause.
So, do I believe in Jesus as my lord and personal savior? The honest answer is “I do and I don’t.” Do I feel that I should? Admittedly, yes. I confess that I don’t yield to Christ’s light in my heart enough to be honest in saying that he is Lord of my life. My ego is still too huge, my will too often takes priority over the promptings of the Spirit within (what I also call “God’s will.”) Have I experienced the Risen Christ so directly, charismatically, that I have been led out of danger? Yes. In that, I do know him as Savior. It’s as honest an answer as I can give, and interestingly enough, those with tender hearts who asked me what I believe often respond caringly.
In one of my classes at Earlham John Punshon once asked us what the different types of Quakers or Christians there were. We brainstormed different polarities: liberal or evangelical, progressive or conservative, fundamentalist or post-modernist, pastoral or unprogrammed. Every time, John shook his head negatively. “No,” he smiled, “thinking and unthinking.”
In truth, that has been my experience among my fellow Christians and Quakers. There are those of us who will be open to what we hear from other kinds of Christians and those who are not Christian. It may be an exercise, as what we hear may deeply trouble us. But we do contemplate, research, ask around, and pray on what we learn about others and ourselves. Those Evangelicals who have listened to me share my experience of Jesus and how I don’t call him “Lord” and who I can tell are thinking about what I say don’t reject me, even if they don’t agree with my experience or conclusions. Then there are those of us who immediately put a wall up to all things uncomfortable, contrary to our experience or which call into question the very core of our traditions. Easily we damn, dismiss, condemn, or rationalize that which we do not want to or cannot consider. We turn to our Bibles, our Faith and Practice, Quaker history books, or we team up with others like us against that which troubles us. We don’t use our God-given minds, trying to learn and understand that which is different or threatening. We don’t listen with our hearts, letting the Light guide us. We shun. We don’t seek to make peace, but instead we schism and judge.
Take for example my own hypocrisy: At one point I defended my unprogrammed meeting as the truest form of Quakerism, knowing full well that there are traditions now 150 years old that are not like the one I first knew and that unprogrammed Quakerism today is somewhat of a remnant of the earliest Quaker worship. It took worshipping in a pastoral meeting once and feeling the Spirit to finally put down that prejudice and quit dismissing what I didn’t like (where did I learn that prejudice, anyway? I wasn’t born Quaker)! I’ve condemned others for their rigid orthodox theology when I wouldn’t even budge on reconsidering the traditional (orthodox) Quaker practices! I’ve railed angrily against warmongers fighting for oil without having changed my own consumption habits. I could go on, but some of my skeletons prefer the closet. A friend pointed out one day that she is against the Iraq war, for simplicity, loves all world religions, but in a separate conversation told me that she drives 30 miles each day to a church that she likes better than the one next door to her, needs the big car to haul her children to the relatively upscale private school they all attend, and can’t stand Christians with their “our way or the high way mentality.” I still haven’t figured out how to get her to think about that, but I am busy at the moment with the plank in my own eye.
Besides, Christianity to me, as a Quaker, is more about experience, practicing one’s faith than belief. If you ask me what I believe about God, I may sound confused. I don’t believe in the gods of ancient Rome and Greece, for example. I just don’t see God as a human being with the flaws of humanity. I don’t see God as a being. Thinking about God makes my brain hurt, and frankly I’m not always interested in spending that much time trying to know the unknowable. God is, as my French Bible says, l’Eternel, (the Eternal One). And yet, I do sense God in my heart, through the actions of others, through the words of the Bible (sometimes, anyway) and through vocal ministry. Sometimes, it’s a glance of someone I don’t even know that can put me in touch with that measure of the Divine that I feel in my heart and that I have sensed in others (regardless of their identity). I sense what is. I sense I AM. It’s something that is so intimate that I cannot name, I can’t always distinguish where it begins and I end, and when I do, it somehow becomes less intimate if not less real.
Through Jesus, though, I do know more about God. When asked who he was and Jesus said “I am,” those around him fell to the ground. I AM. When I have experienced Jesus in my life, I have been so struck with wonder and awe, and the Light within me recognizes The One who Is. A Russian Orthodox friend of mine told me that when Jesus said “I Am” to those who fell before him, Jesus was saying that he was Yahweh. Yet, I can’t help but recall where Jesus asks to those who wish to know his identity “Who do you say that I am?” Indeed, this is where I am in my path. Trying to know Jesus, the Risen and the historical. The spiritual experiences that I’ve had of the risen Jesus aside, the historical Jesus, the man in whom the Spirit was so full, the man who embodied God, who many say was God, touches my heart every time I read the Gospels. I realize that he probably didn’t say everything in there, and yet I can feel that of God within me responding to the gospels. I know the Truth behind the words. I may have fallen in love with a character in a mythology, but it’s a love that comes from the Spirit because my mind can’t make heads or tails out of it. Isn’t that often what love is like, though? Through Jesus I see how God leads us to sacrifice ourselves in the name of love, to call forth the best in each other, to glorify him through being good and doing good, not for any other reason than it brings us into harmony with the pattern of the universe. Jesus shows us that God is always with us as we challenge the oppressors of state and organized religion. As we develop our relationship with God, we help bring some balm to the chaos in our lives, and hopefully are led to help calm the turbulent waters around us. We cast coals upon our enemies when we love and we heal our own souls (and hopefully our enemies’ souls) when we love. This is what Jesus did himself, and what he tries to lead millions of those who follow him (and maybe even those who don’t) to do.
Of course, we Christians are not without our flaws. I’ve never been proud of the awful treatment of minority groups by the dominant culture, of which I am a part. I paid enough attention in my history classes at Guilford to know that many Christians have committed egregious sins. I noticed, though, that Roman pagans didn’t like the Christians too much, that the Egyptian, Babylonian and Assyrian pagans cared little for the Hebrew peoples, and that the Hebrews themselves (according to my Bible) had their own sometimes violent ways of keeping purity in the tribes and keeping the pagans in at bay. The neo-nazi movements today generally aren’t Christian and oppose the race reconciliation movements led by so many religionists. Communist governments don’t like religion in general and have executed not a small number of violent actions against innocent people. Radical Islamists today abhor the very liberties that I as a progressive American cherish. The problem, I’ve come to realize isn’t religion and certainly isn’t Jesus, but it’s, well, people. It’s operating out of fear or ignorance and not of love. It’s using our gifts and talents not for the glory of God but instead for our own egos and pride and false-esteem.
When I was searching for a faith tradition in the eighties, I found in Quakerism a faith that accepted the universality of the Divine light, yet which stayed rooted in the mythology of Christianity, was guided by the power of the spiritually resurrected Jesus, the Light that enlightens everyone who comes into the world. I found a religion that instead of abandoning Christianity served up until recently as a prophetic voice to the wider church, less concerned with making converts of non-Christians and more concerned with pointing Christians back to the way of the cross, of selflessness and of love, of turning beyond ritual and form, beyond superstitions which oppress to the saving reality that they knew through Christ Jesus’ direct revelation and love.
It’s this love that I still continue to seek though perhaps it’s a hard road among Christians as a gay man and among liberal Quakers as a Christian. Love’s not always free from my fellow humans, sometimes it has to be earned, which is why I’m so thankful it comes without condition from my savior. Still, try as I might to find a new path among pagans or other Christians traditions, I’ve met with little success. Jesus calls me to be squarely in this religious society, asking me to get to know him more intimately as a Quaker. He is my way, a way of love, the Truth that does not steer me wrong, and the one who gives me life.

