We are all aging, inexorably, at the same rate: one day at a time. The experience will be different for each of us, although the ultimate end will be the same.

Aging can be a wonderful adventure; we can experience it with enthusiasm, joy and curiosity. Aging can also be burdened with dread and denial. Anticipating our needs means that we, our loved ones and our communities will face fewer crucial decisions in stressful emergency situations. Planning ahead can minimize family disruptions, bring comfort and security, and enhance our freedom to enjoy all that our lives still have to offer.

When I decided to fulfill a dream of returning to school to study Judaism, part of my seminary training included work as a chaplain. That in turn nurtured my already deep interest in aging issues. Now, thanks to a grant from Friends Foundation for the Aging, I am doing “outreach” on behalf of Friends House retirement community in Santa Rosa, California, offering workshops on “Aging as an Adventure” to Meetings throughout Pacific Yearly Meeting. In these workshops we explore many of the issues outlined below. My goal is for us all to see the aging process as a positive experience so we will be better able to cope with the inevitable difficulties that must arise.

Recently I gave a ride to a friend who lives in a nondescript “senior residence” apartment building, and as I waited for him in the noisy, dingy lobby I noticed the sign over the receptionist’s desk that said, “Be nice to your children; they’re going to choose your nursing home.”

Most of us would prefer to choose our own accommodations rather than having someone else making decisions for us, especially in the midst of a crisis. The problem with aging – with life – is that uncertainty makes advance planning difficult. But not planning will make it even more difficult! Some of the happiest people I know moved, while they were still “young,” into Continuing Care retirement communities, which provide the full spectrum of independent living, assisted living and nursing care. They had both physical and mental energy to make new friends, join service organizations and faith communities, take advantage of educational and cultural opportunities, travel and spend time with far-flung friends and relations. Most importantly, they had the peace of mind that comes from knowing that they would be cared for in place if and when an emergency arose. This was also an immense relief for their children. Other people are creatively banding together in “Villages” or in co-housing arrangements; some have adapted their homes to enable family members or caregivers to live with them as needed.

In my workshops, I have enjoyed asking older Friends: “What is the greatest thing about being the age you are now?” One woman in her late 70’s discovered bicycling! She now goes on tours of more than forty miles per day. She loves the physicality and the serenity of biking, and getting to know the wildflowers and the birds on her new routes. Other Friends speak of freedom from the stresses of career and ambition, the flexibility to travel and explore new skills. Some find that aging makes them more “honest” or at least more outspoken, more free to say “no.” I repeatedly hear about the joys of grandchildren and family, friends, even new love affairs, intellectual growth, the chance to ‘go deeper’ in their communion with the Spirit. For many of us, perhaps the best adventure of aging is a more intense and satisfying knowledge of our selves.

There are new fears, too. People worry about maintaining their independence. I hear anxiety about becoming dependent: fears of losing one’s energy, mobility and driving privileges, cognitive skills and memories; fears of pain, chronic and life-threatening illnesses, of financial insecurity, being burdened with caring for someone else, and of becoming lonely, invisible, or useless.

It’s a bit of a paradox: aging is a (great) adventure while at the same time we are all just one unknowable small (or large) step away from disaster. How can I help Friends focus on the A of adventure, and not fall into the D’s of denial, dread, depression, dependence or despair? I suggest a “report card,” in which we will strive for A’s, B’s and C’s and try to avoid the D’s.

A focus on the positive Adventure
B Be prepared
C Create Community
D avoid Denial, Despair, Disaster

Be Prepared
The adventure is there for us to grasp, and while growing old can be filled with positive new experiences, we all know that limitations also loom on the horizon. Planning ahead can’t prevent the losses we must ultimately face, but being prepared can reduce anxiety and make facing them easier. There are three primary areas of concern: health care, facing death, and long term housing.

Health Care
It is never too early to examine our feelings about life-saving and life-sustaining treatments such as CPR, respirators and feeding tubes. Both Karen Ann Quinlan and Terry Schiavo were in their twenties when doctors determined that they had entered a persistent vegetative state, unable to think, or relate meaningfully with their loved ones.

One should clearly state their treatment preferences before being hospitalized, and we often can’t plan hospitalization. The medical issues are significant, but the real reason the Quinlan and Schiavo cases were so dramatic was the high-profile lawsuits that arose because the patients had not clearly stated their wishes.

Long before the need for hospitalization arises, every adult should complete an Advance Health Care Directive (also known as a “Living Will”) stating what you want done if you are unable to communicate your wishes. Perhaps the most important element in an advance directive is naming your health care agent or power of attorney for health care. This is the person who will make decisions on your behalf if you are incapacitated. Keep in mind that as your beliefs and values change over time, you can always update or amend the document. Good resources for advance directives include Five Wishes, which is widely accepted throughout most of the United States. For the form specifically issued in and for your state, go to www.caringinfo.org and click on the words “download your state specific advance directive.”

Far more important than completing an advance directive is talking with key people. Along with your loved ones and closest family members, the person you designate as your power of attorney needs to know your wishes. She or he does not necessarily have to agree with all your choices, but must be willing to carry out your requests if the need arises. She or he also needs to be comfortable making decisions on your behalf if a situation arises that you couldn’t anticipate.

As we age, our health problems become more numerous and more complex, while we also find it increasingly difficult to remember details and keep track of information. A health care advocate – a spouse, an adult child, or a friend (and often not your power of attorney) – can make a significant difference. Your advocate should be someone you trust with potentially intimate matters. Their primary role is to be familiar with your medical conditions, your doctors’ names, your treatment preferences, and to accompany you to medical appointments. Before a doctor visit the two of you might prepare a list of questions; your advocate could take notes and ensure these questions get asked and answered. After the consultation your advocate can help you remember and clarify what took place along with whatever follow-up is needed. A good resource for making the best use of medical experiences is Talking With Your Doctor; A Guide for Older People published by the National Institute on Aging (available free from the National Institutes of Health). Residents at Pilgrim Place, a retirement community in Claremont, California, have offered training programs for health care advocates, and successfully paired many of their residents as advocates for one another.

