“Seasoned Friend”

As understood by the FGC Traveling Ministries Committee, October 2003.

“Seasoned” is an old Quaker term expressing the reality of individual Friends whose lives bear witness to their spiritual maturing.

Friends were called “seasoned” not because they had built a Quaker resumé, but because their lives demonstrated their deep experience of learning humbly from the Inward Teacher. They were—or are—not called seasoned (or weighty) because they've been here long enough to be able to exert influence (to throw their weight around), but because they are maturing spiritually within Quaker understanding and tradition. Their outward way of life makes it obvious that they have gained spiritual weight and depth through the humbling experience of seeing themselves in the powerful glare of God’s Light. The Light has also shown them who is the one who can help them deal with those parts of themselves they would prefer not be seen by themselves and certainly not by anyone else. The Light shows them the way to wholeness and right relationship with God. A seasoned Friend is one who is moving forward on this inward path that inevitably brings outward changes that witness to or testify about the Divine Reality.

As the Religious Society of Friends is a faith community rather than a cluster of individuals seeking their own salvation or personal path of social action, a seasoned Friend is one who is steeped in the lived theology, i.e. the faith and practice, of Quakers. Paul Lacey's recent Pendle Hill Pamphlet, …The Authority of Our Meetings is the Power of God spells this out quite eloquently. A seasoned Friend understands and lives within Gospel Order, which is often called “Quaker process” but has a larger, deeper meaning. "Quaker process" is not an end in itself; it is the way we maintain ourselves in a faith community that listens to and obeys the Inner Teacher.

Seasoning is what gives food its savor. “Seasoned” and “savor” were both words much used by early Friends. There are resonances with the metaphor of salt as used by Jesus in Matthew 5:13, Mark 9:50, and Luke 14:34-35.

There are also resonances with seasons, as in Ecclesiastes 3:1, in which it is noted that everything has its season, its time. A mature Friend is one who has seen various seasons of the soul as well as of the outer world, and has learned from them. The lessons learned result in the growth of wisdom, humility, generosity of spirit, patience, and love.

Over the last 150 years our branch of Friends has retained memories of the earlier Quaker understanding that as one undergoes the powerfully transforming experience of conviction, one moves toward perfection, or spiritual maturity. It doesn’t happen all at once. Therefore we expect Friends to be scattered all along a continuum of being transformed increasingly into having more visibly Christ-like lives. There is also the early Friends’ understanding of “measure”: each individual is held accountable for living up to his or her own “measure” of grace, or spiritual understanding, or Divine gifts. There is not an objective, one-size-fits-all yardstick by which we are measured.

A “seasoned Friend,” then, as the Traveling Ministries Program uses the term, is one who first of all is consciously treading on this path of conviction, and secondly has made sufficient progress to be helpful to others along the way. These are the Friends that the Traveling Ministries Program seeks to make available. Seasoned Friends are invited to discern if God might be calling them to a specific visit as the TMP coordinator discerns with meetings requesting a visit what are their needs and what specific gifts and experiences might be most useful for the Spirit to work through as they gather together.