The Quaker Clearness Process
Last week I put up several posts, including my “State of the Art Report, 2012“, as well as my options moving forward and what excites me about my work… all with the intention of inviting you, my friends, family and fans of my music, into… The Largest Clearness Committee in the History of Quakerism!!!
Amazing Response
The number of responses I’ve gotten back has been almost overwhelming! I’ve gotten emails from about 20 different folks, facebook messages from 10 and 8 comments from different people… that’s 38 people! And more as I’m writing this! I am touched.
Your messages have ranged from supportive encouragement to keep going, (even a few donations!) encouragement to let go, to take a sabbatical, invitations to play shows, quite a few other brainstorming ideas that I missed, and a host of other ideas.
I have even seen a few blog posts inspired by my idea to open up this discernment publicly on the internet. Please do visit and read these posts to get more of a sense of the context in which I have asked these questions:
Ashley Wilcox: “The Cost of Traveling Ministry“
Iris Graville: “A Virtual Clearness Committee“
Robin Mohr: “Bivocational Ministry“
Process
Here is a typical agenda for a clearness process:
1) Worship
Silent grounding, shedding the will and the ego and attempting to invite the movement of the Spirit to the forefront of our focus.
2) Sharing of the facts, decision at hand, feelings, etc
A period for the the subject of the clearness committee to share information about the decision. For our purposes, this was covered in the “State of the Art Report“, “What I’m Excited About“, and “Options Going Forward“.
3) Queries
The space is opened for each participant to offer questions and challenges to the subject of the clearness process. These can be answered verbally or taken into consideration and prayer. (I prefer to answer verbally so that we can all gain the experience of going deeper with the decision together.)
4) Reflections
Each participant listens inwardly and offers any messages that they have been given to share on the discernment.
6) Worship
(really worship should be before, after and during each one of those items)
Queries
For the sake of this experiment — this very large, very public clearness committee — we are in the middle of step 3: I have shared with you the facts of the decision, and have heard your queries.
I have tried to respond personally as much as I am able, but in order to keep this discernment accessible and consistent, I’d like to publish some of your most asked and most poignant questions and give some response.
Again, thank you for your engagement with this process. I am the luckiest musician that I know.
Your Questions (and My Answers)
September 25th, 2012 at 5:22 pm
Jon,
In your “Crossroads” section you outlined where you are and “Possible Options Moving Forward”. In the 19Sep2012 blog you propose, in “Your Questions! (And My Answers)” that we are now in the queries step of your discernment process.
Friend, you have the wrong query. Or, at the very least your “Possible Options Moving Forward” are completely backwards.
You have rejected even answering the fundamental question. One of your possible options was “Take a Full Time Job” and, with hubris, you answered “No. Just No.”
You’re here to build a life, for yourself and eventually for your family. One necessary component of that is finding a way to make a living. Period. Start there. That is, the first question is, “How will I make a living? For myself and eventually for my family?” You must support yourself and then also build the capacity to support others.
I know. It hurts to realize this. So it goes.
It’s a normal part of childhood and adolescence to try out various things. Many of us are attracted to what’s fun or, in your words, what makes you come alive. I liked fishing most of all when I was a teenager. You’re still stuck there thinking that music is the way you’ll make a living. Apparently not.
You’ve given it a stupendous try. Good for you. However, you are blocking your ears to what this experiment has been telling you. Your option 5-Consulting is just putting off the inevitable decision that you must find a job. Your option 4-Write music with wider appeal presupposes that your musical ability can take you there and so does option 3-Project to project. I was a pretty good fisherman but I did not have what it took to go pro. Friend Jon, love ya, but you don’t either. The option 2-Signing would have come your way if it was to be; it isn’t. Option 1 is the just not on the table if you wish to retain self-respect. An able bodied guy living off others is disgraceful. Honest work is what a man does.
So, the old question returns: “What’s the first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole?”
Answer: “Stop digging.”
You’re nearing 30 and you must find a way to make a living. Your music and songs will always be there. This is a real and challenging opportunity you have before you.
With Love,
Your other dad named Al
October 10th, 2012 at 12:14 pm
Al Best,
Firstly, I want you to know that your comment is primarily based on a mis-reading of my post. I said that I was not willing to consider trying to manage the full-time job of creating and promoting music *on top* of a regularly paying full-time job, not that transitioning to paid full time work isn’t on the table. Were I to take on full-time work, I would lay down music.
Regardless of the misunderstanding, you have said your piece.
As a parental figure in my life, it hurts for you to tell me that I don’t have what it takes to be a successful musician. And it makes me wonder: have you ever listened to my music? Have you listened to my most recent album? If so, did you try to understand what might be valuable about it? Have you ever read the comments on my Facebook page or Youtube videos?
