Stretch Out Your Hands

by Maurine Pyle (WCTS, May, 2004)

For several years I rented a bedroom in my condominium to a boarder. Todd wasn’t just any old boarder. I had met him at our Quaker meeting one Sunday morning where he had gone seeking solace for his troubles. Somehow his life got tangled up with mine. That is how God does it. A simple hello eventually leads to someone living in your back bedroom. What brought Todd eventually to my door was a deep desire for spiritual direction, something he had longed for all of his life. I became his guide and mentor for three years while he struggled.

One night at the dinner table as we were enjoying his good home cooking, I noticed that he was very sad, more sad than usual. When I inquired, he told me his friend Betty, an Internet buddy from Colorado, was quite ill with breast cancer. I suggested that we sit and pray for Betty after dinner.

As we entered into silence I immediately and clearly heard a word­—fragrance. I held onto this word until our meditation had ended. I knew exactly where to go next – Song of Songs, Chapter 1. Although I rarely touch this book of the Bible, I quickly found the verse I was looking for: “When your name is spoken aloud, it is like a spreading perfume. I told Todd that this was a message for Betty. He was used to my odd intuitive ways so he immediately went to send her an email message. Her reply came in an instant: “Bless Maurine. That quotation was cross-stitched by a friend of mine and sits framed on my mantle next to my children’s pictures.”

How did I know? I did not know. I am willing to bear a message and this one was stunningly specific. What did it mean? To me it meant God was sending a direct blessing to Betty to comfort her. I was simply the messenger.

In the Book of John 21: 18 Jesus says to Peter, “I tell you solemnly as a young man, you fastened your best and went about as you pleased. But when you are older you will stretch out your hands and another will tie you fast and carry you off against your will.” Afterwards, Jesus said, “Follow me.”

I first stretch out my hands and then I follow where I am led. That is how some miracles are worked.

Maurine Pyle, Lake Forest Friends Meeting, Illinois, is a servant leader, otherwise known as clerk, of Illinois Yearly Meeting.

Tribute to Maurine Pyle

As a tribute to Maurine Pyle, since June 27th What Canst Thou Say? has been posting contributions that Maurine made to our Quaker mystical journal. Below is the announcement of her passing on May 21st, 2022. A Memorial Service will be held September 24th at 11 Central in SIUC Center, Carbondale IL. It will also be on Facebook, but a link cannot be in a post. The link was sent to our WCTS Google Group. Email judylumb@yahoo.com for more information.

Please join us in holding our beloved member, Maurine Pyle, in the light. Maurine passed away on May 21, 2022, at her assisted living facility in Terre Haute, Indiana. Sage Moffett, together with their spouse, Logan Elisha Plummer, have been the local friend and loving caregiver to Maurine since Maurine moved to Terre Haute. Sage held her hand and spoke words of comfort to Maurine as she passed. Friends Dawn Crimson and Tom Hensold had visited Maurine recently, as had her sons, Nick Pyle and Ned Pyle and a number of friends from Carbondale, Illinois, where Maurine lived until her move to Terre Haute.

  Maurine was a member and recorded minister of Southern Illinois Quaker Meeting. Before transferring her membership to Southern Illinois Quaker Meeting, she was a member of Lake Forest Meeting. She served in many roles in the broader Quaker community, including as Clerk and then Field Secretary of ILYM. She had also delivered the Plummer Lecture at ILYM Annual Sessions in 1998.

She had, many years ago, executed a “Five Wishes” document in which she stated, among other things, that, “I wish for my family and friends to know that I do not fear death itself. I think it is not the end, but a new beginning for me…I wish for my family and friends to look at my dying as a time of personal growth for everyone, including me.” She asked to be remembered “as a peacemaker, a follower of Jesus and [as] a loving family member and friend.”

Jill Adam
Clerk, Southern Illinois Quaker Meeting

The Women under the Cross

by Maurine Pyle (WCTS, November, 2007)

A great crowd of people followed him, including women who beat their breasts and lamented over him. Jesus turned to them and said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me. Weep for yourselves and for your children. …” —St. Luke 23:27 As a Catholic child I made the stations of the cross in a darkened, incense-scented church, pausing at each picture of the passion to pray for Jesus. His suffering, pain and death were imprinted on my child heart. There were others also pictured whose grieving faces will never leave my memory—the women.

Among them were his mother Mary and Mary Magdalene, his disciple—the two women closest to him during his lifetime. At the time of his death they drew near to share his pain.

As a mother, I know that my deepest pain is witnessing my child’s suffering—whatever that might be. Yet, Jesus’ mother Mary stood at a distance to witness her son’s brutally slow death. All through the day he was dying, pulling up against the nails of the cross to catch a suffocating breath. How could she bear witness?

