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A Conversation with Quaker Author Philip Gulley

For three years, I regularly worked with bright but struggling ninth graders at a small private school in Hartford, Connecticut, helping them manage their attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and executive functioning challenges. Perhaps the most transformative of all the strategies we employed was teaching them how to understand and unlearn their fears.

Fear profoundly affects our brains, impairing our memory, critical thinking, and decision making.

While fear triggers our primal fight-or-flight instinct, we often seek external sources to soothe that internal alarm. Quaker author Philip Gulley, describing his own spiritual journey from Catholicism through Evangelicalism and eventually to Universalism, illustrates how many of us initially trusted God to alleviate our fears:

One of the first things we learn is that God loves us, that God’s in control, is a product of our deepest need, which is to live life without being crippled by fear or a sense of hopelessness. And so we posit all these powers into a divine being so that we don’t have to go through life worrying that no one’s in control and that this will somehow end up okay.

Gulley spoke with my cohost Sweet Miche and me about his 2018 book Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe. You can listen to the conversation in the April 2025 episode of the Quakers Today podcast.

Chatting with Gulley about his spiritual journey got me reflecting on when I was a teen struggling with my identity. Fears about my existence in this life and the next plagued me, but then I encountered God. It was also a time in my life when I felt an increasing desire for growth and new life.

When my parents offered to repaint my room, I chose mint green—a cool, restful shade. Beneath a Spanish chestnut tree and beside a lake, my quiet bedroom shimmered with reflections and gentle breezes. It was there that I first sensed God inviting me into a partnership.

Soon after that experience, I joined a Bible church where Pastor Nick regularly warned us about hidden spiritual dangers. Among the first verses I memorized was 1 Peter 5:8, a scripture verse steeped in fear: “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” Though perhaps well-meaning, the elders introduced many new anxieties into my life.

According to Gulley, an emphasis on fear is nothing new. It goes all the way back to the book of Genesis and the Garden of Eden. Gulley loves the story of Adam and Eve, yet he remains puzzled by the conflicting messages within it. God provided the couple with an abundant garden filled with fresh produce, yet forbade them from eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Reflecting on this narrative, Gulley observes:

We know now that four different authors wrote the first five books of the Bible. And some of those sources were very poetic, exploratory, had all kinds of questions and just wrote very movingly. Others of them were priestly and really liked nailing things down. And I suspect the person who came up with that story was somebody who worshiped every day at the altar of fear. This is the problem. The problem is not letting God discern good and evil, but you attempting to discern what is right and what is wrong. And here’s where that will get you—it will get you thrown out of the garden and subject to work and be miserable. And it’s just such a depressing story.

For centuries, religious leaders have kept people like me confined to a narrow path. For a long time, I preferred this safety, outsourcing the hard work of discernment rather than trusting my direct experience of the Spirit.

How unlike the early Quakers, who boldly rejected the authority of established church leaders and the educated clergy! Those Quakers dared to question accepted teachings, breaking free from spiritual hierarchies to seek guidance directly from God and live by the leading of the Spirit.

Centuries later, in the United States, we are experiencing the repercussions of religious authorities’ overreach—a phenomenon Gulley says carries profound political consequences:

Well, it’s clear that fear is probably the driving motivation in our culture. I think that’s especially obvious now with the rise of Donald Trump and his supporters, which, in a way, was a masterfully evil manipulation of human fears. It identified and targeted the other, painted a dystopian worldview of what might happen if we didn’t fix this and get rid of these people—you know, the other. And I think the reason 82 percent of American evangelicals voted for him is that is the language they understand. They have been steeped in a culture of fear, in judgment, and so when he talks, he’s speaking their language.

In my teens and 20s, I willingly submitted myself to Evangelical and Pentecostal ministers who spoke endlessly about love but consistently preached a fear that kept us firmly seated in the pews. This fear also energized us to support politicians who promoted Christian nationalism.

Gulley, who has had to unlearn this fear himself, offers straightforward advice for those currently ensnared by fear in our political moment: “I encourage as many of them as I meet and encounter to get therapy because I believe it’s indicative of a mental neurosis that needs to be healed.”

While my instinctual response to fear is fight or flight, I nonetheless allowed myself to marinate in church-induced fear for nearly two decades. I asked Gulley why fear is so compelling and his response startled me: “The thing is, on one level, it works for them emotionally. They find it emotionally satisfying.”

How could this constant fear have been emotionally satisfying—the terror that if I strayed from the path outlined by pastors, I would lose everything, even God’s love? Why hadn’t I fled or fought back against the ministers? I had fought—alongside ministers—against invisible forces we believed ruled society. By supporting politicians who opposed reproductive rights and LGBTQ liberation, we aimed to transform America into a Christian nation.

Fear immobilized my critical thinking, allowing church leaders to shape my beliefs. Fighting against “the enemy” felt powerful, valuable, and emotionally satisfying.

The work of questioning everything I believed was far less emotionally satisfying but essential for my spiritual growth and mental well-being. Coming out as gay was easy compared to the painful process of examining and unlearning the fearful lessons that had ruled my life.

For nearly 20 years, I had strived to cultivate the fruit of the Spirit outlined in Galatians 5:22–23: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” With therapy and deep reflection, I saw that instead, I had harvested a bitter crop of self-hatred, cruelty, depression, intolerance, shame, and fear. How far I had drifted from that sweet early encounter with God in my mint-green bedroom!

Gulley suggests we examine every belief, asking whether it diminishes or enriches our lives. If a belief makes us smaller, less loving, or causes us to diminish others, Gulley says he feels “very comfortable jettisoning it and letting it go and saying, ‘I’m not going to let that belief inform my life any longer.’” On the other hand, if a belief helps us move forward, fosters growth, or makes us more loving, he insists on retaining it—regardless of its origin. “I don’t care who taught it to me,” Gulley explains. “It doesn’t matter if I learned that from a Catholic nun at the age of six. If it still works, I’m going to keep it.”

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There is said to be a Chinese proverb that acts as a curse: May you live in interesting times. Like most pithy phrases, its authenticity is doubtful (it seems to have been coined by Neville Chamberlain’s father, of all people). Our pop culture is full of dubious things never said. Yes, I’m sorry but Gandhi never told us to be the change we want to see in the world, Washington never copped to cutting down a cherry tree, and Fox never told Penn to keep wearing his sword.

But there is nonetheless a stress that comes from a news cycle that never lets up. It’s easy to go down a rabbit hole of they did what? and they said what? Friends have often lived in tumultuous and dangerous times, and we find ourselves once again in an era in which those in power are challenging norms and perpetrating injustices. Maybe the real truth is that these are always our times. The wars we see breaking out across the world are complicated ones that don’t always have clear good and bad actors or easy pacifist solutions. We must be willing to stand with the victims of all sides and risk being denounced by everyone. We will be called naïve. Sometimes we will be dismissed as foolish children of the Light.

My favorite foolish article this month might be Robert Stephen Dicken’s. Facing a terminal illness, Steve, as he was known, discovered a guardian angel who would talk to him. Acknowledging that this might be an effect of “chemo brain,” he nonetheless felt a kind of comfort in the presence. Steve has written for us a few times, but this is the last, as he died shortly after writing this piece. I’d like to think we are all looked after, both individually and as a community trying to follow God’s will.

We usually have our “Quaker Works” round-up of the activities of Friends in the April issue. We’ve been running this column twice a year for ten years now and are taking a break this time to survey participating organizations and see how we might better serve them and our readers. The column will return in October.

Many issues of Friends Journal are like the one in your hand: collections of the most interesting articles we’ve gotten over the last few months. The originality of topics is always a surprise. We love putting them together and often notice how articles complement one another in unexpected ways. But about half of our issues are themed. This allows us to be proactive: we can try to identify topics we think Friends should be talking about. We don’t decide this by ourselves alone. We send out emails and post on social media asking for suggestions. We’ve recently distilled all of these ideas into a list of themed issues for 2026 and 2027. It’s a pretty exciting line-up. We’ll be asking about Indigenous Friends, looking at the peace testimony today, asking about eco-spirituality and much more. Check out our new list at Friendsjournal.org/submissions.

I’m grateful for all the readers who contacted us with ideas. This magazine is really a community project: our readers suggest ideas, and Friends write in with fascinating articles that communicate their Quaker experience. I’m grateful for all the hard work that makes curating these issues so enjoyable!

The post Persistence and Focus appeared first on Friends Journal.

Bolivian Quakers’ Witness to Climate Crisis

Like many Bolivian young people, I feel grateful to have grown up among Indigenous people. They value the creation that gives them food, shelter, peace, and joy. Since I was a child, I have known that stones, mountains, rivers, plants, flowers, and animals are loved, respected, and honored by the local people, young and old, in our community. Our grandparents’ and parents’ main teaching consisted in helping us to understand and value the creation. Thus, this was the way I have felt connected to the Creator since my childhood.

Bolivian families who live in rural areas are called “peasants” by the urban citizens. Life in the rural areas where Indigenous communities are located is simple in material goods but rich in feeling the goodness of creation. For example, in the Bolivian highlands, families work in the early morning on their crops and take care of domestic animals with joy and love. When they plant quinoa, peas, and potatoes, they thank the Creator and bless the creation. As the plants grow, the people follow the weather day and night by watching the sky, clouds, rain, frost, stars, and wind as they take care of their crops. So they keep hope until the harvest season arrives once a year, which happens in March.

Potato bags are being unloaded from the truck.

This system of growing their food has changed in the last 15 years in a radical way because extreme weather has threatened the planting process and the crops. One of the first effects of climate change was seeing less water in the rivers and springs, which left us with less water for drinking, bathing, and cooking and also less water for the animals and crops. For us, water has always been a blessing, like tasting the presence of the Creator. When a new baby is born, an Indigenous mother gives a drop of water to the baby as a sign to feel the creation. And when it rains, water brings us joy because there will be water for drinking and for our crops. But the extreme heat and droughts have altered this life of connectedness with the Creator through nature.

It has been heartbreaking to see each year how our rivers, springs, and mountain snow caps have disappeared from our region. It is a huge loss for us because Indigenous people depend on nature as granted by God, our Creator. Now we have to worry about water when it is rationed to each family. And we see less food now; we used to have plenty of food to nurture our bodies. Even the poorest families had food to sustain their families in the past. 

Young adult Friends showed up faithfully to work as volunteers in this project. They visited various communities to coordinate with local authorities and to get information about the families who were affected by the drought. Then they went back to these communities to distribute the potatoes. 

At the Friends International Bilingual Center, young Quakers have done different types of work regarding the environment and climate change since 2016. We built biosand water filters to provide drinking water to the families for nearly five years. We have offered environmental workshops addressed to Bolivian youth for deepening our education about the environment and climate-change issues. Above all, through these workshops, participants have the encouragement to come up with ideas and action projects to prevent the worst effects of climate change on the people. 

In 2022, Bolivians faced a terrible drought. The Indigenous families in the highland lost their potato crops. The seed potatoes died in the ground. In response, the Bolivian Quaker youth felt called to do a relief action in this time of great sorrow among Indigenous families.

In January 2023, when many Bolivian families in the highlands declared that their potato crops failed, and they wouldn’t have a harvest in the following March, Bolivian Quaker youth organized a project to help them. We called it the Food Security Project because our Indigenous families were facing starvation. Humbly, we planned to provide potatoes for eating to these families in the first part of 2023. Our hope was to raise funds for ten families, and so we arranged a budget of $50 per family, which is enough to give one hundred pounds of potatoes to a family; we hoped that this amount would last at least for a couple months. In one of the communities, we heard an elderly man saying loudly, “I will eat one potato each day,” as he held a potato in his hand with tears of joy in his eyes after he had received the bags of potatoes. With the favor of God, our project was successful because we ended up distributing potatoes to one hundred and fifty families most in need in various communities. Also, young adult Friends showed up faithfully to work as volunteers in this project. They visited various communities to coordinate with local authorities and to get information about the families who were affected by the drought. Then they went back to these communities to distribute the potatoes. The distribution of potatoes in one Indigenous community usually took from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on a Saturday.

As we said goodbye to the families once we had distributed the potatoes, the locals requested help with seed potatoes for the planting season in October. Our answer to them was a diplomatic smile and some words of hope: “If God provides donations for the seed potatoes, there will be seed potatoes for your community; please pray.” Although there was not much time to raise funds between June and August, we were able to get donations for the seed potatoes. I still remember one local authority sent a WhatsApp message in August that said, “It is snowing, which means there will be a good harvest in 2024. Please, we hope to receive the seed potatoes.” His words confirmed that it was God’s will to distribute the seed potatoes, no matter if there was money or not in our hands. By faith, we contacted the families in September 2023 to tell them that each family would get 125 pounds of seed potatoes.

A family getting potato seeds in community of Patacamaya.

In the planting season from October to November in 2023, our young adult Friends did amazing work in the process of distributing the seed potatoes. Most of our volunteers were young women. In spite of the fact that women are not often appointed as leaders, in October some of them decided to lead the volunteering team to each community. They had gotten a lot of experience in coordinating with local leaders and in talking to the gathered families during the first part of 2023. Our leaders made sure to purchase the huge bags of seed potatoes, to rent a car for the transport of the potato bags, and to arrange all logistic details both in the city and the Indigenous communities. 

Usually our volunteer leaders and their teams came back from those communities exhausted but with great joy. Whenever they shared about the experience of their service work, they said, “It was an experience of love”; “Wow, on the faces of the families there was much love and joy as they received the seed potatoes”; “I am glad I was invited to join the volunteering team because I felt filled with love”; “Please, let me know when you go to another community next time because this is the type of work I was feeling led to do in ministry.” Thanks to the love of these young volunteers and the Quaker donors in the United States, more than three hundred Indigenous families joyfully received seed potatoes by November 2023.

We are still running this Food Security Project by distributing food items in both highlands and in the jungle areas where there are droughts, flooding, and fires. Doing this service project has been a wonderful transforming experience for both the volunteers and the Indigenous families.

In March 2024, we visited these families again to ask them how the harvest went. Most of them showed us tons of beautiful huge potatoes. Some of them cooked the new potatoes for us to thank us. And they told us that they now had enough food for the whole year and new seed potatoes for planting the crops. That experience encouraged us to offer the same support to other Indigenous communities in October 2024. We distributed the seed potatoes to another 244 families, even though there were political, social, and economic crises in our country. Now we are still running this Food Security Project by distributing food items in both highlands and in the jungle areas where there are droughts, flooding, and fires. The service projects have been a wonderful transforming experience for both the volunteers and the Indigenous families. However, there is still much work to do among Indigenous families in my country due to the severe effects of climate change.

The post An Experience of Love appeared first on Friends Journal.

Hope and Inspiration for Climate Action

About 20 years ago, Robert Engman gave everyone in our meeting a copy of James Howard Kunstler’s The Long Emergency. In reading it, I realized that as we humans are such great procrastinators, it was absolutely essential to get people to pay attention to climate change as soon as possible. As a scientist, I felt I might be able to explain the way climate change is happening and help folks understand the urgent need for action. I requested a travel minute to go from meeting to meeting with that story. In the course of that work, I met a number of like-minded Friends who were led to various pieces of the work. In this article, I’d like to introduce you to a few of them and show you what gives us hope for the future in our activism on climate.

You might think it simple. Scientists can prove that burning fossil fuels like coal and oil has released so much carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere that the Earth is warming faster than at any other time we humans have been alive. If we don’t stop soon, there will be more and more climate disruption and species extinctions. So, let’s just tell everyone what is happening, and they’ll just stop doing it: right? In fact, scientists have been telling folks about this for 120 years now, and people haven’t stopped yet, but on the positive side, they now have (mostly) admitted there’s a problem. But change doesn’t happen all at once. It happens little by little, as actions grow into a movement, and then rapidly, as the movement captures the general imagination.

Tackling climate change has so many facets that there’s something for everyone to do. There are little things you can do in your home or meeting and bigger things that we can all work on together! Saving energy is best, because even renewable sources have “carbon footprints.” About ten years ago, Patricia Finley and Margaret Mansfield joined other Friends in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (PhYM) in establishing “Friendly Households.” The focus was not just changing from incandescent to LED light bulbs but insulating our homes, switching to Energy Star energy-efficient appliances, and being mindful about transportation by walking, biking, and using more public transit. The program urged flying only when absolutely necessary, reducing waste streams through composting and recycling, and trying to implement a circular economy at least on a local scale. Individual Friends made commitments to undertake some of these goals and sharing what works. By repairing appliances and clothing, for example, fewer of our household goods go into the waste stream.

Members of Quaker Action in the Mid-Atlantic Region joined Pennsylvania elected officials and citizen advocates at a rally in support of RGGI in Love Park, Philadelphia, Pa., November 2022. Photo via Clean Power PA Coalition.

