Nurse Nancy rides again

As a young girl, I decided to be a nurse when I grew up. It was like a holy calling, and I thoroughly romanticized the profession. In my day-dreams, I rode a horse as I went on house calls through the countryside, arriving just in time to rescue despairing children and save lives.

It’s not that I didn’t do my homework. I actually undertook my first research project at the age of eight on the subject of nurses. Aided by my father and the local library, I scanned books and encyclopedia articles, coming up with a manuscript several chapters long and fully illustrated. My parents supplied me with a box of 32 brand new Crayolas for the project. I imaginatively entitled it, “Nurses.”

That was all well and good until, in the messiness of Real Life, I discovered I did not have a stomach for blood, vomit and such. Gradually, my holy calling slipped by the way side.

My next calling was to be an actress. Not a movie star, but a Serious Actress. On stage. In the pre-adolescent years, a friend and I formed a neighborhood drama club. Our intention was to write and produce plays for the all the people, adults and children, who lived around us. The dreaming and planning part was fun, and we came up with several notebooks of well-drawn costume designs. But we never managed to actually produce any plays. But I did write skits for our church youth group and gained somewhat of a reputation as a playwright. The three-act murder mystery I wrote in the 7^th grade was put on by my classmates for the whole middle school, with parents invited. I insisted on playing the lead role, figuring I had that right since I wrote the play. (The role happened to be the criminal, the maid who actually “dunit.”) It was all great fun.

My participation in high school drama further cemented my resolve not to go to college, but to enroll in the Pasadena Playhouse for professional training. Somehow, in the mysterious ways of God’s interventions, I ended up at George Fox College. Granted, my first major was in theater, but after one year that gave way to world literature, which by my junior year had become Spanish. I graduated with a Spanish major and a desire to serve God overseas. Another holy calling.

Down through the years it’s dawned on me that my first calling is to write, whether it’s an illustrated volume entitled “Nurses,” a three-act murder mystery, or a manual on writing designed to help Bolivian Quakers write their own materials. I’ve gradually come to describe my vocation as being “to discover and express the grace of God, hidden in the ordinariness of life.” I can carry that out no matter what particular task I happen to be doing, wherever I happen to be doing it.

At the moment the place is our home in Newberg and the task is to nurse Hal back to health. It comes full circle. Nurse Nancy is back in the saddle.

After several weeks battling an infection, Hal had emergency surgery to open a blocked bladder. It was an “in-and-out” operation, and after about six hours in the hospital, I brought him home. That was last week. Since then, we’ve followed a regimented schedule of medications, rest, exercise, rest, meals, and more rest. It’s Hal that does the resting, not me. But I’ve discovered that even emptying urine bags can become so routine as to lose all offensiveness. To help break the monotony, we’re watching “Foyle’s War” on Netflix. We’re going to manage to get in all the episodes, from all seven series.

And can you guess where God’s grace is hiding these days? It’s right here in our apartment. In abundance.

And here am I, writing about it.

It's their turn: Andean Quakers writing

I lifted my head during a lull in the conversation and looked around the room. Our group had been interacting with Hilarión on an article he had written about his experiences as a Quaker in the Bolivian military. I noticed that the exchanges in other groups were just as lively. A circle of four men, conveniently seated in the patch of afternoon sun streaming in through the window, was debating. Another group listened to María reading aloud from her manuscript, the first article she had ever written. I liked what I saw.


This was the first afternoon of a writers workshop, held in Juli, Peru, September 10-13, sponsored by the Friends World Committee for Consultation, Section of the Americas. The 27 participants represented the various Friends yearly meetings in the highlands of Bolivia and Peru. This was the third workshop in the series that Hal and I had been invited to lead, the first two taking place in 2006 and 2007. The previous workshops, at the request of local Friends, had focused on the preparation of didactic materials for adults and had resulted in booklets (or plans for books) covering such topics as reconciliation in the family, the local congregation in response to its social context, and practical holiness.

But this time I wanted to do something different and proposed that we focus on narrative writing. I’ve long had a concern that we be writing down and collecting the stories of Andean Quakers, both on the personal and communal levels. The sponsors and the workshop participants responded positively, sharing the same concern.

Narrative writing fits the Aymara context; cultural communication styles are traditionally oral and narrative. In rural communities the grandparents pass on values to the children through the animal fables, which, by the way, are hilarious. Education and urbanization are changing the picture, mirroring what is happening to traditional cultures all over the world, but the importance of stories remains.

We gave the workshop twice, in Juli for the highland Friends, and on a series of Saturdays in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, for Friends in the tropical lowlands, also in the month of September. Some 17 women and men participated in the Santa Cruz workshops.

We began by talking with the participants about narrative, its nature, its universal appeal, and its specific cultural importance. Why do we need to remember and pass on our stories? How do we express them in a compelling way? In a culturally appropriate way? How do we help each other to do this?

We also included a focus on Quaker values and some of the fascinating history of Quakers and literature. We noted that while most of Quaker writings have come from the global North and West, we can take inspiration from this history and step up now to take our turn. It’s time to hear from Friends in Africa, Asia, and, of course, Latin America.

