[Published in the Windham County Commons February 1, 2008] Once upon a time, in 1830, after the second great awakening, 80 percent of Vermonters were regular churchgoers. “The most churchgoing people in the protestant world,” according to a state historical society paper written by Randolph Roth. And those who weren’t worshippers found themselves on the outside of society and many joined the westward migration.

Vermont’s beautiful emblematic community churches are a product of this age, before the automobile, before the rise of dairy farming, even before the railroad.

Now, according to the American Religious Survey, just 24 percent of Vermonters are church regulars — the lowest in the nation. Nationally, the rate is 42 percent. But the state's many churches have endured, marking human communities which also endure, despite the challenge of shifting demographic trends.

I was the pastor of one of these churches.

When I arrived at Vernon Union Church in 2001, I found a lovely classic white church, well kept, but quite empty. Only 15 to 25 regulars graced the sanctuary, built for 100. Some expressed concern that they were a dying church. Could I help?

It’s unexpected, being a Quaker and a pastor. But I’d been to seminary and when Sept. 11 happened, I decided to stop wondering what I was supposed to do and get up and contribute. Those were my skills and I could see that we needed community and healing and the institution ordained for that purpose is the church.

So I called Pam Lucas, the associate minister of the United Church of Christ, and asked how I could be useful. I’d discovered I liked the UCC — liberal, Christian, welcoming, and often at the center of small town Vermont. I liked that, unlike Quakers who have always held themselves a bit apart, the UCC is a mainstream church.

It turned out that days before, the Vernon church had called her in a panic, seeking a pastor. She figured this timing wasn’t a coincidence and suggested I call them. “Well,” said Steve Moore after my first sermon, “you didn’t embarrass yourself — do you want to come back?”

And so I began my sojourn.   more »

I'd prayed for an answer to what should give my life motivation and meaning, since I've been a bit low in that department, what with all the disappointments in people and reasons to be grumpy at God.

OK, so this is what I realized . . .   more »

Acceptance is what Eastern spiritual traditions suggest to alleviate suffering. This directly contradicts the world I grew up in, which was based on expectations.

As a teacher and leader, I know that expectations have their place – they spur us on towards something better. At the same time, I know I suffered from expectations that were other people’s notions of “normal” or some other box they wanted to keep me from expanding out of. And now, in my thirties, I find myself disillusioned because I had unrealistic expectations of human community. So I’m sorting this out for myself.

I’m grateful for the lesson of acceptance. I’ve become calmer and more accepting of how other people present themselves.

And yet . . .

I realize that I’m really unhappy because my expectations are not met. In fact, I’m really angry. I feel like somehow I was promised a better world than I find myself in.

So this is my spiritual crisis of the moment.   more »

The inner drama was like a switch changing from 'content' to 'I want' and quickly, 'I lack'. Not even that I did want very much, but once the switch was thrown all the repressed wanting was activated for every thing I've ever been denied. And that force seems stronger than my will. I can't choose 'abundance' then, no matter how many self-help books I've read in my life. So I was watching that inner drama with more awareness than before. And I didn't feel very good about it, or myself.

So I've been thinking about how I relate to people. I want to relate to everyone with love, but SO OFTEN there is some situation of wanting. Basically wanting love in some form. Wanting to fit in, wanting to be liked, wanting to be approved of, successful. I shoot myself in the foot that way, because then I get in my own way and am no service to others. I'm really grieving this. I want to find my power - in situations where it matters. I like being in situations where I am the leader or the teacher or the hero somehow - then people give me power and I feel approved of and it's all good. But I want to be able to feel my power in confrontive situations, when people don't like me. That is when things can be transformed (and also when you can go acting like a fool and hurt others). I want that for myself and instead I run up against my limits.

And so I've been living out the same drama that drives people to their God. 'I want' equals materialism, but it also equals thirst for God. 'I lack' calls for God to fill the space. But not even God can fill 'I lack.' Instead, we have to throw that switch back over to 'abundance.'

I have some power over that switch with myself. If I remain conscious, I can remember the that I can indeed always choose how I respond to situations, which keeps me away from the 'I lack' setting. But I have even more power with other people. So long as my own tangles don't wrap me up, I can set up an emotional climate with the people around me that help them remember they are secure. So I pray for help to do that as a leader.   more »

My Kenny G moment . . .

Now I'm not someone who listens to music as "background," unless I'm SO familiar with it that it moves me on some automatic sub-conscious level. I CAN multi-task with music as a soundtrack, but it becomes my main emotional animator while I'm doing something else. If there is music on (for example) while driving and conversing, I often give the music the lead voice in my brain.

I'd never heard of Kenny G (I don't listen to much of that genre) but one day I was in a travel-induced stress and boarded a United Airlines flight and this sound washed over me and completely changed the moment. 'What is THAT?!' I said to myself. I liked it.

The truth is there is a wide range of good music that could have affected me at that moment. The anxiety of travel is constrictive, pulling my body tight as I worry about missed connections and things that can go wrong. Music takes me on emotional flights - good music, anyway. It also has intrusive power, in the best sense - it will butt into whatever grumph of a snitch I've worked myself into, transforming it, making me happy.

