Open Letter from Quakers Australia on Marriage Plebiscite

This was posted today as an open response to the Marriage Equality Plebiscite from Quakers Australia:

The Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as Quakers, supports the right of adult couples in loving and committed relationships to marry, regardless of gender. We also support the right of such couples to have their marriages accorded equal recognition and respect under the law of Australia.

Our faith prompts us to recognise the divine in all people. It is a basic Quaker principle that all people are equal in the Spirit. As part of the journey to live our faith, we have worked to support the equal treatment of all persons regardless of sex, race or religion. The way has been hard at times, and we recognise that true equality will always remain a direction to be travelled rather than a destination to be reached.

In 2010 Australian Quakers came together and agreed to celebrate marriages within our Meetings regardless of the sexual orientation or gender of the partners. Quakers have long held that marriage “is the Lord’s work and we are but witnesses”. The question before us was simply whether to open our hearts to these marriages that already existed among us.

The law currently prevents Quakers from facilitating the same legal recognition for same-sex marriages that we do for other marriages. This legal prohibition is fundamentally inconsistent with Quaker faith and practice. True religious freedom would encompass the freedom to include, celebrate and recognise the commitments of LGBTIQ couples, as both spiritual and legal marriages.

We recognise that everyone will be at a different point in the journey. Some have purported to speak on behalf of all Christians in opposing marriage equality. Such people do not speak for us. We invite them to continue to follow their path with integrity, while asking that they recognise that their way is not for all people of faith.

Quakers consider that a majority vote in a voluntary public poll is an inappropriate way to decide the legal rights of minorities who are subject to discrimination. We are also concerned about the impacts on LGBTIQ people, their children and families. But if such a vote is held, we encourage everyone to open their hearts, to choose love over fear, and to support marriage equality in Australia.

Jo Jordan
Presiding Clerk
Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Australia

Australia Yearly Meeting Office
119 Devonshire St
Surry Hills NSW 2010
P: 0403 913 719
E: ymclerk@quakers.org.au
W: www.quakersaustralia.org.au

Click on this link for my own thoughts on the matter...The Homosexuals Aren't Coming for Your Children.

Facebook:Disconnect

I've decided to leave Facebook. I've two primary reasons: first, I don't think it's allowing for the type of connection I want to build and maintain with my friends; second, it is frankly starting to creep me out.

Facebook, on the surface, has been a way to keep tabs on friends spread far across the world and reach back in time to maintain friendships from the past. However, I don't find that I'm engaging with people in the considered way I need to on order to make these relationships substantive. I often feel I'm peering round the corners of connections as if looking through your living room window across the street. I have friends on Facebook with whom I've not communicated directly in a dozen years or more but from whom I receive regular updates on the state of their health and families, their travels, work, and major life decisions. Likewise, when I sporadically share something on Facebook, I often am either bringing out something very deep from my life in a passing way or making a comment on a specific situation that might not translate well to social media. In both cases, I'm sending or receiving a partial picture of life that isn't making that essential connection in the way that I want or need with my friends—and I am feeling the lack of that in the process.

Also, I do manage part of social media for my work and am privy to some back-end aspects of Facebook that disturb me (just to be clear, this is from presentations I've attended from companies that offer data mining from Facebook, not anything that my employer is actually doing). Facebook, from all the interactions you have with friends and companies online, knows all too much about you. I find myself confronted with ads on Facebook almost before I myself know I'm shopping for something. A couple years ago, days after my divorce and before I had openly communicated this to my friends, I had ads appear for dating services (specifically dating services tailored to divorcées). I'm not comfortable with the subtle cognitive shift that comes from an algorithm deciding what is most pertainant in my life on a given day. 

I need to maintain an account as it's the way I access the admin for my work page. But I'm going to make it quite sparse and disconnect from all of you as 'friends' on Facebook. What I would ask you to do is, if you do want to commune with me, please reach out occasionally via email or the contact page here. I will also attempt to write more on my weblog and maintain a regular flow of thoughts (I just want to do it on my own terms and in a space where I'm controlling the back end of things). What I don't want to do is disappear from people's lives; I'm not leaving Facebook to withdraw but, instead, to more significantly and directly engage with people I care about. We can't do that in a quick skim through our timelines with ads for miscelleny inserted in the mix. 

