Life Lessons from a Bad Quaker: A Humble Stumble Toward Simplicity and Grace

Life Lessons from a Bad Quaker

Life Lessons from a Bad Quaker

Title Page

Copyright Page

life lessons from a bad quaker

A HUMBLE STUMBLE TOWARD SIMPLICITY AND GRACE

Copyright © 2016 by J. Brent Bill

All rights reserved.

No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission can be addressed to Permissions, The United Methodist Publishing House, 2222 Rosa L. Parks Blvd., P.O. Box 280988, Nashville, TN, 37228-0988 or e-mailed to permissions@umpublishing.org.

Macro Editor: Holly Halverson

Published in association with Books & Such Literary Agency

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bill, J. Brent, 1951-

Life lessons from a bad Quaker : a humble stumble toward simplicity and grace / J. Brent Bill.—First [edition].

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-63088-131-3 (binding: soft back) 1. Society of Friends. 2. Conduct of life. I. Title.

BX7731.3.B55 2016

248.4'896—dc23

2015026963

All scripture quotations unless noted otherwise are taken from the Common English Bible. Copyright © 2011 by the Common English Bible. All rights reserved. Used by permission. www.ComonEnglishBible.com.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. All rights reserved throughout the world. Used by permission of International Bible Society.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from The Authorized (King James) Version. Rights in the Authorized Version in the United Kingdom are vested in the Crown. Reproduced by permission of the Crown’s patentee, Cambridge University Press.

The story on page 15 is from a conversation with Doug Pagitt. Used with permission of Doug Pagitt.

The excerpt on page 103 is from an e-mail exchange with Katherine Murray. Used with permission of Katherine Murray.

The excerpt on page 104 is from an e-mail exchange with Eileen Flanagan. Used with permission of Eileen Flanagan.

The excerpt on page 113 is from Gretta Stone, The Foxy George Song, copyright 2002. Used with permission of Gretta Stone.

Dedication Page

To Lil Copan

An honorary Bad Friend

and great friend

Contents

Contents

Introduction

1. Just Be Quiet: Stillness for Those Too Busy to Sit Still

2. World at War: Forget the Middle East—How Do I Get Along with My Family, Coworkers, and Annoying Neighbors?

3. To Buy or Not to Buy: Living Simply When I’d Really Like a New Mercedes—Or Even a Honda!

4. Red and Yellow, Black and White, They Are Precisious in His Sight–um, Perhaps My Vision Needs Checking

5. Truth Be Told: Integrity in an Often Duplicitous World

6. God’s Good Green Earth: The Call to Care for Creation

7. Walking Cheerfully: A Little Levity Never Hurt Anybody (Well, Except for That one Guy)

8. Closing Deep Thoughts . . . And a Word on Fashion

Appendix 1: Humble Stumble Hymnbook: Spiritual Songs for Imperfect Saints

Appendix 2: The Good, the Bad, and the Quakers

Appendix 3: Wanna Learn More?

Appendix 4: Some Good Advices: Friendly Food for Faith and Thought

Appendix 5: How to Talk Quaker

Acknowledgments

Notes

About Brent

Introduction

Introduction

Nothing Is Better for Thee Than We. That was the tagline to an ad I wrote when I was a young hotshot denominational executive out to singlehandedly revive Quakerism. It was a play on Quaker Oats motto at the time—Nothing is better for thee than me. The ad also featured a row of Quaker Oats boxes sitting above the words These aren’t the only Quakers in town. I’d show it to you except that I can’t. For reasons you’ll soon discover.

It was pretty clever, if I do say so myself. Another one of my oh-so-quirky ads featured an old broad-brim hat and the words, Quakers aren’t old hat. A third one had pictures of a car and horse and buggy inviting the reader to Check the latest in Quaker transportation. All firmly tongue-in-cheek, they gave a bit of information about us and invited people to visit their local groups.

Why was reviving Quakerism important to me? Because the Quaker way saved my life.