There upon the cross hangs my child. Who could have foretold such agony for a mother? To see her baby suffering such a painfully slow death. I cradled him in my arms, swaddled him, taught him. Joseph and I secreted him out of the land of Herod during the holocaust of innocent children. We, his parents, were his basket of reeds.

How my heart ached when he was lost at age twelve on a trip to Jerusalem. I searched the caravan frantically for him, asking each person, “Have you seen Jesus? Have you seen my boy?” After three days of desperately searching, we found him in the temple speaking with the rabbis. We asked, “Son, why have you done this to us?” He replied that he was doing his Father’s business, and we should not be troubled about him. It was then that I first knew that he belonged not only to me, but to God.

Later when he became a man, I began to fear for his sanity. For long periods he would go into the desert alone, in total fasting and prayer. His brothers and I went searching for him when we heard of his madness. He claimed to be a prophet! As we approached the small house where he was visiting, we saw it was filled with people and a great crowd surrounded it. I sent word to him that his mother and brothers were outside waiting. He answered, “Who is my mother and who are my brothers? Whosoever does the will of the Father is brother and sister and mother to me.”

My child hangs upon a cross. I stand beside him in his hour of pain. Once they called him the son of Mary. Now he is called the son of man.

Standing nearby is Mary Magdalene. Magdalene, who is called a whore, has been rejected throughout the ages, but was actually a disciple of the Christ. Her many sins were forgiven because of her great love for him. Magdalene remained with Jesus while most of the other disciples ran to hide in their fear. She witnessed her beloved master writhing upon a cross. She comforted him by her faithfulness.

I have followed you from Galilee, Master. In this land of men I have been a slave. Yet you recognized me as a person and raised me up from the dust. You freed me. My sins you did not overlook—you counted every one of them. You healed me and forgave me—you loved me. No threats can separate me from you in this hour. I am without fear because you are near. Through your tender mercy, I learned of God’s faithful love. Blessed are your words which fell upon my wounded heart. Blessed is the womb that bore you. You are the Christ, the messenger, the son of God….

We women do not turn our faces away from suffering. Life comes into the world by our bodies, by our willingness to bear the pain for a worthy cause. Life leaves the earth with the sound of our weeping. We are weeping for our children, as Jesus knew we would. We are weeping for ourselves.

The strong women under the cross are symbols of the powerful and loving Mother-God. If a man died on the cross and saved the world by his weakness, the women beneath him bore witness in their loving strength. Gathered here beneath the cross, we weep God’s tears for his people.

Maurine Pyle is a member of Lake Forest (IL) Monthly Meeting, soon to be Friend in Residence in Urbana-Champaign (IL) Monthly Meeting. She is Field Secretary for Illinois Yearly Meeting.

Saying Yes, While Living into the Calling

by Maurine Pyle (WCTS, February, 2008)

I had been meditating in the evening, as was my custom, when suddenly a vision overcame me. I found myself kneeling with the women at the foot of the cross. There were the three Marys, the daughters of Rachel, weeping over their lost child. Slowly I lifted my eyes expecting to see the broken, dying body of Jesus, the symbol of my Catholic childhood. Instead I witnessed a bright light, more luminous and encompassing than anything I had ever experienced. In that single moment my heart was transformed by the great love of Jesus. I feel that I was given a momentary glimpse of the Divine in full glory. I knew that Jesus was indeed the Christ. All my doubts ceased. For the first time, in that moment of pure ecstasy, I became a Christian.

Not long after the vision occurred, I heard the Voice speaking to me again, this time with an insistent and clear message: “Record your ministry.” I did not understand what the message meant, and for a long time I ignored it. As far as I knew, under Quaker practice everyone has the ability and responsibility to minister. When the Voice would not relent, I turned to my elder Allie Walton for clarification. She explained to me that the recording of ministry was an ancient practice which had been laid down by most Friends meetings. In earlier times it had been the way for Friends to acknowledge and recognize special spiritual gifts, particularly those of public ministers. Recording offered a process for holding ministers accountable by providing elders to support and guide them in their work.

Notwithstanding the historical precedent, she took my leading seriously and insisted on forming a clearness committee to consider it with other elders from Lake Forest Friends Meeting. After we met for careful consideration of my concern, the committee agreed that I should first present my leading to the meeting. I felt that I had no choice but to follow their direction, and even though I was scared, I was committed. I knew that the meeting would have to struggle with my request.

