READERS’ GROUPS: Some Open-Ended Questions

January 18, 2017 By Judith Favor

Working Cover Draft for The Beacons
a new novel
by Judith Favor

Pick those that spark a strong response in you…

The GATE: ENTRY POINTS

What pulled you into the story; conflict, collaboration or something else?
Which character made you care? What about her sparked your interest?
Which themes kept your attention? Say more…
Have you ever served on a pastoral search committee? Any regrets?
Have you ever made a life-changing decision, only to wind up doubting your own wisdom? Describe a bit about this…

The TUNNELS: UNDERNEATH

Have you ever been groped? More than once? What happened?
Have you ever confronted a sexual predator? When? Where? How?
Have you ever worked with strong women to get rid of a predator, or bring about needed change in your school, church or neighborhood?
Have you ever felt oppressed? When? Where? How?
Have you ever led a guided tour with someone of a different class, age or place so she could come to appreciate your original neighborhood?

The SHORES: LAND’S END

Do you usually say YES or NO when asked to serve in a leadership role? Why or why not?
When does the fear of looking bad or sounding stupid keep you from speaking up?
How might you rebalance a situation of power-over with someone in a position of authority? What might a power-with situation look like?
Do you like the feeling of blood rushing to your head, making everything heightened and fast and wild? Why or why not?
What role has the public library played in your intellectual development?

The HILLS: STEEP CLIMBS

Tell about a time you challenged authority or witnessed others doing so.
Tell about someone you consider a saint? Describe why…
Tell about your experience with spiritual-practice circles.
Tell about someone you know personally who speaks truth with love.
Tell about something that triggers your animosity, maybe aggression.

The PRESIDIO: TRAIPSING

For you, is Holy Communion a revered sacrament, an occasional liturgical experience, a paradox, a sacred mystery or something else?
For you, is heresy a holy truth, an outmoded concept, a way to separate insiders from outsiders, or something else?
For you, is aggression your first response, a rare but useful form of expression, avoided most of the time, abhorrent or something else?
For you, which person or situation irritates you like a thorn in the flesh? We aren’t sure what Paul meant by the metaphor; what’s true for you?
For you, what emotions rise when you read of a modern woman giving herself a penance or setting out to become a connoisseur of pain?

The BRIDGES: CONNECTING

What did you hunger for when you were a teen? And these days?
What did you do to ground yourself when you were young? Now?
What happens when people share food? How does eating together nourish emotional connections and deepen relationships between folks?
What might happen if more transgender folks had a place at the table?
What connection do you see between the Beacons’ total acceptance of her and Paige’s capacity to be merciful toward Rev Ruth?

The TENDERLOIN: LURES

Have you had personal experience with someone who was lured into the sex trade? Tell what you heard, felt, wanted, said or did…
Describe any links and/or tensions you might have experienced between your own emerging sexuality and your developing spirituality.
What delights you about San Francisco’s Night Ministry? Discomforts you?
How does your own faith community respond to the needs of those who are trapped in prostitution? Poverty? Madness?
Does your town have a Safe House? Do you see the need for one?

The VALLEYS: SHADOWS

How is your view of Holy Communion affected when you envision it as Rev Ruth and the Beacons do, as a sacrament of feeding?
Have you ever had a crush on someone? Were you aware of God’s Presence with you during the crush, after it was over, now, or never?
Have you ever had cancer? Describe your awareness of God during your illness. Did your connection with Sacred Presence change after cancer?
Have you noticed the little phrase AS IT IS midway through The Lord’s Prayer? What might it mean to you now? In the future?
Have you ever offered your traumatic memories to Creation for healing? What happened?

The AVENUES: PASSAGES

Have you ever feared you were losing your mind? Say more…
Nobody likes everyone. Is there one neighbor, one person at church or at work toward whom you feel a puzzling sense of aversion?
When have the blues swept over you, and how did you get through it?
Imagine yourself yourself sitting in the tableau, silently embodying one of the Twelve Madonnas. What are you wearing? Feeling? Wanting?
Have you ever organized a rummage sale or shopped at one? How do you feel about hearing You can’t put a price tag on love, but you can charge a fair price for the accessories?

