Foreword—I spent more than half of 2013 at Pendle Hill in Wallingford, PA, and fell in love with many things about it. My latest passion is with their pamphlets. Here I have, after reading them, set down the most impressive excerpts of each, with rare paraphrasing and additions of my own [in brackets]. Most of all I am impressed with the timelessness of these pamphlets, the oldest of which go back more than 80 years.
241. Quakers and the Use of Power (by Paul
A. Lacey; 1982)
About the Author—Born in Philadelphia
“It is a challenge that exists in any age to build humanity & charity into an institution’s life & to reconcile the function of government with the exercise of love & friendship.” John Reader
I &II—What early Friends
knew experimentally—Christ, Inward
Teacher, inner joy, peace, & love, outer simplicity, equality, &
harmony—we may know experimentally, directly, & in the fellowship of other
seekers today. [Many] peo- ple are alienated from political, educational, &
religious institutions which have greatest power over their lives. People are
looking for alternatives to organiza- tions & structures which fail to meet
their needs. At the heart of Friends’ lea- dership
crisis is a deep, unexamined ambivalence about exercising power. Un- less we can
come to greater clarity about authority's nature, our institutions will
continue to lose vitality & purpose.
Those whose power over us is decisive are anonymous, &
therefore im- possible to hold accountable, but we feel anonymous too. What
are we to say when our government sets out to reduce government interference in
citi- zens’ lives by destroying the Clean Air Act or Voting Rights Act? The events my students recalled as
exerting a positive sense of hope for them were one President’s decision to
withdraw from his re-election campaign and ano- ther’s resignation, i.e. falls from power.
Robert Nisbet writes:
“Accompanying the decline of institutions and the decay of values in
ages such as this one is the cultivation of [military] power … Such power
exists in almost exact proportion to the decline of traditional social &
moral authority.” Nisbet claims we are witnessing
2 revolts [against]: wealth, privilege, and power; “the central values of the
political community as we have known them for 200 years. For some people, militarization [is seen] as
a health expression of discipline and militancy.
The 2nd direction is that of
anti-authoritarianism & libertarianism, what we now call “the
counter-culture” or “alternative lifestyles,” which are attempts to increase a
sense of personal efficacy. New institutions & new patterns are emerging
as responses to the failures of larger & established institutions. The people [seeking alternatives] that I identify myself with are likely to assert that pluralistic approaches to truth must be accepted. [Some] seekers after whole- ness are also refugees deeply wounded by dominant institutions. Some are working their way through the trauma of broken family-life. The wounded, the embittered, the deserted, the immature, the self-centered anti-authoritarian,
who are also seekers, are found at every age & in every part of Quaker
institutions.
III—We human beings, by
our nature, create social forms to express ourselves & to serve the things
we believe in. The [early] Society quickly de- veloped an elaborate
institutional net work, a complex of committee & organi- zations drawing on [existing]
leadership skills. Quakers saw the development of such organization as expressions
of their Truth testimony, not as a falling away from inspiration. Howard
Brinton [states] that because of the Light of Christ’s characteristics, a
Quaker meeting or organization inspired by Quaker- ism ought to evidence relationship
between people & behavior expressive of Community, Harmony, Equality, &
Simplicity (CHES).
Institutions & organizations growing out of such a
mix exist to serve the Kingdom of God
Roger Wilson wrote:
“The sovereignty of God is understood to mean something for daily
living.” [But not everything involved in
everyday living is going to receive divine guidance. If a matter is essentially neutral in its
mea- ning for the spiritual life, we will need to employ worldly meanings to
resolve it]. Conflicts arise
between: group leadings and individual
leadings; accepted ways and new insights; prophetic vision and institutional
stability. [The 4 ele- ments of CHES often
conflict with one another]. Quaker
organizations must be self-reflective in order to learn how to “incorporate
the spirit of compas- sions into the structure of an institution.” We cannot have the spirit of com- passion
incorporated into our structures without effect leadership.
IV—In a society
experiencing a “twilight of authority,” where every form of organization is
threatening to break apart under the strain of its own contra- dictions, the need
is desperate for “alternative structures.”
Quaker institutions’ profound crisis of authority has expressed itself
as an incapacity to find or support leadership.
Either no one will take the positions available, or those who are
willing to try are unseasoned and get little chance to grow in their How do
Quakers deal with issues of authority and power?
“Speak truth to power” is a powerful exhortation, but
like many powerful phrases, it has become a cliché we use to take the place of
thought [besides being the name of a 1950’s AFSC pamphlet in response to the 2
unreflective Cold War antagonists]. It
would seem to have been original to Milton Mayer, though in sound and attitude
it feels like an authentic expression of early Quakerism. [In this Cold War allegory, Power stood in
opposition to Truth]. Here subtle
distinctions were sacrificed for emotional impact. [Power was bad; Truth was
good].
The way we verbally [& actively challenge]
institutionalized power sug- gests that we believe Truth and Power can never
genuinely come together. We are
experiencing a distrust of power so deep that the institutions which we have
created to act as channels for our religious concerns frequently find
themselves paralyzed and incapable of any action. When Friends in the PA of 1756
withdrew from government, besides being a remarkable act of fidelity to
principle, it was also: an assertion that obedience to truth and political
power are inimical to one another; opting for powerful influence over direct
responsi- ble use of power; implying the irrelevance
of our pacfist ethic. What was true in 1756 seems to be true today.
Our ambivalence toward the exercise of power has led
to either mind- less rebellion to every action or to people of power pretending
to be powerless rather than face those assaults & the pain of
responsibility. [When the strong in these situations use the weapons of the helpless, this is] what Sartre called “bad faith,” [like students claiming to have the same degree of powerlessness as slaves or “niggers.”
The essay written on this subject stands as a striking
example of bad faith. For affluent,
white, middle-class American college students to claim that they were “the new
niggers” was to demonstrate an outrageous self-centered- ness and profound
insensitivity to what being a nigger means; others began to claim the same
title. [The real oppression of truly
powerless groups] was minimized or trivialized by the powerful, who
appropriated their experience for the most self-serving of reasons. It is an attitude that reduces the complexity
of authority relationships to the single one of slave and master [once an
insti- tution or its representative can be identified as an opponent]. It is as though the only working definition of power
is error or evil, & the truth is
[crystal] clear.
V—[In my class, I
threw my book on the] floor & asked my students to imagine that it
represented power to do whatever one wanted with the college. [One student
started to get up] & another student leaped from his chair, & stood on the book! He wouldn’t act
affirmatively; he would block any action. Because we are fearful of power, we
try to deny that anyone has it. The new- est student, the least seasoned staff
member can exercise influence out of all proportion to one’s ability or
experience simply by attacking the legitimacy of any disapproved action, [even
actions taken long before they came to col- lege]. During the worst years, the teacher’s
competence, as expressed through booklists & assignments, became for the most alienated students an assertion of force over them.
Nor are boards and committees of control willing to
bear the burden of leadership. There are
often cases of the board, which had been very clear that it determined policy, presents itself as only advisory to this
clumsy, insensitive administrator. That
sort of undermining of leaders is neither new nor peculiar to Friends. [Now] we undermine our leaders with great
frequency, & with terrible effect on them and our institutions.
[I have often imagined how it would be as the only
Quaker, a pet Quaker in a non-Quaker college].
I could be independent at the small price of being powerless and irrelevant.
Many Friends do not want to be the establishment. We prefer to perceive
ourselves, and to be perceived, as alienated from autho- rity and power, but well inside the sphere of [strong]
influence. A Pendle Hill annual
report from the mid-1970’s says, “We can't afford to relearn the mea- ning and structure of Pendle Hill every year.” It
is infinitely harder to relearn
something if we begin by rejecting any validity for tradition or previous
experi- ence. Our institutions cannot
survive if every feeling of disgruntlement is to be taken seriously as a
challenge to the right of everyone to
have made any deci- sion in the past.
Sometimes an individual has to get over, or outgrow, offended feelings.
Bad Faith flourishes where false analogies, false
allegories & abstrac- tions are used to avoid facing concrete realities. In a time of considerable tur- moil at Pendle
Hill, I had 2 Friends talking to me at length about the insensitivity and
oppressive behavior of “the
administration.” I asked them, “What
do you gain in clarity by speaking of the
administration, instead of talking about X and Y? It is better not to think too much about
how they hurt, for then we must reflect on the weapons we use against them.
Eleanore Price Mather says of Pendle Hill’s change
from a directorship to 5 departments & a clerk, that it eased the strain on
the director, & “also re- moved the image of personal dominance which
provoked resentment in many students.” Did the director actually dominate Pendle
Hill in the recent past? What is actually is shown is an increasing
polarization between “admini- stration and anti-administration sympathies.” The title director
suggests that someone has been delegated the authority to direct in some direction [after due
reflection], not in others, and not in every direction. The symbol of autho- rity is enough to provoke
resentment in some people.
The Slave and Master allegory’s nature requires any
director be chal- lenged as an instrument of oppression. If one is given the authority of a title &
responsibility, that can only be understood as applying raw force, & must
be resisted. A style of anti-leader has arisen among Friends, one who despises
all compromise, who blocks any group action, & who practices an earnest,
inarti- culate rhetoric to assert one’s moral authority over all institutions.
VI—The Apostle Paul
writes of “varieties of gifts, but the same spirit” in I Corinthians 12:
4-8. The church government of the
primitive church was the model early Friends sought to follow. They confirmed people in their skills; people
were encouraged and educated into appropriate use of their gifts. [The meeting was] gathered and strengthened by
obedience to the leading brought to it by an individual. This system does not eliminate tension. At its best it uses the energy in tension [in
the process of] “agreeing upward.” At
its worst it dis- sipates energy and power, paralyzes action, and achieves only
the blandest of resolutions. If we want to
use the Quaker system of leadership today, we must do so with full awareness of
how our situation differs from early Quakerism.
Much of the argument for greater participation has
been framed as an attack on the very notion of leaders and leadership. Thomas S. Brown writes: “Without divine
guidance in our selection, we may appoint inauthentic leader- ship which easily
becomes self-serving or ineffective.
There are many kinds and many sources of authority, none of which is
necessarily to be disparaged in itself. The person who has borne responsibility
for a long time, or whose official position brings access to a lot of
information, may also speak or act with “weight.”
Of course the greater authority comes from the Holy
Spirit; discerning that authority can be difficult. Simply lacking other kinds of authority is
not in itself very good evidence that one has the Spirit’s authority. Effective leadership comes from the marriage
of vision with practical skills of organization and per- sonal eloquence, along
with a balance of other skills. People
can move to- ward growth [in those skills they lack] if the loss of safety can be
minimized or the promise of growth can be maximized. Skills develop where they are val- ued and respected. Where there is only suspicion
and contempt, there will be no growth in leadership.
Friends as
Leaders stresses developing leaders who are servant-lea- ders
rather than wielders of power. Leadership isn't a matter of being a ser- vant or wielding power; it is learning to wield power as a servant. The alter- native is to see it wielded by
someone else, perhaps without responsibility for its effects. We need many kinds of leadership: planners; organizers; resource gatherers;
project directors; speakers; clerks.
The clerk of a business meeting is pre-eminently a
leader as servant. Informing a group of
the direction they are taking is no small task, but neither is it very great
leadership, for ultimately the clerk is impotent to influence ac- tion. It is an extremely important kind of
leadership, but it is only one kind.
Because we are so fearful of the exercise of power, we have tended to make the clerk the only acceptable model for Quaker leadership. We are evading the full responsibilities of
power by choosing only the blandest form of leadership.
The servant-leader can be effective only where the idea
of leading by serving is knit into the fabric of the institution; everyone
part of that [institution must accept that principle]. Where fear for safety is
great [& trust is small], growth is small. The servant-leader must lead: set goals; pick directions;
channel energy; persuade; organize. David McClelland states the paradox: “To
be an effective leader, one must turn all so-called followers into leaders,” [which is beyond the clerk’s role]. Giving people the means, &
encourage- ment to work for goals are enabling ministry or service which rests
partly on transmitting enthusiasm & energy & translating them into
power.
The servant leader serves only the truth from God. Do leadings bring greater harmony &
justice into the life of the community or institution? Do leadings address
issues clearly, accurately & sensitively? In a true allegory, everything which we see
acted symbolically in the outer world reflects the experience within human souls,
so we gain self-knowledge. In a false alle- gory we project on others the fears,
anxieties, & angers which can only be understood, resolved & turned
into strengths when we acknowledge they origi- nate within ourselves.
People, [“underlings”] and leaders, have been savaged by institutions, even by Quaker institutions. We have to learn to be free of the idols of power and organization, as well as the idols of unreflective individualism and self- centeredness. If we want to throw our weight behind better alternative institu- tions, we must address the problem of developing and sustaining new leader- ship in the Religious Society of Friends.
We have before us the work of reconciliation between the needs of individuals & the needs of social institutions. To understand our institutions, & therefore to understand more about ourselves, we must clear our mind of slo- gans & clichés which substitute for clear thought. John Reader writes: It is a challenge that exists in any age to build humanity & charity into an institution’s life & to reconcile the function of government with the exercise of love & friendship.”
About the Author—A card-carrying senior citizen, Mary Morrison enjoys old age and is looking forward to more of it as offering time for quiet, reflection, and solitude often shared with friends. Her family is made up of grown children, teen-age grandchildren, and a husband who loves hiking and has traveled long distances on several mountain ranges. She winters in Swarthmore, PA & does summers in West Danville, VT. Her 3 other pamphlets are: 120. William Law: Selections on the Interior Life (editor; 1962); 198. Re-conciliation: the hidden hyphen (1974); 219. Approaching the Gospels (1978).
My heaven is mountains on one side, sea or lake on the other, and in
between Pendle Hill with its greenery and its stone buildings, white-
throat singing, roses blooming; & people meeting as they wander the
paths and through the rooms. Mary C. Morrison
I—Journals hold a high place in any tradition of inward search & growth. Julian of Norwich, St. Teresa of Avila, George Fox, John Woolman are all prime examples of seekers who used this kind of writing to help know themselves & find direction. Now, journals have acquired importance again with Ira Progoff’s work. My journal came along between 2 high places. I was writing that journal because I had to, as a question came home urgently: How, where am I going to find the resources to make good on all the promises I made to life, & to myself? (e.g. baby/ family/marriage, being useful, and response-able.
A motivating sentence out of miscellaneous reading was: “The unexa- mined life is not worth living.” At the time I thought I was doing writing exer- cises. The entries that appeared had very little to do with writing & much to do with my life. June 1939. In a dream, I was prisoner in a great house on a high moor, with The Life of Christ (7 vol.), the task of learning submission, an un- worn straitjacket, another task, a priest with a telescope, and dead planets. All the points raised in this dream were new to me then. I had never given Christ a serious thought. I had no suspicion that an important part of me felt imprisoned. And submission to what?
The dream, which still retains its mystery, states in its own way most of the directions that my life has taken in the last 40 years: escape from lifeless- ness; lonely work done in solitude; power of Christ. All this was in the dream as well as other meaning which I still haven’t plumbed & perhaps never will. I be- gan to read of Christ, not in 7 volumes, but 4 Gospels. I felt as if I were coming home again to some forgotten country once well known to me, a Lost Country called the Kingdom, [& actually was the Kingdom Within].
I—Journals hold a high place in any tradition of inward search & growth. Julian of Norwich, St. Teresa of Avila, George Fox, John Woolman are all prime examples of seekers who used this kind of writing to help know themselves & find direction. Now, journals have acquired importance again with Ira Progoff’s work. My journal came along between 2 high places. I was writing that journal because I had to, as a question came home urgently: How, where am I going to find the resources to make good on all the promises I made to life, & to myself? (e.g. baby/ family/marriage, being useful, and response-able.
A motivating sentence out of miscellaneous reading was: “The unexa- mined life is not worth living.” At the time I thought I was doing writing exer- cises. The entries that appeared had very little to do with writing & much to do with my life. June 1939. In a dream, I was prisoner in a great house on a high moor, with The Life of Christ (7 vol.), the task of learning submission, an un- worn straitjacket, another task, a priest with a telescope, and dead planets. All the points raised in this dream were new to me then. I had never given Christ a serious thought. I had no suspicion that an important part of me felt imprisoned. And submission to what?
The dream, which still retains its mystery, states in its own way most of the directions that my life has taken in the last 40 years: escape from lifeless- ness; lonely work done in solitude; power of Christ. All this was in the dream as well as other meaning which I still haven’t plumbed & perhaps never will. I be- gan to read of Christ, not in 7 volumes, but 4 Gospels. I felt as if I were coming home again to some forgotten country once well known to me, a Lost Country called the Kingdom, [& actually was the Kingdom Within].
This “within” country insisted that I explore it with its frightening, encou- raging, peaceful, tempestuous experiences. In another dream, May 1943, I rode my bike down a steep hill into a dark valley. The dark heavens opened with long streaks of sunlight coming down towards me and my soul leapt up to meet them. I read Jung’s Memories, Dreams, Reflections and realized that the inner country, though dangerous, was a sign less of insanity than of ulti- mate sanity.
II—Other dreams and insights staked out for me other parts of the Inner Kingdom. January 1944. A dream, or an instantaneous insight that flashed all at once into my mind. It can only be told as a dream-story: I was a small child standing at my heavenly Father’s knee. He was fully engaged with some other adult. I kept poking at his knee and saying: “All I want to know is what you want me to do; then I’ll go do it. Just tell me.” He finally looked at me with a wonderful half-teasing, half-impatient smile, and said, “Just run away and play, that’s what I want you to do.” I heard Bach’s Sheep May Safely Graze the next day, and the music & the dream spoke to each other in ways that I could only dimly glimpse and could not describe.
November 1944. I became fascinated by [a song of giving one’s love the gift of] fruits to come, gifts of the future. That’s what we want to give to the people we love—life, growth, the future, the promise. [At one end is our love for someone that makes us think of sexual activity, the easiest, surest and most obvious way to give life. At the other end of the scale is “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. And in between are all our vague, poorly understood and worse expressed hopes and dreams of all kinds of life that we would like to give to and get from the people we love.
II—Other dreams and insights staked out for me other parts of the Inner Kingdom. January 1944. A dream, or an instantaneous insight that flashed all at once into my mind. It can only be told as a dream-story: I was a small child standing at my heavenly Father’s knee. He was fully engaged with some other adult. I kept poking at his knee and saying: “All I want to know is what you want me to do; then I’ll go do it. Just tell me.” He finally looked at me with a wonderful half-teasing, half-impatient smile, and said, “Just run away and play, that’s what I want you to do.” I heard Bach’s Sheep May Safely Graze the next day, and the music & the dream spoke to each other in ways that I could only dimly glimpse and could not describe.
November 1944. I became fascinated by [a song of giving one’s love the gift of] fruits to come, gifts of the future. That’s what we want to give to the people we love—life, growth, the future, the promise. [At one end is our love for someone that makes us think of sexual activity, the easiest, surest and most obvious way to give life. At the other end of the scale is “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. And in between are all our vague, poorly understood and worse expressed hopes and dreams of all kinds of life that we would like to give to and get from the people we love.
III—With this entry the journal came to a 4-year pause. [I had] a secure, busy, even happy outer life. In the spring of 1948, I touched base at Pendle Hill for the 1st time; I lived 2 miles away, but never at Pendle Hill, to my great re- gret. The 1st connection turned out to be the main connection throughout— the Gospel class. I was invited by a friend to “Come and see.” I liked that echo of the 4th Gospel’s “Come & see,” [the invitation to a future disciple to meet Jesus]. So I did. The group spent 2 hours on “Whosoever shall see to gain his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.” I went back the next time to see if they ever would come up with any final answers; they never did. I began to sense a process at work, and I was hooked.
With all my solitary reading of the Gospels, I had produced a castle in the air. I only needed and wanted to put a solid foundation under it; that happened with trusted and beloved individuals in my class. [My journal, Dora Willson’s (leader of the class) guidance, my exploration of the Gospels and of the wild & unknown inner country that I was beginning at last to be less afraid of, went along together, hand-in-hand.
A dream from Easter, 1949. The word went round that Christ was co- ming, to simply be seen and heard. Everyone wanted to welcome him; I wan- ted to see him when he came by. Groups went by, but they weren’t Christ. I decided to go wait at a rich friends’ house in the country. The gateway into this place had become almost impassable, blocked by a huge, twisted and gnarled thorn-tree, bristling with spikes. I asked my friends why it was there. “It grew from a thorn-tree seed from your place that dropped out of your pocket.” I looked up and there, the very center of the tree, was a great jack- in-the-pulpit; the man in it was the one we were waiting for.
A dream from Easter, 1949. The word went round that Christ was co- ming, to simply be seen and heard. Everyone wanted to welcome him; I wan- ted to see him when he came by. Groups went by, but they weren’t Christ. I decided to go wait at a rich friends’ house in the country. The gateway into this place had become almost impassable, blocked by a huge, twisted and gnarled thorn-tree, bristling with spikes. I asked my friends why it was there. “It grew from a thorn-tree seed from your place that dropped out of your pocket.” I looked up and there, the very center of the tree, was a great jack- in-the-pulpit; the man in it was the one we were waiting for.
IV—All these dreams I have included here I now call Great Dreams. Their images had depth complexity, & shimmering aliveness; they didn’t come from me, but out of some depth within, as a gift, Dream as Art. James Hill man says that you should befriend dreams, especially great ones. You visit them, pay attention to them, work & play with them as with a person with whom you want befriend. You respect them, allowing them to keep their dis- tance & their mystery, sharing themselves with you at their own pace. What do your dreams say to you?
We were befriending the Gospels, approaching them, asking them what they were saying. While we were reading and befriending them, they were re- ading [& befriending] us. The befriending was within us as individuals, among us as a group, & around us as the changes in the quality of our lives. I kept working away at the tangle of string/ [ideas] in my left-hand pocket/ [mind], winding it onto the ball of neatly wound string/[ideas] in my right-hand pocket/ [mind]. My group at Pendle Hill finished its year & left; something told me firmly that I mustn’t repeat. I began to lead Gospel groups on my own near home, finding that how much & what one learns as a student can’t compare with what one learns as a teacher. I gradually acquired skill as a leader of Gospel study groups.
I kept writing in my journal. The inner processes that began interacted with each other & generally enriched my life. August 1949. Mr. Q is a useful character who turned up during notebook work. He was in an interior dialogue, being scornful, finding fault, putting me down. He is the eternal underminer, & he appears often. I find him a much better friend than I could ever have dreamed at the beginning. He always begins by being negative and abusive, and this I must accept. I have come to know that he will end by giving me his blessing.
The “run away & play” “dream,” which had continued to dwell in & influ- ence my thoughts, was confirmed by William Law (“Adam was put into this world as a kind of heavenly artist), Howard Brinton (“When Boehme is spea- king of God’s life...he refers to it as ‘play”), C. S. Lewis, in a story about a pla- net created purely as a hobby for its creator, & Rilke (“… lightly, like children playing). The Play concept never stopped growing [for me].
September 1950. Play is an idea that seems to have vanished entirely out of ordinary church-going religion. Mr. Q asks what makes me think it was there in the 1st place. The dream of course, and the general tenor of the Gos- pels. In our Protestant/Puritan tradition play simply isn’t there. Losing the con- cept of play has divided the world’s activities into things, not ways. Jesus’ statements about the Kingdom are laws of behavior, not facts.
V-VI—The 3rd great interior event of this period: the discovery of para- dox. During my year of Gospels study at Pendle Hill we came back to the pas- sage beginning “Whosoever seeks to gain his life ...” [mentioned earlier] Some biblical scholars refer to it as the Great Paradox. This Great Paradox was loo- king at me and demanding that I re-define life itself, to see it as a constantly changing, ever-moving process whose changes I could trust to death and be- yond as truth; a process that would not endure for one minute should I try to grasp and hold it. [Paradox is polyvalance, a substance that excites different responses in different organisms].
November 1949. The tricky thing about a paradox is that half of it tends to get lost. Law/ freedom; negation/ affirmation; judgment/ forgiveness; perso- nality/ impersonality. The winning half then gets hard, old encrusted. Parado- xes are like balance-scales; the truth lies in the balance itself. Jesus, while restoring the lost half, at the same time knocked off the encrustations on the old half, repaired the scales and set the whole thing up again. Very shortly after this entry, I had to have serious lung surgery; I found great difficult in recovering my strength, especially psychologically. Who was I now? How was I to function effectively as this new me?
V-VI—The 3rd great interior event of this period: the discovery of para- dox. During my year of Gospels study at Pendle Hill we came back to the pas- sage beginning “Whosoever seeks to gain his life ...” [mentioned earlier] Some biblical scholars refer to it as the Great Paradox. This Great Paradox was loo- king at me and demanding that I re-define life itself, to see it as a constantly changing, ever-moving process whose changes I could trust to death and be- yond as truth; a process that would not endure for one minute should I try to grasp and hold it. [Paradox is polyvalance, a substance that excites different responses in different organisms].
November 1949. The tricky thing about a paradox is that half of it tends to get lost. Law/ freedom; negation/ affirmation; judgment/ forgiveness; perso- nality/ impersonality. The winning half then gets hard, old encrusted. Parado- xes are like balance-scales; the truth lies in the balance itself. Jesus, while restoring the lost half, at the same time knocked off the encrustations on the old half, repaired the scales and set the whole thing up again. Very shortly after this entry, I had to have serious lung surgery; I found great difficult in recovering my strength, especially psychologically. Who was I now? How was I to function effectively as this new me?
I began to be obsessed by snakes. I dreamed about them almost every night. What was happening to me in my Inner Country that snakes should begin to move into it? What was I supposed to do about them?
February 1951. In my dreams, I received both positive acts from snakes and warnings about snakes. Maybe that’s his function, to present the either/or, to be the impossible ambiguity, to crack my image-structure, my self-image. My 1st step will have to be to look at it and see what it actually is, what my basic assumptions are and how they are fitted together. Where is the crack in my image-structure? I think [my] snakes are a kind of specialization of the back- bone, as if the spinal cord and nervous system had decided to go off on its own. Just a naked “I” standing all by itself.
February 1951. In my dreams, I received both positive acts from snakes and warnings about snakes. Maybe that’s his function, to present the either/or, to be the impossible ambiguity, to crack my image-structure, my self-image. My 1st step will have to be to look at it and see what it actually is, what my basic assumptions are and how they are fitted together. Where is the crack in my image-structure? I think [my] snakes are a kind of specialization of the back- bone, as if the spinal cord and nervous system had decided to go off on its own. Just a naked “I” standing all by itself.
The serpent [in the Garden of Eden] is an evil creature. As part of the whole, both exterior and interior, there’s nothing wrong with him at all. What is he in the interior zoo? The central column of life, the indispensable support for any kind of higher activity and consciousness, a life-giver, not a death-dealer. [In the snake story of Numbers 21: 8, seeing the image or central idea of the serpent, could take away the deadly power of the serpent & give life instead. There was also the image of the intertwined snakes of the caduceus, ancient sign of the healer. Living with the ambiguity/paradox of the serpent, I began at last to get well again.
I had lost my easy ability to meet the needs of other people, or even to like them very much; that frightened me. I found myself carrying on a nighttime interior dialog with a man in white. March 1951. “What frightens [me is] Satan [even when] cut down to my size. The solipse—himself alone. Satan standing alone, made a choice. What was it? Not to be under God. Is the solipse part wrong in itself? No, it’s probably the only part that can relate, 1st-hand, to God and make the choice of whether or not to be under him. It is the part of you that relates to God no matter what happens.” The forgotten 3rd part of the Great Commandment came into my mind, freed from all the “Kingdom’s” [actually my own] injunctions to “unselfishness”. Loving yourself is the indispensable star- ting place for your own health and for healthy love of your neighbor.
VII—And then Dora died. October 1952. Suddenly this morning, the bird singing, that same one with the high, sweet song. It makes me think of that postcard Dora brought me from Switzerland, a painting of a wrinkled old man, and a wide-eyed boy looking at some crystals. A light glows over the crystals; it seems to blaze out from the interaction between them and the crystals. It would catch my eye and say to me, “Look. Here was a whole day of life; not once have you stopped to admire its wonders with the old man & the boy.”
“Operative images” bring everything to brightness & clarity. I have trusted them for a long time & they have never failed to rescue me from confusion, inertia & despair; they are life-bringers. Dora was such an operative image in my mind; the old man & wide-eyed boy were another. Her power always called me back to myself, however far I might wander. Dying didn’t stop her image-power, but there was a stop of some kind. In 1957, I came back to Pendle Hill as a teacher of the Gospels course. There was a presence on the premises, a friendly, challenging ghost, who spoke in my mind & touched my imagination & my memory; then, slowly vanished.
I had lost my easy ability to meet the needs of other people, or even to like them very much; that frightened me. I found myself carrying on a nighttime interior dialog with a man in white. March 1951. “What frightens [me is] Satan [even when] cut down to my size. The solipse—himself alone. Satan standing alone, made a choice. What was it? Not to be under God. Is the solipse part wrong in itself? No, it’s probably the only part that can relate, 1st-hand, to God and make the choice of whether or not to be under him. It is the part of you that relates to God no matter what happens.” The forgotten 3rd part of the Great Commandment came into my mind, freed from all the “Kingdom’s” [actually my own] injunctions to “unselfishness”. Loving yourself is the indispensable star- ting place for your own health and for healthy love of your neighbor.
VII—And then Dora died. October 1952. Suddenly this morning, the bird singing, that same one with the high, sweet song. It makes me think of that postcard Dora brought me from Switzerland, a painting of a wrinkled old man, and a wide-eyed boy looking at some crystals. A light glows over the crystals; it seems to blaze out from the interaction between them and the crystals. It would catch my eye and say to me, “Look. Here was a whole day of life; not once have you stopped to admire its wonders with the old man & the boy.”
“Operative images” bring everything to brightness & clarity. I have trusted them for a long time & they have never failed to rescue me from confusion, inertia & despair; they are life-bringers. Dora was such an operative image in my mind; the old man & wide-eyed boy were another. Her power always called me back to myself, however far I might wander. Dying didn’t stop her image-power, but there was a stop of some kind. In 1957, I came back to Pendle Hill as a teacher of the Gospels course. There was a presence on the premises, a friendly, challenging ghost, who spoke in my mind & touched my imagination & my memory; then, slowly vanished.
[Undated entry]. At the Ascension, I don’t think Jesus went away at all. I think that he went deep inside them, into their inner world. I think this total gift of another person to our inner growth is an everyday experience. In John 16:7, it is the Counselor, the manifestation in them of all that they have seen & heard and experienced of him, i.e. the inward guide. This manifestation is granted only to the discernment of love.” At Pendle Hill, the climate permitted and protected both love and vulnerability.
To love the Gospels; to befriend them & the people I studied them with; to order and befriend my own life—that triple process was heaven to me & still is. My heaven is mountains on one side, sea or lake on the other, & in between Pendle Hill with its greenery & its stone buildings, white-throat singing, roses blooming; and people meeting as they wander the paths & through the rooms. A coalescence of operative images, you might say.