To reduce the carbon footprint of our homes, meetings, schools, and businesses, Liz Robinson has been working for more than 40 years on public energy policy, most recently increasing and democratizing access to solar power. Solar for schools and communities, and renewable energy policy have all kept Liz involved and hopeful. Because much of the change needed requires legislative and executive action, Liz has joined with Patricia Finley, Bruce Birchard, and myself to launch a 501(c)(4) to allow us to effectively raise funds to lobby for action on climate change and other issues of concern to Friends. Quaker Action Mid-Atlantic Region (quakeract.org) joins several other “mini FCNLs” (Friends Committee on National Legislation) across the country that are focused in a specific region. So far over 300 people have joined Quaker Action to advocate for climate action more effectively in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. One of our recent action alerts advocates for moving Pennsylvania from 8 percent renewable electricity to 30 percent by 2030.

But change doesn’t happen all at once. It happens little by little, as actions grow into a movement, and then rapidly, as the movement captures the general imagination.

Eileen Flanagan joined the Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT) in 2011 after seeing their demonstration at the Philadelphia Flower Show. Over the years, she has authored several books and served in several leadership roles, taking on PNC Bank to end coal mining by mountain-top removal and more recently to pressure Vanguard, the world’s largest investor in fossil fuels. This goes to the heart of how corporate greed drives climate change. Such greed embodies spiritual hunger, but the droughts, storms, and climate related conflict driven by fossil fuel emissions cause literal hunger. By mobilizing Quakers and others into focused nonviolent direct action, EQAT highlights a selected part of a system that is out of alignment. Eileen has found joy, fulfillment, and empowerment through her work in EQAT, partly through friendship and community and partly from a sense that our work really is addressing “the world’s deep hunger.” She is now taking a break from her leadership activities to write her next book, titled Common Ground, which is due out this summer.

Ed Dreby, Pamela Haines, and I have been speaking and writing about the way our growth economy—seeking to constantly increase gross domestic product to keep shareholders happy—contributes to climate change and the way Friends’ relationship to money is part of that. In this work, we’ve been supported by Quaker Institute for the Future, among other organizations. As Friends who aspire to live with integrity, we should acknowledge that money is not just a medium of exchange but is also a tool of oppression. In our global economy today, money is generated from debt that earns interest, extracting a share of each borrower’s productivity as profit for the lenders. Productivity and economic growth have increased dramatically in the last half century, but very little of that is seen in increased income for ordinary people, who struggle increasingly just to make ends meet. Instead, it is used to pay the interest, thereby fueling the rise of the billionaire class and overshooting planetary limits in the process. We need to move toward a circular economy which doesn’t grow—at least materially—any more than is necessary so that all life on this planet can flourish. Such a shift would upset the status quo in the same way that Jesus did when he expelled the money lenders from the temple.

Meanwhile, other Friends are hard at work on the justice aspect. Friend O calls on us to recognize that community is the ecosystem. How we tend to the community is how we tend to the ecosystem, and if we destroy the ecosystem, then we will be annihilated. She invokes the image of the ecosystem as a womb in which cell-to-cell communication, sharing of resources, and recognizing our “inseparable oneness” are essential. If we took our cue from the law of the womb, we would be implementing the patterns of life, but instead, we are employing the patterns of the predator: taking what we want and, as much as possible, avoiding the consequences. O says people must recognize that “we are all alchemists, but rather than changing lead into gold, we need to change fear into love,” something we really can do especially if we do it together! O’s work extends outward from climate in many directions, including difficult conversations about trauma and reparations. She helps to expose violence toward people and toward the Earth—violence that was normalized and unseen—through touching and feeling it, so we can heal together as a community.

Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT) organized a rally, march, and prayer vigil calling on Vanguard Group to divest from fossil fuel companies that refuse to transition their businesses to be in alignment with no more than 1.5 degree Celsius global temperature rise. July 3, 2024. Photo by Crystal Gloistein.

Although it had several earlier incarnations, the Eco-Justice Collaborative (EJC) of PhYM was formed to bring together all of these different areas of economic and ecological justice work. The group has been clerked for the past 12 years by Ruth Darlington and Patricia Finley, who was inspired by Carson’s Silent Spring, Ehrlich’s Population Bomb, and by the work of Margaret Mansfield and Ed Dreby. Pat’s own work has focused on bringing Friends together in a sustained community to address eco-justice: from carbon footprint reduction to policy advocacy. It is through spiritually grounded community building that movements can grow and be sustained. She finds hope in spreading a message of reverence for creation and love for our neighbors, attending to antiracism, equity, and mercy.

What does that future look like? Can you see it? I see more sharing, more cooperation, more compassion, and more engagement to be essential parts of that vision, and above all, I see hope. What do you see?

Bruce Birchard notes the continued resistance to climate action from political, financial, business, and some labor leaders, and he finds it tragic. But giving up is not an option. As highly privileged people living in a rich and powerful nation, we may survive for some decades the consequences of the climate crisis. Yet we, more than anyone else, bear the most responsibility. To give up means consigning the poorest and least powerful in our global family to suffering and sometimes death from the most disastrous impacts of a rapidly warming planet Earth. To stay engaged, Bruce recharges frequently by spending time with his grandchildren and getting out into nature.

Climate change and climate conflict may necessitate the relocation of between 20 and 30 percent of the world’s population over the next century. Given that we are in large part to blame, will we welcome them as the Bible instructs (Lev. 19:33–34), or will we build walls and barriers to keep them away? Resettlement work is going to be an increasing part of living our witness, as more and more people flee climate catastrophe and the violent conflicts caused by it.

We really are in the midst of a long emergency, and we need to take a long view to address it. Jackie Bonomo finds that emphasizing community, equality, and peace, and living into those values with integrity is the best way to reach people. Young people see the tsunami of problems caused by climate inaction, and they raise good trouble— speaking truth to power—which she finds hopeful. Our species is characterized by great adaptability—finding liveable habitat from the tropics to the arctic—but we have only been around for an eyeblink in the scheme of evolution. In all of our three-hundred-thousand-year history as Homo sapiens, we’ve adapted to ice ages and heat waves, but the climate has never changed this much this fast. Adaptation doesn’t mean cranking up the AC; we only survive if the complex web of life that supports us survives. In The Story of the Human Body, author Daniel E. Lieberman notes that our adaptive success is inextricably entwined with our unique ability to communicate, share a vision, and cooperate in bringing it about. Hope comes from accepting the present and envisioning a brighter future. It is, to some extent, self-fulfilling. It certainly has been a consuming activity for me.

I’ve accepted the idea that the problem may not be “fixed” within my lifetime, and perhaps not in yours, but it’s essential for us to imagine a new story about the way it can be turned around in time for today’s grandchildren and their grandchildren to have a liveable world where they can still be happy. What does that future look like? Can you see it? I see more sharing, more cooperation, more compassion, and more engagement to be essential parts of that vision, and above all, I see hope. What do you see?

The post Addressing the Long Emergency appeared first on Friends Journal.

The Work of the Spirit among Friends

In my time among Friends, I’ve sometimes yearned for the fiery and passionate faithfulness of the early Quaker movement. I’ve wanted to see the captives freed, the last come first, and good news shared with all who are seeking. I’ve struggled with our creaking institutions, our somber respectability, and what it means to be a “good Quaker,” as if that was something I could do in my own power. I’ve wondered if we’re ready to respond to the call to take up new wineskins for the Spirit of Christ’s new wine, willing to open ourselves to the Spirit’s transforming power. Do we recognize that God is as close to us as God was to the early Friends, the apostles, and the prophets? Do our lives testify with the peace and purpose that come from that recognition?

Holding these hopes and questions, I’ve sometimes looked with longing at the Pentecostal and charismatic traditions. In those traditions, I’ve glimpsed room for the Holy Spirit’s unfettered power to transform lives and communities. I’ve seen an amazing freedom in worship, as each person is encouraged to bring their gifts and yield to God’s leading. Of course, there are divisions and difficulties among charismatic Christians, as there are among Friends. There may be an immense pressure to conform, the view that salvation must be proven by the exercise of specific gifts, like speaking in new tongues. As in many faith communities, there may be more drama than life, more form than power, and too much focus on individual redemption, rather than the redemption of the whole cosmos. There may be social views that are, to my mind, divorced from the gospel. But for all that, Pentecostal and charismatic followers of Jesus have taught me that the Spirit doesn’t always speak in the language of the White middle class and that when the Spirit is truly running the show, we can expect to be helped and changed at almost every meeting for worship. We can expect God to show up and lead us.

When the Spirit was poured out on all who attended those early meetings, it was so that all might be pointed to their present helper, Christ Jesus, who could bring them into new life. 

I’ve discovered similar lessons in the journals and tracts of the early Friends. George Fox, riffing on Paul’s Letter to the Romans, frequently refers to the gospel as “the power of God.” His experience taught him that when God shows us our darkness, God also gives us the help to change our lives: where there’s Light, there’s Power. Fox invites the professing Christians around him to come from knowledge about Christ to knowledge of Christ’s actual power in their lives. Edward Burrough, who brought the Quaker message to London, writes about how the Spirit was poured out on early Friends as they met for worship. He describes how their “hearts were made glad” as they “spake with new tongues.” And Margaret Fell defends the right of women to prophesy, because any who “speak by the Spirit and Power of the Lord Jesus” should be heard. All of this might sound rather charismatic. Perhaps this is no surprise: the Quaker tradition is often regarded as especially centered on the Holy Spirit, a forerunner to later charismatic movements. Quaker theology had a clear influence on the development of the Vineyard movement, the Azusa Street Revival, and the Holy Spirit churches in East Africa. I’ve even heard us described as “the quiet charismatics.”

As I’ve continued to read the first Friends, however, I’ve found that their distinctive understanding of primitive Christianity revived was not just Spirit-centered but Jesus-centered. This has helped me to understand their excitement at the discovery of a practical, living faith, with Jesus as their present teacher. They realized that they could relate to Christ, risen and working in their hearts, just as his disciples did, and they felt a call out of religious ideas and practices and into this simple teacher-student relationship. They were a community of humble learners in the school of Christ. Liberated from the need to work their way to God, they were sent out into the world with the joy of those who know they travel in the company of their loving guide.

Among some charismatics, the Holy Spirit is seen as the custodian of the church until Jesus’s bodily return. In the interim, the Spirit has been given to lead and comfort us. This is far from the understanding of the early Quakers. They experienced Jesus himself, come again in their hearts. They heard his voice within, leading them toward greater love and truth. His light showed them how to live differently. They knew Christ as their shepherd, who gathered them into community to learn from him together. They saw how the whole sweep of the biblical narrative portrayed our need to listen for help from a power greater than ourselves and our repeated unwillingness to do this, and so they set out to listen and build their lives on what they heard. These Friends had no need for a custodian: Christ had come to be the head of the church. He had promised to be present wherever two or three gathered in his name, and Friends found this promise fulfilled as they met on hillsides and in valleys, carrying this experience from town to town.

Our spiritual forebears knew the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Christ. Jesus told his students he would send the Spirit of Truth, and he told them he was the Truth itself. These things are not neatly separable; the early Friends didn’t have a way to understand the Spirit apart from Christ. They knew the Spirit was working among them because it drew them to the living Jesus, their rescuer and teacher. When the Spirit was poured out on all who attended those early meetings, it was so that all might be pointed to their present helper, Christ Jesus, who could bring them into new life. This is how they knew it was the Spirit of Truth, and not just the spirit of the age.

We can tell God’s voice apart from other voices because, in the companionship of Christ, we are brought to a deeper sense of what God sounds like. And when we begin to listen, we slowly learn to recognize this voice more and more clearly.

When New Testament writers mention discernment, they often seem to have this question in mind: how can we distinguish the Spirit of God from all the other spirits, all the other forces that might move us, all the other powers we might follow? Paul regards the discernment of spirits as a spiritual gift (1 Cor. 12:10). John reminds us of the need to “test the spirits to see whether they are from God” (1 John 4:1). Discernment of spirits was needed among early Friends, as they struggled to understand Christ’s guidance, and as they confronted the powers and principalities of their time. We also need this gift in an increasingly secular culture where the spirit of the age is individualistic and success looks more valuable than faithfulness. There are many spirits, many voices we might hear and obey. In me, there’s the voice of frustration and impatience, and I need Christ to soften my heart. Outside, there are the norms of my society; calls to ambition and prosperity; and the spirits of greed, envy, and fear. I need Christ to help me focus on what matters, to plant me in faithful simplicity. With all this, how am I to know which spirit to listen to, which to follow?

Early Friends have helped me to see that I can better distinguish the Spirit of God from these other spirits if I look to Jesus. After all, it’s his Spirit—the Spirit of Truth—that will lead me toward more abundant life, a gentler heart, and a bolder witness. Christ has come to guide and gather us himself, no custodian needed. So I ask myself, is this voice drawing me to Jesus? Does it sound like his voice? Does it echo and confirm his teachings? Does it tell me to love my enemies and pray for those who persecute me, or does it suggest that I build higher walls to protect myself? We can tell God’s voice apart from other voices because, in the companionship of Christ, we are brought to a deeper sense of what God sounds like. And when we begin to listen—first in the small things—we slowly learn to recognize this voice more and more clearly.

I don’t know how to draw a tidy line between Christ and the Spirit. On the one hand, the disciples didn’t really understand Jesus until the day of Pentecost, when the Spirit descended on them and helped them to see what his life, death, and resurrection meant for them. On the other hand, they couldn’t have begun to understand that experience without knowing Jesus. I need a Jesus-centered spirituality and a Spirit-gifting Jesus. My experience teaches me that with this Jesus at the center, the fire and freedom I yearn for will take care of itself.

Early Friends experienced the Spirit’s electric current because they recognized that Christ had come to direct their worship personally, bringing that Spirit with him. Assured of his presence, they knew the gift of his power, and they testified, sometimes in great suffering, that nothing else is needed for our worship. We don’t need a particular person with a particular skill. We don’t need a plan or program. These may be helpful at times, but they’re not necessary, and there’s an extraordinary freedom in this. All we need is the one who is with us to the end of the age. Jesus is utterly sufficient. The early Quaker writings call us from our dead forms and man-made ideas to the living Christ, to his “enoughness.”

George Fox’s experience of Jesus’s sufficiency was born in despair. He searched for a power that could change him within and found that no minister or priest could provide this. He was offered plenty of cures and counsel, but each left him more despairing, until he came to see that nothing outwardly could help him. All those he had gone to for answers seemed to be “miserable comforters.” Finally, in this despondent condition, he was turned to the one ever-present friend who could speak to his condition. He found Jesus as a living presence within, and his heart leapt for joy. In his Journal, he records that through his loneliness and distress, he came to see that Christ alone was “sufficient in the deeps and in weakness.” He saw that he had to be brought to that low place, so that he might be brought to Christ. And from then on, he felt a call to anchor his life only on the one who could reach him in that difficult place. When Fox says that he knew Christ’s voice in the heart experimentally, I hear the conclusion of a long and difficult experiment to discover what can truly help in despair. The Quaker tradition is rooted in that experiment. Our ways of worship, discernment, and testimony stem from the centering of the answer—Jesus is sufficient in the deeps and in weakness—and the subtraction of anything that won’t really matter when we’re at the end of our rope. In that place, when I’m searching for a power that can transform me from within, I don’t need any particular spiritual gift. I don’t need new ideas or plans, a dramatic worship service, a growing church, a plunge into busyness, or a revised Faith and Practice. I need Jesus, with me the whole way. Nothing but the help and guidance of his Holy Spirit will do.

If we will allow Christ to be enough for us, trusting the one who can speak to us in the deeps and in weakness, then our worship and testimony will have all the life they need. We will know the Holy Spirit among us because we will know the one whose spirit it is.

I too know this experimentally. I’ve known times of deep depression and anxiety. I’m good at worrying about nearly anything, and at times I’ve felt despair about the world and my place in it, aware of my own weakness and unable to find a power to truly help me on the inside. I’ve sought cures and counsel, outward help aplenty, and have found some of it healing. But at different times, I’ve found all of it somehow wanting. Then one day, at a particularly low point, when I was ready to resign myself to an unguided and unmoored life, I heard a voice of love and hope in my heart. I felt the presence of a guide. I was told to listen, trust, and follow. This was a bewildering and unwanted experience, but as I listened and then kept on listening, I came to see that this was Jesus’s voice and that he was there to lead me into new life. This voice drew me into community with others who could help me to hear and follow, to distinguish Christ’s Spirit from other forces and powers I might be tempted to embrace. My life was not turned around in an instant, but I knew that if I found myself in the deeps or in weakness, I would not be there alone. The joy of Christ’s friendship and direction would be there too. Waiting for his grace and truth to help me within, what more could I long for? This friend, with me in the deepest valleys, would guide me day by day in decisions and conversations in ways that I could rely on.

