The Rules of the Game

In George Lakey's workshop on Quakers & Social Class we play a game that very roughly estimates the social class structure in the United States. There, the rules and goals are set out before the participants at the beginning. I've participated in this game once, led it twice, and observed it once, and I've noticed this one thing about it the game:

Lots of Quakers do things that break the rules, but no one (save me) wanted to change the rules.

Yes, my sample size is small. But I was surprised that starting a coop or creating a collective, or trying individually to play by different rules didn't change anything at all about the game or its rules.

When I played, at the point at which the power rested in the hands of a few, I blocked the door to keep them from going out to make the decisions on how the game ends. I didn't understand why their Quaker value of equality wasn't kicking in, didn't understand why they just accepted the rules as they'd been given to us.

At the time, I was immersed in the experience and couldn't be this articulate about it. I just had strong feelings of anger and hurt and confusion because I couldn't square what we say we believe in as a people of faith, and our obedience to a random set of rules.

I still can't square my experience of the game with our stated testimony of equality.

It's a poker chip trading game called Star Power with three simple rules.

1. The goal is to get as many points as possible.
2. You must be shaking hands until you've agreed on a trade.
3. All trades must be unequal.

At the end of three rounds, the sub-group with the most points gets to go outside the room to decide what happens next, how the game should end. When I played the game, I tried to convince people to change the rules, but few if any seemed to want the same.

My observations about how I've seen Quakers engage with this game matters to me because the game is an approximation of the social class structure in the U.S. If our instincts don't lead us to try to change the rules in this game, we won't be led to change the rules in our society that support and perpetuate an oppressive classist system.

I still want to change social class rules because as Quakers, if we believe in equality, we not only should break the rules in our own lives, we should be trying to change the rules. We like to think of ourselves as rule changers. Unfortunately, we're only upsetting the power structure sometimes. I can't honestly think of any rule changing behavior right now (though I can think of social class rule breaking folks).

I'm not changing the rules either. But I thought I could start here, in this little blog, by making social class rules explicit, especially among Friends. I'll start with this rule, which I am breaking among Friends:

Do not try to inhabit a role outside of your social class

I went to college in 2004, at 37 years old, at a four-year school that is primarily for working class people. There, both instructors and other students saw my leadership capacity; they and I nurtured my gifts. In the years I spent among Friends though, this capacity of me was never seen, acknowledged or nurtured. This is because people like me, who grew up working class, and people who grew up poor, are not supposed to act like managers, to be leaders.

The acts of writing this blog and giving workshops on social class is breaking this rule.

Being an expert, a teacher, is hard to do at times. I hear in my head, "Who do you think you are? What do you know? They're the ones with the fancy degrees. They're the ones whose parents read to them. They're the ones who were groomed to be standing up here, telling you some truth about the world. You're supposed to be sitting, learning from them."

Early in the week at Gathering, our suite-mate who also grew up working class described reaching for something more than she was expected to do feels like reaching through a heavy, wet blanket. This feels true to me.

Every time a person living in poverty (not situational poverty, or chosen poverty) strives for a union job, every time a working class person reaches for the middle class by going to college, we're breaking this rule.

So how are you breaking social class rules? How are you trying to change the rules of the game? What is your meeting doing to change the rules as well as break them? Does God want Quakers to support this classist system?

Ministry Not Given

For the second week in a row, I've had a bit of ministry to share at MfW and I haven't given it. I had a nudge to post this morning's bit here.

I am not connected to you because I like you.
But I do.
I am not connected to you because I share your political views.
But I do.
I am not connected to you because I like your cooking.
But I do.

I am connected to you because you are tied
to the divine
to God
to Spirit
to the Unknown

Through this strong rope, I can love you
even when my human heart fails.

Because you disappoint me.
Like I do.
Because you get angry with me.
Like I do.
Because you sting when I hurt you.
Like I do.

When my human heart fails
your golden cord to God reminds me
to love you.

I love you.
I do.

No, Really, I AM a Bad Quaker

I haven't gotten many comments about my last post about being a bad Quaker, but I did get this one email:

from Tmorphew@aol.com
date Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 2:38 PM
subject bad Quaker

You are right, you are a bad Quaker! Don't quite see how that is something to brag about. Troy

***

So I feel a need to point out to people that there's nothing on my list that's essential to Quakerism and its practice.

This is exactly the kind of response I used to think said something about me. But instead, I now know it's much more a reflection of the shallowness of much of modern Quakerism. We welcome anyone, but we don't welcome people who don't fit our unspoken cultural norms. If you're a witch, it's fine. But be sure to only smoke secretly. You can be an atheist, but don't, no matter what, be a republican.

The Quakerism I love is about coming together and stripping away all that is not God so we can better feel God's influence in our lives.