VIII—Learning never stops, but now I found, my relation to it was diffe- rent. I was still learning—perhaps more than before—but now I was the teacher. I still needed a mentor; now I was one. I was appalled. I found out as mentors before me, that it did not all depend on me; in fact, not much depended on me. Teaching and learning went on as before; all I had to do was relax and settle in to my new role. I began to find mentors everywhere.
Heading the list was Henry J. Cadbury. May 1961. Henry Cadbury came to speak to my class yesterday. He has a compelling line of thought which you can neither ignore nor come to terms with. Yesterday he came close to saying that Jesus couldn’t possibly mean anything to modern minds because 1st
VIII—Learning never stops, but now I found, my relation to it was diffe- rent. I was still learning—perhaps more than before—but now I was the teacher. I still needed a mentor; now I was one. I was appalled. I found out as mentors before me, that it did not all depend on me; in fact, not much depended on me. Teaching and learning went on as before; all I had to do was relax and settle in to my new role. I began to find mentors everywhere.
Heading the list was Henry J. Cadbury. May 1961. Henry Cadbury came to speak to my class yesterday. He has a compelling line of thought which you can neither ignore nor come to terms with. Yesterday he came close to saying that Jesus couldn’t possibly mean anything to modern minds because 1st
century life and 20th century life were radically different. I thought of the Sphinx and the riddles it/she poses. I think the Sphinx personifies the universe, and
HJC personifies the Sphinx. After connecting Rilke’s famous saying about loving the questions and living some day into the answers with Henry, I see it as almost an exact description of him. He lived his answers to Gospel ques- tions and refused to answer in words.
In class, He always challenged assumptions & easy conclusions. After demolishing most of the biblical & theological baggage that his hearers had brought to class, he expected them to be happy that their biblical “attic” was now cleared and in order. For me, he cleared out the Either/Or dilemma. He said: “Either/Or won’t work in dealing with the Gospels. You have to use Both/And. Explore both authentic traditions that say different things.”
February 1959. Another mentor was Alexandra Docili. Alex’s poetry- writing course is aimed straight where I am. The assignment was to look at an egg for an hour. I found myself thankful it was only an egg that I had been asked to be attentive to. I described holding the egg, feeling and moving the egg. I described the color and surface features, how it looked in sunlight, and how it sounded when shaken.
February 1959. Another mentor was Alexandra Docili. Alex’s poetry- writing course is aimed straight where I am. The assignment was to look at an egg for an hour. I found myself thankful it was only an egg that I had been asked to be attentive to. I described holding the egg, feeling and moving the egg. I described the color and surface features, how it looked in sunlight, and how it sounded when shaken.
June 1961. I went to hear Eshin Nishimura give his term paper on an 18th century commentary on an earlier Buddhist work. [At 1st] I was baffled & frustrated, [trying to understand esoteric Zen thought given with an incomplete command of English pronunciation & sentence structure]. I treated the presen- tation as a living koan, [a statement used in Zen to provoke "great doubt" & test a student's progress in Zen practice]. I enjoyed Eshin himself. [Looking at his subject] was like looking at a view in a thick fog. Sometimes tantalizing bits of scenery come as the fog drifts apart, & go as it closes again. The experience of fog plus & minus view is more than a clear view alone would be. Eshin agreed, “That’s the Zen of it.” Zen is hard to understand because it’s so simple.
IX—I took all these lessons to heart, and my teaching took on new ease, assurance, and spaciousness. I found that whatever I gave more than a cursory attention to, inner or outer world, turned out to be made up of Both/ And, to be of the paradoxical nature that I now recognize as the stuff of life. Paradox was primarily playful, a kind of cosmic joke. I began to believe that in his parables Jesus was telling God’s jokes, sweeping out the cluttered attics of the hearer’s preconceived notions and fixed ideas with “What about this?”
Paradox, Parable, & Play. This was play at a consciousness level that I could scarcely comprehend, play that would bring the Kingdom, inside & out. 1965 article: In Praise of Paradox. “To everyone who knocks, a unique door of perception opens. To everyone who asks, a true answer is given. If we ever study war no more, it’s because paradox teaches us that opposing truths shouldn’t destroy each other, but supplement & fulfill each other.”
“Paradox is essentially humorous in its sudden juxtaposition of opposite and unlike things. It points toward reconciliation and forgiveness. The greatest teachings are couched in paradox. They have to be; nothing else will transmit the whole truth, unmutilated, unimprisoned, alive. The whole truth isn’t in a straight line. It is more like a diamond with many facets. The more facets we can look at and into, the closer we shall come to seeing that central Light and letting it illuminate our lives.”
More recently my line of thought has been in praise of parables. [When I saw] Jesus’ playfulness, the parables began to open out their riches like flowers in bloom, and I found Jesus calling me home to my lost country, continually found & lost & found again. I began imagining a world in which God actually does send the sunshine and the rain down on the good and just only, and I be- gan to laugh, with little squares of plenty and deprivation all over town, as peo- ple vary. I began to see it as the world in which I continually insist on living in with my judgmental attitudes. How can I change [the judgmental life I live]?
IX—I took all these lessons to heart, and my teaching took on new ease, assurance, and spaciousness. I found that whatever I gave more than a cursory attention to, inner or outer world, turned out to be made up of Both/ And, to be of the paradoxical nature that I now recognize as the stuff of life. Paradox was primarily playful, a kind of cosmic joke. I began to believe that in his parables Jesus was telling God’s jokes, sweeping out the cluttered attics of the hearer’s preconceived notions and fixed ideas with “What about this?”
Paradox, Parable, & Play. This was play at a consciousness level that I could scarcely comprehend, play that would bring the Kingdom, inside & out. 1965 article: In Praise of Paradox. “To everyone who knocks, a unique door of perception opens. To everyone who asks, a true answer is given. If we ever study war no more, it’s because paradox teaches us that opposing truths shouldn’t destroy each other, but supplement & fulfill each other.”
“Paradox is essentially humorous in its sudden juxtaposition of opposite and unlike things. It points toward reconciliation and forgiveness. The greatest teachings are couched in paradox. They have to be; nothing else will transmit the whole truth, unmutilated, unimprisoned, alive. The whole truth isn’t in a straight line. It is more like a diamond with many facets. The more facets we can look at and into, the closer we shall come to seeing that central Light and letting it illuminate our lives.”
More recently my line of thought has been in praise of parables. [When I saw] Jesus’ playfulness, the parables began to open out their riches like flowers in bloom, and I found Jesus calling me home to my lost country, continually found & lost & found again. I began imagining a world in which God actually does send the sunshine and the rain down on the good and just only, and I be- gan to laugh, with little squares of plenty and deprivation all over town, as peo- ple vary. I began to see it as the world in which I continually insist on living in with my judgmental attitudes. How can I change [the judgmental life I live]?
In the Kingdom there’s an unfairness that's beyond—on the far side of— fairness, and I should live in it and rejoice. [It is] a world where I can allow God to do what he will with his own. His will is to give, to cherish, to welcome. Can I live lightly, like a child playing? Not Yet. But I have glimpses. For this inter- action of the journal and the journey shapes a life and creates a world. Our task, our privilege of making and sharing a world is the life work that we were sent to do, in the image of the Creator who made us.
243. Joel Litu, Pioneer African Quaker (by Rose
Adede; 1982)
JOEL LITU 1890-1977—Litu’s death
seems like an end of an era. He was the
most distinguished man of his time in Kenya East Africa YM about a
½-century. Geoffrey Bowes, London
About
the Author—Rose Kasandi Adede was
born June 26, 1952 ,
Kaimosi, Kenya Dar-es-Salaam Univ. Tanzania Greensboro , NC Kenya
PREFACE—My main sources were interviews with Litu’s older
brother Masia, sister Kahi, wife Marita, daughter-in-law Sarah Adede, and a
good number of his other relatives.
There were also letters from and about him, speeches and sermons.
[Introduction]—Joel Litu was outstanding; his voice rang out loud,
deep and distinct; he was over 6 ft. tall; his dark skin was always shiny and
clean; he washed his own clothes. In Litu there was a streak of the
immaculate. On his father’s side Joel
Litu belonged to the Lungusia, one of the key clans in the heart of Maragoli
land. Majani married Jaluha, who
conceived during their courtship. Her
father chased her with spear in hand, across the stream toward Majani’s
village. Masia was her 1st-born;
Litu was her 2nd.
Early
Years—Joel Litu was born in 1890;
the day & month aren't known. Before long he towered over his older brother. [Litu would sit with his mo- ther in the
kitchen and help her with chores like grinding millet]. During 1907, when the Maragoli people
suffered famine, Litu’s skill in grinding proved parti- cularly useful. He would ready the grinding stone & dried
skins while his mo- ther fired the millet grains.
In his free time, Litu loved to tame birds. He had a score of wild doves & a good
number of chickens. If one of the birds was not eating well he would fuss about
it loudly. His father was often away
from home at meetings where the other village elders would discuss communal
matters. Later the same night, his
father would buy a pot of beer for his friends.
The
circumcision of boys is an old custom among the Maragoli. Most of the boys were circumcised when they
were in their late teens, when they were old enough to understand the truths
given to them. The day before they were circumcised, Litu, Masia, & other
young men were rounded up by a drummer & taken to a hut at the end of the
village specially built for the occasion, where they were to stay for the
night. Very early in the morning the boys were circum- cised in a nearby stream.
During the healing period they stayed in the hut with some elderly men who
looked after them; they ate porridge out of a common bowl, & learned
woodworking craft & songs.
The
Quaker missionaries who 1st settled in Kaimosi in 1902, had
gradu- ally gained converts. By 1910 the
very first African converts were beginning to staff Quaker schools. One such school was started in 1911 at Mbale
with Yo- hana Amugune as teacher. Litu joined the year it was started, and
mastered Swahili, the lingua franca. Amugune recommended Joel Litu to Emory
Rees to help translate the Bible. Litu 1st
worked at typesetting. Of Majani’s 7
children, only Litu’s name was known beyond his home village, his tribe, and his
country.
One
day an elderly woman brought Marita Kekoyi to the village. She stayed at a neighbor’s house and Litu
joined her; it was called eloping.
[Litu marrying before his elder brother was against custom]. 9 months later Marita gave birth to Joseph
Adede. Later she and Litu had a wedding
after the manner of Quakers.
The
Young Family Moves to Vihiga—With
the pressure of work Litu had to migrate and stay on the mission station at
Vihiga with his wife and son; Litu stayed at Vihiga for 30 years. In the 1920’s Litu’s father Majani was taken
seriously ill and [shortly] died. Litu
could not help connecting his father’s death with his habit of drinking. Throughout his life he preached ve- hemently
against the use of alcohol.
[Living]
at the mission station, Litu worked all the time. His day was spent
translating the New Testament in Luragoli, other needs of the mission station, &
work in the press; there was a high demand for hymn books & por- tions of the
Bible already translated. The schools also needed a great deal of printed
material. Emory Rees gave Litu a small house walking distance from his; Marita
began to make a home out of what was available; she turned the houses’ plot of
land into a vegetable garden. Within decades at Vihiga 9 boys and 3 girls were
born into Litu’’s and Marita’s family. The
working population on the station increased with the opening of a boys’
boarding school in 1922. The teachers
formed a soccer team. Litu threw himself
wholeheartedly into the game.
[The
funds were scarce for] boarding schools in the 1920s. The boys had to eat boiled vegetables and cornmeal; [special food for wealthy boys caused unrest, so it was forbidden].
Joel Litu was a brilliant Bible teacher. He would read a portion, explain the
words & images, & drill the boys on im- portant passages. At times it was
difficult to draw distinctions between his teaching in class & preaching in
a Sunday service. He led hymns in a clear voice; quite often he sang very early
in the morning in his moments of devotion. The rich Quaker hymn tunes were
among the treasures that he cherished. In 1923, the boarding school was moved
to Kaimosi Mission; Vihiga became a day school. Litu lived at Vihiga &
taught Bible classes on cer- tain days at Kaimosi.
Deborah
Rees worked to help the women, teaching them reading, sewing, & basic
hygiene. Before the East Africa YM was established, Quaker members from Malava,
Kaimosi, Vihiga, & Lirhanda gathered together periodi- cally for 2 or 3
days. In 1926 Emory Rees & his family left Vihaga for the US Mombasa Kenya
Joel Becomes Supervisor of Schools—With the departure of Emory Rees, Litu was virtually
in charge of Vihiga mission station.
Litu [was the sole wage-earner in his extended family; his brother
stayed home, tilled the soil and provided enough food for his family and for
Litu’s. All the family turned to Litu
for support & guidance. Litu’s work
took a different direction. He was offered
an opportunity to go to the Jeanes Teacher Training Center
Litu also accepted appointment by the Society of Friends as first
African inspector of the schools under the management of Friends Africa Mission
for 5 years. [He traveled to all
inspections by bicycle]. On Saturdays
he would carry out household chores.
Sunday he was either preaching at the Mission church in Vihiga or in a neighboring village. His service continued after worship, as
people followed him home, asking questions on the Bible, or advice on matters
affecting their personal lives.
Working
on the Bible at Lugulu/Sharing the Little Hut—Jefferson Ford of Lugulu Mission decided to carry on
with the work of Bible translation. Litu
would travel 2 days on bicycle, stopping at Malava Mission on the way. He would spend a week at Lugulu translating
the Old Testament and teaching in the Bible school, then travel back to Vihiga;
Litu did this for over 10 years.
Litu’s
son, Joseph Adede graduated as a teacher from Makerere College Uganda Kaimosi Boys Boarding
School
The
Return to Mbale/ Court Tribunal—In
1943, Joel Litu chose to leave Vihiga Mission and move back to his home village
Mbale. [He kept up his connection with
his village, sending along clothes and seedlings. In the 1940s the Quaker movement had grown to
over 10,000 members. Joel Litu’s advice
was constantly sought by his fellow Quakers.
Whenever American Friends had a meeting to discuss certain issues, it
was customary for African Friends to con fer with Joel. The Mission Board recommended to the 5 Years
Meeting in America Kenya
In
1948 Joel Litu was called upon to serve in a Court Tribunal made up of village
elders, who executed justice on a village level. Litu’s appointment as a magistrate was a
great satisfaction to his family; Jahlula lived to see it, but died the next
year. [A man tried and failed to bribe
him with a hen]. Many cases were land disputes. Litu would interrupt testimony when he sensed they were lying]. After serving in
Mbale, he was transferred to Mumi, some 30 miles away. The Wanga people were surprised that he did
not take bribes, “what big people take.”
He also served in Lurumbie, and Ilolomani. He worked in the courts a total of 17 years,
retiring in 1965 at the age of 75. The Queen conferred a Certificate of Meritorious Service upon him in 1966.
Replacement
of the Bicycle/Last Days—It wasn’t
until 1956 that Litu was able to afford a car; actually his children bought it
for him. [He never mastered driving, & had someone drive him where he
wanted to go]. His grandchildren took delight in seeing grandpa’s car go by,
& relied on it to announce his departure & arrival.
During
his late years Joel Litu was not an ailing old man; he still took long walks in
the evenings, [& walked all around the village. He was known as
“Aligula”—one who visits. In his old age Litu’s profound involvement in Quaker
concerns didn’t diminish. [He was chairman of the YM’s board of Trustees, was
very concerned with the use of YM funds, & the sale of its property. In
1975 he joined delegates who attended a Friends United Meeting (FUM) conference
in the US
Becoming
ill again in 1977, he was taken to the New Nyanza General Hospital February
4 1977 , Joel Litu died. [People within 5 miles of his home came to
mourn his passing]. His gravestone was
of marble, provided by FUM and the American Bible Association, with a
photograph taken when he was preaching with a Bible in his hand.
Litu’s
Work—His life work falls into 3
distinct phases: 1914-1926; 1926 -46; 1946-1965.
The 1st phase he was involved in printing, teaching,
preaching and translating the Bible. The
second phase began when Emory Rees left, and marked the maturing of his
ministry and spiritual growth. He worked
without supervision for the longest hours and received the least pay of his
working life. The third phase he become
the 1st presiding clerk of the East Africa Yearly Meeting & ended
with his retirement from service in the tribunal courts in 1965.
Litu contributed toward the establishment & growth of the Quaker move- ment inKenya
Litu contributed toward the establishment & growth of the Quaker move- ment in
As the 1st presiding clerk of East Africa Yearly Meeting he placed it on a sound foundation, and was very active in visiting village meetings. He also contributed a lot to the transformation of Luragoli into a written language. His rich vocabulary proved invaluable in the [painstaking] translation of the Bible, [according to Emory Rees]. Many of the trees he planted on all the stations where he worked still stand. Throughout his humble, tireless work Litu planted seeds of the word of God in many hearts.
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244. Reflections on Simplicity (by Elaine M. Prevalet; 1982)
About the Author—Elaine Prevallet, S.L., is currently director of Knobs Haven, a retreat center near the Loretto Motherhouse in Nerinx, KY. She was for 2 years on the staff at Pendle Hill, teaching Scripture and spirituality. She has studied Buddhism here & abroad. The Sisters of Loretto in 1812, was one of the 1st Roman Catholic orders of women to be founded in the US. The Sis- ters are committed “to hold all goods in common in a spirit of simplicity.” This pamphlet represents Elaine’s life-time concern for the process of simplicity.
[Introduction]/ Living from the Center—Simplicity is a gift that eludes our grasp. One sees it more clearly when not looking directly at it. When I ima- gine my own life simple and uncomplicated, I picture a neat room and desk, & me moving through tasks in a smoothly and orderly fashion, with no strain or pressure. My life is complicated because people don’t stay in place. I can’t keep up. I am unable to control time or much else. Mostly what I find is fru- stration [when people and things] don’t fit into my program. In the simple way, there is an agenda, but it’s not my creation. I only receive the day & program that comes to me during the day from God; interruptions are as integral to the scene as anything I had planned.
The illusion is that the complication's source is outside myself. While networking in our world has become complex, the real source of the compli- cations, lies within. Thomas Kelly writes: “Each of us tends to be ... a com- mittee of selves … Each of our selves is in turn a rank individualist ... shou- ting out his vote ... [The “chairman”] doesn’t integrate the many into one, but merely counts the votes & leaves disgruntled minorities.”
When we say Yes or No to calls for service on the basis of heady deci- sions, we have to give reasons to ourselves & to others. When we say Yes based on inner guidance, or No based on a lack of inward “rising,” there is only God’s will as we discern it. If we believe in the indwelling of God’s Spirit in us, it makes sense also to believe that Indwelling Spirit will give the nudges we need. I listen for the decision rather than make the decision.
That presupposes: inner quiet; a developed prayer life in connection with the Source & Center; the capacity to act out of something other than our head. Rational, extroverted, action-oriented Westerners are uncomfortable with all of these. John Woolman writes: “If we give not up those prospects of gain which in the wisdom of this world are open before us, but say ‘I must go on ... I hope to keep as near to the purity of truth as business before me will admit of ’ ...
Under Christ’s leading people are brought to a stability; where he doth not lead we are bound in ... pure love to stand still and wait upon him.” I don’t think we have to strain to apply what he says to all of the pushes and pulls we are subject to. The busier you are the more important you are, [and the more complex your life is]. Our society says you must have something to show for your life.
Congruence Between the Inner & the Outer—The process of waiting for an “inward rising of Life to encourage us” happens quietly, it comes from inner silence in which an inner sensor is working. It is as important to live in the awareness of receiving each day from God as it is to offer it to God. We don’t control it, & we don’t hold on to it. The relationship between outer stimuli and inner prompting is always only more or less congruent.
We can become excessively inward-turned, prone to substitute piety for action, confusing our own inner sleepiness & complacency with an undeman- ding will of God. Or we can so scrutinize all possible actions that we forget to examine why, how, in what spirit or for whom we are doing them. Our lives are like a risky tightrope walk. The rope is straight, reliable, direct, a simple, single narrow way, the path to life. Our struggle is to learn to walk it quietly, trustingly, simply. The process of tottering into congruence is the process by which we become simple.
Simplicity and Duplicity: The Inner Process—What do we want more than anything in the world? If security is our treasure, then we need to look there to find our idols. We can’t belong wholly to God if our hearts are mastered by another treasure. We can’t be single-minded unless we con- front our double-mindedness. The more objects, persons, situations outside myself I look to for security, the more multiple-minded I am. [Our security objects aren't subject to our control, so we have to compete, grasp, to clutch at them. We can never be secure, for we will always fear that they will fail us; they probably will.
Simplicity and Duplicity: The Inner Process—What do we want more than anything in the world? If security is our treasure, then we need to look there to find our idols. We can’t belong wholly to God if our hearts are mastered by another treasure. We can’t be single-minded unless we con- front our double-mindedness. The more objects, persons, situations outside myself I look to for security, the more multiple-minded I am. [Our security objects aren't subject to our control, so we have to compete, grasp, to clutch at them. We can never be secure, for we will always fear that they will fail us; they probably will.
Often people start on the spiritual path by “stripping down,” exteriorizing an inward desire or willingness to live in dependence upon God alone. Our attitude toward material possessions is often a 1st and fundamental index of where our hearts are. Jesus does not cite giving things away as an ideal, [but as a given part of life]. He is in touch with the deep laws of life. Far more difficult than material possessions is to love unpossessingly, to regard as enough whatever anyone is willing to give me of their love.
A talent, a job, a position we’ve held, can gradually take possession of us, dominate and control us with a source of security. Then comes fear of losing it and we hang on yet more tightly. All the things we took for granted that may fade away later in life, they were all gifts and we didn’t know it. Once we have stripped away material possessions, we mustn’t make the mistake of stopping there, and of assuming that the inner reality necessarily follows because we did the outer thing right.
Exposure of Duplicity: A Painful Grace—We can get a hold on an inner “object” as well: a concept of God, a piety, a grace, even a love—all can be clung to as if our security depended upon them, as if they belonged to us. Working through all of our systems of security starts with material posses- sions and moves inward, progressively, and inexorably, to more subtle areas, cutting to the heart of all our systems. In reality, it is God we would like to control, or replace. All our lives, our giving, our loving, our serving, our giving up, teaches us, exposing our desire to be our own source of security, our desire to be God, the original sin.
Exposure of Duplicity: A Painful Grace—We can get a hold on an inner “object” as well: a concept of God, a piety, a grace, even a love—all can be clung to as if our security depended upon them, as if they belonged to us. Working through all of our systems of security starts with material posses- sions and moves inward, progressively, and inexorably, to more subtle areas, cutting to the heart of all our systems. In reality, it is God we would like to control, or replace. All our lives, our giving, our loving, our serving, our giving up, teaches us, exposing our desire to be our own source of security, our desire to be God, the original sin.
We learn that the roots of our desire for control are subtler, more interior and devious, than we imagined; we serve our own ego. As God’s work goes on in us, we come face to face with the fact that we are fundamentally and ines- capably poor. There is nothing we resist more than our own poverty. The means to becoming single-minded is a continuing process of confronting my duplicity. The objects I seek to control, interior or exterior, are the masters I serve. We become single only by discovering how we are double. We depend on our attempts along with the grace of God (both are essential) for the exposure, the painful revelation.
Our desire to be simple, to serve the one God, is always that: a desire; an intention. It's never finished, always in process. There lies within the pos- sibility of reaching that place of simple being without pretense or affectation, where the interior is directly reflected outwardly with no obstruction or deflec- tion or deviation. We must do what we see to do, and we must live in trust of the continuing presence and process of God.
Our desire to be simple, to serve the one God, is always that: a desire; an intention. It's never finished, always in process. There lies within the pos- sibility of reaching that place of simple being without pretense or affectation, where the interior is directly reflected outwardly with no obstruction or deflec- tion or deviation. We must do what we see to do, and we must live in trust of the continuing presence and process of God.
The rest is prayer, observance, discipline, thought, and action. It is a painful grace of having our pettiness, our neediness, our grasping & clutching and clinging revealed to us. We need only surrender ourselves to be refa- shioned by God. We are only discovering our poverty and our absolute need of Mercy. Little by little, step by step, we let the inside of the cup be washed clean by a painful Mercy. And in letting it be done, we are made simple.
Some Sayings of Jesus/ [Fragmented Word & Self]—One area where we often have the chance to be aware of our duplicity is in our speech. How much of what we say do we mean? How much of what we mean do we say? How much does what we say really mean? I find myself saying something to another while something within me is saying, “Not true, Elaine.” I’m not in my word. The word is empty of my presence. [Here there is] the I that knows, & the I that speaks; a clear case of double-mind.
Some Sayings of Jesus/ [Fragmented Word & Self]—One area where we often have the chance to be aware of our duplicity is in our speech. How much of what we say do we mean? How much of what we mean do we say? How much does what we say really mean? I find myself saying something to another while something within me is saying, “Not true, Elaine.” I’m not in my word. The word is empty of my presence. [Here there is] the I that knows, & the I that speaks; a clear case of double-mind.
Your words will represent—or betray—the fragmented character of your treasure, & they will provide material for judgment. An oath says, “This time you can be sure I’m telling the truth; that means sometimes you can’t be sure; the oath allows room for lying. Would it be possible to discipline our word? One would talk less, but surely say more [in fewer words]. We would surely find some disciplined scrutiny of our talking an instructive instrument in the direc- tion of becoming simple.
Seeing with a Simple Eye—Jesus seemed to see the eye as the aper- ture through which light enters the body. When the eye is simple or single, light is unimpeded in illuminating or making things clear. Only insofar as we are free from ulterior motives or greedy self-interest can we really see the outer world & people as they are. In phase 1 of a love relationship, a “sticky” phase, we often have possessive feelings, or lust, anxiety, fear of loss, expectations of response. In phase 2, the same person some years later when the partners detach enough to love each other without anxiety, without demand, with a certain acceptance of the other as he or she really is. One arrives at phase 2 only if one loves in the 1st place, long enough [& faithfully enough] to purify that love.
In phase 1 of service, what we really want to do, is subject them to our agenda for them. In phase 2, through years of generous pouring out of energy and love, it is no long a question of power. The process by which we come to recognize how much of self there is in doing “charity” is a subtle and lengthy one. There is our own “wound of pity” we’re healing, at least as much as that of another. The action should be done regardless, as a step on the way toward loving more simply.
In phase 1 of service, what we really want to do, is subject them to our agenda for them. In phase 2, through years of generous pouring out of energy and love, it is no long a question of power. The process by which we come to recognize how much of self there is in doing “charity” is a subtle and lengthy one. There is our own “wound of pity” we’re healing, at least as much as that of another. The action should be done regardless, as a step on the way toward loving more simply.
In phase 2, we know something of the meaning of “purity,” a word whose meaning is easier to get at negatively rather than positively. Rilke wrote of po- verty as “a glow from within”; poverty, emptiness of desire, lack of filter, allows clarity, lucidity. We become increasingly aware that all real love is rooted in freedom, is always a gift, a mysterious, joyful, surprise. And so here purity of heart, poverty, integrity and freedom are seen to [congregate] and shine with united radiance. That’s simplicity.
Flowing from that, there grows a sense of reverence. The capacity for reverence comes in proportion to the capacity to let go. It isn't surprising that a country and society like ours shows little evidence of or capacity for reverence for life. [Society rather shows a marked disrespect for life at all levels, from the lowest life forms, the environment, through all ages of human life, from unborn through elderly]. It’s no wonder that we find it hard to develop and live out that sensitivity, that simplicity is won only with very conscious effort. We can't really reverence anything when we are clutching at it. The capacity for reverence comes in proportion as I know where my true security lies, in proportion as I become aware that my life is grounded in God, given at each moment from the hand of God. Daniel Berrigan wrote: “All, all is gift. Give it away. Give it away.”
Simplicity in Today’s World—John Woolman was a Quaker who lived from 1720 to 1772 in colonial NJ. What he did, he did in quiet ways, generally working 1-to-1 with others about the concerns that lay on his mind and heart. The chief concern to which he devoted himself was the problem of slavery; he was also sensitive to the question of war tax, and societal collusion in war. His was a heart so tendered by divine love that it issued in a kind of divine instinct for sensing oppression, and he could feel that suffering as his own. He felt he did not need much, and cut back rather than expanded his business, going from tailoring and merchandising to tailoring only
He wrote: “Every degree of luxury hath some connection with evil." Wool man believed that if people were living rightly according to their need, there would be adequate labor for adequate support of all, adequate time to devote to the inner life, adequate work for all to have a hand in their own livelihood. The effect of gradual introduction of error is eventual “dimness of sight”; we no longer see error as error, no longer perceive the truth of the situation. Slavery was such a case.
Flowing from that, there grows a sense of reverence. The capacity for reverence comes in proportion to the capacity to let go. It isn't surprising that a country and society like ours shows little evidence of or capacity for reverence for life. [Society rather shows a marked disrespect for life at all levels, from the lowest life forms, the environment, through all ages of human life, from unborn through elderly]. It’s no wonder that we find it hard to develop and live out that sensitivity, that simplicity is won only with very conscious effort. We can't really reverence anything when we are clutching at it. The capacity for reverence comes in proportion as I know where my true security lies, in proportion as I become aware that my life is grounded in God, given at each moment from the hand of God. Daniel Berrigan wrote: “All, all is gift. Give it away. Give it away.”
Simplicity in Today’s World—John Woolman was a Quaker who lived from 1720 to 1772 in colonial NJ. What he did, he did in quiet ways, generally working 1-to-1 with others about the concerns that lay on his mind and heart. The chief concern to which he devoted himself was the problem of slavery; he was also sensitive to the question of war tax, and societal collusion in war. His was a heart so tendered by divine love that it issued in a kind of divine instinct for sensing oppression, and he could feel that suffering as his own. He felt he did not need much, and cut back rather than expanded his business, going from tailoring and merchandising to tailoring only
He wrote: “Every degree of luxury hath some connection with evil." Wool man believed that if people were living rightly according to their need, there would be adequate labor for adequate support of all, adequate time to devote to the inner life, adequate work for all to have a hand in their own livelihood. The effect of gradual introduction of error is eventual “dimness of sight”; we no longer see error as error, no longer perceive the truth of the situation. Slavery was such a case.
In the gradual introduction of luxury & superfluity, the habit spreads, becomes the status quo. An unpeaceful, restless spirit is spawned & finds its home in society, little by little taking over. It will be seen & challenged only by those who are willing to remain unencumbered and detached from outward gain. Woolman urges “that Friends may dig deep, may carefully cast forth [superfluities] and get down to the rock, the sure foundation & there hearken to that Divine voice. If trust in God runs deep and pure, it will manifest itself both inwardly and outwardly. You cannot serve 2 masters.
Contemporary Society and Our Task—We live in a society which is obviously home to the kind of greedy restless spirit he foresaw; we are affected & blinded by it. The “leavens of the Pharisees”—mistaking outward action for inner reality; greed; ambition; power—surely characterize society today. We do not need more signs. The signs are overwhelming. But we don't see them. We do not see the sheer stupidity of building weapon systems that will inevitably to our own destruction. We don't stop an oppressive economic system. We can’t stop producing even when it is killing us. We need only eyes to see.
