Being Quaker . . . Where You Are: A Journey Among Isolated Friends in the Northwest

By Sakre Kennington Edson

A record of visits with “all isolated Friends listed” in North Pacific Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, this book reveals a wide variety of spiritual practices among them and gives witness to the many ways that service, simplicity, seeking, and wonder can result in a successful spiritual life. Far from community, t

• Language: English
• Publisher: Friends Bulletin Corp, DBA Western Friend
• Release date: Aug 23, 2017
• ISBN: 9780970041074

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BEING QUAKER...

WHERE YOU ARE

A Journey Among Isolated Friends in the Northwest

Sakre Kennington Edson

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

After teaching in Philadelphia with a Quaker who went to prison for his beliefs during WWII, Sakre Edson sought out Quakers when she moved back to the West in the mid-1970s. She first became a member of Eugene Friends Church, but later moved her membership to Eugene Friends Meeting when she discovered their unprogrammed worship. She has held various positions at the Monthly, Quarterly and Yearly levels over the years. In 2011, she moved to Florence, Oregon where she joined a very small worship group and has experienced some of the isolation of those she met while following her leading to visit Isolated Friends in the Northwest.

She is also the author of PUSHING THE LIMITS: THE FEMALE ADMINISTRATIVE ASPIRANT, SUNY Press, Albany, 1988.

BEING QUAKER... WHERE YOU ARE: A JOURNEY AMONG ISOLATED FRIENDS IN THE NORTHWEST

ISBN: 978-0-9700410-1-2

ISBN: 978-0-9700410-7-4 (e-book)

COPYRIGHT © 2017 WESTERN FRIEND/FRIENDS BULLETIN CORPORATION PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA

DESIGN: PAUL K. AUSTAD | PKAUSTAD.COM

EDITOR: CLAIRE GORFINKEL, INTENTIONAL PRODUCTIONS

ALL PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR, UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED

AUTHOR PHOTO BY MARY JO BARTHOLOMEW, LEAVENWORTH, WA

BEING QUAKER...

WHERE YOU ARE

A Journey Among Isolated Friends in the Northwest

SAKRE KENNINGTON EDSON

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE

RANCHES

Julia Childs

Franci McMahon

SMALL TOWNS

Kate Weiss

Chris Hogness

Ginny Weeks

Tom Zylesta

Bruce Frederick

Lee Watson

Betty Hawthorn

Mary Drew

Lawrence Black

Ruth Tadlock

Linda Renfer

Meghann Willard

Berdena Schlaick

FARMS

Sam Howell

Clare Paris

Joe Snyder

Jane Snyder

Esther James

Walton James

Cheryl Krueger

Danielle Chevalier

CITIES

Madeleine Brown

James Johnson

Kim Williams

Ben Williams

Jim Vetrano

Terra Price

Ryan Price

Rosmary Small

Phillip Small

Norm Pasche

Helen Foster

COASTS

Nancy Hidden-Dodson

Rex Paul Martin

Sam Elwonger

Dorothy Blackcrow Mack

Julia Carter

Tom Chatterton

Lois Hoskins

Lewis Hoskins

WOODS

Mary Jo Bartholomew

Susan Nelson

Norman Frankland

Tom Ward

Elizabeth Zwick

Ken Janson

Gillian Davies

Rebecca White

Jean Mountaingrove

Pan Tangible

ISLANDS

River Malcolm

Linda Ellsworth

Anne Hay

Peter McCorison

Jon Prescott

STUDY QUERIES

GLOSSARY

PREFACE

Some years ago, in my worship sharing group at North Pacific Yearly Meeting Annual Session, I met a woman from Wyoming. I don’t remember her name, but I have never forgotten her. She told me how important Annual Sessions were to her and how she especially loved deeply connecting with other Quakers in worship sharing groups. When I asked her what it was like to be an Isolated Friend in Wyoming, she said something like, "Once a quarter, we get in our cars and trucks and drive hundreds of miles to a central location, for a potluck meal, fellowship and worship. Then we get back in our vehicles and drive hundreds of miles home." I never forgot the challenge she projected: what it must be like to sustain a spiritual path and a spiritual life in such isolation. I wondered how I would fare if I were in a similar situation.

