(This will appear soon in my "Sacred Space" column in the Marin Independent Journal newspaper.)
“Do
I center my life in an awareness of God’s presence, so that all things
take their rightful place?” Linda Lang reads this “query” from Faith
and Practice, which in effect is the ‘constitution’ of the Society of
Friends, better known as the Quakers. Lots of Christian denominations
and preachers make pronouncements about how individuals should behave,
or how politicians should vote. Instead of taking positions, the
Quakers ask questions. They take considerable time to form the
questions and repeat them to themselves, seeking guidance from the
“inner light” about how to respond to them personally and corporately.
“I have a hard time with this one,” Lang says with a smile. “It’s
about simplicity, one of the central virtues of the Quakers. Look at
me!” she chuckles. “I like nice clothes. I probably have too many
shoes. How many does a person really need?”
Indeed,
her image wouldn’t fit too well on a carton of rolled oats. She’s a
tall, attractive woman who wears makeup and smart-looking professional
clothes. She’s the vice president for human resources for Millennium
Hotels. She’s not someone you’d expect to be wearing granny glasses
and holding up a peace sign. But that’s part of the beauty of her deep
involvement in the Society of Friends.
Lang grew up going to Mass and attending Catholic school in New York City.
“I would pray to God every night to take me to heaven. I was taught
that this world was something to endure, in order to be ready for the
next.” At 17 years, after much doubt and questioning, Lang wrote a
letter of resignation to her parish. That didn’t settle the matter,
however. For years, she felt something was missing in her life.
When
her daughter was young, she and her husband decided they wanted to
offer her some kind of spiritual grounding. So they went
church-shopping in San Francisco.
“The second place we went was the Friends Meeting on Lake Street, our
first visit to a Quaker community.” There they sat in silence, not
knowing when something would happen next, if anything! But the
peacefulness and simplicity of sitting in silent worship was moving to
her, so she and her family stayed. “I have two speeds: on and asleep.
I’m a hard-charging person. So I came to value that hour of quiet very
much.”
“Any faith that questions who you are will translate
that into how you work in the world,” she says. “Being a Quaker is not
about beliefs but about what you are doing.” The silence is a rich
time for Lang. “I have come to the point where I don’t care whether it
is God’s still small voice speaking to me in the quiet, or just my own
voice. I now realize that it is God’s gift in either case, if I am
somehow given the capacity to receive inspiration.”
Five years
ago, Linda and her family moved to Marin, and she began to attend the
Quaker meeting in San Rafael. Her obvious leadership skills led the
congregation to elect her for the past three years as the clerk, the
highest volunteer role in “unprogrammed” Quaker communities, which have
no professional pastors.
At 10 on Sunday mornings, Marin’s Quakers gather at the Falkirk
Community Center at 1408 Mission in San Rafael. Slanting rays of sun
stream into the old parlor where they are circled in chairs. In many
churches, silence is a fleeting element within a liturgy of words and
music. But in a Quaker meeting, the few words uttered are surrounded,
grounded, and interpreted by quiet. George Fox, the founder of the
Society of Friends in the seventeenth century, believed that an “inner
light” shines from within every soul. The people in the circle bask
quietly in that light until someone might be moved by the Spirit to
speak. Linda Lang rises and, with closed eyes, in a slow, eloquent
cadence, recounts the biblical story of Jacob and Esau as an example of
how forgiveness transcends conflict. Then she sits down again, her
words, and her soul, absorbed by the quiet.
____________________________________
PS:
Thank you, dear "musings" readers, for the many soulful comments you
sent to me in response to last week's piece about "The Theology of
Unemployment". I'm doing well in my job search and am enjoying a break
from work. Your kind sentiments mean much to me! Many of you shared
your similar experiences with well-meaning but unhelpful platitudes
that people have expressed to you when you were in a crisis. Here I
want to share an email from my friend, Brady Gordon. It underscores
what helps, and what doesn't help, in offering support to people who
face major challenges.
Hey Jim,
I
really liked your musing this week. Your framing was different, but it
reminded me of a human truth revealed in a a psych study I participated
in as a confederate (i.e. fake participant) back at Stanford.
In
this study, the real participant was asked to describe a recent
difficult experience, and then the confederate would respond with one
of three listening styles: normative ("oh, that happens to a lot of
people, I'm sure you'll be fine"), listener-focused ("I had a very
similar experience, let me tell you about it"), and speaker-focused
("Wow that must have been very difficult for you, tell me more").
Following the conversation that resulted, the real participant would
fill out a questionnaire about how they felt.
As
you can imagine, the participant ranked the speaker-focused style the
most helpful. It also sounds a lot like the practice of divine love,
as you describe it: to "open our hearts to the pain of others, and
listen, ask questions, and stay present for them."
The psych
study noted that the speaker-focused style was often the
least-practiced, but offered little explanation as to why. But your
musing gets at that issue -- it's scary to really be open to people's
pain. As you say, "They were just revealing their discomfort with the
stark reality that things can, and often do, get worse instead of
better."