I still pray for a Quaker community where the blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cured, the dead are raised to life, and good news is preached to the poor. But these days, when I hunger for the earth-shaking faith of the early Friends or look with longing at the charismatic churches, I remember that the teacher and companion who started the early Quaker movement—finding George Fox in despair—is just as present with us. The good news that he has come to guide and gather us himself is still good. And though the gifts of the Spirit of Christ may seem daily and ordinary, this needn’t mean that the fire has cooled. In everyday ways, we are called to a faithfulness as adventurous and a friendship as passionate as the Friends before us. We are called to be humble learners in the same school. That may not look as exciting as charismatic zeal, but I’m no longer worried about that. If we will allow Christ to be enough for us, trusting the one who can speak to us in the deeps and in weakness, then our worship and testimony will have all the life they need. We will know the Holy Spirit among us because we will know the one whose spirit it is.

The post In the Deeps and in Weakness appeared first on Friends Journal.

The Path to Greater Love and Truth

I have been doing a lot of “stress eating” these days. Some of this is a product of semi-retirement, as I am often working from home: the refrigerator is always “open for business” and very close by. I can’t blame my eating issues entirely on this change in routine. I have a much longer history of using overeating as one of my ways to deal with things that seem out of my control. It is clear that I have far less control than I want over many circumstances in my life, but at least I can stuff my face!

All my attempts to change this pattern and lifelong habit have had very limited success.

Whenever I feel stressed, I am looking for chocolate! If that was all, I guess I would not be worried, but it does not usually stop there.

As a result, I have become more open to looking at 12-step programs. In the past I dismissed these programs, thinking that I can manage just fine on my own, thank you. I assumed that they were based on a strict formula of steps and protocols and a lot of self-control (which has never really worked for me). When I finally decided to take a look, I found something really quite different.

The 12-step literature starts by speaking directly to our condition, calling us to recognize and accept that we need help from a Power greater than our own in order to move forward. This first step cannot be skipped or bypassed. Unfortunately, like so many others, I have to repeatedly reach a really low place before I am willing to even look at this as a possibility.

I was brought up in a very self-sufficient Quaker family. “There is that of God in everyone” was at the center of my Sunday school education. It carried a highly optimistic view of human nature and our own capacity to do good. Don’t get me wrong: I believe we do have that capacity within us. The problem is that we have other capacities as well. I have found that having the capacity to do good is simply not enough. I need help from a Source greater than my own.

Coming to recognize this need for help and asking for it is not simply my problem. It is a very real and universal human problem. Our reluctance to recognize our own limitations and ask God for help is a real stumbling block for many of us who want to find ways to change the negative patterns in our lives and move forward toward good.

Illustrations by fran_kie.

I needed something more than a change in thinking, a new religion, or a magic formula. I needed to be saved from the hatred, anger, emptiness, and fear that engulfed me and led me into self-destructive patterns.

Step 1: We admitted that we were powerless (over our addiction)—that our lives had become unmanageable.

The following is from The Twelve Steps of Overeaters Anonymous:

In step one, we acknowledge this truth about ourselves: our current methods of managing have not been successful, and we need to find a new approach to life. Having acknowledged this truth, we are free to change and learn. . . . Honest appraisal of our experience has convinced us [my emphasis] that we can’t handle life through self-will alone. First we grasp this intellectually, and then we finally come to believe it in our hearts. When this happens, we have taken the first step and are ready to move forward in our program of recovery.

This plain and honest description of our true condition is not just for those of us struggling with specific addictions. It gives hope and points to a new way forward for all aspects of our lives. There is a way for us as human beings to find a reliable Power greater than our own that can help us to navigate life, find the courage and strength to change, and turn toward good.

Step 1 is really a very practical step to take and does not require “becoming religious” or taking on a whole new strict set of rules for me to try to follow to the best of my own ability. This is something very different. It is an essential act, motivated by a love and forgiveness greater than our own, and discovered somewhere deep within us, leading us toward a change of mind and heart.

I don’t remember a specific moment in my own life when I “hit bottom.” I just remember recognizing that I could not continue to try to navigate my life by my own resources (including religion), and I needed the help of a Power greater than my own. The resources that I had been taught—including all the beliefs and practices of Quakerism and even the teachings of Jesus—were not enough. I mean I truly wanted to follow them, but I couldn’t. I turned to many different religious practices to try to find the answer and the power to change but still eventually came up empty.

I studied the Bible and tried to embrace the help I found in some of the words there but often found the Bible difficult to access and apply to my life, so I looked for help from those who seemed to have a better understanding. As a result I was spoon fed a Protestant evangelical “salvation formula” that was essentially powerless to change me inside and instead focused on making sure that I had the right beliefs so I could get into heaven.

This was not the salvation I was looking for. It did not help me to change the negative patterns and despair of my present-day experiences. I needed something more than a change in thinking, a new religion, or a magic formula. I needed to be saved from the hatred, anger, emptiness, and fear that engulfed me and led me into self-destructive patterns. This was the salvation I needed.

It was at this point that I found the early Quaker writings so valuable. They were accounts of people just like me that had tried to “make religion work” themselves and found that instead, they had been “sold a package of damaged goods.”

One of my favorite letters that illustrates this is by Anthony Pearson, who was a justice of the peace and a known persecutor of the Quakers. After his “convincement,” he writes to Margaret Fell expressing his Step-1 condition. From “Letters of Early Friends” in volume 11 of the 1847 Friends Library:

Dear Friend, I have long professed to serve and worship the true God, and as I thought—above many sects—attained to a high-pitch in religion; But now, alas! I find my work will not abide the fire. My Notions were swelling vanities without power or life: What it was to love enemies, to bless them that curse, to render good for evil, to use the world as using it not, to lay down life for the Brethren, I never understood; . . . All my religion was but the hearing of the ear, The believing and talking of a God and Christ in heaven or a place at a distance I knew not where.

After talking about a visit to Swarthmore Hall and his convincement, Pearson continues:

I was so confounded all my knowledge and wisdom became folly, my mouth was stopped, my conscience convinced, and the secrets of my heart were made manifest, and the Lord was discovered to be near me whom I ignorantly worshiped [from afar].

This deep and utter despair led to a complete dependence on a Power greater than themselves. It was the starting point for early Friends and birthed the living foundation on which all their practices and testimonies were built. Their convincement was a clear recognition that they could not do this themselves and it led to a true waiting, a waiting without any answers of their own.

Our foundation today seems to be very different. After all, we are much more modern and have access to so many more resources to increase our knowledge and understanding (thank goodness). Believe me; I am not interested in returning to the past.

Over these many centuries, we have learned a great deal about human psychology, mental health, and medicine. With all of the latest technology, we are also able to see things in more global terms, and have found some ways to better care for our planet. Much of this has helped us to be better human beings. So what’s all this about?

When we take a closer and more honest look, it remains clear that in spite of all this progress, we are still struggling with the basics of respecting one another, caring for one another, and loving one another. Fear, hate, greed, and lust for power remain our greatest addictions, indicating that something is still totally “out of whack,” and we don’t seem to be able to fix it.

The problem with the loss of Step 1 is that this makes it even harder to get to Step 2. In fact, the 12-step literature says that you can’t get there from here, and boy, do we need Step 2!

Do we openly pray for that divine guidance in a way that bears testimony to a Power greater than our own? When this happens, it is so healing and helpful to others, both young and old.

Step 2. We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

I needed to be restored to sanity. I was truly lost. A long-term relationship had fallen apart, and I had been totally dependent on this relationship to try to fill the void I felt within me. I tried to numb my despair and resentment with drinking and drugs, and then I turned to religion. This left me really vulnerable, and while away at college, I became caught in the web of a Fundamentalist Christian cult. When I came to see how I had been manipulated, I was angry. I felt deceived and exploited. My parents were concerned about me. I was clearly lost and in a dangerous place. They wanted to find a way to help me. They decided to ask Bill for help.

Bill Stafford was a member of Rockland (N.Y.) Meeting, but I really did not know him that well. Long after I had left Rockland Meeting and while I was still away at college, Bill had started speaking regularly in meeting for worship. He was speaking about his life-changing encounter with the Journal of George Fox. The Journal had helped him to see and experience Jesus in a new and transformative way. He shared how finding this living experience of Jesus as a Light and Inward Guide within him had sustained him and carried him through his addictions and great suffering! My parents really did not resonate with his message (it seemed much too Christ-centered for them), but they recognized the authenticity of it and thought it might help me.

Bill was a recovering alcoholic whose life had been devastated by family tragedies. He was clearly aware of his own powerlessness and had traveled a long road through bitterness, hate, and despair. He spoke from a place of genuine humility, forgiveness, and love that rose out of his suffering and inward transformation. When I went back to Rockland Meeting, what I heard coming from Bill was a message of Life coming from a clearly humble and broken man. It spoke deeply to me. It was very different from anything I had heard in meeting before.

At his invitation, we began meeting twice a month at his home to read the Journal of George Fox aloud together with a small group of Friends. This was a life-changing experience for me. The Journal painted a clear picture of a young man who was disillusioned and in despair. He had lost all confidence in his own ability to “figure it out.” All the systems of religion he had been taught had failed him, and he found no comfort in the advice he was receiving from those both in the church and out. There were no answers, no actions to make it right. He waited because he did not know what else to do (Step 1). In his despair, God spoke to him and began to gently lead him along (Step 2).

This was something different from anything I had heard about growing up in a Quaker meeting! I was essentially taught that it all depended on me! I had the power within me to change myself and the world. There was no mention of Jesus being alive and present within me as a Light to teach me or Jesus being alive and present among us as we gather together in His name; that he could teach us as a community.

In our meetings, we talk a lot about our hopes for a transformed world and all we need to do to bring it about, but do we point to the source of this transformation or give our young people the practical steps to find it? Do we speak openly and vulnerably in meeting about our own search and need for God’s guidance and help in our lives? Do we openly pray for that divine guidance in a way that bears testimony to a Power greater than our own? When this happens, it is so healing and helpful to others, both young and old.

There are signs of hope. I read this remarkable account of movement of the Spirit among us in a recent article, “Moving in the Right Direction,” by Matt Rosen in The Friend:

What I felt led to share was that, at a very low point in my life, I had been helped and rescued by the living Christ, who, in that dark place, I found able to “speak to my condition.” I had experienced Jesus softening my heart and leading me toward greater love and truth, and had come to see how Quaker meeting was less about our ideas or goodness, and more about finding the presence of a Guide when we’re at the end of our own resources.

Finally, recognizing that I needed help from a Power greater than my own, my only option was to wait for and listen for God’s voice and inward direction. As I waited, I began to see glimmers of hope and help.

Step 3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to God as we understood Him.

In simple form, the first three steps are described in the Overeaters Anonymous literature as “I can’t; God can; I think I’ll let God.”

This is not a passive process where we just accept things as they are and simply hand our problems over to God to solve. It involves a willingness to let go and let God lead us in new ways and directions way beyond our own capacities.

In very real terms, I have experienced these steps of leaving my religion(s) and my own best thinking. I grappled with my own denial, continuing to try to fix my life myself. I have experienced feeling lost, abandoned, and powerless. Finally, recognizing that I needed help from a Power greater than my own, my only option was to wait for and listen for God’s voice and inward direction. As I waited (together with others), I began to see glimmers of hope and help.

When the disciples met together after the crucifixion of Jesus, they were heartbroken, lost, and afraid. They saw no clear way forward. As they waited together, they began to hear the murmurings of the miracle of the resurrection. To their great surprise, Jesus’s promise of always being with them to lead them and guide them by his Light and Spirit became a reality in ways that they had never really understood or expected.

Christ’s Living Presence, Spirit, and Light began to be known and experienced among them in such a powerful and transformative way that they could not contain it! He is alive!, they proclaimed, and can be known in the heart! For these early disciples and for early Friends, it was not their own power that they discovered. It was not a new philosophy about the inherent goodness of human beings but something far greater and far more dependable.

The 12-step literature points to a clear way forward for us as individuals and as Friends, but it involves a willingness to change and a commitment to take the difficult first steps. It involves an honest assessment about where we are and a turning away from our present course of trying to fix it all ourselves. It involves turning toward a different path, a path that clearly testifies to a Power greater than our own. It involves taking three essential steps forward. God, give us the grace, vision, and courage to do this together.

The post Three Steps Forward appeared first on Friends Journal.

When I was about three years old, I had two imaginary friends: Jake and Joe. I walked through the house, holding hands with both of them, having conversations with them, and even turning sideways when we passed through the house’s doorways. They say that kids who have just one imaginary friend tend toward being geniuses—and I had two! But at about that same time, Mom was pregnant with my little sister, and the adults in the family probably referred to the pending arrival as “Jake” or “Joe,” and I picked up on it. I may not be a genius after all.

My pastor, Rick, has been meeting me for lunch at my house for the last few months while I experience a cancer journey. Our talks are enjoyable because we both feel free to express anything that is on our minds, secular or spiritual.

Of course, many of the topics have been of a spiritual nature because I value his opinion and enjoy getting questions answered and hypotheses tested. We have talked about afterlife, relationships to Jesus, being called to ministry, miracles, and my desire to write a spiritual autobiography.

One day, the subject of guardian angels came up. I told Rick I thought I had one. He seemed a little flummoxed, but he restrained himself from expressing his shock. I related how my guardian angel stood beside me during an MRI on my brain. He was about ten feet tall with arms folded across his chest, and he stood beside me, quietly radiating his presence. Don’t think of him as the genie in Disney’s Aladdin or the giant rabbit in Jimmy Stewart’s Harvey. He’s much more than that: he is more of an anthropomorphic spirit providing a link directly to God Himself.

I was engaging with a vaporous spirit: seeking comfort, seeking understanding, seeking wisdom, seeking reassurance. Yes, it seems like daily affirmations, but it’s not. It’s more like prayer, engaging in a spiritual practice that seems to be helping me.

What is involved with anthropomorphism? One of the characters in the Aladdin movie is Iago, a parrot that speaks like a human (of course) and moves his appendages like a human. He is an animal assuming a human form, just like Mickey and Minnie Mouse. They speak like humans, walk upright, and use human gestures. In the movie Oh, God!, God (played by George Burns) shows up on earth as a little old man, smoking a cigar. The Greeks had anthropomorphic gods and depicted their human forms in beautiful sculptures. Our God sent Jesus to earth in human form.

Consequently, I was able to experience the presence of God through my guardian angel, who had also assumed a human form. The experience was reassuring. Once Rick heard more about it, he didn’t laugh or seem incredulous. In fact, he thanked me for sharing that story.

A print of James Doyle Penrose’s The Presence in the Midst. Photo by Martin Kelley.

But the story has ramped up since then. Blame it on “chemo brain,” if you wish, but now my guardian angel has silent conversations with me in my mind, and he talks back to me. An interesting phenomenon about his responses is that they are quick, terse, and actually jam right up into my statements. Like he knows what I’m thinking and can unhesitatingly anticipate his response. It’s a continuous stream of consciousness. The exchanges are easy to listen to, but they may be hard to read. Just remember that he never initiates the conversation. I am the one who always speaks first. They go something like this:

“Where are you?” “Here.”

We have had several dialogues in recent days, and here are some of them: 

“Why are you here?” “Doing my job.”

“What is your job?” “To protect you.”

In the car (apparently he can modify his size to fit the situation): “Now where are you?” “Right here beside you.” 

“What is your name?” “Quinton.”

“Quinton,” not Quentin as in “Quentin Tarantino”; “Quint” as in “quintuplets,” like the number five. Curious about the biblical usage of the number five (I can emphatically say that I’m not into numerology), I did a quick Google search. There were over 300 references to the number five in the Bible: five wounds on Jesus at the crucifixion, on the fifth day of Creation, death? Skip that last one, and concentrate on the one that says the number five represents God’s grace and favor.

Maybe it’s just Quinton. “Are you still here?” “Yes.” 

“Help me.” “I am.”

“Am I going to get through this all right?” “Yes, God isn’t through with you yet.” 

“Don’t leave me.” “I won’t. I am always with you. Right beside you.”

“Quinton, thanks.” “Welcome.”

Notice that he doesn’t say “You’re welcome.” Does he want it to have a double meaning, like a welcome mat welcoming me to this relationship? Sometimes things get very serious:

“Why me?” “Why not you? You deserve a blessing. And many will follow.” 

“Please help me calm down.” “I can do that. It has already begun.“

“Am I going to die?” “Someday. Not now. You have work to do.”

“Quinton, I am weary.” “Of course you are. Don’t despair. It will get better.” 

There is never any I’ll try. It’s always I will. No equivocating.

And then there is the reassurance: always reassuring. “Quinton, are you here?” “Right beside you.” 

“Quinton, I need you.” “I’m here.”

“Quinton?” “Yes?”

“Just checking. . . .” “You don’t have to do that. I am always with you.”

It’s an ongoing conversation: instantaneously available. He is omnipresent, confident, and quietly reassures me that I am not alone. God’s representative is right beside me at all times. No doubt, some would interpret this behavior as self-soothing therapy. Obviously, it calms me and helps me cope with anxiety and stress—immediately.

