Britain Yearly Meeting and marriage equality - go, BYM!

Blessed be! - sm

News release and background on Committed Relationships paper for YMG09

News Release
31 July 2009
Quakers consider committed relationships

Quakers in Britain today concluded a long and profound process of discernment about the way forward for Quaker marriage and approach to same sex partnerships.

The minute recording their decision is as follows:

Minute 25 Britain Yearly Meeting 31 July 2009

Further to minute 17, (attached) a session was held on Tuesday afternoon at which speakers shared personal experiences of the celebration and recognition of their committed relationships. These Friends had felt upheld by their meetings in these relationships but regretted that whereas there was a clear, visible path to celebration and recognition for opposite sex couples, the options available for couples of the same sex were not clear and could vary widely between meetings. Friends who feel theirs to be an ordinary and private rather than an exotic and public relationship have had to be visible pioneers to get their relationship acknowledged and recorded.

This open sharing of personal experience has moved us and added to our clear sense that, 22 years after the prospect was first raised at Meeting for Sufferings we are being led to treat same sex committed relationships in the same way as opposite sex marriages, reaffirming our central insight that marriage is the Lord’s work and we are but witnesses. The question of legal recognition by the state is secondary.

We therefore ask Meeting for Sufferings to take steps to put this leading into practice and to arrange for a draft revision of the relevant sections of Quaker faith and practice, so that same sex marriages can be prepared, celebrated, witnessed, recorded and reported to the state, as opposite sex marriages are. We also ask Meeting for Sufferings to engage with our governments to seek a change in the relevant laws so that same sex marriages notified in this way can be recognised as legally valid, without further process, in the same way as opposite sex marriages celebrated in our meetings. We will not at this time require our registering officers to act contrary to the law, but understand that the law does not preclude them from playing a central role in the celebration and recording of same sex marriages.

We have heard dissenting voices during the threshing process which has led to us this decision, and we have been reminded of the need for tenderness to those who are not with us who will find this change difficult. We also need to remember, including in our revision of Quaker faith and practice, those Friends who live singly, whether or not by choice.

We will need to explain our decision to other Christian bodies, other faith communities, and, indeed to other Yearly Meetings, and pray for a continuing loving dialogue, even with those who might disagree strongly with what we affirm as our discernment of God’s will for us at this time.

Following the decision, Martin Ward, clerk of Quakers Yearly Meeting said: “This minute is the result of a long period of consultation and what we call “threshing” in our local meetings, culminating in two gathered sessions of our Yearly Meeting. At these sessions, according to practice, we heard ministry arising out of silent worship which led us to discern the will of God for the Religious Society and record it in this minute.”

Ends

Media Information
Anne van Staveren
0207 663 1048
07958 009703
annev@quaker.org.uk
www.quaker.org.uk

For interviews and photographs during Yearly Meeting Gathering contact Anne van Staveren on 07958 009703. Media attendance is limited. The business sessions of Yearly Meeting Gathering are not open to the media. A background paper on Quakers and committed partnerships is available from annev@quaker.org.uk

Notes to the Editor:

• Quakers are known formally as The Religious Society of Friends.

• Quakers were given the right to conduct marriages in England and Wales in 1753, but case law before that recognised the validity of Quaker marriages.

• Quakers began to call for a sexual morality based on the worth of relationships in 1963 with the publication of 'Towards a Quaker view of Sex'. Since then, Quakers have developed through tolerance to widespread acceptance of same sex partnerships, particularly since the formation of the now Quaker Lesbian and Gay Fellowship in 1973. Meeting for Sufferings minuted appreciation of gay and lesbian Quakers' contribution in 1988.

• There was no formal stage of 'recognising' same sex partnerships nationally as Quaker procedures allowed it to happen: there was nothing against it. The first meetings for commitment were in 1996. Since then, around twenty local meetings have celebrated same sex relationships through an official meeting for commitment.

• Following the Civil Partnership Act of December 2005, same sex couples in England, Wales and Scotland, who share Quaker beliefs may opt for a blessing or commitment ceremony after entering a civil partnership.

• The Civil Partnership Act allows same sex partnerships to be registered as civil partnerships in law, but such registrations cannot take place in the context of religious worship. Civil partnership is not recognised as marriage, although registered civil partners share almost the same legal rights and responsibilities as heterosexual couples.

• The total number of civil partnerships formed in the UK since the Civil Partnership Act came in December 2005 is 26,787. (Office for National Statistics)

• Minute 17 reads:

YEARLY MEETING
OF THE RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS (QUAKERS) IN BRITAIN
AT THE YEARLY MEETING
HELD IN YORK DURING THE YEARLY MEETING GATHERING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF YORK
25 July – 1 August 2009

Minute 17: Committed relationships: introduction

The report ‘Exploring our attitudes to committed partnerships’ (pages 61-64 of Documents in advance) has been introduced to us through a personal account of one Friend’s experience of the varied committed relationships in his family and his Quaker community.

We receive minute S/08/11/3 of Meeting for Sufferings held 1 November 2008 on the recognition of partnerships under the auspices of Britain Yearly Meeting. In the light of our testimony to equality we are asked by Meeting for Sufferings to consider how we should celebrate and recognise committed relationships within our Quaker community and what revisions of Quaker faith & practice would follow from this to include same sex partnerships.

We have opportunity at an open session on Tuesday afternoon to hear speakers who will share their personal experiences of commitment, to be followed by response groups, and, on Wednesday evening, special interest groups. We will return to this matter on Thursday afternoon, and to the two requests which Meeting for Sufferings has put to us to:

i) Endorse the conclusions of the Quaker Life minute that it would not be right at this time either to lobby government for further changes in the law on committed partnerships nor to surrender our legal authority to conduct heterosexual marriages;

ii) Explore the issue and give broad guidance on how changes suggested in the Quaker life minute might be expressed in chapter 16 of Quaker faith & practice.

Pacific Northwest Quaker Women's Theology Conference.... and some other thoughts on Quaker community

Walk with Me: Elders, Mentors, and Friends

Pacific Northwest Quaker Women's Theology Conference
June 16 - 20, 2010
Seabeck Conference Center

--------------

I have heard bits of pieces about this group, this gathering, on and off for years. Since I didn't have much interaction with programmed Friends before, and since I didn't live out here, I thought it was neat, but I didn't feel much connection with it.

Assorted things have changed, and now I feel a live, electric connection.

One is my own ministry, particularly around Explicit Friends. (Click here for the background, and here for additional blog posts on this theme.)

Courageously Explicit
Three Friends walk into Meeting for Worship: a Christian, a Pagan, a Jew, and a Non-Theist. Each gives ministry from their own experience; they all experience gathered Worship. Come create the rest of the story: coming together, supporting each other, building community, helping each other be faithful, speaking explicitly.

I am certainly called to ministry among Pagan Quakers (and also Quaker Pagans). But I'm also called to ministry among Friends of different thea/ologies, to help us be in community together, to help us be faithful Friends together, to help us speak in the languages of our own experiences and listen to each other in our different languages -- coming together in our shared experience of and commitment to Quakerism.

Over the last two years, I'm coming to see that this includes Friends from different branches of Quakerism, not just within the unprogrammed tradition.

Another thing that changed was my feeling like I just couldn't understand programmed Friends, thanks to the 2007 Mid-Winter Gathering of Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Concerns (FLGBTQC).

In 2007, our Mid-Winter Gathering was held in Greensboro, NC. There are seven different kinds of active Quakerism in that area. Wow. (I can remember, and talk at least a little about, five of them.) During our weekend together, I learned quite a bit about other kinds of Friends, and also about their points of view. There were programmed Friends with us that weekend, for whom I came to feel respect, affection, and kinship.

I even attended programmed Meeting for Worship.

Now, you've very likely heard or read me say that I'm allergic to programmed Quaker worship. To me, as soon as you introduce programming, you almost always introduce dogma and/or conflicting theaologies, and this prevents me from being in spiritual communion/spiritual community with the other folks present.

One of the things I love about unprogrammed worship in expectant waiting is that we so often come into spiritual communion with each other across that combination of differing and shared experiences of the Divine. That's part of the deep magic of Quakerism for me -- that place beyond words, beyond theaologies, in shared experience and communion.

So, I hate anything that spoils that. But I was willing to experiment, and I also felt like it was a way to show respect for Agnes and Willie Frye.

So I went to programmed worship.

It's still not my cup of tea... But it didn't feel like it wasn't Quaker.