The MISSION: ANIMATION

Have you ever been blessed by a great kindness, a kind of sunlight?
Ever had an intensely lucid moment, a sudden solution to a dilemma? Some call this ‘women’s intuition.’ How do you name it?
Have you ever observed someone near and dear, wavering on the edge of cognitive diminishment? Tell about it…
Have you ever repeated the name of Jesus to connect with the mysterious power of love embodied in this frail scrap of language?
Have you ever sensed the gravitational pull of love while listening to someone’s truth?

The PIERS: SUPPORTS

Imagine yourself at the bedside of a loved one, someone who has not yet decided whether to stay alive. What do you say? Do? Want?
Imagine yourself cleaning house in a flurry of righteous indignation. What do you think? Feel? Want?
How does angry aggression, when expressed to a trusted person in a safe setting, restore vitality for females?
How does voluntary withdrawal from everyday responsibilities help women gain perspective and renew inner strength? Can the same benefits come through involuntary withdrawal?
If power is the capacity to move and be moved in relationship, how does Rev Ruth’s illness change power dynamics among the Beacons?

The BEACH: CURRENTS

When have you had to put pieces of a challenging situation together without knowing the whole picture?
Do you believe it’s possible to have a soul connection with someone who has died? Have you ever received a bit of ancestral guidance?
What do you see, hear and feel when you witness flights of expressive imagination in others? How does expressive imagination happen for you?
Have you ever gone through a dark night of the soul, a cloudy evening of the soul, or a spiritual rummage sale?
How is being socially isolated similar to, or different from, choosing to live in a contemplative way? Does seeking to be rooted and grounded in Love have anything to do with it?

ASKING WRITERS about The Beacons of Larkin Street

January 18, 2017 By Judith Favor

Working Cover Draft for The Beacons
a new novel
by Judith Favor

Reading connects people;
so does writing.

Writing helps clarify ideas,
keep track of details
and discover hidden meanings.

Expressing our truths with love
connects us—physically, mentally,
emotionally and spiritually—
to our readers
and to our deepest selves.

We read to know we are not alone.

C.S.Lewis

The Beacons of Larkin Street is a Nineteen-Seventies historical novel written by a contemplative feminist great-grandmother, an ordained minister who once pastored a church in San Francisco.

Where do you see contemplative perspectives influencing the stories? Feminist perspectives? Grandmotherly points of view? Ministerly perspectives?

Set in San Francisco, twelve aspects of the City structure the novel. What connections do you see between the human characters and the character of San Francisco?

Tales of The Beacons move between the perspectives of seven women. Do you find the author’s omniscient POV to be confusing, credible, clear, challenging or something else?

If Beka were the sole narrator, the reader would get one singular angle on each character. Do you think Beka’s POV would have strengthened the novel? Why or why not?

If she were the sole voice, Rev Ruth would have told the story very differently. Would you prefer her first-person voice? Why or why not?

Which of Rev Ruth’s difficulties as a first-time pastor give you the greatest insight into her character? The most compassion for her?

How about Beka’s efforts to guide things as Saint Lydia’s Head Beacon?

The seven women have different sexual orientations and diverse attitudes about sexuality and spirituality. Did the author convince you that each is justified in her beliefs and practices? Why or why not?

In Dot and Rev Ruth’s conflict over communion, do you think the resolution took too long, or came too fast? How might you have done it?

Who was your favorite character? What about her intrigued you?

Which scene was your favorite? What made it memorable?

At the end, several story lines are left unresolved. Do you wish the author had resolved the characters’ dilemmas?

Do you think Rev Ruth will live or die? Return to guide St. Lydia’s, or go to Cleveland?

What do you think will become of Paige? Dot? Hope and Millienne? Luz?

Are there other subplots you wonder about?

This is the first in a trilogy. Which dilemmas and storylines do you most want resolved in a sequel?

Spiritual Direction

January 16, 2017 By Judith Favor

Spiritual direction is an ancient ministry,
a unique one-to-one relationship in which
a trained person assists another person
in the search for an ever-closer union
of love with God.

“Spiritual direction explores a deeper relationship with the spiritual aspect of being human.
Simply put, spiritual direction is helping people tell their sacred stories every day.