Nevertheless, it reminds me of The Presence in the Midst, the painting by James Doyle Penrose. Our church has an artistic interpretation of it in our meetinghouse office. It’s a depiction of Matthew 18:20. According to that verse, Jesus says, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them” (KJV). In the painting, male and female Quakers are engaged in silent worship as the vaporous spirit of Jesus appears among them.

That’s it! That is what was happening to me! It is a form of silent worship. I was engaging with a vaporous spirit: seeking comfort, seeking understanding, seeking wisdom, seeking reassurance. Yes, it seems like daily affirmations, but it’s not. It’s more like prayer, engaging in a spiritual practice that seems to be helping me.

Presence, believed to be by Aileen Jacobs, mid-1960s, 17″ x 13.25″, pen and ink. Hanging at First Friends Meeting in New Castle, Ind.

Once, I thought Quinton had deserted me. I was having an allergic reaction during an infusion, and I closed my eyes and said, “Where are you?” and he said, “Open your eyes.” When I did, I saw about six or seven medical professionals standing in an array in front of me: my nurse, Jenny, who immediately took action; my nurse practitioner, Andrea, with her calm, reassuring voice telling me to “breathe”; two or three other nurses with their computer carts; and two pharmacists. All were looking at me with caring concern and were ready to give me the help I needed. My guardian angel had morphed into a group of guardian angels, calming me with their very presence. Thankfully, that crisis ended successfully.

I finally asked my guardian angel why he was having these conversations with me. 

“To help you understand.” 

“Understand what?” He quickly answered, “That God loves you and wants you to serve Him.”

Understood.

There have already been other conversations with Quinton: anytime, anyplace. There will be more; he is always there. Call it “chemo brain,” “dementia,” or even “looney tunes,” but he’s real to me. Just like Jake and Joe were.

The post Conversations with My Guardian Angel appeared first on Friends Journal.

 1
Every school day morning of my childhood,
I pledged allegiance, my hand on my heart,

waited to feel the beat.
I was alive; I could make promises.

I did not understand what the words meant
—individually or all together—

but absorbed the reverence around it,
the solemnity, my sacred duty.

2
Every morning in this autumn of my life,
I pledge allegiance to my heart,

to keep it strong in health, soft in caring.
I pledge allegiance to the lilies of the field,

and the white ginger,
to the sparrow that falls,

and the saffron finches
in the green wet grass;

I pledge allegiance to the children
who will show us the way to heaven,

to Earth who feeds us,
who rains on good and bad alike.

The post Kissing the Ground, Instead appeared first on Friends Journal.

Come sit with me
You Who Will Not Be Hurried,
 Rushing Wind, Raging Waters,
Shimmering Beauty, Radiant Darkness.
Come sit beside me
On this wooden bench
You Who Comfort me
You Who Hold me
You Who Accompany me.
Settle here beside me.
Sink with me into Stillness.
Breathe with me into the
Fullness of Your Love.

The post First Day Prayer appeared first on Friends Journal.

Six pink foam rollers frame her face.
She is wearing comfortable shoes.
She’s waiting.

We are all waiting. People in pajamas,
lumberjack shirts, some in shorts.
It’s the middle of winter.

The door opens. A name is called.    WILSON
 
Some of us are patients, most are family.
Big Bang re-runs loop on the TV monitor.
Canned laughter fills the room.

Years ago, my little dog went missing.
Panicked, we searched our neighborhood.
As a last resort, went to the Pound.

Walking up and down the rows of crates,
I was sure my special girl would shine but no,
she blended in with the rest of the mutts.

The door again.    MORGAN

At the ER, we are like dogs waiting,
wanting to be claimed. Rows of chairs filled
with a mixed breed of humanity.

We all look the same.

We all are special.

The post ER appeared first on Friends Journal.

Work to do to normalize autism

Friend Kate Fox speaks my mind and heart (“A Place of Unmasking,” FJ Mar.). She aptly depicts the seemingly natural fit between neurodivergence and Quakerdom while noting the irony of its reality in practice. As an autistic person, I am here to say that “outing” oneself as autistic in Quaker spaces is not all inner light and oatmeal. The A word is still highly stigmatized even among such enlightened beings as Friends. We’ve got some work to do.

I do love the SPACE suggestion (as much as I am not a fan of SPICES, which I find so reductive) and would serve on that committee (remotely, and with headphones, and please don’t ask me to clerk).

Lisa Bellet Collins
Fallsington, Pa.

Differing experience of autism awareness in Quaker space

I wish that I could say my experience at my meeting was the same as Nichole Nettleton’s. (“Shifting System Paradigms Together,” FJ Mar.). In fact, I have noticed some members of our meeting are patronizing, despite the fact that more than one member of the meeting is autistic. A couple of members of the meeting minimally engage in conversation with the two “out” autistic members of the meeting—one to the extent of walking away during the middle of conversations, another to the extent that they literally will not speak to me at all.

I have multiple diagnoses, including not just autism but attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), complex post-traumatic stress disorder, major depressive disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder. Many don’t know it, but ADHD worsens with age. In addition, more recent research shows women on the spectrum may have ADHD as well up to 70 percent of the time. Because of this, I have more and more tended to talk too much (hence why the one individual walks away). Others, I think, try to avoid talking with me in the first place. I’m trying very hard to be aware of this, and talk less. I’m well educated, and I’m aware that I sometimes have very interesting things to say, but my problem is I can’t tell whether they are or aren’t. There are only a few people in the meeting who I would count as real friends, unfortunately. There are lots of people who flit up to me after rise of meeting, say, “Hi how are you?,” get the one paragraph answer and then quickly make excuses and flit away again. Consequently, I often feel isolated and alone in the midst of a crowd of Friends.

Name and location withheld by request

Freed from self attack

I am very grateful to have read “I Found the Quaker Sasquatch” by Cassie J. Hardee (FJ Mar.). It truly expresses my thoughts. I have also suffered from mental turmoil and torment for a long time. When I show differences from the secular world, such as being intolerant of gray areas, I am always looked at with strange eyes. But God’s love made me understand that everything I thought was right and freed me from self attack. The Religious Society of Friends is the church that best aligns with my inner standards of justice, and I believe that everything we do is worth it.

Niu Ming
Beijing, China

Late diagnosis explained musical dislikes

Daniela Salazar Monárrez’s “On Hating Music” was really fascinating to me (FJ Mar.). I’ve always been interested in how people’s ability to hear pitch is determined neurologically. I am autistic myself and, I was told, have relative pitch, meaning that I can stay in key within a song when singing and detect when notes are off key. I suspect that had I been taught to read music as I began to sing as a child, I might have had perfect pitch—reading a note on the page and being able to sing it. (My parents, both classically trained, for some unknown reason never taught me how to read music.)

My uncle played timpani in a volunteer orchestra, and I attended a performance once. Their violinists were all off key, and it was like torture! I gradually stuffed more and more tissue paper into my ears and found that if I hummed along softly, I could hear my own voice louder than the violins: in that way I made it through the performance.

Unfortunately for me, some of my sensory issues have only gotten worse with age (including pitch sensitivity). I’ve consequentially become a lot more selective about which musical performances I’ll attend.

In our Friends meeting, people who want to sing come 30 minutes before meeting for worship. I don’t attend, because though most members have good pitch awareness, there are a few who don’t and I just can’t bear it. I feel sad about it, because I enjoy singing with others and enjoy the camaraderie. I have to confess that the “everyone’s voice is worthy and ought to be heard” aspect of Quaker practice is one that I’ve had a hard time getting on board with. Any other differences in abilities I can ignore with equanimity, but singing off key is not, because of my neurodivergence.

My late diagnosis of autism was a revelation to me, because it made sense of so many sensory issues. Prior to that, I had guiltily accepted the accusation that I was an elitist when it came to music, but now it makes sense as a neurological handicap, though I can’t overcome it.

Rylin Hansen
Asheville, N.C.

Listening to the inner voice

I love the dual interpretation of Jesus’s second commandment (“A Joyful Abandon to Love” by Barbara Birch, FJ Jan.). Both/and equality is better than either loving your neighbors as much as yourself, or loving yourself as much as your neighbors.

George Gore
Chicago area, Ill.

Once I have learned meditation, and then using meditation to concentrate on solving particular problems, I then turn to loving others as I love myself as another problem to be solved. What are their issues and how can I help them with their problems?

Jeff Brotemarkle
Hillsboro, Kans.Ways to slow climate change

Thank you for publishing “Emblems of Change” by Sharlee DiMenichi (FJ Feb.). It confirms that climate chaos is truly global, as it is affecting Friends everywhere.

Lindsey Fielder Cook, the representative for climate change for the Quaker United Nations Office, is a leader in work to find climate solutions. Clearly we need to find solutions that protect human rights and avoid “technofixes.” The idea of shifting military spending to address climate change is appealing, however, this seems unlikely in the current political situation. A fossil fuel tax seems more reasonable; that is more-or-less what the Citizens’ Climate Lobby is working on. The likelihood of either of these ways happening in the near future is improbable.

Two Quaker projects are helping to slow climate change. Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) started the FWCC Climate Emergency Fund, which will be used to mitigate travel of FWCC personnel. Quaker Earthcare Witness (QEW) recognizes that climate change is anthropogenic, and their initiatives align with the scientific consensus that human activity (especially burning fossil fuel) is the primary driver of recent climate change. Recognizing that globally there are tens of millions of unintended pregnancies each year, it is clear how increasing access to voluntary family planning can slow climate change. QEW’s Quaker PopOffsets Fund uses donations to increase access to voluntary contraception care. This may well be the most humane, effective, and least expensive long-range means to decrease carbon emissions.

The average carbon footprint (the amount of carbon dioxide emitted from using fossil fuels) of a Kenyan is one ton per year. In the USA, the average carbon footprint is 16 tons. To see how we can support families and slow climate change, visit quakerearthcare.org/quaker-popoffsets.

Richard Grossman
Bayfield, Colo.

Reflecting on the political situation

On reading Amanda Franklin’s profound essay “On the Use of Despair” (FJ Feb.), I feel like she is drawing us into the basics of Quakerism. I also feel like the calamities of last year’s national election were not so much a call to volunteer more time to our favorite advocacy groups as it is a call, first, to reflect deeply on what went wrong. It might be popular among us to say that millions of American voters were deceived by cynical politicians, or that they ironically voted against their own best interests, but we know deep down inside that such rationales are only self-serving platitudes. In all honesty, we need to ask ourselves how those of us who seek a compassionate society failed to reach the majority of the voters. Bear in mind that Quakerism, as many of us understand it, begins with deep reflection. Maybe that means we ought to reflect even more deeply on the sense of our country.

Tom Louderback
Louisville, Ky.

Time to start marching again?

I think it is time for a March on Washington (“These Times Are Spiritual Doorways” by Daniel Hunter, FJ Feb. online; Mar. print). If you look at the iconic picture of the 1963 March on Washington, I am the skinny white kid on the right a row back. Martin Luther King Jr. is in front of me. I was 19 back then. It does not matter that we are in a minority. History is calling us to march now!

David R. Morrison
Elizabethtown, Pa.

These articles on letting the Spirit speak for (through) us are very helpful. I’ve been pacing, trying to incorporate these words into my daily life. Reading these articles has reminded me of what the Spirit has said before: trust that the words are already inside you and simply say them. That is a very calming instruction.

Susan

A timely message to stand up

Thank you to Daquanna Harrison for asking such provocative questions and providing such powerful examples (“Living Up to Our Radical Past,” QuakerSpeak.com Feb.). Hers is an important message and particularly timely, given what is happening in the United States at this time in history.

How do we as Quakers stand up for what is just in the face of injustice and the stripping away of democratic principles and institutions? Do we stand with our radical Quaker ancestors or do we just rest on our Quaker laurels? Each of us needs to answer those questions for ourselves. I hope that I’m courageous enough to say, “Yes! I stand with Lay and Woolman and all the other Quaker ancestors who made such a difference during their lifetimes!”

Donna Sassaman
Cowichan Bay, British Columbia

Let’s share this prophetic message with all our meetings!

Paula R. Palmer
Louisville, Colo.

The information was very well presented. What Daquanna says rings true. We absolutely need to step up.

Isabelle Yingling
Ottawa, Ontario

Yes, thank you, thank you, Daquanna Harrison, for all you said and all that your queries ask of us.

Anna Maria Marzullo
Easton, Pa.

Forum letters should be sent with the writer’s name and address to forum@friendsjournal.org. Each letter is limited to 300 words and may be edited for length and clarity. Because of space constraints, we cannot publish every letter. Letters can also be left as comments on individual articles on Friendsjournal.org.

The post Forum, April 2025 appeared first on Friends Journal.

An Interview with Quaker Playwright Michael Mears and Actor Riko Nakazono

The Mistake, a play about an atomic bomb survivor searching for her parents in devastated Hiroshima, will make its U.S. debut with a tour of four states in April and May. Riko Nakazono, an actor from Japan, plays the lead role. Michael Mears, the playwright, portrays multiple roles including that of Leo Szilard, one of the scientists who developed the atomic bomb and tried to stop it from being deployed. Mears is an attender at Wandsworth Meeting in southwest London. He and Nakazono previously performed The Mistake for a two-month run in the UK in fall 2023.

On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped a uranium bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, which killed more than 100,000 people by the end of the year, according to Encyclopædia Britannica. Three days later, on August 9, the United States dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, killing approximately 74,000 people by year’s end.

Friends Journal talked with Mears and Nakazono in advance of the play coming to Indiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New York. The interview has been lightly edited.

Sharlee DiMenichi: What initially led you to embrace pacifism?

Michael Mears: [laughs] Oh, wow. It’s interesting. It doesn’t run in my family. My grandfather fought in the First World War, as did my great-uncle. This is on my English side because I’ve got an Italian side as well. And my father fought in the Second World War.

I don’t know whether there’s a pacifist gene. The Second World War obviously is sort of a unique war in terms of history. From a very early age, I just couldn’t comprehend that war was a way to solve disputes, international disputes, whatever. I remember writing on my school pencil case, when I was a teenager, I wrote, “War is illogical.” [laughs] And I used to get a bit of flak for that, a bit of mockery from some of my fellow school-mates—particularly the boys, you know, suggesting I was a coward or whatever or not tough enough. So I’d try and defend my position.

In researching for my previous play, This Evil Thing, which was about British conscientious objectors in the First World War, I learned that some conscientious objectors would be in families of pacifists. But some would be in families which supported the war.

In my late teens or early 20s, I joined the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the UK and was very supportive of that and just had an instinctive reaction against the use of nuclear weapons. I hadn’t learned a lot about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but I knew something.

As I got older, my belief that war is not the answer just became strengthened within me. I met a lot of like-minded people; we all strengthened each other’s beliefs in that area. And I still believe it. I think people should talk—you know, try and sort their differences out by getting round a table and talking. I don’t know where it came from, the pacifism, but there we go.

SD: How did you come to be a Quaker?

MM: Well, I started attending Quaker meetings about ten years ago. I’d been to a couple of Quaker meetings much earlier in my life and found it interesting, but didn’t continue going. Then it was around the time I was researching my last play about conscientious objectors . . . through my research, I realized the Quakers were very prominent in supporting conscientious objection in the First World War, and I learned about the Quakers’ peace testimony.

So I hooked up again with local Quakers, and they were very supportive. Then I wanted to set up a tour around the country of the play about conscientious objectors, and a lot of Quaker meetinghouses around the UK were very helpful and reached out. I performed it in a few of those, and I performed it in a few of the UK Quaker schools. There aren’t that many Quaker schools here, but there are a few, where subsequently Riko and I performed The Mistake.

I found the Quakers in Britain really supportive of what I wanted to do with this work in the theater and really helpful in spreading the word. I felt drawn to that community. So I go along whenever I can and sit in silence for an hour. It’s quite special.

SD: How would you describe the emotional impact of meeting [atomic bomb survivor] Toshiko Tanaka?

MM: Although I’d read and researched so much—I feel as if I’ve lived in Hiroshima for many years, but I’ve never been there yet. I’m planning to go there this year. So last year, at Friends House in Central London, was the first time I got to meet an actual atomic bomb survivor, rather than just reading their accounts or seeing them in documentaries. And that was rich.

Toshiko Tanaka, a very beautiful human being, 86 years old, was six when the atomic bomb went off in Hiroshima. She survived, but some of her family members didn’t, and school friends didn’t. She suffered burns and injuries and has had health issues for all her life, but she’s lived to 86 fortunately. Hearing her story at Friends House and then her taking questions, she was just so modest and humble, but at the same time so convinced that those bombs should never have been dropped, and they should never, ever be dropped again.

It was very inspiring in a very quiet way. She wasn’t pushy or preachy, just really quietly inspiring. I was due to perform a short piece from another Hiroshima play—I’ve got a Hiroshima monologue as well—and I was going to perform a short extract from that directly after she’d spoken. And I suddenly felt so nervous because I thought, This is a real atomic bomb survivor we’ve heard from. And now I’m going to just act a bit of an account?

