Muriel's Show

Muriel Anderson is a long time attender (or member, I don't really know because we don't differentiate) of Nashville Friends Meeting. She's a fingerpicking style guitar player and she totally rocks. She performed at a house party in a little studio on Music Row last night that I went to. When I got there, only 12 chairs were set up in the room she would be performing in. I knew that of 10 folks from Friends Meeting who were coming and had a good idea that the studio owners had underestimated. Sure enough, by show-time it was standing room only or, more accurately, sitting room only. The concert was to kick off her tour and I reckon she'll be gone for a while.

I've been attending NFM for going on 12 years. Muriel's been going longer than me but I've never really gotten to know her. She's a musician who lives out of suitcases. The handful of Sundays that she is in town, I've never had the opportunity to get to know her in more than the most superficial way. There are several people at meeting who are like that for me; I know them but don't really know them. I think I will make a concerted effort to spend time with a few people over the next year.

Anyway, back to the show: Muriel is a petite blond woman but she plays guitar like fire. The cool think is that she's not flashy just incredibly talented. She's a guitar god to a lot of people. There were as many young musicians there as Quakers and I'm thrilled that all these studly "guns" hang on her every note.

Muriel's percussionist last night was a woman named Kathy (didn't catch her last name). I spoke with her for a moment after the show. She's one of those underachieving types; she said she used to do environmental sciences down in Florida-mainly oil spills-and moved to Nashville to play music but didn't like the competitiveness and is now at divinity school at Vandy working toward being a hospice chaplain. Whew. Slacker. She seems nice. I hope I bump into her sometime soon.

Here's a link to one of the songs she performed last night (this was recorded at another performance).

God Is Love

I awoke with Marvin Gaye's song "God Is Love" running through my head (you can listen to it here):

Oh don't go and talk about my father
God is my friend
Jesus is my friend
He made this world for us to live in,
and gave us everything
And all he asks of us is we give each other love.
Oh ya
Don't go and talk about my father
Cause God is my friend
Jesus is my friend
He loves us whether or not we know it
Just loves us, oh ya
And He'll forgive all our sins
Forgive all our sins
And all He asks of us, is we give each other love.
Oh ya
Love your mother, she bore you
Love your father, he works for you
Love your sister, she's good to you
Love your brother,
your brother
Don't go and talk about my father, He's good to us,
God is my friend
Jesus is my friend
For when we call in Him for mercy, Mercy Father
He'll be merciful, my friend
Oh, yes He will
All he asks of us, I know, is we give each other love,
Oh ya

Beyond Our Beginnings

Yesterday, I went to hear a panel discussion which opened the "Beyond Our Beginnings: Women Writers from Lower and Working Class Backgrounds" at Vanderbilt. Joy Castro, Karen Salyer McElmurray, Heather Sellers, Dorothy Allison and Minton Sparks participated.

When I saw this listed in Sunday's paper, I was drawn to it. I thought about who I could take with me and emailed my friend Paige, who is a writer and community organizer for Mother's Acting Up. She has a toddler and couldn't make the timing work, so I went by myself.


I'm giving myself props for going. I feel so out of place at events at universities. First of all, most everyone knows most everyone else and I never know anyone and wind up standing around like a wallflower. (I do attempt to make conversation but people are tolerantly polite until the person they're meeting shows up and then I'm forgotten.) Secondly, I feel totally out of my element. I barely made it out of high school and never felt any inclination to pursue any higher formal education (and self-education doesn't count for much in that environment). I've been a stay-at-home mom for most of my adult life. Yeah, now I work for a university in an interesting job which allows me to "pass" for one of them, but I always get "caught" when asked "Oh how interesting. Did you study sociology?"


The funny thing is that this was a group of women who all, in one way or another, probably know very much how I was feeling about passing. They all came from families in which they were the first to "escape" or get beyond their raising, the first to go to college and work in some capacity that wasn't manual labor. If I had had the foundation to establish actual conversation (rather than small talk), I'm sure I could have found much in common with many of them. But an hour's worth of panel discussion does not allow for depth.


As I rode there on my scooter, I thought about how coming from the background I do has made me a much more creative and engaged person than I probably otherwise would have been. I'm an ideas person. Often, I'm not even aware that I'm supposed to be in a box that others struggle to think outside of. In many ways, I think I see culture from an outsider's perspective, noticing what works well and is good, what things are dysfunctional and which ones are neutral. There are many, many things about our culture, of course, which I've internalized and never considered that I should become aware of and examine, but I think I have more perspective than most folks in our society because of my upbringing and background. I feel grateful, now, for my parent's lifestyle choices during my childhood (most of them, anyway).

