The Beginnings of My Vocational Discernment

During my senior year at Guilford (‘05-’06), there was an active discussion about vocation. “Where my great passion meets the world’s great need” was the phrase bouncing around in my head and the community’s collective consciousness.

I had been writing and recording songs as a hobby since my senior year of high school. By 2006 I had even released a few CDs and played some shows. Music was, without a doubt, my great passion. But there were several major barriers between me and committing to my journey as a musician: (1) It is incredibly unlikely that one will succeed in this line of work; (2) Success often comes at the abandonment of the passion or love that brought one to explore music in the first place; (3) The majority of successful musicians are doing no great service to anything but their own egos.

I couldn’t see devoting myself to an extremely risky line of work for the sake of nothing but my faith in my own talent. My studies at Guilford pinballed my professional future between subjects in which I have a peripheral interest: psychology, sociology, restorative justice, philosophy.

Then I discovered Quakerism.

I should say, I re-discovered Quakerism. Or: I was convinced (as Quakers like to say).

Examining My Roots – A Deeper Commitment

I grew up Quaker. I was well versed in the modern Quaker jargon, the institutional acronyms, the banter of Young Friends, the songs of the camping programs and the schedules and rhythms of the FGC Gatherings. I thought I was as Quaker as they come.

The Early Friends said that baptism comes inwardly and powerfully when we make ourselves open to the spirit of Christ. My senior project for the Quaker Leadership Scholars Program was such an opportunity. Tired of music being an isolated thread in my life, I was inspired to write and record a CD of songs about the Early Friends and the beginnings of the Quaker movement.

The experience was incredible, not just for the personal and moving stories that I uncovered about the Early Quakers, but for the way that the world seemed to rise up around me to supply the resources needed to make the project powerful, alive. In sharing that life with my immediate community of Guilford and the wider community of Quakerism, I‘ve seen its impact be deep, meaningful, transformational. I had found where my great passion meets the world’s great need.

Settling into Action

Today, four years later, I spend my time traveling among Friends, exploring art and ministry and our collective history. I see this as being sacred, and very important, work and I am well supported in doing it.

Certainly I would not have discovered such a perfect, unconventional way to use my specific set of gifts had I not been given the opportunity to explore vocation in the safe container of Guilford College. I think of it as threading a needle (or threading several at once), which takes a lot of trial and error, thought and space. It is invaluable that undergraduates be given the space and guidance to do this explorative work, and I am always glad to know that Guilford and QLSP are still out there, helping to shape our soon-to-be ministers, musicians and leaders.

-Jon Watts QLSP ‘06

Reposted from the Friends Center Fall 2010 Newsletter

Excerpt from an interview with Max Carter, director of Friends Center at Guilford College

interview with max carter 11/30/05

What happened, as often happens with those enthusiastic movements, those things get formalized and Quakerism becomes a religion of “don’ts” and “thou shalt nots”. When people ask “What do Quakers believe?” you run off this litany of things that we don’t do. “Well, we DON’T baptize, we DON’T do communion, we DON’T take oaths, we DON’T…” and as part of that Quietist Quaker culture, we don’t do music, we don’t dress the way the world does, we don’t worship the way the world does, and that became hardened.

… and it had just hit hard after the Civil War, so you’re already spiritually exhausted from the migration, the battle of the Underground Railroad, the war, the poverty, and in come these holiness revivals. It was just singing and vocal prayer and praising the lord and people’s eternal assurance that they had been saved and sanctified. They knew if they died tomorrow, this is where they’d spend eternity. And you go back to these Meetings and the elders are saying, “Well… you can never be absolutely sure, you know… its too much creaturely activity. It’s too much self will. You have to be – if you think you’ve been saved – your personal salvation… you know, that’s pretty prideful.” So in order to literally save the Quaker youth for the Friend’s Church, the elders, who had no evangelical tendencies themselves, would incorporate some of these, what we call “new measures.” Bring in some hymn singing, some vocal prayer, some planned messages out of the silence to add some more spiritual vitality to the meeting. And that evolved from the 1860’s and 70’s into kind of a full blown pastoral protestant form of worship.

It’s the old dilemma: in order to save the village, we had to destroy it… the old Vietnam adage. In order to save Quakerism, they had to essentially destroy the Quakerism they inherited. But, in retrospect, we probably lost more than we gained. But they had to do it.

interview with max carter 11/30/05

So… early Quakers, many of whom were musicians, were faced with a choice. To become a part of the Quaker movement… to become a Quaker meant rejecting these forms of the world. Many of their vain pursuits or creaturely activity as they called them. Solomon Eccles, who was a noted violinist, an accomplished violinist, when he became a Quaker, burned his violin. He’s the same one who, after the famous breakup of the Bull and Mouth Meeting, the Quaker Meeting that was held in the old Bull and Mouth tavern there on Aldersgate st. in London, early 1660’s, when the King’s forces came in and broke up the Meeting because it was illegal according to the Quaker Acts. They beat up folks so badly that blood flowed in the gutter… one Quaker was killed, many many injured. The next day, Solomon Eccles stripped down to his altogether and put a basket of burning coals on his head and marched naked through the Smithfield Market in London as a visible sign of the spiritual nakedness of the culture and the fire and brimstone that would come down on such an evil society.