But then I banished that idea and just got on with it. She was very moved by that. I mean, there was a translator there, so we made contact and exchanged cards, and we’ve been exchanging emails since, thanks to Google Translate, because she writes in Japanese. Sometimes I send it past Riko and say, what exactly is being said here? Toshiko still lives in Hiroshima, and she said, You must both come to Hiroshima, if you possibly can, come to my home later this year. So, we’re hoping to do that.

Meeting her made me even more convinced that I need to do this work, that I want to do this work, that it’s important. Because her message is that we must never forget. I want to help in my small way to share that message that we must never forget, and we must do what we can to make sure it never happens again.

Newspaper clippings of the article from The Guardian, August 6, 2002. Images courtesy of Michael Mears.

SD: What were some of the central questions that guided your research to develop the play?

MM: The film Oppenheimer is very admirable in many ways. One of the main criticisms of it is that it doesn’t reference the Japanese experience at all. I started working on this play slowly on and off many, many years ago, well before the Oppenheimer film. But I always wanted it to honor the Japanese experience, so it was very important for me to have a Japanese central character in it, and to share some of those accounts of survivors.

But I wasn’t sure how I was going to make the play work. Originally, I was focusing on a survivor, and I was also focusing on the pilot. My idea for doing the play started from reading a newspaper article in the UK 22 years ago, and I’ve still got it. It’s here. It’s slightly yellow.

But it’s Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the plane, holding a model of the plane—a big interview with him. Then on the other side is an interview with Fumiko Miura, who was a survivor of the Nagasaki bombing and became a poet. So there were these two interviews 22 years ago, and they clearly never met each other. Clearly the pilot had never met—had never gone back to Hiroshima, had never met any Japanese survivors.

So, I thought, how about writing a play where actually the pilot does get to meet survivors, and difficult questions are asked? So that’s where I started from. And then I thought, what about the science, you know, about the people who created the bomb?

A lot is known about Oppenheimer. But I came across another very important scientist on the Manhattan Project, called Leo Szilard, who was Hungarian Jewish and a brilliant nuclear physicist. He really interested me because he really did seem to feel terribly guilty about his role in creating the bomb, although initially he and many of the other European refugee scientists who came to America to work on the Manhattan Project—like them, his only intention was to build the bomb as a threat to Hitler.

When Nazi Germany was defeated, Szilard was horrified to learn that the bomb was now going to be used on the Japanese. So, he turned completely and said, No, you mustn’t drop it on Japan—and did all he could. I mean, he was up against the U.S. government and the U.S. military and all of that, you know, which was in the middle of a war. But he did what he could to try to persuade the powers that be to at least delay using the bomb or demonstrate using the bomb on neutral territory without actually dropping it on Japanese cities. Of course, he didn’t succeed.

So I was fascinated by him, and I thought, he’s got to be in my play somehow. The play has now become about three people predominantly: a young female survivor in Hiroshima who then goes through the city to search for her parents and family; Leo Szilard; and the pilot of the plane as an elderly man who’s shown no remorse—so this is another question I ask: how is it possible to cut off your emotions?

We know that part of military training is you just have to cut off your emotions and not view the enemy as human beings exactly the same as you are. Because if you had that kind of sympathy for them, you wouldn’t be able to kill them. I also think, how can you drop such a devastating bomb like that and not feel any remorse or regret? I try to probe that in the play as well, through the character of a modern Japanese woman who asks some very challenging questions to the pilot when he’s an elderly man.

And then the other character Leo Szilard, who I wanted to explore, what is it that drives scientists to explore and experiment and make new discoveries, but sometimes without thinking about the consequences, where those discoveries could lead? In Leo Szilard’s case, he has this sort of dark foreboding that what he’s working on, really, he shouldn’t be tampering with this, you know, with the powers of nature. And once you unlock them, you’ll never be able to put them back again.

I find his whole journey fascinating, from being very excited about creating nuclear reaction, chain reaction, a nuclear power, to then realizing it could create a bomb, which would hopefully stop Hitler in his tracks, to then thinking, no, we should never, ever use this bomb. Once the bomb was dropped, Szilard spent the rest of his life—well, not the whole of the rest of his life, but quite a lot of the rest of his life—working for international arms controls, trying to control the appalling bomb he helped to create—so I find him inspiring as well.

SD: Riko, how would you describe the emotional impact of hearing from a hibakusha [a Japanese word for “bombing survivor”] for the first time?

Riko Nakazono: I was born and raised in Japan. When I was a student in elementary school, older survivors were still young enough to travel all over Japan. Every July the school organized this peace month in which we invited all the hibakusha survivors, and they spoke to us and shared their accounts in front of our eyes. That was my first trauma in my life because I just imagined what they said and was horrified. I was seven or eight, and they did it every year up until I was 12. I was always scared around July going to school and meeting them. But it was a really fortunate experience; it sort of shaped my idea of war and bombs.

Rico Nakazono in The Mistake. Photo by Simon Richardson.SD: How did you prepare to play the role of an atomic bomb survivor?

RN: [laughs] That memory of meeting them and hearing the story from them was just a really vivid memory of my childhood. I still remember all the feelings I felt in the classroom. When I read the script of The Mistake, written by amazing Michael, it just—all the memories of what I felt just came back to me.

I didn’t intentionally prepare for it. It’s a mission for me as well. There are not many people who have met survivors and had that feeling in their childhood, right? I just trusted what I felt at the moment, and my mission was to deliver that and convey it to the audience.

SD: What do you most want audiences in the United States to know about the bombing of Hiroshima?

RN: I want them to know what the survivors experienced. I studied in the U.S., and I had the opportunity to go to Washington, D.C., where they had a war memorial. There was an exhibition about World War II, and I still remember reading a signpost—it was written as a victory. I was really shocked. Because as a Japanese person, I only learned it from my side, from the Japanese side.

I didn’t really imagine that, okay, for Americans, yeah, that was a victory for them. I know that some people still believe that dropping the bomb was the only way. I don’t know what was the best thing. But, as a child learning, hearing the survivors’ stories, I just could not agree. I think people have different opinions about it, but at least I want them to know about the Japanese story.

SD: In addition to the visits by the atomic bomb survivors, what do Japanese schoolchildren typically learn about the bombing?

RN: I’m not sure what they teach at the moment is exactly the same as what I learned when I was in school. But we really focused on peace and the effects of the atomic bomb, and that it shouldn’t be repeated again. That history shouldn’t be repeated again.

SD: What were some of the most surprising things you discovered through your involvement with the play?

RN: I didn’t really know about creating the bomb because the history was heavily focused on the survivors’ side. I’d never heard of Leo Szilard until I read Michael’s script.

While I was researching, I learned that survivors were heavily discriminated against by even the Japanese government as well. Because, at that time, they didn’t understand exactly what was going on in their body after the bomb. They literally treated survivors as a virus. Everyone was just avoiding them. They didn’t get jobs because they didn’t have enough stamina to work the whole day. And everyone had weird spots on their skin.

They were really discriminated against, even in Japan. I learned that a lot of people who were helping them survive were actually American people. They didn’t receive any scheme or funding from the Japanese government at all until the later years. A lot of Americans who really sympathized with them were sending the money to them, so that was interesting.

SD: Michael, how did you acquire the verbatim testimonies of the atomic bomb survivors, scientists, and military members that you used?

MM: Mainly from a lot of reading and research. There’s a lot of verbatim in the play, but there’s also imagined dialogue. For example, Leo Szilard wants to see President Truman to tell him to stop, not to use the bomb, and Truman sends him to his secretary of state. We know that Szilard met the secretary of state and tried to persuade him not to use the bomb or at least to demonstrate the bomb [in an unpopulated area], but we don’t know exactly what was said in the room. But I’ve learned what their opinions were, so the short scene between them in the play I put together from other things they’ve said.

The answer to your question really is from a lot of reading. There are many accounts of atomic bomb survivors I was able to read. The central character in the play, Shigeko, who Riko plays, pretty much everything that happens to her in the play happened to different survivors. But I’ve made it one account. I’ve drawn from different accounts for the character that she plays in the play because I needed to do that dramatically—so that it was a story that had a trajectory. But pretty much everything that happens to her in the play I read about happening to somebody in the accounts of atomic bomb survivors.

For Leo Szilard’s character, there’s a very good biography about him, and there are interviews and documentaries about him on YouTube. And similarly for Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the plane that I also play in the drama, there are interviews with him. Not only in the newspaper that I read all those years ago, but there are interviews with him online and in other journals and so on. He wrote a book as well, which I bought. I drew from all those different sources and then added a bit of imagination.

SD: How long did it take you to write the play?

MM: How long does it take to write a play? How long does it take to write a book? Well, we should say, I suppose, 23 years, beginning in 2002. I mean, on and off. I started writing some ideas and then carried on with my regular acting work, and then I’d come back to it. In fact, Leo Szilard as a character didn’t come along for me for quite a while. And once he came along in my mind, then things moved more quickly. The main work has been done in the last about three or four years, but on and off.

Michael Mears in The Mistake. Photo by Simon Richardson.SD: In the play, do you play the two male characters, or is there another actor?

MM: No, it’s just myself and Riko. I play all the Western characters. I play the scientists, politicians, military, President Roosevelt at one point briefly. I play Albert Einstein. The good thing about writing a play is you can think to yourself, oh, I’d quite like to play Albert Einstein, even just briefly. So I’d write a scene for that. I didn’t get to be cast as Einstein in the Oppenheimer film, though! [laughs] But that’s fine. In the play, I also very briefly play Robert Oppenheimer. Everyone knows about Oppenheimer, and hardly anyone knows about Leo Szilard. In my play, I thought, Okay, it’s going to be all about Leo Szilard. We’ll have a tiny bit about Oppenheimer. So there. He’s had enough publicity. He’s had a major movie made about him.

I view the play, ultimately, as an act of healing and reconciliation. It’s an attempt to understand why these terrible things happen, but understanding them through—particularly in the case of Riko’s character, Shigeko, understanding through an individual story or experience.

I saw this great quote. It’s three words: “Statistics don’t bleed.” I’m not sure who said it. But the statistics around wars are very important, you know, how many people died, how many people were injured, and so on. The statistics around Hiroshima and Nagasaki are important, but it’s hard to take in 100,000 or 70,000. It’s hard to take in what that means.

But if you follow an individual story through a play, and their journey, and what happens to them, and the things they witness, and their search for their family, that has a much more powerful and emotional effect than just reading cold statistics. I really hope the play opens hearts and minds. I’m quite nervous about doing it in the U.S., though I’m sure a lot of our audience will be very sympathetic.

But I also hope there will be people in the audience who are pro nuclear deterrence and pro nuclear weapons—or even people who agree that the bombs should have been dropped on Japan. I’d love for them to see the play and be stopped and made to think and feel and think, Hmm, I wonder if my opinions are right? That would mean a lot to us. I hope it’s a means of opening more discussion and debate about these terrible weapons.

I’d love to perform the play at the White House [laughs] and in the Kremlin, but that’s never going to happen, is it? The two times I’ve performed in the States with my own—let’s call them antiwar plays—guess who was president? The same man. He was president in 2018 when I came to the States and performed my conscientious objectors play at some peace churches and colleges. Trump was president then. We performed in Washington, D.C., in a church not far from the Obamas. I think we put a letter through their letterbox! We invited them, but they didn’t show up. [laughs]

SD: What would you like to add?

MM: Well, just that this is the 80th anniversary of the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which is why I so much wanted to have the play performed in the U.S. and Japan. We’re going to Japan later in the year, in September.

You are probably aware that the other week the atomic scientists moved the Doomsday Clock even closer to midnight by one second. The world is in such a fragile state now. I feel the play is not history. The Mistake is not—I mean, it’s history in one sense, but it feels so relevant and important and urgent now. We want to keep making people aware and remind them of the terrible consequences of using these weapons.

What was extraordinary was that in the UK, even in some of the Quaker schools, it was clear that some of the students knew very little about Hiroshima—and, indeed, many adults as well. There’s that sense of what Toshiko Tanaka was doing, of we mustn’t forget. We mustn’t forget. Those are probably good words to finish on.

The 2025 U.S. tour of The Mistake includes performances in April and May at various theaters, universities, churches, and Quaker meetings in Indiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New York. Find a complete list of dates and locations on Michael Mears’s website.

The post Eighty Years After Hiroshima, ‘The Mistake’ Comes to the United States appeared first on Friends Journal.

Tone-Deaf and Fine with It

Twenty-eight years ago, I was born. Of the many things I inherited—from my grandfather’s eyelashes to my grandmother’s blue-black hair—the one thing I did not inherit from either side of my family was an ear for or love of music.

One of the most effective events to gaslight my self-conception came from a boy I liked in my first semester of college. He informed me that contrary to my suspicion I couldn’t be tone-deaf because that was a rare thing, and so I must not suffer from it. He would know: both his parents were doctors. It wasn’t until I was 23 that my then-boyfriend/now-spouse said to me, “If you’re not tone-deaf, I will eat my hat. The way you describe the sounds in music is absolutely bananas.”

As “rare” as tone-deafness purportedly is, someone has to have it. The rarity of something is not contrary evidence to its existence. Perhaps equally misunderstood, perfect pitch was also described to me as “extremely rare.” However my immediate and strong reaction when someone tried to correct me was that of disbelief. No longer a student but now a college professor, I declared, “Is that right?” Snorting, I said, “Rare for you, perhaps, but every autistic friend I have has perfect pitch. All of them.” The autism—probably related to the prevalence of perfect pitch—is also called “absolute pitch” among my close family and friends, and it is likely also the reason for my own tone-deafness.

My autism with its denser-than-average gray matter makes for neural overconnectivity locally and hyperconnectivity across specific and repeated cross-brain pathways. Hyperfocus and ultra-specialization comes easier, and certain coordinated behaviors quickly gain near-compulsion status quickly. This means that autistics are often either inept or savant at the same kinds of skills: social reclusion but also hyper-sociability are traits in autism; hyperlexia (which I and my father have) or dyslexia (which my mother and grandfather had). Hearing pitch perfectly or not at all are two traits that go hand-in-hand: two sides of the same coin.

The ability to correctly hear the absolute pitch of notes—regardless of being able to reproduce them—means that you have perfect pitch. It is likely that you cannot become a musical prodigy without the extreme advantage that comes with the ability to correctly identify notes, but an ear can still be trained to do so. The ability to hear the precise pitch of sounds does not at all mean you can then produce those sounds. Often people with perfect pitch are extra-dissatisfied with their own musical ability and will tell me they are tone-deaf because they are certain they cannot make perfect music. This is how most people use the term: to apologize for poor musical skill, they will call themselves tone-deaf.

Tone-deafness does not mean that I do not enjoy music. I fully appreciate rhythmic beats and can hear melody. I have songs I listen to on repeat, albums that I adore, and artists that I follow, but when the best of singers harmonize, a pleasant enough sound turns bitter instantly: an unpleasant buzz in my ears. If I’ve made my peace with a soothingly dull church song, it will suddenly be sung in the round and turn into the equivalent cacophony of a garbage disposal. Although I can tell the difference between the thin and pale wails of vocals and the thick dampness of heavier notes, their contrast does not seem to bring me the intrinsic joy nor artistic appreciation that they have always seemed to provide for others.

Although I can tell the difference between the thin and pale wails of vocals and the thick dampness of heavier notes, their contrast does not seem to bring me the intrinsic joy nor artistic appreciation that they have always seemed to provide for others.

As an emerging adolescent at 13—already socially stressed in school—other teenagers’ constant desire to talk about music (bands, tours, instruments, the quality of a voice, or the skill of a bassist) was, to me, absolutely insufferable and deeply exhausting. I had no clue and was like a colorblind man at an exhibit of Impressionists: someone who can see the shapes and values but is missing whatever exciting thing animated others into a singular kind of delight. In the end, it was an experience that deeply damaged my trust in others.

At certain points in my life, I was sure that everyone else was lying. Music just wasn’t that good. The makers of the forceful beats and incredible wordsmithing of mostly Spanish, French, and Arabic rap songs were what I first found compelling enough to pass as “my favorite musicians,” which was a requirement for any self-respecting high schooler to have. But still, hearing Whitney Houston hold an impressive (to others) note was not unpleasant but was extra boring, despite clearly being a powerful performance. When singers hold a note, the variation of noises lessens, which suddenly sucks whatever beauty I was gleaning from the singing. And so much of what I know to be considered “good music” by the masses was unobtrusive and loud but boring, and before I was clear about why I could not differentiate nor appreciate certain sounds as much as others, I assumed that they were all somehow deceiving me. I assumed everyone was boring, and so I talked about music because it was safe and comfortable, like chatting about the weather.

I assumed that when people were obsessed with music, they were trying to be interesting because they had a bland personality. I thought that we were all collectively putting on a performance that “music was good,” much like we like to declare that “inequality is inevitable,” “lying is an inherent part of the human psyche,” and “poverty is a problem of the poor.” Clearly, it was necessary to pretend that music was as interesting as other art forms, which clearly it wasn’t, because I had ears and was listening to the same things as seemingly every other person in the world was. And I just didn’t get it. I had no one to explain this particular aspect of what was, for me, the most rampant of collective social delusions.