We are not totally blind, but we are confused about what is and is not necessary. Saving time with a car, not mending mend-able clothes, not offen- ding a gift-giver, giving into peer pressure is “necessary.” Just what is our part in securing the hundredfold blessing that we now enjoy? How can we even begin to sort it all out? What do we really need? 1st, we have to make a solid beginning with our individual lives [before we tackle society]. Where is my excess and why do I do it: anxiety; greed; carelessness; forgetfulness?
Contemporary Society and Our Task—We live in a society which is obviously home to the kind of greedy restless spirit he foresaw; we are affected & blinded by it. The “leavens of the Pharisees”—mistaking outward action for inner reality; greed; ambition; power—surely characterize society today. We do not need more signs. The signs are overwhelming. But we don't see them. We do not see the sheer stupidity of building weapon systems that will inevitably to our own destruction. We don't stop an oppressive economic system. We can’t stop producing even when it is killing us. We need only eyes to see.
We are not totally blind, but we are confused about what is and is not necessary. Saving time with a car, not mending mend-able clothes, not offen- ding a gift-giver, giving into peer pressure is “necessary.” Just what is our part in securing the hundredfold blessing that we now enjoy? How can we even begin to sort it all out? What do we really need? 1st, we have to make a solid beginning with our individual lives [before we tackle society]. Where is my excess and why do I do it: anxiety; greed; carelessness; forgetfulness?
We can make a consistent self-examination of security, followed by con- crete action, perhaps only the smallest, insignificant thing. Perhaps call on the support of others, in order to keep some kind of check on one’s tendencies to get more than one needs. If we take this matter into that Center where God’s direction is available, we can be sure we will be guided in the process of letting ourselves be made simple.
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245. Alternative Christianity (by John Punshon;1982)
About
the Author—John Punshon was born
in London East
End in 1935. He was evacuated
to Devon for the duration of WWII. He became a convinced
friend at Brasenose College Oxford Quaker Center Birmingham London
If our interpretation of the Scriptures does not change along with the problems, then the latter will go unanswered; or worse, they will receive the old unserviceable answers.”
[Introduction]—[The Quaker approach to religion tends to see form & substance as opposites and not complementary parts of a whole. If we are to bear collective witness, we have to give form and structure to experience. We must go beyond the raw material of personal experience to see ourselves in a wider setting. Is the Friends’ interpretation of the mind of Christ and the New Testament as valid as that of the major branches of the Christian religion?
The
Problem of Authority—[Some
Quakers say that no generalization about Quakers would be helpful, and it would
erect standards as to what qua- lifies as “Quaker.”] I dissent from these objections because: they
are them- selves generalizations; [saying that there's no place for authority
in Quakerism is a misunderstanding of what authority is]. It no more follows that the lack of an
outward authority implies the lack of any authority than to say that the lack of creeds implies an absence of belief.
Quakers have an inward authority, called by various names. The Qua- ker tradition is the path into which
Friends have been led by the Light, and the beliefs it has led them to espouse
in the form of collective insights, not indivi- dual enlightenment. We are only
entitled to assume we have a better under- standing than past Quakers if we give
full weight to what they had to say.
Christian
Principles/Quaker Praxis—The Old
Testament involves the following doctrines:
1st
God is a moral, creative, & loving agent who created the Universe by an act
of will and imagination.
2nd
The relationships we can have with God become strained or im- possible through
self-centeredness (sin).
3rd
Because of the basic moral estrangement of human & divine, ini- tiative for
reconciliation comes from God.
4th
The primary aim of religious life should be seeking justice, not ec- stasy; God
is to be found in history.
5th
The life of religious discipleship is good works proceeding from faith. On this foundation lie the
distinctive doctrines of Christianity [in ge-
neral]. So, Quakerism shares a theory with the rest
of the Christian
Church but displays a totally different praxis.
We
do not baptize or celebrate the Holy communion because we do not believe that
divine grace is channeled through outward ceremonies dependent on human
arrangement. We have beliefs but we do not impose a test of belief on perspective members. Friends have always believed that purely verbal
formulations rooted in the circumstances of a particular time & backed with
the sanction of outward authority discourage direct personal experience of God.
We meet in silence, because worship should be held under complete guidance
of the Holy Spirit. Silence remains the distinctively Quaker form of worship,
even in the programmed tradition. The minister is one with spiritual gifts that
are self-authenticating. We lay our ministry open to all for God to use as he thinks fit. With Christians it has been
left to Friends, Mennonites, & Brethren to protest [that there is no such
thing as a just war], & that one’s at- titude to war is a clearer indication
of the ground of one’s faith than any creed or religious affiliation. What
brings out the differences between Quakerism & other churches is its
attitude towards the Bible.
Children
of the Light—The
earliest name Friends adopted was the Biblical “Children of
Light; “Quaker” was an abusive term used by others. George Fox’s question,
“what thou speakest, is it inwardly from God?” isn't an invitation to people to
construct their own faith.
The
Quakers are saying that the New Testament is the product of a community; what
matters is what it can tell us about that community. Quakers claimed to be that community. This sense of identity with the New Testament
Children of Light is the basic principle which distinguishes Quakerism from
older traditions and gives its doctrine of Scripture its dangerous &
sometimes abused freedom. The divergence
between Quakerism & the other churches comes in the way the Holy Spirit is
envisaged as guiding the Church. The
Quaker conception of identity with the Children of Light and the Catholic “Apostolic Succession” are fundamentally different in that the Catholic use an
intermediary in the workings of the Spirit where the Quakers do not.
Basic Divergences—The
1st basic divergence is that the Catholic is
hierarchical &
exercises a teaching & pastoral ministry primarily through
its clergy. Friends believe that I Corinthians 12 says
that the Children of
Light knew no distinction of clergy and laity.
2nd Using a primarily sacramental
system channels grace through
ceremonies and distorts the original pattern of
Christian witness. The
Children of
Light’s witness was a revival of prophecy.
3rd Quakers have never
denied the need for eucharistic remem-
brance, but rather that its symbolism was
other than a spiritual and
inward thing.
4th if you set great store by participation in the eucharist,
you have
laid down qualification for those who wish to take part; you reduce
faith to
an expression of doctrine rather than an experience of the
Spirit.
An
Alternative Theory of Continuity—Quakerism
would make 3 con- ditions that must be satisfied before any Christian group can
claim to be in the same power as the Apostles:
The 1st condition is that it must display the fruits of the
Spirit, as
found in Philippians 4:8 and Galatians 5:22-23.
The 2nd condition is conscious
awareness of [firsthand experience]
of the Spirit in the group, and an
acceptance of it.
The 3rd
condition is sound doctrine, a willingness to accept the gui-
dance of the
Spirit. Quakerism is a Christianity
which emphasizes the
importance of intense inner conviction and a hostility to
outward and visi-
ble ceremonies and forms.
Friends
have always set themselves strongly against what they consider to be a timid Christianity
which says that Christ’s death frees from the conse- quences of sin but leaves
you in a sinful state. The light shows
you your sin and gives you the power to overcome it. Some see the light as a source of understanding, while others see the Light as a means of verifying our under- standing. We internalize it, spiritualize it, respond
to it. We are justified be- cause of the
Light & not the event. [There are
movements within Quakerism]: those who tend towards the evangelicals, and those
who tend towards a rejec- tion of Christianity.
The
Particularity of the Bible—The
Bible contains a record of events and the consequent development of ideas, and
what matters in theology is what you do with these events, what sort of
significance you see in them. The means
of understanding the significance of these events can only be with you. Only the Light can unlock the Scripture’s
secrets. To look for religi- ous authority
in the Bible alone is to mistake a part for a whole.
Robert
Barclay proposes that the Bible contains: a faith historical ac- count of the
actions of God’s people in various ages; a prophetic account of some things past
and some to come; and a full and adequate account of the doctrine of
Christ. Barclay had no critical problems
such as we face. We have to reach our
own accommodation with the text, and use all the critical tools and academic
disciplines available to us.
Does the Bible, after being critically
examined, contain history, pro phecy, & doctrine that we are under an
obligation to accept because it is in
the Bible? Some people answer the
question by explaining it away. Others
see the Bible simply as myth, i.e. it expresses at a very deep level patterns
of psychological response to the world of our experience that necessary for
cre- ative & productive living. And then
there are attempts to locate scriptural au- thority in the events the Bible
relates rather than the text doing the relating.
Liberation
Theology—The Uruguayan Jesuit
Juan Luis Segundo for- mulates the “hermeneutic circle,” [which has to do with
changing our interpre- tation of the Bible.
He said: “If our interpretation
of the Scriptures does not change along with the problems, then the latter will
go unanswered; or worse, they will receive the old unserviceable answers.” As a Quaker I find this ap- proach acceptable
and productive [because]: the theological agenda is settled by experience
rather than unchallengeable assumption; it does not encourage random and
undisciplined change; understanding the place of revelation lies in the
individual apprehension of developing truth; & it rests not on particular
authority but the faith that God is unconfined.
Liberation theologians point to what affects us now as the basis from
which theology must move.
What does God have to say about current
issues? The most im- portant thing God says is that there is
nothing new in these things, that they have been a feature of human experience
at all times and in all places. Three
biblical features lead to activism and involvement:
1st there is conflict and a call
to prophetic witness against oppression.
2nd is urgency and a call for justice now.
3rd is idealism & a call like
Micah’s to put down war & take up peace. This is the way Quakers have always regarded religion. I would conclude that Quakers [coming down on
the side of peace, the oppressed, and nature] are all part of [both] a 20th
century political movement and a religious movement of far greater antiquity
and divine significance.
New
Testament (NT) Criticism/ Defining Radical Quakerism—[Chris tianity today is faced with the attitude that
the documents of the NT are] so fragmentary and ambiguous that they can provide
no solid grounds on which to stand. [At
the beginning of the 20th century], our understanding of NT times
underwent a profound change. The gospels
offer us a perception of Jesus, [not Jesus himself]. The Bible by itself can't give us the truth
about Jesus and can't provide the authoritative revelation that for so many
centuries we thought it could.
We
have 4 Christologies: John, Paul, Peter, and Hebrews; we have the tantalizing
problem of the Synoptic Gospels. [What we
really have] is evidence about the experience and teaching of the 1st
Christians, and an expression of faith.
“For God,” Paul said, “who commanded the light to shine out of darkness,
hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of
God in the face of Jesus Christ” (II Corinthians 4:6). George Fox was saying that the Bible will not
yield up its revelation to the intellect, operating upon the letter of the
text, but only to the humble spirit that recognizes the things of God
illumi- nated by the Light Within.
We
can seek and find God within; indeed, that is the only place where God can be
found. People who found themselves on
the same spiritual journey don't avoid great differences of opinion, but can
transcend them by recognizing one another as followers of Jesus in many ways. London YM’s
Discipline points to the traditional Advices
and Queries and Christian Faith and
Practice, which express the broad
principles of belief and conduct that the YM holds. It calls simply for loyal recognition of
them, not precise agreement. My own YM
expresses its understanding of the nature of the Church today the same way.
[Quakerism is an “alternative” Christianity,
because it is: radical, charis- matic, &
prophetic. The Quaker contribution to all kinds of
struggles is a spe- cial case of a much older and more profound struggle on the
stage of human history. The office of
prophet is a diverse and therefore misunderstood one. It is unsought & frequently resisted; part
of the prophetic experience is a struggle with God that resolves into total
obedience.
The prophet all too often
sees his words rejected as threatening to esta- blished values and habitual ways
of thought. Friends believe that it is
the pro- phet not the priest, who is the interpreter of God to mankind. The proclamation of God’s goodness and God’s
justice, God’s love & God’s redemptive purpose isn't once for all, an event
which took place at an ever more remote period in the past, but is the
immediate and eternal work of the Holy Spirit.
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246. A Quest there is (by Elizabeth Gray Vining; 1982)
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246. A Quest there is (by Elizabeth Gray Vining; 1982)
About
the Author—At last, Elizabeth
Gray Vining has written a sequel to The
World in Tune. This pamphlet is a
collection of quotations from some of her favorite mystics, accompanied with
interpretive comment. They offer
glimpses into her personal life, and reveal a lover of birds and beasts, with
an ever present awareness of the spirit embodied in substance.
That a quest there is and an end is the
single secret spoken (Quote from Evelyn Underhill
To think well is to serve God in the
interior court.
You are as prone to love as the sun is
to shine, it being the most delight ful and natural employment of the Soul of
Man, without which you are dark and miserable. Thomas Traherne.
Thomas
Traherne was a shoemaker’s son in Hereford England
What a wonderful now! It is surely eternity. Kanjiro
Kawai
Kanjiro
Kawai was a great modern potter and poet of Japan America
Saint Benno and the Frog—[St. Benno would often pray as he walked in the
fields. One day he bade the frogs be
quiet. Upon further reflection that
frogs might be more agreeable to God than his prayer, he bade them continue
their praise]. St. Benno was born early
in the 10th century of a noble family in Swabia . He was happiest as a hermit in the Swiss
mountains. To most of us today the sound
that frogs make beside streams and ponds in the early spring is cheerful and
welcome. Henry Waddell, an Irish scholar
and poet, translated this story from the Acta
Sanctorum, (Acts of Saints), a collection of stories and legends about
saints, began early, in the 17th century.
Power said to the World, “You are
Mine./ The World kept it Prisoner on his
Throne.
Love said to the World, “I am
Thine./ The World gave it the Freedom of
her House. Rabindranath Tagore
[The
3 temptations in the desert changed Jesus from an admirable, lo- vable young man
to a strong, purposeful, inspired prophet].
In modern times the 3 temptations might be interpreted as wealth, prestige,
and power. Power is the most dangerous
because of its very attractiveness and the seductive idea that one can use it
for good. Certainly St. Francis was able
to avoid all 3 temptations, but not St. Teresa of Avila
The Donkey: [1st, there is an unflattering description
in the 1st person, then]: Fools! For I also had my hour/ One far
fierce hour and sweet/ There was a shout about my ears/ and palms about my feet. Gilbert K. Chesterton
Exasperating
donkeys may be, but still somehow they are lovable and, in simpler countries
than ours, still useful members of society.
The donkey is a small, humble animal, used for humble purposes,
[especially in Greece Ossabaw Island Georgia
[Old English poem from a young widow to
her husband begins & ends with]: Here,
Shadowe Lie/Whilst life is Sadd/ Still Hopes to Die/To him She had…Love made me
Poet/& this I Writt/ My Harte did do it/& not my Wit.
Many
years ago I met the author of these artless but poignant lines in the parish
church at Burford in the Cotswolds. My
own handsome and bril- liant young husband had been killed in an automobile
accident less than 3 years before. The
fellowship of the sorrowful I have called it, that little spring of understanding that flows between people who lost some one very dear. Earlier I met Ela, another grieving young
widow at Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire. She
was under great pressure to remarry, but in the 13th century established
a nunnery instead at Lacock where she and William had lived. I saw the cloi- sters, the abbess’ parlor with
2 fireplaces and a tiled floor. Something of her steadfast soul spoke to me
intimately over the centuries.
One God there is, greatest of men & mortals,/Not like to man in Body or Mind.
All of him sees & hears & thinks. Xenophanes
of Colophon (6th century B.C.)
Xenophanes of Colophon offered the
proposition that man creates God in his own image; his own belief is stated in
the quote beginning this paragraph; he was probably exiled for this belief.
William Butler Yeats, around 1890 wrote a poem that the moorfowl, lotus,
roebuck, & peacock each imagine God in their own image. William Blake is
probably the most mystical & mysterious of all the great English poets. He
wrote volumes of visionary, prophetic poems. [From a long poem called The Everlasting Gospel this pamphlet’s
author selected a passage that observes how different interpretations of the
Gospels can be in- compatible with each other]. When shall we learn to pray not to “what I think Thou art but what thou
knowest Thyself to be?”
Pile the bodies High . . ./Shovel them
under and let me work/I am the Grass; I cover all . . ./ I am the Grass/let me
work. [From Grass, by Carl Sandburg]
Summer Grass;/ of stalwart Warriors’ Dreams/The
Aftermath Haiku by Basho (17th century)
They Hated and Killed and Men praised
them/ But God in His shame hastens to hides its memory under the green grass. Rabindranath Tagore (19th -20th
century)
When
I was in Japan Tokyo
… Provide for the aged homes of dignity & peace;
give them under- standing helpers, & the willingness to accept help. As their strength dimini- shes, increase faith & assurance of your love. Episcopal Prayer Book.
From
65 to 95 is 30 years, as great a distance as from 20 to 50; but they call us
all old. I am fortunate to live in a loving community,
where we all enjoy dignity and peace. A
few are weak but none is isolated. Age
comes, and with- out jobs, without the energy to fill all our hours with
activity, with decreased ability to read, to travel, or even to knit, we have
much more time to think, [especially through increasingly sleepless
nights]. Some of us find that what we
thought was faith was not much more than well-being , that our realization of God
and his love was academic, unreal, unconvincing. [The end of [the au- thor’s] prayer for the
aged would be]: “Grant them courage in
the face of pain or weakness, and always a sure knowledge of thy presence.”
At the Flower Vase/ The butterfly seems
to be listening/ To the One Great Thing.
Issa (18th century Japan
Beautiful
flower arrangements are an important part of every Japanese house and
store. [To Issa, the butterfly might
have been listening to Buddha]. To us it
would be God. Issa’s experience of
homelessness helped him to understand the fears and sufferings of all small,
weak things.
I and my white Pangur/ Have each his
special art./ His mind is set on hunting mice./ Mine is on my special craft./ …
He is master of the work/ which every day he does,/While I am at my own work/
To bring difficulty to clearness. Anonymous (translated by Kuno Mayer)
The
monk’s work in the 8th century was in Ireland Ireland
[I said to
Love]: Let my shame/ go where it doth deserve/And know you not, says Love, who
bore the blame?/My dear, then I will serve./You must sit down, says Love, and
taste my meat./ So I did sit and eat. George Herbert The scene is the great hall of an English
manor house of the 17th century.
The humbler ones sit below the salt cellar in the middle of the long
table. [The speaker is asking to be
seated at the humble end] when the noble host came down from his place at the
high table to welcome the traveler.
George
Herbert looked forward to a political career.
And then he felt a call to the spiritual life and the ministry; he
obeyed, but not without a struggle. He
became rector of a little country church in Bemerton. His one indulgence was to walk into Salisbury
His
poems were published after he died and in the 20th century became
important to a brilliant young French Jewish woman, Simone Weil, whose life and
writings have meant much to Friends, especially because of her compas- sion for
the poor. She memorized the whole short
poem and used it to deal with agonizing headaches. Once when she used it, “In the sudden
possession of me by Christ . . . I felt in the midst of my suffering the
presence of a love, like that which one can read in the smile on a beloved
face.” In its own way this poem bears a
resemblance to the lofty scene in the upper room in Jeru- salem
1983)
About
the Author—Born in Berlin England Cambridge Ja- pan Paris London Guilford College , North
Carolina September 3, 1981 .
Foreword—Guilford College Guilford
[I believe that one of the great weaknesses
of so many pacifists is that they do not take enough trouble to learn to know
and understand those with whom they disagree … I want to nudge the world a
little bit toward the aban- donment of war as a method of settling dispute. Wolf Mendl]
I—I am asked, “How come a Quaker like you studies war? [2 assump- tions
result]: the study of war can’t be value-free; anyone in the business of war
studies must be predisposed in favor of war. No one would accuse a medical
scientist studying a plague to favor spreading it. The study of war may have
practical consequences or none at all. Sooner or later, the war's student comes up against relating one’s values & attitudes to the subject. War is a real
social phenomenon of our species & has been with us since the beginning
of history; most consider it something inevitable though regrettable. My association with the Society of Friends
immediately marks me as a “pacifist,” [and in the eyes of many, part of] an
impotent minority.
The
war student’s 1st paradox is that almost everyone professes to abhor
war & expresses the desire to get rid of it. [This is illustrated] in
governments feeling obliged to profess in favor of disarmament but do very
little about it beyond negotiations [they don’t expect to succeed]. Often
disarmament & arms control policies are no more than a part of political
warfare. Samuel Huntington found that war is more likely to occur in the early
phases of an arms race but that an arms race going on for a longer time is
more likely to have a peaceful ending.
He said: “An arms race reflects
disagreement between 2 states as to the proper balance of power between them.”
[There
is] need for a study of the various aspects of war, if only as a necessary
pre-condition for the study of remedial action.
Other forms might include the search for those measures which would
increase the opportunity to avoid war and lessen the impact if it should break
out. Various approaches the study of
war include: describing the phenomenon;
[focusing] on the causes of war; looking at war as a state policy instrument.
More
than 2,000 years ago, Sun Tzu wrote his study of war as an instru ment in the ruler’s
service. According to him, the good general “loves mankind, sympathizes with
others, & appreciates their industry & toil … To subdue the enemy
without fighting is the acme of skill … The worst policy is to attack cities.
Attack cities only when there is no alternative.” Seeing war as a policy
instru- ment is an attempt to bridge the gap between those who see war as [pure] evil
& reject it, & those who believe that war is humankind's inescapable destiny.
II—Quincy
Clauswitz
(1780-1831), the father of modern strategic thinking, straddled the age of
limited warfare in the 18th century and the age of mass warfare in
the 19th century. The more
simple-minded [war practitioners] picked and chose from his celebrated study On War, to suit their purposes and
conditions. They were inclined to forget
his observation that: “Subordinating the
political point of view to the military would be absurd; policy creates
war. Policy is the guiding intelligence
and war only the instrument.”
[He also
said]: “To introduce the principle of moderation into the theory of war itself
would always lead to logical absurdity … War is an act of force, and there is
no logical limit to the application of that force.” Clausewitz was undoub- tedly influenced by
Napoleon’s devastating use of military power; his ideas emerged at the same
time as the modern European nation state.
It is the mix- ture of Clausewitz’s teaching about the conduct, nature,
and purpose of war with the new national ideology that has dominated thinking
about international relations ever since.
In
this new philosophy, national goals are the highest values & among them the
survival of the nation state is preeminent. [Since bending the other party’s
will] can’t always be achieved through negotiations, it follows that war is a
normal though spasmodic phase of inter-state relations. Technology played a
central role in the transformation of war. The mobilization of the whole
nation for war raised question about the distinction between soldiers &
civilians. War be- came once more an instrument for [bringing an end to the
old]. In an age of total war fought for
total objectives there also had to be total victory [i.e. the un- conditional
surrender which ended WWII].
III—In the nuclear bomb age, and all the latest marvels of technology,
humankind has reached the road’s end, which began with the 1st form
of or- ganized warfare. Everywhere today, thoughtful people are asking whether another
orgy of worldwide destruction could be followed by revival. War’s development
wasn’t the result of inborn aggressive instincts but of an adap- tation to a
particular survival problem: the need to demarcate & protect one’s land &
pastures or arable land. The values of power & status emerged, which also
became the causes of war.
Sun
Tzu’s rules, the doctrine of Just War, codes of chivalry, 18th
century warfare ritual, Hague & Geneva Conventions are examples of the
effort to tame the dogs of war. Just War has governed the attitudes of the
great majority of Christians towards the armed conflict problem. Before Emperor
Constantine’s conversion, Christians were a persecuted minority. Christ’s
teachings & belief in the 2nd Coming were the reasons for “pacifism.” After conversion, the State had to reconcile Christian doctrine
with Christian behavior in an imperfect world.
The
Just War doctrine has jus ad bellum (right
to wage war) & jus in bello
Military
strength is regarded as the ultimate measure of a state’s power and
influence. Karl Deutsch has concluded
that the nation state will be the world’s main center of power as long as it
remains the “foremost practical instrument” for getting things done.” Kissinger wrote: “Henceforth the major
nuclear powers would be able to devastate one another. They would also have great difficulty in
bringing their power to bear … Military
strategy is now as much concerned with influencing potential enemies as with
defeating them in combat.” Where the
major powers haven't been in direct confrontation, there have been innumerable
armed conflicts.
In
the 3rd World, the traditional instrument of war is widely used &
the Great Powers are at the old game of extending control & influence [by supply- ing
surrogates]. Nuclear deterrence is in danger of being replaced by the
tradi- tional concept of military deterrence based on the idea [of overwhelming
supe- riority of one’s side over the enemy]. The world has become too small &
too dangerous for the traditional methods of resolving our quarrels. The insistence of Kissinger and others that
there is no real alternative to the balance of power is an example of
resistance to change. Notable minds are
convinced that we can no longer afford to adjust the balance by war.
IV—Can we use our knowledge and
understanding of war to pro- mote a more peaceful world? Know
your enemy as someone to be taken seriously, [with strengths and weaknesses].
Apply this rule to the study of war. War
has been an important part of inter-societal relations since the dawn of
history. [It is not] an aberration
caused by war-mongers, militarists, military- industrial complexes,
conspiracies, or evil ideologies. [There
is acceptance across the political spectrum that war is necessary at some point].
We
who think war is wrong don’t have a monopoly of morality. Our task is to confront
the moral issues raised by war & not to evade them by condem- nation of
war. Kissinger said: “The root dilemma of our time is that if the
quest for peace turns into the sole
objective of policy, the fear of war becomes a weapon in the hands of the most
ruthless.” The statesman’s
responsibility to ensure national [security &] survival tempts one into
seeing an adversary of equal or greater strength in the worst possible light as
a ruthless enemy.
Arnold
Wolfers writes: “Security in an objective sense measures the ab- sence of threats
to acquired values, in a subjective sense the absence of fear that such values
may be attacked.” Some useful arms control agreements have been reached [recently],
mostly limiting the capacity for destruction. Where disarmament negotiations
aim at reducing incentives for war, they have foun- dered on the various parties’
perceived security requirements. [Failed
attempts at] multilateral disarmament & the qualitative change brought about
by nuclear weapons have led to new methods like unilateral initiatives. They seem to point to a kind of judo in
international relations, in which one’s own weakness is turned to advantages
against the opponent.
One
of the less attractive characteristics of “pacifists” is their tendency to shut
themselves up in an intellectual and emotional ghetto, and to glory in
self- righteousness. Instead, we must
accept the validity of the premise that there are such things as threats,
aggression, and problems of security, even if they are based on perceptions
rather than facts. Old, established
categories of thinking are breaking down.
The great questions of peace and war have be- come just as much the
business of economists, scientists, psychologists, educators, and moralists,
who are introducing new ideas to the study of age- old problems. The growing interpenetration of the civilian & military spheres, is an example of the transformation of military institutions.
The development of unorthodox approaches to security, whether in civi- lian defense or defensive strategies and [re-interpretation of “Just War”] are 2 more examples of a changing outlook. Let us be optimistic realists & not pes- simistic realists. The optimist believes that self-preservation will lead to the dis- covery that cooperation is potentially more effective than competition in furthe- ring human enterprise, & that wars are not inevitable.
The development of unorthodox approaches to security, whether in civi- lian defense or defensive strategies and [re-interpretation of “Just War”] are 2 more examples of a changing outlook. Let us be optimistic realists & not pes- simistic realists. The optimist believes that self-preservation will lead to the dis- covery that cooperation is potentially more effective than competition in furthe- ring human enterprise, & that wars are not inevitable.
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248. The Candle of the Lord (by Elfrida Vipont Foulds; 1983)
248. The Candle of the Lord (by Elfrida Vipont Foulds; 1983)
About
the Author—Born in Manchester England Quaker Evacuation School
The spirit of man is the candle of the
Lord. Proverbs 20:27
“ Dear Friend, when the Lord has set you
free and brought you into joy, then you think you have overcome all. But there is a daily cross to be taken up.” Elizabeth Hooten
“I continue a prisoner in Banbury, but I witness freedom in the Lord.” Ann Audland
“I continue a prisoner in Banbury, but I witness freedom in the Lord.” Ann Audland
Rufus
Jones and my father E. Vipont Brown were almost exactly of an age. Both belonged to that generation of young men
and women who brought about a great reawakening of Quakerism nearly 100 years
ago. The movement was led by Rufus Jones
in the US
Pendle
Hill according to Henry Hodgkin, was to be “a haven of rest, a school of
prophets, a laboratory of ideas, and a fellowship of cooperation.” [As to rest], musician and saint and tortured
prophet alike have discovered that there is only one abiding source of rest,
the Eternal Presence in the human heart.
The prophets and the idealists, the scholars & philosophers, the
crafts- men working together will emerge only if at the heart of each restless,
see- king individual there is the knowledge of where that rest is to be
found.
This
quotation reminds me of a hymn we used to sing in the little “Chil- dren’s
Meeting” started by my mother and other pioneering women at Mount Street
Meeting. [We would sing]: “Like a little
candle/We must shine/you in your small corner/ And I in mine.” [Unfortunately “small corner” would conjure
the image of “standing in the corner” as punishment]. We can take the text smugly, and it will get
us nowhere. We can take it in a
disillusioned spirit, and again it will get us nowhere. Or we can take it up as a challenge and ask
if indeed one poor candle’s gleam can be of use in the world we live in
today.
Nearly
all Friends must surely be familiar with George Fox’s vision in 1647 of an ocean
of darkness, with “an infinite ocean of light and love which flowed over
[it].” After WWI, many including me
believed that it was all over bar the shouting; not Rufus Jones]. [In time of catastrophe, George Fox came to
expect that ] the emergence, the incursion, the vernal equinox of the Spirit
comes through some human individual or some prepared group. It does not come as lightning out of the
sky.” We are asked to be channels for
the incur- sion of the Divine Life, even in the midst of the ocean of darkness
and death.
The
youth of Rufus Jones’ time were as familiar with their Bibles as ever were the
early Friends, but they were also familiar with biblical scholarship in
their own day. The students of the Scarborough Summer School would become
Friends whom I myself later knew as revered members of an older generation. The
Adult School
The
re-awakening of Quakerism inspired by that generation affected Friends all over
the world. The inspiration continues to work, but the ocean of darkness still threatens a world constantly menaced by catastrophe. The 1st World Conference of
Friends, held in London Kingdom of God
A
little passage in II Esdras says: “Come hither, & I shall light a lamp of
understanding in thine heart which shall not be put out. Once, a national day of prayer was proclaimed
in an emergency. [A friend thought that
was treating God as though God were a fire engine. A teacher once had me memorize] Matthew 15:25 , “Lord, help me.”
I have never ceased to be grateful to that teacher.
At first I thought I was too busy to set
aside time for prayer. At last I began
to realize that I needed some kind of inner peace, or inward retirement. I studied John Woolman who said, “The place
of prayer is a precious habita- tion. I
saw this place to be safe, to be inwardly quiet when there was great stirrings
& commotions in the world.” Here is
where our poor candle can shine more brightly, where we can gather strength to
meet the desperate need of the world today.
“Dear Friend, when the Lord has set you
free and brought you into joy, then you think you have overcome all. But there is a daily cross to be taken up.” Elizabeth Hooten
“I continue a prisoner in Banbury, but I
witness freedom in the Lord.” Ann Audland
The
great experience of 1652, which transformed Quakerism into a vital missionary
movement, began with George Fox’s vision from the top of Pendle Hill. We could explain away the whole thing as
something which has nothing to do with us today. We can contract out of the whole affair and
leave the visionary people to get on with their visions. But the events of 1652 began at the foot of
Pendle Hill, by being “moved of the Lord to go atop it.” George Fox had no good reason to go up there,
especially if you add the legend that the Devil walks on Pendle Hill. It was when Fox obeyed his guidance by doing
a crazy thing and climbing Pendle Hill, that God gave him his marching
orders.