Spiritual direction has emerged in many contexts using language specific to particular cultural and spiritual traditions. Describing spiritual direction requires putting words to a process of fostering a transcendent experience that lies beyond all names and yet the experience longs to be articulated and made concrete in everyday living. It is easier to describe what spiritual direction does than what spiritual direction is. Our role is not to define spiritual direction, but to describe the experience.

Spiritual direction helps us learn how to live in peace, with compassion, promoting justice, as humble servants of that which lies beyond all names.”

Liz Budd Ellmann, MDiv
Executive Director, Spiritual Directors International

Stillpoint offers a two-year training program in The Art of Spiritual Direction (click here for details), and also provides references and resources for persons who are seeking spiritual direction. Directors listen carefully to the unfolding of directees’ lives, to help them discern the ways in which God is leading them. Spiritual Directors meet regularly (usually once a month) with persons who are seeking to share and explore their journeys of faith. The term “spiritual direction” has a long, rich history, and the term is still used today even though the practice of spiritual direction consists much more of “holy listening,” rather than direction in the sense of offering guidance or direct advice.

A Spiritual Director is a privileged witness in the spiritual unfolding of another person. The focus is on the relationship between the “directee” and God, much more than on the relationship between the director and directee.

Review of Wolf Hollow By Lauren Wolk

January 16, 2017 By Judith Favor

Reviewed by Judith Favor December 1, 2016, in Friends Journal

Dutton Children’s Books, 2016
294 pages
$16.99/hardcover; $10.99/eBook

“The year I turned twelve, I learned how to lie. I don’t mean the small fibs that children tell. I mean real lies fed by real fears––things I said and did that took me out of the life I’d always known and put me down hard into a new one.”

In Wolf Hollow, Lauren Wolk introduces a girl who becomes brave and good in the face of something terrible. In 1943, Annabelle lives among people who love her in the hills of rural Pennsylvania, a place she loves. She enjoys a steady life until a dark-hearted girl comes to her hills and changes everything. After Betty punches her and threatens greater hurts, Annabelle finds ways to protect herself and her little brothers by seeking inner guidance.

Toby, a scarred veteran of the first war, lives in the woods nearby. He looks odd and rarely speaks, but Annabelle senses his kindness. She tries to protect Toby from the lying girl who manipulates people into blaming him for the cruelties she has inflicted. Tensions mount when Betty disappears and Toby, suspected of kidnapping her, takes off. As men and dogs search for the missing girl and man, Annabelle searches her conscience and finds courage to speak the truth, a young voice calling for justice.

Lauren Wolk is an award-winning poet and author of the adult novel Those Who Favor Fire. In Wolf Hollow she writes an indelible account of a reflective child who stands strong on behalf of others. Although this compelling story of moral complexity and quiet heroism is marketed to third through seventh graders, I commend it to Friends of all ages, particularly librarians, First Day teachers, parents and grandparents.

To sum up the power of Wolf Hollow, I affirm the view of Julie Strauss-Gabel, President and Publisher of Dutton Children’s Books: “The stories that lay bare the ugliness of our world are also the stories that stay with us. They inspire acts of everyday bravery and turn small voices big.”

Judith Favor also lives in a place she loves, among people at Claremont Monthly Meeting who love her. She looks forward to reading Wolf Hollow to her grandkids and, some fine day, to her first great-grandchild.

http://www.friendsjournal.org/wolf-hollow/

“As It Is: Spiritual Journaling”
(update)

August 27, 2016 By Judith Favor

I’m pleased to say you can still enroll in AS IT IS: Spiritual Journaling!

Participants from Syria, Barbados, England and the US are dealing with difficult others, blessing absent ones and befriending money in their journals today.

E.courses offered by Spirituality&Practice reach across the years and around the world to help people explore spiritual life with clarity and authenticity. Course material remains in the archive, ready when you are.

If you sign up before September 2, you’ll have access to the Practice Circle. After that you can sign up with S&P’s on-demand system, choose your own start date and select when you want to receive the twelve journal-prompt emails.

Please join us today – or later!

http://www.SpiritualityandPractice.com/AsItIsE-Course

“As It Is: Spiritual Journaling”
(class starting soon!)

July 26, 2016 By Judith Favor

Monday, August 8th – Friday, September 2nd, 2106

www.spiritualityandpractice.com (Sign-up Webpage)

“As it is.”