So, I'm here in a more focused way and want to keep the connections that we've taken time (whether a year ago or twenty) to have some part in each other's lives. I think, for me, that's not benefited by Facebook; I'd like to hear from you, dear friends; I just no longer want a social media page to be the arbiter of our connection. 

I'm curious about two things now. One is how many people comment on this in Facebook vs. here on my weblog. The second is, after I post this and start cleaning out my account, whether I'll suddenly get a barrage of messages from The Algorithm asking me not to leave. 

The homosexuals aren't coming for your children

This morning I received an email from Lyle Shelton, Managing Director of The Australian Christian Lobby. I have neither met Mr Shelton nor communicated with him in any way, yet he saw fit to send an email encouraging me, as a ''Church Leader" to ''activate'' in response to the postal plebiscite on marriage equality. Mr Shelton did not contact me previously about aid for refugees fleeing to Australia from conflicts abroad; he did not contact me about the need for interfaith dialogue in a pluralistic society; he did not even contact me last week about an appropriate faith response to the homeless encampment in Martin Place. Mr Shelton has reached out, for the first time, about an issue he assumes must be the primary point of agreement that I, as a Quaker, have with the general community of Christians in Australia (namely that a sizable portion of Australian residents are less deserving of a given set of rights than ''us'').

I have, if I were to actually think about it, at least eight colleagues at my workplace who are gay (or, rather, who have made known that they are as it honestly has nothing to do with our work relationship). I have a number of friends and acquaintances who are gay. Some of them, amazingly, have families and seem to lead relatively happy lives (or, at least, as happy lives as the rest of ''us'' manage to do as they are equally as human with neither more nor fewer faults that others).

The email I received this morning implies, ominously, that the inclusion of gay people in the same category of rights that are enjoyed by other Australians, will somehow bode ill for ''our'' children. This is the same straw man set up anytime homosexuality is mooted in a public space, they are coming for your children. The email specifically mentions the evils of the Safe Schools program; Safe Schools is not a means to advocate or promote homosexuality. It's a way to provide a healthy space for young people who are coming to terms with their own sexuality. It's a way to educate children, as they come to comprehend a new and sometimes confusing part of life, about the need for inclusion and understanding of others. (I still find the whole thing a bit bewildering at forty-two; give the kids some tools for goodness' sake!)

The message in the email was that, by allowing for a safe space in schools, religious freedom would be curtailed. Their logic concludes that, if ''our'' religious freedom is to be maintained then the freedoms of others must, of necessity, be suppressed. This never works in a way that is not damaging to both the free and certainly not to the ones who are put down. Basically everyone is bound in an increasingly narrowed container of freedoms that are defined by a subset of society. Freedom of conscience, private action, and self-determination aren't concepts that constrain religion or belief; these are, indeed, the foundation of a society where all faiths can flourish. Paradoxically, the argument that a given religious idea should prevail over all others is what eventually causes both that idea and the larger system to implode. 

There is a much deeper issue here than homophobia; I would say that most of the people behind such anti-gay movements are not especially afraid of gay people (they are uncomfortable, but there is a difference between that and fear). And few of them actually think that there is some gay agenda to come into schools and ''turn'' their children gay. What they are most concerned about is that, by teaching children how to understand others, they will lose control over the narrow worldview they want their children and general society to have. If I develop the parallel skills of self-determination and empathy, there is little hold that a prescriptive social or religious system can have over me; I can go on and determine what is necessary for social cohesion based on my interaction with "them" (and realise that, in fact, I am part of "them"). 
 
This is rather blunt, but I think the essence of it. The Australian Christian Lobby doesn't care who you are in bed with; they'd rather really not think about that. (Or, there is a whole other story here that some people might be thinking of it...a bit too much.) What they do fear is that there will be a gradual opening of understanding that this group of people who they have demonised are actually ''humans'' with rights, that they are, indeed, just like everybody else. And these kinds of revelations break the bonds of control that ''Church Leaders'' have over their flocks. It's the same reason these people are opposed to interfaith dialogue; breaking down the us and them dynamic weakens the bind of control from within. The primary fear is that, without The Other to oppose, there will not be enough spiritual locus to hold things together in the group and it will dissolve. What they can't see is that we all can hold our own sacredness; that, if The Other holds a given matter sacred, it does not diminish that which is sacred for me.  
 
