Seeking and Shoveling-John Calvi  Nov 2002, excerpted Friends Journal Oct 2003

I have been devoted to a spiritual discipline of late whose lessons I believe may help us to bear with some of the difficulties in discussing the important tasks of social change and civil rights.  The discipline I’m involved in, of taking the worst from the dark and bringing it out into the light for the miracle of growth, might teach us.  I speak, of course, of shoveling out the outhouse.  I want to relate this task to the great Quaker tradition of seeking and especially seeking around controversy and conflict.  There are several common parts and principles that can help us.  And I offer them here to encourage us all to continue to share deeply and honestly.

First Reminder- This is Life Out of the Ordinary.  This shoveling task is not reasonable.  I have an image of summer time being spent at a swimming hole, of sipping iced tea, even of bringing in hay on a bright sunny day from open fields of great light.  So to take a shovel and go into a cavern never meant to stand in is quite out of the ordinary, not regular life. 

Thus it is with seeking, especially where there is any pain, or urgency, or intimacy.  And because it’s out of the ordinary we can expect to bump into things and move without grace at times.  This doesn’t mean turn back.  It means go carefully.  And remember how to say, “I don’t know what this means” when that is your condition.  We can all expect surprises that will make us uncomfortable whether it’s seeing what we don’t understand or having to say what we don’t want to say.  Just know we are “not in Kansas anymore” and that’s partly why we are seeking.

Second Reminder- The Task is Long.  I take off the outdoor panel on the low part of our house’s slope and there, filling the doorway and overflowing it’s way into my heart, and sinuses, and sneakers is a mix of poop and peat moss.  I take a very large shovel, like the one my Uncle John used every milking to clean the barn, and I fill a small garden cart with 4 shovelfuls.  Then I have to push the cart up a little hill.  I wheel the cart past the vegetable bed whose population of snakes gets more Indiana Jones-like each year.  And then a bit more up hill over to where Marshall has dug a long trench for the new iris bed.  It will take 4 days and over a hundred trips to do this.

Likewise, to sort out, hear deeply, speak honestly, and accommodate all the discomfort with this topic will not take a short time.  It will take many many trips back and forth.  So let’s pace ourselves for the long haul.  Community is worth the time and care.

Third Reminder- The task is most specific.  Moving something that has needed to rest in the dark until it’s ready and bring it out into the light and put it in the right place to plant something wonderful whose shape and color will delight us all could upset some folks in a big way.  Simply asking a question is making trouble, good Godly trouble, a fine old Quaker tradition.  Can we keep our eyes on the intention and off the we/them win/lose traps that lay all around us?  If we can’t, it doesn’t spell failure.  It probably means there is more pain than we can hold and still move right now.

Fourth Reminder- I am not well suited to the task.  Though I am less bothered than many by the disgusting parts of shoveling out a compost toilet, it would be better if I had heavy eye brows to direct the sweat away from my eyes.  And though I am strong, it would be better if I were not carrying so much extra weight before lifting the shovel.  So too is the question for each of us- What do I bring to this process that may not help bring it to clarity?  Can I declare this un-clarity honestly?

Fifth Reminder- All progress comes from unreasonable people.  If you are seeking the spiritual nature of a particular situation or clarity as to the how and why a certain thing is, you can expect trouble and delightfully so.  Do you think when Margaret Fell said, “We’ll have to go into that prison and shine God’s love upon them”, do you think for one moment every body present said, “Sure Meg, I’ll pack the picnic baskets.”  Hell, no.  They were thinking, “How can I get out of here and how did this babe get the keys to everything with her lunatic dreams?”  And so when we set out to ask the hard questions and suggest that there needs to be a change, we should expect that not everything is going to be light and fluffy or go quickly or be acceptable dinner conversation. 