That had been my fear: that it wouldn't "feel" Quaker to me, that it would feel like any other Christian, Protestant service, where there would be no space for me as a Friend who experiences the Divine through the Goddess, who is neither Christian nor Protestant.

So that opened up a small space inside of me: I had this experience of programmed worship, and while it's still not my cup of tea or my preferred form of worship, it still felt Quaker. It still felt like family.

Another thing that's changed is living in the Pacific Northwest, and in North Pacific Yearly Meeting, this last year. You know what? There are a lot more programmed Friends out here than in the Delaware Valley or southeastern Michigan. So, it's much harder to imagine them as incomprehensible.

Another thing is the Association of Bad Friends, a notion of Brent Bill's. (Click here for information about the ABF; click here for the Facebook group. Heh heh heh.) There are programmed Friends in the ABF, too. And you know what?, many of them are Bad Friends in the same ways that I am a Bad Friend. We laugh quite a lot at ourselves in our Association, and the ABF has gotten me into more dialogue with programmed Friends than almost, but not quite, anything else.

Back to living in the Pacific Northwest. In addition to there just being more programmed Friends around, the fact that there are more programmed Friends around leads to more experiences with individual people. There's a Friend from Freedom Friends Church in Salem, OR, sojourning in my Meeting in Seattle. I can sit next to her in worship in deep delight. What's more, I have found that Ashley's not incomprehensible to me, spiritually or personally. We don't know each other very well yet, but I can definitely say that we have become friends as well as Friends. I know I look forward to her company and grow spiritually through our friendship. I've met several other Friends from programmed churches, like Sarah. They're not incomprehensible to me, either, and I really look forward to getting to know them better.

North Pacific Yearly Meeting (NPYM)is an unaffiliated Yearly Meeting. It's an amazingly diverse Yearly Meeting, and there's a deep commitment to that diversity -- including theaological diversity. Wow. There are many reasons, current and historical, for our being unaffiliated, but part of it is out of respect for and commitment to that diversity.

(A year ago, that would have seemed pretty odd to me; I couldn't have imagined a YM with a preponderance of unprogrammed Meetings not wanting to affiliate with Friends General Conference (FGC). But I get it now. (We may yet affiliate with FGC; things are in discernment.))

When I went to NPYM Annual Sessions this year, I also got to see firsthand the deep respect between folks in our Yearly Meeting and Friends who were sojourning or visiting from Northwest Yearly Meeting -- a programmed Yearly Meeting which overlaps with us geographically. They are not strangers; they are beloved family.

Ashley and Sarah are co-clerks of next year's Pacific Northwest Women's Theology Conference. I know almost all the women on the planning committee; several of them are from my own Meeting.

And almost everyone I know who's involved has asked me if there's any way I can come back out to WA next year for it. I aim to find a way.

These folks are not strangers. These women are my beloved sisters.

I don't understand it completely yet, but I have a leading here.

And I invite other women from the unprogrammed Quaker tradition along for the ride.

An Overview of Modern Paganism in the US, University Friends Meeting Adult Religious Education, July 12, 2009

I was asked to give a presentation at the Adult Religious Education hour at University Friends Meeting on Paganism in general. This is in no way a comprehensive discussion of modern Paganism in the US. I have written this from my notes for that talk and from my recollection of it. An hour's time for presentation and discussion was, of course, too little for what I wanted to cover; and I had already cut quite a lot from my plan. The presentation went well, and the discussion was warm and rich.

I am deeply grateful to the International Pagan Pride Project for their existence, their work, and the resources they've made available over the years. I have been very privileged to be involved with the Mid-Atlantic Pagan Pride Project.

- sm

An Overview of Modern Paganism in the US
University Friends Meeting Adult Religious Education, July 12, 2009

We began with worship. I introduced myself and my talk. There were between 15 and 20 people attending.


Exercise: Tree of Life; Connecting with the Air, Fire, Water, Earth, and Goddess

I led the group through a Tree of Life meditation to ground and center, followed by an exercise to connect even more consciously with the elements and the Goddess. After the Tree of Life, I asked Friends to pay attention to their breath and their breathing; then to the air around us and the wind; to notice how it's all the same. I asked Friends to move a body part, any body part, and think about the energy, the firing of our neurons, required for that; about the food required for our energy; about the Sun needed to grow our food. We repeated this with water and earth.

Then I asked Friends, when they were ready, to open their eyes and look into the eyes of another person, and recognize and honor that of God, the Goddess-within, the Air, Fire, Water, Earth, and Spirit in that other person. (There were lots of smiles during this part, which I loved.)


What is a Pagan?

I passed out handout packets. We started with the Pagan Pride Project's "What is a Pagan?" and "Definition"; I walked folks through the main points, and added details from my own experience.

• The Pagan Pride Project has a set of definitions they have worked out to help begin to answer this question.

• Many people consider anyone who is not part of an Abrahamic religion to be Pagan, and any religion which is not Abrahamic to be Pagan.

• While I know and have worked with people who fit almost all of PPP’s categories, I am most familiar with and can talk most intelligently about their last two: religion and spirituality that focus on the Divine Feminine and on the Earth. (My personal area is feminist Witchcraft & eco-feminsm.)
  

• (There is information about some of the other categories on the PPP’s website, as I have noted on your handout.)

Paganism main points

The handouts I used here are Ceclyna and Dagonet Dewr's "Neo-Paganism -- the Divine in All Creation" and the Pagan Educational Network's "Paganism." Again, I highlighted some main points, adding details from my own experience.

• “The Divine is in all creation and everything has Divinity within”

• The interconnectedness of all life, of all beings

• This is why many Pagans are environmentalists

• An est’d 500,000 to 2.5 million Pagans in the US; why it's hard to get accurate numbers.
  

• Many Pagan traditions emphasize personal and direct experience of the Divine, often as the Goddess and the God; some focus primarily on the Goddess

• Many traditions focus on natural occurrences such as the cycle of the seasons (ie, The Wheel of the Year), moon phases, and births, deaths, and other stages of life (coming of age, first menstruation, menopause/croning)

• Personal responsibility comes with direct experience of the Divine → Can’t hide behind what a charismatic leader tells you to do or not to do, to believe or not to believe
  

• Like Quakerism, no dogma

• There are Pagans from all walks of life; Paganism cuts across race and class

• “Disorganized religion” → coherent, but not structured

• How many Pagans talk about discovering Paganism in similar ways to how lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people talk about coming out -- "Oh, my gosh, there's a word for what I am," "There are other people like me," "There's a word for my experience," etc.
  

Witchcraft

I wanted to talk about Witchcraft, as a specific example of one kind of Paganism, and as a kind folks in the Meeting were likely to have heard about (or have had experience with). I chose Reclaiming Tradition because there are active Reclaiming groups in the Seattle area, as well as active groups of Radical Faeries. I also chose Roses, Too! Tradition, since I knew folks in the Meeting may have been reading about it, and because I could talk about it intimately and intelligently. :)


Reclaiming Witchcraft - main points

From the Reclaiming Principles of Unity:

"The values of the Reclaiming tradition stem from our understanding that the Earth is alive and all of life is sacred and interconnected. We see the Goddess as immanent in the Earth's cycles of birth, growth, death, decay and regeneration. Our practice arises from a deep, spiritual commitment to the Earth, to healing and to the linking of magic with political action.

"Each of us embodies the divine. Our ultimate spiritual authority is within, and we need no other person to interpret the sacred to us. We foster the questioning attitude, and honor intellectual, spiritual and creative freedom.

"...We know that everyone can do the life-changing, world-renewing work of magic, the art of changing consciousness at will. We strive to teach and practice in ways that foster personal and collective empowerment, to model shared power and to open leadership roles to all. We make decisions by consensus, and balance individual autonomy with social responsibility."


Roses, Too! Tradition - main points

From Roses, Too! "Who We Are - About Roses, Too!":

"Roses, Too! Tradition is a tradition of eclectic feminist Witchcraft. We hold Sabbat potlucks and semi-open ritual, usually on the Saturday (or Sunday) closest to the holiday. Our spiritual backgrounds are diverse: Quaker, Pagan, Jewish, Episcopalian, Congregationalist, Catholic, Atheist, and more. As Witches, some of the values we share are:

• Respect and love for the Earth, for all living things, as the embodiment of That-Which-Is-Sacred – as the Goddess.

• The courage and honesty to do hard spiritual and emotional work.

• The compassion to support and bear witness to each other's work.