While I was actively engaged in my Quaker community, Isolated Friends remained in the forefront of my thinking. In 2008 I felt the hand of Spirit, moving me along in my interest and concern. Using a list of Isolated Quakers maintained by NPYM, I felt led to interview those Isolated Quakers in the Northwest who were willing to talk to me about their spiritual life circumstances. What was their personal experience? How did they sustain their spirituality on a daily basis? Given where they were living, did they still feel like Quakers and a part of the larger community of Friends? I strongly believed they had something to say to each other, as well as to those who regularly attend Meeting. I felt keenly led to write a book about their spiritual lives to give them that voice.

What follows is my journey, as I traveled in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, to meet Quakers in relative isolation, to hear about their spiritual paths. I say relative, because some lived in places where they could attend a Meeting, but either didn’t or wouldn’t for various reasons. Others lived in truly remote circumstances on islands, farms or ranches, in the mountains or the woods, or in one of the many tiny towns that dot the Northwest, without access to Meetings or Worship Groups nearby.

Each interview started with the same open-ended question: What is it like for you to be an Isolated Quaker? Then I let the conversations flow where they would, not shaping the interview with pre-set questions, but picking up on topics that they introduced.

I also kept a journal of my impressions as I traveled along the highways and back roads to reach the fifty-seven men and women who agreed to meet with me. After transcribing the interviews, I felt urged by Spirit to share my personal diary: perhaps my notes might provide helpful context for these Friends’ lives. In retrospect, I see that I needed personal space between each visit, much as we Quakers need space between each given message in Meeting for Worship. Writing in my journal provided that quiet space for me. The stories I heard needed to settle like stones to the bottom of my spiritual pond. I hope my short introductions serve a similar purpose, giving the reader a pause before moving on to the next interview.

Quakers are known for recording their personal history, for journaling and staying true to their spoken words. Margaret Fell quoted George Fox: … but what canst thou say? We also have a long history of visitation out in the larger world of Friends. I want to be part of that truth-telling, and I hope these Friends’ words will add to the legacy. Some Friends spoke at great length about their faith; others struggled to find words for what they believed and felt. Many graciously offered me overnight hospitality, which allowed me to feel in my bones a little bit of what their lives were like.

Over the years, people often asked me what I learned on the road, and I hesitated to summarize my feelings about my time with these mainly hardy folks, for whom Quakerism forms a basis for their spiritual lives. I did not want to categorize or judge the people I met. Certain impressions stayed with me, however. First and foremost, I see how individualistic each Isolated Friend is. Each of these Isolated Friends came to Quakerism—and sometimes through Quakerism—and what it means in their lives, in their own way and time. Not being able to lean on a corporate experience with other Friends, they have been forced to glean their spirituality in their particular surroundings.

I am also struck by the resilience and resourcefulness of these Friends. Like a tiny plant amidst rocky soil, they often live in out-of-the-way places, finding meaningful ways to bloom where they are planted. Some augment their spiritual lives with other faith traditions, with time in nature, or by singing in a mid-week choir. Perhaps their geographical remoteness stimulates more openness to alternative paths toward spiritual growth, when compared with Quakers who can rely on corporate Sunday morning worship.

While many of those I visited experience geographic or political isolation, they don’t consider themselves spiritually isolated. Where they reside is a conscious choice: they love solitude. Some long to know more Quakers nearby, and some wish they could worship with like-minded seekers whether they were Quakers or not. Most find that their surroundings provide spiritual sustenance to feed their souls. Some choose to call themselves delinquent or scattered, rather than Isolated.