It is also a good idea to explore long-term care insurance, which can assist you and your family financially in the event that you need live-in attendants or an extended stay in a nursing home or care facility. There are many varieties of long-term care insurance, and the premiums tend to increase the longer you wait before signing up. Consult a trusted financial advisor for more information.

End-of-life issues
Everyone who owns property, and everyone who has a child should have a will, designating how they want their assets distributed when they die, and everyone should regularly review their will. Most adults already know this, although many resist committing their wishes to paper because they can’t face the reality of death, they fear hurting someone’s feelings, or they simply can’t decide what they want. Spelling out your funeral and burial or cremation preferences (and paying up front for them) will relieve your family of an incredible burden at a stressful time.

Most adults know about dividing up the physical property, but how many have considered an “ethical will” or “the legacy of the heart?” What values do you want to leave to your children, nieces and nephews, your wider community? What life experiences and stories are especially important to you? How do you wish to be remembered? There are numerous books and websites devoted to the topic of ethical wills, which can be written or taped on video or CD. A Meeting workshop on writing your ethical will can get the process started and lead to some profound sharing among the participants.

Living arrangements
Maximizing our independence requires thinking ahead about our living arrangements, and most of us want to remain in our own homes for as long as possible. But remaining at home can entail a huge financial and/or emotional burden on family members or caregivers. Across the United States, an exciting new “village” movement is creating virtual caring communities to support independence and “aging in place.” Ashby Village in Berkeley, California, Avenidas Village in Palo Alto, and Beacon Hill Village in Boston, Massachusetts are all functioning prototypes; a Pasadena Village is currently in the planning stages. Members of a local village develop new friendships while enjoying recreational and social gatherings. They voluntarily exchange services ranging from sharing meals to providing transportation; they can call on the village for social work support and a vetted list of service providers who offer discounts on home repairs. Based on the belief that we’re never too old to help to one another, the village extends both our usefulness and our independence.

While some prefer to remain at home, moving to a retirement community ensures long-term care and peace of mind for others. But this concept is fraught with negative images: too fancy or too sterile, too many ‘old’ folks, too expensive, too ‘programmed,’ too religious or too secular, too far away from loved ones. Some of us will be delighted to stop cooking; others balk at mandatory congregate meals. But retirement communities are not all alike. Some allow people to lease units but only for as long as they are ‘active’ and when the need for assistance with mobility or medical care arises, another move is required. Others provide continuing care: once you have moved in, you are guaranteed a home for the rest of your life.

If I could urge every older person to do just one thing, it would be to visit several different retirement communities – near where they now live and perhaps near where their children or siblings live – and get on the waiting list for at least two of them. There is usually no charge to be on the list, and this gives you a back-up plan, should you need it.

Create Community
The best way to maintain active independence and avoid depressing denial, despair and dependence is to create inter-dependence. We need to strengthen our communities: our Meeting, our neighborhood, and other social structures. In my volunteer chaplaincy one of the most important things I learned is how deeply people feel the need, the desire, and the enthusiasm to help others. I encourage everyone to ask for help: a ride to Meeting, assistance with shopping or sorting photographs, accompaniment at a meal, or a compassionate ear in a time of crisis. For most of us, the opportunity to assist someone else is a source of so much pleasure: it makes us feel needed and useful.

Finally, Friends need to examine our Meetings’ pastoral care processes, and ask whether we are doing all that we can to support our elderly members and those who are caregivers, with pastoral attention such as telephone calls, cards, visits, rides and meals. What do we want to have in place for ourselves when dependence becomes problematic for us and our loved ones? Do we let our Meeting know when we are facing crises? Can we count on them to follow up with resources and sensitivity? Is it enough to be “held in the Light” or do we want more from our faith community? Does our Meeting have up-to-date emergency contact information for our members and regular attenders, so if they stopped coming to Meeting someone would know who to call? Has our Meeting encouraged each member to complete a will, a burial plan, and an advance directive? What does our Faith & Practice testimony on community ask of us?

We’re not done yet! We may be old but we’re not “over the hill,” or ready for the dust-heap. For some of us, certain options may not be feasible, whether because of costs or disabilities or other obligations. Still, we need to anticipate our needs and speak frankly with our loved ones about health care, death and long-term living arrangements. We need to strengthen our communities’ abilities to care for one another as we age. Seeing the remainder of our lives as an adventure, and taking steps to plan for the challenges that lie ahead, will help us maximize the positive aspects of that adventure.

Claire Gorfinkel is a long-time attender at Orange Grove Meeting. If you would like to attend one of her workshops or schedule one for your Meeting, please contact her at cgorfinkel@earthlink.net. Join Claire and Mary Ann Percy June 1-3 at Ben Lomond Quaker Center for their workshop, “Celebrating Aging and Facing the Inevitable”. Register at quakercenter.org or (831) 336-8333.

“The Society of Friends has never had many members, scarcely more than 200,000 in the entire world, the majority living in the United States and in England. But it is not the number that matters. What counts more is their inner strength and their deeds.”

-Gunnar Jahn, Chairman of the Nobel Committee, 1947

We are collecting stories for a new book from Western Friend, titled
An Inner Strength: Stories of Leadership in the Religious Society of Friends

In his 2011 address at Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, General Secretary Arthur Larrabee described a Quaker leader as someone who, “thinks globally, shares ideas proactively, takes risks, maintains and nurtures a spiritual awareness, honors the role of the community and derives personal satisfaction from the success of the body he or she serves.” He goes on to say Quaker leadership is “taking initiative in relationships.”