[There
was also] Dorothy Waugh, a Westmoreland farm servant who was called of the Lord
to go to America Boston London
They received a clear direction from God
to: “Cut through and steer your
straightest course, and mind nothing but me!”
The accusation is made that we are apt to confuse our sense of guidance
with our own personal inclinations. As John
Churchman said: “To see a thing is not a commission to do that thing. The time when, and the judgment to know the
acceptable time, are the gifts of God.”
We can receive a call, but the time is not yet. In God’s good time, often very suddenly, the
door opens. Something says: “Now is the
time!” Such is the joy of a life lived
under God’s guidance.
[Such
a life requires courage.] Margaret Fell
was sentenced to be “cut off from the King’s protection.” She said: “I may be out of the King’s protection, but I
am not out of the protection of Almighty God.”
The more I study Margaret Fell’s life, the more I realize that she could
not have given that answer when she was first convinced of the Truth; her faith
was something which grew steadily.
Simple people in jail fearlessly claimed the right of every freeborn
Englishman to be tried, but said that if they were not granted these things,
they would “lay down patiently and suffer under you.” That was the spirit that broke the religious
persecution of their day.
Elizabeth
Stirredge of Bristol Somerset
We are going to need the kind of endurance that the early Friends knew. Ellis Hookes was the 1st Recording Clerk of London Yearly Meeting. In the year of the Great Plague (1665), he stayed at his post maintaining Friends’ affairs, visiting Friends in prison, and helping those with the Plague. William Edmundson, when he was lost in the American wilderness said: “I had nothing to sustain me but the Lord.”
We are going to need the kind of endurance that the early Friends knew. Ellis Hookes was the 1st Recording Clerk of London Yearly Meeting. In the year of the Great Plague (1665), he stayed at his post maintaining Friends’ affairs, visiting Friends in prison, and helping those with the Plague. William Edmundson, when he was lost in the American wilderness said: “I had nothing to sustain me but the Lord.”
James
Nayler said after his agonizing experience of error and shame and self-deception
that there are times when: “the clouds
may be so thick, and the powers of darkness so strong, that you see Him not,
yet love him, and believe, and you have him present.” Let us not waste our sorrows, our sufferings,
our moments of despair. We must use them. We must use them for a well, and living water
will spring up and refresh our spirits, and the spirits of those around us.
Another
working pattern for the task in hand lies in our fellowship together. Perhaps it is time we ask ourselves: “Are we gathered?” In spite of being physically separated
from his fellow Friends, James Parnell knew
that he had the loving support of his friends. He knew that he could not be cut off from
them; he maintained his testimony and died a martyr’s death. Our fellowship today must be as strong and
have the same sustaining vision. We must
be gathered in the deepest sense, [i.e. when all know that they are in the
Presence of the Spirit].
There
is something else I feel we need to accept, however unwillingly. The Early Friend Elizabeth Hooten wrote:
“Dear Friend, when the Lord has set you free and brought you into joy, then you
think you have overcome all. But there
is a daily cross to be taken up.” We are
not going to be able to carry that cross unless we know the secret of
self-discipline. Ann Audland from a
filthy, malodorous prison wrote: “I
continue a prisoner in Banbury, but I witness freedom in the Lord.” George Fox wrote: “Never heed the Tempests nor the Storms,
Floods nor Rains, for the Seed Christ is over all, and doth reign.” “Do not think that anything will outlast the
Truth, which standeth sure and over that which is out of the Truth.” “So be faithful, and live in that which doth
not think the time long.”
This
conception of timelessness has echoed through Quaker history to our own
day. Tom Kelly exhorted us to live on
two planes at once, to pursue our daily lives balanced between Time and
Eternity. [That is the only way] we are
going to live as if the Kingdom of God Kingdom of God
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249. Speaking as one Friend to Another: On theMystical
Way
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249. Speaking as one Friend to Another: On the
About
the Author—John Yungblut was a
graduate of Harvard College Cambridge , MA
God is nearest me in me; God is the very Self of my self; we are all members of one God-body, who is the very ground of being. John Yungblut
THE
NATURE OF THE CONCERN—I propose in
this pamphlet to offer a message and ministry to the Society of Friends,
given by the Holy Spirit or in- dwelling Christ. This concerns a ministry that
the Society of Friends might per- form in the world in the uncertain period
ahead. Kenneth Boulding believes that the “evolutionary potential.” springs
from 2 insights and commitments of early Friends: perfectionism and
experimentalism.
To
be perfect, for early Friends, meant living up to the present measure of light
within one; this doesn't preclude the need for further growth &
develop- ment. The Society of Friends as a whole isn’t currently living up to the
measure of light it has historically been given. There is a contemporary
movement with- in the Society which rejects mysticism as an essential element in
Quakerism. This is overemphasis or overspecialization, which in evolutionary
terms could lead to extinction.
[Mysticism]
is a hardy perennial [with many forms], including Howard Brinton’s “ethical
mysticism.” It is an emerging form of
higher consciousness in evolutionary terms.
It is a human faculty, possessed in some measure by everyone, by virtue
of being human. It is essential that we
perceive the mysti- cism of early Friends as inherently part of their emphasis
on experimentalism. An important influx
of mysticism entered Christianity early on.
Jesus of Naza- reth was certainly a Jewish mystic.
QUAKERISM AS A MYSTICAL MOVEMENT—Rufus Jones saw Qua- kerism as a new movement in Christianity
witnessing to mysticism’s validity as the heart & core of all true
religion. The mystical element in Quakerism is inse- parable from the light that
has been in it historically and is even ultimately re- sponsible for its
passion for social reform through historic testimonies. Prophe- tic power springs
from & is motivated by mystical experience. Mystical religion stresses God’s
immanence without denying transcendence. The Society of Friend’s deep
commitment & capacity to love is rooted & grounded at its best in the
mystical experience of being loved.
The
Society of Friends needs to “translate its religious and ethical ex- periences
and insights into a conscious understanding of the way in which the kind of
love which we treasure and covet can be produced, defended and ex- tended.” Knowledge sanctified by love works for one’s
good. Myth is the only language religion
can use to speak of the ultimate truth it experiences.
Arnold Toynbee writes that the religion of
the future would be that reli- gion among them which proved itself capable of so
expanding its metaphor & re-interpreting its myths that those coming from
other backgrounds would find that they had lost nothing of value in doing
so. I believe that Friends are in a
unique position to perform this intellectual task.
It would be far more loyal to the spirit of
Fox that responded to fresh re- velation and allowed the Christ myth to evolve
than to remain fixed on a 17th century interpretation. The corporate mystical experience, meeting
for worship is dependent in part on the number of its members who faithfully
practice con- templative prayer in solitude.
THE DISTRACTION OF “UNIVERSALISM/ THE
CORRECTIVE: BE- COMING CONSCIOUS OF OUR ROOTS—The other danger within contem- porary Quakerism is “universalism.” It's an unconscious attempt to shape a new
eclectic religion of the kind Toynbee saw had no future because it is not
rooted in the organic historical community of one of the living faiths. It is expe- rimentalism undisciplined and run
riot.
Quakerism is no longer seen as
inescapably part of the Christian tradi- tion with its roots deep in the Bible's soil. Many Friends have benefit from using Eastern techniques in their centering. As long as these techniques don't become a
substitute for Christian meditative prayer, much is to be gained. They are preliminary to the classic forms of
Christian prayer.
[If instead the
techniques become a pseudo-religion], there is in our un- conscious a kind of
internal denial of our own Christian archetypes that produ- ces psychic imbalance
and confusion. The only viable holiness
of life, Jung suggests, is wholeness of life in which organic continuity with
the past is main- tained while new elements are assimilated in the process of
integration.
[Religious
truth is one irrespective of the national and cultural back- ground of the
individual religionist]. The developed
mystics [of all faiths] meet at the summit of their experience as Thomas Merton
& the Dalai Lama under- stood & acknowledged.
Rapport and mutual respect are only possible if each remains conscious
of being rooted and grounded in one’s own heritage. All mystical religion involves an inward
journey to the self and to the Self (God).
The subliminal energy and spiritual experience they afford are quite dis- tinctive for each tradition. The
elements are not readily interchangeable. There may emerge a fresh mutation
within Quakerism itself that retains connection with its Christian heritage
while it more profoundly assimilates the fresh revela- tion still emerging from
the study of evolution and depth psychology.
There is always the danger of thinking more highly of ourselves than we
ought, but it is far better to hear the call and respond with humility than be
guilty of a false mo- desty and fear of the dangers of experimentalism.
DELIBERATE CULTIVATION OF ETHICAL
MYSTICISM—The Society of Friends will
have to revive a commitment to cultivating the inward life. One must resolve
to be a contemplative in life wherever one finds oneself. Pursuing a course of
meditation has evolutionary significance & therefore cosmic signifi- cance.
Mutations toward more stable forms of life, characterized by higher
consciousness, always take place through individual experimentation. Unless,
through meditation & contemplation, enough people attain awareness of “not
only am I my brother’s keeper, but I am my brother,” we shall exhaust the
spe- cies’ energies & destroy it.
Human
forms of over-specialization that threaten extinction are: lengthe- ning of life
without birth control; prodigal waste of resources; pollution of air & water
and earth occasioned by greedy consumption; fierce competition of
ide- ology. Changing direction requires a
resolute re-direction of one’s own ener- gies in harmony with a enough other human beings before the point of no re- turn, no reversal is reached.
There
are thousands of men & women the world over in many cultures & belonging to
all the living religions who are beginning to awaken to the break- througn
higher consciousness that is needed. What is required of the Society is
effectively to encourage a form of experimentalism among its own members in
cultivating the contemplative faculty, along with thousands of other small
groups. We need to sit down in an attitude of prayer and experiment faithfully
in the wild hope of putting ourselves in touch with the very sources of life.
The
most meaningful experimenting in the human race's history has di- rected its
resources to the cultivation of mystical consciousness. God is near- est me in
me; God is the very Self of my self; we are all members of one God- body, who is
the very ground of being. It requires the exercise of a passion, first aroused
by the experience of being loved by God. The hope for the future of man &
woman on this planet depends on conversion experiences by enough persons who
are prepared to follow the required disciplines for becoming a contemplative.
THE NEED FOR DISCIPLINE—In the early 19th century, 2 Friends com piled a little book entitled A Guide
to True Peace. It contained writings by 3 Ca- tholic mystics more than a
century old: Fénelon, Madame Guyon, & Molinos; they had been condemned &
persecuted. This book proposes a technique in which: “We must silence all desires & wandering
imaginations of the mind, that in this profound silence of the soul we might
listen [for a still small voice that] is a perception infused by the secret
operations & influence of the Divine.
Prayer,
like everything else, must be allowed to evolve. The new per- spectives of
evolution & depth psychology afford new images. [With sufficient imagination we can trace our
thread backwards through the generations and evolution to the beginning with
subatomic particles, to star dust. Jung asserts archetypes of the self and the Self are ultimately
indistinguishable. Jung asks “Have I any religious experience and
immediate relation to God that will keep me from dissolving in the crowd? … Rigorous
self-examination and self-knowledge will be a declaration of one’s own human
dignity.”
There
are now many good books on meditation and contemplation that are appearing. All Friends who are embarking on this venture
of becoming a contemplative should begin studying the writings of Christian
mystics beginning with Paul and John. If
we will stay with this study we will find companions and guides along the way,
and we will gradually discover what special kind of mystic each of us is. The love of God that we experienced demands
that we express our answering love for God in the form of loving others.
RESTATING
THE CHRIST TRUTH—The Christology that
come to us through the New Testament & the variations with the distinctive
emphasis of
Early Friends must be allowed to evolve in the light of fresh
revelation spring- ing from the fact of evolution & the insights of depth
psychology. Each Friend must respond to Christ’s query “who do you say that I
am? within the evolutio- nary context. I anticipate a great convergence of basic
convictions once this task gets under way. Teilhard says: “Truth has to appear
only once, in one sin- gle mind, for it to be impossible for anything ever to
prevent it from spreading universally & setting everything ablaze.”
[My
personal revision of John 3:16 is]: “God
so loved the world that he implanted … the seed which would one day, through
continuing creation by evolution, bear fruit in the Christ-life of one Jesus of
Nazareth, thereby quick- ening the Christ seed in other men and women to their
ultimate salvation and fulfillment.” The
Christ seed lay mysteriously incarnate in the heart of matter from the
beginning of time.
Robert
Barclay writes: “We confess that a seed
of sin is transmitted to all from Adam, although imputed to none until by
sinning they join it … What- ever real good any man doeth, proceedeth … from God’s
seed in him as a new visitation of life.” The emphasis must inevitably pass
from salvation theology to creation theology. The ego needs salvation from its
destructive ways. There is “that of the Devil” within all of us as well as that
of God.
Friends
created [or evolved] new imagery, “that of God” in everyone, the “seed,” the
“inner light.” Now they need to allow the process to continue, [to evolve &]
to make a further contribution. Christ’s image can be seen as an archetype,
helping to keep the species on course toward higher consciousness & more
profound ways of giving & receiving love. Christ remains a personal savior,
one who leads us into higher consciousness by example, including wrestling with
the demonic within himself & others. Friends need a dialog with other
living religions. To keep communication
flowing, [Friends need] to see Christ in evolutionary terms as the Son of Man,
a forerunner to Homo Spiritus, the 1st-born
among many, bearing a family likeness to other great mystics and avatars.
IMPLEMENTING THE MOVEMENT—How will the
work [of spiritual evolution] be undertaken? The image I have is of the 1st
tender, fragile growth of a new mutation. 3 existing Friends institutions could
foster develop- ment of this mutation: Pendle Hill; Friends Conference on
Religion & Psycho- logy (FCRP); Friends General Conference (FGC). Pendle Hill,
as a “Quaker center for study & contemplation,” could offer classes,
retreats, & conferen- ces. Members of the faculty could be advocates &
exemplars of spiritual evo- lution. FCRP [could be] a forum for the convergence,
integration, [& balancing] of depth psychology & mystical religion.
FGC, [as a non-partisan] institution, can allow a
position of this kind along with other positions in workshops & keynote
addresses. FGC is more faithful to the historic form of Quakerism & is more
likely to provide the or- ganic continuity out of which the new growth may
spring. The movement will emphasize the cultivation of the contemplative spirit
in solitude & in meeting for worship. It will restate Christ’s truth to
speak to the condition of men & women now, & to encourage dialog with
members of other living religions. [Join me in this movement].
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250. Jesus, Jefferson, & the Task of Friends (by Newton Garver;
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250. Jesus, Jefferson, & the Task of Friends (by Newton Garver;
1983)
About the Author—Newton Garver was born in Buffalo in 1928. He burned his draft card in 1947. He refused to register for the new military draft & was sentenced a year & a day. He has been a member of Buffalo Meeting for 22 years. He has clerked Peace & Social Action Program. The main theme of this essay has matured over many years, through Quaker activities, Quaker ministry, and university lectures. This essay [began] as a lecture given at Oak- wood School in April 1982.
I—Friends are concerned to realize the kingdom of heaven Jesus spoke of. There are and can be bits of this kingdom in this world, & it is those bits we mean to make manifest through our work. The kingdom is a special community of souls; there are no conflicting interests. One must either suffer or work in relationship with other persons, in a certain spirit, in order to enter this kingdom. Activities of groups like American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), and the Quaker UN Organization (QUNO) are in the world not of it. Politics and economics are clearly in the worldly realm. How does one distinguish between poli- tics and religion? I want to share how my thinking about Jesus & Jefferson has helped toward an answer to this query, and what it says about our tasks.
About the Author—Newton Garver was born in Buffalo in 1928. He burned his draft card in 1947. He refused to register for the new military draft & was sentenced a year & a day. He has been a member of Buffalo Meeting for 22 years. He has clerked Peace & Social Action Program. The main theme of this essay has matured over many years, through Quaker activities, Quaker ministry, and university lectures. This essay [began] as a lecture given at Oak- wood School in April 1982.
I—Friends are concerned to realize the kingdom of heaven Jesus spoke of. There are and can be bits of this kingdom in this world, & it is those bits we mean to make manifest through our work. The kingdom is a special community of souls; there are no conflicting interests. One must either suffer or work in relationship with other persons, in a certain spirit, in order to enter this kingdom. Activities of groups like American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), and the Quaker UN Organization (QUNO) are in the world not of it. Politics and economics are clearly in the worldly realm. How does one distinguish between poli- tics and religion? I want to share how my thinking about Jesus & Jefferson has helped toward an answer to this query, and what it says about our tasks.
II—There is much that I do not understand about Jesus’ life. The way was opened for Jesus by his purification in the wilderness, partly through fas- ting and partly through his rejection of the temptations. One point of view is that it doesn’t matter so much what is offered as who is offering it. I want you to consider that it does not matter who is tempting Jesus, and that he must overcome the temptation of what is offered to him. The temptations are: tur- ning stone into bread; avoiding personal injury; ultimate political power. In the sweeping form in which they are offered to Jesus, they constitute the power to completely alter human existence. I do not understand how rejecting these temptations opens the way; I accept that it does.
The other passage has to do with the Son of Man coming in his glory and revealing to the right-hand men that they ministered to him when they ministered to the needy. The identification of the Son of Man with the humblest of human sufferers remains powerful and puzzling. Is suffering something divine? It is only those who serve, not those who just suffer, who are said “enter & possess the kingdom.” [There is no focusing on the “deserving” poor or “unjustly” imprisoned. The mere fact of human misery and suffering over- rides all notions about justice and merit. [I still need to have] considerations of justice and merit in my daily life. I remain deeply moved by the simplicity and straightforwardness of the message.
Taken together, these 2 passages are all the more puzzling. The suf- ferings of those we are called on to serve are the result of those same brute facts which the tempter offers Jesus power over. Yet the way opens by refusing
Taken together, these 2 passages are all the more puzzling. The suf- ferings of those we are called on to serve are the result of those same brute facts which the tempter offers Jesus power over. Yet the way opens by refusing
to attack the sources of human suffering, & the way is followed by loving at- tention to the sufferers. We might say that service to others, when they are in need & when we are not remunerated, establishes a relation between souls; attacking the sources does not affect souls. To deny that religion and politics lie in separate domains therefore seems to involve a denial of Jesus' example.
III—I have found some of Thomas Jefferson’s life and thoughts pertinent to the theme I am developing. Jefferson was aristocratic rather than humble, honored rather than reviled, and primarily a political rather than a religious figure. Garry Wills argues that Jefferson was more an intellectual than a politi- cian. There are ways in which Jefferson’s ideas limit the domain of politics. It is the reluctance of his participation in politics and his sense of the superior signi- ficance of things outside politics which make him an interesting figure for Friends
His Declaration of Independence [seeks limitation of England’s gover- ning of the colonies]. Limitations are quite distinct from powers. It isn’t the ordi- nary activity of politicians to limit the powers which they are seeking to win. Jef- ferson was more active in articulating the limitations on the government’s just powers than he was in fighting the War or exercising the powers of the new government [e.g. the Bill of Rights]. Jefferson’s epitaph mentions the Declara- tion of Independence, Virginia’s Statute for Religious Freedom, & the founding of the University of Virginia. He sometimes dismayed citizens as governor by taking no action in a crisis, “seeing inevitability where they saw crisis.” Jeffer- son had a keen sense that there are things of more importance than politics.
He comments on Shay’s Rebellion in MA: “[Economic] uneasiness has produced acts absolutely unjustifiable; but I hope they won't produce severities from their governments. Those characters where fear predominates over hope may apprehend too much from these irregularities. They may conclude too hastily that man is insusceptible of any government than that of force, a con- clusion not founded in truth, nor experience.” Unjustifiable acts do not justify a government using “any means necessary.” Later in the same letter he writes: “I hold it that a little rebellion now & then is a good thing, & as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.” Government ought to hold to a patient and hopeful view about long-term outcomes in their response to crisis.
He comments on Shay’s Rebellion in MA: “[Economic] uneasiness has produced acts absolutely unjustifiable; but I hope they won't produce severities from their governments. Those characters where fear predominates over hope may apprehend too much from these irregularities. They may conclude too hastily that man is insusceptible of any government than that of force, a con- clusion not founded in truth, nor experience.” Unjustifiable acts do not justify a government using “any means necessary.” Later in the same letter he writes: “I hold it that a little rebellion now & then is a good thing, & as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.” Government ought to hold to a patient and hopeful view about long-term outcomes in their response to crisis.
Jefferson notes the importance of government not allowing fear to pre- dominate over hope. The hope which Jefferson urges on us is that it must be distinguished from a certain sort of optimism. Hope means that things in gene- ral will work out; optimism is hope made specific, focused on some specific program. Scientific & technological expertise is relevant to optimism, not to hope. [Jefferson’s life reflected hope].
It is plausible to be optimistic that one can jump a 6-foot chasm. In the case of a 30-foot chasm, one has a duty not to suppose that one can jump it. Optimism suppresses both realism & creativity. [Realism allows for less than perfect or even negative results; creativity allows for a search for alternatives. Jefferson’s hope on the other hand, is that the future will work out even though we lack knowledge & control of its detail.
What can hope be based on? Jefferson writes: “Man was endowed with a sense of right & wrong, relative to society ... The moral sense, conscience, is as much a part of man as his arm or leg ... it may be strengthened by exercise.” The hope which should predominate over fear is based on faith in human nature, which is designed to harmonize human community. Jefferson believed in “common sense,” the beliefs or conclusions that persons arrive at when they work out something together.
What can hope be based on? Jefferson writes: “Man was endowed with a sense of right & wrong, relative to society ... The moral sense, conscience, is as much a part of man as his arm or leg ... it may be strengthened by exercise.” The hope which should predominate over fear is based on faith in human nature, which is designed to harmonize human community. Jefferson believed in “common sense,” the beliefs or conclusions that persons arrive at when they work out something together.
He saw that a rebellion would throw a new set of people into the attempt to work things out; more conscience & common sense would come into play. [Where] “fear predominates over hope” [is the province of politics] Politics lives on fears. Fears of what happens with loss of power; fear of what happens if the other stays in power. Jefferson believed the natural course of human events would be harmonious if everyone could participate, being thus freed from the need for either controls or fears, [which were to be replaced with hope].
IV—We live in a world full of agonies and brutalities, full of individual interests & desires, full of political schemes & promises. George Fox writes: “Sing & rejoice, ye children of the day & of the light; for the Lord is at work in this thick night of darkness that may be felt ... Never heed the tempests nor the storms, flood nor rains, for the seed Christ is over all, & doth reign. Be of good faith & valiant for the truth; the truth can live in jails.” How can we be in the world & not of it? Upon what basis are we to act; what is it that we are called to do?
Our tasks are founded on vision and faith rather than documentation. When I have a hard time discerning that of God in myself or in some other, I do not doubt its presence; I doubt the sharpness of my discernment. The founda- tion from which we act in the world must be a faith in God and a vision of God’s presence and glory. When faced with claims [of looming, powerful ene- mies, subversion, and pending disaster if a program is abandoned, we should insist on documentation, and look with skepticism at so-called “iron-clad proof.”
Our tasks are founded on hope, not fear. In religious witness we need to build on hope, and avoid trying to motivate each other [with fears of what] will happen if our projects fail. Hope is not based on the idea that there may cease to be any darkness at all; light shines in the midst of the darkness. Wonderful things can occur within a terrible world; there are tasks we are called to which will touch people’s souls. Our tasks are founded on love. Love is rewarded by thoughtful conscientious action on the part of others. When love is our motive, we have the right foundation for action. [Hate, reform, or justice are not valid motives for our work].
Love is an inclusive sentiment, a positive intention to draw others into the kingdom. Love alone is a conciliatory and unifying motive. Love alone re- spects the moral sense & dignity of others, that of God in them. Our tasks are founded on conscience, not authorization or approval. In 1966, New York YM (NYYM) Friends were called to witness to the brutalities of war & human suffering in Vietnam by sending medical relief to all parts of Vietnam, through the Canadian Friend’s Service Committee. The Treasury Department [threa- tened] them with the Trading with the Enemy Act. NYYM sought an export license until it was clear it wouldn’t be issued or denied and sent the aid with- out a license.
Our tasks are founded on vision and faith rather than documentation. When I have a hard time discerning that of God in myself or in some other, I do not doubt its presence; I doubt the sharpness of my discernment. The founda- tion from which we act in the world must be a faith in God and a vision of God’s presence and glory. When faced with claims [of looming, powerful ene- mies, subversion, and pending disaster if a program is abandoned, we should insist on documentation, and look with skepticism at so-called “iron-clad proof.”
Our tasks are founded on hope, not fear. In religious witness we need to build on hope, and avoid trying to motivate each other [with fears of what] will happen if our projects fail. Hope is not based on the idea that there may cease to be any darkness at all; light shines in the midst of the darkness. Wonderful things can occur within a terrible world; there are tasks we are called to which will touch people’s souls. Our tasks are founded on love. Love is rewarded by thoughtful conscientious action on the part of others. When love is our motive, we have the right foundation for action. [Hate, reform, or justice are not valid motives for our work].
Love is an inclusive sentiment, a positive intention to draw others into the kingdom. Love alone is a conciliatory and unifying motive. Love alone re- spects the moral sense & dignity of others, that of God in them. Our tasks are founded on conscience, not authorization or approval. In 1966, New York YM (NYYM) Friends were called to witness to the brutalities of war & human suffering in Vietnam by sending medical relief to all parts of Vietnam, through the Canadian Friend’s Service Committee. The Treasury Department [threa- tened] them with the Trading with the Enemy Act. NYYM sought an export license until it was clear it wouldn’t be issued or denied and sent the aid with- out a license.
Our tasks are founded on witness, not results. Is the action a testimony to the presence and glory of God? We must believe that by visiting prisoners & nursing the wounded we are testifying to the presence of God. Witness is as inappropriate in politics as tough calculation of consequences is as a basis for religious witness. These are the foundations on which we tend to our religious affairs and initiate actions as Friends.
Our 1st task is to love one another, to be valiant for the truth upon the earth, and to remain attentive to the true spirit in all that we do. It is an act, but a manner in which to do all things. Openings for witness can't or won't be seen by those who do not practice seeing them in daily affairs. The 2nd task is to mini- ster to the suffering: the hungry, the poor, the lonely, the naked, victims of all sorts of violence.
Our 1st task is to love one another, to be valiant for the truth upon the earth, and to remain attentive to the true spirit in all that we do. It is an act, but a manner in which to do all things. Openings for witness can't or won't be seen by those who do not practice seeing them in daily affairs. The 2nd task is to mini- ster to the suffering: the hungry, the poor, the lonely, the naked, victims of all sorts of violence.
The AFSC and other similar organizations, whether at home or abroad remains the simplest and most direct way to submit to the injunction of Jesus in his final message. Service projects will be seen by many as mere band-aids; they will recommend challenging the causes of suffering. We should reject this criticism firmly, for these words are those of the tempter in modern voice. We should direct our politicians toward the causes where they are known & where necessary resources can be mobilized; the specifically religious side of the matter is to treat the symptoms.
A 3rd task is that of listening to others at the deepest level we can reach. Sometimes listening will just be a soothing balm to someone’s loneliness; we also need to listen [past the time and temptation to let the details take care of themselves]. “God is in the details.” Quaker agencies offer specialized listening in tense and worrying situations. We are called to this listening task, whether or not it has the fortunate consequence of conciliation.
A 3rd task is that of listening to others at the deepest level we can reach. Sometimes listening will just be a soothing balm to someone’s loneliness; we also need to listen [past the time and temptation to let the details take care of themselves]. “God is in the details.” Quaker agencies offer specialized listening in tense and worrying situations. We are called to this listening task, whether or not it has the fortunate consequence of conciliation.
A 4th task is to delimit the domain of politics. Peace testimonies certainly protest the powers which most governments believe that they have. Refusing oaths, and in particular loyalty oaths is a related testimony. Loyalty is that sort of thing which ought to characterize one’s fundamental commitment to God and truth, not to pragmatic arrangements of political government.
Civil disobedience against segregation laws and legalized discrimination, & NYYM’s sending medical aid without a license [are examples] of limiting the domain of government. It requires sensitivity, prayerful consideration, [& see- king clearness with others] for a proposed action to make sure it is from religi- ous conscience rather than political protest. The kingdom of heaven is not a political one and we can build it only in those spaces in our lives which are left free from political control.
A 5th task is to nurture hope in these times of darkness. All around us we find that people are suffering from great fears. [There is the fear of some that] a particular course will be followed, & equal fears about what will happen if it isn’t followed. It becomes a crisis & governance becomes “crisis manage- ment,” be it in politics, business, or universities. The antidote for these fears is faith in the glory of God, [displayed] through the conscience or moral sense in each person. It is conquering fears by becoming a member of the blessed community and entering the kingdom prepared for us. It is only through trust in that of God in all persons that hope can thrive. Encouraging this hope is one of the most urgent tasks before us, in order to create companions in the kingdom.
A 5th task is to nurture hope in these times of darkness. All around us we find that people are suffering from great fears. [There is the fear of some that] a particular course will be followed, & equal fears about what will happen if it isn’t followed. It becomes a crisis & governance becomes “crisis manage- ment,” be it in politics, business, or universities. The antidote for these fears is faith in the glory of God, [displayed] through the conscience or moral sense in each person. It is conquering fears by becoming a member of the blessed community and entering the kingdom prepared for us. It is only through trust in that of God in all persons that hope can thrive. Encouraging this hope is one of the most urgent tasks before us, in order to create companions in the kingdom.
V—My words are, no doubt, inadequate to my message. They are ad- dressed to Friends, but they aren’t meant to exclude others. Since each per- son is endowed with what Jefferson calls moral sense & Friends call divine light, these tasks have an appeal which stretches far beyond the Society of Friends. We must be ready to confirm & celebrate those attracted to conscien- tious action, whoever they are, wherever it appears. I haven’t meant to imply that Friends should avoid political action.
Political positions & political actions are divisive & lack conviction & fi- nality; they aren’t inherently evil. What I have said involves hypothesis, theory, & abstraction; it involves words. Since it depends on words, it involves con- cepts, which encourage generalizations past the point where they contribute usefully to understanding and communication. If my concepts and theories ob- scure [rather than enhance] a reader’s vision, put them aside and focus in other ways on the life and words of Jesus.
251. Nurturing Contemplation (by Carol R. Murphy; 1983)
About the Author—Author of 16 Pendle Hill Pamphlets, including this
one, Carol Murphy continues to explore reason's, revelation's & mystical ex- perience's roles in the mature religious faith. She invites readers to consider the wellspring of action in the contemplative life.
She writes: “I hope the title can
be read both ways—as the nurture of contemplation & the contemplation that
nurtures.”