Finally, I found Isolated Friends to be extremely gracious, even hungry for the contact with a Quaker from outside their everyday existence. Some expressed feeling more isolated knowing I was only visiting; others were grateful to rethink their spiritual journeys. Others appreciated being linked back to the Yearly Meeting community and having a chance to address one another. They thanked me for coming and trusted that what they shared would be meaningful.

Even those who declined to be interviewed were kind in hearing my request and wishing me well. Some had schedule conflicts; others either did not feel isolated or didn’t want a visit from a stranger, even a Quaker stranger. Some may have been reluctant to share on such a deep level. Of greater concern, many felt disconnected from the wider world of Quakers. This is an important concern for organizers of our Annual Sessions and Quarterly Meetings, as well as our Outreach and Visitation Committees whose charge is to stay in touch with Isolated Friends. Are we doing all we can to serve their needs?

I want to thank Willamette Quarterly Meeting and North Pacific Yearly Meeting for providing their clearness and support to me as I worked my way towards this manuscript. Most of all, I am indebted to those Isolated Friends who let me walk a bit in their shoes. I was incredibly blessed by meeting these women and men, one of whom called my visit a ministry to [her] spiritual life and health. I felt like I got as much as I gave, and I hope the readers of this book are as enriched as I was. I trust that Spirit will guide this book into the hands of those who may need to hear these stories. I continue to feel as guided today as I did from the moment I first met that woman from Wyoming, so many years ago.

RANCHES

Julia Childs, Lazy E-L Ranch, Roscoe, Montana, July 27, 2009

Nature is a spiritual place, and if you pay attention, it becomes your spiritual home.

Travel to this ranch takes me across miles and miles of wide open spaces. All along the way, there are white crosses beside the road where individuals have died in car crashes, some with hand-made memorials beside them. I can’t believe how many crosses I see! I silently bless each family as I travel, wondering at their losses. Today, I see one after the other, even on the straightaways. How did they go off the road? Was it the darkness out here? Was it the miles and miles of solitude? Then there are more mountains to cross: the Bear Paws, the Snowy Mountains, and the Bear Tooth. Tomorrow after I leave Julia, I will go over this last range, making my way into the far northeastern corner of Yellowstone National Park.

Julia strikes me as deeply spiritual; she draws on her love of Quaker process and social action, melding it with Sufism. She sings in a local church and is part of a weekly women’s spiritual group, in a town 20 miles away. She says she is a mystic, maybe even was a monastic in another life. She lives in her house alone, she tells me, but is rarely ever alone. She proudly shows me around this family ranch that has been here since the early 1900s. She is a retired teacher who is the steward of this land, home to grizzlies, wolves, moose, antelope, elk, deer, lynx, cougar, horned owls (everything but buffalo which are in Yellowstone) along with various members of her family in their own homes with their domesticated animals. She says she is in charge of weeds and goats—a big job.

I have a history of 30 years of living in the North East, attending Meeting every Sunday. I became a Quaker when I attended Swarthmore College. I also taught for ten years in a Quaker high school in southern New Hampshire. But I grew up here in Montana. My grandmother had Quaker roots. She moved out here in the late 1800s, but there were no Quakers here then, so she just joined whatever church and put it all behind her. Coming back to Montana in 1992 was returning to something very familiar, but there were no Quakers nearby. I am connected with Quakers in Montana, but it is a very different experience from being in the East in the middle of a Monthly Meeting.

I pretty much attended every Montana Gathering of Friends (MGOF) since I have been back, usually twice a year. Here in Montana, we Quakers have what we call healing groups for men and for women, and I usually go to one or two of those a year. We just invented them! Being so isolated, we actually invent a lot of things. As a group, we are not as committed to traditions, but we are drawn to Quakerism because it feels like home to us. We operate with consensus, we live simply and we are pacifists. The traditional structures of Monthly, Quarterly or Yearly Meetings don’t work as well here, so we improvise.