I cannot speak as a Church Leader. For one, that's not how Quakers work but, also, there is no way to speak for all Christians any more than one can speak for all Australians or white people or any group (or, conversely, can one speak of The Homosexuals, The Muslims, etc.). To assume that one has that ability, as is assumed in this email, is overly presumptive. I would ask though, what is to be gained by furthering inequity on this matter? The dogged determination to oppose it is now going to cost the treasury many millions of dollars for a postal plebiscite. To what end when I would argue that gay people will, if not now then eventually, be granted full equality. This is reminiscent of a flat earth argument in the years following the discovery with all certainty that we are walking on a sphere. But, more pointedly, are you indeed arguing for inequity and a continued narrowing of understanding in the world? If that is your proposal, for a world where people are actively discriminated against based on the parameters you set, you lose the argument at the outset. Speak your truth, by all means; but bring a positive truth as a contribution to the whole, not as a means to contain and control. We are, by all obvious markers, in a world of diversity; we need to learn how to generate understanding and inclusion in it or we are not going to progress (or, frankly, survive). This has far larger implications than this issue at hand and those other matters are here upon us now as we dither!

Update on this; see the open letter response from Quakers Australia here.

Remembering a Life of Joy

“Walk cheerfully over the earth, answering that of God in everyone.”

— George Fox

My mother passed away last week; I spoke at her funeral on Monday. When I began to write the words I would say, it was my intention to make a eulogy. However, I need someone to write to so rather than speak of her, I wrote to her in a letter. I placed a copy of this in her casket and read it at the funeral service.

Dear Mom,

For these past days, I’ve struggled to find words to say in this moment. It’s something we’ve been aware of and preparing for but, when it came, it all seemed so sudden. I’ve never known a moment of my life without knowing you were there somewhere or at least on the other end of the phone. Now I’m standing here and, while your presence has not diminished, it has changed. It will take a while for all of us to live with this. It will take a while for all of us to understand the ways we’ve been parted but also, perhaps, the new ways in which we are together. Yesterday, at the visitation, so many friends and family spoke of the presence you had in their lives and how they feel this will continue. I think your spirit was so alive with people here that, even now, we feel that will carry on. 

I spoke with you the day before you died; you could acknowledge hearing me but really couldn’t form words. I said you were the best mother I could have ever hoped for; that you would always be in my spirit. That, if you needed to get better you could but also, if you needed to let go, you could go that way with grace. We’ve spoken much in the past months of hope and grace–the hope for healing but also the grace we can find in difficult times. We are given this grace to learn what it means to be human spirits in this world yet that’s not often an easy grace to receive. You have, for me and so many of the people here today, been a channel for grace. You've come to be, in the midst of it all, an example of what it means to have a good spirit in the times that challenge us most. I think, for all of us who knew you, that’s not making you more than who you were–but saying you always seemed to be the best of who you were in the middle of that grace.

You have, in your life, brought the joy of your presence to so many people–as a nurse, as a friend and neighbour, as a member of our family, your joyfulness was your most apparent trait. I think, as a child, I didn’t fully realise the energy needed to maintain the kind of graciousness you brought to people; but, somehow, you seemed to always have plenty of it in reserve. Our ancestors were Quakers, their founder, George Fox had a saying–he hoped we could "Walk cheerfully over the earth, answering that of God in everyone.” You I think, more than many people I know, could see that of God in others. So much of your spirit has informed who I am as a person. I have walked all over the earth, not always in cheerful places, but the spirit you have given me as my mother has also allowed me to see the presence of God in all these different people. I hope I can go cheerfully in my journey as you did in yours; I hope that the energy for doing so can pass along to me–to all of us here–in a way that can increase and multiply. That, for me, is the legacy you leave.