I wrote this for Laughing Waters Friends Worship Group some time ago, and it still reflects my feelings about our practice:

Waiting on God in the manner of Friends

2 Corinthians 3:17-18
17Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (NIV)

Friends worship by waiting on God in silence. We believe that when we unveil our faces and hearts, we will be better able to hear God’s will for us as individuals and collectively. We create a virtual desert by removing all around us and within us that interferes with our ability to hear God, be nourished by God, and do what God asks of us.

As such, we gather in a circle in silence, quieting our hearts and minds to ready ourselves to be transformed, to become more like God. Meeting places are spare if possible, and do not have a pulpit or stage, an altar or baptismal font.

By removing all that might distract us from God, we feel we can better hear God’s voice speaking to us individually and corporately and be therefore lifted up and strengthened.

But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not be faint. —Isaiah 40:31

***

Can someone please tell me what part of the above requires that I read dry, inaccessible seventeenth century writing? Or that I not love when strawberry, vodka, pepper, and balsamic vinegar combine to give me a new taste experience that reminds me that my limited experience is just that, limited? Or that I shouldn't love my redneck family unconditionally?

These unspoken social norms actually limit us as a religious society. Only when we come together, reveal our true selves in God's light can we grow. If we're all the same, then what's the point?

I really appreciated Friend Su Penn's comment on Facebook recently about her own badness. I would hope it, too, would reflect me and all of us:

I do not yet know how to bring these differences, which I believe should be explored, into the Light in a loving and plain-spoken way. But because I am actually an excellent Quaker, I am willing to make efforts, make mistakes, to await new revelation and Way opening, to continue to love my meeting and the Friends in it, to stay in my seat when I just want to walk out and never come back.

Thanks, Su, for reminding me to stay in my seat even when it hurts. And for reminding me that staying and revealing our "badness" is exactly what will make us all excellent Quakers.

Bad Quaker

Recently, Brent Bill wrote a blog post about being a bad Quaker, then formed a group on Facebook. The FB group gained membership very quickly. Peggy Sanger Parsons posted on the group her top ten reasons why she's a bad Quaker. So I thought I'd do the same.

The Top Ten Reasons I'm a Bad Quaker

10. I swear. I mean the dirty word kind, not the hand on the Bible kind. And not the dagnabbit kind, but the holy fucking shit kind. I do so a LOT.
9. I love dressing up in sparkly dresses, high heels, makeup, hairspray, the whole deal. The only way I feel like I can do so and be accepted as "good" by Quakers is to dress up for Halloween. I keep a stash of makeup for that one day a year.
8. I secretly pretend to play the lottery. When it gets big, I pick some numbers and secretly check them. I've never "won" but I play this way because I don't know how I'd explain it away to my Quaker friends if I actually won.
7. I like rap and hip-hop music. Even songs that use the word bitch in it.
6. I really like drinking with my friends (small f...don't have any Friends who like to go out to get a drink from time-to-time). Sangria mostly, but my sister-in-law introduced me to my new favorite: Mike's Hard Lemonade. And I love fancy one-of-a-kind drinks like the one I had in Florida (again, following my sister-in-law's lead) with vodka, strawberry, pepper and balsamic vinegar. That was fucking good.
5. If I had enough money, I'd hire someone to cook, clean and do laundry for me. I'd also own a fur coat. I'd play the lottery, just for the hell of it.
4. I love my redneck family and jokes about rednecks make me sad and embarrassed.
3. I adore sparkly diamond jewelry. I have a ginormous diamond dinner ring that my grandmother found in a box of costume jewelry she bought at a charity auction. I'd wear it all the time if I didn't think Quakers would look askance at me.
2. I don't care about Quaker history. Not one bit. I haven't read George Fox's journal or John Woolman's journal. And don't ever intend to read these things (though I sometimes read about these things gladly, in 21st century English by 21st century authors and bloggers.)
1. I hate committee work and I love being a committee of one.

As I started this list, I thought I'd write to be funny. Now as I write this list, I feel sad because I realize that sometimes all you need to do to be a good Quaker is to be solidly middle class.

Caviar, Coupons and College (A Working Title)

Class Matters has extended its deadline for submitting to their anthology, tentatively named Caviar, Coupons and College, to June 1st.

I, for one, am glad because the essay I started really fizzled out. Won't you consider writing something too? I'd be happy to edit your work if you want.

From their website:

CAVIAR, COUPONS AND COLLEGE:

STORIES ACROSS THE CLASS SPECTRUM (working title)

· When was the first time you realized what class you grew up in?

· What were some of the strengths you got from your class experience? What were some of the limitations?

· What stereotypes about your class were or weren't true for you? What class stereotypes did you most worry about embodying?

