Surrender as a gift

Spiritual gifts have been on my mind and heart this week as I read and prepare for a full-day retreat I will lead next month. This topic has been near and dear to me for a long time and I am elated to delve in more deeply for a wonderful group of Quakers on their annual renewal day.

Of course, I have plenty of play planned. Play that gets us out of our heads and into our hearts, where we may better discern our gifts and those of others. Serendipitously, I facilitated a shorter retreat in August, also on naming gifts. One of the gifts of teaching is how much you learn in the process!

The pink line is me – couldn't figure the embryo out 'til now: my gift

Where this gets more interesting is that I am understanding a gift that I have been given. I am not certain if it is new or just that I am now discovering it. And I hadn't even put it in the context of a gift until last week when a healing-touch friend exclaimed that it is, indeed, a gift.

I couldn't see that on my own and that is precisely why I have pushed for naming gifts in my Meeting for a very long time. We often are not objective enough to notice them in ourselves.

I made a similar statement early on in the August retreat when a gentleman, who had earlier introduced himself as our yearly meeting's only evangelist, disagreed. With eyes boring into me, he said all we need do is look inside and God will show us our gifts. That simple.

For a moment, I doubted myself and wanted to say "Well then, I guess there's no reason to hold the rest of this retreat." But someone said she doubts her gifts and even experiences fear around them. We came full circle by the end, when my meeting's minister tenderly spoke of a member who had killed herself a week earlier because she could not see her gifts.

I believe the man who can look inside and see it all clearly is in the minority. The rest of us need encouragement and nurture from each other. Everything I am perusing and re-reading confirms that.

"It is the faith community's responsibility to name giftedness of its members because we cannot see ourselves clearly," Lloyd Lee Wilson writes in Essays on the Quaker Vision of Gospel Order.

When that happens "Such a process frees the individual from fear, hesitation and caution; they have others who will help take the responsibility for the cultivation of a gift, and the ministry or service that flows from claiming it, living into it, and using it," according to Quaker Marty Grundy. She's pretty wise. Over a dozen years ago, when I was first introduced to spiritual formation and nurture, she gave the best advice that I continue to live by and share about listening. The burden of translation, when listening deeply, prayerfully, to another is on the listener, she said. It's so counter to what we are used to: that the speaker articulate. I call it listening by heart, beyond the words and to the other person's heart.

Perhaps seeing gifts in another is a similar process. A looking beyond the surface, deeper, to that place God resides in each of us.

My all-time favorite Quaker book, a slim volume, was first published in 1750 and has a rather archaic title: A Description of the Qualifications Necessary to a Gospel Minister by Samuel Bownas. I was re-directed there via an Internet search. This book has been tremendously helpful over the years as I see Spirit leading me out of the shadows of eldering, a behind-the-scenes nurturing, to a more out-there ministry.

Writing about traditional vocal ministry, I think what Bownas has to say applies to any spiritual gift.

"I advise to an inward waiting upon thy gift, to feel the moving thereof in thy own mind, which will by a gentle illumination clear thy understanding and judgment, whereby thee will see thy place and service in the church." In early ministry, or new awareness of a gift, Bownas counsels Friends to "help by tender advice ... which should be tenderly and with care administered. If he be corrected, let it be in love; if encouraged, let it be with prudence. Both may hurt him, if not well timed, and given discreetly."

Early on in this search, I focused on Paul's first letter to the Corinthian church naming spiritual gifts and their place in a faith community. So, I was a little stunned to read a verse from 1 Corinthians in a book on energy work someone I trust directed me to regarding an emerging gift:

Follow after charity and desire spiritual gifts ...that ye may prophesy                             – 1 Corinthians 14:1

I love that I am working on a retreat about naming gifts and doing the very same thing myself. This IS where I am meant to be.

• How clearly do I recognize my own spiritual gifts?
• Who can help me name and claim my gifts?
• What are my gifts?

• Can I see them in others?

