Friends, arising from the deep concerns expressed in our Meeting for Worship on First Day after the recent presidential election, Ministry and Counsel committee has proposed a Threshing Session to provide a space for us to consider what we may do, how to ground our actions in the Spirit, and how to support each other in Spirit-led action going forward.

DEFINITION:

For those who have not experienced a threshing session after the manner of Friends, here is a brief explanation: A threshing session is a “gathering of Friends to consider in depth a controversial issue but in a way that is free from the necessity of reaching a decision.  It is a meeting at a separate time that is specifically not for decision-making. Normal practices of a Quaker meeting for business are relaxed so that Friends can speak more than once to an issue, can speak to a point just made, or can ask a question of a previous speaker.  The special role of a threshing session is that it allows everyone to say what they think without the burden of needing to make a decision. It enables folks to speak strongly yet be able to change their position and not merely defend their point of view in anticipation of a decision about to be made.”

We are also sharing some selected readings to help us prepare to consider how to move forward with Spirit-led action and how to support each other with discernment, humility, and honesty.

READINGS:

The fact that God is always present means that the whole of a person's life is sacramental; Friends affirm the need to practice the presence of God in all activity. It follows, therefore, that Friends emphasize the importance of combining the inward and outward journeys. To take the inward without the outward will lead to selfishness. You go inward to wait upon and receive the word and support of God and then take this out to action in the world. To take the outward journey without the inward leads to ``burn out'' because the essential support is not there to be called upon. The Inward/Outward Journey is the practical application of Jesus' summary of the Law: ``Love God and your neighbor as yourself.''  (Pendle Hill Pamphlet, “Quaker Witness as Sacrament” by Daniel Snyder)

Quakers are not perfect; they are essentially human and weak and inept and stupid like everyone else. But their being Quakers does make a difference to their attitude and their behaviour and it is to this that their influence in history and society, which is out of all proportion to their numbers, is attributable. There is a tendency to put the cart before the horse, to say that they are people who find happiness in serving others and who seek to find religious belief through such service. This is quite the wrong way round, apart from having a concealed and unjustified implication that Quakers are simply those who have a particular psychological quirk which drives them to service and sacrifice as a means of self-gratification. What comes first is the religious experience which leads to religious belief. Out of this comes a compulsion to work for others in some way or other. For many it is in practical matters, for some it is a drive towards a contemplative and mystical life for this too serves others, bringing us all closer to true awareness of God through its actual being.  (Geoffrey Hubbard: Quaker by convincement)

Our vision is of the unity of faith and works. We recognize that some come to works only after gaining faith, and some come to faith through working. Ideally, we reach inward to the Spirit that speaks to us and guides us, and outward to the world which needs us and which we need if we are not to drift into empty piety or self-glorification.  (Workshop at Pendle Hill, “Friends as leaders: the vision, instrument, and methods”)

True godliness don't turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it, and excites their endeavors to mend it.  (William Penn: No cross, no crown)

Strange and unendurable irony — that Friends who speak so much about the Inward Light should so timidly hide their own light under a bushel! The time has come to preach the faith we have resolved to practice. If we have good news for our brothers, and I believe we do, let us shout it from the housetops! (John Yungblut)

To the extent that the blessing of peace is achieved by humankind, it will not be achieved because people have outraced each other in the building of armaments, nor because we have outdebated each other with words, nor because we have outmaneuvered each other in political action, but because more and more people in a silent place in their hearts are turned to those eternal truths upon which all right living is based. It is on the inner drama of this search that the unfoldment of the outer drama of history ultimately depends.  (Dan Seeger)

We know that the principles of our faith teach that we can be filled with the same life and power and spirit that produced the prophets and saints of the past, but that knowledge has not made prophets and saints out of us. God waits for us to add to that knowledge the willingness to obey the Light consistently and completely. (Cecil Hinshaw)

The moral man is he who is opposed to injustice per se, opposed to injustice wherever he finds it; the moral man looks for injustice first of all in himself. (Bayard Rustin)

… my convictions led me to adhere to the sufficiency of the light within us, resting on truth as authority, rather than ‘taking authority for truth. (Lucretia Mott)

Being faithful in the little light received, in that light I saw more light; and by it I was taught to trust in God in all my ways, and to consult him to direct my paths. (Increase Woodward)

Do not say untruthful things for the sake of personal interest or to impress people.  Do not utter words that cause division and hatred.  Do not spread news that you do not know to be certain.  Do not criticize or condemn things that you are not sure of.  Always speak truthfully and constructively.  Have the courage to speak out about situations of injustice, even when doing so may threaten your own safety.