Do you know a Friend who might have a story to tell about leadership? It might be a well-known weighty Friend or someone who doesn’t even think they’re a leader!

Please send your nominations to editor@westernfriend.org or mail them to Western Friend, 833 SE Main St. Mailbox #138 Portland OR 97202. Nominations are due June 20th. Nominations will only be considered if they include: the nominee’s full name and contact information (phone/email/address), and a brief description of why you are nominating the person. Is there a story you have in mind, a certain quality? Tell us!

It was in 2003 that I first felt the unmistakable call to work at hospice. As I pursued that leading, I likened my experience to the exhilaration of riding a magic carpet— I felt so uplifted and swept along! It wasn’t until months later that I realized that magic carpets have neither headlights, steering wheels nor brakes.

I have chosen two stories out of dozens from my years of work as a hospice chaplain. I am privileged to accompany people through some of the most difficult days of their lives, as they seek patience, understanding, meaning, forgiveness, and grace. Some are people of deep religious convictions; others find meaning and richness in other ways. End of life is a time of deep vulnerability and profound questions, deep wisdom and universal truths. I have the opportunity to witness and to learn what used to be common knowledge among humans—how we die.

I offer these stories as a reminder to reflect upon what is important, significant, and meaningful in life, and to share those reflections with those we love. This becomes increasingly relevant in terms of what care we do and do not receive as our ability to articulate and voice our own preferences becomes diminished.

Richard
“You’re the chaplain? I definitely want to see you right away!” he said with great urgency. I recalled my initial telephone conversation with my new patient Richard as I stood waiting for him to open the door to his condo for our first visit. Once inside, he led me to the living room, walking slowly and intentionally with a cane, his oxygen tubing dragging behind him. He apologized for the messiness, saying his condo was in foreclosure, and he was physically unable to attend to any cleaning. I admired the interesting objets d’art from around the world, the overflowing bookcases, and looked forward to hearing something about the life of this man.

Richard cut me short. As soon as we had we both sat down, he leaned forward in his chair, and demanded to know, “Do you believe I will go straight to hell if I commit suicide?”

My first thought was, “I am so totally inadequate to be having this conversation!”

I had been working as a hospice chaplain for over seven years, and had many conversations about the powerlessness many people feel at the end of their lives, even discussing any legal options for accelerating their demise. Still, this question was a first.

Richard had told me on the phone that he was a life-long Episcopalian and that he had been attending a “Bible Church” for the past eight to ten months. He was 72 years old, he’d had a successful career as a psychologist and university instructor, and he was now faced with the inevitable and progressive losses related to Lou Gehrig’s Disease. He had been admitted to hospice six days earlier with a prognosis of less than six months to live.

“Well, I don’t believe God wants us to suffer,” was my opening response.
I then asked Richard to tell me more about his experience. Our conversation was wide-ranging, covering the loss of his career and many of his interests and activities due to the effects of his disease, which thus far had left him weak, short of breath, and without the use of his dominant hand.

His friend, (who had been a physician), had recently committed suicide by inhaling helium, rather than face his decline due to metastasized cancer. Richard understood this would be a “painless way to go,” and would leave “no trace, so that my family won’t know what I had done,” he said.

“But for the helium tank beside your dead body!” I exclaimed.

I spoke with him about the spiritual values of integrity, honesty and making sure the feelings of those closest to him would be considered. I asked about how his family would respond—he had several siblings, had been married twice and his youngest children were 21 and 24. He had a good relationship with his second (former) wife, Carol, and had shared his thoughts of suicide with her. She pleaded with him to reconsider—she was worried about the impact it would have on their children, especially their 21 year-old daughter. He took these concerns seriously, though he had not yet come to any conclusions.

We then turned to scripture, a source of great authority for this patient. He told me that he had memorized vast tracts of the New Testament.

“You know when Jesus says (in Matthew 10:39): ‘He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.’ What do you think that means?” I asked.

There was a long thoughtful pause, and a rueful smile appeared Richard’s face. “You picked a hard one!” he said. I gently suggested that he take time in the next several weeks to sit with these words, and to consider the many ways he was already “losing his life.”

Finally, we prayed the Lord’s Prayer together, and spoke about what it would mean to live into the oft-repeated words: “Thy will be done,” and the mystery of understanding what that might be—how do we understand God’s will for us?

Richard told me that he felt I had left him with more questions than answers; he nonetheless requested that I return.

I had only two more visits with Richard. At our second visit, he was noticeably weaker, more out of breath, and using a hospital bed. He was still deeply troubled by the prospects of greater physical decline, even as he remained alert, cognitively intact, and aware of the magnitude of his losses. He was struggling to surrender his ego and “who he thought he was” to God, and to let go of his desire for God “to be glorified” by a miraculous cure. He was also moving away from the idea of suicide, in order to spare his family that trauma.

When I last saw him, Richard was confined to a bed in a hospice home, using oxygen and morphine to help with labored breathing and muscle spasticity. He had declined quickly, which was a blessing for him. He awakened to my voice and welcomed a prayer. Though he was too weak to say very much, he let me know that he had come to peace. I thanked him for the privilege of serving him and for all that we had shared. He nodded and closed his eyes.

Juan
“I used to have faith in my doctors and in God,” Juan told me; “then my doctors said there was nothing more they could do for my cancer. So I’ve been praying to God for a cure, for a miracle, but I just keep getting weaker…” his voice trailed off. “So now you’re questioning your faith in God as well?” I asked him.