• A commitment to justice and to non-violent political activism.

• An understanding of magic as a way to create personal, political, and cultural change.

• The recognition of the importance of play, silliness, and fun in what we do."

"Imagine a Woman" and "The Declaration of the Four Sacred Things"

I handed out Patricia Reilly's "Imagine a Woman" as an example of something that might be used in Goddess circles.

I also handed out Starhawk's "Declaration of the Four Sacred Things" as an example of something from Earth-centered tradition, that reaches across thea/ologies.


Why Pagan Pride?

I handed out the Pagan Pride Project's "Why Pagan Pride?," and talked about the discrimination I face every day as a Witch. This is a Meeting community that understands LGBTQ oppression and discrimination, so relating it to my experience as a lesbian, and the way PPP relates it to queer oppression and discrimination, made sense to them.

I also talked a little about being not just a religious minority, but a non-Abrahamic religious minority. For example, as someone who's part Jewish, sometimes members of the dominant religion in the US tell me they can relate to me because their God the Father is the same as the God of their Old Testament. But as a Witch, as someone who works with the Goddess, I'm just a heretic to them (whereas, as a Jew, I just haven't progressed to Christianity yet).


Working with children, teenagers, or young adults

I asked how many people teach or work with children, teenagers, or young adults, in their professional work, their work in the Meeting, or elsewhere. Many hands went up. I called their attention to the handout "You Have a Pagan Student in Your School - A Guide for Educators," which was part of their packet.


Q&A and discussion

I started this with the question for the group: "If, to you, the Divine is immanent, is present in the world, is something you can experience directly, what are some things you would believe? What are some ways you would act?"

Discussion was warm and rich, with many Friends bringing their own experience to each others' questions.

----------------------------

Books I mentioned during discussion

Based on our conversation, there were four books I mentioned:

• Adler, Margot. Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America. Penguin Group USA, 2006.

• Mitford, Jessica. The American Way of Death Revisited. New York: Vintage Books, 1998. Anyone who will ever be involved with a relative's death, or planning a funeral or memorial, should read this book. Yes, that's all of us. - sm

• NightMare, Macha M, Starhawk, and the Reclaiming Collective. The Pagan Book of Living and Dying. New York: HarperCollins, 1997.

• Starhawk. The Spiral Dance: a Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess. San Francisco: HarperOne, 1999. (20th anniversary edition)

If you decide to purchase any of these books, please do so from the publisher or from an independent bookseller. To find one near you, click here.

----------------------------

Handouts

Here are the handouts I used:

• The Pagan Pride Project's "What is a Pagan?" and "Definition": http://paganpride.org/who/who.html

• Resources from the Pagan Pride Project: http://paganpride.org/resources/resources.html


• "Why Pagan Pride?": http://paganpride.org/what/why.html

• "Neo-Paganism -- The Divine in All Creation," by Ceclyna and Dagonet Dewr of the PPP: http://paganpride.org/resources/neopaganinfo.html

• The Pagan Educational Network's "Paganism": http://paganpride.org/resources/neopaganinfo.html

• "The Reclaiming Tradition," from Covenant of the Goddess: http://www.cog.org/wicca/trads/reclaiming.html

• Roses, Too! Tradition - "About Roses, Too!": http://smorganappel.googlepages.com/roses%2Ctoo!tradition2

• Patricia Lynn Reilly's "Imagine a Woman": http://www.imagineawoman.com/1.html

• Starhawk's "The Declaration of the Four Sacred Things": http://www.starhawk.org/writings/fifth-sacred-thing.html

• The Pagan Pride Project's "You Have a Pagan Student in Your School -- a Guide for Educators": http://paganpride.org/resources/paganstudent.html
  

Just back from Yearly Meeting

I just returned tonight from a trip to Missoula, MT for North Pacific Yearly Meeting's Annual Sessions. It was a really good experience; I'm so glad I went.

No liveblogging for me while there, although I know someone else who managed to... :)

Shabbat with Jewish Friends

I did something new last Friday evening... I went to Shabbat with other Jewish Quakers.

I've been on the Jewish Friends list-serv for a while, and for several years have had vague -- sometimes, even specific -- plans to go to Shabbat hosted by Jewish Friends at FGC Gathering. It never worked out. I am usually exhausted by Friday night, and often go back to my dorm and go to bed after the Friday plenary. Several years, I've had conflicts I couldn't get around -- committees, meetings, etc. -- that foiled my intentions. When I've had mobility limitations, it's been hard to get golf cart rides that late, especially if we were far away from where the plenaries were.

And, I've always felt a little shy about it.

So, we come to this summer's Gathering. I was over-booked going in, and knew it and accepted it, because I was led to do what I was doing. On the other hand, I hadn't had bronchitis when I agreed to all that; so I just accepted an extra level of needing to take care of myself and not exhaust myself. I figured I would not make it to many things I wanted to do this year, including any Jewish Friends events at all.

One Jewish Friend whom I knew from the list, but hadn't met before, talked to me in the dining hall one afternoon and really, really encouraged me to come to Shabbat, just to meet other folks on the list, just for fellowship, if nothing else.

And it wasn't, actually, someone else's pressure on me to add one more thing to my plate: it came across, very clearly, as an invitation to do something nice for myself.

I still felt very shy about it. I'm fairly comfortable on the email list. But Shabbat... My family wasn't religiously observant when it came to Judaism; I was raised culturally half-Jewish. The only time in my life that I can think of when I've done Shabbat was last December, when we were visiting my cousins over the holidays. Oy.

And then my week got really, really hard, with Bonnie's death, and everything else...

I wasn't sure I was doing any evening activities Friday. But Nikki Giovanni was the plenary speaker; and then FLGBTQC's postponed auction was after the plenary, and I needed to be there, with my community.

And Shabbat this year was in the same building as the evening plenary, and next door to the building where the auction was. So, I went.

It was lovely.

I even ended up saying kiddush, the blessing over the wine (sparkling grape juice, in our case, and to my relief).

I need not have been shy. I belonged.

And it was so good to be with my people.

And when I left, I went to the FLGBTQC auction, to be with more of my people.

Brucha at elilah
elohaynu malkat ha’olam
borayt p’ree hagafen.

Blessed are You, Goddess, our Goddess, Queen of the Universe, Creator of the fruit of the vine.

B’rucha at Shekhinah
b’tocheynu ruach ha’olam
borayt p’ri hagafen.

Blessed are you, Shekhinah, who brings forth the fruit of the vine.

So, this Friday at sundown... Shabbat shalom, and blessed be.

Spiritual purposes of ordinary/everyday ritual and special/set-apart ritual

This is a paper I wrote for a class at Cherry Hill Seminary on Ritual Theory. In it, I explore some of the purposes of both ordinary/everyday ritual and special/set-apart ritual, with examples from unprogrammed Quakerism, feminist Witchcraft and Paganism, and Judaism. - sm

Is ritual – especially religious or spiritual ritual – something that is ordinary and everyday, or something that is set-apart and special? Or is it both?

When ritual is ordinary/everyday, what spiritual needs does it meet? When it is set-apart/special, what spiritual needs does it meet? What needs do we meet when we bring the ordinary/everyday and the set-apart together in a both/and space?

The place to start might be the question, What spiritual purpose does ritual serve? In an earlier paper, I identified ritual as an avenue for: magic (transformation and change); conservation and stability; expression; inquiry; and encountering Mystery. The next questions might be, How do ordinary/everyday ritual and set-apart/special ritual effect each of these?

Read more...

Printable version of my "Four Doors to Meeting for Worship" presentation

Back in March, I posted about my Adult Religious Education presentation at my Meeting on William Taber's "Four Doors to Meeting for Worship." There's now a printable version of this available here.

Bonnie Tinker's memorial scheduled

July 25th
11 am
First Congregational Church
1126 SW Park Ave.
Portland, OR

A Silly Poor Gospel: Six of Sixty - Number 5

Go, Peggy. !

A Silly Poor Gospel: Six of Sixty - Number 5:

Hell's Freezing Over

So there I was ...

sitting at a lunch table with a group of insightful, visionary, powerful, spiritual women. We were talking about what it would take for our corner of the Body of Christ to embrace an application of our professed testimony of equality. Specifically, what it would take for the spiritual sea to change enough to make gender identity and sexual orientation non-obstacles to membership and ministry.

“What if we just opened that door and walked through it and let them watch? – Maybe they’d follow.” I proposed.

