Not everyone in Quaker Meeting speaks the same theological language, but Friends have a way to listen for the Spirit behind the words.
Encounter Friends from other countries and traditions.
Resources:
- Subscribe to QuakerSpeak so you never miss a video
- Read Friends Journal to see how other Friends describe the substance of Quaker spirituality
- Learn more about the life and ministry of New England Quakers at NEYM.org
- Find out how Quakers are assisting military personnel stationed in 11 states
- Learn about the rich diversity of Quakers worldwide with FWCC.
- Work for peace with justice with AFSC.
Discussion Questions:
- Robin gives the examples of talking to “Evangelical Christians, and Buddhists, to military families and pacifists, and to people who are older and younger than we are, to people who are of our same racial background and of different racial backgrounds, people who come from different parts of the country, and from different theological understandings.” When have you had to speak with and understand people whose differences made it feel like they were speaking another language?
- Are you bilingual? What was the most difficult part of learning another language? What were the greatest joys and blessings?
Transcript:
Robin Mohr: For Quakers, especially for Quakers in unprogrammed worship, I think it’s important, because we have so much freedom in who speaks, that the practice—the discipline of interpretation, of discernment for yourself; of what did that mean? what did they mean? what does that mean for me? What does this mean for this community?—is a really important spiritual practice.
Listening in Tongues: Being Bilingual as a Quaker Practice
My name is Robin Mohr. I’m the executive secretary of the Friends World Committee for Consultation Section of the Americas. The Friends World Committee is the association of Quaker Yearly Meetings around the world, across all the branches of Friends, and I work with the Section of the Americas, which runs from Alaska to Bolivia. I think that listening in tongues is our spiritual discipline of listening beyond the words for the message of the Holy Spirit in the words that fallible, ordinary human beings have to use to communicate, and it acknowledges that the words that I use to mean this message may be different than the words that you would have used to express the same message, and so our ability to listen for what was really meant is an important practice for people in any spiritual tradition. Listening for what people meant is an important practice.
Learning to Talk to People Who Are Not Like Us
I think that it’s important for people to learn to talk to the people we think are not like us. To be able to talk to people who are insiders and outsiders. To talk to Evangelical Christians, and Buddhists, to military families and pacifists, and to people who are older and younger than we are, to people who are of our same racial background and of different racial backgrounds, people who come from different parts of the country, and from different theological understandings. That all of those can be like speaking a different language.
The Metaphor of Learning Another Language
Learning to talk to people who we think are not like us has a lot in common with learning to speak a second language. It has a lot of the same pitfalls, and it has a lot of the same joys of being understood and understanding. The first time that you actually understand a conversation in your new language is an amazing joy. To be able to be able to speak anti-racist language, to be able to speak Christian language, is a way of saying the same thing in new words.
The metaphor of learning another language can be really helpful to us in knowing that we’re going to make mistakes, that we have to practice, that we are beginners. I need to be listening really intently, and it can be exhausting to have to be listening that hard when you realize that you don’t actually understand what’s going on around you. It’s really a skill, but we will feel better, we will be happier in our lives, if we understand what people are trying to tell us and we are understood when we are trying to express ourselves.
Growing Our Meetings
I think that every Quaker meeting would benefit by growing, by being more accessible to the community around it, by welcoming people into our Quaker meetings for that deep experience with the Holy Spirit, that experience of worship with the Divine. And if we are able to speak with people in the language that they can understand, then they will feel more welcome.
Deeper Than Words
I think it’s an important part of being a Friend to be able to communicate, and to be able to communicate with people we think are not like us because the message is deeper and richer and more important than the words we could possibly use.
The views expressed in this video are of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Friends Journal or its collaborators.
SPEAKING IN TONGUES
By Bill Dockery © 2009
[Note: This was written to my church listserv and has referencesI haven’t fleshed out for a more general readership. The occasion was the coincidence of TVUUC’s 60th anniversary celebration and the sentencing of the man who came into our church with a shotgun and killed two people and wounded seven more. Haley & Marshall are my kids and Chris is Chris Buice, our minister. I take the liberty of posting it as a response to your post]
SPEAKING IN TONGUES
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.”
1 Corinthians 13
Tonight Haley and I attended the vespers service Chris held as a coda to both our 60th anniversary and the sentencing of the man who killed two people in our church. I was on the way to a meeting at Marshall’s school and the service was a way station for reflection in route to more pressing business.
The service was simple but deeply moving. We opened with Hymn 1, “Let Nothing Evil Cross This Door,” which has its own resonances for me, and then went on to a reading of the 23rd Psalm, other songs and readings, and an intimate lighting of candles and sharing of feeling. There weren’t but a couple of handfuls of people there in the dim room but, among all the powerful and stirring celebrations and dedications we’ve experienced over the half-year, this one ranks as possibly the most poignant.
Haley has been a part of TVUUC since she was a baby, crawling around on the table during the board meetings as we planned the new church more than a decade ago. She has been, over the years, remarkably patient, accompanying us in services and meetings that often weren’t entertaining or meaningful to her at her age and level of abilities.
Tonight, when we began to sing, I held the book up for her as I have taken to doing of late, and she sang. She couldn’t read the words, but by the second verse she had a rough approximation of the tune and she joined in, fitting whatever syllables she could create to the music we were making.
This isn’t rare for Haley. Like many people with cognitive disabilities, Haley’s musical wiring is much more complete than her “reading” circuits. At Carter Middle School she’s sung in the chorus for four years, thanks to the generosity and patience of the two women who teach chorus. Though it’s often discordant, Haley’s participation is taken for granted at concerts.
It went beyond that tonight. When we did the responsive readings, to make her feel included I again held out the hymnal, and to my surprise she began to speak. There were no recognizable words — she couldn’t intuit what the rest of us were saying fast enough to echo us — but she rose to the occasion and lent her own tongue to our voices. She wasn’t at all hesitant; she simply joined the people around her.
I awoke an hour ago thinking about that, about speaking in tongues, and Haley joining in, and I say to you, When we speak in love, every utterance, whatever it sounds like, is in the language of angels, which is our language.
Bill
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There is treasure everywhere —
we just haven’t found it yet.
Marshall Dockery
August 2008
In good spirit, let me express the opinion that this is not a good thing to emphasize for Quakerism. We have beautiful values to work towards. Being open to all people is certainly one of the most important ones. However, please, let’s put the emphasis on the entire group of vales, and not isolate this to mention.
Did I listen in tongues enough? Talking to is listening, then? Good.
Thanks for emphasizing the LISTENING.
The miracle of Pentacost was not so much that people “SPOKE in tongues,” but rather that–by the gift& work of the Holy Spirit–they were able to HEAR and understand and accept each other, across the linguistic and ethnic and cultural barriers.
This is precisely the Divine Blessing that I also have witnessed in and through FWCC.
Praise God through whom all blessings flow!
This selection had many very good thoughts. I was istracted, however, by the speaker’s ending many sentences and phrases in a “question” tone, i.e. on the upswing of pitch. It seems that with eh “question mode” she is not really sure of what she says. I will listen again and try to ignore what distracts me.