Rise up! Y'all, not me.

I woke up this am, and immediately checked my apps.  I have been prolific in my posts,  realizing afterwards, prolific doesn't equate coherent. I checked the Nextdoor app. I saw my post responding to yet another post about car theft made no sense.  I realize I hadn't put any thought into what I was saying so what was the point?

I'll preface this probable ensuing mansplaining:  I learned during my time in government relations and through teaching, that in politics,  "perception is reality."   The perception I and others have is that authorities aren't doing enough, or "anything."  

That doesn't mean that cops and the mayor really aren't doing anything. It's that  they don't SEEM to be doing anything effective about the car issue or other crimes.  And they may not be all the can or could.

This is my somewhat confessional insight: First I believe that more than one thing can be true at once.  So, when I'm not lazy, I try to consider all sides, weigh what I know, check in with people who I know do the research and don't necessarily share my political views or social stances, and then post. 😏 That is not, however, the norm.

So, what do I believe is going on?  I'm not entirely site!  I do know, from observation from living 40 something years in the South and 20 something years of those years and the city,  that the the problem is to a great degree systemic.  The system of laws, of punishments,  and rewards benefit those who wrote them.  Many opportunities afforded by laws, zoning codes, distracting, etc, are deliberately and accidentally classist, racist, precarious for immigrants and LGBT people and  women, etc. The responsibility for fixing that system  and coming up with fair and equitable remedies and solutions includes many who might read this blog, who participate in related discussions on social media, and who live in our city.  

The system as I understand it:  Y'all know that the executive branch of our city government is supposed to carry out the laws and enforce the laws, but in this case I don't see how that is happening effectively. 

Legislators and the feds have successfully pissed off the BPD (not saying reform is bad, but what's the point if it's not done correctly, inclusively, and justly). and I don't care if those who are part of the problem in law-enforcement or mad, but I do care if the entire force feels or is alienated and therefore either through reaction or pressure does not become part of the solution. And sometimes even some of the bad apples do turn around but we can't wait for them to do it. I get that. Again the legislators and the judges, the judicial branch, often insulate the executive branch from corruption and abuse. In Baltimore we might partially solve that if we just vote them out. But people don't vote, and when they do, though they vote with their feelings and not always informed.

So about other points ot view: I've listened to police talk on news shows (MSNBC,  NPR, local radio and F*x) and some of them are too hesitant or too angry to do what they  believe they need to do. 

And they are getting mixed messages and little moral or financial support to do their jobs or to relearn their jobs.  They are asked and legislated  to be more than law enforcers, but also drug and alcohol counselors, mediators, etc. And at least they claim to be open to reform. I'm a cynic, but I have to at least give people a chance before I vote for someone to slap them down. If I've given up hope, oh well. Right? Or.....

Slap them down with votes.  Votes. 

Back to the system:  So, ok, the  mayor oversees the police department as they are part of the same government branch; therefore he is responsible, at least politically.  While I hold the Executive branch partly responsible, those we elect (including some prosecutors and judges) undermine the BPD with political rhetoric (defund the police) as well as thru manipulative use of demographics and social injustice to deflect from root, causal issues pertaining to our culture.  Judges don't give maximum sentences for violent crimes, and  often  when they do, they apply harsh penalties in sentences to blacks, then they do to whites.  Now, I'm not trying to make anybody feel guilty. I don't want any Moms of liberty coming after me.  Actually, bring it on. I'll ask them why empathy is such a bad thing then I'll point out that I get it cause they don't have any.

Sorry, ok, sermonizing here: There exists rampant ignorance or lies about our history, and a general personal, familial, and community moral and breakdown and sense of personal responsibility and accountability to family and community .  just look at what's going on all over this country, especially in Florida and Virginia, and other southern states where they are actively rewriting the curriculum to exclude any mention of atrocities committed by white people. It wasn't the Chinese or the Russians!   (Anytime someone tells me that an accurate portrayal of the apartheid cast system of white rich people forced on Black people for the past few centuries in this country is making people feel guilty. I question their emotional intelligence if you feel bad, and that's sympathy.If you've had bad things happened to you, that could be empathy, we send sympathy cards all the time with that things happen people.)

when I was at Earlham School of Religion, I had a professor named John Punshon.  He was a recorded, friends minister, and elder in two different traditions of Quakerism, both a more Protestant Christian one and the other a more mystical universalist one (my my Quaker meeting is dually affiliated but leans to the latter).  One day in one of my Quakerism classes, he asked us what the two kinds of people in this world were at least in our country or in our quaker, religious society. And you can imagine all of the answers: left and right, liberal, or conservative, evangelicals, or fundamentalist.  He let us go on until we ran out of ideas.  Finally, smiling, he said "it is thinking, and I'm thinking people." Those are the two groups.  he went on to explain that in any political or social debate there will be people on all sides or most side, who are thinking. They listen, reflect, weigh anecdotal experience or evidence and opinions with facts. those who don't think are either lazy or haven't been taught how to think. They go on feelings. And of course there are also those who are very smart and know what they're doing, but are dishonest and manipulative. I tend to think that it's like a Venn diagram. There's a little bit of both and we can be on any side of that, depending where we are and  issue.