The process of hearing my leading engaged the entire community for over a year (1984). I endured criticism, intense questioning and even a few direct attacks. My request had apparently reopened the wounds of those who had rejected Jesus—“the victims of Christian malpractice” as Dan Seeger has called them. In the latter part of the 20th century, Quaker communities have attracted renegades from many faiths who were wounded or disappointed by their childhood faith communities. Many of them are Christians. These people who heard me witnessing for Jesus, while at the same time making a claim to a vocation in ministry, were deeply unhappy. For a while I was definitely persona non grata. I asked God repeatedly to release me from this painful duty, but the message I received was “Accept this time of sacrifice and you will be rewarded later.”

One experience particularly stands out in my memory. The business meeting had called a threshing session to give the entire community an opportunity to focus on my leading. As I scanned the room, I noted that a psychologist was present. My first thought was that he had been asked to check the sanity of a woman who hears voices. Mystics can be easily psychologized these days. This was a tense occasion for me. I wanted nothing more than to hide away and never see these people again.

And yet there were times of acceptance of this cross I carried, accompanied by a deep peace. I told them the story of the guidance to record my ministry. It wasn’t hard because I had already related it to many people in the room before. There was silence and then someone responded. It was a young Evangelical Quaker who chanced to be visiting us that day. I never forgot his words. He said, “If we feel Maurine’s calling is genuine, we should write it on our hearts, affirm it with our lips, and rejoice with her.” I wept, moved by his words. To this day I believe he was an angel sent to comfort and encourage me.

A few weeks later the clerk approached me to say that the business meeting could not reach a sense of the meeting regarding my request. I told her that I felt the recording had already taken place since I had done as St. Paul advised, “I will announce your name to my brothers. I will sing your praise in the midst of the assembly. I will put my trust in him” (Hebrews 2: 12-13). After all, recording of ministry was simply meant to be an acknowledgment of the call by placing one’s ministry under the care and guidance of the meeting. I had accomplished recording my ministry. The next step would be to find spiritual guides. That process has taken many years because we have all needed to learn how to guide one another. I still walk this path, less lonely, less afraid. The calling has been proven as genuinely from God. Doubts may still linger, yet my ministry is recorded on the hearts of many.

Maurine Pyle identifies herself as “the Quaker Hobo.” Hobos differentiate themselves as travelers who are homeless and willing to do work, whereas a “tramp” travels but will not work and a “bum” does neither. (From Wikipedia)

A Narrow Way

By Maurine Pyle (WCTS, August 2010)

In 1978 I was attending a worship-sharing group at Baltimore Yearly Meeting. The query was this: If you could ask God any question, what would it be? Immediately I asked, “What should I be doing with my life?” In response I received my first leading. The message was, Look to your husband’s needs. I was shocked because I knew I had not been doing that. My selfish inner reply was, “What about me?” But I knew that God was making a request of me, and I needed to take it seriously, if I ever intended to call myself a spiritual person. So I asked my husband a question when I returned home. ”If I could give you any gift, what would it be?” His answer was immediate. He wanted to return to his hometown in Illinois. I felt my heart sink, as I knew that was the last thing I wanted to do. I had known from the beginning that if we ever lived near his family, it would threaten our relationship. But God had spoken, so we set out on our journey of suffering. Years afterward, my marriage faltered and failed. God had set before me a narrow way of obedience. I continue to walk it faithfully, not always understanding the reason why.

Maurine Pyle is the former Field Secretary of Illinois Yearly Meeting. She is a member of Southern Illinois Quaker Meeting, Carbondale.

Listening at St. Julian’s Window

by Maurine Pyle (WCTS, November, 2015)

Lately all I do all day long is pray.
I don’t mean to, but that is what I do.
A task is begun and then set aside
when God comes over me like a silken mantle saying,
“Come away with me for a while.”
My prayers can be intentional when a friend drops by
or calls to ask me to pray or a family member is in
trouble and needs attention.
But mostly, like St. Julian, I sit at my window alone
and wait for a call to pray.

Maurine Pyle is known as the Quaker Hobo, as she does not
own a car and accepts rides from friends and strangers alike,
listening to their stories along the way. Her home is in Southern
Illinois, and she often roams around the world of Friends
answering that of God in everyone.
(This poem is offered as an antidote to the theme of evil. It
is lovely and speaks so well to our condition that it couldn’t
be ignored. —Editors)

Where Have the Kids Gone?

Maurine Pyle (WCTS, November, 2014)

I am a traveling minister, which brings me into close contact with many kinds of Quakers. These days I am observing in many Quaker meetings and churches many older folks on Sunday but very few kids and parents.

Where did they go? As an interfaith activist in my small town in southern Illinois, I also notice that liberal Christian churches are asking this same question. We find here that the Muslim kids are going to the mosque, the African-American kids are filling the benches, but there is a vacancy sign hanging out (metaphorically speaking) in many Christian churches.