The thought that I left with which is still resonating with me is to speak up, tell our stories, speak our truths. All of the women are story-tellers whether via fiction, essay, memoir, spoken word or short story, each of the women on the panel (and most of the audience, I imagine) tells her own story. Someone asked what the repercussion were of writing about family and each panelist said that it was absolutely necessary although very frightening at first, but came to be healing for all those affected by the stories (characters and readers alike). Telling our stories is owning our lives and saying that our voices, our experiences, our lives are as important and valid as those who comprise the dominant culture--and oftentimes much, much more entertaining.

Coming from where I did, I have a unique perspective which enriches the lives of others. I have a loud voice and the strength and creativity to catalyze change for the better in my world. I feel strongly that inviting people from a broad spectrum of society to worship with us at NFM will enrich our spiritual community: They will each bring new ways of seeing the world, helping us move outside of our narrow culturally dictated paradigm (comfort zone). The changes they will bring will not always be easy or comfortable but, if we allow Spirit to open our hearts and guide us through the changes, they will make us a better community.

Food for Thought

I met a dear friend for dinner at a fancy restaurant last night. She thinks I'm funny so I was very funny. We talked about serious things and light things and gossipy things for several hours. It was good to be with her to relax, catch up and let our hair down.

This friend spent many years enmeshed in a very dysfunctional situation. She was able to extricate herself from it fairly recently and seems to be revelling in her new-found liberty. She told me stories about her recent adventures and experiences, none of which I related to but which were often very amusing.

I told her about my life; how I'm very happy and excited about where I am and what's happening spiritually and how I feel like something about myself in relation to my family needs to change but that I don't know what and I don't know how (other than to pray about it). She was kind and supportive.

When I awoke this morning my first impulse was to judge myself kind of negatively for straying so far from my intention to remain centered on God yesterday (see the immediately preceding post) but the more I thought about it, the more I see that it's ok to be me. This friend does not have an awareness of spiritual center. I think, if pushed, she would identify as atheist. We've been friends for a long time through lots and lots of changes. We have a relationship based on shared interests, history, mutual love, respect and admiration. She listened openly as I talked about my growing awareness of God's will for me and how exciting it is for me to learn to be faithful. She told me about how perplexing her new life can be in the midst of the pleasure of her new-found freedom. We told each other things in trust and with love, expecting support and listened without judgment. The last thing in the world I want to be is like born-again christians who get all self-righteous, eschewing sinful others.

Even though I wasn't consciously aware of Spirit, I know that I acted in accord with my understanding of God's will for me.

As I Am Able

Most every morning I stay in bed and pray. Usually, I state my intention to be open to God's will for me, silently saying something like:

"My body,
my spirit,
my mind to God.

As I am able,
all that I am,
I give
to God."
(I sometimes make this a physical prayer by standing and using gestures and movement)

Usually, I pray for God to guide me and use me and I ask God to help me remain centered on what is of God.

And then I leave my room and immediately forget. I'm like one of the unfortunate people with the capacity to remember things for only a couple of minutes. "God, help me to remain focused on you...Hey! What's for breakfast?"

Until I learn to be faithful in the day-to-day, here and now, I can't imagine growing in the Light. I think humility is what it all comes down to, for me. Humility is, like, exactly the opposite my personality and who I am. I'm loud and boisterous and ME! ME! ME! When I do something good I usually want to crow about it, which, of course, is completely counter to humility.

Tilden Edwards, in his book, Living in the Presence, gives a nice description of the Ego of ME! ME! ME! versus the ego of self to be used by God. In the exercise on Daily Examen he writes, "...If you remember a strong, protective holding on to ego self-image, you might pray 'Lord (or God) have mercy,' very simply desiring the attachment to that image to lighten. If on the contrary you notice that ego self-image was only lightly present, functioning as a vehicle of understanding and activity without a character of ultimacy, you can simply smile to God with thanksgiving. Thus you are noticing both the hidden presence of God in the day and your own way of participating in, missing, or resisting that presence."

I understand that if God to were to call me, really call me to my life's purpose, I'd charge full-steam ahead. I'd leap in and through and MAKE IT HAPPEN (whatever IT were). I'd follow the letter of God's plan without paying a lot of attention to the spirit of it. I'd have God in mind for the outcome but wouldn't be so aware of God in the details. Hmmm...Who was it who said, "God is in the details"?

So, today I pray for humility. I pray for awareness of God using the me-ness of me as a vehicle of understanding and activity. I ask God to help me remain aware of God in each moment as clearly as I am right now. I can't seem to do this on my own so I pray for God to help me.