[Introduction]—I wonder if there isn’t a deeper issue we ignore when
we judge a saintly, contemplative way of life by the standards of efficient
social change. Only rarely does a healing presence come to us who reveals not a
plan of action but a new way of being & relating to the world. Those who go
about healing by their presence keep social concern rooted not in the future
but in the reality of the Kingdom of Heaven
The mystery of being's present tense comes to us in glimpses [of death],
or through the contemplative souls who speak to our sense of wonder. To have a
saintly or contemplative community in our neighborhood is to come to know a way
of life which silently judges the shrill hustle of the world’s getting &
spending. Thomas Merton writes: “We who have this call … are called to pre- fer
the apparent uselessness, the apparent inactivity of simply sitting at the feet
of Jesus & listening to him.” Some miss the point that Merton’s goal wasn't output, but inner transformation.
Who
is the Contemplative—What is the nature of the contemplative
vocation? What kind of person are we talking about? [My contempla- tives] include active souls
like Mother Teresa or Dorothy Day. The
common ele- ment is being rather than doing, looking rather than using, which
leads to an intuition of the underlying unity with the being of all things. Frederick Franck writes: “Focus on … that plant or leaf or dandelion …
Feel that it contains all the riddles of life and death. It does!
You are no longer looking, you are SEE- ING.” May Sarton writes: “We are aware of God only when we cease to be
aware of ourselves … in the sense of losing self in admiration and joy.” Religi- ous experience is the lively
expectation of finding the hidden One.
Mystical experience is like opening a door—and there the One is actually revealed.
We
can’t throw out the contemplative experience without casting doubts on everyday
“reality,” ourselves included. In
Western philosophy we look for the “skeleton in the closet”—the logos or logical structure hidden
beneath appear- ances. In Eastern
philosophy meaning is openly part of the appearances, con- cealed only by the
searchers’ blindness or inattention. R.
H. Blyth writes: “Zen is looking at things with the eye of God, that is
becoming the thing’s eyes so that it looks at itself with our eyes.”
The
Nurture of the Contemplative—What environment is required [for this
way of looking]? What response is required to the often incom- patible demands
of the world? It is often necessary
to escape not only from the deadly seduction of sleazy values, but even the
legitimate pressure of acti- vists’ good works. [It took a long time for me to]
realize that I couldn’t change the
world; it had to begin with me. I was
prepared by upbringing as well as later
circumstances for the happily celibate and somewhat reclusive obser- ver’s life I
now lead.
[Most]
who try to be in the world but not of it have to come to terms with the dilemma
of how to divide their time between contemplation and conforming to the world’s
ways of earning a living. Earlier Friends
were contemplative enough to be willing to limit their “creaturely activity”
to make time for inward retirement as did John Woolman. Harvey Cox wrote: “Meditation could become a
modern equivalent of Sabbath.”
The
Setting of the Contemplative Life—The
thoroughgoing contem- plative has to spend his or her life in a single-minded
journey of discovery. Thomas Merton entered the Abbey of Gethsemani with
enthusiasm as a young man with a great need for structure and close
community. He did find an austere life and outdoor labor. He also found a
muscular American busyness that allowed little time for recollection. The abbot
was a non-contemplative, former naval officer [who was as much concerned with
patriotism and natio- nalism as he was with Jesus].
When
organizational rigidity triumphs over spirit, the school for saint- hood becomes
a place where personal identity is obliterated by institutional clothing,
shaving of hair & lack of privacy and possessions. When Merton was finally free to live apart
from the community, he found a quiet joy in his own little hermitage and the
time [for contemplation]. There is a
deeper reason for the solitary life: the
need to come to terms with self and God.
Thoreau
wrote: “I have never found the companion as companionable as solitude.” Joseph Havens wrote: “[Solitude] intensifies
the ecstasies and it also intensifies the depths. May Sarton writes: “I can tell you that solitude/ Is not all
exaltation, inner space/ Where the soul breathes and work can be done/ Soli- tude
exposes the nerve, raises up ghosts./ The past, never at rest, flows through
it. Elise Boulding writes: “The wisdom of solitude is not easy to
trans- late into the world … St. Augustine
Finding the presence in yourself, in your
hermit’s cell, becomes the 1st priority for those who would love
their fellows in a contemplative way. Monica Furlong writes: “There is
something dark & perilous about the contemplative experience which makes
it hard to forget that one is a human being before all else, constantly
endangered, often alone.” Merton finally emerged from the cloister to delight
his contemplative eye in an Asian encounter.
The
Contemplative’s Discipline—The
contemplative way of life involves not only a place of community or solitude,
but a discipline. For the holy person
whose life is his or her creative work, the discipline includes all of
life. Merton [thinks that] without a
backbone of sober self-denial, community life becomes “mere gregariousness,
vapid togetherness … Our freedom is by no means simply a removal of obstacles
which permits us to fulfill our best natural aspi- rations.” Spiritual life's discipline can be
summed up in 3 principles: [detachment; quiet acceptance of what is;
trustworthy, unshakable love]. The
clarified love that can do as it pleases flowers from celibacy at its
best. The contemplative must explore its
claims.
Anne
Lindbergh writes: “It is possible to be objectively
in love—that is, to be in love with a person … just knowing that they are, & going to them in your mind as
one goes [to a beautiful, safe place], for worship & peace. In the totally
sublimated lives of celibates there can appear such spiritual friendships as
that between St. Teresa & St. John
The
Outreach of Contemplatives—One
feels that Ruether is valuable as a gadfly to make Merton write: “Is the cloistered life a mere cult of
or- dered serenity, or is it complete self-forgetfulness in obedience to God? Sister Benedicta Ward writes: “The
contemplative life cannot be justified in terms of what it produces, what it
achieves, how it ‘relates.” I think we
can spell out the specific ways the contemplative can help to heal society from within or outside of a cloistered situation. We no longer understand the
con- templatives’ experience of being prayed through rather than praying. It is the contemplative’s task to go upstream
from the world’s troubles to their source in humankind’s troubled relationship
with the Ultimate.
The
way next closet to home is contemplative poetry and inspirational writing which
speaks to the hungering souls of the world.
“That of God” in an inspired word can speak to “that of God” in every
human. A closer engagement of the
contemplative and the world is the use of religious communities as oases of
quiet in the world through retreats or as centers of teaching. Later in life there comes a time when a place
could be made for the elderly to turn toward the contemplative life rather than
to worldly alternatives.
David
Brandon writes: “The tragedy of helping is so often we attempt to manage
social processes …[With Zen] We revolutionize society by removing obstacles to
greater caring from within ourselves … Helping and being helped have tended to
merge, become joyfully confused, interactive & entwined to the mutual benefit
of both persons. Contemplatives can
engage still more closely with others the role of spiritual directors and
teachers of the inner life's growth.
Christopher
Isherwood found that Swami Prabhavananda’s physical ab- sence made less
difference that he expected. He said: “I
used to draw a breath of relief when I left his room.” Merton speaks of the frustration which comes
of getting the “unconscious conviction that we are in the presence of wonderful
spiritual values which aren’t reaching us … I would say it is very important in
the contemplative life not to
overemphasize the contemplation … How can we relish the higher things of
God if we cannot enjoy some simple little thing that comes along as a gift from
Him!”
Jack
Huber said about a Burmese meditation center:
“Perhaps it was the meditation that allowed me not to see [my withdrawal]
as a failure. When we chain ourselves
with notions of we must have happen,
we lose what does happen. When we free ourselves to accept what does
happen, we might even allow ourselves to appreciate it & live it fully. The
contemplative spirit may help one to take a non-contemplative experience
contemplatively. Thomas Merton writes:
“[St. Francis and his hermit-followers] were deeply evangelical and
remained always open to the world, while recognizing the need to maintain a
certain distance and perspective.”
The
call to Quaker traveling ministry of the late 19th century came
often in a childhood sense of the presence of God when alone and out-of-doors. It was reinforced by powerful examples of
local and traveling ministers. After
sufficient testing, the minister would become more sensitive to the spiritual
condition of others. He would travel long distances to speak at various
mee- tings and to hold “religious opportunities” with families or individuals. The Quaker leaven in the world owes much to
these “active contemplatives” of the past, whose central message was that the
living presence of the Spirit is here and now.
Merton
wrote to Rosemary Ruether: “I love all
the well-meaning people who go to Mass and want things to get better and soon,
but I understand Bud- dhists better than I do them; the Zens understand me
better. Relinguishing every attempt to
grasp God in limited human concepts, the contemplatives’ act of submission and
faith attains to God’s presence as the ground of human ex- perience and to God’s
reality as the ground of being.
The
contemplative who lives by the simple prayer of “looking” at the Divine mystery
is closer to the untutored believer than to those who know the- ology or
philosophy to have religious opinions. The
contemplative influence in the intellectual world is more indirect [and can be
found in ecology (man’s unity with all things), physics, Eastern religions,
medicine, and political thinking,] with “everything affecting everything else].
The
matured contemplative can return to the world, willing to work, but with a
difference. Monica Furlong says of Christianity that its heart lies in “one
shattering insight which is certainly implicit in other religions … that the
heart of the human experience is death; this death, faithfully experienced,
inevitably yields again to life.” Peré
de Caussade writes: “Abandonment to God’s will is both active & passive …
We are like a tool which is useless until it is in the hands of a workman …
Many ordinary religious people can't bear the thought of souls who let all
they do depend on providence.”
It
isn’t easy for most of us to feel so at one with the flow of events that trust
in providence becomes a reality. This is not everybody’s calling. A vocation to
abandonment requires faith & daring. Contemplative life is a life of
apparent leisure & inner adventure, a “rest most busy,” a life of both
solitude & compas- sion, of disciplined renunciation with the freedom of
love. Father McNamara suggests that: “We stop doing half the work that presently
consumes us & at- tend to the remaining half wholeheartedly, with
contemplative vision & creative love.”
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252. Holistic Economics and Social Protest (by John P. Powelson;
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252. Holistic Economics and Social Protest (by John P. Powelson;
1983)
About the Author—Jack Powelson is Professor of Economics at CO University; he specializes in economic development. He has advised people in Bolivia, Mexico, & Kenya, & lectured in 19 Latin American countries, 12 African countries, one Asian country, Harvard, Pittsburgh, John Hopkins, & San Andrés, Bolivia. He is a pacifist & protested racial injustice, & armament. Jack is con- cerned that protesters offering solutions may not have taken into account eco- nomics’ complexity. This pamphlet explains indirect, bad consequences of cer- tain actions.
Trends in Social Protest/ Definition of Holistic Economics/ Mexi- can Strawberries: An Example—Social protest is changing, from resistance to positive action. We wonder whether we have been treating only the symptoms, not the causes. Shouldn't we also be concerned about why they are star- ving? Must we only conscientiously object? Are we consuming too much? Are we oppressing people in less developed countries? Is our own greed the cause for war?
About the Author—Jack Powelson is Professor of Economics at CO University; he specializes in economic development. He has advised people in Bolivia, Mexico, & Kenya, & lectured in 19 Latin American countries, 12 African countries, one Asian country, Harvard, Pittsburgh, John Hopkins, & San Andrés, Bolivia. He is a pacifist & protested racial injustice, & armament. Jack is con- cerned that protesters offering solutions may not have taken into account eco- nomics’ complexity. This pamphlet explains indirect, bad consequences of cer- tain actions.
Trends in Social Protest/ Definition of Holistic Economics/ Mexi- can Strawberries: An Example—Social protest is changing, from resistance to positive action. We wonder whether we have been treating only the symptoms, not the causes. Shouldn't we also be concerned about why they are star- ving? Must we only conscientiously object? Are we consuming too much? Are we oppressing people in less developed countries? Is our own greed the cause for war?
Economics is very complex, & even economists have such different an- swers, or none at all, they may be of little help to lay people. We often suspect them of representing special interests. I would like to show that the impact of any action may be more far-reaching than most people believe. Holistic means 1st that things are connected. 2nd, prevention is better than cure. Finally, ho- listic philosophy envisions the whole as more valuable than the parts. Military spending has widespread consequences; deficits transfer income from the poor to the rich. Often forms of protest affect the whole economy and all society in ways that are unforeseen.
Instead of devoting so much of their land to strawberries for rich folk, shouldn’t Mexicans be producing corn for their own poor? If we were to boycott, would the strawberry farmers instantly produce corn instead. Proba- bly not. The poor still couldn’t afford the corn, and rich Mexicans would enjoy cheaper strawberries with little change in output. Strawberries earn foreign exchange, used to buy raw materials and machinery. Without these, Mexicans would be without jobs. It would not increase the corn available for the poor.
The answer may be to teach more technical skills, and have more credit and capital available, to grow more corn where it can best be grown. Ways should be sought for poor Mexicans to have more income to buy corn with. The 2 lessons from Mexican strawberries are that this is one of many world pro- blems we cannot solve. And we must trace the impact of our protest [to in- clude] the effects that will pop out where we least expect them.
Migrant Workers—All over the world there are people who wish they were in the US, because of political oppression, not enough jobs, or poor pay. [Relatively speaking], our wages are high & our unemployment is low. The mi- grant stream of Mexicans, Cubans, Haitians, Vietnamese, & Cambodians are visible. Others aren't; they haven’t been allowed to come. The kind-hearted say let them come; let us share. Others worry about job competition and “im- porting” unemployment.
Migrant Workers—All over the world there are people who wish they were in the US, because of political oppression, not enough jobs, or poor pay. [Relatively speaking], our wages are high & our unemployment is low. The mi- grant stream of Mexicans, Cubans, Haitians, Vietnamese, & Cambodians are visible. Others aren't; they haven’t been allowed to come. The kind-hearted say let them come; let us share. Others worry about job competition and “im- porting” unemployment.
It is not realistic to think of totally free immigration. There are menial jobs that few of our own people want to do that are better jobs than many 3rd world workers could find at home. Should we not invite them to come here to help us. Europe has, and so has Saudi Arabia. Both experiments have been successful with some problems, like class distinctions. Another problem is that poorer people reproduce more rapidly than richer people. A 3rd problem is what to do with guest workers in economic downturns when jobs become scarce. The laws we are thinking of for migrants workers have risks. How shall we persuade other American workers to risk lower wages and pay higher taxes?
Unions & the Minimum Wage—Illegal immigrants are often exploited, enslaved, and threatened; [they feel unable to go to the authorities. These conditions existed in Dickens’ and Karl Marx’s time; they are still with us. The legalization of immigrants’ must be a concern for reformers. Unions have led us through demanding high wages, mechanization and job loss, higher consumer demand from higher wages, increased production, rehiring of workers. Do we see the conflict between concern for inhuman conditions & environmental concern on the one hand, and protecting the standards of living and jobs of our own workers?
Possessions—What can we do to transfer some of our surplus goods to these poor people? We can consume less. If we consume a lot less, a glut would occur & prices would fall; that would help the poor. There would also be unemployment. The poor in the 3rd World would suffer, because we would buy less from them. We should still reduce our possessions, but if we live simply, we do it for ourselves, not because it will help somebody else.
Unions & the Minimum Wage—Illegal immigrants are often exploited, enslaved, and threatened; [they feel unable to go to the authorities. These conditions existed in Dickens’ and Karl Marx’s time; they are still with us. The legalization of immigrants’ must be a concern for reformers. Unions have led us through demanding high wages, mechanization and job loss, higher consumer demand from higher wages, increased production, rehiring of workers. Do we see the conflict between concern for inhuman conditions & environmental concern on the one hand, and protecting the standards of living and jobs of our own workers?
Possessions—What can we do to transfer some of our surplus goods to these poor people? We can consume less. If we consume a lot less, a glut would occur & prices would fall; that would help the poor. There would also be unemployment. The poor in the 3rd World would suffer, because we would buy less from them. We should still reduce our possessions, but if we live simply, we do it for ourselves, not because it will help somebody else.
Why don’t we give these possessions directly to those who need them? There have been many failures in foreign aid. The success of foreign American Friends Service Committee projects comes from the fact that they do more than transfer resources; they help integrate; they help people adjust; they spawn cooperatives to increase rural production. The poor become more pro- ductive and bid resources away from the rich, from us.
Competition and Loving Efficiency—Competition and efficiency ad- dress the economic problems of: How much can we produce with what we have? And, when the pie comes out of the oven, how is it to be cut? Effi- ciency addresses the question of technology. It is “getting the most with the least.” It is how to achieve human rights with minimum pain for those who op- pose us. The most efficient way to produce is with love. Loving efficiency is sharing what there is of scarce resources with love.
Competition addresses what goods we will produce, how many, who will produce them, & who gets the product. I see much good in competition. It holds inefficient producers in line. Liberal economists have extolled competition for helping determine quantities & prices. [In the case of milk prices], the govern- ment has decreed support prices. Poor consumers suffer spending a higher percentage of income on milk when no farmer may lower prices below the support level.
Competition and Loving Efficiency—Competition and efficiency ad- dress the economic problems of: How much can we produce with what we have? And, when the pie comes out of the oven, how is it to be cut? Effi- ciency addresses the question of technology. It is “getting the most with the least.” It is how to achieve human rights with minimum pain for those who op- pose us. The most efficient way to produce is with love. Loving efficiency is sharing what there is of scarce resources with love.
Competition addresses what goods we will produce, how many, who will produce them, & who gets the product. I see much good in competition. It holds inefficient producers in line. Liberal economists have extolled competition for helping determine quantities & prices. [In the case of milk prices], the govern- ment has decreed support prices. Poor consumers suffer spending a higher percentage of income on milk when no farmer may lower prices below the support level.
Are the ills of competition forced on us by “the system”? Or can we compete lovingly? Otherwise, how will we determine how a fair amount of milk at a fair price will be delivered? Competition and scarcity is a fact of life; [allocation needs to be done] with loving efficiency. We must have practice in losing. [We must redesign the system so that losing one’s ori- ginal desire will result in an outcome as good, if not better than that expec- ted from the original desire]. If we emphasize winning rather than construc- tive choices, then competition makes our society sick. We are the ones who do these good or evil things.
Boycott—I once heard a friend suggest that each taxpayer should have the right to declare the use to which his or her taxes would be put. Taxpayers, being more sensible than politicians, would devote more funds to constructive social endeavor and less to war. The poor would lose most or all their votes on the budget. Rich people would have more votes. With economic power as a weapon, more power goes to the rich than to the poor. In the case of boycotting South Africa, those able to buy gold and diamonds decide what is right and wrong. I am talking about the rich and powerful bringing about political solutions on behalf of other people.
If one were to boycott Nestle, for instance, I sense that the effect of a boycott will burst out in unexpected spots, like on a cocoa farmer in Ghana, when chocolate sales drop. Will a boycott stop the sale of baby formula in the 3rd World? A holistic approach asks: What is everything that will happen if ... ? If we wish to diminish baby formula in the 3rd World, it seems to me the approach lies elsewhere. It lies in education & water sanitation.
In the case of South Africa & stopping Apartheid, I believe that Apartheid will be ended by South Africans, & in a prosperous rather than broken economy. Black unions can legitimately bargain. Their effective leverage will come from a strong economy, not a weak one. Destroying an economy leaves the poor with less capacity to confront their masters. Holistically we ask: Where will suf- fering surface? What will be the effect on the liberation movements within? We should act as if others will follow our example. Will we seek posi- tive ways to approach evil? Or will we approach evil by perhaps destro- ying the lives & livelihood of others?
If one were to boycott Nestle, for instance, I sense that the effect of a boycott will burst out in unexpected spots, like on a cocoa farmer in Ghana, when chocolate sales drop. Will a boycott stop the sale of baby formula in the 3rd World? A holistic approach asks: What is everything that will happen if ... ? If we wish to diminish baby formula in the 3rd World, it seems to me the approach lies elsewhere. It lies in education & water sanitation.
In the case of South Africa & stopping Apartheid, I believe that Apartheid will be ended by South Africans, & in a prosperous rather than broken economy. Black unions can legitimately bargain. Their effective leverage will come from a strong economy, not a weak one. Destroying an economy leaves the poor with less capacity to confront their masters. Holistically we ask: Where will suf- fering surface? What will be the effect on the liberation movements within? We should act as if others will follow our example. Will we seek posi- tive ways to approach evil? Or will we approach evil by perhaps destro- ying the lives & livelihood of others?
The New International Economic Order—Should we support the 3rd World calling for protection of export prices in a New International Economic Order (NIEO)? The NIEO has a long list of ways the 3rd World want to improve their bargaining power. They want organizations like OPEC fo copper, tin, coffee, & bananas. We want to help the poor against [likely monopolies]. We need to know if the terms of trade have been moving against primary-product [i.e. products from the earth] exporters. No, they have not. Price comparison has has shown no general tendency for either class of price persistently to rise or fall relative to the other. Claims of deteriorating primary- product prices are based on viewing selective years.
Before we [go ahead and pay higher prices for their exports], let us ex- amine the matter holistically. Let us divide the world into rich and poor people, rather than rich and poor countries. Who owns the source of primary pro- ducts and the exporting companies and where does the money go? Will the current demand hold up with higher prices? In the case of high- er oil prices, the proceeds went largely to people already wealthy. 3rd world countries went into debt, oil-base fertilizers became too expensive for their small farmers. Aid went to only a small number of 3rd world countries, & the aid sent was a tiny fraction of the amounts extracted in higher prices. Govern- ments spent very little on improving rural areas or creating employment. NIEO would result in higher prices being paid to rich people, much of it coming from poor people.
Multinational Corporation (MNC)—Protesters feel MNCs are powerful, something like governments unto themselves, & that their profits are at the expense of poor people throughout the world. I have a hard time being per- suaded of the MNCs’ great power. MNCs pay up to 100% higher wages. they provide hospitals, housing, & schools; they pay about 70% taxes on profits. Often foreign-exchange purchases & prices are government-regulated. They may be able to move, [but their fixed assets, the product source, can’t go with them].
If MNCs pay much more in wages than local companies, what hap- pens to the economy, & workers not employed by MNCs? I believe that MNCs shouldn’t even pay the high wages they do pay. MNCs & local urban industries create an urban-rural dualism. It brings machinery & unemployment, one of the 3rd World’s greatest problems. It creates a labor elite that must pro- tect their privileges against less productive, less well-paid outside workers.
Protesters ask, aren't MNCs making enormous profits? Do we know what profits they are earning? A Gallup poll taken of US students shows a greatly exaggerated idea of what corporate profits are. A strong anti-business mood on campus goes along with widespread ignorance of the cost and re- wards of doing business. US petroleum had high earnings, US manufacturing profits were varying from 8% to 15%.
Most petroleum companies are now nationalized, & the trend of MNCs is away from mineral investment & toward investment in local market manufactu- ring. MNC profits will likely decline toward the lower percentage, because non- wage costs are higher & prices are kept lower. Why do protesters believe that MNC profits are so high? 2 books stand out as comprehensive treatment of MNCs: Sovereignty at Bay & Global Reach. The 1st manages to follow the rules of research to protect itself from biases. The 2nd has unverifiable anec- dotes selectively perceived. Drawing generalizations from anecdotes is the deadliest way to confirm previous opinions instead of investigating them. An- other form of selective perception is to read only books saying what we want to hear.
Protesters ask, aren't MNCs making enormous profits? Do we know what profits they are earning? A Gallup poll taken of US students shows a greatly exaggerated idea of what corporate profits are. A strong anti-business mood on campus goes along with widespread ignorance of the cost and re- wards of doing business. US petroleum had high earnings, US manufacturing profits were varying from 8% to 15%.
Most petroleum companies are now nationalized, & the trend of MNCs is away from mineral investment & toward investment in local market manufactu- ring. MNC profits will likely decline toward the lower percentage, because non- wage costs are higher & prices are kept lower. Why do protesters believe that MNC profits are so high? 2 books stand out as comprehensive treatment of MNCs: Sovereignty at Bay & Global Reach. The 1st manages to follow the rules of research to protect itself from biases. The 2nd has unverifiable anec- dotes selectively perceived. Drawing generalizations from anecdotes is the deadliest way to confirm previous opinions instead of investigating them. An- other form of selective perception is to read only books saying what we want to hear.
I am not a blanket defender of MNCs, for they commit many offenses that I find repulsive: bribery, & conniving with national governments to deprive indigenous people of their lands in order to produce an export crop. Coca- Cola is a frequent target of protesters. Since Coke has no nutritive value, is it not immoral for the Coca-Cola company to introduce it to already under- nourished people in the 3rd World? Who is the judge?
3rd world citizens are quite capable of resisting culture they do not want. They are no more naive in their choices of beverage than are the protes- ters themselves. The MNC should not be disparaged as a generic form but only as specific MNCs have committed specific wrongs. The wrongs of all types of companies need to be protested against. There is good in MNC; evil is evil no matter who commits it.
Seeking a Moral Way—Holism does 2 things. It views all the ulti- mate effects of a given action, particularly one that will damage the individual or the economy. It values the economy’s total health as more positive than just a sum of healthy parts. When we examine an economy holistically, let us ask for a 2nd opinion from someone whose way of thinking differs from the 1st. Examine all aspects of the economy. Listen to economists of differing viewpoints. Question where their information came from, & whether it has been selectively perceived, especially information we would like to believe. Selective perception is not confined to economists of any one ideology.
Be aware of decisions which sacrifice one type of consumer for the
Be aware of decisions which sacrifice one type of consumer for the
sake of many “more important” consumers. If only a few refuse to pay war taxes, they may not only respect their own consciences but have an effective voice. If everyone was a conscientious objector, the effects would be less destructive than war. The same isn’t true of boycotting. Social reformers need to consider [the difficult] questions. There is no solution that doesn’t leave a moral dilemma. This shouldn’t prevent us from making moral decisions with dilemmas [& unexpected consequences we can live with].
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253. Tempted by Happiness: Kazantzakis Post-Christian Christ (by
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253. Tempted by Happiness: Kazantzakis Post-Christian Christ (by
Peter Bien; 1984)
About the Author—Peter Bien is Professor of English at Dartmouth College. Born in NYC in 1930, he was educated at Deerfield Academy, Harvard, Haverford, Bristol (England) & Columbia. [For him], Quakerism began at Haverford, Weekend Workcamps & the Quaker International Voluntary Service. He met the Greek Chrysanthi Yiannakou at Woodbrooke College in England. This meeting led to marriage and extended stays in Greece. This pamphlet grows out of a book that Peter Bien is writing and more directly a PH extension course held by Mary Morrison on Gospel passages used by Kazantzakis.
[Introduction]—Aside from Zorba the Greek, The Last Temptation is Kazantzakis’ best known work. It is also one of his final statements. Condem- nations of it come from religious conservatives of various faiths. They were scandalized by themes such as Jesus’ desire for sex, Mary’s hope that her son would remain a carpenter, & Judas’ role as a hero rather than a villain. There is no responsible study of Kazantzakis’ novel in relation to the Gospels.
[Introduction]—Aside from Zorba the Greek, The Last Temptation is Kazantzakis’ best known work. It is also one of his final statements. Condem- nations of it come from religious conservatives of various faiths. They were scandalized by themes such as Jesus’ desire for sex, Mary’s hope that her son would remain a carpenter, & Judas’ role as a hero rather than a villain. There is no responsible study of Kazantzakis’ novel in relation to the Gospels.
As literary scholar, I examine the book to see what it is about, its gover- ning structures, & large underlying movements. The Last Temptation should be judged [by the answer to the question:] Why did Kazantzakis write it the way he did, when he did? We have the sketchbook used in preparation for writing this book. He sketched a 4-fold scheme which he did followed: “Son of the Carpenter; Son of Man; Son of David; & Son of God.” He also used the scheme of: “individual unconscious; collective unconscious; and universal unconscious.
Governing Structures:
1. Son of the Carpenter Individual unconscious (Freud) biological
Governing Structures:
1. Son of the Carpenter Individual unconscious (Freud) biological
unconscious
2. Son of Man (meek) Collective unconscious (Jung) ethical
2. Son of Man (meek) Collective unconscious (Jung) ethical
unconscious
3. Son of David (fierce) Collective unconscious (Jung) ethical
3. Son of David (fierce) Collective unconscious (Jung) ethical
unconscious
4. Son of God (beyond death) Universal unconscious (Christ) religi-
4. Son of God (beyond death) Universal unconscious (Christ) religi-
ous unconscious
There is also a process of moving from happiness to increasing meaningfulness, and a process of increasing dematerialization.
THE 4-FOLD SCHEME: 1. Son of the Carpenter—This rubric signifies Jesus as ordinary; as a typical person seeking a living, marriage, reproducing and respect, [i.e.] happiness. The conflict between happiness and meaningful- ness, [is a key concern for Kazantzakis]. [He sees most of us] rejecting the “inhuman” call of God to be unhappy, to struggle, to move beyond ego, sex and prosperity toward a [meaningful], ethically directed life & eventually a spiritually directed one. Kazantzakis wants us to move beyond the pleasure principle.
In the novel, Mary wants her son cured. She says, “I want my son a man like everyone else, nothing more, nothing less ... Let him build … Let him marry ... Let him be a provider have children.” Jesus seems driven to be abnormal, unhappy, even though he attempts to resist the call to spirituality. Freudian wisdom says that religious fanatics need only marry and they will grow calm. [Jesus is encouraged to get married and calm down]. Kazantzakis’ point is that this kind of calm must be transcended. The last temptation of the novel [is met] by Jesus refusing to regress to Son of the Carpenter, reaffirming his choice of a meaningful life over a merely happy one.
There is also a process of moving from happiness to increasing meaningfulness, and a process of increasing dematerialization.
THE 4-FOLD SCHEME: 1. Son of the Carpenter—This rubric signifies Jesus as ordinary; as a typical person seeking a living, marriage, reproducing and respect, [i.e.] happiness. The conflict between happiness and meaningful- ness, [is a key concern for Kazantzakis]. [He sees most of us] rejecting the “inhuman” call of God to be unhappy, to struggle, to move beyond ego, sex and prosperity toward a [meaningful], ethically directed life & eventually a spiritually directed one. Kazantzakis wants us to move beyond the pleasure principle.
In the novel, Mary wants her son cured. She says, “I want my son a man like everyone else, nothing more, nothing less ... Let him build … Let him marry ... Let him be a provider have children.” Jesus seems driven to be abnormal, unhappy, even though he attempts to resist the call to spirituality. Freudian wisdom says that religious fanatics need only marry and they will grow calm. [Jesus is encouraged to get married and calm down]. Kazantzakis’ point is that this kind of calm must be transcended. The last temptation of the novel [is met] by Jesus refusing to regress to Son of the Carpenter, reaffirming his choice of a meaningful life over a merely happy one.
2. Son of Man—This rubric is more difficult than Son of the Carpenter. Kazantzakis takes the term from Daniel 7:13-14. Daniel’s vision is read out loud in a scene which forms the watershed between Jesus’ old existence as Son of the Carpenter, & his new existence as Son of Man. [He has taken on a voca- tion of] toiling for the salvation of everyone. He passes into Jung’s collective unconscious; he exhorts his fellows to be righteous and [loving and] come into unity.