I can recall doing my first AIDS education in a prison in 1985.  No reasonable person should have been allowed to attempt it.  It called for a combination of theater, social work, and science that no school teaches.  It reminds me of Bill Kreidler’s wonderful Peaceable Kingdom talk where he asks us to be grateful in prayer for the conflict in our lives.  While I understand Bill’s idea, in my own imperfection the closest I can get is to say, “thank you that today didn’t hurt as much as it could have.” 

And so if we are involved in covering new territory, it would be good if we didn’t take personally many of the things that might get aimed our way.  Jumping in the water and then complaining about being all wet is no way to accomplish social change at home or in the world.  So anticipate the misunderstandings and the misinterpretations and try not to be insulted by them.  It’s just part of the work.

Sixth Reminder- Can we truly welcome honesty and pain?  Honesty and pain are necessary parts of the change of seeking.  If you are desirous of change without honesty or pain you’re better off sticking with television where trouble has an 18-minute format.  In real life all reform- from mental health institutions to a woman’s role in the family to the decisions about new weapons will involve hearing things that are so ignorant or so true as to be frightening.  And we cannot do without any of these truths.  They have to be brought out, given light and space for us all to see how the problem is stuck, how it is constructed, and what part can be worked with now and what part later.  It’s vital to ask for all the honesty including the worst possible expressions to come forth.  It’s in the light of each person’s essence that we can see what exactly we have to work with and how it all fits together.  As the brave drag queens of the Stonewall Rebellion knew, change is no place for sissies.

Seventh Reminder- Is the timing and movement organic?  Some work simply has to wait in the dark until it’s ripe for change.  Then comes the day when it’s right to shovel and someone with a shovel shows up and the change begins.  If it’s not the right time, or there’s no shovel or the person is squeamish about what the shovel is touching, a long and difficult work can be made more so.

Eighth Reminder- Be mindful of weariness. There is that terrible kind of mid-term fatigue that says, “Whose idea was this anyway?  I’m pooped.  Let someone else change the world.  I’m going home and watching the ballgame with a brew.”  This is a good honest place to come to in difficult work and anyone who doesn’t know this pit stop of doubt and fatigue hasn’t been on much of an adventure.  It includes blaming the leadership and feeling guilty for not being or doing enough.  It’s known in every organization that’s attempting large work.  So let’s make space for it and not freak out when it shows up and let’s give the person with doubt, fatigue, and pain a hug and a kiss and a break in the pace and see if we can then go on together.

Ninth Reminder- No love is wasted.  Every act of compassion finds a home and goes where it’s needed whether or not we can see where it lands.  Most often, our task is to fashion our best love, give it our best delivery, bless it, and let it go.  How it’s received, where it goes, how it’s used is beyond us and often beyond where we can see.  Let us trust our best efforts and surrender our self-doubt and uneasiness and desires for control to the Holy Spirit, knowing our parts are smaller given the long view.

Tenth Reminder- We cannot heal what we fear.  If there is something we want to bring to light it has to be something we are willing to witness, touch, and know.  Anyone thinking that an important change can happen easily because it’s a good idea needs some more time in a trench that nobody likes such as the AIDS pandemic, or the crisis of rape or hunger and homelessness or the common uses of violence to dominate in conflict.  We will learn more, more than we want to learn, more than is comfortable, if we chose to seek deeply and honesty no matter what trouble we witness.  And, of course, that witness will change us forever.  What we see and know stays with us.  In the end, any monster, inward or outward, needs us to stop trying to kill it or being terrified of it, to gather up all possible grace and sit next to the monster for a nice cup of tea.

All of this is a great deal to ask, maybe too much to ask.  Even with a large shovel and a strong back we will need time, patience, and endurance. A mature minister will have to make many trips no matter how short the walk.  Listening inwardly and outwardly, sidestepping the various potholes, and placing the next stepping stone just before it’s needed is more common in seeking and shoveling then we care to keep track of.  Working towards the common good, healing for ourselves and others, and working unknowns into understanding, change, and knowledge will always keep us in awe of so many moving pieces and, hopefully, grateful that we are never alone.