A few months ago, I visited a lovely old Quaker meeting in Western Yearly Meeting. When the pastor came down to offer the children’s sermon, there were only elderly elders in the congregation. Where were the kids? I have something to say about this which may surprise even the most hardened atheists among us; namely, that there are still spiritually motivated parents out there and children who could be taught in our Sunday schools, but the word Christian is no longer a “nice word,” so they are avoiding church.

In my own meeting awhile back, when I was teaching the youngest group of three early elementary school children, I asked them who Jesus was. One little boy cheerfully volunteered an answer, “Jesus is a curse word.” That was all he knew about that subject.

We appear to have a language problem, especially among young parents. I learned this when I did a linguistic study on Quaker metaphorical speech. I interviewed six Quakers of different theological or non-theistic stripes, asking, “Would you call yourself a Christian?” I heard over and over that they did not want to be referred to with the name “Christian.” Even the ones who say they are Christian in their beliefs wanted to avoid this word like it was the plague. But they still acted like Christians and had a high regard for Jesus or the Christ Light. They simply did not want their religious practice to be confused with politically conservative Christians.

The politicization of Christianity in recent decades has driven many people away from church and the gospels. My research indicates that many Quakers feel the same way as the little boy. So today if your religious group is part of a Christian sect, then it could be viewed as an unpopular brand by the Millennials. Buddhism, but not the gospels, is very popular among post-Christians. What are we to do?

Some non-denominational churches are rebranding themselves with cool monikers like The View, The Vine or Destiny. Hard to argue with that language. Does Christian mean your religious group hates gay people or believes that marriage is sanctified only between a man and woman? There are many choices on the menu, but if you think Christian means only vanilla, then Buddhism is way cooler. In my neighborhood we have a UCC church that hosts a Gay Pride Picnic once a year. They have gay members actively serving this Christian church. I went to the picnic and saw drag queens performing on the lawn. Does this fit your stereotype of Christian?

I don’t have the solution—just a few queries to get us off the dime. In my research I began by asking questions of six different Quakers, and then I listened deeply to their answers. For some folks, it was an invitation to share their hurt feelings from their church or family of origin. That can provide a good starting point for deeper conversation. If we want to invite the kids back to meeting or church, we first need to ask kids and parents where they came from, where they are going and how we might help them and their kids get to the destination. The healing begins when stories are invited  and listened to deeply without judgment. I know that when I first arrived at Quaker meeting in 1975, I was an angry immigrant from Catholicism. Some wise Quaker elders listened to my pain until I could let it go. Then I found a home among Friends that has lasted a lifetime.

Maurine Pyle was called by a vision to ministry among Friends in 1998 and was recorded in ministry by Southern Illinois Quaker Meeting in Carbondale. She recently finished her master’s thesis on Quaker use of metaphor, then and now. She is writing a book about young Quakers’ experiences of Quaker metaphors like “Light and Dark”, and “As Way Opens”.

God’s Rest Awaits Thee

Maurine Pyle (WCTS, May 2016)

 Some life lessons may appear in the simplest forms and yet imprint indelible marks in the mind. Such a memorable experience came my way during my freshman English class when my teacher introduced me to Walden by Henry David Thoreau. I had never met him before. She invited us to accept an assignment, guided by Thoreau, “to live one day deliberately.” Looking back, I can only recall that I moved throughout my day with intention rather than by habit. Did I really change anything about my patterns? Yes, I was invited into God’s rest and accepted the invitation. As you can see, that one day has been etched in memory, not because of anything I did, but for what I did not do. My entrance into my practice began on that day of what I now call the Sabbath-rest. For the first time I was called by God to lay aside my daily agenda, and thus create a space to allow my life to slow down—so I could see it.

As Abraham Heschel reminds us in his quintessential book titled The Sabbath:

Creating holiness in time requires a different sensibility than building a cathedral in space. We must conquer space in order to sanctify time.

Another source of wisdom for me has been reading and rereading the Letter to the Hebrews in the back of my Bible. I often turn to it for a restoration of my perspective.

To whom but to the disobedient did he swear that they would never enter into his rest. We see, moreover, that it was that disbelief that kept them from entering. (Hebrews 3:18)

This anonymous writer is retelling the story of the desert times when the Hebrews were invited into God’s rest and had refused the invitation. They had other more important things to do like complaining, creating an idol of gold and not making time for prayer. Does this sound familiar to you?

