This mini-project came into being as an experiment of sorts based on a situation I'd been wrestling with. What happens when a group of Friends wants to hold each other accountable and support each other's faithfulness but can't find the time — or doesn't have the means — for everyone to get together? How can a group of folks stay powerfully connected without everyone in the group all seeing each other regularly? Skype and Zoom work for some folks but not everyone feels like they can connect fully in that way. What other way might be useful?

After sitting with these questions off-and-on for weeks, one day it occurred to me that there was something that could be tried.

Rather than imagining what needs to happen is a shared event, what if instead — or in addition — there was a shared practice? These sets of queries were written with the idea that groups of people could share together when they gathered based on these queries and that the practice of this type of sharing might become an expected support/tool/spiritual technology.

Once the idea had come to me I couldn't shake it. As soon as I first spoke the idea aloud I became deeply energized. From the time I first shared this idea until the cards were designed, ordered, all of this was written, and this page was put online it was just about 48 hours. It just tumbled out. And, while this is an experiment in process, so results are not yet in, the idea is something like this:

Let's say ten people all go to the same retreat and feel particularly connected to one another and want to find ways to regularly provide support, encouragement, and accountability to one another. Well, that group of ten folks might have a hard time all getting together again, but... over the course of months, some smaller groups of people might be able to gather. And some people might be led — and able — to travel to seed some of these small group gatherings more than once. If so, awesome. In any event, if people knew that there was some shared practice, that might be a kind of encouragement for people to remain connected and practicing themselves, knowing that there will come a time when they can share that practice with others who are engaged in it as well.

Oh, and it doesn't just have to be ten people or after a retreat. It could simply be that two people — or 60 — feel led to take up this practice with one another just because it seems right. That's rad too.

The "Daily Examen" is a type of prayerful reflection that is taught in Ignatian spirituality to help us to finetune our sense of God’s presence and discern what path we are being invited into. The examen is an "examination of conscience" or of consciousness. It is meant to help us learn to see God in all things, allowing us to seek guidance in a regular and daily kind of way. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, detailed his sense of the examen in his work, The Spiritual Exercises. Ignatius thought the examen was a gift that came directly from God to help increase our capacity for discernment. He also believed that God wanted the examen to be shared widely.

I've been significantly shaped by the Ignatian spirituality of the Sisters of Mercy in Rochester, NY and, well, all this seemed like it was the right way to name this thing. Take it or leave it I guess, but it seemed right to me.

However you are led. Full stop.

And... I've put a bit of thought into why the queries are the way they are. If you're interested, carry on.

Quaker queries are traditionally written so that the answer is supposed to be clear:

• Q. Do you live in the virtue of that life and power that takes away the occasion of all wars?
• A. Yes.

Of course, in practice, the reality is that we hear the query and then grapple with it, allowing more to surface than just "Yes," "No," or "On my good days." Most of these queries have been written so that they can't be answered with a short answer and necessarily lead you into broader responses. That's intentional. The one that is left in a short form (Have you been faithful?) has been purposefully left that way since I have found that that query, in particular, is one with power that people are sometimes squeamish around. It can feel intense to sit with something so direct and blunt. That intensity can be good. In any event, even when responding to that one, it can be fruitful to allow for a longer response than just a brief answer.

If you don't want to take the card out — or don't have one on you — this website (FriendlyExamen.org) should be up so you can see the sets of queries up top. If you want to recall them without any other media, as a way to help you remember them, you can think about them as the "Grow-Yield-Go" queries.

• Grow: Where has there been new Life?
• Yield: Where have you been listening and changing course as needed?
• Go: Where do you head from here?

That might not get you exactly to the nuances of having them word-by-word, but it will get you to the general vicinity and that is more important than having a card or not taking the time to pray because you haven't memorized something. If it helps, I've also given a slightly longer phrase to each set of queries that might serve to jog your memory also.

• 1. Grow: "The Inbreaking Queries"
• 2. Yield: "The Light Queries"
• 3. Go: "The Swarthmore Queries"

While these seem like they might be a set of sweet titles for a Young Adult fantasy series, really, they're just another way that I've tried to name these sets of words so that they might stick in your mind deeply enough to be of use. If the "titles" don't work for you, ignore them. Do what you can with what you got!

One Way to Use the Friendly Examen Practice

1. Settle into waiting worship.
    
2. Read one set of queries.
    
3. Sit in worship and pray that something emerges in response to the queries. 
    
4. Don't feel like you have to "answer" the query. Allow whatever rises up to the be thing that you explore. Savor each individual query and let them each be what they need to be for that particular time. Treat them each as a small piece of poetry or art, meaning different things to you at different times. 
    
5. Explore what emerges, allowing yourself to learn about yourself and God as you speak/write.
    
6. Read the set of queries again and see if there is more there. Respond again if needed.
    
7. Move on to the next person if in a group or the next set of queries if alone.
    
8. When complete, allow some time for discussion afterward: how was the experience of sharing? Did anything emerge that you want to hold on to moving forward? Did something rise that seemed powerful and should be shared? You can be in conversation with yourself too.

