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SPRING
2001 Mary Waddington
Salem MMIt’s the 21st century and we Quakers are still doing it, traveling in pairs great distances to nurture small and isolated unprogrammed Friends Meetings. In our very early days the Valiant Sixty were sent out two by two, the way Jesus sent out his disciples to spread the word. After a century of disuse the practice is back, now called the Traveling Ministries Program and under the auspices of Friends General Conference. Such journeys, however, are still prompted by the same lead ings, and its travelers are still shown the way by the same Guide. This form of ministry is as valuable an endeavor today as it was in the 1600s, and for the same reasons. But today, rather than spending weeks on horseback, we fly across the country in part of a day. Our dress and speech may also have changed, but nothing else about such journeying seems that much different.
When I got my invitation in September to travel in the ministry with Nancy Middleton, I knew the decision would have to come from a spiritual process. I was told the journey would be to South Central Yearly Meeting, taking up about three weeks of my time—without pay. I prayed pretty hard on this for five days straight. From the beginning I had my list of excuses: I can’t give up my income, I don’t have a suitcase, I’m not worthy, I might get a nosebleed on the airplane.
The written description of the role I was invited into, that of elder and spiritual companion, included phrases like this: “Minister to the minister ... model prayerful attentiveness ... hold the meetings in the Light ... help the minister with discernment ... give insights into what might be helpful in responding to Spirit’s unfolding ... be a midwife, helping to birth the ministry ... be a gofer for the physical arrangements. ...” Nancy’s role as “minister” was not about vocal ministry—that is everyone’s responsibility. Hers would be to make presentations on topics that meetings had previously requested, such as preparation for worship, discerning God’s will in our daily lives, the qualities of a vital meeting. She would also facilitate worship sharing sessions. This ministry is not about telling people how to do Quakerism, but about being present for them, listening, affirming, making resources available, worshipping with them, and helping them get in touch with the Truth within themselves. We’d be a team of two, Nancy and I, on a playing field that stretched across two states.
Holding the invitation deep within, I walked my way through the steps of discernment and then through the clearness process. On Day Six the Message came through quite clearly. Next I drew thick pencil lines through three weeks of my client appointment book. I then requested a minute of travel for religious service from Salem Meeting and began worrying about a suitcase. And about this time I fell into a place of prayer-without-ceasing as the holiness of the assignment settled over me like an ethereal mantle. I began my spiritual preparation on the spot. Packing could wait. It would have to. I had nothing to pack into.
October was warm in Arkansas and even warmer in Oklahoma. I was prepared for anything. As gestures of support, Friends had lent me luggage, a camera, books, ear plugs. One Friend had even sent me a check to cover a portion of the income I would lose. Many encounters in the south were new to me: eating grits, having to drive hours to get to the next meeting, sleeping with cats and under kid posters, hearing slow speech, worshipping in university and church social rooms, living out of that suitcase. And yet everything seemed familiar.
Arkansas/Oklahoma Quarter must be about 275 years younger than Salem Quarter, and there seems to be no distinction between members and attenders. Meetings are very small, the members of one so distantly scattered that they gather only once a month, from 10:00 to 5:00, in someone’s home. None have meeting houses, one is buying a residential building, and the one FUM pastored meeting we visited, in the Osage Nation, had bought a little frame steepled church 25 years ago. There are two birthright members in the quarter. Their yearly meeting pushes into five states and boasts a membership of 500 (as opposed to nearly 12,000 in ours). I’m told that 300 attend its residential annual sessions even though this requires a 15-hour drive for those on the periphery.
South Central Yearly Meeting paid our airfare and incidental expenses. Our ground transportation, meals and housing were supplied by the meetings we visited: six monthly meetings, one preparative meeting, and one worship group. One of our overnight hosts, not yet back from travel, had trustingly left us a house key under the doormat with a note telling us to “rummage in the refrigerator for breakfast.” We were lovingly passed from one meeting to the next over 900 miles of roadway.