The women’s healing groups get together all over the state, so everyone has the opportunity to participate during the year. The groups are simply made up of the first twelve women who sign up, so it can be intimate and everyone has a chance to do the spiritual work they need at that session. Because this is a paying guest ranch during the summers, it is easy to meet here in the off season. We gather on Friday for dinner and leave on Sunday afternoon. We play, cook and pray together. Saturdays are spent giving each woman time to do whatever she needs to do: to be listened to or to have hands laid on. We take long walks, spending time in nature. We have Meeting for Worship on Sunday mornings. A strong fellowship grows out of this sharing, because it comes from a very deep place despite the fact that we only see each other occasionally. We’ve been through all stages of our lives together: having and raising children, having an empty nest, helping our parents age and die, going through menopause, coping with our husbands aging and dying, some having divorces, decisions about moving, changing jobs, and retiring. Traveling to the healing group is a big deal because we are so scattered over all of Montana.

Still, I don’t really feel isolated, because my needs are being met. I’m a kind of non-traditional person. I am a Quaker by conviction, but I wasn’t brought up with you have to do it this way. Every other week, I sing at a United Church of Christ where I grew up 20 miles away. This is the church my parents belonged to, with a piano my dad bought years ago. I am also a Sufi, which is very important to me. There are certain questions that Quakerism just couldn’t answer for me. We have all this silence, but Quakers didn’t really teach me what to do with the silence. When I stumbled onto Sufis, I learned how to practice. I really want a daily practice; I want to feel myself deepening. Working with the Sufis has made me a better Quaker. They have taught me to feel experientially the difference between my ego and my deeper self and to be able to recognize it in other people. I am much more connected to my guidance and much clearer when I center down. Now I can do it just like that!

I don’t feel isolated in the sense of it being a bad thing. MGOF does feel a little fragile, because it is just so small. It has meant a lot to me, so I would like it to continue. I recognize that things have to change, things die and something else rises up. Yearly Meeting has the structure and committees, but we just don’t have enough people to do all that here in Montana. Yearly Meeting feels like being in a canoe with too many rocks in it.

Pretty much every morning, I meditate and do some devotional reading. My women’s spiritual group meets every Monday night. We are currently reading The Presence Process, which is 77 days of pretty intensive practice that I will do in the winter. Also, since I grew up here, nature is definitely my solace. My parents were very trusting. So ever since I was six years old, they just turned me loose on a horse and I never looked back. Nature is a spiritual place, and if you pay attention, it becomes your spiritual home.

I also have a very deep experience of personal guidance. It could be Jesus, but I don’t know what it is. I know I am fascinated with Jesus. Who was the real Jesus, and not just the interpretation presented to us in the Bible? I have an allergy to fundamentalist Christians. My parents were not like that. We said our prayers every night, read Bible stories and went to Sunday school. I am very familiar with the Bible. I don’t read it every day, because I have branched out in other directions but I am definitely interested in it. I use the terms God and Spirit. When I became a Sufi, they didn’t ask me to give up my Christianity. They just asked for a commitment to a path and to a process to become more conscious. I am still drawn to Quakerism for their powerful governance process and how that works. Most of the rest of the world doesn’t know about it. Even though the Pilgrims and the Quakers used it, unfortunately our process hasn’t come through our history

Franci McMahon, Boulder, Montana, July 20, 2009

[Photograph by Jenifer Wise]

To me the Light is God, and it is throughout everything sustaining everything. I can’t imagine just one place to find that Light.

From the valley surrounding Butte, Montana I head over the mountains again. They give way to grasslands and prairies with sagebrush. The sky really is big here! Franci told me: look straight ahead and see the grassland, the mountains, the hills and the trees. We live in the drainage or the cleft in the mountains, straight ahead about two miles away. I pass two antelopes and a herd of nearby neighbors’ cattle coming up their road which actually looks abandoned.

