In this morning's Fruit of the Vine, Hank Helsabeck tells the story of a simple connection he made with his daughter: "I spent many late afternoons sitting in the aquatic center watching my grade school daughter, Amy, practice with her swim team." Every time Amy "completed a set of laps, she would look up from the poolside and find me in the bleachers. She would wave and smile at me." And every time it happened, Hank would wave and smile back.
These interactions between Hank and his daughter were small, almost automatic. But Hank writes that this "practice of connecting did more than I know in strengthening the relationship between the two of us." Hank likens this series of small interactions to the kinds of connections God creates in our own lives: "Whether you are driving across town, waiting in a checkout line, taking a short break from work, or actually swimming laps in a pool, just look up and smile at God."
I find myself wondering, as I read Hank's words, whether these might also be the kinds of interactions God longs for us to have with one another "as we swim our laps of life."
Hank leaves us with this prayer: "Abba, help me remember to pause many times a day to affirm your presence and to smile at you and with you." My prayer is that God might also help me to remember to pause at least once a day and to make a connection with whomever God brings into my life. If I see you, maybe I'll remember to smile and wave. If you see me, maybe you'll wave and smile back. And in the meantime, I am praying for you.
Eric Muhr
A language for the inward landscape
Brian Drayton writes about a weekend at Pendle Hill: "We were talking about the many passages in the old Quaker journals in which the writers described their inward states, using words and phrases that were both puzzling and full of implication." Drayton said that a friend, Bill Taber, called it "a language for the inward landscape," a kind of technical language for "Quaker spirituality that is too little known among Friends."
Bill passed away in 2005, but in a book released this month, A Language for the Inward Landscape: Spiritual Wisdom from the Quaker Movement, Brian uses Bill's work to introduce a uniquely Friend-ly way of doing theology experientially. "Friends refuse to subordinate spiritual experience, and the transformation of personality, to intellectual formulation" providing, instead, in their writings, a uniquely "Quaker theology of the narrative, pastoral, or prophetic."
Barclay Press produces guides for individual and small-group devotional experiences, and we publish a handful of books each year. We also sell books through our online bookstore - part of our work to help connect Friends to each other and to some of the best resources on what it means to be part of the Friends movement.
One of our ongoing projects is a study from T Vail Palmer on reading the Bible with empathy, a study whose first volume we hope to release later this year. In the meantime, this book from Brian helps to put into words why we do what we do at Barclay Press, why we do what we do as evangelical Friends, seeking to enter into "an encounter with the living God . . . [dwelling] in watchfulness, maintaining an inward attention on our condition, not far from the threshold of prayer, and becoming increasingly sensitive to the little hints and motions of the Spirit."
Eric Muhr
When God loosens the soil of our lives
Barb Mann writes of her "thinning year" in this morning's Fruit of the Vine: "I . . . broke my foot, had a rollover car accident with my young son in the car, and my purse was stolen at church." Barb adds that she was in a new job and "under so much stress I couldn't eat without feeling sick." It was a year in which Barb experienced "the soil of my life being loosened by the removal of confidence, security, and comfort."
I wonder how many of us have experienced times in which everything that can go wrong does. I wonder how many of us have experienced a "thinning year." Or years.
Last week, working through old files, I came across a staff photo from 1968. I posted it to our Facebook page. Harlow Ankeny is standing, leaning against the mantel. Dan McCracken, seated on the hearth (second from left), is only a year over half my age in that photo.
I can't help but note how much smaller our current staff is now. And older.
Maybe you've had a similar noticing. Results from the National Congregations Study (2015) show that the median size of a local church declined from 80 people in 1998 to 70 people in 2012, while the average age of its congregants increased.
That doesn't seem like good news. But Barb reminds us that there is still room for hope. During that "thinning year," God taught Barb "that I cannot make everyone like me. He helped me to guard and value my time by saying 'no' more often. . . . God helped me grow more into the person he created me to be."
When God loosens the soil of our lives, it can feel like we're losing ground. Barb suggests that we learn to pray, "God, when life gets disturbed remind me that you are the gardener helping me to grow and thrive."
Eric Muhr