Barclay Press is part of a large Quaker family. I’ve been in Philadelphia over the weekend, making connections with parts of that family. On Thursday, I had lunch with Gail Whiffen and Martin Kelley, editors at Friends Journal. After lunch, we picked up doughnuts from Beiler’s at Reading Terminal Market and walked back to the FJ offices. We talked about the myriad Quaker organizations and institutions and wondered, in the face of significant cultural pressure, if there might be new ways for Friends to be together.
On Friday, Chris Mohr gave me a tour of the Friends Center, where I had a chance to visit the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting library and the cubicle nearby where the work of the Tract Association of Friends happens (including their most recent book, A Language for the Inward Landscape, which we carry in our bookstore). Chris shared some maps and historical photographs; and we traded stories, mostly on the special difficulties and opportunities that come from the financial and relational connections between Friends meetings and Friends ministries.
On Saturday morning, Patricia Stewart bought me coffee. She and I met a year ago at a gathering of QUIP – Quakers Uniting in Publications. Patricia caught me up on the work of Friends House Moscow, an organization she has served alongside people like Johan and Judy Maurer. Over coffee, Patricia told me about youth-led protests in Russia, protests marked both by joyful exuberance and a passion for moral change: integrity, accountability, and dignity.
Later on Saturday, I met with a writer, Yelena Tower, and we discussed several ideas she has for a book-length writing project. Yesterday morning I worshiped at Central Philadelphia Meeting. Right now I’m in the air. We’re supposed to land in Denver in half an hour or so. Tonight I’ll be home, and tomorrow morning I’ll be back in the office at Barclay Press.
Quakerism has a historic reputation for being a faith that gets things done, and you can see – in our conference centers and colleges, our publishing houses and mission-sending agencies, our diplomatic work, our peace work, our work in prisons and in our own communities – that Friends have done a lot of work. But the work isn’t done. And part of the problem for us now is that we’re not always amenable to working together.
I wonder if that might change.
I wonder if there might still be a place for Friends.
I wonder what might happen if we learned new ways of being together.
And after this weekend, I’m encouraged. We have a lot of good people, good organizations and institutions, good work to do. This gives me hope.
Eric Muhr
Give up already
Micah Bales reflects on wealth and work in this morning’s Fruit of the Vine: “We’re terrified that we’re not doing enough, having enough, being enough. We . . . [hide] from the reality of our limitations, our weaknesses, and even death; longing to be forever young, strong, and healthy.”
Last night I read a chapter from Grace for Shame: The Forgotten Gospel by John Forrester, and he writes about what I think fuels my work (if not yours). In a culture that values productivity, failing to produce creates shame, and “the shamed person fears separation or abandonment.”
I don’t want to be alone.
Micah agrees. We need each other in order to survive, and our fear that we aren’t enough keeps us from being able to love. “Jesus shows us a new reality altogether in which we don’t need to be fixated on our own survival anymore. We can experience freedom to love others.”
Where do we find this freedom?
First, we have to give up, Micah writes. “As we embrace . . . surrender, we discover that the heart of the gospel is love – a release from the fear that has gripped us. . . . Despite all of the darkness, uncertainty, and even suffering, the path of Jesus is marked by radiant joy and passionate love.”
The problem is that our fear forces us to strive, and our striving separates us from the very people whose love and acceptance we want to earn. So we are never enough.
We can’t win that race, Micah argues, so we might as well give up. After all, Jesus is already with us, and “we don’t have to be afraid anymore.”
Eric Muhr
Justice or mercy?
Michael Chapman shares on Micah 6:8 in this morning’s Fruit of the Vine, a verse that his wife, Melissa, cut out and hung “on our wall while we lived in Guatemala. It is a reminder of God’s call to service that we hope to live out in our lives.”
He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
Michael writes that he remembers reading this passage with his oldest daughter “and reflecting on the words. I realized how hard it is to hold all of the pieces of this verse in equal tension.”
There is a tension between justice and mercy, for instance: “If we act justly, we can become consumed in that pursuit . . . and this can overshadow our need to be loving and merciful.” Michael writes of “helping communities fight for their land” or of trying to help “people devastated by drought.” The work “can be all-consuming,” an end in itself.
How do we resolve that tension?
Michael suggests that the answer is “to walk humbly with God . . . bringing those issues of justice to God through prayer.” Because God isn’t asking us to pursue justice, but not too much. God isn’t asking us to be merciful, but only to the point that justice isn’t impeded. And God doesn’t ask us to do the work on our own. God wants to do it with us.
“Reading this verse aloud with my kids helped me to see,” Michael writes, “that God’s heart is to see all three of these things carried out in our lives.”
Justice and mercy go together. If we are willing, God shows us how.
Eric Muhr