• Am I called to help others name theirs?


been a little
murky, discerning
a message from
Spirit to surrender

I've been afraid
of losing a
part of me or
my life

to which
I cling

yet I slowly
drudge ahead,
praying, waiting,
not knowing

unsure

when a new gift
pops up,
unexpectedly

I am being given
something

not punished
or penalized

but called
to trust
this gift and
surrender its
use to Spirit

Listen to this post:

Naming and claiming gifts

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon facilitating a retreat on naming gifts at Wilmington Yearly Meeting, the umbrella group for my home faith community of Cincinnati Friends. They meet annually for business and a have added a retreat segment. I was honored to have been asked, but more honored to have been a part of such a rich experience.

Days before, I wasn't certain if I could even make it thanks to something I'd eaten. I'd awakened the night before and asked God to get me through and to the retreat. She did, beautifully.

My youngest, Lily, tagged along as my assistant. She's my right hand at Artst Fartsy, so I knew she'd be good company for this session. Besides, I like exposing her to the wider Quaker world. She felt right at home as soon as we walked in the door: the director of the Quaker camp Lily'd spent two weeks at in June and her daughter warmly greeted us.

Choosing materials for "Heart Play"

Lily had helped me pack baskets of stones, gems, driftwood, beads, blocks and buttons into the car, unload them and turn the multi-purpose room into a playful, more inviting space. Creating that kind of environment is one of my gifts, I've recently recognized.

Through no plan of my own, I'd happened to be the subject of a clearness committee at the beginning of the week. Quakers own a wonderful process that allows those struggling or seeking to answer a question with a group-discernment process that helps the focus person tap their inner teacher and truth. Mine began to uncover my blocks to fully following where God calls me, including my fear of being in the limelight and expecting to be paid for use of my gifts outside of the secular realm. We haven't finished and are scheduling a second meeting.

Lily and I had arrived a couple of hours ahead of my part of the retreat and set up rather quickly. It gave me time to get to know a few folks better, including the woman who'd invited me. She's pretty darn wise and when she said she's really learned to live in the present, I asked her how. "I plan like mad, then I relax on the day of the event, so I can be very present." She echoed what I was beginning to learn and practice.

So I was relaxed and even willing to share something very dear to me: a story in the form of a waking dream I received about myself and my work, but also so universal and about God's transforming love. I used it at the beginning of the retreat. About a third of the way through, people asked if I would use a microphone. I've been told I have a good reading voice and I also know I have trouble projecting. I am afraid of totally being out there.

Instead of being fearful of the mic, it actually empowered me. As we were switching to an exercise, one of the beloved women from my meeting (church), gave me a piece of advise she'd received from her father as she began a teaching career. "Speak to the person farthest away and then you'll have no trouble. Otherwise you talk to yourself." Of course, the teacher voice I use for Artsy Fartsy and with my own kids.

As we all began to feel more comfortable with one another and discussed the difficulty in naming and claiming our own gifts, I disclosed my challenge to embrace being in the spotlight. I feel more like a guide than someone barking what should be done.

Interestingly, an older gentleman shared how all it takes is knowing God deeply within to see our gifts. His brazenness scared me, yet he said knowing God in that way leaves no room for doubt and feeling wounded is, well, ridiculous.

Of course he's right, yet I also think he doesn't see that some of us are wired differently. Others responded that fear is an obstacle, that we are varied people with varied gifts and, so very tenderly, in worship, my minister revealed how a member of our faith community who recently took her life could not see her gifts. On some level, we all concluded that it is paramount that we share our gifts in community and encourage each other to name and claim those gifts.

Funny thing, this retreat, in which I was "facilitator" helped me to claim my own. Imagine that.

• What are my gifts?
• How can other help me name and claim them?
• How can I do that for others?
• How do I pray to know my gifts?
• How do I use those gifts in community?


riding in on the
wave of a warm day

into a group
of mostly strangers

the tide swiftly
changes as we
worship our way in

listening, deeply,
for God, within ourselves
and to each other

as always,
Spirit responds
lovingly and
with Truth

Listen to this post: