In our achievement-oriented culture, how do we make time to just be? For Stephanie Crumley-Effinger, our Quaker foremothers and forefathers have the answer.
Transcript:
There’s a quotation, I don’t know the source, but I’ve seen it on posters: “Don’t just do something, sit there.” It’s really hard to feel permission in our achievement-oriented culture not to be doing something every moment, not to be filling every day to the brink with activities that have some kind of tangible result. But one of the gifts of my later life is learning that stopping and being and listening and silencing the thoughts is foundational to faithful being and doing.
Making Space for Faith
I’m Stephanie Crumley-Effinger and I live in Richmond, Indiana. I’m a member at West Richmond Friends Meeting and have been most of my adult life, and I also serve as director of supervised ministry on the faculty of the Earlham School of Religion.
Our culture is very focused on accomplishment and busy-ness, achievement and doing. One of the gifts of the Religious Society of Friends, of Quakers, when we can remember it, is the invitation to be and not solely to do, and to have our doing arise from faithful being rather than just from our really good ideas.
A Discipline of Being Present
A discipline that I began some time ago is taking 20 minutes in the morning. I set the timer on my phone for 21 minutes to give myself some time to center into the 20 minutes, and just seek to focus on presence with God and try to let go of the thoughts that come—because they always do, thousands of them, I can’t believe how many thoughts can come in 20 minutes—and just to seek to be.
It feels so unproductive. I haven’t gotten anything done! I could use that 20 minutes to fold laundry, send email, work on the next project, grade the next paper, et cetera, et cetera, and to feel that big permission from my Quaker foremothers and forefathers and brothers and sisters that: no, being present with our teacher and guide is really important.
Renewing the Foundation
It’s not that I am there experiencing these great revelations and such. I’m trying to empty my mind of things. Sometimes there will be some kind of nudging toward something, but mostly it is like getting one’s balance after one has tripped a little bit or something like that. It’s not some big, wonderful, “Wow I spent this time with God and these are all the great things that happened.” It’s more a renewing the foundation for the rest.
Seeking to Be Available
Trying to value things that aren’t just accomplishment is another piece of pushing back against the American obsession with accomplishment and doing. It’s like spending time with a little kid, and not needing to be on my phone and sending email at the same time and such, but walking down the street and collecting the sticks, and noticing the pinecones and yeah.
But to be faithfully a Quaker means to take seriously that stopping, that “Don’t just do something, sit there,” and seek to be available. Not distracted with all the really good things that I can being doing and aim to do, and even sometimes do.
The views expressed in this video are of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Friends Journal or its collaborators.
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Discussion Questions:
- Stephanie says that when she sits in the morning for 20 minutes, she experiences a rush of thoughts about how unproductive she is being. What are some of the thoughts that enter your mind when you are trying to be still?
- Stephanie uses the example of spending time with a little kid for when she feels completely present. What are some examples of when you are able to lose track of your achievement orientation and just be?
This is, in my humble j(?) opinion, one of the bet videos you’ve ever produced. I played it twice and felt deeply calmed and comforted. I forwarded it to the attenders at the Grants Pass (OR) Worship Group.
Some of your films are so Christocentric or so theistic, I have trouble seeing the vision of the true universality of Friends, but this one IS universal and thus, very uuplifting.
A Native Elder I knew once said, “We are all human beings, not human doings”. His message, as I remember, was to BE with the spirit so we can BE what The Creator wants us to be.
Maybe I’m just extra-unproductive!
My custom is to spend an hour first thing in the morning being in The Presence. (It helps that I just naturally get up really, really early!) I ask about halfway through the hour that my loved ones each, by name, “receive everything they need” (and I include myself in that request). I purposely don’t get more specific in my requests, because God knows much better than I do what my loved ones (including me) need. I try to give God all the room God needs, to work in our lives. I use that same prayer for the problem-people in my life. I may feel someone needs a good spanking, but I try to leave God all the room God needs, with enemies as well as loved ones.
I realize I’m using “the G-word” a lot. Feel free to replace it with whatever word works for you. The main thrust of what I’m trying to share is that I try to make room for Whatever-You-Want-to-Call-It to work its miracles and mischief in its own way, and in its own time. It’s a policy I didn’t come to easily, but that’s where I am now.
I also do some thanking, both before my prayer for others and after. I have a lot to be thankful for. Among the things I am grateful for is that when I heard a Voice suggesting I stop praying for a year, in order to heal from the mental illness that manifested in hallucinations, I got better. It was actually more like 3 or 4 years before the hallucinations stopped entirely, but I had no difficulty making the choice to recommit to not praying. So nowadays, when I do pray regularly, it is very much with a thankful heart. I recently added it up: it’s been more than ten years since I’ve hallucinated. (How much more than ten is a number I’d count in days!!) I have reason to be thankful, and I certainly have reason to trust that Inner Voice.
This was SO wonderful! Stephanie E-C is one of the beautiful and calm souls at ESR. I almost went there for seminary and was so struck by her grace and peacefulness when I was visiting. How fabulous to know that her mind races just like mine when she tries to find quiet–you would NEVER guess that when you meet her! This was just lovely, and so nice to see an ESR person here 🙂 Thanks, Jon and crew!
I have paused the video…”One of the gifts of…Quakers – when we can remember it – is the invitation to be and not solely to do, and have our doing arise from faithful being rather than from just our really good ideas.”
Perfect message for me at the most perfect time…exactly what I needed to hear. I have grown away from my sitting practice – and many other habits that I had cultivated as well – with a move across the country. I have been telling myself that being in new surroundings, and learning the new pathways to new places for feeding, caretaking and nourishing myself, have made maintaining and/or re-establishing my old habits difficult.
I forget that sitting with God – or that which is of me and larger than me at the same time – with beauty, and “being,” is really at the crux of the matter. All of my “doing” can arise from my “faithfulness of being.”
Thank you. Much gratitude for all the videos – but especially for this one. I marvel at the many pieces that came together for this moment: locating the speaker, filming the speaker, the speaker’s message , editing the film, and me waking up on this morning, at this time, needing to hear this message, right now, and here it is.
I am a Lucky Duck.
Friend speaks my mind. And my heart. And my body. And my ministry. Thank you, Stephanie, for such gentle clarity and strength. It’s not easy being a human. These practices help. They are in fact the ground of our being, as you say. It is crucial to slow down, show up, turn inward, and be with. Abiding, available, awake.
I liked the simple, straightforward message of the video ‘take time to just be’ – and I found the comments very helpful. I am a Quaker in the UK and currently doing the course ‘Equipping for Ministry’ (a 2-year course of Britain Yearly Meeting). One of our tutors recommended the video.
I am minded of a most wonderful quote from my wife years ago. we were in a church and the preacher was preaching from the old hymn Sweet Hour of Prayer and he asked, what could you ever think of to talk to God for a whole hour? To which my wife responded. What makes you think that you need to do all the talking.