Do not avoid contact with suffering or close your eyes before suffering.  Do not lose awareness of the existence of suffering in the life of the world.  Find ways to be with those who are suffering by all means, including personal contact and visits, images, sound.  By such means, awaken yourself and others to the reality of suffering in the world. (Thich Nhat Hanh)

The following section is taken from: “Commentary: Why this gay Buddhist teacher is dubious about Buddhist refuge in the Trump era” by Pablo Das. To read the entire commentary online, go to: http://www.lionsroar.com/commentary-why-this-gay-buddhist-teacher-is-dubious-about-buddhist-refuge-in-the-trump-era/

• First, a self-centered mindfulness practice is not enough. While non-reactive presence to what’s happening within you and around you is foundational, for me non-reactivity simply creates the conditions for a wise response. Non-reactivity is not the end game. Action is! Please don’t be another privileged person who thinks sitting with YOUR sadness is enough. It’s not!
• Practitioners of mindfulness are extremely well positioned to dismantle implicit bias. As a gay man, when I look into the depths of my own being I find homophobia. I also find misogyny and white supremacy. If your mindfulness practice is not yet aimed at your own bias, or if you still think bias is not within you, I’m sorry to say, you’re part of the problem.

• Across traditions, our central commitment is to safety for all beings. When people in trauma feel threatened, they need safety. Buddhists, you must transform your centers into places of explicit safety. That safety doesn’t exist because you sit on your ass and wish for it. It exists in the resonant field of recognition and representation. We need to see and hear ourselves in your teachings. We need you to mention the issues. We need to know you UNDERSTAND the issues. Which means you need to put down your usual dharma book and pick up Ta-Nehisi Coates or Lillian Faderman or Kate Bornstein!
• We need to know you believe us! Don’t dismiss us with comments about a lack of equanimity. In dharma centers across the nation, people are working overtime simply to stay in a room where they are the only person of color or trans person they see.
• Your “right speech” practice should include confronting oppressive language in yourself and others in your day-to-day life. Use your words to insert yourself between marginalized people and their aggressors.
• Don’t engage in spiritual bypassing. Don’t invoke “impermanence” or “the truth of dukkha” or the “ultimate truth of no self” as a way of normalizing Trump, minimizing people’s trauma, regulating your own feelings, or as a justification for inaction or checking out. I don’t get to check out! You shouldn’t either. After all, we’re all against delusion, right?
• Your generosity practice should include giving to organizations that will sustain and protect those who have the most to lose.
• While it’s fine to try to “understand” those who voted for Donald Trump, your compassion is, in my opinion, misplaced — or at best, incomplete. Calls for compassion and understanding for Trump supporters without an equally urgent call for the protection of those who are profoundly threatened by this administration have a flavor of bias similar to that which let “Stanford Rapist” Brock Turner off the hook. Can we, who are supposed to be more awake, please not do that thing where we jump right to compassion for the aggressors who voted for an explicitly homophobic, sexist, racist, violent president that’s readying an all-out assault on vulnerable people?
• And for the love of Buddha, stop telling us not to be angry. Anger is an appropriate response. In the trauma world, we see anger is the energy that naturally organizes in a person to support a self-protective response to threat! The very movement of trauma resolution is from disempowered collapse into an empowered, self-protective response. Yes, anger demands mindfulness to relate to it skillfully but I think it is an exquisite fuel for change. That’s what it’s there for! Gay advocacy groups like the Gay Liberation Front and Gay Activists Alliance in the 1970’s, as well as the people who rioted at LA’s Black Cat Tavern and New York’s Stonewall Inn in the late 60’s were justifiably angry and put this culture on notice! Act Up, the AIDS advocacy group so active in the 80’s and 90’s, transformed the AIDS crisis by channeling their appropriate anger into direct action. In my view, Act Up was one of the most effective forces for change the modern world has ever seen.

Be patterns, be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations, wherever you go, so that your carriage and life may preach among all sorts of people, and to them. Then you will come to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in every one. (George Fox)