I grew up in the Religious Society of Friends, as Quakers are formally known. I didn’t fully choose it as my spiritual path, though, until I was a college student. Even though I was an art major, I took lots of religion classes—including ones about Quakerism. Through those classes, the books assigned, and a kind, fierce, funny professor who became one of my mentors, I encountered a way of faith and life that spoke to my heart and soul. I found a faith path that worked for me.

This peculiar (and I do mean peculiar) faith provided me with tools I needed to live well. Well, at least better. As a guy whose brain was full of chattering monkeys constantly swinging from one tree limb of thought to the next, it taught me stillness. As a hothead (just ask any of the umpires or referees from hundreds of softball and basketball games I played or coached in), I slowly learned the way of peace. This faith tradition and its practices brought out my best, helped me work on my worst, and fed my soul.

Not that it made me perfect. As a young adult when I worked on those ads, I couldn’t brook any criticism. I was too arrogant for my own good. My marriage was falling apart. I was a real stinker. Still, I’d have been an even bigger stinker if I hadn’t been a Quaker. If it helped me that much, maybe it would help others, too.

Soon, those ads began attracting attention. Local newspapers and television stations called for interviews. They found something novel in the idea that Quakers advertised. That and they discovered we had a sense of humor, too. My odd little advertising story was picked up by the wire news services and went national.

I was pretty pleased with my humble self.

Then came a thick envelope from a Chicago law firm. As I read the letter inside, I soon saw that it came from an attorney representing the Quaker Oats Company. In legal but clear language, he told me to knock off any use of photographs of Quaker Oats boxes, facsimiles of Quaker Oats boxes, cartoons of Quaker Oats boxes, my kids’ drawings of Quaker Oats boxes . . . you get the idea. Also to quit using variations of the Nothing is better for thee than me. Or else what? I wondered. The or else became clear: they’d sue me down to my little Quaker grey socks.

After composing a number of witty rejoinders and tearing them up, I pulled the Quaker Oats–related ads. I was arrogant, but not stupid. Quaker Oats Sues Quaker sounded like a great David and Goliath story—but this David had neither slingshot nor very deep pockets.

That was thirty years ago. A lot has changed. I’m no longer young. I’m a bit less arrogant. Instead of being a hotshot denominational executive, I’m better known in Friends circles as the cofounder of the Association of Bad Friends on Facebook. It’s a humorous site for folks who are just not very good at being Quaker—folks who aren’t always peaceable, humble, kind, loving, truthful, and all the other spiritual qualities for which Friends are known. If, that is, anybody even knows us at all.

I’m not just a bad Quaker, either. I’m a bad Christian, too. As my friend Diana Butler Bass reported in A People’s History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story: ‘When someone asks me what kind of Christian I am,’ says Brent Bill, a Quaker writer, ‘I say I’m a bad one.’ He goes on to say, ‘I’ve got the belief part down pretty well, I think. It’s in the practice of my belief in everyday life where I often miss the mark.’

Now I’m not proud that I’m a bad Quaker. But I don’t deny it. True, it’s probably not the smartest thing for a guy who writes books about spirituality to admit. So you need to understand that by bad, I don’t mean evil. I don’t have a bunch of bodies stashed in my trunk. I haven’t robbed any banks. I have shot people (more about that later). When I say bad, I mean I’m just bad at being good. Bad despite more than sixty years of attending Sunday school, worship services, summer camps, revivals, prayer meetings, retreats, workshops, religious colleges, seminary; being a pastor; reading spiritual books, writing spiritual books, and memorizing Bible verses. I stumble a lot!

But I’m better than I was. As I said earlier, that’s thanks to things I’ve learned following the Quaker way of living out being a friend of Jesus (I call you friends). It has helped me grow more into the person God and I want me to be. I’m a pilgrim, stumbling along the path toward grace and into the eternal presence of God.