“Yeah, when Hell freezes over!” said one of my sisters.

That phrase haunted me for a while after that. It rattled around in my heart like a marble in a glass milk bottle. Then the bottle broke, and it was spilt milk all over, but I had a jagged glass epiphany.

Read more...

"Transgender rights? A Christian speaks out"

Bonnie Tinker

I don't know that I want to write much about Bonnie Tinker's death yet. But I do want to acknowledge here that it happened. I am deeply grateful to have been with Friends when we learned, and to the folks at VA Tech for their support. I am grateful the members of Bonnie's family who were there and who came had the support of Friends and friends.

There are plenty of places where folks can read the facts, what's known so far about Bonnie's death, including some things I posted at my links page (click here). And I do want to share what is mostly a lovely video (the music and all at the end are somewhat jarring).

A lot of people are affected by Bonnie's death. Thank you for holding them in the Light.

Peterson Toscano: "Jesus Loves You! But I've Heard Rumors"

I am FB friends with Peterson (am I name-dropping?), and I just loved this series of status updates when they appeared. And I loved the comment threads that followed. Because Peterson has such a wide range of friends with such a wide range of takes on what he posted, the comment threads were sometimes just as funny, thought-provoking, and illuminating as the status updates themselves.

In his blog post, "Jesus Loves You! But I've Heard Rumors," explaining this whole process, Peterson writes:

On May 25, soon after I arrived in the England for what would be a six week tour that included Northern Ireland, Wales and Sweden, I began a series of Twitter messages that began “Jesus Loves You!” My hope was to do one a day for 31 days, and I did it! My Twitter is attached to my Facebook status and to this blog, so LOTS of people got to see the updates and especially over on Facebook many people commented adding their thoughts.

Check it out... and I hope you get as much out of them as I did. :)

The growth of political violence in the United States

I have been working on this entry for several days. Today I learned of the murders of most of the members of the Flores family in a home invasion by members of an anti-immmigration vigilante group. - sm

When I was an undergraduate, in the late 80s and early 90s, I rather unexpectedly did a lot of research on terrorism.

At UMBC, I started to understand not only what a loaded word "terrorism" is, but how culturally programmed. The professors who team-taught my political science class in Third World Politics challenged us to pay attention whenever we heard or read the word "terrorism" being used -- to notice who was using it, and whom they were describing. In addition, they challenged us to replace the term "terrorism" with the term "political violence" whenever we read it or heard it, and see what that did to our thinking and perceptions.

When I got back to Bryn Mawr, I took social psychology with Clark McCauley, one of whose specialties is the study of terrorism/political violence. Also an eye-opening experience.

You have to understand, this was before September 11, 2001. The majority of what Americans called "terrorism" back then was divided into two kinds: "terrorism from above," or state-sponsored terrorism, and "terrorism from below," or guerilla warfare/terrorism. The places Americans talked about this happening in were in the "First World" and the "Third World" -- the Middle East, Africa, Europe, South and Central America. Not the US -- not yet.

But my point is that we talked about both kinds. The political violence of guerrilla groups in Lebanon, Nicaragua, Iran, El Salvador, and the Occupied Palestinian Territories populated the news, as terrorism-from-below. But state-sponsored political violence -- particularly from repressive regimes and military governments such as the Soviet Union, East Germany, and El Salvador -- was recognized as terrorism-from-above back then. The massacre in Tiananmen Square made huge news in the West. The terrorism of the Soviet Union was still active in the news through the late 80s. Even the shootings at Kent State were still understood as state-sponsored terrorism. I could go on.

Nowadays, when we talk about "terrorism," we talk primarily about violence-from-below, rather than about state-sponsored terrorism. And we very often talk about religious extremists. But they're usually people who are either far away or from far away, whose skin is not white, and who are not Christians.

We rarely talk about people right here in the US whose political violence should rightly be called terrorism -- especially not if they are are white, right-wing, or supposedly Christian.

In the summer of 1992, I worked with McCauley doing preliminary research that was part of a larger project of his, on the question of what helps prevent violence-from-below in political movements. Many political movements start out espousing non-violence, but many of them come to resort to violent tactics -- against first property, and then people. What makes that change acceptable to some groups but not others? What factors protect or insulate a movement against that change?

He wanted me to study a group that, unlike the New Left and the environmental movement, was still non-violent, and had an unprecedented paper trail -- the ecofeminist movement.

(I pretty much said to him: I'm a feminist, and I'm a Witch, and you want me to spend three months reading eco-feminism and related material, writing about it, and talking with you about it. Twist. My. Arm.)

So I read a lot of primary materials from the New Left, the anti-nuclear movement, different aspects of the environmental movement, the women's spirituality movement, and eco-feminism.

The ecofeminist movement, it turned out, didn't meet all of the requirements for McCauley's larger project -- for one thing, a great many of the movers and shakers of the ecofeminist movement had been previously involved in the New Left, and many ecofeminists were part of the anti-nuclear movement.

(Reading Robin Morgan's accounts of her time in the New Left was... illustrative. Interestingly, she also went on to write about terrorism and political violence.)

But, the ecofeminist movement did provide some useful insights. As, in a way, did the New Left, by contrast.

In all the material I read, one thing stood out over and over as a protective against the development of violence in a political movement:

Refusing to dehumanize the enemy.

Not only did the eco-feminist movement consistently refuse to demonize the enemy, its adherents insisted on finding ways to see opponents as human, as real people -- and even as an embodiment of the Divine. It could be something as simple as going around a circle at the end of the day in an action, each participant naming something that emphasized the human quality of someone with whom they'd come into conflict that day. It could be making sure to address a police officer or soldier by name, not merely title or rank. It could be making a practice of asking opponents about their families. It often included ritual and magic, and could be as intimate and formal as taking time in circle to name "enemies" and affirm, "Sergeant Jones, thou art God," "Jane Smith, thou art Goddess," as well as naming allies and those present, affirming, "Sara, thou art Goddess," "Tom, thou art God."

Why am I writing about this now?

A Friend of mine shared a link to an interview with David Neiwert about violence in political movements and about his new book, The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right. (Click here for publisher's web site.)

Neiwert discusses recent terrorism in the United States: in the wake of the suppression of a Department of Homeland Security report warning about a potential upsurge of right-wing political violence, we have the assassination of an abortion provider, the uncovering of a plot to assassinate President Obama, and a killing at the Holocaust Museum. [And now, the murder of a family of Hispanic immigrants.]

And Neiwert also talks about the factors that encourage that political violence/terrorism, and some ways to resist it.

As I've been reading the interview, I've found myself saying to myself, Yes, yes, yes.

Some things that have stood out to me:

Joshua Holland: There is a lot of ugly discourse in this country, and there always has been. What makes eliminationist rhetoric different from the kind of run-of-the-mill nasty stuff that we see on all sides of the political spectrum?

David Neiwert: Right -- there is a lot of hateful rhetoric that floats around on both sides. What's unique about eliminationist rhetoric is that it talks about eliminating whole blocs of people from the body politic, whereas most of the hateful rhetoric, in the case of people on the left, is directed at an individual -- George Bush or Dick Cheney and various characters on the right. That's one of the key differences -- when right-wing people talk hatefully, it often is directed at entire groups of people: Latinos, African Americans, gays and lesbians or liberals.
JH: People they deem to be inferior.

DN: Deemed inferior, or not even human. That is a critical aspect of eliminationist rhetoric. It often depicts the opposition as subhuman -- comparing them with vermin, diseases or carriers of diseases. I think for me the classic historical expression of eliminationism in America was Col. [John] Chivington's remarks prior to the Sand Creek Massacre, where he urged the white Colorado militiamen to kill all the Indians they encountered, including women and children. He said, "nits make lice." That to me is pretty much a classic eliminationist statement.

Something I saw over and over in my research for McCauley's project was that when groups start seeing opponents or members of other groups as not-human, that's when violence becomes acceptable. And starting to lump opponents together into groups, rather than seeing individuals, contributes to this.

This is one reason I react strongly whenever I hear anyone refer to cops as "pigs." I grew up in a large city that had problems with police violence; it's not naivete on my part. I've also worked with amazing people in law enforcement during my humanitarian work. But calling cops "pigs" -- or calling union-busters, or even anti-choice murderers or anti-immigrant murderers "pigs" -- is not okay with me, because it's dehumanization. Seeing cops, even security guards, as "pigs" is part of what sent the New Left down the slippery slope from non-violence to violence. Dehumanization opens a door in the psyche to violence.