One too many times, my mother was secondhandedly embarrassed by me when I was nine, ten, or maybe even 12, and she would bring me home from a party and then spend hours upon hours teaching me to sing “Happy Birthday/Las Mañanitas” in two languages. She did, and I can sing it to a normal and fine standard. But it was hard won to get even those basic tunes into my muscle memory: well past what other children managed without ever having to practice.

But the sense of betrayal came from not having been told of the disability; it was particularly bad to be lied to about something that literally everyone could perceive about you, but you could not.

At some younger age than that—maybe four or possibly six—I came home outrageously furious at my family for having told me I was good at singing. I had found out years later that I was not good at singing; the object of my rage was that my mom had told me (in that way you tell small children) that my singing voice was perfect and beautiful, just like my art skills or storytelling abilities. She had lied.

But the sense of betrayal came from not having been told of the disability; it was particularly bad to be lied to about something that literally everyone could perceive about you, but you could not.

What’s worse than being excluded from any integral aspect of life is feeling singular in your discomfort, like there must be something essential in your body or mind that doesn’t render because. . . .  Well, how can you know why, if you don’t have a word for what it is?

“I don’t regret telling you that you were a good singer. What’s the alternative? To impede the childhood joy of singing?” my mother told me once, as I explained neurons and my acoustic self-discoveries. I think about that perspective and then respond, “It’s not about lying. You thought my singing was valuable, even though it was objectively wrong.”

“But there’s no wrong way to sing!” she objected, with great conviction.

“That’s true no matter what. But it’s not offensive to be told you’re bad at a thing you literally can’t tell exists. In fact, it’s important to me to talk about it because I thought I was the one in the wrong for forever, and I’m not. But others are not wrong either. I thought it was either me or everyone else in the world. The two couldn’t be right at the same time. But they can, just like it’s not bad to be autistic. It’s life-saving to know that there’s a reason I can’t seem to lie, to know why we are the way we are, right?”

My mother—longtime explainer to other parents and family of the nameless weirdness of her extra-bookish, antisocial husband, who finally found the name for it when a cousin was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome and her daughters were identified as autistic—understands this comparison perfectly. Just like she had to have conversations with me about why constantly correcting the teacher was inappropriate despite school being about learning, she also had many a meeting with music or dance teachers who were terrified to break the news that I was just never going to be on good terms with the difference between notes, and it wasn’t for lack of effort on either their part or mine.

And so, if ever we share a meetinghouse, you and I, know that when you all raise your voices in worshipful song, I will lift my hands and in complete silence, sign along to whatever words I hear in the music you sing and to the beat of whatever joy lives in all of our hearts.

It’s soul-soothing to know that I’m not missing an aspect of human-hood; I just don’t perceive what others perceive when hearing the exact same thing. And it’s fine: it has a name, and it helps to explain lots of things to myself and others. In fact, it’s great fun to finally know how to ask all the things I really truly wonder about music. My descriptions sounded unhinged without that magic word: tone-deaf.

Now, sitting next to my husband with perfect pitch, from a family with perfect pitch, I whisper during a Broadway musical, “Why is his voice doing like a shaky thing when it goes up and gets long, but hers is steady and big and also moves like a snake but at different widths all the time?” He narrows his eyes and closes them while he turns one ear to the stage, listening to a Nala and Simba duet in The Lion King. After about 45 seconds, he opens them with the sparkling excitement of a competent teacher in his eyes. “It’s because he’s singing out of his range, and she’s not,” he whispers hotly in my ear. “He’s not bad at covering it up; clearly he’s a talented enough singer, but you can’t fake your range. In fact, she’s helping him out at times, but she’s probably the better Broadway star, triple-threat. He must be an exceptional dancer or something, maybe he’s the understudy.”

Although I flee from choir-like songs and singing in the round (which Quakers love to do constantly and without ceasing) that sounds absolutely horrific and almost physically painful to sit through, much less to pretend to enjoy. Sometimes I can’t escape Friends’ love of music and spontaneous song erupts.

As long as there are lyrics, I do participate: not with sounds but with signs: not because of my tone-deafness but because while English is my third language, American Sign Language (ASL) is my fifth. I spent months when I was 18, ten years ago, teaching ASL to that boy in college who denied my tone-deafness, then I completed a bachelor’s degree in sign language linguistics. Later I finished a master’s thesis on the methodological literary translation of ASL poetry. And so, if ever we share a meetinghouse, you and I, know that when you all raise your voices in worshipful song, I will lift my hands and in complete silence, sign along to whatever words I hear in the music you sing and to the beat of whatever joy lives in all of our hearts.

The post On Hating Music appeared first on Friends Journal.

Finding My Spiritual Home in QuakerismAlone with God

I attended my first Quaker meeting for worship just before my first semester started at Haverford College. I remember sitting down on the cushioned bench and picking up the pamphlet next to me to read about how worship works. It explained that Quakers got their name from the way some people quaked when offering vocal ministry to the meeting. 

From the silence, the first message-giver spoke about the Jewish tradition of requiring ten grown men, called a minyan, to be present at every service. He told an anecdote in which a synagogue had only nine grown men present, so they forced a boy who just had his bar mitzvah to attend the service. That was the conclusion of his message. 

How mysterious, I thought. Why had he just given this message? What did it mean? I contemplated it for several minutes, and then I understood. But I was a newcomer, so initially I did not want to speak. Yet as more time went by, I started to feel that I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I started quaking, like those early Quakers I had read about. 

So I stood up to speak, and all I said was this: “How many must be present at a Quaker meeting? Only two: yourself and God.”

I sat down, relieved from giving voice to a ministry that had swelled up within me. After several more minutes, a third person spoke, and she danced while she did so. She shared that she found the Quaker practice of sitting still and silent in your seat limiting and that movement was also a way of communicating and being with the Spirit. Then a fourth person spoke, resonating with the third message and sharing about his own relationship with movement. 

This first meeting that I attended left me impressed. The way that the spiritual presence of everyone at the meeting drew out of me, a newcomer, a succinct message that addressed the spirit of the first message. It felt like a powerful welcoming, not just into the Quaker community but also into the fountain of my inner wisdom. And for two people to challenge the Quaker norm of stillness by voicing their desire for movement made it clear that this was a community that welcomed critique and new ideas. 

This first experience of Quaker worship made me realize that I had spiritual gifts that I wanted to cultivate. So I kept going to worship that first year of college, continuing even when meetings switched to online worship due to the pandemic. Quakerism quickly became my spiritual home.

Seeking Differently

Since that year, my attendance at worship has been much spottier, for various reasons. I got busier, as many college students do. I developed bipolar disorder in my sophomore year and became burdened by emotional turmoil. Eventually, I was placed on medications that turned me from an early bird who woke up at 7 a.m. without an alarm to a night owl who could easily sleep past 10 o’clock. This made it much harder to wake up in time to attend morning worship. I didn’t attend at all for months at a time. 

Because of this and because I have not yet become a member of a meeting, I still consider myself a seeker rather than a full Quaker. But my spiritual yearnings have grown over the years. They have grown as I have grown into my complex identity as a nonbinary, neurodivergent, Chinese American young adult with a mental health difference.

In particular, my neurodivergence and mental health differences have strongly shaped my spirituality. Being bipolar makes me intensely spiritual when manic: suddenly everything makes sense about life, and I appreciate every little detail, even the crinkle of plastic wrap. But depression can be spiritual in its own way, as it immerses me in the shadow dimensions of life, into caverns of deep questioning. Autism—which I was diagnosed with last year along with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)—gives me a strong commitment to the truth (honesty) and to my truth (authenticity). It also makes my relationship with rules intense: either I obsessively follow rules, obsessively rebel against rules, or obsessively create my own rules.

As a child, I was very strict with what I considered to be moral rules, ranging in gravity from being a pacifist to always eating my vegetables. Perhaps if my family were religious, I would have been devoted to a religious tradition and its doctrines and moral codes. But I have had to find my own spirituality and make meaning of life for myself. Influenced by Daoism and Buddhism since childhood and exploring Quakerism as a young adult, I have sought a syncretic spiritual foundation that could embrace all the parts of me, from my ancestral roots to my canopies of dreams. 

My spiritual journey has been in part a process towards defining my experiences for myself. Mainstream psychotherapy and psychiatry often neglect the spiritual dimension of life and fail to recognize that altered mental states can be incredibly meaningful to people, even when they are coupled with intense struggle. Though I do use diagnostic language to map my experiences onto Western psychiatric frameworks, it is not the only way I understand myself. I consider myself to be yinyang ren, a person of yin and yang. It is an identity and a philosophy at once, encompassing many of my social differences—my Chinese heritage, my bigender fluidity, my bipolar condition—while grounding me in a spiritual pursuit of energetic balance.

Each time I have returned to meeting after a long absence, I have been someone new. Yet each time I return, the Spirit is much the same. 

Illustration by Jaden BleierChallenges in Community

My journey with mental health and neurodivergence has taken me to places that others have not been, both literally and figuratively. My young adulthood has been defined by crisis: whether it is the personal moments of extreme distress that at times led to hospitalization, or the multilayered social and environmental crises that fever our world. Spirituality has been a way to cope and stay alive and to interpret the synchronicities in my life. Even when I did not attend Quaker worship, I could ground myself in the spirit of the message I gave at the first meeting I attended and be with that of God inside of me.  

But looking back, I’ve realized that that first vocal ministry of mine was missing a critical component of Quaker practice: the value of community. As an autistic person who struggles with maintaining relationships, regularly engaging in community can be difficult. My strongest relationships tend to be with neuroqueer people with whom I practice mutual aid. When I need you and you need me, it is harder for me to forget about you. But the ideal of intentional community is part of what brought me to Haverford College and to Quakerism. I initially did not realize how challenging community living would be for me. 

Neurodivergence and mental health differences can pose challenges to living in community, both for the person with these experiences and for the people around them. In my young adulthood, I have been in situations where I hurt a person or otherwise neglected the needs of a community (Quaker or not), that I was a part of. Usually the issues involved either not having full control over myself in times of mental unwellness or not understanding a social situation in the same way other people did, thus believing a certain action to be right when it was not. But it was also often the case that social and physical environments were simply not designed for people like me, and this mismatch caused problems. 

I was at an educational summer program once that turned out to be very mismatched with my neurodivergent needs. Due to my autistic struggle to navigate certain social situations, I unknowingly hurt many people around me. Some of these people then shunned me without explanation, which confused me. I was left not knowing for weeks what was going on until the director of the program called me in for a meeting and explained the specific harms that I had caused. At that meeting, I decided to leave the program, as I did not want to cause any more harm. 

In this case, retreating from the community in order to care for myself and allow the community to recover in the aftermath of conflict was probably the best path forward. I don’t blame the people involved for not communicating clearly to me what I did wrong, as they were likely afraid of my response and did not know that I was autistic and genuinely trying to improve my social awareness. But now I know that for me—and probably for a lot of autistic and neurodivergent people, as well as people with mental health differences—the best way to address conflicts that arise due to differences in functioning is to be direct and clear about what went wrong but also gentle and patient with learning to improve. Sometimes, I may not have the capacity to fix or even understand the problem at the moment. Yet given the time and space to process my experiences, I can learn and grow from what happened. 

I suggest that people be not afraid of approaching us neurodivergent folks with critique, even when we are sensitive to it. We need love and care just like everyone else, and often that means being honest and direct with us, just as some of us may be characteristically honest and direct with you. It may take longer for us to figure out how our strengths and challenges interact with the needs of a community, but we deserve the chance to learn. 

A Garden for Neurodivergence

I long for mentorship from spiritual people who experience neurodivergence or mental health differences, who might accompany me on my path of meaning-making and healing. I have been reaching out on my own to folks I know to try to find guidance on my journey. I wonder what it would look like for Quaker meetings to create apertures for connection around spiritual intensity and idiosyncrasy. What if we renewed the practice of eldering to nurture the mental and spiritual health of community members, paying special attention to the needs of the most marginalized or vulnerable?

Many young Quakers and seekers come into the Quaker community having embraced the language of neurodivergence to describe themselves. But my suspicion is that within the Quaker community, there are many people, especially older folks, who might be considered neurodivergent yet have never thought of themselves as such. The democratic, undogmatic nature of Quakerism attracts many independent and creative thinkers, who may be more likely to be neurodivergent. What potential there is then for mutual guidance and connection around social difference! People of all ages may learn from one another to embrace their quirky selves and deepen their spiritual commitments. People, young and old, need each other to grow and thrive in their personal journeys. 

I would love for there to be affinity groups within the Quaker community that explore the topics of neurodivergence and mental health differences, perhaps similar to the existing groups supporting those identifying as BIPOC or LGBTQIA. I know from speaking with neurodivergent Quakers that many of us tend to feel lonely and may find it difficult to discover new people whose experiences are similar to our own. Each of us has unique gifts and challenges, and we each experience a unique relationship between neurodivergence and spirituality; together we may support one another in developing our personal ministry. 

It would also be wonderful for Quaker meetings to create space for worship activities that are more accommodating to the needs of neurodivergent people. For example, thinking of the messages at the first meeting I attended, I wonder if there could be worship offerings that permit people to move their bodies or to be less silent. This could mean meetings for worship that have different or more flexible rules in place, or it could mean other worshipful activities, such as singing and dancing, especially as a group improvisation. There could also be offerings on days and times other than Sunday mornings, which may make it easier for anyone who is not an early riser to attend. 

It must be kept in mind that not all neurodivergent people are comfortable disclosing their identity or access needs. I’m unusually open about my neurodivergence and mental health difference and intentionally use my openness to advocate for the needs of others. Ideally, Quakers should work as a whole to be better informed about common access needs of neurodivergent people and make events accessible as a default. In particular, as a lot of people hold onto outdated information and stereotypes relating to autism and ADHD—not knowing, for example, how those conditions can manifest differently for adults and for women, nonbinary people, and trans people—meetings need to update their knowledge and make it easier for neurodivergent people to communicate and meet their specific needs. 

In this way, Quaker communities can become sanctuaries for neurodivergent people and anyone who feels different, lonely, or lost. It’s not about labels and diagnoses, though such language does help some neurodivergent folks to understand themselves and discover one another. It’s about honoring all the different songs and dances of the human spirit to the music of the universe.

The post A Person of Yin and Yang appeared first on Friends Journal.

Quaker Teachers Working with Neurodivergent Students

Quaker values of equality and community influence how educators who teach neurodivergent and neurodiverse students view their work. Neurodivergent students can face barriers to educational access and inclusion in classrooms because schools historically have developed to reflect the perspective of neurotypical students. Disability rights advocacy has led to national legislation and international guidelines that aim to reduce stigma around neurodivergence as well as promote inclusion and complete access to education for all students.

Dictionary definitions of neurodivergent and neurodiverse both refer to individuals whose brains function in ways that are not neurotypical. Some experts argue that neurological functioning is as unique as fingerprints and that everyone is neurodiverse. Some examples of diagnoses that are often considered neurodivergent are autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Friends Journal spoke with staff members of Quaker schools in the United States, Rwanda, and Ireland about evolving views of neurodiversity. The educators also discussed how belief in equality leads to a commitment to equity. In addition, they considered the way faith in community promotes full inclusion of all students.

“As part of our Quaker religious education program, we emphasize the importance of respect for all and talk about the distinction between equity and equality to enable the children to better understand that some children need additional support in order to access what school offers,” said Deirdre McSweeney, principal of Newtown Junior School in Waterford, Ireland.

All Quaker values encourage school faculty and staff to help all students, especially those with special needs, according to pastor Nizigiye Augustin, chaplain of Collège George Fox Kagarama, a Quaker middle school in Kigali, Rwanda. As the school chaplain, he teaches employees about the love of Jesus and that humans should love each other as Jesus first loved humanity. Such moral commitments lead school staff to want to include neurodiverse pupils and offer them the resources they need to succeed.

Equity refers to students needing different support to reach their potential. It is related to the Quaker value of equality, Karen Carney, head of school at Chicago Friends School, explained. The Quaker testimony of community promotes accepting people as they are, Carney observed. Recognizing that of God within each person helps educators meet people where they are, she noted. Carney is a member of Evanston (Ill.) Meeting.

Children learn from concrete examples of equity. In one lesson, lower school students at Brooklyn Friends School in Brooklyn, New York, took off their shoes and put them in a pile, explained Kate Minear, lower school math specialist. The students each chose a pair of shoes at random to try on. The children understood that each person needs shoes that fit their feet, and they came to understand that each pupil needs lessons and curriculum that fit their brain.

Each person has a unique way of experiencing the world and processing information, regardless of whether they have a diagnosis, according to M’Balia Rubie-Miller, Brooklyn Friends School’s middle school learning specialist and all school learning support coordinator. Each person’s experience of school is influenced by a unique neurological profile.

