Friend Paul Buckley, the featured presenter at our Iowa (Conservative) Midyear Meeting, corrected me the moment I greeted him, and rightly so.
“Yes, we have in fact met face-to-face before,” he said. “It was at the FGC Gathering in Kalamazoo in 1995, at mealtime. I remember clearly, because Peggy Spohr was sitting at the table, too, and that was the first time I met her, and now I’m married to her.”
Lordy, friends, I have no memory of that at all! I do know my memory’s not the best any more, but to be totally blanked-out about an occasion that momentous kinda frightens me.
Paul did a fine job with his presentation — as was only to be expected from the co-editor of The Quaker Bible Reader, the editor of Twenty-first Century Penn, and the author of Owning the Lord’s Prayer and numerous essays in Friends Journal. His theme for the weekend was “Be Not Afraid”, a subject which he had initially planned to tie to the story of Peter in the Gospels. However, as he told me over lunch the first day, after he had worked out his whole presentation and written out everything he planned to say, he “received orders from upstairs” — that is, a leading from God — to the effect that God wanted something different. So in the end he gave us something that wound up in a very different place from what he’d planned.
The first two sessions he led were still as he’d originally planned, however. In the first, he talked about his personal fears, such as those that were aroused during his struggle with prostate cancer; about corporate fears, such as our secular society arouses in order to manipulate its members; and about the fear of God which is mentioned in the Bible. He said that fear is natural; even Jesus felt fear in the Garden of Gethsemane. He quoted the old Biblical saw that “fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Psalm 111:10 / Proverbs 9:10). As regards our corporate fears, he argued that “be not afraid” is “the ultimate countercultural message in America today;” but he also indicated that fear of the Lord is a Good Thing.
And I won’t go into how he reconciled those last two points, because I think it might make a good exercise for you, my esteemed readers, and me, to work out our own answers on the matter. — Your comments are certainly most welcome!
Paul offered us some queries on the subject of fear. (He noted that “part of the genius of Quakerism is turning platitudes into queries”.) As regards our personal fears, he offered: “When I’m afraid, do I remember God?” And as regards our corporate fears, he offered: “In political discourse, do I express as much respect, love, and compassion for my opponents as for my friends?”
One of the most moving moments, for me, though, came when Paul talked about how he, personally, came to know fear of the Lord. A voice came to him, a silent voice in his awareness that felt clearly from God, asking: Are you willing to give up your hopes and dreams? That, friends, struck me as a powerful query from God.
Paul’s own query to us, after he finished the subject of fear of the Lord, came in two parts — first: “Am I willing to give up my fears?”; and second: “am I ready to do so?”
I’ll post more about what happened in my next journal entry. Alas, I’m out of time this morning!