I practice taking a day off now and then from my many ego-centered activities. By setting aside time to reflect on what I am doing, I allow myself to review my habitual behaviors and reconsider them. In doing so I am making more eternal space by sorting out the laundry of my life into piles of their importance or triviality. Sometimes this occurs quite naturally, when a powerful pulling feeling comes over me, calling me to stop what I am doing and to enter into a prayerful receptive state. Often a name or thought will come to mind in this compelling silence. Fingering a string of sandalwood prayer beads, I breathe in and out in a measured way. Breathing in the confusion, sadness or anger of the world and breathing out peace with each intake and release.

I believe that God keeps offering us the invitation to enter into his rest.

“So then, a sabbath rest still remains for the people of God; for those who enter God’s rest also cease from their labors as God did from his. Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one may fall through such disobedience as theirs.” (Hebrews 4:9-11)

We only need to turn around to find that joy and peace abounds within us, and the kingdom is truly near at hand. As a reminder to myself of this prin­ciple, I have chosen the email moniker of “metanoia.maurine” which puzzles many people. What does that mean, they ask me often. Metanoia, a Greek word that early Christians were fond of using, has multiple interpretations – repentance, transformation, change. But my favorite meaning is “turning around.”

So when Jesus offers to me this invitation,

“Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest a while (Mark 6:31),”

I try to turn my life around and answer yes.

Maurine Pyle has been allowing God to push her around for quite a while now. She is on call as a traveling minister among the many branches of Friends, and says that Southern Illinois is her home where around town she is known as the Quaker Hobo.

A Visitation from Mother Mary

by Maurine Pyle (WCTS February 2017)

But when my Mary passes in the blue gown

With the light falling down,

Yes, when my Mary passes, I will follow, yes.

—Lyric by Krista Detor

There is one traveling ministry visit which I have never fully understood. After the Iron Curtain fell, I was called to visit St. Petersburg Russia in 1997. My mission seemed clear enough then, to attend an international peace conference as a teacher of peace with an intention about bringing some light to the conflict with the Russians. As a child growing up during the Cold War in Louisiana, we were carefully taught to hate and fear the godless Russians. I admit to being a little afraid when my leading was to confront evil people directly. Being faithful, I agreed but I was unsure of my actual purpose in going there. And for years afterward, I have remained mysti­fied. What was my mission? Sometimes a leading can take years to give evidence to the world. I often do not understand why God has called me into a place, but I faithfully follow. Here is what I wrote about that trip when I was asked to give the Plummer Lecture on my spiritual journey one year later at our yearly meeting:

Among our Russian students were two women named Luda and Tatiana, who fell in love with Sharon (my travel partner). They were constantly coming by our dorm room to ask her out for a walk. I used to tease Sharon because she does not speak Russian, and they spoke little English. “What on earth do you say to them?” I queried. She just smiled mys­teriously. Clearly, they were engaging in spirit talk, which is universal. On the day we were leaving, Luda came to give Sharon a good-bye gift. It was a silver ring in the shape of a serpent. Luda told her that the serpent is the symbol of wisdom and that she was giving the ring to Sharon so that she would be reminded of her wisdom. Then she turned to me and slipped into my hand another silver ring which had a smaller serpent engraved on it. “Wear this, Maurine, to be reminded that you are the guardian of Sharon’s wisdom,” she said.

I have often heard of the intuitive gifts of the Russians, but this was truly extraordinary. How else could Luda have known that my nickname for Sharon is “the Scarecrow?” Just like the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz, she forgets her wisdom. And Sharon calls me her “dueña,” which means her guardian. How could Luda have known these central truths about our relationship? Sharon and I serve as guardians for each other’s wisdom and health, and our relationship makes us strong.

That was my first indication that God was showing me more about the religious character of the Russian people. They were deeply spiritual and intuitive; not what I had been force-fed about them being godless. An American artist humorously quipped, “As a child the nuns taught me to pray for the Russian people. I am so glad to see that it has worked.”

On that visit we went to several huge cathedrals. The atmosphere was deeply mystical and dark and filled with images of Mary and Jesus that reminded me of my own Catholic cathedrals in Baton Rouge. One icon particularly held my attention, the one of Mary, the Mother of Russia. Her dark eyes and sad visage reached out and spoke to me. I felt an intense spiritual energy coming from the icon joining me with Mary in a mystical union. I was transfixed and could not move away. “What is happening?” I asked myself.

Mary has come to visit me again recently. A friend sent me the song with the lyrics, “and when my Mary passes, I will answer yes.” Then another friend sent me an icon calendar with Mary holding Jesus; with the same sad eyes, the same compassionate tenderness toward her child that I had seen in icons in Russia. Mary was speaking to me again. What was she saying?

I know now that I was called to see the holiness of the Russian people and their devotion to Mary when I visited them many years ago. As we enter another “cold war” with the Russians, I want to remind us all that these are merely passing images of enemies and not the truth. When I was a child we were told stories of the apparitions of the Madonna to three Portuguese teenagers at Fatima. She gave them a prophecy that if Russia remains loyal to her, then the world will be saved. I am offering this to you as a prophecy that we continue to hold the Russian people in the light in this period of deep conflict and darkness in the world. As the way opens.

Maurine Pyle has traveled the wide world for Friends to bring a message of peace. Now., as an ESL teacher, she lives in Southern Illinois, where the world comes to her door. Of this article, she wrote, “It came to me like Mother Mary… speaking words of wisdom, let it be.”

Who Is Sitting on the Facing Bench?

Maurine Pyle (What Canst Thou Say? August, 2017)

Peacemaking first begins in the meeting family and in the lives of its members. So often we Quakers cast our nets far out into the world when we seek to heal the causes of aggression. I start my work closer to home. As Jesus said to the apostles when they were not catching any fish, “Cast your nets on the other side.” I catch more fish that way by opening the conversations about the hidden conflict.

Traditional Quaker practice offers pastoral support through the meeting’s Ministry and Counsel committee, which is a group of seasoned elders. In our yearly meeting the most experienced elders, those who grew up in Quaker families, have died or moved away. Our current population of Friends mostly grew up in another faith tradition where a priest or pastor provided care for members in trouble. We were not trained from birth with the skills to support one another in times of crisis, and we may even feel we have no business interfering. What I mean by pastoral care is offering compassionate listening and prayer for a member when a problem has not been clearly defined. I am not speaking of offering the equivalent of professional therapeutic services. What is needed in the beginning is assistance with discerning the depth of the problem and direction toward solving it. As a result, the community’s fearfulness about interfering in personal matters of members leaves many issues festering and untended.

If a member is experiencing a physical ailment, Quaker communities are quick to arrange meals for the family and visits to the hospital. We are often frustrated and incapacitated when trying to respond to the hot issues in the meeting. We tend to hear about problems in a marriage after one member files for divorce. In the case of suicide or mental illness, silence often envelopes the community. Often there is no appointed ministry committee because the community is so tiny it must handle all of the business of the meeting as a body with no privacy possible. The result is that important pastoral care issues are often neglected. In these situations, a visit from a traveling minister can offer primary support to a small community. It is important to note that this ministry does not carry any authority from outside the meeting. We come only to listen and to help with discernment within the community, to turn them to their Inner Guide.

Ministry of Reconciliation: Traveling Ministry

When I enter a Quaker community, my intention is to discover what is really happening there and help the community see it clearly. This is one of the benefits of traveling ministry. If we are invited into the inner circle, we can hold up a mirror for what needs healing in the Quaker meeting. A request for a retreat is often more than a desire for education on a particular topic. I have found that can also indicate an unspoken need for reconciliation in the community. To know that you don’t know is the beginning of wisdom, and so I enter a community in a state of “not knowing.”

Once on a traveling ministry visit, I met with the leaders of a meeting who were deadlocked over the issue of approving gay marriage. Over the years, they had settled into a dark silence, walking around the “elephant in the living room.” Their healthy development as a community had ground to a halt. People began slowly leaving the meeting, and eventually no one wanted to volunteer for service.

The initial request for my services came from the Nominating Committee asking for help in envisioning their future. I proposed a series of retreats to address the conditions they were avoiding. Following two retreats, it was revealed to me privately that there were two hidden gay people in the meeting and that the gay marriage issue was the tip of the iceberg.

At a subsequent retreat a lesbian member told her story of being suicidal and her fears of asking the community for help. Over a long period, and after receiving assistance from other traveling elders from the yearly meeting, many other hidden issues were revealed and healed. The presenting problem of gay marriage was eventually reconciled. Now the meeting is a welcoming community for all people.

As a traveling minister I am given access to closely held secrets, sometimes willingly but more often through a process that I call a ministry of reconciliation. Usually it begins this way: someone calls me to request a workshop on what they term “Quaker process.” I have found this terminology to be a code phrase for a family fight going on in the meeting. People are too polite to name it so they blame it on improper business process. Quakers are excellent conflict avoiders.

I have a theory that most of us joined the Religious Society of Friends because it looked so peaceful. A few years ago, I received a request to offer a retreat for a troubled meeting in a nearby state. When the request was for a Quaker process retreat, I suspected that a hidden conflict needed healing.

Since no one in the meeting stepped forth to help me design the retreat, I told my contact that I would simply bring my talking stick and open a conversation. When I arrived, I felt the tenseness in the group. Smiles were pasted on with great care, and eye contact was limited. I sensed their uneasiness in being together. I began by introducing the talking stick as a means of free and open communication, which Native Americans have used to encourage truth sharing. Only the person who holds the stick may speak, and the others are encouraged to listen deeply. I reminded them that the talking stick couldn’t be used to express anger or blame, only truth. They could only make “I” statements.