Russell

This was a beginning draft to a memorial piece I was to give at Center Stage. I'll post the whole thing when I find it.

There was a time when I did not believe myself lovable. There was a time when it was nearly impossible for me to really be spiritually and emotionally intimate. Russell was a living angel.

there is no separating how I knew him. to separate the spiritual from the emotional, the prayer from the physical and emotional love is not possible.

I can’t think of a time when a man has made me love God more, or another man for that matter.

There was a certain softness and tenderness about him that drew out the desire to nurture and protect, and yet, after 7 years together, I realized that it was a mutal thing, and that the nourshing and protection were …;

I’ve racked my brain and write this with more fear and worry than when I wrote my first sermon and delivered it one day to the student bodies of two seminaries. Russell is the greatest man that I know. I can’t think of someone who compares to him. How can I do him justice? How can I begin to explain what kind of man he was? It occurs to me, that that is not my role. It never will be, at least not to explain him completely. Each of us knew him in our own way and he touched us in similar ways, yet in different contexts. Some knew him as shy, some as animated and verbose. Depending on his comfort level, and socially appropriateness, people saw different sides of this very complex man.

So, I am sharing with you a bit more about me than I had planned, and the reason is very simple. Somewhere in the 7 years that Russell and I were together, there ceased to be a “me” and there was an “us.” I was hell-bent on making sure that we both pursued our separate lives, that I had my independence. Somewhere along the way, though, I ceased to consider the world without Russell. I stopped making decisions without Russell. I looked within myself and saw Russell. This heart, beats, still, with Russell’s soul, with Russell’s love.