Considering that, I don't care how progressive or conservative a school is, I don't believe that we really understand as a people that we have been manipulated and used since the beginning of Time by those who make laws and wield power.  The structural problems that we see today aren't an accident.   And yet today we see people trying to cover it all up. #momsofliberty  

When someone tells me that teaching about a racist history makes their children feel bad I go nuts. So basically they object to an accurate portrayal of the apartheid cast system made by and for white rich people, which manipulated not rich white people into thinking they were "all the same," (you know, white). It was forced on Black people for the past few centuries in this country. That making people feel guilty. GOOD!  it means that you can still hear the still, small voice of God within you; the spirit, the Light that your God uses to speak to you, even though your conscience is polluted and poisoned by products practices. and perspectives!  

I confess that I question their emotional intelligence they don't recognize sympathy, or empathy or how they benefited from the system and feel a little guilty. Some guilt is good some  guilt is bad.  It depends on whether it causes you to write a wrong or to continue living in sin. And racism and doing nothing about abject poverty, is nothing but societal sin. 

 If we have  had bad things happened to us, that could be empathy!  And besides, don't we send sympathy cards all the time recognizing when bad things happen people to people? Its the nice thing to do.  We offer our condolences and ask if we can help. So when poor people or people of color for the immigrant, the stranger tell us about their pain and we realize that maybe we look like the people who have done the harm and it's triggering at the least. In any event, if someone says I'm hurting, we don't sit and go "well, you shouldn't feel pain or hurt" nor do we argue with them, unless we're just dicks. We asked how we can help and if we're really good and it's appropriate, we advocate for them we go with them we stand up for them. But in this case it's Black people and poor people, and we can keep them fighting each other or lumped in together and make them all fight each other thanthe rest of us who have 401(k)s and have a little boxes on the hillside, cars insurance feel like we've arrived and we're different then that's not our problem and we have nothing to do with it.

Shit, my mom just came out seeing me dictate this as I edit what I already wrote. She asked me what on earth I was doing as I wave my hands in the air and was so animated. 🥸🤪😎

So before any of us, or at least I think that we're more informed than the others, I want to concentrate on what we do about it.  WE have to rise up! I probably already come across as pedantic and. righteous. It comes out naturally, when I'm angry or upset about some thing. i'm actually trying not to be here.

So, as a good Quaker, having thought that I have somewhat of a grasp of at least part of the problem, let's turn from the problem where the Tempter can get us, and turn to the solution. What is the light moving me to say? Well, I haven't checked this with anyone else, so I can completely be wrong in my perception, but no one knows  about my blog anyway, and journaling is a highly  recommended practice.😂

It's just at this point in my thought process I am so frustrated.  We are (I am) afraid to even have or participate in neighborhood watches.  Most churches hide behind their walls, taking positions on things but risking little or nothing.  Churches are often irrelevant to many, certainly the criminal element. Traditional sources of moral authority have lost their credibility. Corruption, hypocrisy, religious legalism, collusion between religion and government are rampant. The prosperity gospel (give money to man who uses Bible words, and God will reward you), is all over the TV and radio. In many Christian churches pastors and politicians who attend them have nicer cars and live in nicer homes than their  congregants. What would it look like? If every church in a four block area got together on a regular basis did a neighborhood watch walked around and offered to feed get people to the doctor Massage listen to pray with the broken people around them ? What if they join the #BaltimorePeaceMovent?  What if so-called religious people and institutions spent more of their time, feeding the hungry and healing the sick and praying in private and less time telling everybody what to do? If I hear one more person say blessed and highly favored every time I say, how are you? I think I might gouge out my tongue because it's going to cost me to sin. 😈

(ok Im ranting) 

And it's not just about cars being stolen. One of my former students was murdered this year. In one month the same three middle schoolers tried to mug me on my street in Ridgleys as I was walking home. And while it's not unique to Baltimore package thieves must come out of holes in the ground because they're everywhere.