Juan was a proud man, only 59 years old, a first- generation American; he’d been a successful architectural draftsman until his illness made work impossible. He had a beautiful home, a 38-year marriage, and a large family. He was active with the local Roman Catholic church, yet he was now grasping for spiritual resources to cope with his circumstances.
He told me about his family, his life, his plans and dreams for his retirement, and the short history of his illness. Juan’s cancer was aggressive; he’d been diagnosed just four months earlier. Neither he nor his family had very much time to get their minds or hearts around his diagnosis and prognosis. While Juan was still able to be up and about, his hospice nurse had warned him to get his affairs in order quickly, anticipating a rapid decline.

Juan asked me to pray for a miracle. “You mean a cure, a reversal of your cancer?” I asked. He nodded. “Of course I will do that, Juan,” I replied. “Would it also be okay to pray for another type of miracle?”

Juan and his wife looked puzzled. “If it’s okay with you, I’d also like to pray that you find peace with whatever your health outcome may be.” They agreed—who could refuse an opportunity to find peace?— And so I did.

We then talked about the parallels between the two prayers I had offered and Jesus’ words at Gethsemane: Jesus first said, “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me,” and then immediately added, “nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.” (Luke 22:42)
I added, “Who among us has not prayed that prayer?! ‘Make this go away! I don’t want to deal with this!’ Though it usually takes we mortals far longer to get to the point, if we ever do, of asking for the grace to accept God’s will.”

It was then that Juan acknowledged out loud that perhaps his prayer was being answered—he noted that he was still able to get out to see his grandchildren, to focus on getting his will and other important documents in order, and he still had the energy to enjoy his garden and short car rides.

Just as I was about to leave, he asked me how to live more fully into God’s peace.

“By noticing it,” I replied. Seeing the question in Juan’s eyes, I asked, “What kind of car do you have?” “A Chevy Silverado.” “When you first bought your Silverado, did you all of a sudden notice all the other Silverados on the road?” He nodded. “ Why is that? They were there all along, but when you bought one yourself, you suddenly noticed how many there were. I think it’s that way with peace and with gratitude—when you begin noticing one or two things you have to be grateful for, you notice more and more, and your peace grows exponentially.”

This was as much an insight for me as it was for Juan.

I saw Juan once more before he died. He was still able to get around his home, but felt weaker. He told me about his strong intuition and how it had served him throughout his life. Again we talked about finding peace with what is, and then he abruptly asked, “Do you think confession is the way to be closer to God?”

I grew up in a church where confession was required before receiving communion, and where there were no “confessionals:” one was face to face with the priest, admitting and acknowledging one’s “sins.” I didn’t like it and I didn’t understand it. It wasn’t until I was in my thirties that I recognized the value of talking about one’s shortcomings and mistakes before a dispassionate witness.

“I think confession is one way to be closer to God. Please tell me more about what you’re thinking.” Juan told me that it had been years since he’d been to confession and had received communion, and the idea of doing so had suddenly come to him, “Though,” he quickly added, “I’m a good person…but you know, everyone does some things in their life that they regret.”

“Well, given what you’ve told me today about your intuition, I would say if you got the idea to go to confession, go, and as soon as possible!” Then I added, “I believe that humbling ourselves, acknowledging the ways we are broken, allows God a way to enter and be with us which is not possible when we’re self-assured and feel as though we have it all together.”

Shortly after Juan died, I spoke with his widow. She told me that he had gone to confession, and was able to find peace in his heart before he lost consciousness and died peacefully with his wife and daughters at his side.
_____________
As death has moved from our homes to the clinical settings of hospitals and nursing homes, and as we seek to distance ourselves from death— how often do I hear “If I die,” rather than “When I die”?— we have lost touch with an essential part of our humanity. For me and for many, death is truly what gives our lives meaning.

I continue to learn so much from my patients and seek to apply their lessons in seeing what’s really important to my own life. The patients in these stories were Christian, and so I used religious texts and examples from their tradition in speaking with them. But the process of forgiveness, letting go, and coming to peace is universal, and there are teachings in every tradition to instruct and assist people in this process. Making peace with ourselves, with the life we have lived, is fundamental to dying with integrity.

Mary Ann Percy is a member of La Jolla Meeting in San Diego. Join her and Claire Gorfinkel June 1-3 at Ben Lomond Quaker Center for the workshop “Celebrating Aging and Facing the Inevitable”. Register at online or (831) 336-8333.

During World War II it became the first of ten “relocation centers”, imprisoning 10,000 of the 120,000 residents of Japanese ancestry then living on the West Coast, 70% of whom were US citizens. The remaining 30% were aliens from Japan who were denied the opportunity to become citizens. Manzanar became a city one mile square, enclosed by barbed wire and guarded from towers by military police with search lights and guns pointed inward.

The last weekend of April 2010, I joined approximately seventy people from Sacramento on the fifth annual pilgrimage to the Manzanar camp, sponsored by the Florin Japanese American Citizens’ League.

This is where I was incarcerated with my family almost seventy years ago. I remember the heartache and loss which my parents and others experienced, having been forced to get rid of or store all of their worldly goods in a matter of a few days or weeks. Things we sold received poor prices, but internees could take only what they could carry—  to a forced “extended campout” in a location still unknown to them.

When we arrived, we were distressed to see the flimsy barracks made of 1/4-inch plywood and covered only with tar paper, with dust seeping through the knotholes and cracks. We were to sleep on metal cots, and we filled our mattresses with straw. This was painful for my mother, suffering the beginning stages of poly-arthritis. We ate in a mess hall, and had to go outside our apartments to go to the latrine, shower, and do our laundry, even when the weather was rainy or snowy—  and the dust blew the rest of the time.

Since there was a shortage of teachers at first, I was unable to continue high school, so I found a job as a typist. I earned $12 a month. Then I was hired as a crafts teacher. As a “professional”, I earned $19 a month.

After about a year and a half of internment, in September 1943 I was allowed to leave the camp to attend Western Michigan College in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Quakers and others helped free me. But after my first year of school, I was unable to get a job due to discrimination. My brother, then in Minnesota, suggested I join him there. I was able to get a job, and was accepted into the nursing program at the University of Minnesota.