We met on line, sort of, and sort of at the bar. I was home in Tennessee between seminary and grad school to become a teacher. I had been going to the bars with Marian, my near-sister, pretty much every Sunday. I didn’t know Knoxville for its cute, young intellectuals. There are plenty of pretty boys, but frankly the country boys were not going to keep me intellectually stimulated. Yeah, I stereotyped badly. I remember this one cute guy that I saw a few times that I was just too shy to go up and talk to. One day Marian was out of town and I didn’t go out so there I am, in the gay chat room, talking away. This guy and I start talking, we agree to meet out. And, it turns out to be the guy I had seen before and wanted to meet. We hit it off, this just 20 year-old kid from Maryville College who had never left Tennessee save for a couple choir tours, and me a jaded, gay-world worn and well-travelled guy of 26. (both kids, of course). We only saw each other that once, then communicated via telephone and email.

Right after we had just met, I had received more bad news on top of all the crap I had just gone through at Earlham. I emailed him telling him the news, expecting him to freak out and say “sorry, but. . .” I wouldn’t have blamed him. But what did Russell do? He showed up at my door, and when I opened it, he kissed me. And said that we’d deal with it.

Our entire relationship was like that. I drop a bomb and he kissed me and we dealt with it. There was a time when we separated for a few months. He dated someone named “Hush” in NYC who enchanted him. This person knew the who’s who of New York. He was hot. He was older than me. He knew theatre. He knew cinema. He could offer what I could not.

I feared that I had lost Russell. But if I had been a better man, if I had just met Russell half way . . . . if, if, if. In any event, Russell lived with my sister for a time and drove one of my parent's cars. He even worked for them for a while in TN. In the meantime I was getting used to being alone, but all the while praying for Russell to come back to me.

September 11 apparently gave Russell the impetus to make a decision to come back. He had to choose between me and Hush or neither. He chose me. Since then it has been incredible. The last year was magical.

Russell didn’t have it easy. He did not have the support of his mother and father. Unfortunately neither of us could turn to them for the support and advise that we wanted from them. While they loved their son, they didn’t love him enough to accept his choices, to welcome into their home unconditionally. Blame was laid on him for the family’s problems. He carried a great burden. He locked it up. He cried. He moved on. Luckily he began developing a relationship with his brother.
My family welcomed him with open arms, and my father found in Russell a son – and a son who understood him. Russell understood my dad. Their birthdays a day apart, (both Capricorns), both English majors, both tall and dark haired, both introverted for the most part, both writers, both lovers of high-maintenance, difficult and demanding people. I’ve heard it say we often marry someone like our parents when we choose a mate. I married my father. I remember the days early on when I’d call mom and say “ok Russell is doing thus and so. Dad did that. How did you manage?” Over time, in learning to love Russell, I learned to appreciate and love my own father. My own parents served as models for what to do and not to do in a relationship. We watched them. We listed to them. We made our choices based on them.

2009-09-07

Quakers come back to Old Town

Not since 1921 have Quakers regularly worshiped at the Meeting House in what is known to natives as "Old Town" Baltimore. On Labor Day weekend, a small, simple group of people who call each other "Friends" resumed their quiet form of worship without fanfare.

Ever since I moved to Baltimore in 2000, I would drive by the meeting house, located 2 blocks from the main post office on Fayette Street, and imagine having meetings in there. Somehow, I knew I'd be worshiping in that space one day.

Backing up a bit, about a year and a half ago I began hosting worship in my home. I attend an urban, established meeting in Homewood, the neighborhood surrounding Johns Hopkins University's main campus, once the estate of Charles Carroll Jr, a gift from his father who signed the Declaration of Independence. I've developed some solid relationships and have grown quite a bit since attending there. This meeting married Russell and me and was there when he died, and its there where I have tried to learn to serve Friends more humbly and faithfully. However, all along I've always wanted something different. My heart longed for a deliberately Christ-centered worship.

I've always longed for "old time religion" that was still relevant. Quakerism is that, but I longed for a place where I could center on Christ with others who were doing the same thing. "Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am in the midst of them," so Jesus says according to the Bible. Whereas "new and modern" seem to be what hooks many, I find that "new and modern" usually mean "trendy and entertaining." I can get entertainment any number of ways. I don't need to be entertained at church. I need to be stretched and pushed, challenged and held accountable. I want to grow emotionally and spiritually, to mature and learn to be a loving, charitable person with myself and others, to know a joy and peace that carries me through any trial or tribulation.