I blame this on, and recognize good ol'  #societalbreakdown . As we say in education, teachers (cops too?) are afraid of their principals (cops are afraid of their commanders), principals are afraid of their superintendents (commanders are afraid of their chiefs), sups/chiefs are afraid of their mayors/execs,  the mayors/execs are afraid or bound by their legislators, all of them fear parents/voters, the parents fear their kids (or are too permissive/incompetent/misguided/enabling) and "kids" aren't afraid of anybody. 

The solution isn't simple, I realize this.  But cops carry out what they are told to do (with a sorry history of abuse) so trust is broken.  People don't trust and therefore respect authority in general these days.  When citizens are afraid of their own youth, the youth grow up continuing their anti-social behavior. There is generational poverty. There is also a generational criminality.     I include myself in this judgment.  No, my parents are criminals. But… I'm just saying I have my own rebellious mindset and cynicism as well distrust of "authority."  

The legislature has kept citizens from being able to rightly defend themselves. Cops don't  really don't want more people whatever their intent running around brandishing more guns, complicating matters either.  We all keep waiting for the right person or people to stand up and lead us to rise up against oppression, police brutality, government and religious corruption, but what about the leaders who help us rise up and march and protest against criminality in our own streets?  what about the leaders who actually inspire us to look within ourselves and let the light shine on all of the things we don't want to see or admit, so that we can turn into the light and walk in the light and learn to love ourselves, our own peeps,  the stranger and those who persecute us? 

Again, have the #baltimoreoeqcemovement which is doing great witness and service.  My Quaker meeting donates to  them and a few Quakers show up to their gatherings. My Quaker meeting has a monthly prayer vigil and after every worship, we read the names and hold in the Light names of people, murdered in Baltimore, including one of my former students. But we aren't rising up. And I'm sure someone is reading this frustrated because their group of people, whatever kind of group that is, they are also trying to do things to spread love and light, healing and nourishment. I know good and well there are people out there trying to raise Hope in a hopeless environment.  

I remember, marching in the marches after Freddie gray, going through #Sandtown-Winchester, and then going back downtown, thousands of people, marching against the injustice done by an instution and people. but I didn't feel threatened because I just believed that all of those tanks and machine guns were absolutely not going to be fired on any of us.  One, there were too many white people, and too many young people. #whiteprivilege 

And while there are #blm vigils, they are always in safe areas. I don't see people (other than #baltimorepeacemovement ) going into gang infested areas, flooding the streets by the thousands decrying  the injustices done by criminals. I know why:  Fir me, it's because those kids with guns may actually shoot at us!  Our churches and homes may actually be firebombed by organized crime!  We may lose life, limb or liberty.  

I go back to this:  Two things can be true at once. The police can't do it all alone, the mayor can't do it alone either.  The systems respond when the people rise up.  

Sometimes. I feel that we've cut off the BPD's and legislators' balls instead of reforming things. I suspect even if the blue had a social-justice mindsets fueled whatever politically acceptable metaphorical gonads required to do their job, they/we need us. We need ourselves, and we need to be willing to risk life,  to stand up against violence to stand up in the streets on the streets to say we had enough to stop blaming  at the people we elect and realize that this is a completely participatory government and society, not an autocracy. And I say that with fear and trepidation that one day I might have someone somewhere find me if I go public with this fire inside me.  I fear being shot or beat up if we marched through gang infested and controlled territories, saying we've had enough. But for now, I'll join most church goers and sit  safely in my  meeting house wanting someone else to do the job. 

Solutions:   Guns won't solve our problems and legislation against guns won't solve it. Just as alcoholism and drug addiction are symptoms of a sick emotional and spiritual condition, based on resentment, anger, fear, trauma and genetics (mental illness), so too is violence.  

We, as a society have to be willing to rise up to say no to violence where it happens, bring love, healing and care to those affected by it (both perpetrator and victim). We must also play pur part in changing the systems.

I had a big rant that is based on the Bible, but I realize that anything I say beyond this would be like so many of the preachers and religious teachers in our city. They know the Bible backwards and forwards, but where is the love? Religion has become about tradition and doctrine, and being highly favored, and redeemed, and its tribal. Maybe it's always been that way. I also know there's been many many movements are reform. So I'm not at all sure the answer is with religious bodies anymore. But I also know that I as a religionist have to really open myself up to receiving revelation, inspiration, and direction. Delusions of Grandeur aside,  I do know from experience that after I post this that I have to stop. I need to be still. And I need to listen and search for that love that's in my heart before I move to the corner or to the streets with you  challenging heat, and spreading the love that I experience.