In that moment, the soaring saxophone of Kenny G was exactly right to lift me into bliss.   more »

I reconnected with an old friend Laura who was very important to me when I was in college. Her letters have prompted me to look back at how my spirituality has changed over the last ten years or so.

I think what I have reworked is my expectations of community and people. My disappointment with Quakerism was being hit with the difference between what we Quakers say we aspire to and what we are actually being - normal humans. I've needed to make space for brokenness and healing and not healing yet and the wide category of "things that happen that I don't understand or are not according to my plan."

I was disillusioned about leadership roles because I wanted others to be as on board and committed as I was. I still feel that, even when I'm not in a leadership role, but I guess I have more of a sense of humor about it. (I've lately become aware of just how uneducated and unknowing politicians of my acquaintance are . . . It astounds me . . . And reminds me that there is work to do of communication and education.) So it's less about "The Cause" now and more about the individual relationship, starting with wherever they are at. But I don't give up easily on wanting things to be perfect, or at least measure up to my expectations (because obviously MY expectation are what's important in any situation, right?). And I've got a streak of British judgmentalism I can't exercise, especially when it concerns myself.

I've become less focused on seeking and discerning the spirit's leading.

At some point (actually I remember the moment - it was on an American Airlines flight, when I had time to think) the message came into my head that God was not leading me on to the next step in my life because it was time for ME to step up to the plate - that I needed to develop my own will and desire and that being a human is to be a co-creator, not only a follower. It was time for me to step out.

I've also become much more humble about leadings. First of all, I'm far more aware that I could be sensing impulses from my own ego and fear and pride. Easy to dress that up in nice spiritual language and I'm sure I have. I also trust less my own ability to discern. And I take it much less seriously - I no longer think that it is crucial, critical that I follow the leading because (the unspoken idea) everything depends on me. No, I'm just not that important. And, even more importantly, if I make a mistake (willfully or unintentionally), the world can handle it. Just move on.

(That's a very different attitude than many people around me have who say "there are no mistakes." I say instead, it's OK to make mistakes because you can handle it. You move on and mistakes become grist for what follows. Not to say there isn't trauma and distress.)   more »

I took today to rest. In several ways . . . I'm having a fast. Which is not an easy thing, at least not for me. I'm pretty hungry right now, weak, and fairly well preoccupied with food. But my body was calling out for this fast and I thought it would be a good idea to give my systems a rest. Actually, this recent trip was fairly stressful on me, especially because I didn't sleep well. Along with working hard and travel anxiety and the general disruption of being in a new place. Mostly it was just work, this trip, but I learned things and had some good times. I'm also taking a day of silence with my fast. Fasting from the stress of connecting.

I believe in rest. The good book says God rested on the seventh day and we should do the same. It seems to be written into the design of nature, as fields benefit from rest as well. There is a time for work and a time for play (to quote the same source!). At Kripalu they say it is "integration," which is to say that there is stuff happening below the surface, necessary to complete the change you make with your outward effort.

As a culture we do not believe in rest. We value hard work and working late and we work more than most other countries. And our spirituality is more intense, more driven, as well. But a more intense and driven spirituality does not actually make you more spiritual (although it may make you more religious, and indeed we are a more religious country than many, at least when compared to Europe). I don't have the space or longing to do it as much as I could, but I practice sometimes several types of fasting, not just avoiding food. There is avoiding computers and computer screens. Avoiding people (perhaps silence), avoiding being scheduled, avoiding a particular issue for a day. I believe that laying fallow for a day gives one part of me a rest, lets changes happen under the surface and is therefore very beneficial.   more »

I decide to find the downtown Quaker Meeting in London at Friends House:

   more »

Jim brought up on the Pioneer Valley Contra Dance List the perennial issue of the middle line at contra dances, and I thought I'd respond with some observations . . .
I'm not sure it's all snobbism. The experienced dancers, who know many people, often either book ahead or practice a kind of quick short-hand communication of looks and nods to arrange dances with our friends. The result is we often have partners much more quickly than the dance as a whole. I think many people end up in the middle line because it's the first line forming and they follow the flow. It's as exclusive to be unavailable without booking ahead as it is by booking ahead.
Perhaps we need not only courtesy lessons, but lessons in grace and a measured pace?   more »

I realize what a hermit I've been lately.

I've stayed home from Meeting. I'm disillusioned, not sure what use a church community could have to me or the world. I'm tired, tired putting on an act, and of putting up with other people's control needs. I don't feel any attraction to being there and any commitment I had has waned in the face of disillusionment.

So here I am at home, listening to my housemate's Steven Halprin   more »

Rob writes of his struggle: The problem I’ve faced is that living in that power, whether you call it Christ or not, is so damn hard. We live in a world that makes commitment and singleness of heart so impossibly difficult.