I expect that mine is a difficult genre for you to understand and appreciate and that you might think me talentless and perhaps deluded. I certainly wonder these things myself sometime.
My belief, however, is that you have offered your opinion to me from an uninformed place. Uninformed about my music. Uninformed about the context into which it fits.
I wonder if you have a sense of what the path to success looks like as an artist in this society? You think that talent equals financial success. I haven’t had great financial success in the 5 years that I’ve been at it, (though more than you seem to think!) so I must not have much talent. If this is indeed how you feel, I would call you deluded, Friend. Deluded and uninformed.
Powerful art and capitalism (capitalism and any type of ministry or prophecy, for that matter) are fundamentally at odds with one another. Our most fiscally successful artists are those who best serve the interests of those who would fund them. I.E. the empire. Corporate brands. Advertisers.
But! We are living in a new time, in which fans can make the difference. Grassroots funding is changing the game. A fanbase can rise up and fund an artist who would otherwise never find funding, allowing them to distance themselves from the corporate agenda.
Fan funding is not equivalent to “an able bodied guy living off others.” As my friend Julian just posted on my Facebook page, “Have the people who supported [my] ministry done so freely and joyfully? If so, why would [they] have anything to say but ‘thank you’?”
For the sake of argument, here are some really important fundraising campaigns that you have also just dismissed as “able bodied people living off of others”:
Josh Garrels
Amanda Palmer
Andrea Seabrooks
Barack Obama
When you equate what makes me come alive with “what’s fun” – or childish idealism – and dismiss it as an unimportant part of this decision, I feel that you don’t have care for me and – more importantly – that you don’t have care for this world. That we should all put our heads down, suck it up, and do mindless, meaningless, and even destructive tasks in order to care for ourselves and our families.
With one third of the world without access to clean water and American families like yours (you and Barbara live alone in a 2 story house with 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a huge kitchen, two dining spaces just for the two of you… how much energy does that take to heat & cool? Who is sacrificing for your comfort? Whose shoulders are you standing on to manage your excesses?) hoarding 10-20 times their fair share of resources, how is putting our heads down and doing whatever we have to do to earn money the honorable thing to do? Do you not agree that some amount of transformation of this culture is necessary? If so, how do you propose that we do that without art?
Finally, I would like to address your tone. When you say things like “You must support yourself and then also build the capacity to support others” in response to a public clearness process that I have initiated regarding exactly this topic, I feel condescended to. When you say, “I know. It hurts to realize this. So it goes,” I feel like I am 9 years old again and you are telling me that I have to wash the dishes after community dinner even though I don’t feel like it.
And as childish as it seems, your opinion of me has an impact. Some part of me wants you to see all the work I’ve done, the 60 hour work weeks that I’ve put into spreading the word about my music, the mountains of emails that I’ve sent even though I haven’t wanted to, the websites I’ve built, the videos I’ve edited, the places I’ve traveled… even though I would have preferred to be playing my guitar. The shows that I’ve slogged through. The long-term visioning. The struggle. The growth. My consistency and commitment.
But I don’t think you are going to see those things. You aren’t looking for them. You are looking for a 9 year old Jonathan who doesn’t want to do the dishes, and that is what you are going to find. I have to find some peace with my knowledge that you can’t see me for the man I have become.
_____________________________________________
With that all said, I would like to reflect some things that I’ve noticed about your behavior. This is not the first time that you have approached me in this manner when I was at a decision point in my life, and I also know that you have a reputation for behaving this way in regards to the decisions of others.
You have strong opinions about the way that life should be lived. These opinions don’t seem to change or be open to challenge.
You do not show up to the process open yourself to be transformed. You arrive with the intention of herding others into the way of life that you understand. You use tools like shame and guilt.
You intentionally make others feel small in order to affect their behavior. It is a manner of communication that shuts down open-ness, and causes defensiveness. It is unhelpful and a reason that people have disconnected from you.
I don’t know why you behave this way. I imagine that you have hurt and fear and trauma from your own relationship with your parents that is playing out in your relationships to those that you presume to parent.
I pray for you, Al Best. I pray for your transformation, and honestly, I pray for something to break your heart open.
Not as retribution, but as a path to the more connected, more alive, more loving life that I know you are capable of.
_____________________________________________
Part of my intention of responding to your comment is to set a boundary. I do not want to be communicated with in this manner again. When I have life decisions to make, you can keep your judgement, your condescension and your narrow-mindedness to yourself.
When you are ready to come to me in a place of equals, knowing that you have a great deal to learn as well as to teach, let me know. I would love to have that kind of connection with you.
Love
Jon
October 10th, 2012 at 5:39 pm
Vincent van Gogh died alone, by his own hand, a very poor man. He sold one paintings in his entire life. Artistic capability and financial success have little in common.
October 10th, 2012 at 8:51 pm
That is so depressing.