I am powerless without the Powerr.

I am directionless without the Guide.

I am ignorant without my Teacher.

I am self-absorbed fearful, and without faith, qithoyt my community.

I am at but a beginning.  I am starting to admit, I have a role in this, even if everything I said in this blog is off the mark or #bullshit

What do you say? Does what you say come from tje Light within you? Please share.

My kind of guy is a Celestial

Random brain spill: Anyone else like a tall dude with #bowlegs ? 😍Having this convo with my parents and mom laughed 😂and dad smiled🤭.  "Where did that come from?" she asked me. 🤔I dunno, it's not like I've seen an #urbancowboy  in #baltimore .  🤠  Still, guess I've seen enough guys like that, it's become A Thing.  

Add that to my growing list of things that  no guy who I might date will have.  I love a pretty face, but #chemestry can turn a #plainjane (or Jordan) into 😈.  Not that any of my boyfriends or partners were in any way plain.  #aucontraire  

So far my unicorn (thanks Marian Sing) is:

Honest and has a strong sense of integrity

Tall 5'10 (or taller)

Brown or dark skin 

Gorgeous eyes

Kind

Smart (book or skill)

More mature than me

My age or younger

Takes care of his mind and body

Has or wants a spiritual practice

Is open minded enough to listen

Has principles

Is open and accepted by his family (or at least his mom)

If he is of color, he has worked thru his main racial hang ups and fam and friends are cool

Knows how to take the wheel

Is an #Aquarius, #Sagittarius or fellow #Aries

Is responsible

Doesn't do hard drugs and isn't a big drinker

Not mentally addicted to weed

Has a passion/hobby

Likes to work out/yoga/weights

Has a career (technical, artistic, business, academia)

Is confident, but not cocky

Likes House music.

Has experienced and overcome adversity and gained wisdom from it.

If he has kids, it's preferably at least one son who's cool with everything and is cool himself

Likes DnD or lets me geek out with my DnD friends while he does his thing with his (but likes DnD🥸)

Will drive when we go somewhere, esp where there is traffic (Im evil behind the wheel 👿💩)

Is a fun, and adventurous 👅

Makes me smile and laugh.

Is not afraid of intimacy.

Is not an enabler.

Is a work in progress (and is doing the work)

Speaks French (or Spanish)  -- we can navigate the world together

Has his own wealth or is at least financially stable.

Is as passionately into me as I'm into him.

Wants a strong friendship with me.

Has friends who share his interests whether I do or not, and is cool with the same for me.

Has or likes body art (#tattoos #scarring #piercing)

Is protective but not obsessive or jealous.

Likes touch. 

Likes shared experiences, time and gestures over material gifts, just like me.

Is thoughtful.

Is someone whom I admire.

Believes in the work that comes with keeping a relationship alive and healthy. 

Does not snore (or is willing to have separate bedrooms if he does).

Respects privacy and doesn't lie, snoop or manipulate.

Standa up for  himself.

Never fights or argues below the belt (name calling, cussing at someone he loves, or using #AdHominem attacks.

Can cook well

Is a #foodie and will try most things

Like Marian said.  I want a 🦄

Before I get any lectures, I know that I can't have it all.  There are some things that are musts. 

I learned a lil' about love and relationships with my husband and ex, and I don't want a copy of either.  In neither of those two 6.5 year LTRs, did I have all of that.  One I thought I'd grow old with him, but he died at 26. The other was doomed from the beginning, and we both should have remained friends (and still are).  I don't know that I'm up for the task of even looking.  The #prospects for #dating in Bmore are bad for everyone. I'm too lazy during the school year to go to DC and I have an old dog who needs me. In any event, whatever one's gender identity or sexual orientation, and certainly if one is LGBT or above 40, this is doubtful at best in my town. 

At my age I'd rather have friends of whatever level or type of intimacy rather than tie myself down to a #compromise or by #settling. "You'll do" just wont cut it . I don't have generations of time ahead of me to start over if I make a huge mistake, and I don't want to add regrets no matter how good "it is" (or seems).

But I believe in Unicorns, brown, black or white.  I can find them in #dnd, in a book or a game.  My colleague Andy Tavernia has them all over her office.  I can go sit and contemplate life in her space (unless she is busy, and do those kids keep her busy)!

And if a real life one shows up? Will I even recognize what I encounter at that point?

