A Quaker Thinks about Lent

I am a liberal unprogrammed Friend (Quaker), and we don't do holidays. We don't have a liturgical year (though there's an old joke about the Quaker high holy days being Martin Luther King, Jr's birthday and Hiroshima Day). We don't celebrate the sacraments of baptism or communion. We don't all join together in celebration or mourning or atonement at set times.

We do trust that, at our best, communion with the divine will come to us, that we will find ourselves together in celebration or mourning. In my meeting, we recently experienced the death of a valued Friend; this spring we will celebrate together the wedding of a beloved couple, and anticipation is already building. My meeting tends to get giddy at the birth or adoption of a child, and I was astonished and comforted by how deeply people in the meeting shared our terrible months of uncertainty during our custody dispute with Yehva's birthfather.

So, it's not that we're not in there together as we pass through the inevitable joys and sorrows of life.

But we don't, for instance, celebrate the birth of Christ together at a certain time, or join together in repentance. For good and ill, we believe all days are equally holy, and if that sometimes means we forget to treat any of them as holy, well, that's one of our challenges as modern Friends. But sometimes I catch a glimpse of what we're missing. I think modern Quakers tend to focus on the happier aspects of our faith: "We celebrate That of God in everyone!" we chirp. We don't wrestle with that which is not of God the way early Quakers did. We think of the Light in which we walk as something warm and full of love. We forget it's also a searchlight, a firebrand, something that sears when it shines so brightly we can no longer pretend not to see our failings. We like to quote Margaret Fell, convicted by the preaching of George Fox, pulled to her feet in church to cry, "We are all thieves!" But I'm not sure any of us wants to experience what she did. We are thieves, too--we let her experience the pain and regret of empty ritual and false religion for us.

I could comfortably not think about these things, except that among my dearest friends are a Jewish family, and a Lutheran pastor. So these little hints come my way: my kids have Hannukah gift boxes their friend Noah gave them, that I'm pretty sure still have some gelt in them; a few weeks ago, I asked my friend Carla what she was planning for the next day, and she said, "Well, it's Tu B'Shevat, so we're going to spend some time outside with the trees." And every 10 Tishrei, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, invites Jews to fast and repent of their sins.

On the Christian end of my ecumenical spectrum of friends (for whom I thank God quite sincerely), Pastor Julie has been talking about Lent on her blog. On Facebook, she linked to a friend's blog post about Lent that I found very interesting, even if it was aimed at Lutherans.

What I have been hearing in this talk about Lent is less about the usual trite notions of self-denial ("should I give up chocolate or coffee?") than about bigger notions that resonate with me as a Quaker. Julie titled her post, "Lent is a journey toward unconditional love," and her friend wrote, "Lent is one of the penitential seasons of the Church year, meaning that it's a time where we get real with God and ourselves about what things keep us from a fuller relationship with God and with others, and try to make Godward changes." In other words, it's about toning down the warm full-spectrum Light of God we bask in, and turning up the searchlight a little bit.

On her blog, Julie wrote, "Lent is an opportunity to work on relationships." In her work as a pastor, she has resolved to increase her visitation during Lent, to take her presence and her cute little traveling communion kit and the word of God and her bubbling joy-filled personality and her "laugh you can hear in the next county" and her willingness to let her own failings be visible, and be with people.

Julie is a searchlight, darn her. Because I have been out of right relationship with my Monthly Meeting since last May, when I got a clear message from God in worship that said, "you don't need to be here for awhile," after a couple of years of struggle with the things that are hard for me about being in that meeting with those people, things that have to do with social class and with my being a quirky outlier in my notions about how children should be treated and with my wish for a more religious religion.

I heard "you don't need to be here" as a gift of rest, a respite from struggle. But I heard "for awhile" just as clearly, and I left feeling sure I'd be back. But the "while" has lasted longer than I expected it to, and it has been hard to trust that, as we Quakers say, way will open in good time.

I experienced an opening last weekend at the Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgenger and Queer Concerns Midwinter Gathering. At a panel during which a transwoman, a gay man, and a lesbian spoke about their monthly meetings' responses to and support, or lack of support, for their relationships, I was powerfully reminded of times when my monthly meeting has gotten it right. A few years ago, for instance, when a lesbian couple sought clearness for marriage, and the straight people on their clearness committee were so distressed to learn about how little legal support there would be for their relationship, or for the non-biological mother's relationship to any children they might have, that they brought a concern to the monthly meeting about what we could do as a body to support families that do not have full legal recognition.

Straight people! Bringing a concern for the well-being of gay and lesbian families! One reason why I do love my meeting so very much.

I came home from the midwinter gathering thoughtful, prayerful, deliberate, still not sure whether that was enough of an opening for me to return to worship with my meeting.

And then Julie writing about Lent reminded me that sometimes claiming to be thoughtful, prayerful, and deliberate is a code for "dithering." That "waiting for Way to open" can be code for "I can't be bothered to get off the couch, but if the answer falls into my lap, so be it." That not every door is an automatic one; sometimes you have push on it.

If Lent is an opportunity to work on relationships, perhaps attending Meeting for Worship could be a Lenten discipline for me. Do I feel sure about that? No. Do I feel nudged? Yes. Am I afraid of failing? Oh, you bet--just four or five days ago I sat in my seat in a terrible popcorn meeting at the midwinter gathering, literally praying to God for the patience to make it to the end--and I failed. I got up and left with ten minutes left. So I'm not making any promises just now, not to God and not to you. But I'm doing my best to face the question squarely.