I know that this may sound like a daydream, but it's a promise to those who follow Jesus' way, and it's a common experience of those who have dedicated themselves to the manner of Friends (Quakers). It's rough at first, as should be expected. It's not been easy really admitting that I, too often, give in to temptations that aren't constructive but rather destructive. It's not easy admitting that I'm not self-sufficient in a time where self-sufficiency, rather than faith, is seen as the mark of being educated, mature and having arrived. What people don't understand, they often dismiss, deride or fear, and this goes for some who are not religious. I get it, trust me. I'm not judging. I've been there.

But to get this judgment of Christ-centered [traditionally Quaker] language from Quakers tends to become and albatross. To constantly have to explain one's faith to those who aren't really interested in it, but who seek only to make sure that I'm not trying to convert them or judge them when using Christian terminology, is taxing. I've been running in liberal Quaker circles most of my life, and at some point I had to start thinking of how I could best grow in Christ so as to achieve my own salvation, my own peace. It wasn't happening at Homewood, nor at any other Quaker meeting I've attended in years. I was learning to live in a very diverse environment, I was learning more patience, I was coming to better understand people who did not consider themselves Christ-centered and listen to their experiences. I am a better person for it, but I needed more.

So, I finally began hosting people at my house for an invitation-only monthly worship group. We soon moved to the local Metropolitan Community Church across the street and after a year began meeting twice-monthly. Our community grew spiritually, a small core group committed to meeting regularly, we lost a few attenders, and gained a couple of new ones. Our worship was focused on the presence of Christ. Our studies have been on the earliest message of Friends. We sing sometimes, study the Bible, laugh, talk, confide in one another. We are several races, male and female, well-to-do and flat-ass broke, highly educated and not-so-much, Gen X, Gen Y and retired. We sought unity in Christ, and our unity brought diversity.

I don't know exactly why the worship is different. Maybe some would not feel any difference if they were visiting us. We do things a little differently, but not that differently from any other Quaker meeting around here. We have pre-meeting (class) at 5pm. Again, we've been studying the Early Quakers' belief summed up simplisticly as:

Religion is deeply personal in that we each are connected to the God. God calls to us to turn to God. There is no real chasm between us and God. That which separates us from God is not physical but mental; we separate ourselves from God by what we do and our mindset. We each have a day of visitation (day = moment, year, span of a lifetime, who knows?) in which God actively pursues us and tries to break into our hearts/minds/psyche. However, just like a real day, our Day of Visitation can pass. However, unlike some of their contemporaries who saw God as angry, vindictive, jealous, dominating, Quakers saw God as loving. As a member of our worship group put it, whereas Puritans said to fear God because of the threat of hell and damnation, Quakers feared God as anyone would naturally respond to something that is so awesome and magnificent yet so mysterious that our simple organic minds can't really grasp it. God is something so powerful and intangible that language can't even explain it, language can't touch God. Language limits any communication of an experience of God. Whereas some Christians said that there was an Elect, that some were predestined to be saved and others not, whereas some said that authority was from the Bible as the Word of God, and others said authority was in the Church/tradition, Quakers said authority was within, internal, directly revealed to each person by the Light which comes from the Living Word, Christ Jesus, who points us to God, who gives a face and a context to that otherwise unexplainable mystery.
When God finally breaks through and we notice God, (for some that in-breaking may be a charismatic experience, for others it may be almost so subtle that they could easily rationalize the experience away) it can be a really unsettling experience. Friends saw that Christianity had become largely empty. People were Baptized and took the Lord's Supper but didn't often show that their lives were changed for it. They wore crosses around their necks, but lived lives which "persecuted Jesus on that cross." Friends believed that if God broke through people's "walls" that the Light that comes from God would shine on and expose the sin in peoples' lives. Skeletons in our closets were exposed (to ourselves). We couldn't hide from that which was destructive in our lives. Frankly, this isn't the most pleasant experience, but to recognize this and then to submit to the Light and allow it to show what needed "fixing" and then "how to fix it" was liberating. Whereas most Christians taught and believed that we were doomed to be sinners, Quakers rebuked this mentality. They called it "preaching up sin." They believed that when we learned of something that must be changed in our lives, we were to not look upon the sin and focus on it. Otherwise, we would give in. Rather, we were to keep focused on the Inner Light which would let the Good in us rise up, and the destructive forces pushed down. The power to not yield to temptation would ultimately prevail. Quakers' experience dictated that community was essential to continue to live up to the Light so that more would be given to them. This path to perfection was derided by many, but Quakers experienced this spiritual baptism as real and the communion with God as real as well. This was true religion. The Law of God was no longer something to be read from a book or taught by the Church, but was accessible directly from the Inner Teacher. Men and women equally could speak Truth as revealed to them directly. God didn't stop working in history at the end of the writing of Revelation. Christ is HEre to teach us NOW, DIRECTLY. Compare this to the rest of the Christian faith: The hypocrisy was so rampant, religion so idolatrous (focused on forms and books and people rather than transformation) that Quakers began to openly challenge conventional wisdom and religion. If we were all Christians, why were we bowing to one another? Why did the poor have to bow and doff their hats to the rich? Quakers refused. Why pay taxes that go to priests who professed Christianity but who weren't transformed themselves? Quaker refused. Why meet in churches with steeples that are supposedly consecrated and holy when our bodies are temples and the gathering is the church not the building? Again, Quakers refused to meet in "steeple houses." Quakers sought to move away from religion which is about form, and puts authority in perishable things (tradition, positions and books) and formed a religion that was based directly on experiencing the Divine, through Christ. From this religious practice, they began to be led into what would give them their reputation: abolitionism, prison reform, suffrage, concern for minorities and immigrants, peace activism, fair business practices, universal ministry, honesty and integrity in dealings with all people, etc. What Quakers became known for was due to their experiential religion, their direct experience of God, their understanding of the need for transformation and the diligence of faith that requires commitment to community.