“We have talked about how we are all neurodiverse,” said Rubie-Miller.

This photo and those below are of Chicago Friends School students working in the classroom. Photos by Elizabeth DeVries.

Contemporary beliefs about equity for neurodivergent and neurodiverse students follow those of previous generations in which they were excluded from school and faced barriers to connecting socially with other children. National legislation as well as international policies aim to remedy previous inequities.

Historically in the United States, children who would now be described as neurodivergent were segregated from their peers and not sent to school. Disability-rights activism (led in part by parents of children not allowed to attend school) led to such federal legislation as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The precursor to IDEA, known as the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, became law in 1975. The law mandated a free appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment for children with disabilities, including neurodivergent students.

IDEA made school accessible for neurodivergent students, but educators trained in the years following its passage continued to view such students through a deficit-based lens. More contemporary philosophies of education acknowledge the academic strengths and community contributions of neurodivergent pupils.

In Ireland, the Education Act of 1998 stated that each person, including each individual with a disability or special educational needs, has a right to an education. Educators are legally obligated to provide necessary support services as well as instruction that suits each student’s needs and abilities.

Rwanda ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2008 and committed to the National Policy of Persons with Disabilities in 2021. The policy notes that physical and cultural obstacles have excluded people with disabilities from participating fully in society and that the country’s leaders support complete inclusion. Historically, those who serve people with disabilities have emphasized individual impairment over removing barriers to full inclusion in society.

Inclusive and equitable school environments benefit not only neurodivergent students but all learners, according to teachers at Brooklyn Friends School. Diversity makes school communities stronger as students learn that it is all right to experience the world and express oneself in ways that do not necessarily conform to society’s norms. Neurodivergent and neurotypical students often interact well together.

“We often see kids just innately adapting to each other’s styles,” said Beth Duffy, middle school learning specialist at Brooklyn Friends School.

Children with diverse neurological profiles share many of the same concerns and interests. Neurodiverse and neurotypical children all engage in problem solving, are concerned with fairness and rules, and involve themselves in imaginative play, according to Karen Carney.

One student with a distinctive type of social interaction was voted student council representative, notes Jonathan Edmonds, lower school math specialist at Brooklyn Friends School.

“Students are accepted for all their quirks, differences, and uniqueness,” Edmonds said.

Students talk a lot about disability, justice, and identity, so neurodiversity fits in with those discussions, according to Rubie-Miller. In addition, students regularly lead assemblies on disability justice and how to be an ally.

Social-emotional learning helps all students develop personal and interpersonal competence. Teachers use conversations with students to coach them on social-emotional learning skills. One key skill that pupils practice is naming feelings, explained Sim Lynch, reading specialist and clerk of Learning Team at Buckingham Friends School, a middle school in Lahaska, Pennsylvania. Neurodiverse students might need help identifying their emotions, as well as determining steps to take when they feel a particular way, she explained. The school counselor also helps students with social-emotional learning.

Ireland’s National Council for Curriculum and Assessment mandates a social health and personal education curriculum, Deirdre McSweeney explained. The curriculum involves whole classes in lessons on friendship, acceptance, and bullying prevention.

Teachers seeking to address the needs of neurodivergent learners improve instruction for the whole class, according to Lynch. All students benefit from explicit instruction and authentic engagement when learning new skills, observed Lynch. To learn a skill, students require practice and three recalls, ideally with a sleep between each recall. Neurodiverse students may require additional opportunities for practice and recall.

Beth Duffy believes all students benefit from the multi-sensory teaching techniques that work well with neurodivergent learners.

Jonathan Edmonds noted that support for neurodivergent students helps the whole class. For example, when teachers ask students questions and then give adequate time to think of answers, all students benefit.

“It helps break that tendency to just speed and rush and rush,” Edmonds said.

Emergent readers understand that each student gets the support needed and that each learner’s needs are different, according to Kat Lofstrom, lower school learning specialist at Brooklyn Friends School. Lofstrom said that one child had described this understanding, “We’re all on a reading journey.”

In addition to enriching teachers’ academic and social instruction, neurodivergent students contribute academic strengths to their classrooms.

“Like all individuals, neurodivergent students have unique strengths,” said Lofstrom. She said that some neurodivergent pupils demonstrate considerable grit, perseverance, and a strong understanding of metacognition. “They’re really learning how they learn,” Lofstrom said.

Some students who struggle with attention can focus on specific areas of interest for long periods of time, according to Kate Minear, lower school math specialist at Brooklyn Friends School. Such students can develop a deep interest in math and excel in the subject.

“They see things visually in a really surprising way,” said Minear.

A lower school class was looking at an image made of dots, and one neurodivergent student demonstrated his own way of determining how many dots there were, Jonathan Edmonds explained. Instead of counting the dots by ones, the learner saw a triangle within the picture and used the shape to develop an understanding of how many dots there were. Neurodivergent students may make striking connections between numbers and patterns as well as numbers and shapes. Contributing such perspectives to the class enriches everyone’s learning.

Teacher training in the most current methods of instructing neurodiverse students—both in college and in professional development classes for working educators—prepares teachers to help all students succeed. In some instances, instructors lack adequate preparation and support.

Neurodiverse students might experience sensory overwhelm from loud sounds, which leads to outbursts or isolation, according to pastor Nizigiye Augustin, chaplain of Collège George Fox Kagarama middle school in Rwanda. Teachers do not have professional training to address these challenges, Augustin noted. The school offers inclusive classrooms where students with special needs socialize with students who do not have special needs.

“We need to foster inclusion and equity. We try our best to help students with special needs, but we still lack resources like specialized programs, assistive technology, and emotional support from specialists,” Augustin said. He is also the pastor of Evangelical Friends Church of Rwanda.

Historically, colleges in Ireland have not adequately prepared new teachers to address the needs of neurodiverse students, according to McSweeney. University education for teachers has improved in recent years but still does not fully prepare instructors to work with neurodivergent students, she observed. New teachers require continuing professional development in order to meet the needs of neurodiverse learners, she explained. 

Training for U.S. teachers who work with neurodivergent students has also improved over the years. Previous generations of teachers were less aware of neurodiversity, Chicago Friends School’s Carney noted. Educators used to call children with ADHD “lazy and sloppy,” observed Carney, who has ADHD.

Many teachers leave master’s programs without a solid understanding of neurodivergence, according to Brooklyn Friends School’s Duffy. For instance, educators often do not realize that students with learning disabilities have average or above average intelligence. Graduate programs also do not necessarily teach about evidence-based strategies such as multi-sensory approaches.

“I think it’s really important that school leaders, learning specialists, and teacher mentors are well-versed in those evidence-based practices,” Duffy said.

Schools can help equip teachers to work with neurodivergent students by offering professional development opportunities. Staff members at Buckingham Friends School spend time meeting together to discuss the type of learning they would like all students to receive, Lynch pointed out. Educators go to professional development training to allow time to collaborate. The school has a four-member learning team with whom teachers can discuss what they notice and what they are wondering about in students’ learning processes, Lynch explained.

Sensitivity to issues of equality and equity as well as belief in inclusive communities motivate Quaker teachers who work with neurodivergent and neurodiverse students. Friends offer a particular spiritual perspective on educating students with varying neurological profiles. Quaker educators can also draw on a long history of activism on justice issues to inspire them to advocate for neurodiverse students.

Suggestions for Further Reading Provided by Staff of Brooklyn Friends School

We’re All Neurodiverse: How to Build a Neurodiversity-Affirming Future and Challenge Neuronormativity by Sonny Jane Wise.

Demystifying Disability: What to Know, What to Say, and How to Be an Ally by Emily Ladau.

The Pocket Guide to Neurodiversity by Daniel Aherne.

Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students by Zaretta L. Hammond (will be updated in 2026).

The Identity-Conscious Educator: Building Habits and Skills for a More Inclusive School by Liza A. Talusan.

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One of my core beliefs as a Quaker is that I, a human being with no special ordination or sanctification, have access to the divine and holy spark that is equal to every other person’s. And when I join in worship service with others, I know that we are striving together to make space in our lives for that which illuminates our way. I have lost count of how many times I’ve dragged myself into Quaker meeting on some Sunday morning I was tempted to sleep in, only to hear in the ministry of a fellow Friend words that I needed to hear and that strengthened my own faith.

We are in need of one another, Friends, to walk this spiritual path. I believe that taking care to enlarge our circles, to make room for more in what we think of as our Quaker family, is a task to which Spirit is calling us. And so it is a delight, this month, to share with you the stories of Friends whose lens of experiencing the world may be profoundly different from yours, and who have found room in Quaker communities for them. I invite you to read these articles with a mind open to understanding and a commitment to learning.

The greater a people we gather, the more we’re going to need to learn from and make space for people who are different from us in a diverse range of aspects. In this issue of Friends Journal, our editors have collected powerful testimonies from Friends whose brains work in ways that situate them outside the mainstream of human experience. While it is a term that lumps together many very different aspects of mental being, we’ve used “neurodiverse” to emphasize the richness and variety of perspectives within our Quaker communities, and how Spirit works through those whose brains process the world in ways the world doesn’t consider “typical.”

As you read the articles in this issue, I invite you to consider: what are neurodiverse Friends asking of all of us?

Encourage my participation . . . Show me compassion . . . Understand that my “quiet” may be different from yours . . . Try to learn from my way of seeing the world . . . Help me know what to expect . . . Trust me when I tell you what I need . . .

It’s my hope that as we understand these simple requests, not only will we learn how fulfilling they can be to fulfill, but we will do important work in making our communities work better for everyone.

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Quaker Meetings as Neurodivergent-Affirming Spaces

“I’ve started going to Quaker meetings because the Buddhists are too noisy.” It’s become a “comedy bit” that I do now when I’m mentioning my attendance to other people, including my Buddhist nun teacher who laughed and knows how happy I am that the local Buddhist center’s retreat this year is a silent one. Like most comedy routines, it contains truth. It is wonderful to sit mostly in quietness with other people without feeling a pressure to interact. There’s not a constant input of teachings, prayers, chants or hymns, or “discussion sections” to process. There’s only the occasional burst of words that often resonates in my mind like a bright bell and focuses my attention, which then itself seems to vibrate in tune with the after ring. I become the bell.

“It’s the biggest dopamine high of my week: sitting in a circle with 12 mostly retired people in Monkseaton.” That’s another line in my bit. But it’s true. Quakers are a byword for quietness and—given that many people still confuse them with the Amish—for restraint, purity, and “properness.” But I am finding attending the meetings thrilling. The hour brings me entirely alive.

I didn’t realize until I wrote this how apt the name of the meeting is. For anyone local to me (near the city of Newcastle upon Tyne in North East England), Monkseaton is a quiet coastal suburb. I love how I’ve just realized that the word carries a sense of berobed figures, seated in contemplation: Monk-seat-on. I am a professional poet, often employed to summarize events, like festivals or conferences, in instant verse. But slower, more private versions of sinking into words allow me space and time to process thoughts, feelings, and sensations. I feel that Quaker meetings also allow me this space and time, but it’s done communally. In fact, sometimes I feel like the group is cowriting a poem together, mostly silently except when parts of it burst through into speech. This feeling is not in my comedy bit.

Something that is only sometimes in the comedy bit, depending on whom I’m talking to, is “Quakers are very autistic-friendly.” If I’m talking to one of my many fellow late-diagnosed autistic or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) friends and colleagues, then I will include it. Maybe it will make them want to go along to a meeting. Maybe it will help them realize that there are more places than they think that are safe and good spaces for people of our particular neurotype. But if it’s someone whom I don’t know, or who might only recognize the “medical model” of autism—described only by deficits with the stigmas and stereotypes about existing only with a learning disability and not possibly with empathy or a need for connection—then I will not mention it.

I see my Quaker meeting as a place of unmasking: somewhere I can go and be accepted as myself and drop the usual social norms and requirements. 

I am very publicly “out” about my autism diagnosis, having written a poetry collection about it. I am currently touring a spoken word show about neurodiversity. Shame thrives in silence, and since I am in a job where being “eccentric” is more accepted as part of the persona than it would be for someone who works in a bank, I hope I can make a difference by being open. But I still encounter many situations where somebody’s first reaction to hearing it will be something like: But you can’t be autistic! You’re making eye contact! Seem very sociable! Have been married! I seem to fit their expectations of “normal” and will be openly disbelieved. But like many of us who were diagnosed later in life (I was 42 and am 49 now), I have spent a lot of my life masking or camouflaging my autistic traits in order to fit in. This isn’t a conscious decision. It’s a reaction to how society can treat people who are different in their sensory, social, emotional, and cognitive ways of being. Masking takes energy, and new research shows it can often increase mental health problems and trauma, but for many of us it is unconscious, necessary, and ingrained.

Image by undrey

I see my Quaker meeting as a place of unmasking: somewhere I can go and be accepted as myself and drop the usual social norms and requirements. I love reading about the early Quakers. It seems like they were going through their own process of “unmasking”: questioning why hat-doffing, vow-swearing, and titles were necessary. They were making a more direct and bodily connection with something transpersonal, rejecting traditional hierarchies and power structures because they don’t make sense.

I am not diagnosing the early Quakers as autistic. However, they were certainly neurodivergent or “neuroqueer” in the definition used by neurodiversity activist and scholar Nick Walker. Walker’s definition of neurodiversity recognizes it can be a movement or a paradigm, not just a descriptor. Used as a philosophy, it values differences in the ways that people process things as a strength, just as variety is a strength in biodiversity:

The idea that there is one “normal” or “healthy” type of brain or mind, or one “right” style of neurocognitive functioning, is a culturally constructed fiction, no more valid (and no more conducive to a healthy society or to the overall well-being of humanity) than the idea that there is one “normal” or “right” ethnicity, gender, or culture.

I think of George Fox’s radical belief that men and women were equal and how that meant early Quaker women thought and presented themselves differently from other women who were forced into more normal (heteronormative) ways of being. That seems to me to fit Walker’s description of “neuroqueering.” Walker acknowledges that the term has multiple definitions but suggests one of them as

Engaging in practices intended to undo and subvert one’s own cultural conditioning and one’s ingrained habits of neuronormative and heteronormative performance, with the aim of reclaiming one’s capacity to give more full expression to one’s uniquely weird potentials and inclinations.

The word “weird” here is being reclaimed from being used in a derogatory sense, but there’s an intriguing origin to it. It comes from the Old English wyrd, which means “fate,” which in turn meant “spoken by the gods.” In more than one way, society has deemed it weird to sit together and silently attend on what might be spoken or heard in that silence. As an autistic person, I can struggle to filter out lots of sensory information that enters my brain simultaneously. In a meeting, I can tune in. I think it helps that I’d had a meditation practice for a couple of years before I started attending six months ago. I am getting better at working out what is an internal physical sensation, what is a thought from my “chattering mind,” and what is an insistent gathering of attention— I’ve come to learn that this indicates I might be listening to or speaking from something transpersonal. I am more likely to say “from the Light” than “from God,” but honestly, “from the bright ringing” would feel closer. It’s full-bodied, auditory, and within and beyond me all at once.

The sense of all attention being focused and heightened seems to me likely both a challenge and an opportunity for my fellow autistic and ADHD humans with low-support needs. Many of us operate better when our brains can look at just one thing at a time and be in a state of hyper-focus or flow. But many of us will struggle with lack of dopamine or an intensely wandering mind. The quiet might feel overwhelming.

Our bodies may need to “stim” (self-stimulate) with repetitive movements like foot tapping, hair twirling, or body rocking, in order to calm ourselves from the anxiety of being in an unfamiliar space with unfamiliar people. Given that we are often hypersensitive to sensory environments, we might hear the lights humming or a clock ticking, or we might be assailed by our neighbour’s perfume or distracted by someone’s very red scarf.

I would love many more neurodivergent people to be issued a clear invitation. . . . This is a movement that was founded on upholding difference and will continue to do so. Perhaps I could go so far as to say, it is a place where it is possible to be “proudly weird.”

Ideas about what makes a good “space” for neurodivergent people are still being developed. My instinct and conclusion from my own experience is that Quaker meetings are potentially good places for many neurodivergent people to worship and to be. But the invitation needs to become more explicit (with references to neurodiversity made clear in informational literature) and consideration given to any accommodations that can be made. 

One new framework, developed by autistic doctors for healthcare settings, uses the acronym “SPACE.” The “S” stands for sensory needs, already generally well-considered in Quaker spaces. “P” is predictability, which again is often a great strength of Quaker meetings; making clear information available in advance will help with this, too. The “A” in SPACE is for acceptance, which, again, Quakers have running through their ethos. “C” stands for communication: this is about being aware that autistic people may have different communication needs. Some may be non-speaking or use augmented communication devices. Many have fluent speech but may struggle in times of stress or overload. Clarity and directness are recommended, as many autistic people interpret meanings literally (an organization that values “plain speech” is already onto a winner). The “E” is for empathy; although autistic people are stereotyped as lacking empathy (while many of us in fact have a surfeit of it), it’s less recognized that non-autistic people can struggle to empathize with the different processing needs and communication and sensory profiles of autistic people. Taking time to understand these differences will help in all sorts of ways, as will giving increased physical space, time to process, and recognition of the different ways that emotions are expressed and received.