One of the things that I learned while studying hate crimes is that the vast majority of hate crimes are committed by ordinary people, not by members of hate groups. Yet it's also the case that the vast majority of hate crimes are accompanied by hate-group rhetoric. So in a lot of ways hate crimes are a manifestation of the way right-wing extremism has permeated the broader culture. But more than that, these ordinary people also believe -- and I might add this includes the white supremacists -- that what they are doing reflects the secret desires, the unspoken wishes of the community that they believe they are defending.
When you stand up to them, when you engage in the act of standing up to them, that knocks that plank right out from under them, because when the community stands up and says, "No, these are not our values, this is not what we believe in, what you are doing is wrong," that takes that belief away.

I am reminded of the power of collective action. I am reminded of a recent article in the New York Times, "At Last, Facing Down Bullies (And Their Enablers)," which talks about the pioneering and successful work of Dr. Dan Olweus in mobilizing bystanders to counteract and prevent bullying.

I am reminded of the collective response of the San Francisco gay community on the night of the murders of Harvey Milk and George Moscone, and of Holly Near's song "Gentle Angry People":

We are a gentle, angry people
And we are singing, singing for our lives...

I am reminded of my peace witness trip to the Middle East. I am reminded of successful reconciliation work I've witnessed and learned of, in the US and abroad, between family members, political enemies, and survivors and perpetrators of violence.

Neiwert talks about the importance of engagement, of not demonizing the enemy -- and of not heroizing one's self:

So when we engage them, I think it is fundamentally important that we try not to see ourselves as heroes, that we don't turn them into the enemy but rather people like us, human beings who have frailties and have flaws and engage them in a real way, because that is how we are going to pull them over.
We are not going to change people's minds by pointing at them and calling them bad people. We are going to change people's minds by taking care to honestly engage them as one human being to another. That is the only way I think that we really can succeed.

The kind of engagement that Neiwert and other activists for peace, justice, and non-violence are talking about is hard work. It requires a particular combination, of an open heart and self-protection, and that does not necessarily come easily.

But it can be learned, it can be supported, it can be done -- and it can create change.

What are we going to do -- you, and I -- to contribute towards this kind of engagement, this kind of change?

How are we creating magic?

How are we nourishing openings to grace?

How are we nourishing That-of-God and That-of-the-Goddess in each other?

What are we doing to prevent violence?

Social Media at FGC Gathering

From FGC today:

SOCIAL MEDIA AT THE GATHERING: Planning to Twitter? Use hash tag #fgc09. Blogging? Tag your posts FGC09. See posts and tweets at www.fgcgathering.org.

Sacred duty or littering?

Imagine trying to prevent death by giving water to someone who's been trekking across the desert. Imagine facing up to a year in prison and a $10,000 fine for it.

CPTnet
15 June 2009
BORDERLANDS: CPT reservist and other volunteers leaving water for migrants face littering charges.

by John Heid

"I was thirsty and you gave me drink.” (Mt 25:35)

Tucson, Arizona On 1 June 2009, CPT Reservist John Heid and two other companions placed three-dozen gallons of water on an active migrant trail in Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge (BANWR), southwest of Tucson, Arizona. The three were confronted by a Fish and Wildlife officer, escorted out of the area, and face possible prosecution for littering...

Also on 1 June, a volunteer from No More Deaths faced criminal misdemeanor charges of "knowingly littering" in U.S. District Court in Tucson. He had placed containers of water on an active migrant trail in BANWR last December. (See www.nomoredeaths.org.) On 3 June, a jury found the No More Deaths volunteer guilty of the misdemeanor "knowingly littering.” He faces one year in prison and a $10,000 fine. Sentencing will occur on 11 August 2009.

Click here for more information.

Is America Surrounded by Paganism? Newt Thinks So - Windows & Doors

Is America Surrounded by Paganism? Newt Thinks So - Windows & Doors:

I invite believing Pagans to define paganism and hope that some will do so here. I am pretty certain that any time a non-follower describes any tradition, without at least the active presence of an actual believer or two, something bad is bound to happen. Any doubts? Think about how Judaism has been mangled over the centuries by non-Jews twisting it to meet their needs for a spiritual foil.

My guess is that is what Newt was doing with paganism, and since it's no longer acceptable in most quarters to do that with Judaism, he simply picked on another group which has fewer defenders. It was wrong to do to Jews, and it's wrong to do to pagans.

My thanks to Jason over at The Wild Hunt for the link. - sm

Held by my Meeting

In the last six weeks or so, I have been feeling incredibly held by my Meeting.

Some of it was being on the planning committee for Meeting for Grieving and Healing. Some of it has been another clearness process with which I've been engaged with the Meeting. Some of it has been my ministry oversight committee. Some of it has been my Faith and Practice study group. All of these have been opportunities for me to be in community; to nurture, develop, and be present with my connections with Friends and the Meeting as a whole; to minister; and to worship with Friends in deep ways.

This weekend at Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business, we are going to tackle two interesting and potentially challenging issues (that I know of), both of which I have strong feelings about. And I'm looking forward to it.

It's not that my Meeting is perfect. In the last ten months, I've witnessed some of the ways in which we've fallen down on our job of being in community with each other. But I've also witnessed some openings I've not seen in the other Monthly Meetings I've been part of. I've witnessed daring love and ministry. I've witnessed integrity. I've witnessed the Meeting as a whole being able to hold seemingly contradictory truths at the same time without diminishing either or denying the seeming contradiction. I've witnessed elephants in the living room (Meeting room?) being named and addressed with a minimum of drama.

Most of all, for me, I have come to feel known.

Writing that, it strikes me that my major complaint about our itinerant life has been that feeling of not being known. Not being seen, recognized, understood, and known for myself, for me, for who I am. That's something I've missed desperately from my life in Philadelphia. And yet, I was ready to leave Philadelphia for a short time, for many reasons -- one of which was that there were definitely ways in which I felt like people were seeing me through old lenses, and I thought leaving and coming back might help change that. As well as provide me some opportunities to grow. (But I sure thought my time away would be shorter! This has all been much different than what I expected.)

In Ann Arbor, particularly my last spring there, I started to feel known for myself in the context of a small handful of people, mostly related to Judaism, music, and dance. That was such a blessing.

But I have never felt as known, or as held, by a Meeting community as I do right now, or felt how much that can affect my life.

I don't know what's going to happen in Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business this First Day. I don't know what's going to happen in the workshop I'm leading at Gathering in two weeks. (How many people? How many taking it precisely because they're uncomfortable? Is my workshop going to merge with the high school women's Goddess workshop or not?) I don't know where Beloved Wife and I are looking for our next apartment, or what combination of things I'm going to be doing this fall.

But I am not afraid.

Because I can tell that I am held.

And it's powerful.

IRAQ URGENT ACTION: CPT to move into IDP Camp, asks constituents to contact governments, media | Christian Peacemaker Teams

IRAQ URGENT ACTION: CPT to move into IDP Camp, asks constituents to contact governments, media | Christian Peacemaker Teams

CPTnet
11 June 2009
IRAQ URGENT ACTION: CPT to move into IDP Camp, asks constituents to contact governments, media

The people of the Zharawa Internally Displaced People's (IDP) tent camp fear for their lives as temperatures begin to exceed 38 degrees Celsius/100 degrees Fahrenheit. The camp has no shade trees or structures and no electricity for refrigeration of food. One hundred thirty-seven families share forty-five tents. Many of the people are elderly and children, who are most susceptible to disease.

Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) will move into the IDPs tent camp on 14 June 2009. They will join voices with camp members to ask the local, national and international communities to help relocate the IDPs to a more livable and humane environment.

(read more here)

My Pagan Values, My Quaker Values

Pax over at Chrysalis blog had the idea for Pagan bloggers world-wide to take some time in June to blog about Pagan values. He points out, rightly, that folks in particular other traditions, especially here in the US, dominate the public discourse about values.

I found this immediately appealing. Both because it irritates me a great deal when the Christian religious right pretends it has "values" all sewn up, and because I'm curious about what other Pagans I haven't already read have to say.

I know, in general, what values my spiritual communities and the people in them hold, as well as the values the traditions that have influenced me hold. But modern Paganism, or modern neo-Paganism, is an umbrella term for a very broad, very diverse range of experiences, expressions, traditions, and beliefs. And I'm curious about what values other Pagans hold, and I'm curious about how that's developed over the 18 years that I've been "out" as a Witch.