Since I flew back a couple days ago, I’ve been looking through pictures of us as a family when I was a child. It’s a strange thing to see pictures of you and dad when you were fifteen or twenty years younger than I am now. It’s something to realise the responsibility you both took on to have a child but, as I think how much I’ve grown during the past twenty years as an adult, to also consider how you were maturing and growing during that time in your life. Of course, as a child, your parents are always ‘adults’ like you are some kind of static finished people. But I’m of an age now where I am friends with ‘young’ people who are older than you when you had me–and we still all have a lot of completing to do. I want to thank you for the time you took to grow with me; to become who you were and shape who I am. You are my mother, but in so many ways you were also my closest friend. In that, you have shown me what friends need to be so I can wisely choose mine and also be a friend to others. 

There is much more I would like to write; I will probably still take the time to do so in the coming weeks and months. I’m so glad we’ve had the time we were given since you fell ill to speak openly about many things; most people don’t have that opportunity. When you had heart surgery and were later diagnosed with cancer, I was far away having such a difficult time personally. I’m glad you could see that time pass and know that I’m okay. Also, and this is a dear gift, many people speak of frustrations with their mother or unresolved issues of one kind or another–we truly had none of that. You told me last month that you were at peace with whatever was to come of this; I can tell you now that, though I will miss your presence here, I’m at peace with where we parted. We had forty tremendously close years together and I will carry that with me for whatever time I remain here as well. 

I’ve always been a wanderer; I’ve traveled and now live on the other side of the world. Yet, wherever I have been, I knew you and dad were here at ‘home’–that this was a place to return to. That’s a little different now; a few days ago in Australia, on the phone with dad after you passed, I felt this great loss of home. But, I’m coming to understand that you are with me everywhere now, that this spirit of you and what you’ve helped make in me gives me that sense of place wherever I am.

When we last spoke, I told you I love you; you did manage to say, ‘I love you’ in return. Those were your last words to me; I imagine they were your first as well. All the years in between were filled with love. I hope, as I continue on in this world, I can bring the love you have shown me to others in my life. We shall all miss you but you’ve left your love here with us; so, for me, the greatest part of you remains.

The Perception of Danger and the Assumption of Safety

I woke Tuesday morning to the news that the Erawan Shrine in central Bangkok had been bombed; this is particularly poignant for me as I was at that shrine a week before to the day. I'm going to take care not to say 'relevant' for me as, frankly, other than the shared humanity I have with the victims, I am not really connected to the incident. I think there can be a bit of 'adventure hubris' in saying too eagerly, 'yeah, I was right there man…well, a week before but, hey, close call wasn't it?'

I do find it ironic that I was also in Madrid at one of the train stations that was bombed about a week prior; in both instances I had the thought that these places seemed relatively safe. I continually (and this is perhaps more prevalent with American friends) hear comments about how unsafe the world is now—that we could be attacked 'anywhere and everywhere'. However, the chances of 'us' experiencing a terrorist incident are vanishingly small; I've been in some pretty dodgy places yet my most dangerous moment came on an open stretch of road in rural Maryland (in an accident with a statistically impossible chance of survival). 

There is something askew with both the sense of safety and danger when people simultaneously assume that the real risks are on the battlefield or 'over there' in Syria, Iraq or South Sudan but, also, 'they' are coming to get us here in our local neighbourhood. Yes, both/and, but perhaps not at the extremes imagined. That's no consolation to the people living in the midst of war or the families of those killed in attacks; but I personally can't live my life in constant heightened awareness of danger. I also don't make flippant assumptions about risks (either in the aforementioned dodgy places or walking home in my quiet suburb at night). 

This is the psychology of terrorism; you don't have to acquire an arsenal of nuclear bombs or vast armies. All that needs doing is to subtly shift people's assumptions about safety and risk. Once you've done that, you have control over their actions and life decisions. This shift can be about one's own city or some distant place; I was reminded yesterday about a conversation I had after returning to Philadelphia from the DR Congo, "Didn't you feel really…unsafe?" Yes, The DRC is dangerous, but I felt no more unsafe than I did in Philly where I, almost every night, heard gunshots down the street. That doesn't mean I must stop engaging with life in my neighbourhood or the world. 

