Wednesday, August 11, 2010 by Jay T.

My wife’s mother died early this year.  She was a collector who lived just up the street  from us for almost twenty years.  The last seven months of our lives has been about stuff.  Lots of hers and some of ours.  We’ve carried truck loads of it to the recycle depot, the thrift store and the Habitat for Humanity ReStore–a shop for used building materials.  We’ve given away bunches to neighbors.  Corvallis Antiques sold lots of it before and during an estate sale.

Our floors are being refinished.  We painted the ceiling and walls first.  The living room, dining room and hallway were stripped of furniture, curtains, wall art and baseboards.  It not only stinks in that center part of the house, it echoes.  The floors are curing and giving off gas now.  We can walk through those rooms, but it gives me a headache to remain.  So I’m turned out of our house.

Time for an adventure.

For the first time since college sophomore year, I went camping on my bicycle without support.  I hauled all my own camping and cooking gear.  It worked.  I didn’t take much.  It was only an overnight turnaround to Armitage Park.  About 37 miles there.  I returned on a hilly route–to show myself I could do it, so the return was 60 miles or so.

Armitage Park still has the classic picnic grounds of my childhood–even if they’ve built a freeway bridge over the top of one end of it.  It now has a campground, which I knew about, but hadn’t seen.  It was filled with large recreational vehicles–some of them towed by semi-truck tractors.  Several pulled box trailers behind them, from which classic cars would emerge.  With a bicycle, cargo trailer and seven foot diameter tent, I felt out of place.  I didn’t have the amenities the campground expected me to be carrying.  No electrical plug.  Nothing to hook up to the sewer connection.  No shower.  Nothing to provide myself any shade on a very hot day.  But I did have a stove.  I could easily carry my book to the shade of a tree to cool off while reading.  The McKenzie River flows right by the park, with some pools to soak in.

Grace always comes to my meals, but whenever I observe her, she’s a few moments late.  So I wait expectantly, thankful for her arrival and the opportunity to remember her.  I was waiting for her before dinner at Armitage–freeze dried chili mac and fresh cucumber.  Once again, it was opened to me how this is enough.  All that I had was all that I needed right then.  Water, simple meal, warmth, simple surroundings.

For the trip, I had packed as little as I thought I could manage.  I had enough.  Amazingly, I used each piece that I packed, except the extra matches, the rain fly for the tent and the cycle repair stuff–all the items I bring but hope not to use.  I hadn’t expected to use my warm hat, overshirt and water resistant warmup jacket.  After a brisk float down the McKenzie yesterday morning, I needed them.

It was enough.  Enough to remember how little I need.

Posted in Physical activity, Keeping low, Journal | 1 Comment »

Sunday, April 4, 2010 by Jay T.

The meeting room for Corvallis Friends looked a bit different this morning.   Big sheets of newsprint were spread around the floor.  All who came were invited to lie down and be traced around, yielding a body outline.

A special invitation had been issued to children, letting them know that worship would be designed to include them.  A few adults, seeking a quieter space on this Easter Sunday, chose to absent themselves.  Some probably chose to join the early walk and outdoor worship, which gathered at 6:20 am in a local park.

After many body outlines had been traced and some posted on the walls, I explained that the markers, yarn, ribbon, flowers and glue could be used at any point during worship to add to the image of one’s body.  I asked Friends to notice how the feelings within and recognize them.  I explained that George Fox had written about this process many years ago and that contemporary Friends, some of them in our meeting, were rediscovering the ways our Teacher is present in our hearts and bodies.

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Posted in Flexing some forms, Physical activity | 1 Comment »

Thursday, March 4, 2010 by Jay T.

to John Woolman–about the conclusion of Chapter VII:

I’ve been learning for quite some years (It’s not an easy lesson for me.) to accept and treasure the understanding that my own efforts and strengths are minute next to what God can do in a situation.

The poverty of spirit and inward weakness, with which I was much tried the fore part of this journey, has of late appeared to me a dispensation of kindness.  ………..I was led into a deep search, whether in all things my mind was resigned to the will of God; often querying with myself what should be the cause of such inward poverty, and greatly desiring that no secret reserve in my heart might hinder my access to the Divine fountain. In these humbling times I was made watchful, and excited to attend to the secret movings of the heavenly principle in my mind, which prepared the way to some duties that in more easy and prosperous times as to the outward, I believe I should have been in danger of omitting.

          Journal of John Woolman

It’s a reassurance that you’ve found that same experience worth making the underlying theme of this chapter.