These three little words embedded in the lines of a prayer taught by Jesus remind us to seek the workings of the divine “on earth as it is in heaven” — that is, to approach our many challenges in union with Sacred Presence. But how? One profound and reassuringly helpful tool to foster this sense of unity is spiritual journaling. Through contemplative writing, we get practice in recognizing and responding to our relationship with God, self, others, nature, work, and society just “as it is.”

Spiritual Journaling opens space to relate to deep questions:

What does this event or this emotion have to say to me?
What can this disappointment teach me about healing?
What does this discovery reveal to me about the presence and leading of the Holy Spirit?
How can my anguish over the suffering of this person or that group stir my love into action?
How can my felt sense of yearning guide me in taking the next best step in this situation?

Whatever spiritual path you are on, this e-course will equip you to explore interior, interpersonal, social, and sacred realities. Holy questions gleaned from scripture, poetry, and literature will offer a variety of perspectives on faith and doubt, action and reflection. In each email sent on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for four weeks, you will receive:

An introductory reflection on the day’s topic
A tip for getting started with your writing
A special query to spark your thoughts and journal writing
A suggested action and resources for going deeper if you wish
A link to the “Practice Circle” (a community forum open 24/7 to share with others in this e-course and to receive guidance from Judith)

Judith began journaling when she was ten, in a small blue diary with a gold lock and miniature key. She chose a ballpoint pen, because she knew that writing in pencil would let her fudge the truth. In 1974, she began a lifelong love affair with keeping a journal, studying journaling as an art form and not only writing but also inserting soul collages, tree photos, and icons in her journals.

In 1981 she enrolled at Pacific School of Religion and then went on to be pastor of United Church of Christ congregations in San Francisco until the ministries of spiritual formation and writing laid claim to her soul. She now lives with her husband Pete at Pilgrim Place in Claremont, California. Her heart is enriched by her work in spiritual accompaniment, teaching, and contemplative writing.

Judith invites you to freely express your full range of written reactions in this e-course — confused or certain thoughts, positive or negative emotions — because each aspect of the truth of yourself will reveal valuable insights. You may want to follow her journaling prompts exactly; you may also view them as a trampoline and record the bouncing associations that follow. This e-course gives you lots of freedom, most of all the freedom to follow your heart and the arc of your own life’s story.

(4 CEHs for chaplains available.)

Queries about Silence

October 14, 2014 By Judith Favor

Is silence collaborative, complicit?

“You know your part in this,” Sheriff Bowen once told him, and he did. Leo had not spoken up. He should have told someone about his brother torturing dogs. Leo knew he had been a coward.

from Silent Voices, Part One: Boy

Is silence the space between words, a pause between heartbeats?

That evening, Cordelia heard Leo’s baritone sounding the overture to an opus, one she would be hearing for nearly thirty years. It took longer for her to discover the complexities of this opus, to make out its woodwind harmonies, its percussive dissonances and its long, silent rests.

from Silent Voices, Part Three: Coming Together

Does silence signify absence? Does it entail presence?

Leo didn’t quite know how to be normal under the shadow of goodbye, although he had lived through it once. In Granny Phoebe’s case, he had her love to live up to. In Margaret’s case, his mother-in-law’s temper outweighed most everything else.

from Silent Voices, Part Three: Coming Together

Does silence make you nervous? Can it be menacing?

The silence that followed Leo’s departure was like a held breath. Chastened by her husband’s outburst, Cordelia wilted into a state of rebuke. Little did she know it would become a permanent condition.

from Silent Voices, Part Four: Wife

Is silence voluntary, even communal?

What are Leo’s mother and I doing here, sitting quietly like this, Cordelia wondered. Praying, she supposed, though neither said anything remotely prayerful. She didn’t want to break the peace by asking.

– from Silent Voices, Part Four: Wife

Is silence a refusal to speak, or to respond?

Nothing had ever been said about her husband’s mother leaving the convent. Cordelia felt the pressure to ask, but was relieved by the silence. She was not at all ready to hear about private matters between a failed nun and her God.

from Silent Voices, Part Four: Wife

How may silence and gender be related?

On this winter day she felt it again, the race of her pulse that propelled her to keep after him. “You may have uncovered a terrible crime. What will you do, Leo? You must do something about this.”