My parents remained in Manzanar for three and a half years. When they were freed, they were given $25 and transportation to Los Angeles. My mother had to be placed in a nursing home. My father found work as a “houseboy”, starting all over again at age 59. Just three months after being released from the camp, he was hit and killed by someone driving a truck.

I was grateful to participate in the pilgrimage to Manzanar, which hopes to raise public awareness of what happened to one ethnic group—  and to make every effort to prevent the violation of the Constitutional rights of others. What happened to those of Arab descent after 9/11, some of which continues today, is a case in point for vigilance.

We must never stop asking, “Could Manzanar happen again?”

Grace Ito Coan is a member of Sacramento Friends Meeting. Learn more about this year’s pilgrimage at http://www.manzanarcommittee.org/.

March crossword puzzle

March puzzle key

In 1990, I was a graduate student in Boulder, Colorado, participating in the planning of International Women’s Week. I was within a year of coming out as a lesbian. The planning committee was a diverse group varying along dimensions of age, race, ethnicity, sexual preference, gender identity and class.

In one planning meeting a Latina turned to me, a white woman, and observed that I was bringing a privileged perspective to the evening’s discussion. I remember feeling confused and becoming defensive. I felt threatened, shocked. She didn’t know me! I thought, “We are all women here. What is she talking about?”

At that point in my life I felt I had arrived at a complete understanding of the real differences between my white middle class existence and that of my friends of color. My studies and activism were influenced by a range of strong feminist anti-racist writers: bell hooks, Gloria Anzaldua, Barbara Smith, Angela Davis. And yet my strong passion for social justice— for racial justice, for women’s liberation— peacefully coexisted alongside a deeply entrenched ignorance around the ways skin privilege operated in my life. I simply didn’t see it.

Moreover, I wasn’t ready or able to see how racialized attitudes and gut responses had been deeply ingrained in me— let alone how these ingrained notions of race, when summed up across groups and communities, led to a brokenness that deeply impacts white people and our ability to engage with open and true hearts across color lines. Years later I heard the phrase “socialized without my consent.” It resonated.

I remained stuck in a confused, painful and defensive mindset around privilege for quite some time. But the experiences during that period of my life created an opening that grew in breadth and depth over years of big and small challenging interactions — some sought out intentionally and others brought on by my own ignorance. The early feelings of overwhelming fear have been joined by a deep yearning for racial healing and wholeness. It was that yearning that brought me to the White Privilege Conference in 2011, and will bring me to Albuquerque in March for the 2012 conference.

What does racial healing require of me?
The journey to my present commitment to racial healing sprouted from a hard lesson in allyship. I was actively involved in LGBTQ activism around a series of proposed bills and constitutional amendments intended to limit “special rights” for LGBTQ Coloradans. At the time we had very few straight allies, and with our community estimated to be at about 10% of the population, I didn’t see a tipping point anywhere in sight. In despair, I stepped away from it all. I realized we wouldn’t get anywhere until they get that this is about ALL of us. It’s about our collective dignity as human beings.

What was that thought? We won’t get anywhere until they get that this is about all of us. It’s about our collective dignity as human beings. A light went on for me.

After a period of working through my own feelings of anger, abandonment and disappointment, I began the tender process of learning to see through the lens of what the collective healing process—defined as broadly as our humanity needs it to be-—requires of each one of us. I am able to (but don’t always choose to) set aside the lens through which I focus on what hurts me personally as a woman or as a lesbian. I am clear: racial healing is not possible without the active participation of large numbers of white people. It requires a critical mass that I believe we have not yet reached.

My Whiteness
One of the most impactful undertakings along this journey has been the practice of considering how my whiteness has influenced my experiences and interactions in the world. The first few of these realizations were hard in coming. Now I see them almost every day. I seek to become aware of these not for the pure sport of it, but because the process helps me understand how my experiences contribute to my interpretations of the world around me.

My biweekly trip to the neighborhood grocery store provides a routine example. Not once have I given a care to whether I was dressed well enough to avoid being considered a thief. I have not been routinely suspected of shoplifting or followed by staff. I have not noticed another shopper respond to my presence by clutching their purse closer to their body or moving their cart closer. I have noticed my own deeply ingrained gut-level fear responses to people of color around me. I was trained to react in this way during my childhood. My spiritual commitment, as an adult, is to bring my body’s gut responses into alignment with my heart’s truth: no person deserves to be judged or feared because of the color of their skin.

I find another example of white privilege in my family’s past, long before I was born. My dad was raised on a small farm in central Michigan. He and his siblings endured many hardships, from the impoverished circumstances of farm life during the Great Depression to their family’s personal challenges with a patriarch who abused alcohol to treat a chronic mental health condition.

Each sibling worked hard to pave a way out of that life. My father enlisted in the Army and served in WWII. The benefits of the G.I. Bill turned out to be my father’s pathway from poverty to our family’s middle class position years later. I am the first person on my father’s side of the family to complete a college degree. My tuition was paid for with a home equity loan on my family’s house. That home was purchased with proceeds from the sale of my parents’ first home, and that first home was possible only through the benefits of the G.I. Bill.

If you are familiar with housing practices in the 1940’s and 50’s, you know that Latino, African American and Native American men who served in WWII did not come home to the same pathway to middle class life that my white father did. So while I can say that my father worked hard (and he DID!) to make his way out of poverty, I also know that skin color was no a small factor in leading to outcomes that were good for him and his family—and terrible for many others.

Together we now inhabit a world descended from these—and countless other—unjust outcomes.

I wonder if you agree. Do white people, generally, have a hard time talking about race? I came to a place in my striving to understand racism and white privilege where there was an intense readiness stirring deep within—and very few safe spaces in which to explore it openly with others. How did I get here? How did we get here? How did talking about race become so difficult?