This comes down to something I've been speaking with a friend with over the past weeks; she does work in dangerous situations involving human trafficking and the darkness of the world. But, she said it's more dangerous to ride a motor scooter in traffic in Thailand (after experiencing this firsthand…yes). If you are doing what you are destined to do; then what greater safety is there? Everything must happen as it must. There is an old saying about 'sitting in the Heart of God'; that's not a place of fear. It may be a place of dangers and risks; but dangers and risks are everywhere—and, in a sense, nowhere in particular. I should think it's more important to encounter one's full purpose in life and let that life unfold as it may (but do wear a helmet).

The argument for a diminished god

I’ve written a page in my notebook some time ago; it’s on my mind this morning as I sit awake, jet-lagged, in a Dallas airport hotel at two in the morning:

“An argument for a diminished god; a system based on ‘Almighty God’ does not allow for a society based on self-governance. It sets up ‘leaders’, not representatives. We have set ourselves a god that is harmed by insult, whose face and name we must protect at all cost. This has led to much suffering for both ‘ourselves’ and ‘the other’. A god of jealousy and grudge can never be stable—who can look up to a god that embodies the worst of our nature.”

It seems to me that, deep in the kernel of ‘organised religion’ that this is the crux of conflict; it’s not that people have faith and disagree over this in general, it’s that people become obsessed with the power of their proclaimed god and, by extension, their own power. When that power is defamed or threatened, there is a vigorous response (all involving some kind of spiritual or physical violence to either oneself or the other). When that power remains unchecked, there is hubris and the entitlements of power. 

When one’s god is beyond all question of power and the norms of reality and you are part of or under the charge of that god, there is always the risk that you extend yourself beyond what you, as an individual, have any warrant to do. This can, of course, lead to great creative beauty and humanity; however, the more trodden path (or at least the more currently visible one) spans the range from everyday pettiness to violent martyrdom. It is the same hierarchal framework of war that we’ve been living under since the first king was set up over a given square of land (and there is  a story in the Bible where God warns about the nature of kings). We’ve put the sceptre and sword in god’s hand and look for the opportunity of blood.

Last night, I continued a conversation with a friend begun after Easter weekend. We had spoken about the continuing process in us of learning to live in this life; the difficulties of learning hard lessons and having death and resurrection as we go. I wrote to her,

“I think that is just the model of the spirit of Christ within us; there is always this talk about ‘dying to self’ from the view that one has to sacrifice and leave behind everything that makes us human (so much so that the dying leaves the human part so deeply buried and removed and we are almost expected to be this inert perfected spiritual being). But the resurrection part, the living on and evolving, is what too often is forgotten. I think people are not so afraid of dying; they are afraid of the struggle of coming back to life afterward.”

We cannot make death the focus of god in our lives (either calling upon the vengeful god to support us in our violence to others or pleading with the merciful almighty god who will save us in the end). I want to listen for the quiet diminished god who is there in the much more difficult process of life and resurrection; the god who is close as the slow process of growth comes to bear or my wounds are healing cell by cell. That is the god who is everywhere regardless of these confusions of creed and conflict. I don’t wish for a more almighty god of power and sudden intervention; that’s not going to bring healing. I wish for a diminished god working slowly in this quiet Cosmos; that may be an idealist’s dream but I would rather close my eyes to dream on this than shut them in fear when the terrors come.

The martyrdom of silence

There is much discussion about the need for better clarity and connection in 'The World'. I'm sure that whatever future we have together will require more understanding and cohesion; however, I wonder, again, if we so much lack the ability to communicate or we have simply lost the capacity to be silent. On the news last night, after the arrests of several suspected terrorists in Belgium, an imam in the town they were from said, "I think, unfortunately, much of the radicalisation is taking place online now; it's certainly not happening here in the mosque." The problem may not be that people are isolated it's that they are too filled with an infected language—and the spirit can only bear so much filling before it overflows into violence. 