Full-page, high resolution version (916K). By the second day of visitation I realized I was up against some challenges. Because of my recent years as a rather cloistered contemplative, I struggled with chatter that felt intrusive. I found I needed to integrate this into the whole and consider it a means of establishing rapport. Also, my role of attending to Nancy’s physical needs seemed usurped by her enviable foresight and organizational skills and by the wizardry of the clerk of the Quarter who had already done the planning. I figured I needed to feel useless before I could come in the fullness of my elder role. Lastly, I was dealing with the frustration of feeling underutilized—holding the ministry in the Light and grounding us in Spirit were as natural to me as breathing, and my lesson here was to feel comfortable in a role that required being rather than doing. And yet, somehow I felt incomplete.
Nancy and I ironed out wrinkles during our daily discernment and processing sessions. We decided to soften the edges of our well-defined roles, creating overlaps and spaces for honoring leadings. I crossed the threshold into that place of feeling complete when Friends began seeking individual counsel for painful issues of a personal nature that hindered their ability to be fully present for their meeting. I commend those courageous individuals who privately confided in us with very tender issues. Mike Wajda tells me this is called kitchen table ministry. It’s clear to me that we cannot separate the challenges of our personal lives from our involvement with our faith community, no matter how hard we try. They are both products of our spirituality, and one informs and influences the other. And I had not been able to separate myself comfort ably from my calling to pastoral care. I boldly risk stating that every meeting has within it at least one person at any given moment who is in need of such care.
And so the last wrinkles of a ministry program in its infancy were smoothed into a flowing coverlet that had been pieced together with the best Handiwork that each of us could offer. These opportunities for me to adapt, adjust, extend, and thus become more fully available to the ministry and to the Spirit were the journey’s gift to me.
Nancy and I were allotted three afternoons of free time. It was then that we stepped out to taste the flavor of our surroundings. We were warned that any native might ask us the region’s two most common questions: “Who do you belong to?” and “Have you been saved?”
Our host meetings were gracious, atten tive and appreciative. We worshipped and worship-shared daily, as though every day were the Sabbath. We bonded over potluck meals and while doing dishes. Sessions with small groups and individuals were usually in homes and were both planned and spontane ous. Two larger meetings combined for a weekend retreat where we prepared meals to gether, sang and swapped mentor stories around a bonfire, did a walking meditation as part of a larger exercise on forgiveness and reconciliation, grappled with any number of topics, and made lasting friendships. No matter where we were or what we were doing, we sat at the feet of the Teacher. I sensed a universal yearning among us all to stay open, to go higher and deeper, to be teachable.
There can be no way of fully fathoming the value of the Traveling Ministries Program unless someone ministers or elders his or her way through it or until a meeting is on the receiving end of it. Not until my experience of Arkansas/Oklahoma Quarter with its small and isolated meetings, some very, very young, could I begin to truly appreciate the treasures I have been taking for granted in my own 325-year-old meeting. The needs surrounding the growing pains within the Quarter we visited are needs of all meetings, no matter how large or how rooted: to be able to experience diversity, inclusiveness, gathered meetings for worship, effective Quaker process, Spirit-led corporate service, adequate youth education, loving care for one another, discernment of God’s will, how to reach beyond and how to reach within. What the meetings in that Quarter can teach us here at home are the disciplines of commitment, perseverance, sacrifice; the highs of a fresh and ongoing search for Truth, the freedom that comes from being unencumbered by property and rigid traditions. There is much we can learn from each other, and so we must do it.
Nancy and I returned from our journey feeling energized, grateful, filled with the promise of tomorrow. Way had been opened for us. We had walked in a sacred space for 18 days, lock stepped in the wider vision of a Religious Society of Friends made vital through the simple act of meetings reaching across the miles to touch other meetings, to share experiences and bask in the Light together.
For Further Information. . .
If you’re interested in the Traveling Ministries Program, you can get more information from
Deborah Fisch
916 Forty-first Street
Des Moines, Iowa 50312
Phone 515-277-2189
E-mail deborahf@fgcquaker.orgThere’s also information at the Friends General Conference Website:
where a copy of Mary Waddington’s official report to FGC on her travel with Nancy Middleton is also expected to be posted soon.
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Last modified:
Wednesday, February 18, 2004 at 08:19 AM