Later, as I look out of the loft in the home that Franci shares with her partner, Jenifer, the peace of this place surrounds me. In the quiet, I can hear the creek running, the wind rustling in the trees, the birds talking and the coyotes crying. It is like a retreat for the soul.

Your visit today is a ministry to my spiritual life and health. I have to reconnect with what is important in my life, and you connect me with Friends. It is lonely here. My Friends Meetings in Putney, Vermont, and Petersburg, New Hampshire, were very important to me. When I first came here, I looked for Worship Groups. When I found the Meeting in Helena, there were only five people in it and it was about 48 miles away.

They met Sunday evenings which really didn’t work with my job and having to travel that far. And at the rise of Meeting, they held hands and swayed. It was like going to another country! I’m such a traditionalist, and it felt like such a hippy thing to do, to make swaying compulsory. I missed some of the familiar framework or traditions of a Quaker Meeting.

Not finding a Meeting or Worship Group makes it lonely here. That and not finding other people who understand why the death penalty is wrong: It is the basic reason for peace, for the commitment to peace. You just don’t do damage to another person, whoever they are and whatever they think!

People are always trying to argue with me, saying, You would just have let Hitler go free in Europe and do whatever he wanted. It’s gotten so hard to speak about my commitment to the Inner Light that I don’t really talk about it anymore.

I was born in Portland, Oregon. My mother’s family came from North Dakota and homesteaded in Alberta, but settled in Wenatchee, Washington. My father’s relatives were sheep ranchers outside of Wenatchee. I’ve never been clear on their religious background. My mother said they were Dunkers, but they were as plain as the Amish. They never owned a car. The values I got from them were that you do the best you can, and you don’t live a greedy life, using up things. Live simply. You build every house you live in. As for the testimonies, my Grandmother refused to let her sons fight in the Second World War. She told the draft board that they would not carry a gun, so they drove ambulances, which she was not happy about because that freed up other people to carry guns. I don’t think they were members of a Conscientious Objector church, so I think that was a struggle for her to do that.

I have never been comfortable with most religious groups. I felt they were narrow and judgmental, and they have done more harm than good. At the same time, I felt very close to the natural world. A woman I was with at one time was a Quaker, and she got me to Quakers. Prior to that, I heard enough things about them to get me interested. When I went to Meeting in New Hampshire, I felt like I was coming home. There was room to have a spiritual life without being told I had to have it! They were so much more open and accepting of my love relationship, which is very different from other religions. Many faiths are so vicious or rigid regarding gay relationships, so that impressed me about Quakers. They gave me plenty of room for my own spiritual processing. I can’t imagine a Meeting that wouldn’t at least be willing to look at the issue of gay marriage.

Now that I am here and Friends are an hour and a half away, I work in the garden, ride horses, cut flowers and gather apples. Being in nature has always been part of my spiritual life. I never have prayed in the way that I think most people pray where they try to address some hearing being. To me, the Light is God, and it is throughout everything, sustaining everything. I can’t imagine just one place to find that Light. If people could connect worldwide like we do in Meeting, it would be incredibly powerful. I see prayer as that kind of connecting. I don’t think in terms of words or images. Good Quaker writers speak to me all the time, but I don’t seek out spiritual books to find it.

I have thought of trying to start a Worship Group, but I don’t ever want to start something by laying down rules. If I could find one that was working, that would be great! There are times when Jenifer and I just sit silently for a while. Sometimes I spend the night at the cabin above our house. I wake up at 5:30 and sit on the porch with my first cup of coffee and watch everything come alive. Birds will start singing and hopping around. It is a time that I just love to be quiet and sit there. Then I go in and start writing.

I love the term Isolated Friend because right away that spoke to me. I love the directness of Westerners who use terms that mean what they say. Sometimes I worry that if I meet Friends at Yearly Meeting or the Montana Gathering of Friends, the connection won’t be sustained and I will just miss my Meeting back East even more. I miss thinking