The Religious Society of Friends inherited a priceless treasure in the publication of the book Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship and in the labors of Vanessa Julye and Donna McDaniel to bring discussion of that work to many places where F/friends gather. When I have encountered spaces where F/friends are sharing, questioning, struggling, venting, exploring or learning together around white privilege and racism, I have noticed 1) there is a tenderness and often deep pain flowing for each of us from a wide range of racialized experiences in the world, and 2) there is a deep longing to move forward—to heal—both personally and as a community.

I pray for our community of seekers that our intense longing for racial justice and racial healing carries us in love through all that exists between where we are today and the wholeness calling out to us.

Quakers and the 2011 White Privilege Conference
Last year’s WPC was a deeply transformative experience for me. The space and the people were warm and welcoming; there was an energy that felt like a community preparing to experience something significant together. It was a feeling not unlike the anticipation that comes for me with yearly meeting: What will I learn? How will I be changed? What does God have in store for me? Who will be my guides and companions?

There was an overwhelming number of workshop choices, intermingled with keynote talks that were inspiring, informative and provocative. Despite the emotional and mental exhaustion at the end of each day’s workshops, I found myself at every evening film screening. I shared many heart-filled conversations with a friend & conference roommate from my monthly meeting; we attended the exact same conference and some of the same sessions, and yet our experiences were not at all the same!

I loved that sessions were rated “beginning, intermediate or advanced”, and I appreciated that many sessions, while addressing white privilege head-on, also honored the ways in which race dimensions of privilege and oppression intersect with dimensions of class, sex, gender and more. I found my “edges.” The conference was a blessing that has stayed with me throughout the year. I notice that I am more courageous in talking about race in settings where it feels awkward—and I take my commitment to the work of racial healing and racial justice more seriously than ever.

I would not have attended WPC had it not been for the commitment of F/friends to experience it together. And as significant of an accomplishment as it was to assemble 60+ of us there in Minneapolis last March, it strikes me as just one step in a much longer journey. I hope to see you there.

Kathryn White lives in Denver, Colorado, with her partner, Sue, and their children, Grace & Mateo. She receives much spiritual nourishment from Mountain View Friends Meeting and Intermountain Yearly Meeting.

For the past fifteen years, I have been both a Quaker and a Sacred Harp singer. I have found the two practices to be consonant and mutually enriching, each enlarging and sustaining the other. Considering each through the lens of the other has helped me to learn and understand things about both of them. I have come to see Sacred Harp singing as representing an independent discovery and application of some of the truths experienced and professed by Quakers.

The Sacred Harp, first published in Georgia in 1844, was one of hundreds of “shape-note” hymnals circulated in the 19th century. In “shape-note” notation, an inspired pedagogical innovation dating from around 1790, the musical note heads are printed in shapes corresponding to the degrees of the scale, which makes reading music and singing harmony easier by linking visual cues to musical intervals. The notation system and rudiments of music theory were taught to thousands of people in singing schools conducted by semiprofessional, sometimes-itinerant singing masters. Like many of the other shape-note hymnals, its repertoire drew on folk hymn tunes and spirituals in oral circulation and on earlier American and European religious music. The hymnal preserved, and in later editions developed, a distinctive style, termed “dispersed harmony” by its practitioners- an unaccompanied three- and four-part folk polyphony.</>

The Sacred Harp survived where so many other shape-note hymnals did not, preserving a living oral tradition with an ongoing meaning and purpose in the present day. Its survival was due in large part to its editor, B.F. White, who created a structure to promote the use of the book: he established conventions – associations or gatherings for the purpose of singing, not affiliated with any particular denomination or religious organization – which used The Sacred Harp as their songbook. Two conventions founded in the 1850’s are still meeting annually, and Sacred Harp singing has been an important part of family and community life in (mostly rural) areas of Georgia, Alabama, and Texas for generations. In the last 35 years it has spread around the country, particularly to urban centers in the Northeast and Midwest and on the West Coast.</>

We Quakers in the liberal western Yearly Meetings refer to our central spiritual practice as “unprogrammed” worship. If I were to attempt to sum up what goes on at a Sacred Harp convention for those familiar with the Quaker term, I would call it “unprogrammed singing.” Similarly, I have found it possible to explain Meeting for Worship to other Sacred Harp singers by comparing it to a Sacred Harp singing convention. Sacred Harp singing is a form of worship for many of its participants, often not the only one they engage in, and could accurately be called another form of unprogrammed worship despite its boisterous activity. Describing the non-hierarchical, non-performative practice of Sacred Harp singing to those unfamiliar with the tradition can be as difficult as explaining to non-Quakers what we do in worship in the absence of a priest, liturgy, or sermon.</>

Today’s Sacred Harp conventions last for one or both days of a weekend. Officers approved by the convention in a brief formal business session perform various tasks to ensure the smooth functioning of the singing. Prayers are offered to open and close each day and at other significant times. Local singers provide a potluck-style meal at the noon hour (traditionally called “dinner on the grounds”) for all present. Apart from this repast, and occasional short recesses, the assembled “class” sings almost continuously, one song after another, from morning to mid-afternoon. Any singer who wishes may, in turn, lead a song (“lesson”) of his or her choosing. </>

Like Quaker worship, a Sacred Harp convention, though without programming, is not without forms; it has such forms as have proved, through long experience, to serve “not as an end, but as a means toward the attainment of the end, which is communication with God, and fellowship with one another” (North Pacific Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice) – to facilitate a direct experience, both individual and shared, of the Spirit. Each convention, like each Meeting for Worship, despite being outwardly identical in form (especially insofar as selections are limited to songs from the one book), takes on its own character and shape based on the participants present, their unspoken interaction with each other, and their sensitivity to the needs of the assembled group and the workings of the Spirit. </>