Thankfully, I'm only partially serious, but I know SOMEONE out there can relate to the mindset, as fantastical or unrealistic as it is. 💯

#fantasy #reallife #tongueincheek #humor #jokingnotjoking #kiddingnotkidding  #singlelifestyle #datingappssuck #NoGRINDR #inmyhead

Places of refuge and power

 I just left the #Quaker meeting (church) where I grew up in Knoxville.  The #meetinghouse and #greencemetery sit on 13 acres of wooded land.  Just to walk the grounds is calming and peaceful.  It's a small group of people still trying to let the #Light teach them the way of #surrendering to #love.  I visited my late partner's grave that his mother and father tend.  I marveled at the raw beauty.  Rain tumbled through he trees as sunlight tried to find a way through the dense summer foliage.  The Baptists developed the land below, it's all parking lots, buildings and roads.  The neighbors to one side sold their land which will soon have multiple houses on it. But there are enough trees and plants growing that in the late spring, summer and early fall, it is an oasis from the encroaching development of West Knoxville.  The sound of traffic is blocked, and I could only hear #woodpeckers, chirping birds, and chattering #squirrels. I could see and hear jumping #chipmunks and the wind blowing through the trees. Unseen are the slithering #snakes, and creepy crawly bugs, lest I stop and be still, wait, listen and see whats really going on. I'm reminded that my Quaker spiritual practice even works in nature.  I am reminded this morning that while the message of surrender, love, inward  transformation and regeneration may seem quaint, while in this world of division, hatred, fear, violence, self-obsession, addiction and attachments to things, ideas, people and certain religious and political doctrines and dogma appear to dominate, here, in the middle of suburban Knoxville, there is a spiritual oasis and font of power whether one attends the Quakers' quiet meetings or walks the grounds "alone." Anyone can come whether to see if this could be part of their practice, a new way of life, or just a place to walk, or sit and be.  Anyone is welcome, no one will ask anyone to "convert" or believe anything ;and if someone doesn't want to attend Quaker meetings, they can enjoy the grounds any day.   When I get back to Baltimore,  I have to remember to find and return to places of refuge and power, both within, and around our city.

Complaining to Community: One man's realization that he needs to change

 You know how a group of people will be talking smack and before you know it you're sucked into it? At first, depending on the topic, it may be cathartic, but afterwards you realize that you're acting beneath how you were taught to act, and you feel scuzzy for it.

It's so easy to do that when it comes to Baltimore. Transplants and native-born alike, people bitch and moan, hem and haw about what's going on in this city; or, what's not going on. I moved here from Knoxville, Tn in 2000 to teach in the city schools. My first assignment was to be City College but they baited and switched me to Walbrook High. I found a house to rent over in Highlandtown. It's living in the city that I learned that people, rats and bugs were crawling over this city with no apparent purpose other than to bother everyone else. I loved my students, but got the hell out of the school district and went for the county where for all but three of my 22 years I have taught French, language arts (in French) or math (also in French) to mostly black and brown students of varying ethnicities and economic levels. I also taught for two years at City from 13-15. If I had kids that's where they would be going. Harcum and the teachers there have made that a school that can rival any school in the state. I promise. Whether at Walbrook, City or in the county, my students often taught, and sometimes schooled me. 😉 I stayed a city resident, first moving to the Gayborhood (Mt Vernon). Then I bought and renovated a home in Seton Hill, got married, got widowed, fell into some kind of way, got help, moved to Res Hill and then Ridgleys. Rinse. Repeat. In my 22 years as a resident of this city, I've had sauna covos with the mayor (later the governor) and listened to music with people who operate in the "underworld." I've marched for justice and protested injustice with men and women, trans and cis, of all sorts of ethnicities. I had a sit down one on one with a police officer who knew Freddy Gray. I've partied with criminals and dined with elites. I've been mugged and robbed more than once. I've shopped, explored and toured in all parts of the city. I got to know people that most people won't ever know in their lives. My political activism, connections, and lifestyle over the years helped me to really get to know at an intimate level different kinds of people. Knowing them, it's hard make blanket statements or draw conclusions that I may have drawn before knowing them. To hear them explain who they are, why they do what they do, casts a different light on my pre-conceived notions and my sense of entitlement. So, it has become harder to demonize the drug dealer or the politician, to blame the authorities and those whose authority is not ours (or any). Sure, some of our politicians and the city bureaucrats aren't worth their weight in spit, and one wonders who they knew or what church they attend that got them their job. Yes, much of the city violence is around the drug trade. But I can also tell you I've seen the hardest man love and care for someone and city leaders work their butts off to try to make a difference. The gangbanger holds his son's hand and wonders what life would have been like if the cards were different, and hopes his son gets into City, or his daughter into Poly, just like the lawyer up the street or the social worker around the corner does for their children. We think we are so different. In some way our worlds are light years apart, but the human condition is the same. We hurt, we do things to make us stop hurting. We love, we risk loving, we fail, we succeed. We are anxious and uncertain, cocky and defiant, judgmental and unforgiving, just as our deepest selves want acceptance, love, and graciousness. This isn't a kum ba yah missive. I go to my Quaker meeting in Charles Village every week trying my darndest to just sit, be still, submit, turn myself over to the Light, and see what it would have me do. Only, like so many others I resist the leading to act, to stand up, to speak out, to manifest change. Instead I get on apps like this one and cast blame and then go back to my Xbox, my DnD, my refrigerator, or my vices. I will complain, but I won't do anything. I will judge but I won't be part of the solution. I’m working on it though. You see, there's a lot in this city that is not going well, and it's spilling over into the areas of the city that have been traditionally walled off from it. One big example is people complaining about drug deals going on in their neighborhoods where they haven't seen them before. Let me suggest that's less because “they” are infiltrating the hood, and more so that the residents are doing drugs. There's a market there. Door Dash brings burgers and drug dealers bring drugs. I could list more complaints but we can read those complaints all over this app. What I’d like to suggest is that we add random acts of kindness and respect with planned action and contributions / sharing of resources (time, money, possessions, skills). Sure, there is no guarantee that smiling and talking to the squeegee boys, or saying "how u doin' " to the teens on the corner, or volunteering with youth or any other group that needs help and connection will radically change anything that's wrong in this city. Additionally, we still need safe streets, we still need a functioning government, we still need to improve our schools and infrastructure. None of that changes. But as we hold each other accountable, can we consider that acts of kindness, giving of time and resources, not only help someone else, they help ourselves? And if everyone of us on here who complained about something that is going wrong in this city, chose do do one or two things differently, to validate someone, to give resources to someone or some place, perhaps we can effect some change if not physically, then spiritually. School starts next week. I'm excited to see my kids. Blessed be.

