In this morning's Fruit of the Vine, Cliff Loesch tells of his growing up years at Booker Friends Church, a worshiping community "in the panhandle of Texas." Looking back, Cliff remembers games of volleyball, gathering with friends at Dairy Queen, discussions about faith: "My family went to church whenever something was happening." It brings up a question. What happened? Cliff wonders, in his reflection, why "this kind of community is hard to find," why it is today that we're unable to have these kinds of experiences: "We lead such fragmented lives."
It doesn't have to be this way.
Cliff notes that Thomas Kelly described back in 1941 how "horizontal (person-to-person) relationships . . . often displace the horizontal-vertical." These shallow, horizontal relationships are ultimately unsatisfying in comparison to vertical relationships in which "the person-to-person relationship is in God." We miss out on deep community because we "get too wrapped up in the horizontal-only part of it."
But if we want something different, we have to start somewhere.
Cliff suggests something as simple as "placing ourselves in the company of others - having friends over, meeting someone for coffee, getting involved at church - is a good start." And he offers this prayer: "God, our Maker, anoint our community in ways that make you the center of every relationship. May we carry the sweet fragrance of Jesus to one another and to the world."
Eric Muhr
Getting to know our story
Along with participation at Quakers in Publishing meetings in Indiana, I've also spent time this last week reading through some Barclay Press history. It was 1948, when Ray Carter and Ralph Fletcher invested in offset printing equipment, equipment that was later purchased by the yearly meeting and renamed Barclay Press. Carter and Fletcher's vision was for the cost-effective and quality production of publications like Northwest Friend. Today copies of Northwest Friend (as well as Friendly Endeavor and Evangelical Friend) can be found online through the Digital Commons, an institutional repository for the George Fox University Archives.
So I've been reading about a vision to plant new churches in Washington (Fred Baker), the importance of cooperation in the work to which God has called us (Jack Willcutts), the miracle of forgiveness (Dean Gregory), a meditation on illness (Phyllis Cammack), hope for Korea (Kwan Kyu Kim), stewardship, temperance, youth clubs, Pennington Hall, a Saturday supper at a new place called Friendsview, quarterly meeting reports.
And much of what I'm reading is old news.
But there is also a sense in which it might yet be new.
Baker's vision for church plants in Washington has only been partially realized. Willcutts' noticing that ministry to others "does interrupt our own living until we see where our first interests should be" still holds true. Gregory is just as right today as ever to claim that the grace of forgiveness - of Jesus' redemptive love - is the only thing that can make a difference in "the present hysteria surrounding international relations and the gathering storm of religious power politics." And even though Cammack suggests that she wouldn't mind being "disgustingly healthy," she notes how her time in bed with a virus has been "time to pray, time to catch up with [her] soul."
If you have any extra time, I encourage you to take a tour of the Digital Commons. There is much there that is good - good as a reminder of where we've been and where we're going, good as a view into how God has used us and how God might still work through our combined efforts, good for getting to know our story.
Eric Muhr
A collected witness
Lori Elliott prays in this morning's Fruit of the Vine, "God, I need courage." It's a prayer that responds to God's command that Joshua "be strong and very courageous." It's a prayer that remembers Paul's final exhortation to the members of the church at Philippi to "not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." It's a prayer that reflects Lori's real-life experience, her real-life need. It's a prayer just like many I've prayed.
Lori shares the story of speaking to a "Mothers of Preschoolers group about raising a child with autism." Although she "envisioned a group of fifteen or twenty moms. . . . There were over one hundred mothers in the audience. . . . My legs were shaking and my heart was racing, and I couldn't seem to find the words."
In open worship, Robert Barclay writes that "they are inwardly taught to dwell with their minds on the Lord" and that when we wait on God, a witness "arises in the heart, and the light of Christ so shines that the soul becomes aware of its own condition." This is what I've been experiencing these last few months, as I read each morning the personal stories - both large and small - of the ways God is moving in our hearts and through our experiences, illuminating both scripture and our lives. I'm finding in each morning's Fruit of the Vine, a collected witness of the ways in which our waiting gives God the opening he needs to teach us through our experience, a way in which "the light of Christ so shines that the soul becomes aware of its own condition."
It's exactly what I needed to hear today. Lori closed her eyes "for a second and prayed: God, I need courage." And God answered.
Eric Muhr