My favorite kind of question

Some questions are easy to answer. Some questions take work. My favorite kind of question, though, is the kind that challenges my thinking, that opens up new possibilities precisely because it doesn’t have an answer. At least not yet. 

I received an email last week, asking that third kind of question: “Any chance you have any ideas here?”

No. I didn’t have any ideas. And I almost responded with that as my answer. Easy question. Easy answer. Done. But this question wasn’t that kind of question.

The question came from Shawn McConaughey, Associate Superintendent of Global Outreach & Pastoral Care at NWYM. He had forwarded an email from Robin Mohr, Executive Secretary at FWCC. Robin was looking for help compiling a list of resources “talking about how Friends need to learn how to talk to people who are like us and people who we think are not like us.” 

Resources on racism. Resources on xenophobia. Resources on equality and diversity and empathy. Resources that might help us bridge social and cultural divides within our own communities.

So I did some research, and I found some resources. (I’ll list those below.) I also identified a need. Precisely because we don’t have resources that speak directly to Robin’s question, Barclay Press also has an opportunity to create and distribute those kinds of resources. And this is where I could use your help. Do you know of work being done - locally and/or globally - among Friends and along these lines? I’d like to hear from you.

Here are the resources I found:

• Let’s Be Friends youth curriculum has a lesson on equality available for free, digitally, on request.
• Becoming Friends children’s curriculum has a lesson on equality available for free, digitally, on request. This lesson pairs well with chapters 2 and 8 in the book Eight of a Kind by Betty Hockett.
• The Evangelical Friends History CD includes an essay, The Indians’ Friends: Quakers and Native Americans in the Seventeenth Century by James D. Le Shana.
• Missions by the Spirit by Ron Stansell highlights the importance of equality, the value of all human beings, in making a lasting connection with other people groups.
• Unlocking Horns by David Niyonzima and Lon Fendall considers the reconciliation process in Burundi and how that redemptive work reveals the work of God.
• Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship by Vanessa Julye and Donna McDaniel demonstrates that racism has been insidious, complex, and pervasive among Friends. The book documents the spiritual and practical impacts of this discrimination in the expectation that understanding the truth of our past is vital to achieving a diverse, inclusive community in the future.
• When the Rain Returns describes the experiences and analyses of an International Quaker Working Party, composed of eleven Quakers and three friends-of-Quakers, who visited Israel, Palestine, and neighboring countries. It includes their deliberations on what they saw and learned in discussions with more than 90 individuals representing a range of personal histories and political views.

Eric Muhr

When do you listen?

In this morning’s Fruit of the Vine, Jim Teeters introduces ATM, his acrostic guide for discipleship: “Are you available? Are you teachable? Are you movable?”

Such good questions.

The brevity of each day’s Fruit of the Vine devotional makes it impossible for Jim to do much here, but what he offers regarding that first question is helpful: Listening to the Holy Spirit “takes my time and attention away from the normal duties and worries of my world.” 

I don’t know about you, but it is just these normal duties and worries that control my schedule, my interactions, my thoughts. To set them aside—even for a few moments—feels both irresponsible (as if I am being somehow derelict) and also freeing (a space in which to breathe). Jim shares that he finds time for this kind of listening “when I go on my morning walk. I can pray, look around at God’s wonderful, changing creation and move into a state of spiritual listening.”

How are you making yourself available? When do you listen?

In tomorrow’s devotional, Jim briefly tackles the question of being teachable, and on Wednesday, he writes on what it can mean to make ourselves movable. Which reminds me. Fruit of the Vine is available as a quarterly booklet, but you can also receive it as a daily email (at a discounted rate).

In the meantime, Jim challenges us to “find a time and place for listening.” And he offers this prayer: “Lord, help me to be available, teachable, and movable in response to the Holy Spirit’s leading. Help me find the time and place for listening.”

Eric Muhr

What brings you life?

In this morning’s Fruit of the Vine, Bethany Lee asks, “What brings you life? What do you love?”

I think of waterfalls.

This summer I’ve been taking time whenever I can find it to chase waterfalls. Old topographical maps and an online database of satellite images have helped me find ten so far in the county where I live. During one of those trips, I fell and broke my phone. During another, I had to hike in because the road had washed out. Another time, I had a run-in with a bear. Fortunately, he was more interested in berries than in me. 

Bethany writes that these questions work better than more spiritual questions like, “How do you pray?” or “What’s your favorite Bible verse?” because of how easy it is for us to “get stuck thinking there are only a few acceptable ways to connect with God. And often the ones that seem most holy to us are the ones we find the most difficult.”

Bethany’s right. And it is good to be reminded that God is present, not only in my morning devotions, but also in outdoor adventure, in quiet spaces, in rushing water, in a close call with a bear.

Bethany writes that “when we start noticing what it is that brings us life, what revives us, we can learn to spot the ways God interacts with us. . . . So what brings you life?”

Eric Muhr