3. Son of David—This 3rd stage seems strangely regressive, a retreat. Jesus has a more limited vocation as Son of David. This Jesus advocates the revolutionary politics preached by Judas. How can we accept a Jesus who wishes to employ evil in order to destroy evil? Kazantzakis turns Jesus into a fiery reformer preaching violence because he wishes to make 2 important points. Politically, the best way to succeed is to fail. In the novel Kazantzakis grants Jesus Christ no political successes whatsoever. The material failure of his meekly preaching peace & unity prevents a greater spiritual failure, opening the way to spiritual evolution. He evolves by collaborating with the devil.
Psychologically, Kazantzakis desires not happiness but integration. Be- ing integrated means [even Jesus] recognizing and accepting the evil part of human nature. The psychologically sound individual channels the evil into the service of the good. This is what Jesus does when he becomes Son of David. [In the novel], Judas becomes a spokesman for the Zealots, and a projection of Jesus’ own demonic nature. Jesus must come to love and literally embrace Judas since this is the outward sign of embracing his own demonic depths. In order to earn the right to preach love, he must integrate his angelic and devi- lish sides. Only when this vitalizing integration is accomplished can our hero move beyond.
4. Son of God—In this 4th and final stage, Kazantzakis seems to be thinking of Paul’s definition in Romans 1:4. Son of God is only achieved in death. In the novel’s final section Jesus becomes devoted to self-extinction. Failure of Jesus’ naive, pacifistic, spirituality, led to political militancy; failure of political militancy led to an apolitical “detachment” which at the same time is the basis for his ultimate power in the world. By willing his own crucifixion he brings death into the service of good. [In the Son of God there is] an infinite hope that goodness will be established sometime in the future.
Jesus after being wounded by human experience arrives at oneness with a consciousness beyond individual or collective, a universal conscious- ness. (See the earlier section on Governing Structure). God, for Kazantzakis, means pure spirit, creative force in its disembodied essence. Jesus in the final phase deliberately wills to become dematerialized, “to unite with God.”
3. Son of David—This 3rd stage seems strangely regressive, a retreat. Jesus has a more limited vocation as Son of David. This Jesus advocates the revolutionary politics preached by Judas. How can we accept a Jesus who wishes to employ evil in order to destroy evil? Kazantzakis turns Jesus into a fiery reformer preaching violence because he wishes to make 2 important points. Politically, the best way to succeed is to fail. In the novel Kazantzakis grants Jesus Christ no political successes whatsoever. The material failure of his meekly preaching peace & unity prevents a greater spiritual failure, opening the way to spiritual evolution. He evolves by collaborating with the devil.
Psychologically, Kazantzakis desires not happiness but integration. Be- ing integrated means [even Jesus] recognizing and accepting the evil part of human nature. The psychologically sound individual channels the evil into the service of the good. This is what Jesus does when he becomes Son of David. [In the novel], Judas becomes a spokesman for the Zealots, and a projection of Jesus’ own demonic nature. Jesus must come to love and literally embrace Judas since this is the outward sign of embracing his own demonic depths. In order to earn the right to preach love, he must integrate his angelic and devi- lish sides. Only when this vitalizing integration is accomplished can our hero move beyond.
4. Son of God—In this 4th and final stage, Kazantzakis seems to be thinking of Paul’s definition in Romans 1:4. Son of God is only achieved in death. In the novel’s final section Jesus becomes devoted to self-extinction. Failure of Jesus’ naive, pacifistic, spirituality, led to political militancy; failure of political militancy led to an apolitical “detachment” which at the same time is the basis for his ultimate power in the world. By willing his own crucifixion he brings death into the service of good. [In the Son of God there is] an infinite hope that goodness will be established sometime in the future.
Jesus after being wounded by human experience arrives at oneness with a consciousness beyond individual or collective, a universal conscious- ness. (See the earlier section on Governing Structure). God, for Kazantzakis, means pure spirit, creative force in its disembodied essence. Jesus in the final phase deliberately wills to become dematerialized, “to unite with God.”
Jesus does what ordinary men don’t. He deliberately cooperates with this universal process (“God”) rather than resist it or pretend it doesn’t exist. The Last Temptation is about evolution toward dematerialization. The spirit that drives Jesus toward his goal is a dynamic & cyclical creativity which, [when dematerialized], will re-embody itself and start the process anew. The novel’s last words are “Everything is begun.”
KAZANTZAKIS’ FINAL STATEMENT—Kazantzakis had arrived at serenity through an evolution similar to Jesus’, having willed himself into ethi- cal and collective struggles, only to fail repeatedly to make the world a better place. Kazantzakis longed eagerly toward the end of his career to make his way out of time as a new kind of power that would accomplish in the future what he had so far failed to accomplish in life. He wrote the book to universa- lize his experience of aspiration & failure leading to hope despite that failure. He at this final stage of his career was deliberately willing himself into a kind of immateriality.
KAZANTZAKIS’ FINAL STATEMENT—Kazantzakis had arrived at serenity through an evolution similar to Jesus’, having willed himself into ethi- cal and collective struggles, only to fail repeatedly to make the world a better place. Kazantzakis longed eagerly toward the end of his career to make his way out of time as a new kind of power that would accomplish in the future what he had so far failed to accomplish in life. He wrote the book to universa- lize his experience of aspiration & failure leading to hope despite that failure. He at this final stage of his career was deliberately willing himself into a kind of immateriality.
He had fought many political battles and had lost them all, most recent- ly on the losing side of the Greek Civil War. While there was bitterness, ano- ther part of him was hopeful. He wrote: “At the bottom of this corruption there is a virgin soul that is sprouting ... that one day ... will triumph. A Messiah is always on the march.” He believed that his own struggles and failures were producing in him a harmony that lay beyond the vicissitudes of life in the body. He was willing himself into a religious attitude rather than a biological or ethi- cal one.
Kazantzakis didn’t believe that an everlasting kingdom would replace this one, but that this kingdom would, through dematerialization, produce its own renewal in another cycle. The important things was to keep the spirit alive between cycles. [In his writing], Kazantzakis wanted to remain a dis- embodied voice emerging out of [the world’s horrors], the end of a cycle. [Even though] “humanity is at the brink of the abyss ... Man must act as though he were immortal.”
[With this statement in mind], Kazantzakis sat down & wrote this story in which Jesus moves from ordinariness to vocation, sees his political & ethical hopes destroyed, & ends his life with freely willing dematerialization & [end-of- the-age] hope, acting as though he were immortal. By keeping Christ’s model alive in our hearts & minds between one cycle’s end and the next one’s birth, he hoped he would “aid future man to be born one hour sooner, one drop more integrally. Kazantzakis leaves us with his faith in young people who will move from ordinariness to vocation; who collaborate with the devil to avoid stagna- ting; who will, [even with unfulfilled dreams] continue to act as though they were immortal, believing in the spirit’s abiding power.
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254. To Martin Luther King, with love: a southern Quaker’s tribute
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254. To Martin Luther King, with love: a southern Quaker’s tribute
(by David W. Pitre; 1984)
About
the Author—David W. Pitre was
born in Opelousas , Louisiana June 5, 1951 . He has lived in several
southern states, & received his edu- cation in Southern states, completing a
Ph.D. in English at the Univ. of SC
In the final analysis, we must all choose the world we live in, & the world we see. I choose to see a world of possibility, & I choose to embrace Quakerly hope, not despair, as the spiritual impetus of life. David W. Pitre
“Quaker ethics is based on feeling and
not on reason … We can trust our deeper feelings as a guide to behavior better
than we can trust our rea- son.”
Howard Brinton
As
a 1st-semester freshman I had gone from supporting George Wallace to
complaining that George McGovern was “too establishment.” [The class in general
objected to King’s message as “impractical” idealism and “unrealistic”
patience. In “Letter from Birmingham
Jail,” King wrote: “I have wept over the
laxity of the Church. But be assured
that my tears have been tears of love.”
[We have been told to wait. After
a long list of violent racist acts and discri- mination], King writes: “you will understand why we find it difficult
to wait. There comes a time when the cup
of endurance runs over…”
What awed me
was King’s determination to appeal to the higher selves of his readers and oppressors. As I read through the “Letter from Birmingham
Jail,” I cried freely, at at 1st
hurtfully in remorse, then therapeutically in recon- ciliation and
realization. “Dr. King” became my friend
Martin. Surely Martin Luther King is a
“Friend of Truth”; surely he is a “Friend in Christ.”
II—In my racist experience & growth beyond them lies a tale of God’s
gentle though powerful persuasion. As a
Quaker, I’ve often considered how the tranquil power of agape & caritas works
slowly and often in spite of our egos and worldly aspirations. As Edward L. Wallant wrote: “Answers come in little glimmers to your
soul.” This is not to say that my
discovery of King as an intel- lectual and philosophical companion marked the end
of anger, confusion, or self-contempt. A
seed of peace had been planted, but several years of germi- nation remained.
In
my remaining college years, Suspicion and cynicism replaced naivete and
complacency. I failed to retain an understanding of & feel for the love King
preached and to embrace the gentleness and depth of his faith. And yet that stage was as necessary for me as
its predecessor. [I noted King’s
response to Vietnam Vietnam
My
autobiography & Stephen B. Oates’ King biography indicate that faith &
love & Divine Will often seem unfathomable to people impatient for
change. Friend Harold Loukes [says that
King] did not delude himself that “bad men are good men [but looked] for the
goodness in bad men.” King’s
assimilation of Gandhi’s Satyagraha provided
the psychological element of his nonviolent resistance. King writes: “Gandhi was probably the 1st
person in history to lift the love ethic of Jesus above mere interaction
between individuals to a power- ful & effective social force on a large
scale.”
The nonviolent resistance I
witnessed in the swimming pool did not prompt long-term fear. I was able
finally to assess & then intellectually & spiri- tually to outgrow,
racism & segregation. Had King not offered the “creative ten- sion” at the
swimming pool, nothing would have changed.
King wrote that nei- ther violent rebellion nor passively waiting for the
white race to grant it volunta- rily would work.
To become a participant in “justified violence” is to justify all violence.
As
King understood and practiced it, civil disobedience as a form of
peace-witnessing is no substitute for mediation and compromise, & should be
the last resort. During all his marches
and boycotts, King constantly requested meetings for reconciliation &
negotiation. The Birmingham Commitment
Card said: “REMEMBER always that the
nonviolent movement in Birmingham
The
late Wade Mackie of AFSC is a Quaker exemplar of King’s phi- losophy. He never harbored resentment for the
segregationists. Instead, Wade preferred
“to give them the chance to do the right thing.” Civil obedience too often provoked
unwarranted brutality. As King, Wade,
and Mel Zuck illu- strate it was also a time of love, of finding unexpected connections.
Mel told of Friends encountering a group of
angry Klansmen. They in- vited the
Klansmen to have tea and coffee with them.
Then, they “strove with them” to see their actions and their beliefs in
light of their professed Christi- anity. To be sure, few if any of the Klansmen changed their minds at the time;
neither did I when 1st exposed to integration. To grow impatient for quick change is to confuse the satisfactions of the ego with the faithful servant's Spirit-sustained determination. Maybe the Friends’
[patient] love yielded re- morse,
sympathy, empathy, understanding, reform, freedom [for all concerned].
I
needed to hear of other ways of dealing with a form of oppression whose spiritual
tool was greater than physical segregation of races. What Mel related was an account of behavior
which drew upon hope and not hate, re- demption and not revenge. After all of the reflection and all of the
moments of heart-understanding, I find myself an unlikely exponent of a Way of
Gentle- ness, an equally unlikely Quaker, and autobiographical chronicler of the
glory of Martin Luther King’s civil-rights movement. If King’s beloved community re- quires
patience, long-term faith, and intentional sustained love, history testi- fies to
the grimness of the alternatives. In the
final analysis, we must all choose the
world we live in, and the world we see. I choose to see a world of possibility,
and I choose to embrace Quakerly hope, not despair, as the spi- ritual impetus of
life.
III—In assessing Martin Luther King’s Dream, I believe that I also
ne- cessarily gauge the real power of Quakerism to work change through its
prac- tical mysticism and its idealistic appeal to humankind’s higher Self. King wrote:
“Genuine integration will come when men are obedient to the
unenforceable … which are met by one’s commitment to an inner law, law written
on the heart, [which] produces love.”
[A
friend approached me, noticed I was reading King’s biography] and strode
angrily away. My silent response, filled
with love and divinely furnished patience, spoke more eloquently than any
articulated protest. There are other
disquieting indications that the Promised Land is within our reach but beyond
our grasp. The Klan still operates
openly with local cooperation in some areas of Alabama Georgia
One
problem familiar to any worker for peace and social-justice causes is the
reluctance of some black leaders to give social justice/civil rights issues priority. Black officeholders need to spearhead
judicial and legislative handling of them.
Black legislators often feel that the plight of black citizens is
hopeless. It is hard to justify
legislation which benefits “only a minority” of the state’s citizens.
Another problem is the tendency of some black
politicians to view elec- tive office and its perquisites as a means of
attaining, and then maintaining personal success, status and power. They exhibit the same reluctance & timi- dity
King found and regretted among the prominent and well-to-do black clergy of his
own time. Merely holding elective office
isn’t enough; what’s still lacking too often is altruism and a vision of
hope. And yet there is more reason to
hope than to despair. Now, across the South,
women, Blacks, and Hispanics serve as mayors of the largest cities.
My
rhetoric classes express disbelief when I provide background for rhe- torical
analysis of King’s “I have a dream speech.” The idea of “white only” and
“colored” signs and facilities now seems preposterous. [A cross was burned on the lawn of black
student for having an “integrated” slumber party]. Her inte- grated circle of friends would have
been unthinkable 20 years ago.
Friendship is now more desirable, more
normal, than fear.
On
a July 4th PBS broadcast, James Earl Jones read King’s “I have a Dream”
speech. He read it with great emotion,
and finally wept, as did the rest of us.
20 years have merely enhanced the hopeful vision so beautifully painted
in 1963; they have freed a lot of us from a cycle of oppression; they have
showed us that Martin Luther King did not ask too much; we loved too
little. Love and faith can help undo 300
years of fear and faithlessness.
IV—King’s call to me is not the mythic one to adventure, but the call to
faith & all that is encompassed within that broad category. He brought out, in spite of determined
ego-resistance, an idealism that combines unconditional love and stamina. King taught me, by letting his life speak,
that love is a choice and not some outer state that is forcibly implanted in
our awareness. The hero is heroic not in
spite of his or her flaws but because of his or her great struggle with them;
so it was with King. Gentleness and a
sense of God’s constantly revitalizing love became real to the point that King
thought of his death with peace and a sense of accepting inevitability.
And
all of his miscalculations and weaknesses simply heighten the heroic: this
passionate very human man makes heroic behavior something not just for Nobel
laureates but also for share croppers, for itinerant ministers, for the
long-suffering and the powerless, even for the fearful segregationist and
racist. He was a quintessential American
Patriot whose idealism drew upon both religious hope and the Constitution, a
complementing influence that has been under emphasized in focusing on King’s
more “revolutionary” thought.
When
he was loved and feted, he gave the glory to God, to his co- workers, and
especially to his long-suffering black people.
When he was vili- fied, he suffered privately but endured patiently and
willingly, understanding that carrying the Cross was finally less important
than spreading its Light. Above all,
King cultivated Christian caritas, fellowship,
and reconciliation among God’s peoples.
He sought to walk in the Light and thus to spread it, ever widening into
Dark.
In “Where do we go from Here?” he wrote: “There is nothing to keep us from remolding a
recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands unto we have fashioned it into a
brotherhood.” The recurrent theme of
hope and benevo- lence reverberates throughout King’s life and writings. He not only led me to love him and what he
stood for, but also he would not let me hate my earlier self or my past.
I
did not want to write this essay. Too
much that I have been ashamed of for too long had to be re-examined. I have realized the impact on me of King and
Quakerism only by the strength of the cathartic release from my past and my
forgiveness and reconciliation with it.
Howard Brinton said: “Quaker ethics is based on feeling and not on
reason … We can trust our deeper fee- lings as a guide to behavior better than we
can trust our reason.” Neither the unreasoning fear of racism nor the unloving anger of misguided political acti- vism could withstand the Light that King taught me or the gentle power of
love that has touched my life in quiet steady ways.
King
led me, in an intensely personal way, to understand in my heart and not just
with my mind, the tranquil strength of agape,
of caritas, and there- fore of
social justice and fellowship. Martin
Luther King speaks my mind and lifts up my spirit. At long last, I celebrate his life.
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255. Tending the Light (by Mary E. B. Feagins; 1984)
About
the Author—Mary E. B. Feagins
taught for many years in the Foreign Languages Department at Guilford College North Carolina Southeast
Asia , and visited Friends
Meetings in Europe . This essay
grew out of an article published in THE GUILFORD REVIEW (Spring 1980) after she
led a discussion on the Inner Light for a group of seekers.
[Developing Concept of Inner Light]—[As a teenager] the metaphor of Light took on a
special meaning for me: it was the essence of Life. I adopted it and used it with a sense of its
importance as an indispensable symbol in the sacred stories and holy scriptures
of many world religions. Light was, and
still is, articulated in the Word and its articulation constitutes the
Act. The Light, the Word, or the Act is
not only Alpha, but also Omega and all that flows between.
Uncommitted acts bear fruit just as surely as
committed acts. The radi- ance of the
Light serves me as a measurement for evaluating my thoughts, words, and
actions. I have learned to appreciate
the concept of Light as a uni- fying force for all religions and recognize the
potential of Inner Light for the inte- gration and direction of myself. Discovering & attending to this us what I
mean by “tending the Light.”
[The Inner Light Insights of Blanshard,
Barclay, Others, and My Own]—Has the changing psychic life of the human race’s
history altered appreciably the reality of the Light as perceived in varying
moods and seasons? The [increased] understanding concerning our psychic
nature does not seem to have altered the picture of the psychic life, nor has
it decreased the difficulty we have in attending or “tending” to the Light.
[Sharing] unique perspectives may
add to understanding while not changing the essence of the Light, but sharing
is not accomplished without some confusion and conflict.
Brand
Blanshard asks: Is the inner Light to be considered “conti- nuous with our natural powers
… of a piece with our normal intelli- gence, taste and feeling?” The answer to this question is not the
same for all Quakers. Robert Barclay
answers this question with: “we do not
under- stand this principle to be any part of man’s nature … man may
apprehend in his brain a knowledge of God and spiritual things; yet that not
being the right organ … it cannot profit him towards salvation, but rather
hindereth … We distinguish betwixt certain knowledge and uncertain … [Certain
knowledge may be obtained] by no other way than the inward immediate
manifestation and revelation of God’s spirit.”
Blanshard
doesn’t accept this idea of a separate organ for religious in- sights
“discontinuous with human faculties, & beyond corruption or amend- ment”; I
agree with Blanshard. When I need to speak or act, I am moved either to express my insight regardless
of the chance of hurting those who have dif- ferent views or to refrain from forcing my [imperfect understanding] of my Inner
Light experience on them. As well as I can remember and understand, my own
experience of the Inner Light has reached my consciousness only through my
natural faculties.
Blanshard
says: “More & more is the spirit of man himself conceived as the Lord’s candle.”
Light shines not only from above but
also through the human spirit, & I am not surprised that some smoke, soot, &
smudges frequently ac- company the candle’s burning. The way of the Light is now
understood to be open to the whole
person, not just a separate “holy” organ or conduit. The rays of Inner Light
reveal the comparative value of our choices, lead us to act or not act with a
consideration of consequences, & suggest the form which action may take.
Light
is sparked both from outside the body through the senses & from inside that
same body through memories, dreams, and introspections. Seeking
is the key. Inner quiet may be
fostered by outer quiet. Those fortunate
to have been exposed to the Light of Jesus have the responsibility to share the effects of that experience, whatever that tradition that may be. Inazo Nitobe com- ments: “The Cosmic sense is very much the same
everywhere [around the world and throughout different traditions]. Nothing confirms the identity of the human
race better than this spiritual expansion.”
There
are fleeting moments in which I experience this “spiritual expan- sion” in the
midst of a miscellaneous crowd of unrelated people, [a kind of all- one-ness
(?)] What is there in the human
condition that impels our search for the Inner Light? Faith in the Light’s accessibility and
necessity for human existence. I am impelled to seek, or the Light seems to
seek me. Present in this are an
alertness and expectation of mind, then a feeling of contact, [like] light flooding
a room; this is for me a form a prayer.
[Experiences of Inner Light]—I was 5 years old & was skipping bare- foot up an
alley behind our house. Suddenly I felt completely overwhelmed in a most
wonderful way by the universe’s great expanse around me. I felt a friendly
observer’s presence watching over me with approval & encouragement. There
was only awareness of my totally free self & of a detached friendly spirit
around. I couldn’t then have called this “Inner Light.” I keep finding ever new
& enriched manifestations of this earliest remembered encounter with the
Light.
Sometimes
I seek Inner Light when I have a great problem or need that seems beyond my
control but still belongs to me. Several answers may present themselves. One
answer may bear the authority & clarity to compel its accep- tance; oppressive
feelings vanish. I am filled with well-being & a meaning that at the time
lies beyond logical comprehension, an ability to rest in my convic- tion of the
omnipresence of energy & sustaining Light. I connect the German word Heiterkeit, which means both “serenity” and “cheerfulness” with this experience.
I
don’t need to seek the Inner Light alone, [but also in] a Meeting for Worship
with Friends who are gathered to seek & worship together. I didn’t grow up
in this kind of communal worship. My family belonged to Methodist & Presbyterian churches; I married a Baptist minister’s son. I attended Catho- lic
masses as a college student in Germany
[Centering]—Some worshipers may not be used to waiting for the Spirit’s
leading to arise out of communal meditation. Lacking sensitivity for fol- lowing the
Light’s leading, they hinder what Friends call a gathered meeting. In Meeting
for Worship, there is looking inward for Inner Light, and a strong awareness
of others involved in the same search in worshipful silence. Inso- far as I am
able to concentrate on the Common Object of our search & wor- ship, I am experiencing
what I suppose Friends mean by “centering.” The Center can’t be in myself alone, even though I am looking inward to find it. It is seeking together for Inner Light that makes the difference.
Worship experiences in other church gatherings
[using liturgies] some- times involve a process of centering not altogether
unlike this. Ideally, there would be
a perfect balance or a complete integration of aesthetic & religious
experiences of the Light; it is often difficult for me to approach that
balance. I remember & treasure all the artistic means that have been able
to lead me to awareness & appreciation of the Light, or Source of all
beauty.
The
whole idea of “centering” in order to seek the Light before any meeting, for business as well as
worship, is difficult to communicate to newco- mers. Members of the Society of Friends form a
relatively small percentage of the Guilford College
The Clerk of Faculty allows time for everyone
to speak to help deter- mine the sense of the meeting. When no one still expresses
grave reserva- tions, the Clerk asks for general approval to move ahead; [this
may not be unanimous]. [It is
instead a] cooperative effort to attend
leadings of the Light. [If someone has an] objection strong enough to keep
that person from [agree- ing with the sense of the meeting, that] delays action;
[not all objections do delay]. It is as important to describe seeking the Inner
Light in a business ses- sion as to describe what happens in Meetings for
Worship. The seeking & fin- ding of Light is the human being’s special
calling [in all matters].
[Special Gatherings of the Light/
Balancing Contrasting Values] A
handful of weekly participants in a quiet Vietnam
One
of the problems faced in tending the Light is sorting out the complex values
involved in choosing to act morally. My
greatest questions and problems are not related to choosing the good over the
evil, but to choosing from among values which conflict. My own experience has
demonstrated that sharing the richness of other cultures & religions has
affected deeply the purity (simplicity) of my native religion. I often have to choose between such
conflicting values “prudence” and “courage.”
Jesus has presented me with some of my most challenging theological
problems while giving me, at the same time, guidance and courage to act. I wait for a leading that speaks to the whole
person.
[Loren Eiseley & Unique Glimpses of
Inner Light]—Loren Eiseley recognizes
an eternally creative light that has mysteriously ignited to glow & to
spread (from I would say earliest creation) to the present, manifesting itself
as the human soul. “In its coming man had no part.” “It isn’t of today, but of
the whole journey & may lead us to the end.” In the world there is nothing
to explain the world.” “This light has made
us & what we are without it
remains meaning- less.” [Science alone] isn’t enough for human beings. It
alone does not make us ethical.
I
believe in the constancy, the omnipresence, and the purity of the Inner Light
at the same time that I recognize the uniqueness of each glimpse of it. I like the freedom to choose my belief
without feeling that the belief's object is in any way limited to my
current picture or understanding. I have
resented any conscious attempt to [limit the sources of Light or access to it]. Somehow I have to pursue the value of the
richness of experience while preserving the value of purity. I can use the
richness of music and the purity of silence as an example of this. For me, in the silence there is always music
waiting to be heard.
[The Power of Words, Concepts, and
Humor]—Allah by name, sheer unprismed light the silence breaking/ [The poem mentions what Krishna, Con- fucius,
Siddhartha, & Son of God shared & what we see as if through a prism] God assumes on earth new forms to serve new
ages in distress … Each [fol- lower] shares the prism’s scale; without each one,
refracted light would pale.
I
want to recognize the importance of [the logos,] the Word in my own life. I was torn between the tendency to accept on
faith and naïve optimism the teachings of respected and beloved elders and the
tendency to question anything I could not verify by my own experience and
reason. For some time I believed [I
would have been better off being] born as a “chosen” Jew and then “converted”
to some form of Christianity reflecting the life and teachings of Jesus. My embarrassment at never being able to claim
the “saving,” [“second birth”] type of conversion was coupled with a desire to
bring about a [religious experience] like St. Paul’s or St. Joan’s.
All
prayerful seeking for [instant] visions and voices brought only
disap- appointment. I gradually realized
that I was free to turn myself at any time to the Light, to seek my own inner
visions and to listen for the voices uniquely meant for me. [Later in life], I had a vision accompanied
by Allah’s voice. I be- lieve in his
conclusion that there is need to recognize among religions the varieties of
human potential for reflecting the Light.
I
sense the importance of humor in our communications. What is the place for humor in our attempts to tend and share the Light
through the Word? We must be able to
smile tolerantly at the foibles of others, and to laugh heartily at ourselves
when our errors have done harm to no more than our own over-extended, sooty and
smudged egos. Konrad Lorenz consi- ders
humor an ally of moral responsibility.
Short of extreme frivolity, it is clear- ly of great importance in the
promotion of good will and tolerance and so de- serves cultivation.
[Changing Vocabulary]—I am aware that growing has meant for me constant re-definition
and re-interpretation of my vocabulary. Every word, every concept has its
context, its place in the spectrum. It
is about the importance of relating words & concepts to a growing context,
to new [perspectives]. Famili- arity with another language brings much light to
bear on one’s own, even if it may often be glaring.
When new words &
concepts from another language & culture are ad- ded to our vocabulary, there
is an initial reluctance to accept them, primarily because they throw new
light, on long-cherished views. [There might be value in] careful study of the
distinction between what Jung meant by the individual
unconscious & what he meant by the collective
unconscious, the latter being a more transcendental concept. (Without the
Dark, there would be neither a flicker nor a flash of Light).
Each
of us has known from history & our own day, people who impress us with their
special capacity for finding and channeling the Light through their words and
deeds. I believe that the Light is
continuously transmitted often in quiet ways, through the lives of all who seek
it. Our experiences in East Ger- many German Federal Republic
Experiences
of the Light abiding in the division & isolation in the 2 Ger- manies make
the arguments about North American issues [dividing Meetings seem pale in
comparison]. The Light is refracted & reflected in unique ways, even though
the way to seek & to find it is universal. The best results of see- king &
worshipping is transforming & reforming my very self, needed for
disci- plined direction of my personal actions. When faced with the “unthinkable”
dilemma of a “nuclear holocaust,” each of us has a call for disciplined actions
supporting or implementing ideas that are
thinkable for a surviving, enligh- tened humanity on a living planet.
[The following is an excerpt] of the constellation of words [that took place during a meeting]: There is a universe within that I may enter … I drift into a galaxy of light-in-darkness … I follow the feeling of presences … the footprints of [Quakers] from England to India …The Cambodians have little, I am remin- ded by that young presence sitting inside the temple collecting signatures for- voluntary fasting … remembering Vietnam Vigils … and all the creation gave unto me another smell than before beyond what words can utter … a ripple in the silence … with hands from all sides to be shaken … as I return with the endless Presence … to time and the Act.
[The following is an excerpt] of the constellation of words [that took place during a meeting]: There is a universe within that I may enter … I drift into a galaxy of light-in-darkness … I follow the feeling of presences … the footprints of [Quakers] from England to India …The Cambodians have little, I am remin- ded by that young presence sitting inside the temple collecting signatures for- voluntary fasting … remembering Vietnam Vigils … and all the creation gave unto me another smell than before beyond what words can utter … a ripple in the silence … with hands from all sides to be shaken … as I return with the endless Presence … to time and the Act.
256. The
Prophetic Stream (by William Taber; 1984)
About
the Author—William Taber’s roots
& life-long membership are with Eastern Ohio's Conservative Friends of .
He has been nurtured by Friends General Conference in the Pittsburgh Meeting
& Friends United Meeting through the Earlham School of Religion. He taught
at Moses Brown School Olney Friends School
Preface—The term prophetic
indicates in a single word the basic theory of Quaker ministry. This
pamphlet is an edited version of the 1983 New England YM talks on OT & NT
prophets, Jesus & Quakerism. The
references to George Fox & Quaker religious experience are intended to
show how Fox & the early Quaker experience were related to the experience of
earlier prophets & to explain how Fox felt about the prophetic tradition.
[At times I can easily] believe that Jesus knew God so totally & so obe- diently that his energy field merged with the Divine Life and encompassed all creation, changing, through his knowledge and his self-giving the psychic cli- mate for all, making the Holy Spirit available to all as it had never been be- fore. William Taber
Moses
began by seeming a complete failure as an upper-class, educa- ted “radical
activist.” His passion for justice was
still with him when he helped 7 daughters against burly shepherds. His Sinai
years were like a Pendle Hill experience in that they gave him plenty of space
and time to change the busy rhythms into a quiet & receptive pace. [Through this time which climaxed with the
burning bush] Moses evolved a higher level of consciousness]. The most important meaning of the “I am”
passage that follows the burning bush is that God is livingly present
everywhere and everywhen. It is terrifying,
transforming, and mind-shaking to experience the living presence of the living
God, [as Moses and much later George Fox did].
If
the Gospel of John is right, the preexistent Christ, the Word, the femi- nine
Wisdom was present with & in Moses as he stood barefoot at the fla- ming bush. Moses had become a man of vision,
and would become the archetype of all the Biblical prophets who followed
him. [There are] 3 major tasks of a
prophet: [discover the law; practice the law; make spirit available]. As we look at prophets, we see that their
warnings, advice, visions, are based on a clear seeing of the law. The unreality of key OT laws began to change when I read the Bible meditatively, with the intellect at rest, and with pauses for reflection. I then realized that
most of the Laws of Moses were designed for a specific culture of long
ago. Even with this recognition, there is still a small living core of the Law which remains as vital as it ever was.
