Letting Go, Getting Clear

I wanted to write a fuller report of the clearness process I went through with my partner. I don't particularly have time to do so right now, but here's at least a recap.

First of all, we went about the entire thing mostly backwards and upside down. We are not getting married under the care of a Meeting, but merely in the manner of Friends. Thus, there is no Monthly Meeting to do the clearness process with, or to appoint a clearness committee for us. As I understand it, if we were doing everything in good Quaker order we would have come to the meeting when we first discerned a leading to marry and asked to be married under the care of the Meeting. They would have appointed us a clearness committee, and after a clearness process the committee would have come back and reported to the Meeting if they had found us clear and if they recommended that the Meeting take our marriage under its care. At that point a marriage oversight committee would have been put together and we would set the date, tell our friends and proceed with our plans with the logistical, emotional and spiritual support of our marriage committee.

Needless to say, that was not what we did. My partner proposed and I accepted in what I hoped was a prayerful and well-led way, but was almost immediately consumed by doubt as to whether or not we actually felt led by G-d to wed. In spite of this we proceeded through the engagement to-do list for the next eight or nine months, told our family we were getting married, set a date, booked a venue and a band and hotel rooms for the out of town guests. Meanwhile we also met with our elders and mentors, and put together a list of folks to form a clearness committee with, and scheduled times to meet. Doing all this simultaneously made the whole thing more confusing than ever.

Our committee met for four times, without a really clear and articulated sense of what we were hoping to accomplish as a group. We shared stories and concerns, looked for deeper truths, and finally just sat in waiting worship. We meditated on commitment and loss, on failure and on paradox and mystery.

In the second to last meeting we purposefully tried to discern if we were clear to marry, but that meeting did not lead to clarity for me, only more pain and more confusion. By the next day I had started to have panic attacks, and the following day I had a total breakdown and felt my whole life unraveling, unmade like a hat someone stopped knitting, pulled the needles out and began to pull out, one row at a time. I wasn't sure about anything at all, least of all whether I ought to marry my partner. I could barely speak in coherent sentences. Finally I realized that I could not make that decision, that I simply could not know if I ought to marry. I found that it was simply not the right time for that decision, and that either I would reach a better time later (after I get out of this crazy time of transition and flux) or I had already reached that time years before, and I needed to have faith and keep going with that decision. It was a crazy thing to do, to surrender what seems like the most important decision I'll ever make in the midst of serious doubt and reservations. It was a leap of faith, but it was also the only good option. I could not live if I did not trust life, trust G-d and trust myself. That was a turning point, and things were better after that.

The last meeting I came at last into a sense of peace and love in the silent worship. It was a good process, and it did lead to a deep sense of clarity for me, but in such a backwards and confusing way. If any of you readers decide to get married in a Quaker fashion, please do yourself the favor and have the clearness process first, before you get too deep into the commitment to marry.

Jews and Quakers, Law and Grace

Max Carter, the head of campus Ministry at Guilford College, tells me that I should wrestle with the conflict between "law" and "grace" more, and pointed to the fundimental tension between Quakerism and Judaism from Quakerism's earliest conception, namely that "much of the history of early Quakerism has to do with the 'non-necessity' of 'Jewish ceremonies' (as Fox often characterized outward practices)." The latest Friend's Journal (April 2010) also dealt with some of these tensions in their article Singing “Lord of the Dance”: Reflections on Anti-Semitism and Loving One Another by Steve Chase, Maxine Kaufman-Lacusta, Janet Minshall, Free Polazzo, and Joy Weaver. Facing this part of Quakerism has been a long and confusing process, especially since the most common attitude towards Jewish Quakers that I've encountered among Friends has been "oh, yeah, so-and-so is Jewish, and they've just been such a great addition to the Meeting. You know, I find Judaism so interesting. There are just so many connections between Quakers and Jews! Really, there's no reason why it should be a problem for you to be both."

But it has been a problem, a rich and rewarding problem, and I have dove deep into those troubled waters. I have known for years that I cannot be a Jaker or a Quew, because I'm Jewish, and I see no role models among Jewish Friends who keep kosher and keep Shabbos. This is not to criticize or to judge these beautiful souls who have found a way forward as Jews in a Quaker Meeting, but I've always wanted to keep kosher and keep Shabbos, to live true to the law I've been given. And as that's where I know I am led, it's been clear to me that I cannot call myself a Quaker. As George Fox said, for Quakers, those Jewish ceremonies are not necessary (I believe Fox was actually referring to Church traditions and calling them Jewish was simply a way to emphasize his point and insult those who opposed his ideas, but it's still relevant, I think).

But then there's Grace. And I do believe in the Grace of G-d. I don't think Christians have any monopoly on the concept of grace, for Jews certainly appreciate the Grace of the One who has preserved us throughout the ages. But I grew up, I suspect, with a more Christian sense of grace than is perhaps typical among Jews. I believe strongly in the power of G-d to speak through us in a gathered Meeting, and I believe in the Grace which reveals G-d's Truth in our hearts. I believe that we are all beneficiaries of that Grace, and that, yes, sometimes it does save us. From the hardness of our own prideful hearts, mostly, but also from missing the mark (or sin, as it is sometimes called) and giving in to our darkness.

My faith operates on many layers. There is the level on which it is good to follow the mitzvahs and traditions, to take joy and comfort in their structure. There is also the level on which I try to know, one day at a time, what G-d is trying to communicate to me, how He is trying to lead me. They are not mutually exclusive, by any means. They compliment each other well.

Yesterday I came out of the darkness I had been journeying through for most of this year. I came into the peace of clarity on my leading into marriage, and knew that I loved my partner with a clear and fearless heart. That was an undeniable experience of G-d's grace which I received through Quaker process, and which I do not think I could have received through the laws. And that is why, among other reasons, I sojourn with Friends, and perhaps always will. In silence, Truth can be revealed and a community can experience that divine Grace. That is a profound blessing that I hope to never take for granted. Certainly the relationship between Quakers and Jews is not perfect, and at times it can be painful. But those who search for Truth can perhaps learn from one another, at least.