Posted in Conversations with Remarkable Friends, Keeping low | 2 Comments »

Sunday, February 28, 2010 by Jay T.

 Dear John

In your accounts of 1760, I’m reading:

Being two days in going to Nantucket, and having been there once before, I observed many shoals in their bay, which make sailing more dangerous, especially in stormy nights; also, that a great shoal, which encloses their harbor, prevents the entrance of sloops except when the tide is up. Waiting without for the rising of the tide is sometimes hazardous in storms, and by waiting within they sometimes miss a fair wind. I took notice that there was on that small island a great number of inhabitants, and the soil not very fertile, the timber being so gone that for vessels, fences, and firewood, they depend chiefly on buying from the Main, for the cost whereof, with most of their other expenses, they depend principally upon the whale fishery. I considered that as towns grew larger, and lands near navigable waters were more cleared, it would require more labor to get timber and wood. I understood that the whales, being much hunted and sometimes wounded and not killed, grow more shy and difficult to come at.

I considered that the formation of the earth, the seas, the islands, bays, and rivers, the motions of the winds, and great waters, which cause bars and shoals in particular places, were all the works of Him who is perfect wisdom and goodness; and as people attend to his heavenly instruction, and put their trust in him, he provides for them in all parts where he gives them a being;

and as in this visit to these people I felt a strong desire for their firm establishment on the sure foundation, besides what was said more publicly, I was concerned to speak with the women Friends in their Monthly Meeting of business, many being present, and in the fresh spring of pure love to open before them the advantage, both inwardly and outwardly, of attending singly to the pure guidance of the Holy Spirit, and therein to educate their children in true humility and the disuse of all superfluities. I reminded them of the difficulties their husbands and sons were frequently exposed to at sea, and that the more plain and simple their way of living was the less need there would be of running great hazards to support them. I also encouraged the young women to continue their neat, decent way of attending themselves on the affairs of the house; showing, as the way opened, that where people were truly humble, used themselves to business, and were content with a plain way of life, they had ever had more true peace and calmness of mind than they who, aspiring to greatness and outward show, have grasped hard for an income to support themselves therein. And as I observed they had so few or no slaves, I had to encourage them to be content without them, making mention of the numerous troubles and vexations which frequently attended the minds of the people who depend on slaves to do their labor.

Journal of John Woolman

I’m trying to figure out what you’re getting at.   I first notice the themes of how hard life on an island is and how much the Nantucketers must stretch God’s resources to provide for themselves.  Then I read your reminder to women to keep low and avoid vanities so as not to lead to the greediness that engenders risk on the sea and the keeping of slaves.

With my early 21st century filters, am I reading too much concern for the creation into your writing?  Is your concern more for the souls of the Nantucket women, for the slaves they might keep or for the supplies of timber and firewood?  Or is it for all of these–the web of relationships between the greed of people, the health of our souls and the demands we can put on others and the creation?

Posted in Conversations with Remarkable Friends, Keeping low, Journal | 1 Comment »

Sunday, February 7, 2010 by Jay T.

For at least a half hour of this morning’s worship, I wasn’t fully comfortable.  I had volunteered to oversee the meeting for worship and had arrived barely before the appointed time.  I’d not had time to open the overhead window its usual crack, or to turn on the ceiling fan.  The lack of air circulation put me to sleep for a while.  My throat was dry, as I’d left my water bottle outside fastened to my bicycle.  I was not in a sufficiently spiritual state.  I was tired from working hard and with too much adrenaline at quarterly meeting yesterday.

Close to the end of meeting, the Lord inwardly admonished me not to fret.  I was sufficient for God to address.  My throat, the atmosphere, my energy were all enough for God to reach through to find me.

This reassuring message of sufficiency and competence is the message of gratitude.  As I begin to pray, it helps to be thankful and acknowledge the blessings of life that surround me.

This is also the message of forgiveness.  No matter the evils I’ve suffered through or the way people have abused me, if I can let them go, I can encounter One who lives beyond all those slights, injuries and insufficiencies.

This morning I was informed that clearly:
∙    I am enough,
∙    My meeting is enough,
∙    The place is suitable, and
∙    Simple silence is all that is needed  –  to hear the voice of God.

Posted in Prayer, Keeping low, Journal | 1 Comment »

Sunday, January 10, 2010 by Jay T.

Last spring, two groups in my meeting began some conversations with each other and with John Woolman.  After reading a chapter and responding to it in our journals, Friends would meet periodically to discuss what we’d read, how we’d reacted and how we can change our lives to be more congruous with Quaker testimonies.  There’s some more info about it in an earlier post.