The query I posed was, “What suffering of your heart do you need to share with your meeting?” The group centered into an uneasy silence. As we passed the stick for several hours in surrounding silence, we heard the hidden pain in the community. Some women began weeping. One of the founders, whom I had been told was an angry resistor, softened and showed her deeper nature to the group.

An emotional shift occurred as members saw her in a clearer light. She had been standing in the way of change because she felt she was the holder of the founding vision. At the close of the ceremony the group had moved to a place of reconciliation without actually naming the conflicts. We closed the circle with gratitude for a new truth revealed and a deepening of Spirit.

Later, in response to their request to learn more about Quaker process, I invited my companion-elder to lead a discussion. At that time she was serving as the clerk of her yearly meeting and was well suited to the task. From the outset of her presentation some of the meeting members began to attack her verbally with intellectual sharpness. I discovered that many of them were leaders in local, national and international organizations.

I allowed the aggressive behavior to continue for a while and then I stopped the action, asking them to notice how differently they were speaking to one another than they had in the morning session. They appeared shocked. One said, “This is how we speak to one another in meeting for business.” Laying down our secular experience as leaders is often difficult. Assuming the role of servant-leader in a Quaker setting asks us to do symbolic foot washing. Jesus was the role model for this type of leadership, which instructs us to act as the humblest, not the smartest, person in the room. What did we learn in our time together? As a spiritual midwife, I offered them the opportunity to look deeply in the mirror at their reflection as a community. I had come without any prior knowledge of their conflicts, yet we were able to uncover and heal them. One year later I happened to meet one of their leaders at a conference. She said that the meeting community had experienced a turning point at the retreat.

In the 21st century there have been major changes in our Quaker culture with secular ways of organizing the meeting creeping into the structure and process. For example, instead of turning to elders for help we might turn to the DSM5 (a mental health diagnostic manual). And since we have become less attentive in a traditional Quakerly way, we often fall apart when conflicts arise between members or over what we like to call “Quaker process.”

Many times I have seen a single angry episode break the membership into small isolated groups with no one talking about the problem in an open manner. They smile and suppress the conflict. I call this condition “terminal niceness,” and Quakers suffer greatly from it. Some people feel it is not nice to call attention to conflicts in the community; it is not nice to get angry. But tamping the fire down will not eliminate it. The flames just travel underground for a while and then pop up elsewhere. My prescription regarding conflict is that there is no way around it—we have to go through it!

These stories I am telling beg the question—Where is the source of authority in liberal Quaker meetings today? We often no longer rely on the authority of scripture, such as Matthew 18. Nowadays there are few, if any, seasoned elders in our meetings to stand up for traditional Quaker practice. So, in the absence of these tried and true methods, it is vital that we pay careful attention to conflicts in meeting as they arise. As Simone Weil has said, “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”

Maurine Pyle has traveled the wide world for Friends to bring a message of peace. Now., as an ESL teacher, she lives in southern Illinois, where the world comes to her door.

I See Sicily Island

By Maurine Pyle (WCTS, November, 2018)

As children growing up in the 1950s on Morning Glory Avenue, there was one message we loved to hear from our parents—“We are going to The Place.” That meant not just any place, but a very special place with a capital P. Our Daddy Sam, my mother’s father, lived on a small farm by that name in North Louisiana.

Our mother, Lorelle Seal Hebert, was often homesick for her childhood home, a small town called Sicily Island, so we visited there often. When I look back on this simple adventure, I think it is amazing that we all loved to go there. As we approached the town around a curve and over a small bridge, we raced with each other to be the first one who could say, “I see Sicily Island!”

Daddy Sam lived in a bungalow-style house outside of town with his oldest daughter Lily Mae, affectionately called “Mae” (pronounced “main” like the French word for hand) by her nieces and nephews. Mae never married, choosing instead to teach English in the high school and care for her father. Behind the house was a kitchen garden, an unpainted barn and a chicken coop. Our favorite activity was sitting on the screen porch swing or on the floor at Daddy Sam’s feet. Screech, screech, went the swing. Clunk, clunk, went the chain. Snore, snore, answered Daddy Sam in his big rocker.