In the absence of an audience or a choir director, Sacred Harp singers sing for themselves, each other, and God, each contributing his or her own peculiar individual voice to a singing the way each worshipper contributes his or her silent listening or spoken ministry to a Quaker Meeting. At a large singing, the overall effect – rather than the smooth, impersonal blend favored in other forms of choral music – is of a massive, vibrant wall of sound in which numerous individual voices may be distinguished from the texture at any given moment. While singing, the singers sit in a hollow square with one voice part on each side, facing inwards. This spatial arrangement abolishes performer/audience or choir director/choir divisions just as Quaker worship spaces abolish the altar/congregation or pulpit/congregation divisions of other religious traditions, just as Quaker belief and practice abolished the clergy/laity division. </>

The aesthetic values of Sacred Harp are different from those associated with forms of music based on performance to an audience. Each singer retains and shares aesthetic authority, as Quaker worshippers share spiritual/ministerial authority. All singers feel the musical or poetical content of a song on a personal level, while trying to help all others present get the best and fullest experience of each song, and sharing each other’s joy in collaborative music-making and fellowship. In an experience of being made tender in corporate worship, God’s love is felt on an individual level, in response to a deep personal need, yet seems to be expressed or channeled through one’s fellow worshippers. Sacred Harp singing, like Quaker worship, is “a corporate experience which, at the same time, allows a maximum freedom to its individual members” and “a strong, sustaining, group experience, coupled with individual freedom” (George Gorman, The Amazing Fact of Quaker Worship). At the best moments, literal harmony, in the musical sense, becomes an outward token of metaphorical harmony (spiritual unity). The result is a deep fellowship which “lets you see that ye are written in one another’s Heart” (George Fox, Epistle 24). </>
Sacred Harp singings confirm the truth articulated by Quakers, the basis of our belief in corporate worship and the source of its mystery, that the fullest knowledge of the Spirit is one that is not only shared with, but experienced through others – that “The sense of union with God and the sense of union with our neighbors are so closely related that one is best realized when felt in conjunction with the other” (Howard Brinton, Friends for 300 Years). </>

This experience inevitably binds Sacred Harp singers into a community. Singers in both the traditional and “diaspora” areas frequently travel to other people’s singings, extend hospitality to guests at their own home singings, and consider themselves to be part of a single nationwide Sacred Harp community. Many singers grow to cherish the personal connections with other singers – the friendships that develop over the years and the chance to renew acquaintanceships or meet new people at singings – even more than the music itself.</>

Quakerism is often described as an “experiential” faith. The Sacred Harp arose from the camp-meeting revivals of the early 19th century, which fostered a direct individual experience of the Spirit as a component of conversion and personal salvation. A significant body of new religious poetry was produced in this milieu and partially preserved in The Sacred Harp, a certain strain of which treated religion experientially – striving to articulate the individual experience of faith, of conversion, of self-doubt, of the fruits of the Spirit, or some aspect of the life of the religious community. The personal nature of these texts strengthens the emotional grip of the singing. The “experience songs” show that our core beliefs as Friends about the possibility and importance of direct personal knowledge of the Spirit are truthful enough to have been rediscovered or rearticulated independently in religious history.</>

Sacred Harp singing is beautiful, social, and an outlet for my gifts. I also find that it gives me a sense of continuity with the past, a form of community that encompasses the past and future as well as the present. Knowing that others have sung these songs for so many years, I feel a sense of perpetuating an extant sound-world of perhaps considerable antiquity. The human experience preserved in the poetry of the lyrics reawakens my sense of empathy with others, across hundreds of years. Above all, I appreciate the sense that I am participating in the work of carrying on a tradition, something that people in the past carefully kept alive for those who came after them, having found it through experience to be of value. </>

While Quakerism, with its rich history and written record, also offers an opportunity for this feeling of continuity with the past, it seems to be something that Sacred Harp singers “do” better than modern-day Quakers, on the whole. Sacred Harp singers tend to place strong conscious emphasis on preserving the distinctive features of their unique tradition and honoring those who handed it down. Our emphasis on what the Spirit is saying to us here and now, while important, can perhaps cause us to neglect to develop a relationship with our history – to treat our inheritance lightly.</>

I experience Meeting for Worship and Sacred Harp singing as each complete in itself, so that I have no desire for music in Meeting for Worship, or for silence at a Sacred Harp singing. Yet for me they are utterly complementary. I feel in no way divided between two spiritual homes – rather, the correspondences between them appear to me as tangible signs of God’s love, and workings of the Power that lies over all things.</>

David Wright grew up in Mountain View Meeting in Denver, and is now a part of University Friends Meeting in Seattle, Washington.</>

A quick search on You Tube for shape note singing and Sacred Harp turns up hundreds of clips of singing. Your local library may also have a copy of the recent documentary about Sacred Harp singing, titled, “Awake, My Soul”.
Sacred Harp singings are free (an offering may be collected) and open to the public. Two-day annual conventions in the Western U.S. include the All-California in January, the Washington State in February, the Rocky Mountain (alternates between Colorado and New Mexico) in September, and the Oregon State in October. For more information about Sacred Harp singing, and listings of annual conventions and local monthly singings throughout the United States, visit http://www.fasola.org

Does my spiritual life inform my work as an artist; or does the creative process of making art inform my spiritual life? Perhaps it is both, like an ongoing dialogue.

I seek to articulate the Light, the universal metaphor for the Life Force within and all around us; Light as a descriptor for that which is Sacred and Holy which permeates each breath. The language of articulation involves use of line, light and shadow, color, shape, rhythm and texture to describe the internal response to being alive. I work in several media: drawing, watercolor, and hand woven French tapestry.