He hung his head and went mute, not for the first time. She was desperate for him to speak, to say anything, but he was too busy breathing. No matter how hard she pressed, no matter how urgently she pleaded, Leo kept his mouth shut, saying nothing for such a long time that she eventually stopped waiting for an answer.

from Silent Voices: Part Seven: Widow

Can silence be pleasurable, even palpable?

Nobody knows about our sexual chemistry during my first two pregnancies. Our secret. She used to wonder what the men at the bank thought when Leo came to work with his face aglow, but never dared ask.

from Silent Voices: Part Seven: Widow

Chapter One of Silent Voices

September 21, 2014 By Judith Favor

But this is not the story of a life.
It is the story of lives, knit together,
overlapping in succession, rising
again from grave after grave.
Wendell Berry, from “Rising”

1902 ON THE RUN

The boy slumped, forehead resting against the grimy window of the train. Leo removed his spectacles and put them in his shirt pocket. He couldn’t see much without them but that was how he wanted it today. He was too ashamed to look anyone in the eye. The past two weeks had been tense with accusations and threats. Now – all because of his younger brother – his family had been run out of town. He was furious at Albert, humiliated about being forced to leave his home in Montana. Leo had found a seat as far as possible from his family and pretended he didn’t even know them. His brother had a problem with violence. It was a form of madness, Leo thought. Albert’s madness had already caused more heartache than he could bear.

The last glimpses of home made his belly ache. After Dad announced they’d be settling in Oregon, starting over, Leo already hated it there, just as he had begun to hate it here. He kept his back to the aisle, shrugged Mother’s hand off when she touched his shoulder and ignored her until she went away. Tears rose, threatening to spill over. Leo tightened his throat, forcing back the tears, clamping his jaw so hard it made his molars ache.

“Bull.” That’s what Dad called his younger brother, sounding proud. “Loner,” he called Leo, sounding mean. He hated it when they made fun of him. Sheriff Bowen had said “solitary.” Leo rolled the word around in his mouth. Solitary tasted better than loner.

“You and I are a lot alike, son. We both tend to be solitary,” the sheriff had told him on that awful evening. “Yes,” he’d repeated, “we have something in common. That’s why I’m giving you a chance to get right with what you’ve done.”

Tears filled his eyes again. Remembering the sheriff’s gentle tone made his nose run. Leo wiped his coat sleeve across his face and hoped no one noticed. Mother told him to use a handkerchief but he didn’t have one now. Dad told him boys don’t cry and his younger brother didn’t. Albert – who told everyone to call him Bull – hadn’t shed a tear since he was in diapers, at least not that Leo had seen. They had to share a room but that was no place to let his feelings out. Leo went into the woods whenever he had to cry. Will there be any woods in Oregon? What if I can’t find any woods?

Alongside the tracks Leo spotted a railroad storage shed painted the same dried-blood color as the one he’d vomited behind a few weeks back. He shuddered in his seat, remembering what he’d heard on his way home from school that afternoon. Slugger, Albert’s buddy, was showing a second-grader what they’d done to a stray dog in the rail yard. “Bull said this here dog is shivering, let’s get it warm. You shoulda seen that dumb dog dance.” And I shoulda told Dad, Leo thought, except he woulda told me to quit making up awful stories. And to quit trying to get my brother in trouble. The bile rose in his throat again. He had to swallow hard to keep his breakfast from coming up.

Leo gazed unseeing at the rough terrain as the Great Northern labored into Idaho. His thoughts were in Billings, on what he’d been doing before Sunday turned bloody. His mother made him go to Mass but she didn’t care what he did the rest of the day as long as he was home for supper. Leo liked to ramble in the woods, moving up mountain trails and down steep ravines. Sometimes he sat on a rock, breathing the pine-scented air. Sometimes he’d see a shy animal go by. Occasionally he caught sight of a doe with her fawn or a buck with a great rack of antlers. Once he’d even spotted a mountain lion, the most elusive of creatures.

On that terrible Sunday, two weeks after his thirteenth birthday, he’d paused at the top of a ridge to look around. He picked up a pine knot, turned it this way and that, looking for the face hidden in it. He thought of pretty Alice, who sat in front of him in history class. Leo’s face flushed, remembering how embarrassed he’d been after splattering egg yolks on her pretty green dress. Maybe he’d carve a gnome for Alice, something to make up for his clumsiness.