For me, the lessons I’ve learned whilst on this humble stumble have helped me weave, with Divine assistance, a sort of protective covering for my life. Yeah, that sounds pretty strange—and nowhere close to Paul’s full armor of God. But hey, I’m already pretty warlike at times. So while Paul’s armor analogy is a good, strong one, I need one that’s gentler. One that teaches me the grace of God. Besides, armor has to be custom fitted and ready to put on before it’s any good and I’m not much of a metal smith (just ask my seventh-grade shop teacher). But if I’m weaving a tapestry of listening to God, practicing peace and stillness, loving all, taking care of the earth, and extending equality, I find myself acquiring (in a good kind of acquisition) the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against things like this. These form a tapestry that I can drape over me, even if it’s not completely finished.

While spiritual stillness, peace, equality, community, et al., are not uniquely Quaker, the Friends have a unique take on them. I have learned that growing deep in the life of the Spirit doesn’t take me out of the life I’m living. Instead, its spiritual tools and practices show me how to live better in this world—better for the world and for me. Through this unique take, I’ve learned a thing or three. Take peace, for example. It once was, for me, a theological idea and a spiritual ideal. Now the Quaker spin on peace as a matter of faith and daily living has transformed me from a mere believer in peace to a practitioner of peace. Except when someone cuts me off on the freeway. I’m still working on that.

I’m not the only one. Dame Judi Dench (star of screen and stage) was recently interviewed on British television. The interviewer asked, Are you still a Quaker? Has it informed you? Are you a ‘peacenik’? She replied, Yes. I think it informs everything I do. . . . I wouldn’t be without it.

I wouldn’t be without it either. Like Judi and me (all of us Friends are on a first-name basis, you know. That’s why we’re called Friends. Ha!), you may find the Quaker take on these familiar faith concepts and how to live them helpful, too.

I’m not trying to turn you into a Quaker. Not even a bad one, like me. You’re welcome to remain the bad Episcopalian, bad Presbyterian, bad United Methodist, bad Anything, or bad Nothing you want to be. But just maybe what this bad Friend has learned will help a bit along your own humble stumble toward grace.

God knows I needed it.

I still do!

1. Just Be Quiet: Stillness for Those Too Busy to Sit Still

Chapter 1

Just Be Quiet

Stillness for Those Too Busy to Sit Still

There is a quiet, open place in the depths of the mind, to which we can go many times in the day and lift up our soul in praise, thankfulness and conscious unity. With practise his God-ward turn of the mind becomes an almost constant direction, underlying all our other activities.

—Kenneth Boulding

Words may help and silence may help, but the one thing needful is that the heart should turn to its Maker as the needle turns to the pole. For this we must be still.

—Caroline Stephen

Listen carefully to what I am about to tell you.

—Jesus

Shut up, he explained.

—Ring Lardner

I’m not good at being quiet. There. Got that out of the way. People assume that, since I’m a lifelong Quaker, I must have some genetic bent for staying silent—silence being a hallmark of Friends worship and witness, after all.

In fact, since I’m confessing to my badness, I may as well admit that when I first started writing this chapter, I opened a blank document—and iTunes. Stumble!

I live in the land of sound. I like it. When I built my house, I wired it for music and movie dialogue. When I bought my latest car, it came with AM, FM, satellite radio, a CD player, and a woman who reminds me when it’s time to get my oil changed. No, not my wife, Nancy, but some other woman who lives in my dashboard and tells me what to do. And who is always right. Hmmm, maybe she is some relation to Nancy!

When I climb on my John Deere to mow between the rows of trees we planted to reforest the lower field and filter chemical runoff from farms around us, I put on ear protectors to keep out the droning diesel. Underneath the ear protectors, though, I usually slip a set of earbuds. I could go on, but you get the idea. In fact, you may live the idea. My life with sound might mirror yours.

I like my tunes, NPR talk radio, television shows. I also like bird song, urban noise, conversations, overheard conversations (bad!), and more. I fill my life with a fury of sound that signifies something: I just don’t know how to be still.

Well, actually, I do. I just avoid it. Even though I know better. Now I’m not talking about the kind of quiet that my parents, grandparents, sisters, friends, bosses, neighbors, strangers on a plane, and others have been urging me to be. I’m talking about how to be deeply