Oh, it's hard, it's so true. And all that Rob cites is waiting to make it harder. But it's always been hard. Because it's not the world that makes it hard. We DO have this choice, and Rob sees it. The reason it's hard is because of our own inner make up.   more »

I was watching how I was acting and I feel lacking. Specifically I feel a deficit of love. I’m fully competent, respectful, likeable, ethical . . . but not so loving. In fact, to be honest, I’m downright grumpy and annoyed sometimes.   more »

I was at Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting and there was this fellow who said he was from North Carolina when visitors were recognized. He was dressed several measures more conservatively than the rest of us and had come for a memorial service. Just before Meeting ended (when there was no time for any response . . . I mean any messages that would go deeper) he stood up and said "Jesus said I am the Truth the Way and the Life. No one comes to the Father but through me." And then he sat down.   more »

My local Quaker F/freind Sarah's got some really beautiful writing about where God might be when things seem so messed up in the world. It's on blogspot, so this link won't last forever.   more »

Today's scripture is deceptively simple. Love one another. Jesus says we are loved and are to love others as we are loved.

Right here is the essence of Christianity. This is the fulfillment of the Law, as Jesus says. If we get this, we can go home.

Alas we give lip service to love, but abide in a different spirit.

This is today's message: Abide first in God's love! -- we are first loved . . . and for love Be willing to sacrifice -- as Jesus gave his life . . . and remember This is a commandment, so work at it!   more »

I can't think of anything that can take the place of romantic relationships as a giver of spiritual lessons. Other relationships don't have the same depth of risk and agony and commitment and love and necessity to give up control (even though other relationships may have all those things and plenty of romantic relationships lack them). I think it's the giving up control that is most important.

Community is the closest thing.   more »

Amanda struggles with acceptance and writes about it beautifully.  How well I know the agony of this struggle.

I grew up taught that I could grow up and change the world. How many times have I heard that story about the starfishes getting thrown back into the sea?   more »

A freinds asks what I've found helpful and offputting in communities.

I can respond in two ways - by citing ...   more »

Sarah Pullman has been reading the Canadian Globe and Mail about "egocasting", where one selects one's news and friends to agree with oneself, sacrificing diversity of views and a common culture. I've been thinking about this for some years. This is a trend that isn't only happening on the internet. We are filtering our social networks, our activities, hobbies, schools, where we live.   more »

Like many visitors who have found their way to the Weston Priory, Carl Puleo was drawn at first by the music. “One Sunday morning, very early, I headed out on my own to try to find the priory in Weston and I had no idea where it was,” recalls Puleo, who made his first trip from Madison, CT, more than a decade ago.

“The morning vigil was already in process, but I snuck in. It was an immediate connection, very deep.   more »

I feel a need to say what we already know: Things change in ways impossible to foresee. How will we react when backed into a corner? How will other countries react to us? War has always been a way out when a mess threatens - I'd predict one - a big one - but couldn't begin to predict how or when. Not tomorrow. But who knows? We never know what is just around the next corner.   more »

I've made a list of spiritual centers and programs that offer volunteer service. This list is pretty basic right now - although complete, but I'll be improving the formatting and adding reviews and more information. Your comments are welcome.   more »

I�ve been watching from a distance the controversy over the UCC ad which was refused by two TV networks and I've been cheering for the UCC. But Digby, as an outsider, sees it as inter-religious fighting. It looks different from that perspective. This is a good caution.   more »

Every community I've known has broken my heart. The one I trusted and depended on most deeply is the one the broke it hardest   more »

Ellen Dana Nagler suggests in bopnews that Democrats respond to religious influence on Republicans by fashioning themselves as "The party of the constitution." This is a loosing proposition: It becomes a contest of God, vs. the constitution.   more »

You can tell a lot about the undercurrents in a culture by the words and feeling in the music. I�m driving across the country now, and I muse on this principal as I listen to the radio and take in what it says about us.

I�m in Oklahoma. Down at the public radio end there�s a lot of Christian stations.   more »

Richard Nelson Bolles (An Episcopal Priest who wrote What Color Is Your Parachute) says that your mission is when your joy meets the world's need.

Joy comes in different forms. Community, and culture (meaning the unspoken language of expectations and life patterns) is endlessly fascinating to me. So is engineering creative solutions to analytical and logistical issues. I like getting things done, offering leadership to improve things. Put these things together and you get community building - the strategy of welcoming and linking people. In terms of job titles, this could mean Program Director, Fundraiser, Volunteer Manager, Pastor (all areas where I bring skills).

I am drawn to healing energy. I have gifts in touch, massage and counseling. The power of the healing energy which I know physically as light & love leaves me inspire, awed, energized, and left singing. I am interested in healing individuals and also in healing community and in the ways community heals individuals. I have a growing sense that the world's need's are spiritual problems at their root, because they are about our relationship with other people and what is beyond us, and even our whole way of seeing reality. There is also a problem with how we have organized our community and our politics (particularly the problem of campaign finance).   more »

A Statement of faith is commonly a list of beliefs, presented so we can determine if we agree. But humans have a long history of getting it wrong and then fighting about it. I want to present this as a snapshot of what now informs my choices and outlook. I hope that we can give more energy to learning and living in the spirit than in making dividing lines.

My faith is part explanation, part inspiration, part experience, and part trust.   more »