What is a Quaker ?

 When I tell people I'm a Quaker, some of my friends ask me "What's Quaker?" The tendency is to go into history. We were colonizers who had a different but still problematic relationship with the Natives and who sought to establish a different, tolerant colony in the New World. I could point to how we differed on the holding of slaves but eventually came to unity on the evil of slavery and some were abolitionists. I could talk about how we were racist to the core against black membership but now work to be anti-racist. I could emphasize how the sexes were taught equally in school, and that set our women up to be leaders in the Suffrage and Abolitionist movements.

But who cares, really?

Based on all that, we are like any other American religion. We have a stained, complicated past. We've done good, but we've done wrong. We have experienced schism, each faction of our faith holding on to what they like and pushing off the rest, giving up the parts that make us uncomfortable, that challenge us.

But that's not what people are asking either. There is something within Quaker Way that pushes us to examine ourselves, hold ourselves up to the Light, and see where we are walking out of the Light. There is a message of hope. A solution that leads to living in integrity and love.

So I tell them something like this: Quakers are a people who believe that every person, no matter what they look like, no matter their politics, no matter their position on issues, no matter their life experiences has within them a measure of that radically loving Spirit that can serve as a guide and teacher. We find that in this busy, sometimes chaotic world, that our duty is to stop what we are doing. Be still. Sink down into that which is pure within us, surrender, yield or give ourselves over to this Spirit, and see how to act. WE come together to do this corporately, and we do this individually. Many Quakers world wide are Christian, but the Quakers I worship with do not put emphasis on theology. We know from experience that there is a Light that shines into or within us. It is what shows us our addictions and attachments, and also shows us a solution to be free of them. We don't argue the nature of this Light (is it God, is it Divine, is it from the Cosmos?). We have all experienced it and that's enough for us.

Quakerism is about surrender, but it's also about healing and transformation, then action. When we give up control, when we stop manipulating, when we release our resentments, anger, fear, desires, wants and turn them over to the Light, to the Spirit, peace comes. That peace comes from living up to the Light that we have and acting as it leads.

It's a simple thing, not always easy to do, and we are there with each other doing it.

Neither Liberal nor Conservative. I'm Quaker.

People think Im a liberal; and if I share my Quaker beliefs Im often lumped into the liberal camp. Think, social justice, human rights, the universality of the Light, my current refusal to declare the Light as supernatural or natural, the acceptance that all things supernatural could be psychology or misunderstood natural phenomena. I could go on. I don’t believe in overarching control of people by large entities be they church or state governments or corporations. I question slogans and one size fits all approaches to social ills. There I could be a conservative.