Other Ways

1. Instead of going one set of queries at a time, read all three sets of queries at once and allow whoever is participating to see which individual queries seem to engage them the most, responding to that. If you do this, try to make sure everyone who is participating has a copy accessible — FriendlyExamen.og works just a well as a card copy —since it can be a little long and some people work better when they have written material in front of them instead of having to remember.
    
2. Instead of responding in a spoken voice out of waiting worship, allow people some time to go off and see what responses might rise. People can be in worship even if they are not sitting quietly in a circle. Some might feel led to write and sing a snippet of music. Or to grab a phone and play a song that seems right to play. Or to dance, or make a collage, or begin the revolution. Whatever. Make room for people to allow what rises to come from a broader palette than just speaking while seated or standing.
    
3. You tell me. No, really. Let me know if there are other things I should put here.

Things to Consider in General

• In terms of exactly how to do "The Friendly Examen Practice," the best test should be to see what seems right in the moment. This is less about one right way and more about having there be a thing that is slightly more programmed than full open worship, but that allows for the possibility of routine, continuity, connection, and story sharing.

• Not everyone might know the same things about all the phrases, history, and connotations that are tucked inside the queries. Resist taking time from worship and connection to explain/teach about them. In terms of this practice, it is more important to connect and settle in prayer and seek guidance there than it is for information about Quaker stuff to get passed on. If it comes up later, awesome, maybe share this website. If not, no problem. I've tried to make it so that each of the sets of queries has enough in it that something should be stable enough for everyone to have something to hold onto.  If not, my apologies.

• As above, do what seems right, but I'll mention that by design, my thought was that if you only have time for one set, choose the first, for two, the first and second. I've ordered them in a way which seemed to unfold well.  

• Consider setting a regularity and length of time to which you want to commit. This is will be the duration of your experiment with this practice: by myself once a day for a week, whenever I see anyone of this group of nine people for more than 30 minutes, by myself as soon as I wake up and before I sleep on all three days this long weekend, etc. The details are less important than the setting of intention and follow-through.

• The queries can also — and ought to be —  reflected upon in the negative as well. For example, when we hear "Where have you sensed growing Life and Holy Power? " it might also be useful to ask ourselves something like "Where have I struggled to sense growing Life and Holy Power?" Let each of the queries get turned around and see what they reveal, provoke, or inspire.

• Even if alone, it can be helpful to speak your responses aloud or to write them down.

• Be attentive for Openings when responding: if, during the course of responding to a query it feels as if something with power has emerged, note it somehow and remember to share it as feels feasible.

• If you've set an intention and failed to live up to it and if it is right to do so, be easy/harsh/reflective with yourself.  As seems right, change either your patterns of behavior or your intentions.

• Consider if there is someone you haven't worshipped with before that you might want to invite to pray this Friendly Examen with. If you do end up later worshipping with someone who hasn't done this practice before, consider leaving them a card as a visual reminder that (1) you care about them and their spiritual life and (2) you are available as someone to connect with as they seek support, encouragement, and accountability in their faithfulness.
   
• If you feel like sharing the Friendly Examen with something, consider doing it in the context of actually sitting with them and doing the practice. Sending someone a card or a link to this website is likely going to matter far for if they've first sat in worship with you and listened for where God is calling them. There's a ton of juicy Quaker info on the web (and far better organized and more comprehensive than this), so this page is more of a footnote to the practice as it is actually being done by people than it is something to mass email out to folks. If it has legs, awesome! But I'd like to find those legs through widening circles of worship, sharing, and listening. 

When Working in Pairs/Groups

• Establish before you begin if the responses that emerge to the queries can be later shared with others.

• Consider allowing your responses to shared: the benefits of others hearing about how God is at work, how you have struggled, and where you are feeling called may help to ignite and encourage others.

• After you each finish sharing your own experiences, consider also sharing what you have heard from others at other times about how Truth is prospering, where work is to be done, and what support might be needed. We are members one of another.

• Everyone should start by answering the queries for themselves first. Even if you're only going to be sitting with the first set of them, settle in and see what rises for you about you before you begin to talk about other things that you have heard. This will ground us and make sure we're not just reacting based on the momentum, movement, or frustration of others.

Yup. Down at the bottom of this page is a place to order the ones on cardstock that will last for a while and are cut for carrying around in a wallet. If you don't care about the material they are printed on then you can just go get the pdf here and print them off as you like. I'm happy to put some in the mail to you though, if you like.

Callid Keefe-Perry, with a vital shoutout to Kristina Keefe-Perry who helped to point out that this whole thing was a kind of examen and whose faithfulness and wisdom provided a backbone to the queries that emerged. She also helped to make sure that my mad ramblings here on this page were intelligible to someone other than me. She's great. Any errors or corrections are Callid's fault, though, not Kristina's. If you catch something here that is off, please let me know here.

Callid is a member of The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and worships at Fresh Pond Monthly Meeting in New England Yearly Meeting. He lives in Arlington, MA and has been traveling in the Ministry within and beyond Friends since 2008. He has been a teacher of Quakerism at Pendle Hill retreat center, is the Talbot School of Theology biographer of Parker Palmer, and a co-designer of Jewels of Quakerism, content for adult religious education in the Friends tradition. He also serves as the executive director of ARC: Arts | Religion | Culture and is the author of Way to Water: A Theopoetics Primer.