Moses,
like Newton
“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. The 3rd commandment goes far
beyond the banning of profanity. To
utter God’s name, to open the conduit of the Power lightly or with lazy
attention is to court disaster for the spiritually developed soul. Frivolous speech numbs us to the beauty,
anguish, and divine tasks of the Eternal now. [Am I]
present where and when I am? Am I really understanding and meaning what I say?
The 4th focus commandment to “remember the sabbath day, to keep it
holy” is a reminder of the importance of periodically stopping outward
activity to give the intuitive mode of being a chance to operate. Do I
take time perio- dically for calm receptive focusing inward? Since we are not
where George Fox was constantly we probably need this commandment’s reminder
that truly focused life must have periodic times of a Sabbath state of
consciousness.
When
Moses came down the mountain with the 10 Commandments, he began to perform the
2nd task of the prophet; he began to walk in the new law & show
others how to walk in it. Moses’ Old Covenant & Jesus’ New Covenant imply a
deep connectedness with life itself. The Old Covenant was sealed with
sacrifice, because the people of that time believed the essential &
indissoluble life force of an animal was in its blood. Sharing blood with God
& then with the people joined the people with each other & with God
with a holy glue & bond.
In
showing the way to live the Law or to walk with God, Moses also per- formed the 3rd
task of the prophet by helping make spirit available, particularly through
prayer and intercession. Jeremiah
fulfilled this role, and it is beautifully described in 2nd
Isaiah. The early Christians saw Jesus
as perfectly fulfilling this prophetic role of interceding on behalf of others
and making the Holy Spirit available. By
using blood, the physical metaphor or symbol available in his time, Moses like
other prophets made spirit available to the people.
The
Apostle Paul knew the rabbinic tradition of a supernatural rock that followed
Moses, so that whenever there was a great need for water, Moses could strike
the rock. Paul believed that the
ever-present rock and the super- natural, life-giving water was actually the
pre-existent or eternal Christ. George
Fox would probably say that the rock which followed Moses follows us
today. [If we are not aware of it], it
may be because we have forgotten the timeless focus of the 4 focus
Commandments.
IS CATCHING PROPHECY LIKE CATCHING THE
MEASLES?—Many of
the prophets act as if the willingness and the ability to be a prophet can at
least be caught, and perhaps even taught, so long as we remember that the fact of prophecy remains with God alone. An early example is when Moses gathered 70
elders at the tabernacle, and the spirit of the Lord came down to Moses, and
some of that spirit was put into the 70 elders, & they prophesied. 2 elders not at the meeting of the 70, began to prophesy in the camp, [as a sort of “Quaker maverick.”]
Moses said: “Would that all the Lord’s people were
prophets, that the Lord would put his spirit in them.” As elders, they would
have had experience and some training; they went through rituals; they were
together in a holy place, in the presence of a prophet of great power. Even
this early in the OT we have the example of the prophets Eldad and Medad
operating as a pair.
The boy Samuel is another good example
of catching prophecy. [He started as a child]. He lived continually in the
presence of the holy, with rituals & chants & prayers. God spoke to the
prepared youth while he slept in that sacred place. He is a good example of how
a solitary individual relaxes so that the aperture of the intuitive mind is
consciously or unconsciously open to the divine. I know an example of someone,
who after months of daily devotional reading & worship sat down one morning
and looked into his heart & knew “that Some- one had been there.” In time he
became empowered with a gift of gentle, dis- cerning and prophetic ministry.
When Samuel was old, & Israel
The rest of the OT gives us tantalizing
glimpses of groups of prophets who practiced a kind of group worship is which
consciousness was altered and opened to ecstatic or prophetic states. Some of
the great prophets may have had disciples who stayed together after the
prophet’s death, preserving the tradition, and perhaps providing a nurturing
ground for new prophets.
Jesus’ prophetic opening had been
prepared by other prophets from his infancy & even before his birth. When
the fullness of the Spirit came to Jesus, he was with other prophetic persons,
his cousin John & John’s disciples. Jesus performed miracles in which he
made spirit available to affect the spiritual, & the physical plane. 50 days
after his martyrdom, a power possessed the tiny band of disciples &
followers which he had left behind him. [The Holy Spirit which Jesus had made
available in a new way to the world was released at Penecost].
From the early Quaker point of view the
Book of Acts is really the story of how that Spirit became more & more
available in the ancient world. In 2 instances, “catching the spirit” was not
dependent on water baptism. One group needed to receive the Holy Spirit from
Peter & John [after they had been baptized],
& another received the Holy Spirit from Peter and his compa- nions [before they were baptized]. The term Holy Spirit
appears 17 more times in Acts, so it is clear that each Christian was expected
to have “caught” the Holy Spirit, usually from someone else who had it; many
important decisions were the result of direct guidance by the Holy Spirit.
In I Corinthians 12 & 14, Paul makes
it sound as if prophecy were very common. George Fox believed that because the
Corinthians obviously need so much advice and direction to keep their worship
services from getting out of hand, they had not yet come into the full maturity
of the Holy Spirit; he believed that if they were fully into the New Covenant
and the Holy Spirit, there would be no need for human direction of worship.
[Out of their experience] early friends
believed that they had entered the same living prophetic which flowed from far
back in the OT and which had been expanded in the New Covenant given by Jesus.
Careful reading of Quaker writing shows that in every generation it was the
traveling Quaker ministers who were often the most important forces in
discerning and encouraging the next generation of ministers and prophets.
On the other hand, there also evidence
that some of Quaker leaders discovered or “caught” the Quakerism in the gathered meeting's power. Paul says that when we are caught up in the prophetic
stream of the Holy Spirit, we do not all become speaking prophets. Rather we
become prophets in the way we live our lives, how we spend our money, what we
support, where we work & live. [We need dramatic, conspicuous, sometimes
martyred people]. Some- times even the most unassuming Quaker must take such a
stand. However, the Society of Friends would soon die out if we couldn't
depend on the silent and inconspicuous prophets, [those] resting quietly in the
prophetic stream, who are necessary for each gathered meeting so that others
can catch the spirit.
OPENING
SOME KEY WORDS FROM THE PROPHETS—4 key words or ideas from great prophets still speak
powerfully to us: [tsedaqah (justice), da’ath
(knowledge), Chesed (faithful covenant love), hatsenay leket ‘im Elo- him (humbly walk with
your God).] The 1st of these key words is one we often translate
as justice. [Even with the OT’s violent
nature], we find a strong, con- tinuing demand for justice, [especially for the
powerless]. When King David broke at least 4 of the 10 Commandments with
Bathsheba, even his absolute power as an oriental monarch couldn’t save him
being denounced by the pro- phet Nathan.
This prophet gives us the tradition that
neither kings nor American pre- sidents are above the law. What Elijah said to
Ahab after a man was executed to get his land indicated that Elijah knew the
law of justice for the less powerful & was willing to run great risks in
proclaiming it. Later, the great prophets or writing prophets as they are
sometimes called believed themselves called to be signposts at a traumatic
crossroads of history.
1st, there was Amos of
Tekoa. God gave Amos, & the following
prophets a deep & foreboding sense that something had gone wrong with the
Holy Ex- periment of the Covenant of Moses. Unless the people observed the Law it
would work itself out to a terrible end. Amos 1st condemned by complaining that
“the righteous [are being] sold for silver, & the needy for a pair of shoes
. . . O you who turn justice to wormwood, & cast down righteousness to the
earth!” After condemning empty ritual,
he writes: “But let justice roll down like waters, & righteousness like an
everflowing stream.” “Behold the days are coming,” says the Lord, “when I shall
send a famine on the land of hearing the Lord’s word.”
Gentle Hosea actually lived in the
northern kingdom, which was totally wiped out just a few years after he had
prophesied. He writes: “There is no
faithfulness or kindness, and no knowledge of God in the land.” He implies that the inward fact of knowledge of
the Lord is the central inward reality from which flows the outward behavior of fulfilling the
specific laws of the Covenant. To know
the Lord is to return to the Covenant relationship, just as citizens of old knew the comfort and security of being
under the king’s protection.
To
recognize the king is another way of allowing the solitary ego and our individualism to fall away in the face of a higher loyalty. On another level, knowing the Lord would certainly have meant knowing the Law literally and being able to act out of the law from
a deep, instinctive level. Finally, knowing
the Lord is a matter of heart and the will and the mind and the spirit; it
means giving the entire attention, the whole focus to the Divine center.
Another key word from Hosea is Chesid (faithful covenant love), which
can be shown by God to an errant people.
Hosea’s 1st 3 chapters give us a model for returning that faithful covenant love to God. The message from God that Hosea writes is:
“For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather
than burnt offerings.” Several decades
later, Micah took up God’s demand for human justice in the Southern Kingdom of
Judah. [His question is still with us in
Micah 6:8]: What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love kindness,
and to walk humbly (hatsenay leket)
with your God? The modern-day queries might be: How
can I justify my existence in a world where so many are miserable? What is the right- sharing of my resources in
this wealthy and privileged land?
The rough but very practical prophet
Micah saw that the way to please God is not in a giving or sacrificing which
leaves the heart untouched, but in doing
[justice], and being [just]. The phrase “walk humbly with your God”
could include our Quaker attempt to follow the moment-by-moment and day-by-day
leading of the Holy Spirit. With Justice, knowledge of God, faithful covenant
love, and walking humbly with God,
we are called to both a powerful inward- ness and to a powerful outwardness at
the same time. We follow Christ in
placing much emphasis on outward behavior
and service; we follow Christ in placing much emphasis on the reality of inward experience which makes the outward behavior possible.
Isaiah’s experience of a vision
described in Isaiah 6:1-8 still happens in our own time. There still comes the same shaking awareness
of the awesome power at the center of the universe [which trivializes our great
civilizations]. Yet this Power cares
about us and yearns to guide our evolution into the New Age. Most of us will not be called to the
prominence of the work of an Isaiah, but we are called to be prophets, each
according to the grace given to us. How do we prepare for prophecy? Do we devote ourselves to a daily spiritual discipline appropriate to our stage of the spiritual journey? Do we cultivate a personal or group worship
which can open us to the prophe- tic stream?
THE
STUBBORN JOY, THE CROSS OF JOY—When we pass through the dark times of our own lives or history's discouraging moments, it is good to know the prophet Habakkuk. This man probably lived & prophesied 100 years after Micah and Isaiah, i.e. after the death of good King Josiah (609
B.C.) and before Jerusalem
[Answers seldom come quickly]. The prophets of old and our 30 de- cades of
Quaker prophets often had to stand for hours in what seemed like the darkness
of God before the answer came. Prophets
who know the law upon which all creation turns and who continually re-enter the
stream of the Living Presence are able to avoid panic in the hurly-burly of the
present because of instinctive knowledge of the inevitability of the working
out of Divine law.
God answers: “Behold
he whose soul is not upright in him shall fail, but the righteous shall live by
faith.” [Some Quakers will turn off at
this point, while others will start to nod approvingly]. What
then is faith, as the Quakers have understood it? Even though words are important, the
Quaker understanding of faith & of belief is that they are primarily
nonverbal. From Moses up through the
Holy Spirit’s coming again and again in Acts, we see that the full faith
usu- ally resulted from an experience which transformed the old self.
[Instead of “faith,” let us use the word
“trust.”] If I know God on a real &
nonverbal level, & a communion with that Divine reality, I have a sense of
trust so profound that its effects can be measured in my physical body & my
emo- tions. The traditional Quaker
experience is that faith is largely a result of being in the presence of
God. A living faith requires a trusting
that our Divine Friend will support us as we move forward in the dangerous but
exciting stream.
If, like Habakkuk, we stand for hours on
the watchtower in the presence of God, the shape of reality begins to change,
new laws of spiritual cause and effect begin to emerge, and we come to know
more and more about the Law which holds the universe together. At the heart of the Christian experience as
exemplified by George Fox and the Quaker tradition, there is a deep and
irre- pressible joy, even when on the surface of life we may be embroiled in
trou- bles and confusion. That quiet
inward place is where the cross comes in. If we stay with that cross of joy with the
faithfulness of Habakkuk, our own spiritual journey will get on much more
rapidly.
Jeremiah and Ezekiel, prophets of the
same time also help us to look forward to the new life which would become
possible in the New Covenant. Being in
the prophetic stream means being open to God and to human suffering while being
thick-skinned and strong enough to bear criticism and run great risks. With prophetic fire burning within him at
that point in history Jeremiah was sure to have a dramatic life. He narrowly escaped death on several occa- sions, for a time he was imprisoned, and for a time he had to go into
hiding; he was finally carried away from his own land by his own people.
Jeremiah has some beautiful passages which
look beyond the limita- tion of the old Law and the Old Covenant which most of
the people had not been able to uphold.
“I will put my law within them, and I will write in their hearts; and I
will be their God, and they shall be my people . . . I will forgive them their
iniquity, & I will remember their sin no more.” Ezekiel said: “A new heart I will give you,
and a new spirit I will put within you . . . & cause you to walk in my
statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances.”
It is no accident that the Society of
Friends has had a radically different pattern of ministry, because of early
Friends’ living experience of the reality of God’s presence in all who had
truly opened to the Spirit, as Jeremiah predic- ted. Faith means more than trust; in some
mysterious way it means empo- werment. It
means the ability to walk with God even in dark and difficult places as we
follow the otherwise impossible law of the prophet Jesus, remembering
Habakkuk’s answer: “The righteous shall live by faith.”
TAKING
JESUS DOWN FROM THE WALL—[By
George Fox’s time,] Jesus Christ had been stuck up on the wall in an impressive
and magnificent way, but he was completely out of reach to the ordinary
person. Jesus was stuck back across 1600
years of history, or far off into the future when he would be the final judge;
[Jesus has not been available in our time, either]. One cause may be that the modern mind has
been out of touch with our intuitive ability to feel nonverbal religious
reality. Sensitive people have been
turned away from Jesus because of [the rigidity, intolerance, and masculine]
nature of the Chris- tianity they are familiar with.
I believe that Christ is available in
our time because George Fox and others have rediscovered a living Christ
different from the conventional image on the wall. Thanks to Isaiah’s disciples and Ezekiel, [those
in exile in Baby- lon
The God who speaks in II Isaiah seems a
far vaster God than we met before in the OT; he is the God of the entire planet
& all its peoples & all of his- tory. This God invites all people to that
watch tower or worship, of altered con- sciousness. II Isaiah’s Suffering
Servant songs have intrigued & inspired Jew & Christians alike; they
also inspired the young Jesus. The 1st & shortest of these songs
(Is. 42:1-4) about the coming servant of the Lord mentions justice 3 times in 4 verses. True justice, the justice we all seek,
is more akin to healing than to punishment, to a renewed & higher harmony
than to rigid organization. The 4th verse tells us that the
Suffering Servant is like a wedge which is slowly, imper- ceptibly opening the
heart of humanity so that true justice may grow.
Because he has been so deeply taught,
because he has listened so obediently, the Servant is able to live out that law
of gentleness, that awareness that the means do beget the ends. Time after time these verses have helped me
take down the distant picture of Jesus Christ and brought me closer to the
historic Jesus of Galilee and the cosmic & gentle presence which I have felt in my own heart. It is wonderful to find
that clear inward awareness, not only as we waken into each new day, but even
during the night. Quaker nonvio- lence grows out of faith as inward experience
and inward empowerment.
[When I read Isaiah 53:3-5, about how
Jesus was “stricken, smitten by God, wounded for our transgressions” as a
youth], I was offended to think that my salvation depended upon substitutionary
magic & such physical violence. [My] many hours on that watchtower of a
consciousness turned toward God, have revealed a deeper meaning of the Christ
event in history. [It is important] to understand how Jesus was able to
identify with all humanity. The fact that he died painfully upon a Roman
torture device is but a parochial detail in comparison to his cosmic work of
dying to the self on behalf of humanity.
Jesus as Suffering Servant &
prophet knew God so totally that his dying to the self performed what seemed
like magic, even though it was the working out of law. When near an individual great soul I have
sometimes known things inwardly that I would not ordinarily know, or received
inward answers to ques- tions. [I can
easily] believe that Jesus knew God so totally & so obediently that his
energy field merged with the Divine Life & encompassed all creation,
chan- ging, through his knowledge &
his self-giving the psychic climate for all of us, making the Holy Spirit
available to all as it had never been before.
George Fox often used conventional
Christian language and Bible quo- tations, but he always used them with a
difference because his experience had made Christ a present, living reality
rather than a theological statement. Fox and early Friends accepted the outward work of Christ, but they insisted that it is the inward work which transforms us and guides us into new ways of
service, new ways of fellowship.
George Fox [used many words as a kind
of] many-sided prism to break up the dazzling white light at the center into
its many colors or functions. Fox most
frequently mentioned the office of Christ the prophet, the living inward presence
which discerns, admonishes, teaches and leads.
Fox’s terms can become more than words only as we ponder them and step
gingerly or boldly into the prophetic stream:
teacher . . .
governor [of a steam engine] . . .
redeemer . . .
minister . . .
the rock . . .the
foundation . . .
sanctifier . . . your
sanctuary . . .
your way . . .
your life . . .
heavenly
seasoner . . .
orderer
(of justice, harmony) . . .
wisdom
of God . . . treasure of wisdom . . .
truth . . .
the door . . .
light power . . . a covenant of light . . .
maker of prophets . . .
257. Artist on
the witness stand (by Fritz
Eichenberg; 1984)
About
the Author—Fritz Eichenberg, born
in Cologne in 1901, emigra- ted to the US in 1933, became a Quaker in 1940, and
became well-known as an artist, educator, printmaker and illustrator of many
important books for chil- dren and lovers of classics. He wrote Pendle Hill Pamphlet #68 Art
and Faith (1952); he also wrote and illustrated his own fables, Endangered Species, and a contemporary Dance of Death. His prints, mostly wood engravings, are in
major collections here and abroad.
The artist’s work is a mixed blessing of joy and suffering, of the ecstasy and agony of forging out of the artists’ substance an image that mirrors their existence against the background of their time, our time. Fritz Eichenberg.
The debt we owe great art, accumulated over the centuries is immeasur- able. Let’s try to pay it off by listening to its immortal voice. Fritz Eichenberg
INTRODUCTION—Potentially, creativity is dormant in every human
mind; it needs nourishment & care.
Even if we don’t all become artists, it will bring us closer to the
creative arts & their enjoyment. [Many if not most] come to the conclusion
that their puny efforts are not worth struggling with an [un- ruly, resistant]
genius. Yet there is no reason to get
disheartened. Our ten- tative activities in the giant mystery may set off sparks
that lift us out of ano- nymity. [Our gifts will at least reach those closest to
us]. They may be our most valuable asset.
The
artist’s work is a mixed blessing of joy and suffering, of the ecstasy and
agony of forging out of the artists’ substance an image that mirrors their
existence against the background of their time, our time. All truly great art is universal. Often we enjoy greatness without recognizing
it. If you are born with certain
convictions and a tender conscience, your path is laid out for you
and you have to follow, even if your tender feet object.
EARLY ENCOUNTERS—In tracing my pilgrimage back to my childhood I discovered how early I was affected by the frailty of human life. My first en- counter with an artist whose work affected me deeply was Alfred Rethel and his Auch ein Totendanz (Another Dance of Death). [I wrote an essay on it as a school boy, and designed] my own Dance of Death a half-century later.
[A neighbor in my family’s apartment house was an art historian and a museum curator. After asking me a few thoughtful questions he] pulled out of his library 2 volumes of Eduard Fuchs’ History of European Satirical Art; they became my Bible. [I discovered Bosch, Brueghel, Goya ,and Daumier, and the hard-hitting art of the Simplicissimus and the Charvari. There was a lot of political and social ferment] but my own decision to be an artist, to walk in the footsteps of my idols, never wavered. The universal suffering of mankind, made me conscious of the power and the passion of love, and of the agonies and elations of a creative life. The city of Cologne taught me history of art and of faith. Through 2,000 years of war and peace, pillage and prosperity taking turns, it had survived as a living depository of the great arts of the centuries.
STUDENT DAYS; WORD & IMAGE; EARLY INSPIRATION—I was 20 when I graduated from the department store job to student life at the Academy of Graphic Arts in Leipzig. In 1923 I moved to Berlin to marry, working as an artist reporter, writing and illustrating, cartooning and lampooning. I began to see the world as a stage, directed by an unseen master who analyzed the script, assigned the roles, picked the actors, arranged the curtain calls and decreed the final drop.
I continued to read insatiably, indiscriminately, to bolster my pedestrian, anti-intellectual high school education. Most of the artists and writers I admired had labored under the problems of all non-conformists. Very few escaped the wrath of the guardians of the status quo unless they [spoke as a mouthpiece of the Church and State, rather than as a prophet]. I was led by intuition to a little book with the mysterious title Tao-te Ching by Lao-Tsu. [His 81 short sayings] became guideposts in the turmoil of my life. Ultimately Lao-Tsu led me through Zen to the “Light Within,” “the Quiet Inner Voice” of George Fox the Quaker & to the Peaceable Kingdom of Isaiah.
TO REFLECT ONE’S TIME—We often think: if only I could have lived in ancient Greece or Rome, during the Renaissance or the Age of Enlightenment. We can and we do, through the great heritage left us in thoughts and images. Holbein’s famous Totentanz (Dance of Death) gives us a vivid insight into the time in which he lived; his Death has no respect [no partiality] for rank & wealth I followed that concept in my own series on Death in a nuclear age, as a wit- ness to the follies of our time.
Erasmus’ In Praise of Folly gave me the incentive to show in my prints that Dame Folly hasn’t changed her face during the past 300 years. Facing for the first time Michelangelo’s Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel gave me a jolt—a truly superhuman vision blessed from above by a youthful beardless Christ. [Rembrandt and Bach also influenced my student days in Leipzig]. A Bach cantata will lift your spirits and may save you a few sessions on an ana- lyst’s couch. It’s difficult to determine what [art form] exerted the most de- cisive influence.
There is no dividing line—genius is not bound to any medium. I read Grimmelshausen’s Simplicissimus, admired Bertolt Brecht’s stage presentation of part of it, and studied Jacques Calot’s etchings of the Miseries of War. These came together in my Adventures of Simpliccismus 50 years later. The intercon nections, the chain reactions, cross currents flowing from one master's me- dium to the other are alive. The lack of lessons learned by mankind are most discouraging.
ART AND FAITH; HISTORY AS TEACHER—Among decisive chance encounters I think of Giotto, the revolutionary painter imbued with deep faith & in his art defying tradition. He painted the life of St. Francis, who has in- evitably appeared in my work, a source of strength, simplicity, faith and beau- ty we need so badly in our time of confusion and uncertainty. Shouldn't our great artists and writers try to bring the awareness of our problems closer to us, their contemporaries?
A study of the lives of the artists I have mentioned is a lesson in humili- ty, a belief in the supremacy of the spirit which triumphs over difficulties that would cripple most men. In Napoleon, on the other hand, we witness the de- structive power of one man, who also inspired Beethoven’s “Eroica,” com- pelled Goya to create his great series of etchings, The Disasters of the War, & his painting Tres de Mayo, primed the pens and gravers of Gillray & Row- landson to furious protests in their brilliant cartoons against Napoleon’s planned invasion of England.
Goethe’s Reynard the Fox induced me to do my own Fables, Endan- gered Species, reinterpreted against the background of momentous events of our own time, The Atomic Age. Goya, the grand witness of war’s atrocities, died in exile in Bordeaux after Napoleon’s defeat, deaf and poor. Honore Daumier, who worked for newspapers like the Charivari and La Caricature, spent time in jail for offending royalty, and became a beacon for generations of like-minded artists who believed in the remedial power of art as a social & political weapon.
Gogol wrote Dead Souls and The Inspector General against the back- ground of strict censorship in Tsarist Russia. I illustrated Edgar Allan Poe’s stories after reading about his early life, his struggle for recognition and his ignominious death in a Baltimore gutter. [The Bronte sisters wrote and battled for recognition in a world where women “simply did not write.” Heinrich Heine, Charles Dickens, Hans Christian Anderson, and Schumann lived and wrote during the same time]. Prior to illustrating Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons, I learned what I could by studying his life. He fought for and lived to see the Russian serfs freed, 2 years before Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Procla- mation in 1863.
Dostoevsky and Tolstoy overshadowed the 2nd half of the 19th century and entered my life, my thoughts and my work as if I had made myself ready for them. [Their struggles and dedication to their causes] fired my imagination. Illustrating Tolstoy’s War and Peace, his Childhood, Boyhood, Youth, Anna Karenina, and Resurrection, made me feel deeply related to his great & rest- less spirit. His private life, his ruthless honesty with himself fascinated me. Tol- stoy’s correspondence with Gandhi is enlightening if seen in terms of our own war-ravaged time. Dostoevsky’s visionary description of the 2nd coming of Christ in the Grand Inquisitor can be considered a daring challenge to the Orthodox Church. [Through his writing] I felt most keenly his agony, the cease- less struggle to find the source of his faith, to find God.
Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas, Van Gogh, and Gauguin [were the exception to an otherwise meaningless contemporary art. When WWI ended, foes be- came friends, A fresh blast blew in from the new Russia—the constructivists, the suprematists, and abstractionists. From France came the Fauvists, the cubists, the new wave with Picasso, Braque, Leger, Matisse—the surrealist, Max Ernst and Dali—and Germany became the birthplace and the center of the Expressionists and the Dada movement with Picabia, Schwitters, George Grosz.
ART AND REVOLUTION—New inspiration came from socially orien- ted art which prospered under a new regime's auspices in Mexico, shown in the Rivera and Orozco murals, celebrating the history & the victory of the oppressed. I admired the stark woodcuts of the Flemish Frans Masereel as he joined the fight for human rights. I revered Käthe Kolliwtz's work, so deeply concerned with the fate of simple people & their struggles for existence. I admired George Grosz cartoons, drawing, & lithographs showing “The Face of the Ruling Class.”
[A neighbor in my family’s apartment house was an art historian and a museum curator. After asking me a few thoughtful questions he] pulled out of his library 2 volumes of Eduard Fuchs’ History of European Satirical Art; they became my Bible. [I discovered Bosch, Brueghel, Goya ,and Daumier, and the hard-hitting art of the Simplicissimus and the Charvari. There was a lot of political and social ferment] but my own decision to be an artist, to walk in the footsteps of my idols, never wavered. The universal suffering of mankind, made me conscious of the power and the passion of love, and of the agonies and elations of a creative life. The city of Cologne taught me history of art and of faith. Through 2,000 years of war and peace, pillage and prosperity taking turns, it had survived as a living depository of the great arts of the centuries.
STUDENT DAYS; WORD & IMAGE; EARLY INSPIRATION—I was 20 when I graduated from the department store job to student life at the Academy of Graphic Arts in Leipzig. In 1923 I moved to Berlin to marry, working as an artist reporter, writing and illustrating, cartooning and lampooning. I began to see the world as a stage, directed by an unseen master who analyzed the script, assigned the roles, picked the actors, arranged the curtain calls and decreed the final drop.
I continued to read insatiably, indiscriminately, to bolster my pedestrian, anti-intellectual high school education. Most of the artists and writers I admired had labored under the problems of all non-conformists. Very few escaped the wrath of the guardians of the status quo unless they [spoke as a mouthpiece of the Church and State, rather than as a prophet]. I was led by intuition to a little book with the mysterious title Tao-te Ching by Lao-Tsu. [His 81 short sayings] became guideposts in the turmoil of my life. Ultimately Lao-Tsu led me through Zen to the “Light Within,” “the Quiet Inner Voice” of George Fox the Quaker & to the Peaceable Kingdom of Isaiah.
TO REFLECT ONE’S TIME—We often think: if only I could have lived in ancient Greece or Rome, during the Renaissance or the Age of Enlightenment. We can and we do, through the great heritage left us in thoughts and images. Holbein’s famous Totentanz (Dance of Death) gives us a vivid insight into the time in which he lived; his Death has no respect [no partiality] for rank & wealth I followed that concept in my own series on Death in a nuclear age, as a wit- ness to the follies of our time.
Erasmus’ In Praise of Folly gave me the incentive to show in my prints that Dame Folly hasn’t changed her face during the past 300 years. Facing for the first time Michelangelo’s Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel gave me a jolt—a truly superhuman vision blessed from above by a youthful beardless Christ. [Rembrandt and Bach also influenced my student days in Leipzig]. A Bach cantata will lift your spirits and may save you a few sessions on an ana- lyst’s couch. It’s difficult to determine what [art form] exerted the most de- cisive influence.
There is no dividing line—genius is not bound to any medium. I read Grimmelshausen’s Simplicissimus, admired Bertolt Brecht’s stage presentation of part of it, and studied Jacques Calot’s etchings of the Miseries of War. These came together in my Adventures of Simpliccismus 50 years later. The intercon nections, the chain reactions, cross currents flowing from one master's me- dium to the other are alive. The lack of lessons learned by mankind are most discouraging.
ART AND FAITH; HISTORY AS TEACHER—Among decisive chance encounters I think of Giotto, the revolutionary painter imbued with deep faith & in his art defying tradition. He painted the life of St. Francis, who has in- evitably appeared in my work, a source of strength, simplicity, faith and beau- ty we need so badly in our time of confusion and uncertainty. Shouldn't our great artists and writers try to bring the awareness of our problems closer to us, their contemporaries?
A study of the lives of the artists I have mentioned is a lesson in humili- ty, a belief in the supremacy of the spirit which triumphs over difficulties that would cripple most men. In Napoleon, on the other hand, we witness the de- structive power of one man, who also inspired Beethoven’s “Eroica,” com- pelled Goya to create his great series of etchings, The Disasters of the War, & his painting Tres de Mayo, primed the pens and gravers of Gillray & Row- landson to furious protests in their brilliant cartoons against Napoleon’s planned invasion of England.
Goethe’s Reynard the Fox induced me to do my own Fables, Endan- gered Species, reinterpreted against the background of momentous events of our own time, The Atomic Age. Goya, the grand witness of war’s atrocities, died in exile in Bordeaux after Napoleon’s defeat, deaf and poor. Honore Daumier, who worked for newspapers like the Charivari and La Caricature, spent time in jail for offending royalty, and became a beacon for generations of like-minded artists who believed in the remedial power of art as a social & political weapon.
Gogol wrote Dead Souls and The Inspector General against the back- ground of strict censorship in Tsarist Russia. I illustrated Edgar Allan Poe’s stories after reading about his early life, his struggle for recognition and his ignominious death in a Baltimore gutter. [The Bronte sisters wrote and battled for recognition in a world where women “simply did not write.” Heinrich Heine, Charles Dickens, Hans Christian Anderson, and Schumann lived and wrote during the same time]. Prior to illustrating Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons, I learned what I could by studying his life. He fought for and lived to see the Russian serfs freed, 2 years before Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Procla- mation in 1863.