Either way, I abhor the you’re in you’re out mentality found in our culture today, one that pervades even corners of liberal and Evangelical religion.

The more I practice bending to the Light, surrendering to it, trying to be obedient to it, I realize these “creaturely” movements I mentioned are divisive and can cause as much or more harm than good.

Liberal or conservative there remains for us Quakers at least a way that transcends politics, whether secular or sectarian, that provides us with a way to discern whether to act or to sit, to test things. We have a history of not acting when we should have, acting when we shouldn’t have, so our way isn’t infallible. We have opposed what the majority supports throughout history paying for it in social standing, wealth, and flesh.

But it’s better than the bandwagon, than submitting to coercion, than going with the flow, all the while questioning our integrity.

“If it is not of me it bears no fruit.”. Jesus supposedly said. It’s what we have to go by. I trust in this. When my Quaker meeting goes in a direction I don’t think is wise, logical, or spirit-led, but rather based on passion, emotion, or pressure I wait to allow for the sign that Im wrong and they’re right, or else I sit knowing that with no fruit, they will fail. And I’ll be there if and when they realize the error of their ways. Loving them like they’ve loved me as I’ve gone astray so many times in my life.

So in the world’s eye I wont fit neatly into any political movement or party. Im somewhat liberal here and somewhat conservative there. What I am is a member of the Religious Society of Friends first. All else is second. Let them question my credentials left or right. My aim isn't to please the world.

I'm free. And I'm a Friend. I'm your friend. The rest doesn’t matter.

Pentacles and Pentagrams and Problems Oh My!

Up until recently, I've been wearing pentacles in some form for decades.  For many years I wore a pentacross; simply put it's a pentacle with a cross superimposed on it.  I bought it at Crystal Fox. It's pewter and one can barely see the cross on it.  It's there though.

Initially, I liked this because it represented who I was at the time, pagan at heart, Christian by confession.  Actually, I was and am a member of the Religious Society of Friends, a Quaker, and there is no symbol that represents us.  There is a symbol that represents our service organization, the American Friends Service Committee.  Interestingly, it's a star (a compass, but a star).

There's the rub.  Whether I wore a cross (I have crosses and rosaries hanging from my ceilings and walls, and a cross tattooed on my back) or a pentacle (I also have those on my walls and as jewelry), I was betraying the ancient Quaker testimony against outward forms and symbols.

You see, we Quakers do not believe that objects in and of themselves have power. The power is within and comes from without.  That is to say, the Divine Light shines inward, resides inside, and the power to overcome addictions and attachments is found there.  Crosses don't get you there. Neither do pentacles.  They can be outward signs of inward realities but to us, the best sign of the Inward Life lived, is that just, that one's life speaks.  We are to be patterns and examples, to walk cheerfully over the world answering that of God (the Light) within the people we encounter.

That Light exists in all persons.  Early and modern Christian Quakers believe that light is of Christ, the "True Light that cometh into the world."   "The word of God."    Most Liberal Friends would  not go so far as to be so bold, but would rather say that Jesus embodied the Light and that Light is the same Light that is in us.  A heresy, no doubt.  Some Liberal Friends, could care less either way.

There is no symbol for the Light and there doesn't need to be.  Whether  Quakers study Buddhism, paganism, Christianity or whatever, we are still unified in the Light and our bodies and meetinghouse remain unadorned.

Well, except for many Evangelical Quakers who do wear crosses and do get baptized and some do have crosses and stained glass windows in their churches.  And pagan Quakers often wear pentacles or other symbols. Some Liberal Friends participate in New Age and indigenous practices and wear crystals or holy symbols of other faiths.

As for me, I wrestled until recently with these symbols that I wore and adorned my house with, weren't Quakerly.  They were Christian, pagan, and Christopagan, but not Quaker.  But I justified it as acknowledging that they held no power, that they were not magical in and of themselves, and they did symbolize how I saw myself. Both Christian and pagan.  And I wasn't alone among Friends in wearing religious symbols anymore.

Professionally, my students have never brought up the ring that I often wear that has a pentacle.  I did have one Muslim student say he was glad I quit wearing it. Neither my principals, my colleagues nor most students ever said anything about it.  I felt comfortable that way.

