[This post is continued from here, where-in I kvetch and kvell about all kinds of things, and reveal myself to be a grumpy old grouch].
I visited the Meetinghouse and found the pamphlet I needed to prepare for the committee meeting Monday night. The pamphlet, a structured discussion of Quaker marriage has a lot to recommend it in terms of its elaboration of issues faced by Friends in matters matrimonial since the 17th century. My initial grumpiness centered, I think, on the fact that we support wedding commited couples and it seemed like this was the one step back in the progress two-step, because…

I’ve worked with clearness committees for marriage for heterosexual couples and we didn’t ground ourselves with this reading, or with any other, but rather relied on a traditional practice that drew on the combined experience of members of the committee and the couple. By pulling out this tract, are we creating a distinction that we would rather erase from our consciousness? I am afraid we are doing that.

Each of us has been wounded in some way. We have tender spots that we hope our friends and family will soothe and help us to heal. Some of us have been so cruelly branded by discriminatory practices that the wounds are a chronic condition. Others have scar tissue that shields them from the pain of continued social abrasion. And so, as we move forward to solemnize and to celebrate the marriage of Barb and Amy, we owe them and ourselves the consideration of issues they may face as a married couple of the same gender in 2024. But the pamphlet was written in 1993 and Friends in America had celebrated same-sex marriage for at least ten years before the pamphlet was written, so we are reaching a point that we have reached with other invidiously discriminatory practices in society at large - namely, this stuff is starting to get old. We recognize the dehumanized condition of many who discriminate against those who differ in our larger community, but here in our meeting community we must simply offer love and nurturance and ask, “How can we help thee, friend?”

The pamphlet offers a lot in terms of generalizable concerns for married couples. Where it strays from sound practice is in its assumption of difference in matters of law for these friends. Quakers have ever been faced with matters of conscience, and there are Friends who pay no war taxes, who refuse military service, who practice civil disobedience of any law they find noxious. So “gay marriage” will always, I believe, be an option in Friends meetings regardless of any repressive legislation. But happy marriage, a loving couple, well knit and supported by the meeting is not a sure thing. And this pamphlet, regardless of the cloying comparisons of John Calvi and Marshall Brewer with Margaret Fell and George Fox, offers a fundamental understanding of issues that marrying couples should consider:

1. Do you think you will be good partners? Can you compromise out of respect for the other? Can you articulate your feelings? Do you know your own strengths and weaknesses? What do you do to have fun together?
2. How do you deal with conflict?
3. Do you plan to have children?
4. What are your expectations of marriage? What are your understandings of the nature of the spirtual and corporate nature of a Quaker marriage?
5. What do you think about traditional roles and role separation between wage earning and homemaking?
6. Have you addressed the practical legal matters such as wills that will bind your relationship contractually? Are you free of of other binding relationships?
7. How will you finance your marriage?
8. How do you feel about your soon to be extended family? Do you enjoy each other’s family and friends? Can you have personal relationships that do not include your partner?
9. Are you willing to give the time, patience and openness to a good sexual relationship? How do you feel about sexual and emotional fidelity?
10. Are you aware that the marriage relationship needs constant care and nurture to insure good growth? Are you willing to recommit yourself, day by day, year by year, to try again in spite of difficulties, to recoginize, accept, love and delight in each other’s individuality?

Two years ago I finished a two year stint as Clerk of my Monthly Quaker Meeting. We’re a large meeting in a university town and among our members there is a wide range of beliefs. There are Catholics who attend our meeting because of the peace and community they find here, Jews, Buddhists, fallen Lutherans like myself… there are lots of different backgrounds represented. We have among us so-called “birthright” Quakers and “Quakers by convincement.” I belong in the latter group. We are largely descended from European white people. Only a handful of those of Asian or African descent can be found among us, and no indigenous people to my knowledge.

Our meeting has been described as a “mystical universalist” gathering, and when they named me Clerk, I’m not sure they knew that they were handing over the key to the meetinghouse to a foul-mouthed atheist. But the inner light shines out from everyone through a variety of filters, each unique, if shaded by particular belief structures and other trappings of the mind. I am grateful to be among friends, people who gather in mindful contemplation of truth and love seeking only clarity and goodness and light.

Now I have the opportunity to serve on a clearness committee for marriage. I’ve been asked to review the Pendle Hill pamphlet on marriage clearness committees and it doesn’t seem to be online.

[…and later] Oh boy. It’s getting deeper. After an exhaustive search, I find that there is only one Pendle Hill pamphlet that seems to be relevant… number 308.

Am I just grumpy, or would it have been a reasonable expectation for the person who is convening Barb and Amy’s clearness committee to have given us a clue that she isn’t asking us to read some generic pamphlet about clearness committees for marriage, but rather Marriage - A Spiritual Leading for Lesbian, Gay and Straight Couples?

Indeed, I am led to further inquire regarding the title of this pamphlet… what kind of a benighted bow to correctness was required to include “Straight Couples” in this title? Well, you can’t judge a book by it’s title, I guess, so i’ll have to read it and see if my judgmentalism is supported. But, simply to summarize…

• The convenor of this committee requested that I read the Pendle Hill pamphlet on marriage. There were dozens of appropriate ways that she could have led me toward the pamphlet in question. If “lesbian,” “gay,” “queer,” or “homosexual” were words too freighted for her to utter, perhaps she could have delicately pointed toward the pamphlet that addresses “same gender” marriage.

• My reaction may be over the top, but I started this morning as a seeker regarding the marriage clearness process. Researching that process, I’ve found precious little on-line to support the work of a committee. The pamphlet I’ve been pointed toward will be in the Meetinghouse Library, I think. I wish it was online. The assumption that I would know that there is a pamphlet reflecting on the pair bonding through marriage of same gendered couples and that specifically this would be the pamphlet I should be looking for is a matter of concern to me.

The Quaker clearness process is an opportunity to shine light on a matter of concern. A couple’s commitment to marry is a huge concern for the couple, of course. Preparing them and the meeting for that marriage, putting the marriage under our care, is I think what the clearness committee is about. Sitting together in silent worship, meditating, then inquiring, asking questions of each other and answering, sharing the warmth of community, finding a balance between the informal friendship we share and the sober responsibility sharing promises and intentions has got to be what this is about. What are some of the questions other clearness committees have found rewarding? How have committees introduced the couple to the community and assured a continuing nurturance that makes meaningful the phrase “married under the care of the meeting?” Will I find answers to these questions and others in the pamphlet?

I’m off to the Meetinghouse Library to see if i can find it.

[Update - I did find the pamphlet, and I read and I reflect further in this post.]