But first off, what do I mean by Pagan?

I like to borrow the Pagan Pride Project's definition -- or set of definitions -- of "What Is a Pagan?" It's not perfect, but it is definitely a good "functional definition."

A Pagan or NeoPagan is someone who self-identifies as a Pagan, and whose spiritual or religious practice or belief fits into one or more of the following categories:

• Honoring, revering, or worshipping a Deity or Deities found in pre-Christian, classical, aboriginal, or tribal mythology; and/or
• Practicing religion or spirituality based upon shamanism, shamanic, or magickal practices; and/or
• Creating new religion based on past Pagan religions and/or futuristic views of society, community, and/or ecology;
• Focusing religious or spiritual attention primarily on the Divine Feminine; and/or
• Practicing religion that focuses on earth based spirituality.

As you can see, it's a pretty broad definition/set of definitions.

And it can include folks who are part of relatively mainstream congregations, folks who have created or are part of exclusively Pagan congregations, folks who aren't part of any religious or spiritual groups, folks who are Non-Theists or Atheists... And more.

A lot of people describe discovering that they're Pagan very similarly to how they describe what it was like to discover that they're lesbian, bi, gay, queer, or transgender. It's incredibly powerful to realize:

• There are words for who I am/ what I believe/ what I experience!
• There are words for my inward truth!
  
• There are other people like me in the world!

Many Pagans do, in fact, describe it as "coming out" -- as an outward expression of inward truth.

So now that we've looked at "Pagan," let's look at "values."

Considering the Merriam-Webster definition of values, what are the things that are important to me as a Quaker Witch?

One place to start is with the list of core values we developed in my former Coven in the mid-90s:

Roses, Too! is a Coven of eclectic, feminist Witches. We hold Sabbat potlucks and semi-open ritual, usually on the Saturday (or Sunday) closest to the holiday. Our spiritual backgrounds are diverse: Quaker, Pagan, Jewish, Episcopalian, Congregationalist, Catholic, Atheist, and more.

As Witches, some of the values we share are:

• Respect and love for the Earth, for all living things, as the embodiment of That-Which-Is-Sacred -- as the Goddess.
• The courage and honesty to do hard spiritual and emotional work.
• The compassion to support and bear witness to each other's work.
• A commitment to justice and to non-violent political activism.
• An understanding of magic as a way to create personal, political, and cultural change.
• The recognition of the importance of fun, silliness, and play in what we do.

These are still true for me today.

Part of what had led us to form our own Coven is that while it wasn't hard, in our large East Coast city, to find other people who shared our labels as Pagans and Witches, or people who shared some of our values, it was hard to find people who shared our particular combination of values. There were interesting places to visit, but none that felt like home. (I'm sure my founding co-Priestess will make additions and corrections as needed.)

Some folks saw the Goddess, That-Which-Is-Sacred, only outside the world, not inherent in everything that lives. A number of folks we met were into the supernatural in ways we weren't. Some groups were strongly hierarchical; we were egalitarian. Most weren't able to offer support for the kinds of intensive work we both knew we needed to do in our lives. Some were too "high-churchy" for our needs; we needed something more simple. Some were more dogmatic than we were comfortable with. Not many saw the same kinds of connections we did between our spiritual lives, social justice, and work in the world. Not all Pagans or Pagan groups are committed to non-violence, although many are; not all Pagans or Pagan groups are feminist, although many are. Some groups were much too serious for either of us. Some were actually too light-hearted for us. We needed a balance between seriousness and fun.

So we formed our own Coven. Over time, both the core group and the extended Roses, Too! community grew into just that -- a wonderful, imperfect, organic community. Not all of whom identified as Pagan, or even as spiritual at all, but to whom coming together regularly on the spokes of the Wheel of the Year became important.

My values as a feminist Witch -- the ones that led me to co-found a Coven, and led me to live my life as a Witch -- are the values that led me to Quakerism.

First, on a Coven "field trip" to a Quaker-sponsored training in non-violent intervention. Folks came to this training from faith communities all over the City. We really enjoyed meeting, hanging out with, and working with other religious and spiritual people whose labels were different from ours, but who shared many of our values. (And Rob C. and I still reminisce about how we first became friends by screaming at each other in a role play more than twelve years ago.)

Second, to Meeting for Worship. Many of the people we met at the training -- including quite a few we already knew -- invited us to come to worship. For me, it started out some as intervisitation, and mostly as an experiment in a particular spiritual discipline. Almost right away, however, Meeting for Worship became a regular and deeply important part of my spiritual life.

Third, to Quaker process and testimonies, as I became more involved with the life of my Meeting and other Quaker organizations.

And then, before long, to a commitment to Quakerism as a way of life, because it's an outward expression of inward truth, because it's where the Goddess calls me to be.

The two of us who founded Roses, Too! had both gone to a small Quaker liberal arts college. (I had also gone to a mid-sized state university, another enlightening experience.) Because our alma mater doesn't exhibit much outward, obvious Quakerism, it took me a good five years after I'd graduated to realize how much Quaker enculturation I'd experienced there. One of the things I'm grateful for to this day is how Bryn Mawr provided me with an outward structure for many of the things I believed in and values I'd held before arriving there. The Academic and Social Honor Codes, along with other forms of Quaker enculturation, were things I embraced with a whole heart -- they were outward expressions of my inward truth.

So when Quakerism became my home, years later, it was because of values I'd held ever since I was old enough to articulate what was important to me -- including the values of feminist Witchcraft.

What are Quaker values? To me, they are encompassed by, and exhibited in, Quaker worship, practices, and testimonies. But I think it's fair to say that Friends' worship and Friends' practices, particularly in how we attend to our business together, are rooted in our testimonies:

• Simplicity
• Peace
• Integrity
• Community
• Equality
• Earthcare
• Stewardship

(For more about the Testimonies, click here, and then click on section 5.)

I have a connection with each of the testimonies on a gut level. Some of them are easier to explain than others; some are more accessible than others; some of them are more of a daily presence in my life than others.

In my Faith and Practice study group in my Meeting, I recently had some breakthroughs in my understanding of both Simplicity and Stewardship. (I love North Pacific Yearly Meeting's Faith and Practice; it's a gem.) Peace and Equality resonated with me from the beginning. Community and Earthcare are vital expressions of and experiences of the Goddess for me. Integrity has a near-daily presence in my life, if for no other reason than I am living my life as an out lesbian and Witch.

Each of the testimonies has something to say to me, and says something about me, as a Quaker Witch.

So, if you ask me about my Pagan values, you're going to hear about my Quaker ones, too.

And if you ask me about my Quaker values, you're going to hear about my experience of the Goddess and my values as a feminist Witch, too.

My Pagan values and my Quaker values can't be separated. My Quaker values and my Pagan values are the same.

Quakerism is how the Goddess calls me to walk through my life as a Witch.

Ranya Hamre speaking at Inter-Faith Press Conference in Orange County, CA, May 28, 2009

Rayna is a Unitarian Universalist minister, Pagan, and sister student at Cherry Hill Seminary. This is a good piece for information about Paganism in general and Cherry Hill in particular with respect to sexuality and marriage equality.

Thank you, Rayna! Blessed be.



Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRD3XOrhdus.

Sunrise and sunset

I have been amazed, lately, by how early it gets light, and how late it stays light. If we weren't training the cats not to wake us up for food (it's working, by the way), I wouldn't need to set an alarm in the mornings. I don't feel like drawing my curtains until after 9 pm at night. Wild.

So I thought I'd look up the actual sunrise and sunset times, and see if they're really all that different from when we lived in Philadelphia, or better yet, when we lived in Michigan -- because I know they were definitely different in Michigan compared to Philadelphia. We were much further north in the time zone, and almost as far west as you could be and still be in the same time zone. I'd have to see where we are comparatively, east-to-west, in the time zone here, but I do know we're much further north than we were in Ann Arbor (47th parallel here in Seattle; 44th parallel in Ann Arbor; 40th parallel in Philadelphia).

The US Naval Observatory has some very cool tools, including ones where you can get the sunrise and sunset data for a single day, or a whole year.

So I looked up May 29, 2009, for all three locations, and here's what I got:

• Seattle: Sunrise, 5:17 am; Sunset, 8:57 pm
• Ann Arbor: Sunrise, 6:02 am; Sunset, 8:32 pm (wow, they really are different...)
• Philadelphia: Sunrise, 6:35 am; Sunset, 8:22 pm.

Now I'm curious... how about Summer Solstice?