There is another component to our group. As Early Friends also knew, this personal transformation (which can take a lifetime for some and not long at all for others) often resulted in mission work. This mission work meant sharing the message to others, of trying to create more opportunities for people to experience God (to again quote a member of our group). Social reform and activism are a huge part of Quaker mission work. There is a difference between telling people that they have to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and personal savior (which puts one's salvation in their power, it's their initiative rather than a response to God) and caring for the marginalized. Jesus didn't run around, as far as we know, healing lepers and Roman centurions' [probably] gay lovers then telling them to become Jewish or go back to temple. He healed people and spoke to their spiritual condition. He had religious conversations but didn't try to convert. Early Friends would worship with Native Americans and not try to convert them. They recognized authentic religion. It wasn't the outward religion that counted. It was the inward reality that mattered. So, our new group feels called to also actively reach out people in our town. We don't know how we will do outreach, but we feel especially called to be faithful and wait for opportunities to arise where we may bring people to Christ within themselves and leave them there to discover what awaits within. We also hope to be led into ways to feed Christ's sheep, to help the hungry, the naked, the lonely, the addicted, to challenge power and privilege and bring those people, too, to Christ and the freedom from being prisoners to our own Egos.

Finally, this Summer, those of us who more or less held to this understanding of religion and Quaker practice began talking with the McKim Community Center which manages the now City-owned meeting house on Aisquith St @ E. Fayette St.

Yesterday, we met, seven of us, in the old meeting house. For the first time since 1921 (the meeting had met continuously from 1781 to 1921), Quakers began worshiping regularly at Aisquith Street Meeting house.

Scores of people were outside in the old cemetery playing foot ball. Their cheers and clapping came through into our worship. The setting sun came through the West windows shining directly on the circle of chairs where we sat. After our study meeting, we introduced ourselves, no longer saying what meetings we come from, just our names. For some of us, this IS our home meeting, now. We like to do introductions first so that we know who we are as we worship. We then shared our joys, sorrows and concerns. This way, we know each other's conditions before entering into worship. There is something good about this order for us: we greet each other in the beginning and we pray for each other and people we don't know before we wait on God for the rest of the hour. The meeting was completely silent for the last half hour or so, and it was a sweet, tender worship. I couldn't really center. I had a lot filling my head. But to be surrounded by those who could, and to know that the Spirit of Christ was there guiding us, surrounding us, ministering to those who could hear, was enough to satisfy me. After we began our new tradition of breaking bread together (potluck). Over dinner we got to know each other better, and started to form our new community in our new spot.

I don't know where God is taking us. It's still a bit weird for me to go back to using such language after a few years of not even being sure I believed in God anymore. Russell's death was hard, after all. But, it seems that while we change, and when we go through our highs and lows, God is constant. In any event, I'm glad I at least stayed engaged in my faith community while I went through a period of doubt and spiritual dryness. What is emerging is a new me; someone seeking to finally commit to submitting to Christ, who finally realizes he can't and doesn't NEED to control everything. And, I have a faith community which also understands this, and whose love is tangible.

kd