The other two Friends in my small group moved away last summer.  The second group is starting to meet again and I’m joining it.  We’re reading Chapter IV.

If John Woolman reads this, I hope he’ll respond.  If you’d like to answer for him, or respond out of your own experience, please do.

John:

Thanks for providing us a sense of the strong concern you felt for Negroes in your time.  I am even more grateful for the timeless wisdom I see in this passage:

It appeared to me that through the prevailing of the spirit of this world the minds of many were brought to an inward desolation, and instead of the spirit of meekness, gentleness, and heavenly wisdom, which are the necessary companions of the true sheep of Christ, a spirit of fierceness and the love of dominion too generally prevailed. From small beginnings in error great buildings by degrees are raised, and from one age to another are more and more strengthened by the general concurrence of the people; and as men obtain reputation by their profession of the truth, their virtues are mentioned as arguments in favor of general error; and those of less note, to justify themselves, say, such and such good men did the like.

I know in my own life how, “from small beginnings in error great buildings by degrees are raised.”  I do many mistaken things out of custom.  Even easier to see are the confounded errors of the big organizations many of us work for or support.  Why do schools give letter grades?  Why do we pretend that repeatedly testing children will insure that they learn?  What good is it to put a monthly query in the meeting’s newsletter, but never mention it outside of that?

Despite the depth of your caring about the issue of slave trade, when the yearly meeting in Virginia temporized in adopting a query against it, you were able to first draw the compromise to their attention, and later say:

As some of their members have heretofore traded in negroes, as in other merchandise, this query being admitted will be one step further than they have hitherto gone, and I did not see it my duty to press for an alteration, but felt easy to leave it all to Him who alone is able to turn the hearts of the mighty, and make way for the spreading of truth on the earth, by means agreeable to his infinite wisdom.

May your persistent, patient example be helpful to all of us who work for change, within churches or the government.

Posted in Conversations with Remarkable Friends, Journal | 1 Comment »

Friday, December 18, 2009 by Jay T.

My devotionals in November and early December typically include some prophets, along with the story of John the Baptist’s family and conception.  A few days ago, through a cross reference, I found the book of Hosea.

Hosea uses strong images of Yahweh’s seduction and marriage with His people.

I shall put an end to all her merrymaking,
her festivals, her New Moons and her Sabbaths
and all her solemn feasts.
I shall make her vines and fig trees derelict
of which she used to say,
‘These are the pay my lovers gave me.’
I shall turn them into a jungle:
wild animals will feed on them.
I mean to make her pay for the feast-days
on which she burnt incense to the Baals,
when she tricked herself out in her earrings and necklaces
to chase after her lovers,
and forget me!
–declares Yahweh.–
But look, I am going to seduce her
and lead her into the desert
and speak to her heart.
There I shall give her back her vineyards,
and make the Vale of Achor a gateway of hope.
There she will respond as when she was young,

as on the day when she came up from Egypt.When that day comes
–declares Yahweh–
you will call me, ‘My husband’,
no more will you call me, ‘My Baal’.

Hosea 2:13–18, New Jerusalem Bible

Today my eyes were especially opened by: 

When that day comes I shall make a treaty for them with the wild animals,
with the birds of heaven and the creeping things of the earth;
I shall break the bow and the sword
and warfare, and banish them from the country,
and I will let them sleep secure.
I shall betroth you to myself for ever,
I shall betroth you in uprightness and justice,
and faithful love and tenderness.
Yes, I shall betroth you to myself in loyalty
and in the knowledge of Yahweh.
When that day comes, I shall respond
–declares Yahweh–
I shall respond to the heavens
and they will respond to the earth
and the earth will respond to the grain, the new wine and oil……….

Hosea 2:20–24, New Jerusalem Bible

Maybe it was the Gregorian Chants I had playing, but no messianic vision has ever struck my chords as well as this one.  It helps me understand how the Messianic yearning included a hope and need for unity with creation.

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Thursday, November 26, 2009 by Jay T.

In late slanting light I saw the Sisters two days ago.  Triune and illuminated, their western aspects excited me enough to ride partway up the ridge on whose shoulder I now stand.  The vision wasn’t repeated that afternoon, but perhaps it is what stirred me this morning as I lay warm, long before this fine red dawn.  Or perhaps it was something greater than just a vision.Something shook me off the couch and out of the age of sail.  Earlier than I’d been thinking to leave, I was ready.  Out the door and into the age of internal combustion, propelling me higher than cranks and gears brought me 38 hours back.  At trail head, the eastern fringe was already red.  Clear there, just as it had been on Tuesday.

Now, the three are silhouetted below a canopy of stratus, with glowing yellows and reds behind them.  My two companions have quieted their games of Chase and Ring Around the Biped in favor of a slow, quiet stalk between my legs by the strong-eyed one.  I’ve come up the steep southern slope, like some long-ago, strong-willed nephew.  Perhaps that has made me pause, winded.  Perhaps it’s the excitement of the vision before me.  Maybe something greater.

I can see the plumes from the fiber plants near home.  Farther on from the paper or can making in Halsey.  Is the one due south from Brand S?  or OS?  No matter.

I think of those plumes as the largest object in view.  Then I remember the mountains.  How does one measure a mountain?  Where, at the bottom, does it stop?  Where at the sides?  Is forgotten Adams the largest in the Cascades?  Surely the cloud canopy is larger still.  But perhaps not an object.  No matter.

As I move along to the top, the dogs resume their running–moving at least as constantly as my mind.  The still, low sun projects shadows above the Sisters on the canopy that now grazes their tops.  As ambient Light grows, snow shows on their flanks.  Triune still, they fade, seeming to diminish a bit.

The dogs keep playing.  Somehow my descent on the gradual path takes longer than the steep way up.  Ever a sucker for a red-haired half Celt, I allow the strong-eyed one more freedom and more treats than she’s earned.

Am I Thankful this morning?  For the plumes that mark employed neighbors?  For the mountains’ shape?  For the canopy under which I walk?  That is more pleasant than walking within it.  For the companions on whose excuse I walk?  Or for the understood connection that lets me appreciate them all?  This is what undergirds us all and gives no bottom line for my restless minds’ demarcation between.

Posted in Physical activity, Keeping low, Journal | 1 Comment »

Tuesday, July 28, 2009 by Jay T.

One of the finest blessings of my life is being part of a neighborhood network that is working to develop shorter paths for our food from soil to table.  We have been meeting regularly for just over a year now.  In the summer, it’s once a week to pool and share what we can harvest from our own gardens.

As there is need and availability, we make a connection with a local producer of food staples to cooperatively distribute some of the crop.  We’ve done this with soft white and hard red wheat (grown in land that had previously been used for grass seed), pinto beans, garbanzo beans and tempeh.  For a variety of reasons, the shortest path from our kitchen to the farmer’s field leads first to our neighbors’ doorsteps.

Sunday’s SHARE exchange was interesting.  The guy from across the street brought a gunny sack full of well-sprouted Yukon Gold seed potatoes that a local nursery had given him.  In the matter of minutes, several of us hatched a joint planting scheme.  For a couple of days, Bob, Ed and I have been watering, then spreading layers of cardboard, chippings, dirt, compost and manure on a patch of ground (about 20′ x 30′) in front of Jenny & Don’s house.  Linda and Lucy helped us toss potatoes and straw on top of that Tuesday evening.  We have about 100 days until first frost, so we’re cautiously hopeful of bringing in a crop this summer.  It’s risky enough that we aren’t putting anything of much value into the venture other than our labor and some water.

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Posted in Neighborhood, Physical activity | 4 Comments »

Monday, July 13, 2009 by Jay T.

My name’s Jay and I’m a television addict.  I watched a great deal when I was a kid.  Some of it still rattles around in my head.  Not the “programming” so much.  I’m a good student, so I remember the main point of the TV productions.  The marketing.

Perhaps you, too, remember, “Stop!  Now you can pour a beautiful floor.” Or the Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em Robots!

In the 60’s the kid shows advertised a game called Tip It.  Players took turns placing weights on a platform, balanced in the center on a small fulcrum.  Whoever made the platform tip too far lost.  I never owned or even played the game, but, thanks to the TV spots before my eyes, I remember how to play it and how much fun it must be.  And how much I would be missing out by not nagging my parents until they got it for me.

When I sat down in a sparsely attended meeting for worship yesterday, half the attenders were on one side of the room.  The other half (plus one) of us on the other.  A bunch of chairs and empty space were in between.  Then from my rattling head pops out the image of Tip It.

The meeting room in Corvallis is hexagonal.  The ceiling beams come to a point above the middle of the room.  Above there’s a windowed cupola which sheds light on us sitting below it.  I wondered if we were balanced on a point in the middle of the floor, or hung from the top of the cupola, which way would the whole thing swing? Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Faith & Practice, Keeping low | 2 Comments »