But this year it's been different. I wear a bunch of punk skull, eye, dragon, broom, claw rings on Thursdays usually when I play DnD with my students.  Those draw eyes immediately, but they're costume. I'm hardly gangsta.  But I noticed one person in particular eyeing the pentacle ring.  Today the pentacle around my neck was out of my shirt where I usually keep it.  Eyes were on it.

I know nothing of the faith of two of my administrators and don't care.  It's not my business. But I immediately went into "uh oh" mode.  I mentioned this to my trainer and he asked what the pentacle stands for.  I told him. In paganism and witchcraft it stands for the four elements and Spirit. If it's right side up it's spirit over matter. If upside down matter over spirit. It's not about good and evil.  Those concepts exist in certain circles (they do among most Quakers, though some liberals choose to talk with secular terms about harm and healing or whatever). Some would say good and evil are subjective.  Holy people do evil things.  We have both in us.  In the East, I told my trainer, the pentagram symbolizes fire air water wood & metal.  I added that for several centuries after Jesus' execution, that pentagram (no circle) was used to either symbolize the five wounds of Christ, or the uninterrupted line symbolized the  the alpha and the omega (Got Questions Ministries, 2002-2021). 

After telling me to quit stalling on the machine,  he then asked the more important question "What does it symbolize to you?"  To me it's a symbol of universality. Of the Power, of the Light (Spirit over matter) or the Dark (matter over spirit). Again, neither are good or evil. They just are two manifestations of the same elements.  That universality includes mathematics (which I hate), the elements are explained with science (which I admire but don't fully understand beyond a certain point) the spirit, Jesus, deities, ancestors  (religion).  It represents interconnectedness, East and West, knowledge and mystery; in essence it represents All; matter and spirit in one.  When I see one I think of the wonders of this planet and universe.  I think of the living and the dead.  I think of a star, and what does a star emanate? Light. What can a dark star absorb with its gravity? Light.  Dark and Light.  Stars. See?  I think on the Quaker star, with its red and black and to me it's again two lights. Dark and Color.  

I wanted so desperately for the crosses I wore to symbolize an inward reality that was true, but the mythology no longer spoke to me. The oppressive history (and current reality) of so-called Christians made the cross into a symbol of oppression not a symbol of resurrection.  Plus, I was a professor of sorts. I did not live the life I thought I should live, the life that Quakers encouraged, the Life that was led not forced.  I professed things I did not live but was articulate in so doing.  I was false.  I did not die on my cross daily. Instead I beat myself up with the cross and let others do it too.  I had to lay it down.

Some Quakers will tell you I'm too hard on myself, but for whatever reason I came to a place where I could no longer pick up the cross, though it's still on my back.  I could no longer confess what I did not believe.  Plus I had begun the practice of venerating my ancestors (not worshiping them).  When I shared this with my Quaker community, they supported and loved me, and reminded me we are liberal Quakers. It's ok.

It's been months since I've worn any jewelry beyond a watch.  I have pentacles all over the place, in windows and on walls along with rosaries hanging from the ceiling and a cross blessed by a pope on a wall. One is on my front door and my back door.  I don't even think about it.  They are not the Light. They are not science. They are not the material world nor are they the inward life.  But I will wear them as long as I can.  And when I can't, because of an inward motion to stop, I will lay them down.

Some of my students have figured out through Instagram my spell casting and ritualistic proclivities. So I got rid of a lot of those pics and made my account private.  A witch? Qui moi? 😎   Ok, so, as for a label for me let's see: we have Quagans (Quaker pagans) are there Quitches? 😈  No, I choose the label Quaker and I venerate my ancestors.  At this point in my life, I'm a non-theist. I don't worship gods of any kind. There is the Light, it's nature I do not know, who I recognize in Jesus, but do not believe comes from him (I've never really believed in the Trinity, anyway). But that's another blog for another time. The Religious Society of Friends is where I lay may head, where I have formal membership in FUM and FGC since 1988. I go to meetings every Sunday. I went to Guilford and Earlham School of Religion, two Quaker colleges.  I've tried to leave but keep coming back. 

I think this very blog post just shows why Quakers eschew outward symbols.  They carry meaning, if anything, and that meaning differs from person to person, from group to group.  They can serve as barriers, defining who's in and out, who's safe or not.  They have no power in themselves as Quakers  in the first century called the crosses of their contemporaries "dead crosses."  They should be handled with care, if they should be handled at all.  My first word as a child was "light" and how drawn I am to the symbols of light.

*update 9/2/22   I haven't felt the desire or need to wear jewelry of any kind, except what's pierced and can't be removed👃. Uh oh. Here come the bonnets and dresses.