Three Quakers walk into a Safeway...

Cruising to the checkout at a Safeway in Silverton, Oregon, the cashier was surprised I didn’t have a frequent shopper card. Maybe my accent was also suspect. 

“You’re not from around here, are you?” she asked.

“No,” I replied. “I’m from Philadelphia.” 

Her gaze meandered to my two friends, both Quakers, who were next to me in line. She took them in: a petite Latina woman and a very dark black man (who’s African - but I’m not sure whether or not that was obvious.) 

“Are they from Philadelphia too?” 

“No,” I answered (playing the talky American), “He’s from Kenya, she’s from Bolivia.” I didn’t give the “many branches of the Quaker church” explanation that I would employ later while hiking. 

She thought about this, looked a little befuddled, then said “Oh. Well I guess you’re all a long way from home.” 

Yes, I thought. We are. 

***

Waiting in the airport, Harriet (who is tall, blond, and English), is approached by a man who asks if John, our Kenyan Friend, is an “elite runner.”

“Usually,” the man says, “when you see someone like that accompanied by a young woman, he’s an elite runner and she’s his handler.” Harriet came back mildly disturbed from this conversation - John was a little amused. 

We suspect “like that” meant a young, well dressed, African man. Though Harriet was dressed way too casual to be anybody’s handler (and lacked a Blackberry).  

***

Working on the Quaker Youth Book Project has been a learning experience in many ways, and not all of the lessons have been explicitly Quaker. While we were at motion in the world together - particularly after the meeting, when five of us  hung out in the Portland area for a few days - I was aware of the double takes and blank stares that indicated it was odd for people like us - of diverse races and national origins -  to be together and have an easy way together. 

One thing I am working on understanding is how claiming spiritual Friends and brothers and sister in faith from around the world, and opening myself to the reality of their lives,  puts me directly in opposition to a racist, US-centric culture.

I encountered this culture in the double takes we inspired walking together through the woods, the Safeway, the airport.  Even when it is kind - as was the cashier - there is a subtext of those people shouldn’t be together, this is unusual.

I encounter it when I consider financial resources and, even though mine are scarce, realize how vast they are in comparison to what other Friends are working with. When I realize how inequitable the distribution of resources is among Friends worldwide, simply because the distribution of resources among people worldwide is fundamentally inequitable. 

Being part of such a diverse church also offers me a glimpse of the Kingdom, to use some explicitly Christian language: a glimpse of what we can be like when we lay down all of our weapons, even those of privilege that we were born with, and meet  each other face to face.

For our editorial board we (13 of, including family and elders) lived together in a house on the Oregon Coast for four days. I glimpsed the Kingdom when we cooked and ate together, minded a baby together, worked together, had the hard conversations where we named and honored our differences, and tried to live our lives (if only for four days) in respect and care for one another.

It was at times awkward, difficult and imperfect. It was alsoprofoundly beautiful and exciting.

A friend at QUIP, the organization sponsoring the QYBP, noted that our work is not only relevant to Quakers. Rather, the work we are doing and the questions we are wresting with are a microcosm of fissures running through society.* I have often thought this - that the work we do to live together as Friends when we engage our diversity enables us to better engage larger societal work of living together, but had not yet put it so eloquently. 

** 

Towards the end of our hike at Silver Creek Falls south of Portland, we ran into a family of two older parents and a college aged son. They wanted to know how long the 5 mile loop had taken us (I think they were a little unprepared), and while we were answering that they became curious about where we were all from and why we were all together - a native Oregonian, an East Coaster, a Brit, a Bolivian, a Kenyan. We explained then, each in our own eloquence (we’re writers and editors after all), and it was then that I muttered something about “Many branches of the Quaker church.” 

“God bless you,” the woman said as we parted. At the time, she didn’t seem like the type to say that - an incorrect judgement on my part -  and I was surprised.

But in retrospect, it was quite fitting. 

 

*Thanks to Terry Sorelle for putting words to this.