According to the US Naval Observatory, Summer Solstice 2009 is on June 21st, at 5:45 am UT (Universal Time). In Seattle, we're in the Pacific Time Zone, UT-8, so Summer Solstice for us is at 9:45 pm the night before, June 20th. Ann Arbor and Philadelphia are in the Eastern Time Zone, UT-5, so Summer Solstice is at 12:45 am on June 21st.

Summer Solstice:

• Seattle, June 20th: Sunrise, 5:11 am; Sunset, 9:11 pm
• Ann Arbor, June 21st: Sunrise, 5:59 am; Sunset, 9:15 pm
• Philadelphia, June 21st: Sunrise, 5:32 am; Sunset, 8:33 pm.

So on Summer Solstice, we have

• 16 hours of daylight in Seattle;
• 15 hours, 16 minutes of daylight in Ann Arbor; and
• 15 hours, 1 minute of daylight in Philadelphia.

Very cool!

Today's post is brought to you by the joys of scientific geekdom in the service of spiritual mysticism. :)

--------
Photo: sunset on Lake Michigan, August, 2006, (c) Stasa Morgan-Appel

Speaking of Pagan values: Cherry Hill Seminary on Same-Gender Marriage

I am deeply grateful to Cherry Hill Seminary for their open commitment to equality. - sm

For Immediate Release

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Contact: Holli S. Emore, CFRE, Executive Director

888-503-4131 t

CHS@cherryhillseminary.org

Cherry Hill Seminary Responds to Same-Sex Marriage Debate

COLUMBIA, SC -- Cherry Hill Seminary prepares students for public Pagan ministry and pastoral counseling through quality higher education and practical training.

Our students and faculty are representative of the range of human sexual diversity. They minister to communities which include many same-sex couples.

As Pagans, we embrace all forms of consensual adult sexual expression and relationships. We recognize sexuality as a sacred and spiritual force and, therefore, support legal, social and spiritual recognition of these relationships.

More information about Cherry Hill Seminary may be found at www.cherryhillseminary.org or by contacting Holli Emore at 888-503-4131 or CHS@cherryhillseminary.org.

The Peace Testimony and Armed Forces Emergency Services

This article appeared in the July, 2008 issue of Friends Journal. An earlier version appeared here. I am re-posting it, in part, in honor of Memorial Day. - sm

Disclaimer: The opinions and beliefs stated in this article are those of the author only. They do not reflect the opinions, beliefs, or positions of the American Red Cross. This article is not endorsed by the American Red Cross.

------------------------------

It’s 3:45 am when my pager wakes me. I speak to a man who is quite upset: his sister has just died – at the end of a long illness, but unexpectedly soon – and his sister’s son is on active duty in the military, stationed overseas. The caller needs to get a message to the nephew through the Red Cross so the young man can get leave for his mother’s funeral. I walk the caller through giving me all the information I need – his sister’s information, the hospice information, his nephew’s name, social security number, and military address – and promise him I’ll get back to him just as soon as I can. I call the hospice agency and page the hospice nurse, who confirms the date, time, and cause of death. I send the message through the Red Cross system and call the man back to tell him the message has been sent and that we requested that his nephew call him as soon as he receives it. I explain that because his nephew is in Iraq and the activity level there is very high right now, it may take longer for the message to go through and he may not hear from his nephew for several days.*

I’m driving home from work when my pager goes off. I pull over and talk to a woman whose son was just in a motor vehicle accident and is near death. She is very calm. She wants her daughter to come home so the family can all decide together about taking him off life support. I talk to the charge nurse in the ICU and gather all the information that command will need to decide whether or not to grant leave, including the medical team’s recommendation for the service member’s presence. I send the message, then let the family know that it’s on its way, and that I requested that a chaplain be present when the sister is notified.

I’m eating dinner when the pager beeps. I speak to a woman who’s in active labor at a local hospital and is about to give birth. She gives me her husband’s information between contractions and then passes the phone to her father-in-law when she can no longer speak. I apologetically explain I can’t send the message until the baby’s born. Her father-in-law chuckles. “Don’t worry, they’re wheeling her into delivery now!” By the time I talk to someone on staff for the verification, the baby’s been born and I can send the notification. The delighted new grandpa answers the cell phone when I call back to say the message has been sent.

------------------------------
*To protect confidentiality, none of this information comes from actual cases. These situations are compiled from typical kinds of cases.
------------------------------

I volunteer with the American Red Cross, an organization which provides humanitarian relief and assistance under a variety of circumstances. I’m active in two areas: Disaster Relief, and Armed Forces Emergency Services (AFES). As an AFES volunteer, I mostly work with military families to get emergency messages to active-duty service members: an illness or accident, death, other emergency situation, birth.

As a Friend, I first got involved with the Red Cross through Disaster Services just after September 11, 2001. Like so many of us, I had a deep need to do something – something to help, and something that expressed the Peace Testimony. What I did was answer phones, all day, every day. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was needed, and it freed up experienced, trained volunteers to go out in the field.

After Hurricane Katrina, I again found myself raging at the news, and again felt that need to do something. So I thought I’d go answer phones again. But because I have experience as a pastoral counselor and case manager and the need was so great, the local Chapter asked me to go to the Gulf Coast instead.

Five weeks after the disaster, at just one service center, in just one town, my fellow volunteers and I saw and spoke with thousands of people every day. None of us could “fix” anything for them. True, we could help them apply for financial assistance. True, we could try to connect them with services. But we couldn’t repair their lives.

Mostly, what we could do was just be there with them.

It turned out our simple presence meant much more than financial assistance to many people. “You came from where? To be here with us?”
“But you’re not getting paid?!”
“What about your family?”
“Thank you for coming down here.”
“I haven’t told anybody what happened, and it’s been more than a month.”
“We thought nobody cared about us.”

I already knew what a difference it made for me to have someone simply be with me when I was going through hard times. In Mississippi, I learned yet again that bearing witness is sacred work.

When I returned from my deployment, I stayed involved with my local Red Cross Chapter, mostly responding to local disasters. I learned it also makes a big difference to people when they know they’re not alone just after a house fire, tornado, or flood. One elderly resident of an apartment house which had been completely evacuated in the middle of the night said, “Because you all were there, we weren’t afraid.”

But then my supervisor asked me to get involved with Armed Forces Emergency Services. Our department was short-staffed, and she said I had a good background for the work. I was a little dubious about this. As a Friend, as someone who doesn’t support this war, how would I feel talking to military families in crisis? And could I do so without offering them short shrift? (Integrity. Peace.) But as a volunteer, I was there to do whatever needed to be done, so I said I’d try.

I kept thinking of a F/friend whose brother is a Marine. I kept thinking of my own surrogate brother, who’s a Marine, too.

Over time, doing AFES casework became as much an expression of the Peace Testimony for me as Disaster Relief work. I don't know that I have good words to explain how being part of providing this service, providing this ministry of presence, is, for me, a way of walking the Peace Testimony in the world; but I will try.

Let me start with the seven Fundamental Principles of the International Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement: Humanity. Impartiality. Neutrality. Independence. Voluntary Service. Unity. Universality.

I know. They sound like a bunch of very dry words. And yet each one of those Principles is quite real. Each one provides concrete guidance to Red Crossers. Each one helps me put my Quaker beliefs and convictions into action as part of a larger, completely secular, organization, side-by-side with non-Friends. Each one lets me work closely with other people who have very strong convictions, and who in ordinary life might not think we have anything at all in common.
The Fundamental Principles help us do sacred work together.

I find one key, one link, to the Peace Testimony in the Fundamental Principles. Take, for example, Humanity. With each AFES case I work, I have several opportunities to recognize and honor the humanity in another human being; to recognize and honor That-Which-Is-Sacred in each person I speak with – the spouse or parent or sibling or cousin or friend who's initiating the case; the medical administrator, nurse, doctor, police officer, funeral director, or hospice nurse with whom I verify the case; the AFES Center worker who takes the case or gives one to me.

These are opportunities to bear witness.

I find additional keys in Red Cross history. The first-ever Nobel Peace Prize, awarded in 1901, was shared by Frédéric Passy, who founded the first French peace society, and Henri Dunant, who founded the International Red Cross and initiated the Geneva Convention. The International and the American Red Cross organizations were founded in the midst of two of the bloodiest wars Europe and America had known – the Battle of Solferino in the Second War of Italian Independence, and the American Civil War – springing from a desire to help the wounded on the battlefield, without consideration for which side of a conflict any of those wounded were part.