We've evolved in sparse small quiet groups. Now we are overwhelmed with sound. I've noted that some of the most socially desperate places I've been are also the most noisy—that the actual physical environment tends toward an unrelenting wash of sound (hard surfaces, crowded living and working spaces, etc.). This is not insignificant; I think it's actually a substantive issue. If you live in a place where, even to be heard, you have to constantly shout and strain your voice, this will form your perspective on how you interact with others. It will have some bearing on every kind of social interaction. Also those who are quiet won't be heard; it's only the loudest voices that can speak over the din. This is, metaphorically and physically, where much of the ideology of violence springs from—obviously not all; that's too much of a generalisation. However, I'm extending my generalisation into the online connections that seem to feed this phenomenon of radicalisation. People are caught up in little hard rooms with too much reverberation and it's driving them mad.

I wonder if these self-styled 'martyrs' are, instead of glory and acclaim through their own death and the death of others, deep down only trying to find a place of silence? That they, in their physical and spiritual lives, are so overwhelmed with the noise that they are driven to silence it all and would, ultimately, silence everyone. We continually hear from the families of 'good boys' who have 'suddenly and without warning' killed dozens of people that 'we never saw it coming; he was such a quiet young man.' Well, yes, he might have been a quiet young man beaten down with the noise of his school, his city, his broken society and then by the screaming preachers of hate he found online. If he was boisterous and outgoing, he might of found some outlet to vent his frustrations; he may have thought he could find work or interact with people different from himself (there is another discussion here about the loss of traditional shepherds and rights of passage for young men). But if one is in a world with no silence and no retreat, then that is going to break people eventually. Unfortunately, that brokenness, for some, leads to what we see in the evening news. That gets amplified, from news to reaction, reaction to further violence, violence to the sounds of war. 

Some thoughts on the effect of noise and what bearing it may have on the psychology of violence. See text at http://www.edgeofsomewhere.com/weblog/2015/1/18/the-martyrdom-of-silence

Pro patria mori

Today was ANZAC Day (the Australian Memorial Day); I’m conflicted over the concept of war memorial. Earlier this week, I made this photograph of a wood carving in the mezzanine at work (click on the image to see it larger). It was commissioned in the 1950’s by the Federation to commemorate teachers who served and died in World War I & II. It depicts a prone soldier holding what seems to be either a bouquet of some sort or perhaps a handful of grasses and what I assume is meant to be a Bible in the other hand. It’s not clear whether he is resting or is, indeed, dead; the text reads ‘He served in war that we might live in peace’. That’s debatable for WWI, where the Australians suffered a terrible defeat in far away Gallipoli (observed today); perhaps less so for WWII where they were directly at risk from Japanese invasion. 

I made the photograph with the thought that we would post it on the website with a bit of explanation and observance of our own; however, there was some concern that it might cause consternation and appear we were supporting war. I do not, in any form, support the idea of war. It is, by far, one of the most useless and destructive activities mankind can embark on and, especially now, the most dangerous. However, I have no problem pausing to remember the men and women who died in war. No matter how senseless the conflict may have been, people died and that is worth noting. (Though I do think that more should be done to speak of civilian deaths in wartime; those casualties, as evidenced in current conflicts, tend to get glossed over). 

But then I must consider the most appropriate memorial. How do I commemorate the deaths of so many in conflicts I do not condone? There is always the risk, in ceremony, to sermonise either for or against war. I'm not sure it's appropriate to use such opportunities to criticise the situations where such sacrifices were made. I am sure thought that it's inappropriate and manipulative to use the emotion tied to such events to rally people to war or the support of a current conflict. 

I wonder if, truly, the only sensible remembrance on such days is silence. What can you or I know about the situation of death in war that a particular man or woman experienced? What words of mine would add any honour to their names? I think there is much to be said, no doubt endless stories to be written and spoken of those individuals. But that is for histories and museums; on the day itself, should we not take the time to just fall silent?

There is too much risk that the words we use may colour the understanding of what war is (to either those who know—or perhaps for those experienced it and may wish to forget). Even when I was taking this picture, the methods I used could shape how the memorial is perceived. I lit it several different ways, from flat to dramatically cross-lit; depending on the position of the lights, the scene can look almost idyllic, or harsh and bleak (the one above is somewhere in-between). If something as subtle as the light across a carving can have such an effect, what might the words of sly politicians and their ilk do on a day like today when the hearts of people are so open?