Leaning In and Letting Go
Prepared message given as part of Three Rivers worship on Zoom
11 March 2021
One of the traditions I grew up with in Young Friends was people sharing parts of their spiritual journeys before worship or to ground worship, and so that's a piece of what I'm going to do. The other thing that I'm going to be doing simultaneously is talking a little bit about a piece of ministry I was recently called to. And one of the foundations that we are trying to build into Three Rivers is a more active and experimental approach to how we support and engage with ministry. And so the ministry I'm going to be talking about his ministry that you all had in your care and supported. And so this is a piece of that work of how do we talk about ministry, how do we claim ministry, how do we hold ministry, and how does it flow out and then flow back to us.
So two years ago, I was led to bring a message to New England Yearly Meeting that helped us connect some of the dots between different things we had been talking about. That, for several years, we have been acknowledging that we wanted to address racism and white supremacy in some deeper and bigger ways; that we were concerned about the climate crisis; and most recently that we have begun to step into the work of repairing our relationship with Native peoples on whose lands we reside and played a role in the colonization, both historically and currently. And in that piece I connected the dots under the system of Empire, all the ways that the world has taught us we must have domination and control over others.
A few months ago, Callid brought a message to us that talked about early Friends’ framing of the same issue of the seed of Christ, of that which is within us that is whole and holy and pure and divine; and the seed of the serpent, the ways that temptation and the world draw us away from that center of wholeness and holiness. And that in early Friends’ understanding, the seed of Christ or the seed of the Divine was immutable, it just was. And that the seed of the serpent was an active force, and our daily job, our daily active faithfulness, was to work against the seed of the serpent. I really like snakes, so I'm going to refer to the seed of Empire from here on out. And that really really spoke to me, both in my lived experience, and what I saw us as Friends in the Yearly meeting seeking to do, that there is the center of wholeness and holiness that we are drawn to. And there are ways, that even as we collectively minute our desire to move to that center, the ways that we have been acculturated by Empire, the ways we have become comfortable with our privileges, the ways that we have been unaware of how we participate in Empire, pulls us back from that center, in resistance, in disagreement, and fear. And I can feel that in myself.
And one of the ways that I know that shows up in me is in a need to control. And some of my need to control comes out of the ways that I have survived different trauma in my life. Some of that need to control comes out of the different privileges I have and the comfort I have with getting to be in control. Some of that need of control comes out of fear: I want you to see me a certain way, as good, as righteous. And some of that need for control comes out of anxiety about what would happen if I released that control. None of that control is faithful, all of that control is the seed of Empire, and it keeps me away from leaning into the center of wholeness and holiness.
And so when Jen, who's on this call, invited me to bring some kind of an offering through the Beacon Hill Friends House this year, I knew I wanted to continue this work of looking at how do we connect the different pieces we have said yes to. And so I knew I wanted it to be about white supremacy and climate change and reparations, and we were going to do all that in four sessions. And as I sat with this, I couldn't figure out how to do it, because each one of those topics is bigger than 90 minutes, is bigger than a session, is bigger than two months. And I could feel and notice the ways my need to control was rising up. What did I want Friends to know, what was the piece we had to teach, what was the stuff we had to do, and get through?
And as I sat with that, I realized all of that was about my need to control, my desire to want the narrative to go a certain way, my vision for what I thought we should be doing. And it was not grounded. And so I let go of it. And I said what if I released that any particular Friend would know any particular thing about any of these particular topics. And instead, what if what we offered was process: that people could choose their own topics, could focus on one thing or all the things, but that what we would share was process.
And the other piece of control I let go was that I had to do it by myself. Jen is an incredible partner and stepped up over and over again. I reached out to several friends, some of whom I had not talked with in years, or knew only a little bit, and some said yes. And what they brought was bigger and richer than anything I could have offered on my own. I don't always like to facilitate with other people. I'm very picky about that. And so I said yes to working with people I had never facilitated with before, and that we would do that over Zoom with 80 people on a call.
There were so many pieces I had to release and let go of. And what I also was able to let go of, because everybody else was saying yes and leaning in, was that any one thing would happen, that the course would go any particular way, that people would have any particular experience. And what I saw is people picking up on that energy and leaning in. So people who initially found our technology platform too overwhelming and said they were going to leave, stayed. People who I never thought I would hear talk about their own internal transformation not only did so, but did so in a vulnerable way in front of many other people. That collectively we let go of whatever it was that we were ready to let go of that was holding us back. And I saw us lean in, over and over and over again.
That work is never going to be done — early Friends were right, it is a daily practice — but when we do it together, I can let go more fully. And I can more fully feel that center of wholeness and holiness that is calling us.