Dostoevsky and Tolstoy overshadowed the 2nd half of the 19th century and entered my life, my thoughts and my work as if I had made myself ready for them. [Their struggles and dedication to their causes] fired my imagination. Illustrating Tolstoy’s War and Peace, his Childhood, Boyhood, Youth, Anna Karenina, and Resurrection, made me feel deeply related to his great & rest- less spirit. His private life, his ruthless honesty with himself fascinated me. Tol- stoy’s correspondence with Gandhi is enlightening if seen in terms of our own war-ravaged time. Dostoevsky’s visionary description of the 2nd coming of Christ in the Grand Inquisitor can be considered a daring challenge to the Orthodox Church. [Through his writing] I felt most keenly his agony, the cease- less struggle to find the source of his faith, to find God.
Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas, Van Gogh, and Gauguin [were the exception to an otherwise meaningless contemporary art. When WWI ended, foes be- came friends, A fresh blast blew in from the new Russia—the constructivists, the suprematists, and abstractionists. From France came the Fauvists, the cubists, the new wave with Picasso, Braque, Leger, Matisse—the surrealist, Max Ernst and Dali—and Germany became the birthplace and the center of the Expressionists and the Dada movement with Picabia, Schwitters, George Grosz.
ART AND REVOLUTION—New inspiration came from socially orien- ted art which prospered under a new regime's auspices in Mexico, shown in the Rivera and Orozco murals, celebrating the history & the victory of the oppressed. I admired the stark woodcuts of the Flemish Frans Masereel as he joined the fight for human rights. I revered Käthe Kolliwtz's work, so deeply concerned with the fate of simple people & their struggles for existence. I admired George Grosz cartoons, drawing, & lithographs showing “The Face of the Ruling Class.”
[An unrecognized part of the art world] are the cartoonists of the daily press, who are doing a yeoman’s job to pillory the shenanigans of our politi- cians, elected or self-appointed. There are always artists champing at the bit to be a witness to their time; they need a forum on which to meet their audience, to let off steam, to prevent the boiler from blowing up. We usually look for sti- mulation in the wrong sources: drugs, alcohol, parties, sex & violence on the TV or in the papers—thrills of quick impact which wear off quickly. Where are the artists eulogizing the grandeur & harmonies of nature, its checks and balances which give meaning to our lives?
ART AND THE QUAKERS; ART WITH A MESSAGE—2 centuries ago our lone Quaker artist, Edward Hicks, painted his Peaceable Kingdom's vision over and over again, against the advice of his own Meeting; he found no fol- lowers in his time. Rufus Jones said: “We look back with mild pity on the gene- rations of Haverford students who were deprived of the joy of music and art … The strong anti-aesthetic bias in the minds of the Quaker founders was an unmitigated disaster.” Religious leaders of all denominations are beginning to rise out of their lethargy and make use of art’s spiritual power.
Art has survived the cavemen, the Pharaohs, the princes & the popes; it will survive the computer—if we care enough. Sensitive to the illnesses of his time and giving expressions to his concern in any medium, he is bound to run up against the guardians of the status quo. Your conscience & the strength of your convictions must back you up. I feel myself in the spirit of George Fox, John Woolman, and others. Neither jail nor mistreatment would hold them back from their missions, living testimony that love could overcome hatred.
I feel rewarded that my work has been used by so many denomina- tions and groups devoted to peace in our time, & that it finds the intended target, the human heart. For more than half a century I have sent a print to my friends everywhere each year, usually a commentary on the state of the world— and incidentally on my own condition. We are all blessed with different gifts, witnesses ready to be counted. The debt we owe great art, accumulated over the centuries is immeasurable. Let’s try to pay it off by listening to its immortal voice.
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258. When Silence Becomes Singing: a study in perception and
ART AND THE QUAKERS; ART WITH A MESSAGE—2 centuries ago our lone Quaker artist, Edward Hicks, painted his Peaceable Kingdom's vision over and over again, against the advice of his own Meeting; he found no fol- lowers in his time. Rufus Jones said: “We look back with mild pity on the gene- rations of Haverford students who were deprived of the joy of music and art … The strong anti-aesthetic bias in the minds of the Quaker founders was an unmitigated disaster.” Religious leaders of all denominations are beginning to rise out of their lethargy and make use of art’s spiritual power.
Art has survived the cavemen, the Pharaohs, the princes & the popes; it will survive the computer—if we care enough. Sensitive to the illnesses of his time and giving expressions to his concern in any medium, he is bound to run up against the guardians of the status quo. Your conscience & the strength of your convictions must back you up. I feel myself in the spirit of George Fox, John Woolman, and others. Neither jail nor mistreatment would hold them back from their missions, living testimony that love could overcome hatred.
I feel rewarded that my work has been used by so many denomina- tions and groups devoted to peace in our time, & that it finds the intended target, the human heart. For more than half a century I have sent a print to my friends everywhere each year, usually a commentary on the state of the world— and incidentally on my own condition. We are all blessed with different gifts, witnesses ready to be counted. The debt we owe great art, accumulated over the centuries is immeasurable. Let’s try to pay it off by listening to its immortal voice.
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
258. When Silence Becomes Singing: a study in perception and
parable (by Helen Kylin; 1984)
About the Author—Helen Kylin is a painter and photographer whose work has been seen in art shows around Cleveland. She has been a teacher and coordinator of a elementary program on creative enrichment. She is mem- ber, deacon, and Bible student in the Fairmount Presbyterian Church. Most of this pamphlet was written during the 3 terms when Helen Kylin was a Pendle Hill Student. She hopes to continue developing her own creativity which is the open end of her own parable.
About the Author—Helen Kylin is a painter and photographer whose work has been seen in art shows around Cleveland. She has been a teacher and coordinator of a elementary program on creative enrichment. She is mem- ber, deacon, and Bible student in the Fairmount Presbyterian Church. Most of this pamphlet was written during the 3 terms when Helen Kylin was a Pendle Hill Student. She hopes to continue developing her own creativity which is the open end of her own parable.
i thank you God for most this amazing day; for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky, and for everything/which is natu- ral which is infinite which is yes (i who have died am alive again today/ & this is the sun’s birthday;…) (now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
i am not sorry when silence becomes singing e. e. cumming
Even though it's my own free will to write this study, there is also an ele- ment of compulsion because the subject has been on my mind for many years. Being a creative, left-handed, and somewhat dyslexic person, I have sought ways to understand the dilemma that made me think differently about the world. I am grateful for the struggle to [“be like the others”] because it has taught me to be logical and verbal. So it is my logical self that says I do this study of my own free will and my intuitive self that wordlessly pushes me to the task.
When I look at a landscape or a group of people with an eye to taking a photograph or painting a picture, I am looking as much as the shapes between the objects as at the objects themselves. The empty spaces between much of what I say and the poems and stories I use will be as important as the words I will be using. It is in these spaces that thought connections can be discovered. A friend said: “There is no music in a rest, but there is the making of music. Silence is also a component of creative thought. A certain part of the brain must be put to rest so that intuition can speak to us with its own language. Einstein spoke of a period of visual & kinetic images, after which words were laboriously used to translate the images into language.
[In the right brain/left brain process] the right brain looks at the whole of a situation & then proceeds to its parts. The left brain looks at a situation by breaking it up into a sequence of steps that lead to wholeness. Our creative moments are not just times when we paint a picture or write a book. The same process is in operation when we make a connection with a story or metaphoric statement. [The process goes from]: preparation & investigation; rest and for- getfulness; integration and revelation; new relationships and patterns of ideas & images.
Creative thinking is not a matter of the dominance of one hemisphere over the other. It is a matter of using both sides in a manner appropriate to the type of work being done. [I worked with the creativity in children. Many of them said] they would remember the quiet place they had found inside their minds. Victoria said: “You dig down deep in your well—all the way to your little self.” Katie said: “If you can’t think of anything you go to a corner where it is quiet.” I am not emphasizing staying in intuitive states for long periods of time. It is in the movement between the brain's 2 hemispheres that creativity is generated. The Society of Friends explores this process and creative social action has proceeded from it. In the stillness, empty spaces occur and new possibilities are searching their way to the surface of the mind.
Even though it's my own free will to write this study, there is also an ele- ment of compulsion because the subject has been on my mind for many years. Being a creative, left-handed, and somewhat dyslexic person, I have sought ways to understand the dilemma that made me think differently about the world. I am grateful for the struggle to [“be like the others”] because it has taught me to be logical and verbal. So it is my logical self that says I do this study of my own free will and my intuitive self that wordlessly pushes me to the task.
When I look at a landscape or a group of people with an eye to taking a photograph or painting a picture, I am looking as much as the shapes between the objects as at the objects themselves. The empty spaces between much of what I say and the poems and stories I use will be as important as the words I will be using. It is in these spaces that thought connections can be discovered. A friend said: “There is no music in a rest, but there is the making of music. Silence is also a component of creative thought. A certain part of the brain must be put to rest so that intuition can speak to us with its own language. Einstein spoke of a period of visual & kinetic images, after which words were laboriously used to translate the images into language.
[In the right brain/left brain process] the right brain looks at the whole of a situation & then proceeds to its parts. The left brain looks at a situation by breaking it up into a sequence of steps that lead to wholeness. Our creative moments are not just times when we paint a picture or write a book. The same process is in operation when we make a connection with a story or metaphoric statement. [The process goes from]: preparation & investigation; rest and for- getfulness; integration and revelation; new relationships and patterns of ideas & images.
Creative thinking is not a matter of the dominance of one hemisphere over the other. It is a matter of using both sides in a manner appropriate to the type of work being done. [I worked with the creativity in children. Many of them said] they would remember the quiet place they had found inside their minds. Victoria said: “You dig down deep in your well—all the way to your little self.” Katie said: “If you can’t think of anything you go to a corner where it is quiet.” I am not emphasizing staying in intuitive states for long periods of time. It is in the movement between the brain's 2 hemispheres that creativity is generated. The Society of Friends explores this process and creative social action has proceeded from it. In the stillness, empty spaces occur and new possibilities are searching their way to the surface of the mind.
One early morning when I was about to leave a well-loved place, I stood before a great tree & it spoke to me. I was slightly changed by the con- frontation. I had been discussing Findhorn the evening before; Findhorn peo- ple produce vegetables of prodigious size by talking affectionately to them. The tree did not turn my life around, but it did broaden my view so that now I think again before doubting possibilities.
In I and Thou Martin Buber says there are three spheres in which the world of relation arises involving: nature; language; and spiritual beings. [My encounter with the tree] enlarged my primal knowledge of reality in ways that are not expressed but are valid. The 2nd sphere involves language. Forces of nature were like pre-metaphors for pre-historic man and helped him cope with the world. Even abstract words were once images developed by someone ma- king connections between a known and an unknown. [Very old metaphors] may have lost their metaphoric surprise, but we can realize that these words & others once had a surprise effect on any person who first used them.
Small children reach out perceptually to their environment & find simi- larities. We can’t discount the evidence that children have a metaphor sense. As the child learns good vocabulary, the process of putting words into catego- ries continues. Mental lists of color words or flower words [and other grou- pings] are made. Metaphor has come to be seen by scholars as a process where a known becomes linked with an unknown in such a way as to present new thought or image. The 3rd sphere of relationships which Buber men- tions is life with spiritual beings. It lacks but creates language. “We hear no YOU & yet feel addressed; we answer—creating, thinking, acting.”
As we know, the conscious mind is only part of the thinking process. What is happening in the silent hemisphere can be processed in the verbal hemisphere. Then, a new insight suddenly appears in the mind that is pre- pared to receive it. It is sometimes as creative to understand a metaphor by using our imagination as it is to create one yourself. The ability to think this way becomes lost to some people but perhaps it could be recaptured.
St. Augustine spoke of his surprise at the mountains and hills of his imagination and the plains and caves of his memory. We cannot develop new meanings without the skill of comparing feelings or objects for which we have no known words with a known. The making of metaphor doesn't ever take us completely away from ourselves. The self is always one component of the pro- cess, and the new insight adds a dimension to the self in its journey of beco- ming what it can or must become.
St. Augustine spoke of his surprise at the mountains and hills of his imagination and the plains and caves of his memory. We cannot develop new meanings without the skill of comparing feelings or objects for which we have no known words with a known. The making of metaphor doesn't ever take us completely away from ourselves. The self is always one component of the pro- cess, and the new insight adds a dimension to the self in its journey of beco- ming what it can or must become.
We are advised by Jesus to lose ourselves in order to find ourselves. Perhaps we cannot lose ourselves until we have a self to lose. Each separate road taken becomes a story for God’s eyes to see & God’s ears to hear. If we, being one part of metaphor, are moving from the known through the un- known, our stores will probably become myths or parables. The Bible gains power in our lives through images and stories we can take into our lives and relate to as examples and guideposts on our journey.
Stevie Smith’s poem “Not Waving but Drowning,” is to me a metaphor for our inability to communicate well. It says in part: “Nobody heard him, the dead man./ But still he lay moaning: … I was much too far out all my life/ & not waving but drowning.” Kafka says: “When the sage says: ‘Go over,’ he means to some fabulous yonder, something unknown to us, something that he can't designate more precisely, or help us get there.”
Stevie Smith’s poem “Not Waving but Drowning,” is to me a metaphor for our inability to communicate well. It says in part: “Nobody heard him, the dead man./ But still he lay moaning: … I was much too far out all my life/ & not waving but drowning.” Kafka says: “When the sage says: ‘Go over,’ he means to some fabulous yonder, something unknown to us, something that he can't designate more precisely, or help us get there.”
I can spend a ridiculous amount of time building walls between myself & the critical remarks of friends. Gifted teachers like Jesus, the Baal Shem Tov & Chuang Tsu break down the barriers and reach us by an indirect approach through open-ended stories. Parables have the power to make people see reality & face it. Here is a short Pendle Hill garden parable: “One time we put a fence around the garden & trapped 5 rabbits inside. Each garden/parable is harboring a real live rabbit or toad which may jump into our hands & reveal personal messages.
Jesus realized that people respond to an indirect approach. He showed respect for his listeners by speaking to them so that his words could be met by each person’s perception. Since we are developing organisms our understan- ding may change and develop as we grow. [The early churches began with parables]. As they moved out into the world influenced by Greek culture they were influenced by a different literary style—the allegory. In the gospel passage where Jesus explains the parable of the sower and the seeds, it is probably the church speaking and not Jesus himself. This interpretation set a pattern of allegorization that has stayed with the church until this century. Allegory assigns a set meaning to each person or event and reaches a known conclusion; Greek minds could not easily handle an uninterpreted parable.
Through the study of biblical language & history in the last century, the allegory’s [set values & meanings for each aspect of the parable] has been challenged. We need a growing understanding of the message Jesus came to bring as well as understanding that the people Jesus spoke to were used to hearing ideas in indirect metaphoric words. If we aren’t careful we can make up meanings that carry us farther from [the reality of life that parables were meant to teach us]. Parable are fragile & not to be stretched out of shape. The part of the parable that is unexplained carries the emotional impact. Our inter- pretations may need verification, but each can be unique.
Through the study of biblical language & history in the last century, the allegory’s [set values & meanings for each aspect of the parable] has been challenged. We need a growing understanding of the message Jesus came to bring as well as understanding that the people Jesus spoke to were used to hearing ideas in indirect metaphoric words. If we aren’t careful we can make up meanings that carry us farther from [the reality of life that parables were meant to teach us]. Parable are fragile & not to be stretched out of shape. The part of the parable that is unexplained carries the emotional impact. Our inter- pretations may need verification, but each can be unique.
Brinton Turkle, writer & illustrator of children’s books & a Quaker says: “In a way all the stories I have written and will write are already in my head. It means that the right time and right climate must be there before it can come out.” [The same is true of creating our Self]. As we progress on our journey many parables occur in our own lives. If we become sensitized to them these insights can be gifts that have meaning beyond the words.
Because most of us have heard the parables often and since childhood, it is not easy to hear with new ears and see with new eyes. In a real way for us Jesus can become a part of our personal metaphors and a part of our personal parables. As we confront ourselves with biblical parables and with our own parables we can be met by truths that have in them a power of trans- formation. In a real sense Jesus [can] become the Harvest as we respond with our lives.
Because most of us have heard the parables often and since childhood, it is not easy to hear with new ears and see with new eyes. In a real way for us Jesus can become a part of our personal metaphors and a part of our personal parables. As we confront ourselves with biblical parables and with our own parables we can be met by truths that have in them a power of trans- formation. In a real sense Jesus [can] become the Harvest as we respond with our lives.
259.
Stewardship of Wealth (by Kingdon W Swayne; 1985)
About
the Author—Kingdon Swayne was
born into the Society of Friends. A graduate of Harvard, he spent the 1st
half of his working life as a Foreign Service Officer. Since 1967 he has taught
at Bucks County Community College
Stewardship is an attitude of
responsible, future-oriented caring for:
Oneself; immediate family; time and energy; material possessions; the
most local ecosystem in one’s personal care; wider circles of human community
[ranging outward from] neighborhood to the whole human race; “Spaceship
Earth’s” ecosystem; community of All Being (God). Kingdon
Swayne.
How
can I develop my own unique capacities and interests, and use the wealth and
power which has been entrusted to me by society so as to benefit others and
create a more just and compassionate world?
The things we have are [actually only] entrusted to us
for wise use.” Steven Rockefeller
TOWARD THOUGHTFUL STEWARDSHIP—It is commonplace that most American Friends pursue
professional-level occupations & are rewarded with [generous] incomes.
Friends are troubled by the contrast between their affluence & their belief
in social & economic justice. In 1983, I confronted the fact that my gross
annual income was about 10 times my living expenses. To help clarify my
thinking, I resolved to devote a fair part of my time to a survey of the
stewardship practices of some of my fellow members of the Society of Friends in
Philadelphia YM. In part my thinking was: The core idea of steward- ship is
elegantly simple & wise: what is
yours under civil law is not yours under divine law. How one expresses this in action is by no
means clear.
SELF-ASSESSMENT—I wrote a letter to those who responded that served as
a model & as the 1st part of confidential, mutual sharing of approa- ches to stewardship. My assessment was in part that: [Stewardship is more
than charitable giving]. Until 45, I was “other-directed” in my stewardship
deci- sions, my lifestyle governed by my salary & my colleagues’ lifestyle.
My chari- table giving was modest & pro
forma. After 45 years as a nominal, birthright Friend, I opted for a
career change. I bought a 3-unit apartment & rented out 2. I received a pension
& became a resident in a town where I felt almost total freedom to choose
my standard of living. The values I was pursuing were self- sufficiency & a
prudent concern for the possibility of medical catastrophe later in life.
I
found it very difficult to find a clear, firm set of principles on which to
base a self-consciously chosen living standard. I ended up with some rules of thumb: good, long-lasting clothing; no expensive
eating & drinking; no exces- sive living-space; performing arts enjoyed at less
than top dollar prices; austere foreign travel; new, modest, energy-efficient
car every 6 years; reasonably priced electric & electronic gadgets;
housekeeper; excess cash in mutual funds; paying taxes; repairing, recycling,
making do, do-it-yourself around house; cost-benefit analysis on all purchases;
no wasting of nonrenewable resources; community-building or good works social
gatherings only; affordable, uplifting artwork (not for investment); providing
good start in life for next generation.
I
find it a little hard to distill a clear philosophical foundation from my 16
rules-of-thumb. What I am looking for is
a living standard for myself that I can in good conscience defend. I use less than my “fair share” of the gross
natio- nal product, but far more than my fair share of the gross world product;
the US is a very difficult place in which to live at the median world
income. I was now embarked on an elaborate
survey whose selfish purpose had disappeared, for I had decided what was right
for me to do.
THE MEANING OF STEWARDSHIP/CHARACTER OF
DATA—Many respondents brought other
aspects of stewardship into their self-assessment; it may be helpful to devote
some space to the meaning of the term.
[To para- phrase John Woolman]: small income and cheap conveniences to
lead a life free from “much entanglement”; look to the sources of conflict and
oppression in possessions; turn our treasures into the channel of universal
love.
SHAKERTOWN PLEDGE: I declare
myself a world citizen. I commit to:
ecologically sound life; creative simplicity and sharing wealth; join with
others to reshape institutions to bring a more just global society; occupational
accounta- bility & products free from harm; proper nourishment and physical
well-being of self; honest, moral, loving relationships; prayer, meditation,
& study; participa- tion in a community of faith.
Stewardship
is an attitude of responsible, future-oriented caring for: Oneself; immediate family; time and energy;
material possessions; the most local ecosystem in one’s personal care; wider
circles of human community [ranging outward from neighborhood to the whole
human race; “Spaceship Earth’s” ecosystem; community of All Being (God).
I
made no serious effort to arrive at a representative sample. Most re- spondents were active in Philadelphia
YM’s affairs. I read and re-read the
responses, letting gems of wisdom shine forth and patterns emerge, a Quakerly
mode of analysis, appropriate to Quakerly subject matter.
GENERAL FINDINGS—My major interest was in the choices people make
between stewardship of self & family and stewardship of wider circles of the
human community. One question on which I
would have welcomed experi- enced guidance was this: how big a personally
controlled “safety net” is big enough?
Most respondents clearly maintain a prudent concern for likely future
contingencies.
Unlike
me, most respondents are parents, and most of the parents are also grandparents
feeling responsible for the welfare of their grandchildren. The respondents felt that a Quaker upbringing
tended toward children who were less affluent than themselves. Most respondents took it for granted that
making provision for a secure retirement of self and spouse and for emergen- cies
for family were proper uses of wealth.
Only 4 respondents had specific plans for charitable giving by
bequest.
No respondent acknowledged the accumulation
of wealth as a specific goal. Most
respondents have accepted the wealth that has come their way as an object of
stewardship, [but do not view it] as an impediment to a good life. Tithing, [while not a strong Quaker
tradition] is a rule-of-thumb that about half the respondents see as
appropriate and aim for in a non-rigid way.
A PHILADELPHIA
What
I have produced is a description of a fictional suburban shopping center whose
customers are exclusively Quaker. [The
thriving businesses are: health food store; wine and beer; bicycle shop;
discount appliance store; fabric store; Goodwill clothing box; hardware store;
music store; community meeting room; gas station do-it-yourself pumps. The struggling or failed businesses are:
grocery store; bakery; new-car dealer (failed), used-car dealer (struggling);
clothing store; furniture stores (failed); restaurant.
Education
is the one area where Quaker families see no need to apolo- gize for seeking the
best they can manage. A minority of
Quakers saw over- emphasis on do-it-yourselfing as an anti-social denial of work
to someone, and a misapplication of talents that might be more productively
employed. I asked the question: Can you distinguish between your economic
and religious motivations in the area of energy conservation?
I am troubled by the contrast between the
data I have on respondents’ travel habits and practices and my observation of
Quaker travelers. What sets affluent
Friends apart from others more than anything else is the amount and style of
traveling they do. Some see it as “using
discretionary income to buy experiences, not things.” I have concluded that 4 Quaker lifestyles can
be listed: American middle-class (AMC); AMC with considerable self-conscious
restraint; American lower-middle class, value directed career choice, above
average giving; “alternative” lifestyle of deliberate simplicity.
SHOULD QUAKERS ALIENATE THE
WEALTHY?/INVESTMENT OR NOT?—One
respondent made an eloquent plea for Friends to change the “repugnance” of
wealth for the sake of Friends’ institutions that need help from the wealthy,
whom we have either pushed from our midst, or have failed to keep them bound
lovingly in as their worldly wealth increased.
Do we really believe Jesus’
eye-of-the-needle metaphor about the rich?
Are we willing to accept its implications for Friends’ institutions? One money manager challenged me to
define more clearly my reasons for embarking on a course of major charitable
giving, arguing that holding substantial assets was in itself no obstacle to
responsible stewardship or simple living.
I had a deep sense that wealth held without clear purposes is wealth
withheld from more con- structive uses.
FINAL THOUGHTS—I am left with the strong sense that stewardship
styles are rightly highly individual.
The respondents explained their stewardship styles in terms of family
background and life history. The
irreducible minimum requirement for an acceptable stewardship style is that it
expresses in some meaningful way a sense of inter-connectedness with all the
universe. Steven Rockefeller says: “There is something seriously wrong with a
social system that allows poverty and related disadvantages to exist along side
extremes of wealth and privilege. [The
challenge in this situation] is simply this:
How can I deve- lop my own unique
capacities and interests, and use the wealth & power which has been entrusted
to me by society so as to benefit others and create a more just &
compassionate world? The things we
have are [actu- ally only] entrusted to us for wise use.”
GUIDE TO SELF-ASSESSMENT[QUERIES]
What
considerations guide your choices with respect to purcha-
sing the following:
living quarters; household furnishings; food and
drink; clothing;
transportation; recreation [i.e. arts and craft, vaca
tions, entertainment];
electric and electronic devices; education;
personal services?
What is
your annual income?
What
career choices have you made that limited family income?
Can you
distinguish between your economic and religious
motivations in the area of
energy conservation?
Have you
a cutoff level below which you can comfortably lay
out money without stopping
to think about it?
What
is your family’s budgetary process?
How
are conflicts between family needs and the larger society
resolved?
How
does your will resolve the above conflict?
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260. The
Way of the Cross: The Gospel Record (by Mary C.
Morrison; 1985)
About
the Author—Mary Morrison
describes herself as 49% Quaker, 51% Episcopalian. She wrote 4 pamphlets
before this one [120, 198, 219, 242, & 2 after (311, 364), the last at age
92]. Gospel Group study has had a long history at PH. Henry Burton Sharman
began it at Pendle Hill’s beginnings in 1930; he taught for 3 yrs; his student
Dora Wilson taught it 20 yrs. Mary Mor- rison taught it from 1957-77. [This
pamphlet is part of her hope to lead people to the heart of the Gospel message
& to describe Jesus’ life journey that be- came the Way].
The Way of the Cross was for Jesus and
is for us a much longer walk than [the Via Dolorosa]. It is the story of how
Jesus lived out from beginning to end most truly and fully what was in him. True
artists are those who shape not sounds or objects, but their own lives as they
walk their path of life [as Jesus did].
Mary
Morrison
We
look at Jesus, crucified; and we see what we would rather not see, ever, during
all our lives: suffering; helplessness; defeat; humiliation; sorrow;
death. Jesus’ experience draws our eyes
not because it is unique, but because it can be ours. We need to know how he faced those
things. John tells one story of this
time; Luke another; Matthew and Mark unite to tell the third.
In
John’s Gospel Jesus seems to stride along the road, carrying his own cross.
[There is concern for others; there is a sense of a cry of triumph; there is not a sense of human need. We may have been luck enough to know people
who met suffering and death like this, and who, moving on, left a blessing
be- hind them. We may have met our crises
strongly and triumphantly; but it does not happen often. There remains the uncomfortable thought, “What if you can’t do it that way?” So
we look away ashamed.
Then
our eyes are drawn back, to Luke’s Gospel. When Jesus comes along the road,
exhausted, battered & bruised, he is not too exhausted to really see, the women along the road, his
crucifiers, the penitent thief, or to com- mend himself in trust to God, the
deepest, most personal of all his relation- ships. He is always in relationship
in Luke’s story. [Again we ask]: “But what if you can’t? How can we follow him? We look away again.
Our
eyes are drawn back again to the story Matthew and Mark join in telling. Jesus comes along that road, flogged,
bleeding exhausted, dehydra- ted. They
give him something undrinkable to drink.
Jesus is alone in this story, & it is true that he cannot save
himself. And that last and deepest rela- tionship
has vanished, it is nowhere to be found.
Jesus cries out; there is no answer, and he dies. Terrible.
But wonderful.
Here
at last is the Jesus who can hold our gaze, who can draw us to him. [We do not ask, “What if I can’t.”] Jesus does not “curse God & die”; this is the
ending that deserves a triumphant cry, [Jesus conquers nature & death]. We need all 3 pictures of Jesus at his
crucifixion; this last one has the ultimate power to hold us and draw us in. God could save him [and us] at the very
mo- ment when he felt most completely lost; this we can follow.
I
have begun in this way because here is where we all usually begin—& end—in
thinking about the Way of the Cross. The Way of the Cross was for Jesus &
is for us a much longer walk than [the Via Dolorosa]. It is the story of how
Jesus lived out from beginning to end most truly & fully what was in him.
True artists are those who shape not sounds or objects, but their own lives as
they walk their path of life. Jesus did
this supremely. It was Jesus’
life-journey to uniqueness and Godhood. It is also the human journey, taken
step by step.
Most
who have been parents have had a sense that the children who come to us are of
“the Holy Spirit.” As children we may
have been lucky enough to be with elders who saw promise in us. And all of us are heirs of a great tradition. Jesus could and did lay claim
to all of this. [And with the story of the “lost” 12-year old boy, there is a
sense of Jesus asking, “Didn’t you know I’d be at the Temple
What does it tell us about Jesus that he
came to John [as part of a crowd] and was dipped by him into the River Jordan
It involves 2 experiences: being
accepted; knowing the powers that are within us. Perhaps we suddenly come, one day, to an
inward sense of having all that we’ve been doing and thinking come together
into a harmonious whole. With Jesus what
is in him and must be lived out well is his sense that he has been chosen and
given the power to usher in the Kingdom of God
Together,
acceptance & temptation are really 2 halves of 1 experience. These temptations are opportunities. 1st is the opportunity to test
your accep- tance & use your power for yourself. 2nd is the
opportunity to prove it to the crowds. 3rd
is the opportunity to use them within the existing, hardened
chan- nels of power. Nothing in all the
Gospels is more exciting than his recognition that these opportunities are in
fact temptations. With Jesus’ help we
can see this too, & make of our own small way the Way of the Cross, with
power sub- servient to love.
His way's most helpful aspect was the fact that he didn't know what it was. He had to grope along the path and
test every step. 1st, Jesus
begins to work with what he has been taught.
As we read we can watch his concepts grow and change. [He learned the difference between miracles
of proof and self-dramatization and miracles of compassion; the difference
between his healing people and being an instrument of healing].
Conflicts
run almost all the way through the Gospel between: patience and impatience;
love and anger; peace & violence. They
run all the way along his path of the Messiah, and in them we can see him
feeling his way into what it means to be the one who ushers in the
Kingdom. His path begins as a way of
love and gentleness. He never claims the
Messiahship. The moment comes when he
says to his disciples, “Who do people say that I am? . . . Who do you say that
I am?” My thesis is that he really
needed to know the answers for his own sake; that what they thought of him was
an important part of his knowledge of his Way.
He
has dealt inwardly and outwardly with love and anger, peace and violence & he
has arrived at the knowledge that he can
resolve these conflicts only by receiving the violence, absorbing it, dying
from it, and creating new life within it, [thus making] his power subservient
to love. Human nature seems naturally to
think that power sits up high and is able to accomplish things, rather than
standing low and being able to endure things.
But Jesus knew his way. He
said: “The pagans' kings have
power over the people . . . But this is not the way it is with you . . . rather
the leader must be like the servant.”
And so he went his Way to the very end.
It was not possible for death to hold him or that Way to have an
end. Jesus lived out fully what was in
him and took the consequences fully upon himself; & God did the rest. [We hope for the same] in our long walk. The thought is so simple as to be hardly
comprehensible.
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