· Is there class tension between you and family members, friends, co-workers, or community?

· Tell us about an "a-ha" moment in the development of your class consciousness.

SHARE YOUR CLASS STORY

Class Action, a national non-profit working for economic justice and to "inspire action to end classim," is putting together an anthology of personal stories from across the class spectrum, and is calling for submissions in the hope of furthering our collective dialogue about class. We especially encourage voices from groups that have been marginalized.

Submissions should be from 1,000 to 2,500 words, and include a brief one paragraph biography about you, the author.

Please email submissions to Pete Redington at predington @ classism.org or send them to Class Action, P.O. Box 350, Hadley, MA 01035

Include your submission in the body of the email, and write "anthology submission" in the subject line.

Submissions will be accepted through June 1, 2009.

To download a Word flyer to distribute, click here.

Why

Please watch all nine minutes of this video.



This is why white working class people need to care about racism. This is why white working class people have more in common with African Americans than with the few privileged white people like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and John McCain.

And it's also why people who care about racism CANNOT ignore issues of social class.

With that, watch the whole hour-long lecture here, because every minute is worth your time if YOU care about race and class.

A Bit of Grace

I was in Florida to do what I can to help my mother recover from surgery. She was an unwilling participant in this help at times. It was frustrating. I felt defeated over and over again. She's a bit socially phobic (I think because of social class issues) so she's isolated, too.

One of my goals, though, has been to connect her with a church community. She grew up in the Church of the Nazarene (I was baptized in that church, and went there as a young child), so I sought out a church of that order near her. The closest one to her has services only in Creole, so we had to choose between two that are forty minutes away. My mother chose the larger one.

I tried to take her last Sunday, but her social phobia got in the way (which is my and my brother's diagnosis of her problems, not hers).

Wednesday, I had her out and about at a doctor's appointment, so I took her to dinner, then to church.

The worship was looser than I remember it being as a child. The pastor led it in an informal workshop-like manner first playing a game asking people to see what they notice in a Dick Van Dyke television show introduction. Of course no one saw that the door had six panels, that there were three pieces of furniture in the whole thing, that the door knob was oval. Then he showed another video, asking us to pay attention to the details.

It was a movie about a high school football team. One young man is goofing off and the coach challenges him to something called a "death crawl," where another of his teammates lay on his back while he crawls down field on all-fours, without having his knees touch the ground. The coach usually asks the team to do ten yards, but the kid bets he could do twenty. The coach says he could do 50.

Then coach asks him three times to give him his best. First the kid grunts his assent. Second he looks more serious when saying he would. The third time he says, "I'll give it my best coach."

Then the coach wraps a bandanna around the kid's eyes to blindfold him.

As the kid makes his grunting way down the field, the coach is over him, telling him he can do it. His teammates taunt him, telling him he can't do it, but eventaully, they are impressed and start to follow him silently down field. At one point the kid says he must be at the fifty-yard line and the coach tells him to keep going.

Until he collapses.

The coach takes off the blindfold and tells the kid to look up.

"You're in the endzone."

He'd crawled 100 yards with 160 pounds on his back.

The pastor then asked the eighteen or so in the room what they saw. Several talked about themselves being an inspiration to "unbelievers." Some took heart at perseverance or remembered someone who stood by their side during a rough time.

I saw the blindfold.

I struggle mightily with the unknown. I wanted to know the outcome of my bone marrow transplant in 1994. I wanted to know whether I would do okay in school when I went back to get my degree. I want to know if I'm going to get published. I want to know what to do to help my mother get better. I want to know what to do next with my leading to do work around social class. And I get anxious.

But as I sat in that church's classroom, I realized that the kid in the movie saw the field and thought his best distance would be twenty yards. When he was blindfolded, he wasn't limited by his human sight, by his assumptions, by his own ideas about what he could do himself. I realized that the veil is a bit of God's grace.

And I now know the veil has given me the opportunity to live up to the Light I've been given.

Last spring, I felt veiled by God because I forgot (as in, had no awareness of whatsoever) that being in and among Friends can be very painful for me around class issues, that I feel powerless and alone. So I signed up for Gathering and proposed an interest group around social class.

It was painful to be among Friends at times. And it was grace-filled. If I hadn't been veiled, I might not have gone to Gathering, and wouldn't have proposed a workshop.

I came away from Gathering with a leading, and I don't know where it's going or what my work will look like beyond a couple of opportunities right ahead of me. Now I don't have to know more than that because God will get me where I need to be, to God's goal line and not my own.

I didn't succeed in getting my mom connected to a church community. This time. Maybe next time or the time after that or the time after that. Or never. Maybe the attempt is enough. I don't know what God has in mind, and now I don't need to know. My only job now is to live up to the Light I've been given.