I must confess to an irony. A new writer friend had originally invited me to a Friends meeting because, as she said, “I keep getting this feeling that you’d love the space and the stirring that’s happening within it.” She’s seen my show and knows about my neurodivergence. But it’s not something that I’ve mentioned in that room where everything happens and nothing happens. I’ve found myself talking about snails and their homes, living adventurously, how love can be embodied in a saint’s name, still being attached to a duck, felled trees, and questions about “what would George Fox do?” But I haven’t spoken about my neurodivergence. There is, in fact, a freedom that comes in not having that as an explicit part of my identity for an hour: to exist in a place beyond labels and identities and find a flow that is part of something wider and deeper, where I am accepted, connected, and reflected. But it is a freedom that is made possible by the conditions that enable me to feel safe and relaxed enough to be part of it. I was lucky to have been invited in by somebody with a good intuition, but I would love many more neurodivergent people to be issued a clear invitation that tells them their needs would be recognized in Quaker meetings and that this is a movement that was founded on upholding difference and will continue to do so. Perhaps I could go so far as to say, it is a place where it is possible to be “proudly weird.”

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Becoming the Self God Made Me to Be

I have a tight relationship with the divine flow of energy that I call God, and because of this, I occasionally use the word “mystic” to describe how I am oriented. I don’t, though, feel comfortable using the term “contemplative” for myself. I think of contemplatives as people who are deliberate, methodical, slow, and inward; none of which I am. Early in my time among Quakers, I had the impression that most Friends’ minds were like old Irish setters; they would come into the meetingroom, circle a couple of times before the fire, and then settle into stillness. My mind, however, was like an undisciplined chihuahua with the mail carrier on the front porch. My very first clue that I have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was after the rise of worship a couple of decades ago: a Friend shared how she hadn’t been able to center down and described what was happening in her mind and how disruptive it was that day. She talked about it as if it were highly unusual for her, but what she described was how my brain is—all of the time. 

Have you ever seen a drop of water resting on a body of water, and then, suddenly, the surface tension of the individual drop breaks, and it dissolves into the body? Sometimes that happens for me in meeting for worship. 

I have been a Quaker since my middle child, Zan (who recently turned 30), was learning to walk. Over the decades, I have participated in what surely must be thousands of hours of waiting worship. And yet, I still struggle with outward stillness and inward silence. My brain simply cannot settle the way most other Friends seem to do. My body is rarely able to quiet enough to cease movement. I joke that my primary spiritual practice is fidgeting. Sometimes, meeting for worship is excruciatingly hard for me. There have been times when I could not stay in the worship room because the hyperactivity of ADHD came to the fore, and I didn’t want to disturb others. 

I used to think this made me a failure as a Quaker. I could not do the one practice that seems intrinsic to the communities of Friends that I worship with. Several years ago, I tried to explain this to an anchoring committee supporting me as I participated in the School of the Spirit’s Spiritual Nurturer program. One Friend asked why I stay if it is so hard: why not worship in ways that are easier? I wrestled with the question for a long while afterwards. God even sent me on a spiritual sojourn for a few years, in part to help me explore the question. I loved learning to whirl and chant with Sufis, the sensory engagement of worship with Hindus, and the responsive readings calling us to actions of love and social justice with the LGBTQIA+ affirming Alliance of Baptists church. But I was not led to put down roots in any of these wonderful communities. As I held my relationship with each in the Light, my understanding that I am my truest self among Friends was reaffirmed for me. In spite of my challenges, waiting worship and our precious and remarkable way of seeking unity with one another gathered in the Holy Spirit during our business meetings is the right path for me.

This was good to know but didn’t make my sense of inadequacy and failure as a Quaker any less painful. 

I don’t mean to suggest that worship was never deep, rich, and profound for me. Sometimes I would know that we were gathered in the unifying embrace of the Holy Spirit. I would occasionally lose myself, falling inward not toward myself but into the essence of being. The best way I’ve found to describe it is this: Have you ever seen a drop of water resting on a body of water, and then, suddenly, the surface tension of the individual drop breaks, and it dissolves into the body? Sometimes that happens for me in meeting for worship. I’m there and then “I” am in unity with all that is in God—which is to say everything. 

I can’t cause this to happen. I do, however, have to show up. And not only just attend but bring my fullest self into the meetinghouse, the meetingroom, and into worship: fidgeting and chihuahua brain and all. I find that not fighting who I am, not getting stuck in what is lacking but bringing all of the parts of me into worship and giving them over is part of my practice. 

A photograph of a family member by the author. She describes this blurriness as “how I experience the world when my brain is hyper.”

My body is rarely able to quiet enough to cease movement. I joke that my primary spiritual practice is fidgeting. Sometimes, meeting for worship is excruciatingly hard for me. There have been times when I could not stay in the worship room because the hyperactivity of ADHD. . . .

I believe that everything is in God, and God is in everything. Everything I am—my body, my mind, and even my ego—all come from God. I believe that God is present in every cell of my being, every jot and tittle of me. And because of that, because everything I am comes from God, I feel that my spiritual work is to make everything I am available for God to use. This is not easy. Parts of me, like my sense of humor, creativity, and quirky way of being, I’m really attached to and take pleasure in. They define me for myself. I own these parts and don’t really want to relinquish them. I fear that God would ask me to change, to become less attached to them, which might open me to new possibilities, new ways of being available for God to work through, and it disturbs me to think of myself as less connected with them. 

Other parts I don’t want to relinquish for opposite reasons: because they feel shameful, flawed, or weak. These parts are my woundedness and hurts, the parts that I want to keep hidden away because they are filled with pain, anger, regret, or sorrow. I struggle with making them available to God because I can’t imagine them being useful. I’d love to be rid of them, to have them miraculously removed from my emotional memory, but that’s not the way it works. 

For me, humility is remembering over and over and over that every single thing about me—good and “bad,” loving and not-so-much—is already in God through me. When I cling to something or keep it stuffed in an emotional closet, I am blocking the flow of Divine Love that wants to move through me. Courage is being willing to risk change. Am I willing to submit my love of wordplay to God? Am I willing to bring what is hidden into the Light so that God can make what God will of it? Courage is trusting God with my fullest self. Humility is accepting that my fullest self is exactly what God needs from me. It helps also to realize that God created me with my goofy, sometimes irreverent, pun-loving sense of humor and loves me exactly as I am.

Photo by the author

I think of the contemplative practice of centering down as turning inward, like pulling on a monk’s hood to remove distractions. But centering up is turning outward to allow distractions to become reminders of the Holy Spirit’s abiding presence. 

At a School of the Spirit retreat, one Friend once asked if there is a difference between “centering” and “centering down.” I thought about it for a moment before coming to see that I do center; I just don’t do it like everybody else. I’m calling what I do “centering up.” My most reliable connection to my Creator is through my senses. Everything around me is an opportunity to be reminded of the creative, generative flow of God’s love, and so my eyes, skin, ears, nose, and even my tongue invite me to remember that Spirit is within and among and all around. This is the practice of wonder and can be done even while fidgeting. I’m making up the “rules” about centering up as I write, so bear with me: centering up is spontaneous but also intentional. It can be done with enthusiasm and expression, or it can be done quietly, and it often causes joy. It can be done in any moment, whatever one is doing: sitting in meeting for worship, walking around the block, or brushing one’s teeth all might be opportunities to center up. One may center up when one is happy and playful, frustrated, sorrowful, or even angry. Centering up may help shift one’s mood from negativity to hope. Centering up rejects shame and self-criticism and instead relaxes into the understanding that all things were created by God to be their perfect selves, even when they are not able to live into it quite yet. Centering up is a practice of gentleness and is full of the grace of starting over as many times as needed. Julian of Norwich’s quote “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well” could be a suggested mantra for a centering up practice. 

When I center up, I can be reminded of and reconnect with God through whatever comes to my attention in the moment: A white, fluffy cloud passing over the starry night sky, a thought or idea, the neighbor’s annoying leaf blower, my spouse’s hand in mine, the pain in my shoulder, a breeze touching my bare arms, the umami of a mushroom, and the beautiful hoar frost ribbons that I sometimes see on the morning of the first really hard freeze of the season are all opportunities to remember the Sacred. Even attending to my dog’s waste on our daily walks can be an opportunity to center up and express gratitude, if I allow it to be. I’m less likely to notice the sacred when staring at the screen in front of me, but it is possible. It helps to lift my eyes to the trees beyond and track a leaf falling to the ground. When my attention returns to my laptop, I have more capacity to recognize God’s presence in what I encounter.  

I think of the contemplative practice of centering down as turning inward, like pulling on a monk’s hood to remove distractions. But centering up is turning outward to allow distractions to become reminders of the Holy Spirit’s abiding presence. For me, centering up is accepting that God created me as I am with my dyscalculia learning disability and my ADHD and that I am uniquely and wonderfully made in God’s image. Centering up is embracing my body and my mind as they are in this moment and allowing them to connect with God in the way that feels right, good, and natural for me. Ultimately, I think, centering up helps me to become the perfect self that God created me to be by allowing every part of me to be available to God.

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Toward a Faith That Welcomes Neurodivergence

I was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder three months after my thirty-sixth birthday. Both disabilities fall under the broad umbrella of neurodivergence. I grew up as the second of four girls in a blue-collar, working-class fundamentalist nondenominational family in small-town Texas in the 1990s, where mental illness and disability were things that could be “prayed away.” Plus, autism was something only boys had, right? The things that I now know are called “stims” were passed off as “nervous tics.” Things that overloaded my sensory needs and compulsions were called by my family my “being picky,” “weird,” or desiring to be “a perfectionist.” When I struggled to understand the sarcasm and passiveness that is a very large part of the culture of the U.S. South, I was told that I was “too literal” and “couldn’t take a joke.” The things that I needed to help me regulate my emotions and understand social cues were dismissed because I was “being stubborn” and oftentimes attributed to my having “a lack of faith.” I learned how to hide the things that set me apart: to stay quiet even if I didn’t understand something. The things that helped me navigate the complexities of the world were hidden away because I knew that I was a person of faith and these “oddities” were things that people interpreted as me having a lack of faith. I began to mask my autistic and obsessive traits at a very early age, before I even knew the word for this behavior.

I have always considered myself a seeker, whether seeking out every detail about a specific author, historical event, or musician that I was hyper-fixated on at the moment or whether learning about different faiths and religions. I have always loved learning and not just learning but understanding. After my father, I was the first one to attend college on either side of my family. Having spent my entire childhood attending the same church, I was curious to learn more about how others worshiped. For several months while I was an undergrad, I visited different religious spaces every week. Though I visited nearly two dozen faith communities, I did not visit a Quaker meeting. It didn’t even cross my mind. This was Texas, and Quakers were like Sasquatch: they most likely didn’t exist, but if they did, they certainly wouldn’t be here in Texas. Quakers were in history books and on the side of the oat containers, not in the South. So how did this late-diagnosed, ex-evangelical, neurodivergent millennial find the Quaker Sasquatch and become a member at an unprogrammed Quaker meeting? I give that honor to the COVID-19 pandemic.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, I was an elementary school teacher with Dallas Independent School District and in an unhealthy marriage. To say I was exhausted in every capacity would be an understatement. I had been seeking a faith community that I could be a part of for nearly ten years, but being an openly queer person as well as someone who enjoys asking questions (and getting answers), there never seemed to be a place where I felt safe and welcomed. When the pandemic hit, I did what most people did and got comfortable binge watching films and TV series. In the lockdown of 2020, I stumbled upon a historical fiction TV series set in New York during the American Revolution and—wouldn’t you know it—one of the main characters was a Quaker.

Image of “Quaker Oats” from commons.wikimedia.org

This was Texas, and Quakers were like Sasquatch: they most likely didn’t exist, but if they did, they certainly wouldn’t be here in Texas. Quakers were in history books and on the side of the oat containers, not in the South. 

It was nearly a year later, after I had gone through my divorce and moved out of public education, that I remembered that Quaker character. A recurring feature of my neurodivergent mind is that I get hyper-focused on a song, book, musical, or even just facts. Sometimes I’ll be consumed with something for a few months, and sometimes it will obsess me for many years.

Such was the year after watching the TV series about the American Revolution. Do you have questions about Alexander Hamilton’s life in the Caribbean? I got you. Want to know about the Jewish world of 1700s New York? Sit back and prepare to learn. Ever wonder how the German Hessian soldiers got involved in the war? I can answer that for you. I began to deep dive into every book I could find on the Founding Fathers and life of those in America in the 1700s. Then I thought about that TV show I had watched with the Quaker character. Using the great guide of Google, I began a search on Quakers during the American Revolution, which then led me to researching Quakers historically and eventually to researching Quakers today. I read about the SPICES, the testimonies of Quakerism—simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality, and stewardship—and realized that I already lived my life and believed in them. I read about the early English Quakers and how they wouldn’t take their hats off to the aristocracy. In a world that revolved around social class, this was by far one of the coolest ways of saying we are all equal. I learned about how Quaker women—yes women—could be traveling ministers and were thrown in prison alongside the men for what they believed. How they would stand up for the oppressed, being at the forefront of the abolitionist, civil rights, women’s rights, and LGBTQ rights movements. They loved unconditionally. It was the Quakers throughout history who saw “that of God in everyone” and truly lived as if they did.

Photo by Sylvain Brison on Unsplash

My Quaker faith and autistic self mesh more than I ever could have fathomed. I find that the very testimonies of Quakerism welcome the very nature of my neurodivergence. Many of the churches and faith communities I had attended over the years focused heavily on what I consider to be a presentation of showiness: whether that was how loud the band was, how fancy the congregation were dressed, how moving the words were in the sermon, how high you raised your hands during worship, or how great the latte was in the in-house coffee shop. To me, everything felt like a performance and one that I often got lost in. Like many autistic individuals, I like rules that are black and white, and I dislike the “fluff” that surrounds and fills life and many of the religious spaces I had experienced. I also like understanding things to the point of obsession.

Hypocrisy was something I saw so frequently in the churches I grew up in and experienced in my college years. You say you welcome everyone, yet I find as a queer person that your welcome and love is conditional. You show that you want to be a part of the world in the way that you hold your Sunday services, yet you do not practice what you preach in the community. I felt myself to be so much an “other” in the world of religion.

When researching Quakers, I saw a group of people that didn’t just live their faith out only on Sundays but lived their faith every day: whether it be by serving the needs of people in countries at war, lobbying for human rights in the States, or caring for someone in their community. The “fluff” on Sunday was not “fluff” at all; it was reality, a refreshing and welcoming experience for someone who likes the black and white. And lo and behold, Quaker meetings could be found in most major cities throughout the state of Texas! Oatmeal box man be damned! Sasquatch is real and alive in the South!

Being a part of the neurodivergent Friends spiritual deepening community of Friends General Conference and embracing my identity as being a neurodivergent queer Quaker is to have finally found a faith community that sees me, hears me, welcomes me, and values me for everything that I am.

Many autistic folks, including myself, have a strong sense of justice. Mass media has made a caricature of what autism is supposed to look like, but autism spectrum disorder is just that: a spectrum. It is often coupled with other neurodiversity disorders or disabilities, and as the saying goes, “If you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person.” Even though my deep connection and interpretation of the emotions of others is often overwhelming and causes a series of social confusions and burnout, it is also a sort of superpower. Being on the spectrum of hyper-empathy, I feel like I am able to relate to people on a deeper level. For a faith community that shows so much empathy and passion for the world around them, I feel like I am able to be a better Quaker because of the different ways that I experience the world. I often become obsessed with conversations and interactions that I have had and will replay them over and over for hours and sometimes days. Even though this is exhausting in its own way, it also feels like I am able to read beyond a simple conversation and put myself in another’s shoes.

There are things that I struggle with in my meeting, just as I struggle in other parts of my life. But here, I want to focus on the light and the joy. The struggles will always be there, and the work on my mental, emotional, and spiritual health will be a never-ending journey of highs and lows. I know that it was because of my neurodivergencies that I found the Quaker Sasquatch. My diagnoses have helped me better understand myself and the different ways that I see and interpret the world and I can better understand the ways that I interact as a person of faith. Being a part of the neurodivergent Friends spiritual deepening community of Friends General Conference and embracing my identity as being a neurodivergent queer Quaker is to have finally found a faith community that sees me, hears me, welcomes me, and values me for everything that I am.

Understanding and embracing my autism and obsessive compulsive disorder has made me a better person of faith and a better Quaker. So much of that, however, goes to the community of Friends in my monthly and yearly meeting and the larger community and legacy of Friends around the world. At the very core of Friends is love and equality that offers safety and welcome to all those present. A Friends meeting is a place for all. Quaker Sasquatch is real and among us, and she sure is beautiful.

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