Humanity. Neutrality. Impartiality. Independence.

Several months ago, a local Friend asked me, “Don’t you feel conflicted when you do AFES casework? Because you’re making soldiers’ lives easier?”

That thought hadn't occurred to me. So, I thought about it.

And I realized, I haven't talked to one family or one soldier whose life is anything approaching “easy” right now.

The service I offer as an AFES caseworker is one where I work with people in a time of great stress, and touch them as embodiments of That-Which-Is-Sacred. As real people. Many of the families and professionals I speak with in the course of a case are struggling to make a difference in the world. Many of the them are struggling simply to get through each day.

For the families, having a loved one in the service right now is not easy. There's not one family I've worked with that hasn't been under enormous stress because they have someone in the service right now. When someone they love is ill or dying or giving birth or being born, it doesn't matter whether or not they support this war, or any war, or their relative’s military service: they are the same people as you and me.

I guess that's the real key, what it really comes down to. Working with military families has helped me see that women and men in uniform, and the families of those women and men in uniform, are not part of a monolith or even a monoculture. Working AFES cases has helped me recognize military members and families as people who are a lot like me.

And they are people who are suffering because of this war. Some of them believe in it, some of them don't. It actually doesn't matter: they are all suffering for it, in ways those of us back home who don't have a direct connection can't understand.

"The Red Cross, born of a desire to bring assistance without discrimination to the wounded on the battlefield, endeavours... to relieve the suffering of individuals, being guided solely by their needs, and to give priority to the most urgent cases of distress."

Humanity.

The Peace Testimony.

Each of us is sacred.

The Seven Fundamental Principles

Detailed information on the Seven Fundamental Principles of the International Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement is available here.

The Principles and their explanation are as follows:

HUMANITY

The Red Cross, born of a desire to bring assistance without discrimination to the wounded on the battlefield, endeavours – in its international and national capacity – to prevent and alleviate human suffering wherever it may be found. Its purpose is to protect life and health and to ensure respect for the human being. It promotes mutual understanding, friendship, co-operation and lasting peace amongst all peoples.

IMPARTIALITY

It makes no discrimination as to nationality, race, religious beliefs, class or political opinions. It endeavours only to relieve suffering, giving priority to the most urgent cases of distress.

NEUTRALITY

In order to continue to enjoy the confidence of all, the Red Cross may not take sides in hostilities or engage at any time in controversies of a political, racial, religious or ideological nature.

INDEPENDENCE

The Red Cross is independent. The National Societies, while auxiliaries in the humanitarian services of their Governments and subject to the laws of their respective countries, must always maintain their autonomy so that they may be able at all times to act in accordance with Red Cross principles.

VOLUNTARY SERVICE

The Red Cross is a voluntary relief organization not prompted in any manner by desire for gain.

UNITY

There can be only one Red Cross Society in any one country. It must be open to all. It must carry on its humanitarian work throughout its territory.

UNIVERSALITY

The Red Cross is a world-wide institution in which all Societies have equal status and share equal responsibilities and duties in helping each other.

CPT in Al-Khalil (Hebron)

From CPT's Prayers for Peacemakers yesterday:

Christian Peacemaker Team has returned to Al-Khalil (Hebron), Palestine, after a hiatus of eight months for refocussing of our partnerships, protocols and purpose. Pray for funds and personnel for this new work.

I am so happy to read this.

June 2009 is International Pagan Values Blogging Month!

Pax over at Chrysalis has called for Pagan bloggers to write about our values during the month of June:

I have decided that I am tired at how some factions within other spiritual and faith traditions talk and act as if they have a monopoly on values and virtue and ethics.

If you're interested, please link to his post, and please list your blog in the comments section on his post.

I am reminded of how the public debate over same-gender marriage has been polarized into the notions that "Religious people oppose gay marriage" and "People who support gay marriage are godless atheists with no morals."

First off, it's same-gender marriage, thank you very much, and the real issue is marriage equality. IMHO. Secondly, there are plenty of "religious" folks -- both individuals, and organizations -- who support marriage equality.

It's time for religious/spiritual individuals and organizations to stop allowing ourselves to be made invisible on the issue of marriage equality - to stand up and reclaim our space, our stance, our values, our beliefs.

I am also reminded of the notion that people who aren't religious can't possibly live ethical lives, with atheists as those of us in the most danger and with the least guidance. The notion that reason and inner conviction aren't good enough to lead us to live "good" lives. Oh, please.

Many of the same arguments are held up as why Pagans can't live ethical lives. That without Yhwh, Jesus, or Allah, we're doomed -- our Gods aren't good enough. Again, oh, please.

So it's also time for Atheists and Pagans (and those who are both) to stop allowing ourselves to be demonized and made invisible on the issue of ethics and values - to stand up and reclaim our space, our stance, our values, our beliefs.

Christians, in general, are united by a theology that is supposed to inform their values. Among Pagans, there's a lot more diversity of thealogy, and I suspect just as much, if not more, diversity of beliefs among Atheists. I'm really looking forward to reading more about other Pagans' as well as Atheists' values.

In the meantime, I'm very much enjoying the Seattle Atheists' Bus Ad Campaign on Metro Buses. Because they ask people to think.

Mother's Day: Not Just a "Hallmark Holiday"

Julia Ward Howe's original Mother's Day Proclamation:

Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Click here for more about the herstory of Mother's Day.

Pitts on torture and the Pew Center's results

Ow. Ow, ow, ow.

I don't always agree with Leonard Pitts, but this one's a zinger.

Why This Tolerance for Torture?

Thistlethwaite: "Why the Faithful Approve of Torture"

I am part of a Meeting that supports and participates in the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT). We have a banner in front of our Meetinghouse supporting the end of torture, as part of their Banners Across America campaign; and when I'm out and about in Seattle, I see similar banners on other congregations' and religious organizations' buildings.

And yet, a new survey by the Pew Research Center shows some disturbing trends in the connection between religion and support for torture.

Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite has an interesting article in the Washington Post on "Why the Faithful Support Torture":

The more often you go to church, the more you approve of torture. This is a troubling finding of a new survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Shouldn't it be the opposite? After all, who would Jesus torture? Since Jesus wouldn't even let Peter use a sword and defend him from arrest, it would seem that those who follow Jesus would strenuously oppose the violence of torture. But, not so in America today.

I recommend it.

(Thanks, Grant, for pointing this article out.)

Gus diZerega on Higgenbothams' ChristoPaganism

Gus diZerega recently reviewed a new book, ChristoPaganism: An Inclusive Path by Joyce Higgenbotham and River Higgenbotham.

For Gus' review, click here.
For the publisher's page on the book, click here.

While I am not personally a Christian, I know a number of Pagans who are also Christian. I seem to keep meeting more, or perhaps more are "coming out of the closet."

Cathing up, and some interesting articles

Hello, folks!

My semester is over, and I have a few loose ends to tie up, but then I expect to have some time to devote to other sadly-neglected parts of my ministry... like this blog! I've missed writing, and I have a handful of posts bubbling around in the stewpot in my brain...

I've had a really good time with some of the papers I've written for one of my classes this semester, and expect to post them in here once I've had the chance to revise them. This was a class in ritual theory/ritual studies at Cherry Hill Seminary with Grant Potts. The class has made my brain stretch in interesting ways, not all of which I've articulated yet. A good thing.

May 3rd was also the anniversary of the death, nine years ago, of a young adult F/friend of mine, and one of two deaths that marked the outward beginning of my ministry with dying and death. I'd like to write about that, and also about the death of the adult child of a friend of a friend last fall, the deaths of a number of Friends' and friends' spouses, and how we react to others' pain in the face of death.

Last but far from least, I had a wonderful weekend, much of it outdoors: Beloved Wife and I spent our fifth wedding anniversary exploring Seattle's Discovery Park (beautiful!); Saturday, we walked up to Portage Bay to watch the boat parade marking the opening of boating season; and Sunday, we went to the Radical Faeries' Goddess Ravenna Ravine Beltane Celebration, which was just fabulous. (Beloved Wife, while not a Pagan, understands many important things about the care and feeding of her Pagan spouse.) I have some pictures I want to share, and I want to write particularly about Beltane/May Day, what it means to me, what it's meant to me throughout my life, and my experience Sunday.

In the meantime, there are some interesting links I've come across, some through friends' postings on Facebook, some on my own, which I wanted to share.

Happy May!