My hands know much about the feel of wool and silk yarn, Aubusson tapestry technique, and the proper tension of a good warp. I sit at a loom built out of oak and walnut. Being a low warp, a horizontal tapestry loom, it occupies a substantial amount of floor space. Its weaving width is four lames, or sixty-three inches. The term, “lame”, refers to the amount of warp in forty centimeters, or the width of one weaver’s shoulder.

I am one weaver sitting at a loom that could fit four. This loom is my place of refuge for what needs to emerge from deep within.

I lean forward against the front beam to reach toward the loom’s center for the warp threads grouped together in a slip knot. The cotton twine is strong and smooth in my fingers. I separate out six strands, pulling each one firmly, dividing them in half, looping them around the rod at the front beam and tying them in a weaver’s knot. I reach for six more warp threads and repeat the process. Each thread must have the same tightness as the one beside it, in order to have an evenly tensioned warp. This is the foundation for a tapestry cloth of good integrity.

As my fingers reach, pull and knot, I think of how often weaving and tapestry are used as metaphors for the pulling together of many disparate elements into one complex yet integrated whole. Often seasoned mystics and leaders of workshops use “tapestry” as a way of describing the spiritual journey. Although many are not weavers and thus do not know what goes into the making of tapestry cloth, it is still a powerful and apt metaphor. It becomes even more vibrant when one engages in the daily meditative practice of weaving and knows experientially how the moment can expand into eternity through the window at the loom.

I am a second-generation tapestry artist, who has been weaving for over forty years. My mother showed my ten-year-old hands the realm of threads moving over-and-under taut warp, to create shapes and forms imbedded in woven cloth. With this, I entered into the stream of mythic figures weaving the world into being; of master weavers who passed this tradition down through the generations since time began.

Over the millennia, in regions and cultures all over the earth, old and sometimes gnarled hands have shown young small hands the feel of an evenly tensioned warp and the arc of the weft to insure a straight selvedge. Each time our hands pick up yarn and place it between taut warps, we engage in an archetypal discipline and practice honed over many centuries, days and hours.

In the ensuing years, I have come to view the loom as a threshold. Each time I sit there with my fingers moving strands of color through the warp, I enter into a place beyond words, not unlike silent meeting for worship. Weaving becomes an act of prayer.

I often slip into a meditation and a connection with forces at work far larger than me. While my fingers are in constant motion, I enter into a place of reverence and quiet listening. Here is where I can sense the internal stirrings that also embed themselves into the fibers of the tapestry. This is where nudges and leadings often make themselves known. Sometimes it is the pull to try another color here or to round out this shape more. Sometimes it is the spark of an idea for the next tapestry. Sometimes it is a knowing that I need to speak with a friend.

Strand-by-strand, section-by-section, the colors of the weft create shape and form. Foreground and background link with the warp threads so taut on the loom. The woven structure cannot be sacrificed for the image. The image must flow gracefully, in harmony with the techniques required for sound cloth. Thus, the integrity of tapestry cloth and the emerging image become inseparable. So too, does the integrity of my spiritual practice become inseparable from the outward form of my life. They are interwoven somewhere deep inside.

The act of deep listening happens away from the loom as well, when ideas for designs begin stirring within and start working their way through my hands into initial drawings or watercolors. It is like I am coaxing them forward into being. This process cannot be rushed. In the solitude of my studio, prayerful listening takes me along unexpected paths, as I follow what seems to be leading me. Sometimes it feels like a dead end; other times I seem to be heading somewhere fruitful. Always it is an act of trust and faith in what is unfolding, and requires focused attention to the Truth of what is taking shape. Often this process of ideas taking shape and form happens over the course of days and weeks, with many breaks away to work the day jobs and do the tasks of daily living.

Once the idea is crystallized and ready, I begin weaving and interpreting my black and white sketches and value studies into the palette of yarns and the language of the loom. Many details and subtle changes happen while weaving, as the tapestry informs me what needs to happen next. The techniques I use are specific to Aubusson French tapestry tradition, and I see only the back of the tapestry slowly growing before me. Often it takes about 400 hours over the course of a year to complete. Only when I cut it off from the loom can I first view the tapestry in its entirety. It is indeed like a birthing: one that has come through me, but is not of me. If I have listened well, the tapestry sings.

I look at my hands in awe. I think about the residue of memory that I carry in my fingers, not only of each woven strand, but also of my mother’s hands and those of the French master weavers who honed my skills. The stream of time flows forward and back, ebbs and flows through these hands, stories, and lives of previous centuries.

What stories rest in silence, until a moment of illumination? In many ways, the creative process is one of awakening that which has been dormant and hidden within. What invites the glow of light into the darkness, so that the story’s voice can be seen and heard?

For me, the invitation comes through engaging in the prayerful dialogue that informs both my spiritual life and my work as an artist. Time, in all its layers and dimensions, becomes integral to the process of tapestry making, as well as in the unfolding life of the spirit. Time is thematic in my work as an undercurrent: time in terms of millennia; time of the forces which molded earth’s canyons and mesas, oceans and mountains; time filled with the presence of those who have come before. I continue seeking to articulate the Light.

DIALOGUES THROUGH THE VEIL

The space between now and then
Opens like a window
Into the moment,
Inviting the presence of
Mary, the poet,
Ann, the peacemaker,
And so many others,
To leave traces
Of their thoughts
In these threads.

Currents of time and air
Flow
Into this veil of mist and memory;
This waterfall of light
On cottonwood leaves
Beside my studio.

400 hours made visible,
Like beach patterns
Of ocean on sand.

-Elizabeth Buckley

Elizabeth Buckley is a longtime member of Albuquerque Friends Meeting in New Mexico. The poem above accompanies a tapestry of the same name, which appears on the cover of the December 2011 issue of Western Friend. She recently received the American Tapestry Alliance Award for Excellence in Tapestry for this work.