But the heart of the workshops is always just doing the stuff. People were to come with a preliminary manuscript, a story from their own experience of an encounter with Jesus. About half the participants had the assignment ready, a good result actually. The others had to catch up during the workshop. With some orientation from us on principles of good writing (and re-writing!) and on the writing process, we divided into small working groups to read manuscripts and learn to do peer review. As I sat in on the groups, I was pleased by the observations different people were making, and the way the writers were learning to receive both praise and constructive criticism. That is never easy to learn!

The fact that the workshops are backed up by a specific project provided further motivation. We hope to publish selected stories in a book, or perhaps a series of books, tentatively entitled, Fire from the South: The Faith and Life of Latin American Friends. We want to include narratives from Central America, Mexico, and Hispanics in North America. The primary purposes are internal: a book in Spanish to help unite Latin American Friends, help them identify their particular characteristics and callings as part of the larger Quaker and Christian movement, and, of course, to pass the stories on to the next generations. The secondary purposes are for English-speaking Quakers. Participants in the workshops are encouraging us to look beyond a Quaker readership for the book, further expanding the purposes. (This is interesting to me in light of a recent series of articles on Quaker writings by Johan Maurer--johanpdx.blogspot.com,Aug. 13, Aug. 20, Sept. 3, 2009.)

While final drafts are due the first of November, the preliminary manuscripts I brought home encourage me. Elisabeth and Ana have together written the story of their father, the pioneer of the Friends movement in the lowlands. We especially need the stories of older Friends who were involved in the beginnings of churches and even yearly meetings; many of them have died (such as the Friend in this story) and others don’t have enough formal education to write. But their children and grandchildren do. Two other articles deal with the early Quaker movement in the highlands, and how migration to Santa Cruz fueled the beginnings of the lowland church. Julio writes about how his profession as an entomologist is helping him live out his concern for protecting the environment. Gaby tells her story of encounter with Jesus in a context of animism and hostility to Christianity. Esteban writes of his calling to ministry and later to missionary service in another country. Abraham tells the story of his congregation’s response to situations of family abuse in the surrounding community.

All of these stories give insight into the faith and life of Andean Quakers. It is my prayer that they will enrich and encourage all who read them, both in and beyond the Quaker community. It’s time to let their voice be heard.

Quote: Kathleen Norris

From Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life (2008, Riverhead Books):

“Even as I discovered my vocation as a writer, I had to struggle to maintain the boring work habits necessary for nourishing it” (41).

“The concept of sin does not exist so that people who may need therapy more than theology can be convinced that they are evil and beyond hope. It is meant to encourage people to believe that they are made in the image of God and to act accordingly. Hope is at the heart of…the ever present possibility of transformation” (114).

“When the Dalai Lama was asked for advice about how people could improve their spiritual lives, he laughed and said that it was obvious: Eat less, don’t stay up so late, and sleep more” (193-194).

To blog or not to blog: taking the plunge

“Blog” is such a funny word. Perhaps it’s the rhyme with “frog” and “bog” that makes me think of something fat and green, with bulgy eyes. Blog, as a verb, should mean to paddle forward at a slow pace, as though through yellow muck.

But of course that’s not at all how we use the word today (although parts of the image may match). And here I am, with my own blogspot—a sort of literary lily pad, ready to take the plunge.

To blog or not to blog—that has been the question for several years now. I’ve been reluctant. A writer all my life, I remember my first poem, at seven-years-old. I was sitting on the porch with a tablet and a pencil, copying my dad, doing what he spent so many hours doing, seeing if I could do it too. Writing.

Actually I was playing with words, enjoying their sounds, mixing and matching them, and then putting them down on paper. The result was a poem in which I go around murdering people in rhythm and rhyme. In spite of its strange content, it was not a morbid poem and did not frighten my parents, who praised my efforts. (The content came from the fact that the only word I could find to rhyme with my last name, Forsythe, was knife—and the poem ran off on its own volition, clutching that dangerous knife and dragging me along with it. At that time in my creative development, form obviously dominated meaning.)

That was the last murder poem I ever wrote, but it was certainly not the last poem. My adventure as a writer had begun and was greatly encouraged the following year by Mrs. King, my third grade teacher. The story has continued down through the years, taking me into a world of cross-cultural stories, publication, research and the privilege of encouraging writers in other countries. I’m now a young woman in her early 60s, still excited to be alive, still learning new stuff. And still writing it all down.

So—why blog? I’m a little nervous about sending this out into the void. I have a lot of questions about the value of blogging and about my own motivations. How is this to be like my personal journal (definitely not for publication) and how like a collection of articles? Can I consistently have something of substance to say, and can I consistently say it well? I don’t know.

The discipline required to do this and to do it well is one drawing reason. I need to grow in discipline. But I want to see that discipline as a channel for grace—not another burden to add to the pack.

Another reason to blog is the chance of finding conversation partners, people with the same passions and interests (or not), who will comment, encourage, challenge—in short, talk with me.

Another reason is the chance this gives us to keep in touch with family and friends when we are traveling and teaching in other countries. The “we” here is important, and I’m hoping both Hal and I will use this blogspot. I will probably write more frequently, but I love it when Hal writes.

Anyway, here goes….from the lily pad, into the lake. Plop.