He balanced the pine knot on his left palm and had just slipped the blade of his jack-knife into a seam when he heard something that made his ears stand straight out. It sounded like an animal in pain. Leo heard it again. The scream split the afternoon. Oh no, only a wounded creature makes a noise like that. Just yesterday he’d heard a customer tell Mrs. Mac that her beagle had disappeared. “I can’t imagine what happened to my little Buddy,” the woman said. She’d looked so sad.

He snapped his jack-knife shut and headed toward the trouble. Dodging branches on the ridge and sliding feet-first down a rocky chute, Leo gave no care to his britches. They were old, already torn at one knee, now ripping in the seat. The closer he got to the shriek, the faster and higher it came. Not just caught in a bear trap, he figured, but tortured somehow. The more the screams increased in pitch and intensity, the more frantic Leo felt.

Bursting into a clearing, he gasped to see his brother bent over a small dog, one boot on its hindquarters. He saw the flash of a knife and a quick spurt of blood. “Stop!” Leo shrieked in a high, girlish voice. But Bull did not stop. He slashed again, carving deep into the dog’s belly. Leo kicked the Bowie knife away and slammed his body against Albert’s, powered by adrenalin beyond the strength of his medium frame. Leo pummeled his huskier brother until Slugger pulled him off. By this time the dog had shuddered and gone quiet.

“What is the name of this boy, your brother’s friend?” Sheriff Bowen asked the night he picked Leo up. He spoke in a calm, even tone despite the gory details he’d just heard. To Leo, his words felt like boulders cracking the sidewalk.

“Sam Tucker, but he tells everyone to call him Slugger.”

“Ah yes, the Tucker tribe. Time to make another visit out to their place.”

“You won’t say it was me that told, will you?” Leo’s voice trembled.

“No, son, I protect my sources. But I will be coming to see your folks. I need to have a little talk with Albert.”

“I was afraid of that.” Leo blinked back tears. He suddenly knew that nothing would ever be the same. My life will never be the same.

Review of Colum McCann’s Trans Atlantic

September 20, 2014 By Judith Favor

TRANS ATLANTIC

By Colum McCann
Random House, New York, 2013
Hardback, 305 pages $27.00

Reviewed by Judith Favor. Published in Friends Journal, September 2014, pp 42-43

I yearn for writing that is transformational, and this beautifully crafted novel met my longing. Colum McCann braids together the passions of publicly acclaimed men – abolitionist former slave Frederick Douglass, WW1 pilots Jack Alcock and Teddy Brown and peacemaker Senator George Mitchell—with the private stories of feisty fictional women. McCann brings his characters to life through exquisite prose, gifting the reader with story lines that arc across the centuries and crisscross the Atlantic, interweaving Irish and American views and values.

Memorable scenes pulse with Quaker testimonies. In 1845 Irish maid Lily Duggan crosses paths with Frederick Douglass whose integrity and commitment to equality inspire her to escape servitude, sail to America and nurse wounded soldiers on a Civil War battlefield. The novel follows her daughter Emily and granddaughter Lottie whose journeys mirror the progress and shape of history. In 1919 they are influenced by two aviators who set course for Ireland, attempting a nonstop trans-Atlantic flight in a bomber they modified for peaceful means, a flight designed to heal the wounds of the Great War.

In 1998 Lottie encounters Senator George Mitchell in Belfast as he labors to negotiate the historic Good Friday Peace Accords. Mitchell granted the author access to his inner reflections, making para bellum a profoundly moving chapter, worthy of repeated readings. Mitchell’s inner light shines through McCann’s poignant portrait of the contemporary peacemaker who embodies simplicity, equality and integrity under intense international public pressure.

TransAtlantic is not a quick read. McCann’s truthful, tender pages invite pauses for deep thinking, remembering past peacemakers and imagining a more simple, just and equitable future. There is so much goodwill, humor and pure life force in every chapter that this book will lift the spirit of Friends and meet the hunger for transformational fiction.

Judith Favor is a member of Claremont Friends Meeting in Southern California.

Literary fiction seeded with Friends’ testimonies feeds her hungry soul.