An Introduction by Kody Hersh

In the first years of the Quaker movement, pairs of minister-evangelists set out from England to places around the world, crossing oceans and continents on trips that lasted months or years, to deliver the Quaker message as widely as they could. They crossed cultural and linguistic barriers apparently without hesitation, speaking the Truth that God gave them.... Read More

 

Holly Baldwin

I wasn’t always a Quaker who paid attention to Quaker diversity.  But after a few years of seeking deeper connections among Friends in my meeting and yearly meeting, I found myself at the World Gathering of Young Friends in George Fox country in 2005, surrounded by other young adults who were seeking hard for connections with God and one another, and who envisioned an enlivened Society of Friends that has spiritual vitality and authenticity.  And we were finding what we were seeking in worship and fellowship with one another—young Friends from across the spectrum of Quakers.

 

My f/Friend Raul spoke in worship one day (I paraphrase): “At home, I knew that God was powerful beyond my imagination.  And yet, I thought I knew how he worked.  I put God in a box.  And now I can see that God has many ways that he works in the world.  How foolish of me—I knew better.”

 

To me, the beauty of inter-visitation among the diversity of Friends is the opportunity to stretch our understanding of God, to question each other’s (and our own) traditions to find the vitality, and find the weak spots, and find the vision to live closer to the ideals of our tradition, closer to the vision of what God is calling us to.

 

In December 2009, I travelled with Emily Stewart on behalf of FGC’s Youth Ministries Committee among Friends in Kenya.  Along with visiting local meetings, Friends United Meeting Mission sites, and a yearly meeting youth conference, we were specifically invited to attend the Young Quaker Christians Association Triennial Gathering—which drew together youth from a variety of Quaker traditions, yearly meetings and countries in Africa.  This was my 2nd trip to Kenya.  I had participated in a similar trip in 2005, as a follow-up World Gathering for the many African young Friends who had been denied visas to attend the World Gathering in England.  

 

Two stories from these experiences.

 

In 2005, I was asked: “In silent worship, how do you know if you are bringing people to Christ?”  In other contexts, it would be easy to dismiss a question like that, “Oh, that’s just not important to most Quakers I know.”  But in the interest of good cross-branch exchange, I put on my translating ears, and heard a query that I come back to frequently: “How do we know that our meetings for worship are places where people can be truly, deeply transformed by the power of the Spirit?”  Isn’t that the essence of our responsibility to care for our meeting community?  Unprogrammed, or programmed, this is a question we must be asking each other.

 

In 2009, I was blessed to be part of a team of curious, thoughtful travellers, and we were taken excellent care of by a variety of people, namely Eden Grace, a New England Friend serving FUM in Kenya, and John Lomuria and Peter Emana, Kenyan Friends.   All three have amazing gifts for cross-cultural hospitality.  In one instance, however, we found ourselves at a different youth conference than the one we’d travelled for.  

It was a yearly meeting youth conference with Quaker Pentecostal worship, 1000 youth, and no cultural interpreter.  Everything was foreign and difficult.  I remember listening to a talk on “Covenantal and Kingdom Living.”  I had been curious to hear a Kenyan take on creating the Kingdom of God here—perhaps by committing ourselves to work for Jesus’ vision and working on poverty, health and climate concerns.  Would they talk about covenant community?  As the director of The Beacon Hill Friends House, I’m very curious about intentional spiritual community formation.  My expectations were dashed. I was disappointed to find that most of the talk was in Swahili, so I couldn’t understand.  What I could understand linguistically, was upholding Old Testament sacrificial covenant that I just couldn’t identify with no matter how hard I tried.  I was in despair, alternating with boredom.  So were my companions on the journey.  

 

At the earlier conference of the YQCA, our speaker spoke of the power of transforming your attitude from one of self-pity to one of gratitude.  He instructed us to live a life of gratitude to God, and to pray gratitude all the time, even for the hard times.    In my culture shock and despair, I had no better alternative, so I prayed, “Thank you God for bringing us here, so far from our comfort zones.  Thank you for the opportunity to meet new Friends, and to stretch our understanding of what it is to be Quaker.  But please God, I wish you would send someone to help interpret what’s going on for us, because we are so lost, and uncomfortable, and we really miss our guides.  We need help.  Thank you for taking such good care of us all the time.”  

 

This is not my usual way of praying.  I don’t usually use words.  And with or without words I don’t pray “for” things.  It’s just not my style.  Kenyan Quaker worship is full of joyful song and movement.  There is a lot of vocal prayer that include praise and gratitude, and humbling one’s self before God.  Praying for things is one of the ways that they pray.   They just put it all out there in public prayer and worship in a way that is pretty foreign to me as a stolid, white New Englander.  

 

So here I was, in this foreign experience, pretty uncomfortable.  So I thought, when in Kenya, pray like the Kenyans.  And wouldn’t you know, 20 minutes later, the next speaker interrupted his talk, and remembered that we were there, and in English asked if there were people who would come, sit with and interpret for the international visitors.  

 

Now, I never would have thought that I could pray this way, and have my prayers quickly and literally answered.  That’s beyond my experience of God and how God works in my life, and in the lives of those around me.  But if I learned one thing in 2005, it was to take God out of the box.  And when I do that, God gives me something to ponder for years to come. 

 

Shortly after the Friend came to interpret, the preaching turned even more intense—the adults preaching and leading the service began calling the youth to leave behind their pursuit of immorality and turn to Jesus for repentance.  And the Quaker youth responded, coming to the altar call, clearly longing for spiritual healing.  Some dropped to the ground in their need.  As I looked at the faces of these Friends, some seemed unchanged.  Some were praying hard.  I could see that some were getting the healing they needed.  

 

My interpreter turned to me, beaming.  “I’m so glad that the Quakers are connecting with the power of George Fox and the early Friends.”  “Yeah,” I said, uncertain, recognizing the sentiment, though not the context.

 

When I reflect on this experience in worship I think about the query “How do we know if authentic spiritual transformation is happening?”  It would be easy for me to dismiss this experience as purely emotional, but now I see that at just the time I was to be witness to a form of the Quaker experience that was so alien to me was just when God reminded me that God can’t be contained in my small box.   

 

So instead of simply dismissing this experience which I don’t understand, I wonder how a Kenyan observer would find one of our unprogrammed meetings, with messages that may or may not be clearly led.  We can’t know for certain how present God is, but we must keep asking each other in our meetings, and across our branches:  Is God present?  How do we know?

 

Holly Baldwin is a member of Fresh Pond Meeting, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, New England Yearly Meeting.  Her work is to create opportunities for people to find the transforming power of the Spirit wherever they are.  She works as the Director of Beacon Hill Friends House.