He was a large man with a fluffy white moustache, always wearing khaki farm clothes and a wide brim hat. He would grab a little kid and tickle him or her under the chin with his moustache until we giggled, or he would grab another kid and placing her across his knees he would “play the piano” on her ribs. But the best part was listening to Daddy Sam’s stories while we shelled peas or snapped beans for our dinner. I remember a passel of us little kids sitting around on the porch waiting for Daddy Sam to wake up from his nap and tell us more stories. I often said that Daddy Sam’s front porch was my first Quaker meeting—sitting in silence and waiting for him to speak.

The old barn was a great place to play. The older kids—Billy, Bob, and Mike—loved to make hay forts with secret entrances, which kept us little ones at bay. I never found my way in. Our daddy bought a swayback horse named Betsy for us to ride. Mostly I remember just sitting on her back. She hardly moved. I guess that is why Daddy bought her. We were little, and Betsy was going nowhere.

We invented our own fun like observing dung beetles as they created perfect balls of cow manure. Daddy Sam sometimes called them “tumble turds.” Lula and Mike remember a game of “bat the bumble bees” beside the old shed near the gasoline pump. They didn’t know that they were harmless carpenter bees. Whoever hit the most bees with a piece of wood or old license plate was the winner. Some games were more risky such as playing logrolling on an old metal culvert. Just missing getting squashed was half the fun. We were never bored at the Place.

Meanwhile Mae would be in the kitchen with Bertha, her helper, stirring up a homecoming dinner. It was always the same—chicken and dumplings with a crust of pastry on top, fried chicken, corn on the cob, butter beans cooked in milk, purple hull peas, cornbread sticks and country butter. Country butter tasted sour to me. It was made in a round green butter mold that made designs across the top.

At noon we all sat down to a feast, everyone except Mae. She was always occupied with “one more thing” in the kitchen. If you sat next to Daddy Sam, you can be sure that your plate would disappear just as you were ready to take a big bite. First, he would distract you by pointing to the window, and then when you turned back, your plate was gone. In a minute you would find it hidden in his lap under the tablecloth. We never tired of the game.

I recently heard Billy tell of a choice meal that Daddy Sam enjoyed from time to time—roast possum. Billy says the recipe is you salt and pepper it and bake it in the oven surrounded by sweet potatoes. Once Daddy Sam asked his dainty daughter-in-law, Mary Lucille, if she would cook a possum for him. She sweetly replied, “I love you more than anything, and I would do almost anything for you, except cook possum.” Mae wouldn’t do it either, so Daddy Sam had to wait until the ladies were away to have Bertha cook his favorite dish.

The older boy cousins—Leon, Billy, Bob, Charles and Mike—were allowed to visit the Place during the summer months for longer stays. They told us tales of mud fishing back in the swamps and turning over the hay wagon by making too sharp a turn. We girls stayed closer to our parents. That was the way it was in those days.

Mama was born in Tylertown, Mississippi, where Daddy Sam owned a sawmill. When it burned down, they had to move from their established town with a big Baptist church to the smaller country town Sicily Island. Mae was used to having French lessons and piano lessons in her old town. Life certainly changed for the worse. Mama Seal (Daddy Sam’s wife, our grandmother) was always missing Tylertown. Daddy Sam began by trading horses from Texas, and later became a contractor clearing rights of way for oil and gas pipelines, which were being cut across the South and Midwest.

They first lived in the Ballard House, a large frame house within shouting distance of the train station in town. Daddy Sam loved to meet the train and invite strangers over for dinner on the big front porch. We were told that the Chambers Hotel lost a lot of business to him. Once a man stepping off the train said instead of the hotel, he would be staying with “Sam Seal, by Gar (God).” Ouida and Mary Lucille recalled that you could see people of any station in life or race seated at Daddy Sam’s table.

Sicily Island was a dusty crossroad with very little culture. Lily Mae seemed to be one source of introducing the finer things in life. She taught English literature and Spanish at Sicily Island High School. Although we thought she was so sweet, her former students remarked on her tough nature as a teacher. She also founded a storefront library in the town. One summer the three schoolteacher sisters, Mae, Mildred, and Lorelle drove to Colorado to attend summer school for professional development at a Normal School. Whenever we took our summer vacations, Mae often came along for the ride and lectured us on literature and poetry. It was a special part of our education. Many people excelled in higher education because of Mae’s influence.

Small town life is surprisingly rich and layered in texture. Mama said she never thought of herself as poor. When we visited Sicily Island, we always felt rich. My cousin Bob had this memory to offer. “I remember the excitement of piling in the back of the truck and driving down the Cane Road with the dust blowing in your face. You could always know when someone was coming to the house by the advancing dust cloud. We would announce “dust coming down the road” in case it might be a visitor to the Place.”

Maurine Pyle has traveled the wide world for Friends to bring a message of peace. Now, as an ESL teacher, she lives in Southern Illinois, where the world comes to her door.